2016-06-30
You have to take it as it happens, but you should try to make it happen the way you want to take it.
-German Proverb

From "Close to the Bone: Life-Threatening Illness and the Search for Meaning," by Jean Shinoda Bolen:

I think of affirmations and visualizations as tapping into the power of the imagination, which is a generator and transformer, a force that precedes and shapes who we become, and what we create and achieve. Whenever we attempt something new or difficult, we have to be able to imagine it before it becomes possible. It's the combination of inspiration and perspiration that brings about tangible results. Healing is no different, especially if you have a life-threatening illness. Here, for example, your doctor's attitude and words are a powerful help or hindrance to your getting well or not.

I think of doctors as having the equivalent of green thumbs or black thumbs, as in gardening. The doctor who is a healer taps into the power of positive imagination and vice versa.

He or she recruits the innate healing power of nature by expectations that come through words and attitude that this will help, that this will heal, and whatever the medicine does - or the surgery or the radiation - is enhanced by positive expectations. The message is passed on to the body through emotion-colored pictures in our mind, and the body responds.

This is also what happens when we use visualizations and affirmations. We produce, write the script, and cast these emotion-colored pictures that enhance the healing process, focusing the energies of mind and body on the possibility of positive results.

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Also on Beliefnet:

  • Guided Imagery for Chronic Health Problems


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