Mind Matters
"To have something you've never had before, you must be willing to do something you've never done before." -Thomas Jefferson
A powerful statement! Life has taken me in directions I never thought it would. I have done things I never thought or dreamed I would do, and still, I feel like my life is pretty dull, haha! It seems that no matter what I do or what happens to me there is a profound lesson to be learned! Therein lies the excitement to my life, in the lesson!
For a time I thought I would be a doctor. I love biological sciences, especially human sciences. Well, that is not what became of me. I saw many doctors growing up. I have always had a close, yet odd relationship with a dentist. Every time I go to a new dentist and they take a peek at my x-rays, they express their hope that I have good insurance, haha! I was very sick as a child, I mean more so than average. Even in the womb the doctor had trouble hearing my heart beat and thought I was dead, warning my mother that they would take me out next time if they did not get a heart beat. Once I made it here there were many antibiotics, a little jaundice, adverse reactions to vaccines, migraines, bronchitis, eczema, hay fever, endometriosis, leaky gut, more migraines, some anxiety, and here I am! That is a lot of problems. Doctors have been a big part of my life.
I did not have an issue with doctors, until I was a little older. When the endometriosis hit me the doctor visits became more disturbing, and for lack of a better term, violating. I started discovering that some healthcare providers wanted to make me feel like I had little choice in matters regarding my body and what I put in it. That is where the feelings of violation crept into my mind. It was as if they wanted to instill some sort of fear or have some sort of power over me.
On one trip to the doctor I saw an RN. She honestly thought I was there just to get birth control, you know, for immoral reasons. It was like she was determined to get this answer from me at any cost. She said "look, I see a lot of troubled teens come to me making up these problems for attention or just to get birth control." She even invited my mom to leave, thinking I would "tell the truth" with my parent out of the way. She accused me of being pregnant. By the time I had an ultra sound that proved I did not have PCOS or pregnancy, I changed providers. This is abusive treatment on the part of the healthcare provider. In my opinion, anyone who treats a patient like this should not be in healthcare!
This experience started me down a different path, thus started the white coat syndrome. After that I just got this nagging feeling that many doctors did not believe me or just did not care that much about figuring out what was wrong with me. It seemed that no one would listen! This was one reason I decided not to persue medicine, that and I did not believe I could get a good MCAT score. I was not good at standardized testing. Looking at my ACT score, Schools would say I was dumb, but I graduated at the top of my class with many honors and attained scholarships.
Back to my opening statement, for me to gain good health, which is something I did not have often, I had to be willing to try things and do things I had never done before. I distinctly remember, in college, saying "I'll never be a size 5, or skinny". Many experiences continued to change my path and I was led to lose weight, and I was a size 5, proved myself wrong. I was led to try alternative medicines and they proved their worth in my life! I started taking my life in my own hands and finding my own answers. I was able to get the endometriosis under control with herbs instead of birth control. I was able to use essential oils and other chiropractic techniques to help my migraines instead of other drugs. Actual food became my medicine when it came to my gut health.
I have frequent flashbacks of my biomedical ethics class in college. Do you force procedure on a patient regardless of their belief because you feel that western medicine is the only way to fix something? Sure, if the patient is in an imminent death situation and/or unresponsive, you save their life. The answer would be No in many other situations, you must have respect for people and their beliefs. Sometimes people have their own way of dealing with things and it works for them. Let's just say, I can understand why some people in the world do not like western medicine. We have incredible technology and advanced procedures that save lives and can help us extend our lives, but it is a double edged sword. In trying to solve one problem, say with a drug or surgery, we end up causing new problems. We must then weigh and balance the outcome of each possiblity, what am I willing to live with? Old problem... new problems.....hmmmm?? I have been both helped and hindered by western medicine. Western medicine may be the best way to solve some problems, but maybe it us not the best way to solve every problem.
I think sometimes the problem with western medicine is the attitude that accompanies it, we think we know everything! On many things we claim the debate has been settled, we have proven it, science tells all!! In science do we ever truly prove anything? Yes to an extent, but those things can change. We find evidence for things based on observation, and that shapes our thinking. In science, very few things are ever proven absolute. If we can prove absolutely then it is law and not theory, but much of science is theory. I recently saw this quote on Facebook: "True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing " -Socrates. The driving force that keeps us seeking more knowledge! To me this is saying to keep an open mind and always ask questions and seek for answers. I love this because it reminds us that maybe we don't know as much as we think.
