MPNforum Magazine

The Scientific Connection

by Patricia Wagner

Many newly diagnosed patients ask “Why did this happen? What caused it?” Before the emergence of modern medicine, we would have looked to our behavior, our environment, or our relationship with our Creator. Now, most of us turn naturally to our physicians for answers. Allopathic medicine is deeply engaged in the search for the physical causes and solutions, and the more elusive nature of emotions and feelings, not so easily analyzed by empirical approaches, has been downplayed. Likewise, as a patient community we have until now focused primarily on physical problems and solutions.

The intent of this column is to explore the chronic illness we share from a more holistic vantage point that ever before. This does not suggest substitution of our medical care with non-traditional alternatives. It does gently emphasize that there is more that we can do, and that being an empowered patient means more than educating oneself on disease etiology and medical treatment options.

Last month we discussed the discoveries which reveal the mutable nature of our cells, and of life itself. Although not widely acknowledged, DNA does not dictate whether or not we will succumb to dis-ease. Moreover, if our DNA has mutated, we now know that it can be reversed. The new field of epigenetics substantiates that the cells of our bodies, which are as much energy as they are matter, are programmable. They take direction from the environment, which includes the inner course set by the subconscious mind.

OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND?

Countless credible sources indicate that over 90% of all physical problems have psychological roots. Disease has been defined as “the natural consequence of unresolved negative feelings that have seemingly been forgotten, ignored, or buried.” (Karol K. Truman) “The body is the guardian of the truth, our truth, because it carries the experience of a lifetime and ensures that we can live with the truth of our organism.” (Alice Miller)

It is the subconscious mind which carries out the sublimation of negative feelings and experiences within the body in order to enable one to continue to carry on successfully on a conscious level.

You think that you are in charge, right? What is not commonly known is that the subconscious mind comprises 95% of our processing capability. Only 5% of our life experience is processed on a conscious level. The subconscious acts as our auto-pilot as we traverse through our days and nights, running our autonomic bodily functions as well as our habitual activities. It is responsible for most decision outcomes, drawing from the vast store of prior experiences recorded within it.

The feelings and experiences from which the subconscious mind draws were created through external input well before we were capable of reasoning. Did you know that the human child is essentially in a hypnotic trance until around age 6? We remain 100% in Delta, a sleeping or unconscious state, until age 2. From Age 2 to 6, we split our time between Delta and Theta, a state of imagination and reverie. Between ages 6 and 12 we become capable of conscious awareness, Alpha, a mere 1/3 of our time. Only after age 12 do we manifest focused concentration and reasoning ability, having achieved moments at Beta level by this time. It is not coincidental that many cultures recognize the coming of age at 13 years or older.

This slow evolvement toward consciousness is actually a beneficial mechanism due to the dangers inherent in our slow physical maturation. For preservation of our species, we are in need of the “downloads” provided by our primary caregivers and our experiences in our physical environment until we reach the age of reason. Our subconscious repository is in continual development, via “stimulus-response” programming. Our memories, coupled with the feelings we had at the time of their creation, become a permanent record to which we will subconsciously refer for the rest of our lives. The subconscious mind uses inductive rather than deductive reasoning. Therefore, it cannot differentiate between the helpful and the harmful information it holds.

Our wondrous subconscious mind manages not only our memory repository, but also our bodily functions such as breathing, circulation, and digestion. Our autonomic functions are in a continuous feedback loop with the emotions we are feeling. Our limbic system conveys calm, peace, stress and alarm based on those emotions. And as we already know, as the cell’s environment changes, so does our health.

Whether our cellular environment is affected by the earliest or the most recent input, the deleterious effect may be the same. When we repress negative feelings/memories and thereby distract or delude ourselves on a conscious level, the body will store these stressors away. We will carry emotional baggage no longer in conscious mind perhaps, but ever in the subconscious. Our cell memories – never lost – are only locked away in flesh.

Ken Dychtwald laments: “You want to pay to have a psycho-roto-rooter man exorcise the garbage and pain that live within you, blocking the flow of life and happiness. But it can’t be removed like sewage from a pipe, or covered up with newspaper and made to disappear. Nothing can be simply detached and removed from the bodymind. . . One must bring repressed memories or emotions out into the full awareness of the conscious mind to eliminate them.”

PSYCHO ROTO-ROOTING FOR HEALTH

In metaphysical studies, one learns that when we refuse to admit the situation in our minds or hearts, we are not dealing with it. We are merely trying to escape it by denying it. You cannot deny what is there. You cannot transmute through denial. You can only transmute something by putting its opposite in its place.

How does one begin this process? There are many starting points: journaling, dream study, meditation, and prayer, visualization, tapping (EFT), Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), Rolfing, Feldenkrais, HeartMath, Body Talk, kinesiology, chiropractic, acupuncture, and more. In the future, we will explore our options in more detail. Let it suffice for now to say that all of these approaches serving alone or in combination, bring about total nakedness to the self. They reveal the subconscious to the conscious mind, and vice-versa, in the healing light of the superconscious.

I now see the results from such holistic work in my own life. I found that in this uncovering and acceptance, a new awareness and lasting strength emerged, and through this the potential to successfully reprogram myself as a happier and a healthier person also emerged.

I can say for myself that my feelings and memories and erroneous programming had eventually found their outlet through overworked and fibrous bone marrow, and irrational ratios of whites to reds and platelets. My teardrop cells spoke silently of my sorrow. After I ventured beyond the boundaries of allopathic medicine and began to open to myself, the disabling and painful effects of dis-ease have diminished. My healing has proceeded in a great many magical ways.

The extent to which each of us may be aware of our emotional baggage will vary greatly. And the extent to which we have been erroneously programmed by prior experience may not be readily apparent to the conscious mind. After all, we are the master of our fate, are we not? We can and should ignore those inconvenient feelings which hamper our progress, and push ever upward and onward toward the success we have planned, shouldn’t we? I once thought this, prior to my becoming ill.

I do not paint us all with the same brush. I am now presenting the science which underlies the body-mind-spirit connection, coupled with vignettes from my personal experience. The science is compelling, yet I realize that the temptation to view this as a personal indictment is great. As I’ve already revealed to my readers, I humbled myself. Perhaps, it was disease itself which humbled me. And at that uncomfortable juncture, hope, like the phoenix, arose from the ashes.

If you would like to explore the ideas expressed in this column for yourself, here are some starting points: “The Body Never Lies” by Alice Miller; “Feelings Buried Alive Never Die. . .” by Karol K. Truman; “The Biology of Belief” by Bruce H. Lipton, Ph.D.; “Bodymind” by Ken Dychtwald; Your Body Believes Every Word You Say (The Language of the Body/Mind Connection) by Barbara Hoberman Levine.

Until next month, blessings to you all.