Your Own Reality

Today one of my good friends and music collaborators Francis Dunnery tweeted that he willed his cold away and that illnesses can be cured with the mind. I was reading some people's responses to it saying that it was a ridiculous concept and here's what my thoughts about that are...

What you believe is your own reality. So if you believe something is too hard to overcome with the mind then that's true for you. But if you believe otherwise then things start to open up. What some people think is impossible you may find actually is possible. It's a deep concept what he wrote there and to understand how it applies to ALL illness is a challenge to most people's beliefs... and I can understand how someone who has or knows someone with a very debilitating or life-threatening disease or illness could even be offended by such a concept as that. But, understand that that's a choice of reaction. You can also alternatively see it with an open mind because the truth is that we don't know for sure either way. I have seen some people use such a concept as at least a component of their healing process if not actually completely reversing it with their mind - much to the surprise of certain doctors.

One thing that most of us don't deny is that we have a built-in biological system of healing that works without our conscious awareness of it. White blood cells rush to heal a wound, all sorts of things happen internally with our immune system... and how we feel and our psychology affects that. If you're down and tired you're more susceptible to things and if you're up and happy you have a stronger foundation within yourself for healing. They say that laughter heals. When I had mono as a teenager my Dad, who happens to be a doctor, rented me a bunch of comedy videos and I had it for less time than most of the other kids in my class that had it.

For me one of the biggest moments where I experienced mind over matter type of healing was when I was doing a gig in Vegas. It was a big gig, I won't say who it was because that's not important but let's just say there was a lot of pressure for me NOT to be sick and to be able to do my part. But I had a temp of 104-105 and when I went to the infirmary at the venue the doctor said there was no way he could let me go back to rehearsals unless my temperature went down to at least 100. So he gave me some oxygen and I sat there willing my temperature down. I imagined sweating it off and could feel it getting better. I really concentrated like I never had before because I knew I had absolutely no choice but to make this happen. I believed I could even though the doctor said there wasn't a chance I was going back. Sure enough about a half hour later he checked my temperature (I was drenched from sweating) and it was 99! He said to me "I've never seen this before and it's hard to believe but I did promise you so you can go back to rehearsals".

Now, of course, a fever (even though back in the day people used to die from the flu) is not the same degree of illness as cancer or something like that. We believe cancer to be more life threatening and way more serious. We even have examples where there wasn't enough money in the world and enough mind control to stop say Steve Jobs from dying... although we don't REALLY know what was going on in his mind. In any case, I understand how it's a very challenging thing to accept as true, what Francis said.

It's our individual choice what we choose to see as real and what we are open to the possibility of being different than we're lead to believe in society.... because remember one very important thing and that is that we're practically brain washed into our 'beliefs' from the time we're born. It's perhaps a scary thought but... is it really our beliefs or ones imposed on us from an impressionable age because of our particular family upbringing or the place we've lived and what the people around us have said for years? How much of it is our own deeper understanding of reality or wisdom that has come as a result of questioning things and seeking answers from diverse sources?