Theory evolves based on new information. The only thing constant about science is change. There are always new things to be discovered. The most stunning breakthroughs throughout history happened when someone
dared to change their thinking and perception about an idea! Take Einstein for example, he did not form his theory of general relativity until he started thinking differently about gravity. Newton's ideas were widely accepted at the time, Newton was right, but Einstein expanded on it. When Einstein started experimenting with gravity in a whole new way, (gravity being the same as acceleration) that was when the groundbreaking discovery happened. Scientists now understand Einstein's theories better than he did. Because of Einstein's change in thinking we can better understand the universe and the world around us. Here are some ways that show how his thinking was correct.https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.livescience.com/58245-theory-of-relativity-in-real-life.html.
Again, the only thing constant about science is change, perhaps change in our thinking. Just look at what medicine was 100 yrs ago, and then now! If we are to think that science is settled on something, then we stop looking for a better answer, thus hindering ourselves in the long run. My favorite example of this is antibiotics. We have become dependent on them and now we are facing a very serious situation with superbugs. All these years have gone by without brilliant minds seeking a better answer to resolving infection. The antibiotics themselves have built the superbugs and we are now scrambling to find an alternative to avoid the mass emergency of returning society back to the time before antibiotics. Again, double edged sword.
Anyway..... I could go on, and on......and on with this subject, but back to hypnosis. I know it sounds a little crazy, but it works! After getting pregnant I did a lot of research and decided to go with a birthing center. I wanted to do a water birth, it fascinated me. The research was really interesting. Birthing a baby into an environment similar to it's current environment showed less stress for both mother and baby. The baby could actually go straight into the water and stay there for a long period of time being comfortable because if there is no introduction of air the baby's lungs remain collapsed and the baby won't drown. Midwives at the birthing center advised that I take some sort of class to prepare for birthing. I chose Hypnobabies, a self hypnosis program. It teaches you to control the pain in your body. It uses the sub conscious and conscious to change your way of thinking and allow the mind to control your birthing and your body. It goes beyond just controlling pain. IT IS AMAZING! I never thought I could or would do something like this. After doing the home version of this program, I became a little disappointed in the way our country views pregnancy and birthing. In a country that is supposedly free, women are equals, and we have the best medical care, why do we have such a negative view of pregnancy? We refer to it as a disease or condition. We talk about babies like they are pizzas to be delivered at a certain time and if that is not the time we want, we change it and force it to happen. When you really think about it, it is quite degrading. I'm surprised at how limited choices are for women across our country when it comes to birthing.Hypnobabies taught me to view pregnancy and birthing with only positive vibes. I have a new found respect for the whole process and the baby. It truly is a miracle that a woman's body is the only thing on earth that can create another human body. You want to talk about body building? Women have that down!! I learned hypnosis by listening to different sessions everyday for about 20 minutes. I fell asleep much of the time, but I would wake up as soon as the queues were given to come out of the hypnosis, that was a little freaky to me. The program would say that if you fell asleep it was alright because your subconscious was getting it all and it would still work. I wasn't sure I believed that until the birthing time came and it did work. It worked even better the 2nd time around.
What is it like to be in hypnosis? You are totally there, coherent and can talk and answer questions, but it's almost like you are not there, but watching yourself from a distance. At least that was my experiance. You are in complete control still aware of what your body is doing and at the same time detached from the pain of it all. I have never felt so in control of my body before, yet out of the way of it, it truly was EMPOWERING! I was literally distancing the pain with every deep breath, yet still feeling the pressure of the contractions. It was a little glimpse into the power of the mind, it was so unbelievable to me!
