Healing Perspectives: February 2008

Greetings Friend,
February is the time when our attentions turn to love, and our activities focus on creative ways to tell those we love how important they are in our lives. However, it's also a time when we should focus on doing things for ourselves - things centered on self-love - things that promote an appreciation of our uniqueness and that make it easy to experiencing self-acceptance - things that place value on who we are and what we bring to the world.

Why is it important to focus on self-love? First, self-love has tremendous curative powers because it sets off a chemical chain reaction that sends messages to the body that all is well. Second, it refocuses the mind by creating thoughts charged with possibilities versus those that limit us. Third, self-love chases away the emotional blues and heals old emotional hurts. It sparks the desire to re-engage with life and to do so without fear. Finally, self-love initiates our creativity, which serves as the nourishment for the soul.

Self-love sets in motion a spiritual metamorphosis that's transformative and personally liberating. It helps us to feel strong and decisive about the choices we make and makes it possible for us to exude self-confidence and self-reliance. When we love ourselves, our coping skills increase so we're better equipped to handle the challenges life presents us. Rather than fighting ourselves, we go with the flow. Self-love is the only love that connects the soul with the mind, the soul and mind with the body, and heals the disconnection between the soul and the body when our thoughts betray us.

How Emotions Affect Health

As a medical intuitive, I've sat across from hundreds of people dealing with life-threatening illnesses who desired more than anything else to heal themselves. Yet, while they were doing what they thought they should, they weren't getting the results they wanted because they were missing an important part of the healing equation. They didn't understand that every ache and pain was the soul's way of using the body to reveal what kinds of emotions were controlling their thinking, lives and health. They didn't understand the health consequence of love.

The Health Consequence of Love

1. It prompts the body to secrete oxytocin (the same chemical released during lovemaking) which boosts the release of healthy hormones that support the immune system's effectiveness and decreases the stress hormone, cortisol.
2. It provides hope, which is something we need lots of when the fear around illness occupies our mind and our body.

Physically, love causes specific electrochemical changes in the body that stimulate the release of endorphins and neuropeptides, which tell the body all is well. These chemicals have several physical effects: they strengthen the immune system's activities, influence the functioning of individual organs and glands, tell the muscles to relax, and signal the adrenals to calm down. When it comes to healing, love is like taking a heavy dose of Ibuprofen. It curbs the flow of pain receptors, which cause the brain to stop fixating on the pain.

Psychologically, hope serves as a crucial antidote to fear. In fact, it has such a powerful influence on the mind and the body that people have been known to use hope to help heal themselves of supposedly terminal illnesses.

The reason love and hope go hand-in-hand in the healing process is that both are active emotions - not passive like fear. Whereas fear immobilizes the brain and creates chemical chaos in the body, love and hope mobilize the brain and create a sense of emotional peace.

A Love Letter to Yourself

Write a letter to yourself expressing all of the qualities you love about you. Perhaps it's your eyes, or your smile, or your compassionate heart. Begin the letter with "Dearest (your name)". In addition to listing all of the qualities you love about yourself, write down where you shine in your life and the special gifts and talents you possess. Now write down all of the ways you're currently cultivating that love and the acts of kindness or gifts of fun you're giving yourself that will deepen your relationship with you. End the letter with, "All my love", and then sign your name.

The information I've shared in this newsletter is extracted from my latest book, Healing Happens with Your Help. I hope that after reading this information, your vision of yourself will be one of self-love. Remember you're special, for you hold within yourself the power to heal.

Light & Love,
Carol

Illnesses and Their Hidden Meanings

Alzheimers

This illness is a suggestion from Suzie Daggett Publisher of Insight Directory www.insightdirectory.com. Thanks Suzie. I hope you find the information valuable

General Description: Alzheimers is a progressive mental disease that results in the loss of the ability to remember the past or present and the inability to learn new information. It affects the semantic memory, which is responsible for recognizing faces, colors, patterns, and places. The symptoms of Alzheimers disease include confusion, losing touch with reality, difficulty completing thoughts or following directions, constantly repeating oneself and behavioral changes. In the final stages, the person returns to infancy and verbal communication is almost non-existent.

Psychological Implications: Alzheimers represents multi-tasking burnout. The brain becomes overwhelmed with too much information, too much to do, and not enough time to do it. People suffering from this mental disease spent much of their life juggling all of the demands placed upon them. They struggled with too many roles, and buried how they felt. Rather than expressing anger, they held it inside until it created feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. They were often hard on themselves and had unrealistic expectations. Their confidence was undermined and their competency questioned throughout their life, which lead them to create strong feelings of inadequacy. Today, people who suffer from Alzheimers feel separated and detached from themselves and the world so they create imaginary relationships to help compensate. They may also feel separated from the Universe and therefore feel alone. Life becomes too much to bear, yet they aren't ready to return to light.

Associated emotions: Anger, bitterness, disgust, hopelessness

What to change: Patterns

Healing Hint:
Vitamin D isn't just important because it helps absorb calcium, which leads to healthy bones. It's also important for the immune system and the prevention of breast and prostate cancer. The most effective way to get adequate amounts of vitamin D is through sunshine; however, the use of sun-block can prevent this from happening. How then do you get adequate amounts of vitamin D? The answer, supplements. Specifically, vitamin D3 which is a natural form of vitamin D that tends to stay in the body longer. A simple blood test can tell you if you're getting enough of this important vitamin.