MINDWORKS
POWERFUL MIXED EMOTIONS
We all experience positive, passionate emotions, which motivate, inspire and enhance our lives. There are also bleak, negative emotions which are just as strongly felt but which produce the opposite effect and which can disturb, depress and paralyse our progress. But just as life is never either entirely black or white, so it is with our emotions: there are many shades of grey in our attitudes and feelings and because they are so uncomfortably close to one another, it only takes the slightest movement to upset the balance. That is why in just about everything balance matters.
| 
|
| Confident | Arrogant |
| Assertive | Domineering |
| Compassionate | Manipulative |
| Generous | Calculating |
| Modest | Inadequate |
| Purposeful | Driven |
| Organised | Contrived |
| Self-assured | Stubborn |
| Resourceful | Obsessive |
| Kind | Weak |
| Aware | Fearful |
back to top
mind body links
Most of us are aware of mind-body links and how one impacts on the other and particularly so, when it comes to our health. A hundred years ago, new psychological theories could only speculate and surmise but today's advanced medical knowledge means these connections can be demonstrated with scientific evidence. But this scientific proof still perceives two elements - the mind and the body which ignores the elaborate complexity within our minds. Yet the reality is simple.
Think of energy: it's everywhere in our world and if we could see it, we would not be able to see anything else. Then divide the mind into energy bodies. One is emotional, another is mental and another is spiritual. Then allow for the fact that two thirds of our thoughts are hidden from our conscious awareness and we are left with one third of ourselves actually knowing what it is doing.
Then add the fact that this mental energy - the mechanical processes we call the brain - has been operating on the same programme that Stone Age man used and you will realise that we are getting the same signals and reacting the same way as he did, but in vastly different circumstances.
Faced with fear, the brain floods the body with adrenalin because Stone Age man had to fight or flee but modern man, civilised, socialised and educated, has other options. He may use persuasion, manipulation or intellectual supremacy over his opponent. But all that surplus adrenalin speeding around his system has nowhere to go.
Stone Age man would have been fine. After expending all the energy the extra adrenalin delivered, his body's natural healing processes would have restored the balance our bodies need to remain in good health. But today we rarely correct such imbalances.
Conventional modern medicine is allopathic, which means that when our physical body is suffering from an illness, treatment is aimed at individual symptoms, which are experienced physically.
In contrast, holistic medicine takes the mind-body links into account before deciding on a remedy. It's rather like taking a step back in order to get a broader view of a person rather than isolating individual parts of their body for healing. Holism sees the whole as greater than the sum of the parts.If someone has a headache they might take an aspirin for instant relief, but if they continue to suffer from headaches, they need to ask themselves why they have them, because otherwise that aspirin is just treating a symptom.
The pain may go temporarily, but without discovering the cause of the problem, they have not healed themselves, but simply awarded themselves a brief respite from the pain.
If the cause of those headaches does not come from the physical body, the logical assumption is that the origin lies within the mind. So what should be done about it? There is nothing wrong with taking an aspirin and buying a little time. We live in a modern, fast-paced world and if we have commitments to meet, an aspirin provides an expedient solution.
But healing the mind? That is something much deeper and more significant because true self-healing treats the whole of you, which includes all your four energy bodies - your physical body, and your mental, emotional and spiritual bodies.
Removing pain and finding out why you have become ill is only part of the healing process. As with Stone Age man, natural healing restores balance to your entire system, taking you back to where you were before any symptoms of illness or pain even emerged, back to the place where you were whole.
This then, is the truest meaning of holistic spiritual healing, where all the parts of you have healed to restore the whole person.
back to top
mind-body hormones
The thyroid gland produces a hormone known as thyroxine and is a typical example of an imbalanced hormone directly affecting both mind and body. When someone has too much thyroxine, all their body processes speed up. They begin to ignore the cold and perspire a great deal, their heart races and palpitates, and the intestinal muscles work faster causing diarrhoea. This increased metabolic rate burns energy much faster than usual which leads to weight loss and muscle wastage.
Conversely, too little thyroxine can produce the opposite effect and the body slows down. This person feels cold, eats little but gains weight, has a slow heart rate and a swollen, puffy appearance. The emotional impact of this deficiency leaves people feeling jaded, lethargic and depressed. The emotional impact of too much thyroxine is distressing as sufferers become extremely agitated and tense, unable to sit still or relax.Hormone replacement therapy aims to bring deficient hormones up to what would be a normal level for each individual. Insulin controls the body's blood sugar levels and is given to combat diabetes. When a diabetic has a low level of glucose in their blood they become dizzy and weak. Emotionally, they are difficult and uncooperative, often aggressive, although largely unaware of the change in themselves.
