What is the Secret to Healing?
I wish you health, happiness, freedom and peace in the year ahead.
There will be a few exciting changes and developments rolling out this year with Pax Bodywork. I’ll keep you posted as things progress.
I’m also adding some more skills development for myself in February and April.
What is the Secret to Healing?
Is it conventional medical care, diet, exercise, superfoods, ayahuasca, positive thinking, complimentary therapies …?
To explore that question I want to talk about a scientist who specialised in cell biology, Dr Bruce Lipton. He wrote a book, ‘The Biology of Belief’ detailing astonishing discoveries on the health of cell-based organisms.
In brief, Dr Lipton found that cells of any organism are in one of two states – Thriving or Contraction. There’s no middling ground.
When cells are thriving, they are happily doing all the functions they need to do and interacting with other cells, via chemical messages or nerve impulses, working together in the team for the overall benefit of the organism.
When cells are in contraction, they are in self-defence mode. They continue to operate, but in an environment of threat. Mostly their communication with other cells is letting them know they feel under threat. Pretty soon the message spreads and the whole organism feels under threat. If this contraction continues for too long, the cell functions start to diminish, they stop communicating effectively with other cells other than sending out distress calls, their defence mechanisms start to fail, and they fall into dysfunction and ultimately cell death.
The biggest influence on cell health, Dr Lipton discovered, is the environment they are operating within.
Scale this up to human organisms. In short, the astonishing fact is our choice of controlled consciousness, or uncontrolled thinking with resulting emotions, dictates the state of the environment for our own body.
When a human feels under threat the adrenal glands send out the chemical messenger (hormone), adrenaline, to prepare the organism to respond to the danger, with the help of a now activated nervous system – to ‘fight or flight’ (or freeze or fawn). If the threat doesn’t go away, this is followed up by a longer lasting hormone, cortisol, which keeps the human in an elevated state of anxiety and preparedness. Cortisol and the nervous system keep telling the cells that the organism is under threat, and the cells react accordingly by contracting.
The kernel of ill-health starts with prolonged activation of the hormone and nervous system. And what is more, the human organism finds it very difficult to restore the thriving healthy state while it senses the threatening environment – fight or flight.
Clearly the physical body is strongly influenced by the activity of the mind, in fact the health of the whole organism relies massively on the mind.
We could try the route of ‘positive affirmations’ - telling ourselves that everything is ok, we are strong enough, and so on. But Dr Lipton pointed out that the subconscious mind is a million times more influential on our body environment than our conscious mind. If our subconscious doesn’t believe the affirmation, it won’t fly.
So what is the answer? What is the big secret to healing?
Peace.
If the whole human organism body and mind, conscious and unconscious can come back to a peaceful state, THEN it has the best chance to repair itself, and go back to the way it was; or at least to patch over the damage and carry on in a new state of normal.
And a peaceful mind is the key to a happy, loving, joyous mind as well.
So who is in charge of our mind? We are. No one else.
Anxious? Depressed? Without hope? Angry? Stressed?
Just STOP doing that to ourselves. Seems simple.
Unfortunately, we are often conditioned into thinking that other people, circumstances, bad luck, etc, are responsible for us feeling they way we do, for making us think the way we do. But that’s not true. Each of us has the agency to respond to a given stimulus in our own way, and in a way that is helpful to us, not detrimental. Which way will help us thrive, or make us contract?
One simple example, followed by a more serious one.
If the sun is shining, I can perceive warmth on my skin, the chance to get outside, and enjoy the garden, go to the beach, slap on a hat and sunscreen, get some Vitamin D and choose to enjoy the day. Or I can choose to perceive it as the harbinger of another hot day, stay inside, turn the fan on, and feel miserable that the sun has ruined my plans, again! But even if it was pouring with rain I could still see a positive outcome if I took Billy Connelly’s sage advice to ‘get ye-self a sexy raincoat and live a little.’ It’s about perception and choosing our response.
Viktor Frankl (author of ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’) was a Jew imprisoned in a concentration camp by the Nazi’s during the Second World War. Despite the impoverishment, malnutrition, disease, the beatings by guards – all of the deprivation wrought by his captors - he could make one decision that they had no control over. He decided to retain the power to choose how he would respond. And his choice was to respond with love and kindness to the guards. Whether this had any influence on the guards is unknown. But it helped him maintain his own mental state, his own agency and gave him a reason to live and survive. I think it was Frankl who also said that:
‘He who has a why to live, can endure any how.’
Peace is a prerequisite to healing, and our decision to live in peace is made entirely in our own minds. There’s numerous ways to approach that.
I recently heard the remarkable story of a lady in her 80’s struggling with the pain of a drawn-out health condition. Her response was to start university papers as a distraction from the discomfort and negative thinking. Now at the age of 89, the health condition is behind her and she’s working towards her PhD.
It really does seem to be that peacefully accepting where we are right now, allows us to get on with what is within our capacity to be or do in the present – it’s our choice. Please talk to me, if you want some ideas for yourself here.
During bodywork clients often remark how relaxed they feel after a session. But I have come to appreciate that ‘relaxation’ is just a word from our conscious mind that we apply to something fundamentally deeper that occurs with this bodywork, that is really beyond our capacity to describe. Because with bodywork the therapist corresponds respectfully with the clients own vast ‘inner wisdom’, the enormously complex inner workings of the human organism and its 40 trillion cells, and with what the inner wisdom chooses to present to the therapist for resolution on a given day. The inner wisdom is entirely below the level of the conscious mind. And at that level the bodymind has the opportunity to realise real, deep, fundamental peace for a while.
Then other outcomes can result from peace. In addition to relaxation, clients may experience revitalisation, groundedness, feeling like a their ‘old self’, self-confidence, or even inspiration and the charge to take on new creative outlets. These are true healing outcomes that go way beyond mobility issues.
This whole bodymind potential is what grabbed my attention the first time I received this bodywork 10 plus years ago now, got me hooked, and became my career. Peace through bodywork.
That is also why my business is called Pax Bodywork – Pax is latin for peace.
It really does seem to be that Peace is the secret to healing.
It really does seem to be that Peace allows us to maintain better health going forward.
It really does seem to be that Peace allows us to be happy, loving, and joyous!
Choose peace.
One for the boys!
A good friend of mine recently shared some research on the humble tomato, and how it is a great way for men to lower the risk of prostate cancer or its reoccurrence. In short, eating cooked tomato’s twice per week is a great way to get this benefit.
https://www.fmhs.auckland.ac.nz/assets/fmhs/sms/nutrition/pcd/docs/is5-tomatoes.pdf
Pro Bono / Koha Days
One free day each month for anyone in need. Koha is gratefully accepted if you are able, no obligation. Just contact me for details to book.
Please share my website, or this page, with anyone you know that may benefit. Or click on this link to book now.
For back-issues of this newsletter click here
With caring and kindness,
Rhys Dwyer
If you know anyone, from kids up who maybe struggling with body-held tension, energy levels, stress, anxiety, or choices, then please ask them to check me out. Bodywork and present moment awareness may just make a big difference.
Note that bodywork is always complementary to prudent medical care.