Mind, Body, Spirit

“Health is a state of complete harmony of the body, mind and spirit. When one is free from physical disabilities and mental distractions, the gates of the soul open”— B.K.S. Iyengar

I had a great conversation with Dr. Anne Curtis on my Insightful Conversations show. Anne, a medical doctor and a sexual relationship therapist retired after 25 years, feeling disappointed and burnt out. She said that looking back on her medical school training, as interesting as some of the material was, she felt that it was a complete waste of time. She shared how frustrating it was for her to be part of a profession that didn’t take the whole spectrum of what it means to be human into consideration. They didn’t learn anything about nutrition or take in someone’s emotional or psychological states. They treated the body as they would a machine, diagnosing, and then prescribing the latest drugs that had just come onto the market.

As a spiritual seeker and someone who had always been interested in how our psychological state affects our physical health, Anne kept searching for answers. She studied E.F.T. tapping, N.L.P., and psychology. Everything helped a little, but Anne still felt there was more to see. While caring for her terminally ill mother, she had a profound spiritual experience, which shifted how she saw her relationship with her parents. That experience, coupled with a book her sister had gifted her, called ‘Somebody Should Have Told Us!’ by Jack Pransky, provided Ann with the answers she had been searching for. She read the book cover to cover, and then she read it again.

Anne found something in the pages of Jack’s book that profoundly impacted her life. She understood, on a deeper level, how our thoughts create our reality. She saw that we live in the ‘feeling of our thinking,’ and in turn, experience the physical effects of our thinking. When we have scary or insecure thoughts, our world looks dangerous and unsafe, and we respond accordingly. On the flip side, when we experience happy and loving thoughts, the world looks like a safe and benevolent place, and we relax. Anne saw the connection between the quality of our thinking and its impact on our physical health is indisputable. The Mind, Body, Spirit connection is intrinsically intertwined and we cannot treat them as separate entities.

This had me reflecting on a time in my life where I was suffering physically but could not identify the cause. At the time, I was involved in an emotionally abusive relationship. I lived in a constant state of the fight-or-flight response. The human body is designed perfectly. There’s nothing wrong with the occasional surge of adrenaline and cortisol when we need to run away from a Saber Tooth Tiger or chase down our next meal. What we are not designed for is a constant drip of this cocktail coursing through our veins twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. In addition to the damage, a chronic state of fight-or-flight causes our psychological health, the overproduction of adrenaline and cortisol can create a whole host of issues to our physical health too.

As a 3 Principles Practitioner, I work with many people in the area of Codependency and Narcissistic Abuse. I often have clients come to me who are struggling emotionally, spiritually, and physically. They have the mistaken belief that if we are ‘living in the feeling of our thinking,’ then all we need to do when we experience pain in any of these three areas is to ignore our thinking and tolerate the situation. This is an innocent misunderstanding and one I refer to as a Spiritual bypass. It’s important to remember we are both Spiritual and Human. We are not trying to override our human experience. We are merely looking in the direction of the Principles to understand how we are creating it.

We are Spiritual Beings having a Human Experience, and as such, we have the free will to assess whether our relationships or our circumstances are for our highest good. Sometimes we are confused as to what to do. This is when our personal-thinking can get in the way. Our insecure thoughts and fear of the unknown often have us tolerating unhealthy situations. When we feel helpless and stuck, all we need to remember is that our Mind, Body, and Spirit is working in perfect union for our optimum health. When we learn to listen to our bodies and not take our insecure chatter so seriously, we can better hear the guidance of our Wisdom.

With love and appreciation, Del💕