This morning I watched another episode of rewired and it talked about the power of self-healing. I have read many books on this topic, so I already knew about placebo and how to get the body to exhibit placebo effects without actually taking a placebo pill. However, the video reframed how to get into those states better. He explained that in order to adjust your internal body you must change your emotional state.
His example: someone just gets diagnosed with an illness. At that exact moment, they are overtaken by fear or grief and spiral down. No matter how much they meditate and say “I will overcome this” in their mind their body is still holding onto that fear or grief, so it is ineffective. But if we are able to change our emotional state into a place of gratitude or optimism, then that will start to change the body.
This was interesting to me. I have been told that I am an optimistic person, and probably in my more recent years, I would agree. However, I still recognized that even when I was more pessimistic and plagued my mind with doubts or preparing for the worst, the worst never came. Which was different than other people I saw do the same thing and have the worst always happen. When I reflect on this in myself, I recognize that even when I would be prepared for the worst, my brain would immediately think of all of the positives that this situation would lead to, or I would envision and ‘live’ overcoming the situation. It would fill my body with hope rather than dread.
I wonder if this is a power that I have taken for granted. I’ll need to reflect on it a bit more.
