Shaking Out the Beliefs
Yesterday, I mentioned "medical hexing." The worst example, perhaps, is a doctor telling a cancer patient "You have ____ months to live." Funny how people often die right around that date. The power of suggestion is no surprise to those practicing clinical hypnosis...or clever parents. It can be used for good or ill. When a patient outlives the hopeless prognosis or--gasp!--goes into remission and no traces of the cancer can be found, the medical field can only call it a "spontaneous remission" and privately dismiss it as a fluke. This is much more common than they care to admit.
My friend and mentor, Brad Keeney, once wrote about meeting Credo Mutwa, a Zulu "sanusi" or medicine man, a spiritual leader for millions of Africans; he was also a sculptor.* He was once given a diagnosis of cancer, Melanoma, in this leg. He told Brad, "That name made me laugh because it sounded like the name of a beautiful girl...I told the doctor that this beautiful girl named Melanoma is not going to kill me. What I did was sculpt a gigantic statue, fifteen feet high, of this beautiful woman...I completely threw myself into this project and to the suprise of my doctor, the malignant lesions disappeared."
Psychologists often talk about a client's "limiting beliefs" as obstacles to change and healing. Few places contain more limiting beliefs than the offices of your local doctor, nutritionist, dietician, fitness instructor, or mental health practitioner (especially psychiatrists).
Research demostrates that our genes are like a loaded gun, but our environment, our lifestyle, and our thoughts and beliefs pull the trigger ("epigenetics")...again, either for good or for ill. In fact, epigenetics has far more influence on our lifespan than our genes. Isn't it nice to know you have lots of influence for improving or maintaining your well being all the way down to the cellular level?
What beliefs about your current problems, challenges, your body, your health, or your potential might be holding you back?
*excerpted from "Shaking Out the Spirits: A Psychotherapist's Entry into the Healing Mysteries of Global Shamanism" by Brad Keeney, 1994.
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