Being-Focused

Principle Number 4: Being-Focused

Make sure you notice the hyphen in this week’s title. This is about a person’s state of being having a lot to do with his or her health. Larry Dossey, M.D., reported the story of doing his rounds in a coronary care unit and asking patients (they just happened to be all men) why they were there.

Their responses were about the situations that were going on in their lives. “I couldn’t stand to see my boss’s face one more day,” or “I feel trapped in my marriage. I can’t abide being with my wife,” or “My kids fight constantly. I would do anything to get away from their constant bickering.“

While on the surface, we see our emotions and thought life as separate from our physical health and well-being, these responses, and the current research, indicate that your state of being (your emotions, your beliefs, your attitudes) create the environment for your state of health, your well-being.

For sure, extreme symptoms can catalyze a change in our lives. This is probably true even though, as Church writes, “Our presenting symptoms may have a great deal more to do with our state of being than with our medical histories.” My own awareness of this grew out of the work of Bernie Siegel, M.D., in his book Love, Medicine, and Miracles. His suggestion was to look at the gift an illness brings by asking yourself what the illness or symptom allows you to do (or what you give yourself permission to do) that you had not seemed able to do previously. When I asked myself what the symptoms of degenerative disc disease allowed me to do, the shocking truth was I gave myself permission to rest.

Here I am on my way to cardiac care. Fortunately, we were able to convert the a-Fib pretty quickly and easily and I only spent one night in the “high-rent” district.

We may never know for sure if my ending up with atrial fibrillation as a post-surgical complication was related to the past year of stress following a very volatile time while traveling around Europe that ended quite badly. One thing we do know for sure, a rich social network, consistent spiritual practice, an authentic vocation, the ability to speak one’s feelings, meditation—have been shown by research to build a more powerful sense of personal well-being. The ways this looks in your life will be unique. You may choose yoga or Tai Chi; you may join a church or start a daily habit of journal writing; and you may decide to nurture the relationships you have in your life, including your relationship to Mother Nature.

Church sums up this point by saying the physician of the future might first look for the practices that can most bolster the patient’s soul, like James Dillard writing on his prescription pad, “Long talks with your rabbi,” to banish the shadow of death from the consulting room, and generate a healthy, creative, peaceful state of being.

This week, for your health’s sake, begin to pay close attention to your state of being. (edited and reposted from 2010)

“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” 
~Mother Teresa

Tips from 5 April 2010 to 6 August 2012 are here: Archived Tips