Replacement hormones are often given after the menopause to balance declining levels of oestrogen, which is another typical example of a hormone impacting on both mind and body. Too little can lead to physical problems such as thinning bones and hot flushes and the emotional effect of low levels can produce anxiety and irritability, loss of concentration and memory, insomnia and depression.
Similar mood swings emerge when a woman is pre-menstrual and after giving birth, usually when her hormones fail to return to their normal balanced levels. The emotional impact can be severe depression, aggression and irritability. The popularity of replacement therapy during and after menopause has been hailed as a mixed blessing. Some doctors are cautious about side effects and warn this is not an elixir of youth. Others believe that it is unnatural for women to be without oestrogen saying nature never intended it to be this way. Two hundred years ago, when life expectancy averaged around 35 years, a woman's child-bearing years would end as she neared forty. Her remaining years would be so short that she was unlikely to experience life with lower oestrogen levels.
Today, administering naturally-occurring hormones to boost existing levels is a fashionable episode in medicine. As well as female hormones, people are now taking growth hormone which is credited with reversing the ageing process, and melatonin which is said to combat jet lag and insomnia. I use the word fashionable quite deliberately, because these hormones reflect trends and their popularity varies from one year to the next but the use of any substance to check the natural ageing process prompts a great many philosophical questions.
back to top
thinking with our hormones
If you ever wanted an excellent example of mind and body connections you need look no further than the different hormones which affect all our thoughts and actions. The wider understanding of our brain chemistry and endocrine system has shown how the secretions of hormones through our blood stream maintains our system's delicate balance. Around fifty have already been identified and science is still discovering more.Hormones are extremely complex soluble chemical substances secreted by the endocrine glands which act as messengers, Each one carries its own specific code which can only be interpreted by its 'target' organ and between them, form a sophisticated communication system, regulating the rates at which various processes take place.
They are the guardians of the body's internal environment. There are growth hormones and reproductive hormones, pain-relieving hormones and energy-producing hormones, as well as hormones that control the amount of calcium in bones, glucose in blood and cortisone which defends against disease.
When there is an imbalance, the subsequent detrimental effect on the body can lead to serious problems like heart and kidney disease, high blood pressure and many more related conditions. The effect on the mind can lead to violent mood swings and depression, elation and euphoria.
Louis Pasteur introduced the idea that disease always has a specific cause. For instance, tuberculosis comes from the tubercle bacillus, rabies from the rabies virus. However, this theory fails in the light of the fact that hormones are often activated and affected by emotion. In other words, a physical reaction to a mental stimulus, a mind-body reaction.
Our emotional wiring depends on these messenger molecules because their receptors are found throughout the immune defence system as well as other organs in the body and serve as mediators to our thoughts and feelings. This means they also hold the key to our emotional response to illness.
The activity of every organ in the body can be traced back through the nervous system which highlights how important their balance is to our state of mind. These nerves which ultimately connect to the brain can trigger physical reactions to heat and cold, pain and fear, anger, anxiety and excitement.
Extreme anxiety produces trembling, agitation, insomnia, nausea, fainting and panic attacks. Extreme fear floods the body with adrenalin, sets the heart racing, produces a dry mouth and excessive sweating, even blocks pain. Often the very worst injuries shock and numb the senses and pain only sets in much later. Sometimes patients complain of pain long after a limb has been amputated because the brain has not severed the neuro-transmitters that transfer such signals.
Nervousness and tension send extra adrenalin surging through the system. Performers will deliberately cling to this ‘edge’ before going on stage, convinced this state of mind adds to their performance claiming complacency would do the opposite. School examinations or driving tests produce a similar flow of adrenalin, sharpening concentration and focussing energy.
Watching an inspiring film or play, meeting someone whose conversation is fun and entertaining, spending time with good friends in an atmosphere of warmth, induce emotional responses of warmth and pleasure. These are the feel-good factors, naturally produced endorphins which can also be set off by exercise, known as 'athlete's high' and similar activities or achievements. These same endorphins are also the body's natural pain-killers.
You only have to look at a couple in love to realise what an incredible effect their emotional state has had on their physical bodies. They seem to walk three feet off the ground, they have no time or appetite to eat and the excitement of being with one another makes their adrenalin flow and extends their energy way beyond their normal level.
Quite how long anyone can survive in such a state of suspended animation is debatable and the reality is that everything in their system that has speeded up eventually calms down once the initial euphoria has run its course. It doesn't mean that once this happens the couple no longer love one another. It is simply the body's natural mechanism exercising its option and bringing peace and tranquillity to restore equilibrium.
back to top