I would recommend self hypnosis programs to anyone who is going to have a baby regardless of what your plans are. This program not only taught my mind to be in control, but it also educated me about every step of the process and explained what my body was going to do. When you are in labor you feel out of control of your body. Your body does what it was made to do without your permission. Because that feels unnatural to the average person, we have the tendency to fight against it to try and regain control. When this happens it causes more stress and fear which then makes it more painful, and it can even lead to more danger and then require intervention. This program also educated me on all of the interventions out there and all of the problems that could happen that would require them. You never know what will happen, it's always best to be as prepared as you can be. You won't have time to be educated on what's happening during an emergency. You have to know that you might have to do things you don't want to do and you need to be willing to accept them in an emergency. Interventions are generally less likely to be needed when you are prepared to get out of the way of your body and let it do its thing.
Sometimes when I tell people about this experience they look at me like "are you sure this is something you should be doing?" Or they act like it is some kind of witchcraft or something. The truth is, I don't know if I've ever felt more spiritually connected to anything or anyone than when I was doing this program. I felt a deeper connection to my child and to God through this. Had I not done this program, maybe I would have felt the same way to an extent, but something tells me it would not have been on this elevated level. Anyone who has witnessed the birth of a child can probably admit it is a miracle, and admit that maybe there is a greater power at work here. The opened mind expanded that thought to a higher level for me. Instead of just witnessing a miracle, it was like God was sharing something deep and personal with me while at the same time teaching me a lesson about the value of Control, the spirit vs. the carnal. It was a testament to me about the incredible power and intricacy of the human body. I am in awe thinking about what it must have taken to create it. Like I said a newfound respect! I do believe God has provided everything we need to get through this life on this earth whether it be found through science, nature, or something man made. This idea of mind power is not lost on many other people in many other nations in the world. There are many interesting examples of mind power. https://listverse.com/2013/05/21/10-amazing-examples-of-mind-over-matter/ The mind is such uncharted territory in many ways for us here in America. We don't think about using it much because it takes discipline and patients. In our country everyone wants a quick fix and we have that with drugs. We study the mind and try to understand it, but it is not used to a great extent, it is not part of our culture, but things are changing. It is becoming more a part of our culture because many people need alternative options these days, with the presence of so many allergies and the inability of drugs to work sometimes. We are now rediscovering a centuries old secret and the benefit it can provide us! Mind power is something that is part of our everyday life, but we just have not known that much about how to harness it and utilize it for the positive in our everyday life. Maybe it's that we simply have not thought about it much, but it is simple, it literally is just about how we perceive things. Why is it so hard to change our perceptions? Because everything around us, everything we are taught and told builds that perception. I have heard that we only use 10% of our brains, wrong, we use all of it! The mind is such a powerful tool that governments study it (MK Ultra), scientists research it, and now we use it as an alternative to anesthesia. The key to a changed life might be a changed mind. This was a good article and video I read/saw last week.
https://www.learnmindpower.com/using-mind-power/basics/
Mind manipulation is everywhere, it affects every facet of our lives from social media, to news, to advertising, to the doctors office, to politics. Everyone wants to set up shop in a corner of your brain in order to gain a piece of your mind, or a peice of your wallet! Why? If one can manipulate what you think, they can control your heart, or what you feel, or how and where you spend your money. What we think ultimately determines how we feel. After all isn't that what politics is all about? To win the hearts of the people. Politicians sell us ideas and a way of life, they also are interested in everyone's pocketbook! We are all products of what we see, hear, and read. Sometimes our beliefs are based on what our society deems as normal or ok. Sometimes we base it on laws or traditions and because of this we get "set in our ways" refusing to accept other possibilities and ideas.
Nothing in my life has ever changed without my mind set first changing. The mind matters so much that it affects our ability to change. To change your way of thinking can be extremely hard, but worth it because gaining perspective and having the ability to change is where true power lies! I have changed the way I think about medicine, Food, education, politics, my body, my mind, and so many other things.
So, whether we are searching for a scientific breakthrough or a personal breakthrough, the way we navigate these Mind Matters, MATTERS! What do you think???
https://waterbirth.org/
https://www.newscientist.com/round-up/power-of-the-mind/
https://nationalpost.com/entertainment/books/the-important-lessons-what-discerns-the-brain-from-the-mind
https://hiddendragonn.wordpress.com/2015/09/30/antimicrobial-resistance-the-ticking-bomb/
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