Secrets of Mind and Reality

Spiritual healing: relieving physical pain and illness through changes made on a mental, emotional, and spiritual level. For many, the very thought of it conjures up images of evangelical faith healings and New Age hippies. Some people may be so consumed by pain and suffering in their physical body that the concept of focusing on mental, emotional, and spiritual methods for healing sounds absurd, akin to avoidance and denial of the physical “reality” of their problem, and potentially detrimental to their getting better. The truth is quite the opposite, however.

Spiritual healing is not some esoteric hogwash, and implementing spiritual lessons in order to achieve physical healing is not so mysterious. All physical suffering has in its cause an element of mental, emotional, and spiritual suffering, and effecting change on any of these levels effects change for the whole person on all levels.

In today’s society almost everyone now understands that stress and other negative thoughts and emotional states can cause illness and disease. Even doctors agree that mental and emotional health affects physical health, if not in causing a physical ailment then at least in prolonging it, aggravating it, and impeding one’s healing.

Western medicine even has a name for it: psychosomatics – the study of the mind’s affect on the body (psycho – mind; soma – body). We’ve all probably heard the term before, a parent or friend saying that some physical complaint of ours is “just” psychosomatic: “Oh, it’s all in your head.”

The irony is that these statements are usually thought of by both speaker and listener as a way of disempowering the person suffering (the “afflicted”) when in actuality it disempowers the affliction from which the person is suffering.

To repeat: All physical suffering has in its cause an element of mental, emotional, and spiritual suffering. And, by the same token, all physical healing has, in its cause, a component of mental, emotional, and spiritual healing.

Your natural state is well-being, which goes hand-in-hand with perfect physical health. All physical illness and disease then is a consequence, a symptom, of being out of alignment with our natural state. The real cause of all physical dis-ease is resistance to allowing our full connection with the free flow of Source Energy underlying all existence.

One of modern times’ greatest teachers of this lesson is Louise Hay, whose book “Heal Your Body” is a handy reference guide for identifying the most common mental, emotional, and spiritual causes for nearly every physical ailment you can think of. It’s a companion to her larger book, “You Can Heal Your Life”, which goes into extensive details explaining in greater depth the concepts outlined here.

The idea of your thoughts and emotions having a very real and direct impact on y our physical state may be a tough pill to swallow for many, as it seems to discount all physical causes for illness: viruses, bacteria, etc. And on a fundamental level, it does. But you do not need to believe it 100% to benefit from the healing it promises.

The whole idea of ‘holistic’ health is that it incorporates the ‘whole person’ – body, mind, emotions, and spirit – in the process of promoting total wellness. So when you feel like it, by all means, see your doctor, take your medicines. But include a program of mental, emotional, and spiritual wellness in your healing process too.

Some may also resist the concept of physical healing through non-physical methods because they find the personal responsibility it implies for one’s physical state too overwhelming to face. If this is the case for you, just consider that as hard as it may be to realize that you caused your physical condition, you are in a better position than anyone or anything to find relief.