'What's wrong with you'?

[kitkatz]

I have one word to tell the people that think positive thinking with do everything for you even heal a serious illness.....It starts with a B, has two lls in the middle and sh in it and a t at the end!! 

[Rerun]

          B U L L S H I T ??    I got it   I got it!!!   

[st789]

Add me to the list of B........S.....

[LightLizard]

yes, it's amazing, really, the lengths that people will go to in order to make themselves feel powerful enough to avoid the fears they have regarding health issues and the prospect of death.
there are some conditions that can be healed by the mind, or mind-work, i believe, but those conditions are due to imbalances of the mind in the first place and don't include the truly life-threatening conditions.
doctors know this, that's why they use placebos for some patients. but a placebo won't help to cure
ESRD, or many other conditions.
sometimes, nothing works, except to slow the process of deterioration down with treatment.

love

~LL~

[stauffenberg]

The problem is that serious chronic illness is extremely rare in the human population ater three million years of selection of the fittest weeded out most of those likely to become sick. As a result, the healthy majority cannot understand how it is possible to get sick, since no matter how much high-fat, high-glycemic index, high-salt, high trans-fat, and high phosphate food they eat, or how little exercise they do, or how much time they spend out in the sun with no sunscreen, they can't make themselves sick.  So when they look at us, they can only think we must have done something very bad or stupid to get as sick as we have.  They have no experience of serious illness just seeing to fall on them out of the sky, as many of us have had.

I was never overweight, took vitamins, exercised regularly, never drank alcohol, never smoked, and ate a healthy diet, but my medical chart now looks like the pathologist's report on a corpse after an autopsy, given the number of incurable diseases I have.  But then I look at people living on the street, keeping themselves perpetually intoxicated by drinking mouthwash, since they can't afford liquor, and I have to recognize that they remain, even after many years of living like this, healthier than I am.

[LightLizard]

good points, stauffenburg.

here is something i found on the 'net which helps to clear up some of the confusion about the term 'healing.' for some of us, anyway...

TEN COMMANDMENTS OF HEALING
Balfour M. Mount
Emeritus Professor of Palliative Medicine, McGill University
Copyright: American association of Cancer Educators, Journal of Cancer Education, Vol. 21 No. 1

"How important to attend to the insights of our teachers, that is to say, the men, women and children who have been our
patients and their families. We are indebted to them for the legacy they leave us. Paradoxically, their end-of-life lessons have
not been about dying, but about living. What is the core lesson they have taught us? It is that healing is the central goal of
life.

I am not speaking of physical healing, a person can die healed: what I mean by ‘healing’ is a shift in our quality of life
away from anguish and suffering, toward an experience of integrity, wholeness and inner peace. Jon Kabat-Zinn defines
healing as a process of adaptation, a “coming to terms with things as they are.”

The psyche, it would seem, has an intrinsic tendency toward healing, a will-to-wholeness, as it were. How can we experi-ence
that? How can you and I find inner peace in the turmoil of each day? Let me summarize our patients’ message to us as
“The 10 Commandments of Healing.” They are:

1. BE TRULY PRESENT TO THIS MOMENT. Healing, like love, celebration, awe, wonder and ecstasy, happens in
the now, in the present moment, free from ruminations of the past and fears about the future. As Oliver Wendell
Holmes stated it, “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
And yet I find that I spend most of my time preoccupied with the past or the future. I must come into the present; be
aware of the persons and things that are around me right now.

2. TRUST. Healing involves letting go, a leap of faith, ‘diving not drowning’ as Carl Jung expressed it. Lou Gherig’s
disease patient Phil Simmons called it ‘learning to fall.’ We fall from head, to heart; from egoism and our carefully
constructed defense mechanisms, we fall into forgiveness of ourselves and others, the realization of the staggering
potential of our essential selves, and an awareness of healing connections.
We may experience these connections at four levels: a sense of connection to self (Carl Jung’s individuation); connec-tion
to others (Martin Buber’s ‘I-thou’ relating); connection to the world perceived through our senses (as with music,
or the grandeur of nature); and connection to ultimate meaning, however perceived by that person: God, the Other,
the Cosmos, the More, the unity of all things.

3. ATTEND TO YOUR WHOLE PERSON NEEDS. According to the time-honored metaphoric classification, we are
‘body, mind, and spirit’, or, ‘body, spirit and soul’, depending on you preference. We must care for our needs in each
of these domains every day.

4. OPEN TO DEEPER RELATING. Recall that our inner life is relational in its expression. It is reflected in how we
relate at the four levels noted above.
Within your religious or wisdom tradition seek out teachers who speak from personal experience, not dogma. Go to
depth. As C.S. Lewis observed, “The process of living seems to consist in coming to realize truths so ancient and sim-ple
that, if stated, they sound like barren platitudes.” Lewis continues, “They cannot sound otherwise to those who
have not had the relevant experience: that is why there is no real teaching of such truths possible and every genera-tion
starts from scratch.”

5. LISTEN TO YOUR INTUITION. As Joseph Campbell put it, “Follow your bliss.”

6. CREATE. Identify things you like to do. Make time for your creative side each day.

7. DEVELOP SELF-REFLECTIVE SKILLS. Monitor self, noting your thoughts and feelings. They are not reality.
They are your response to reality. Let go of them and come back to your centre of calm. Work on becoming self-aware
with questioning that asks, “What is my personality type and how does that influence how I feel about myself,
how I relate to others and to the situations I find myself in? What are my defenses - the walls I build to protect my-self,
but that also imprison me?”

8. BE GENTLE WITH YOURSELF. Progression toward healing is slow. Indeed, the goal is never reached. The jour-ney
is everything. You are a unique experiment in creation, with a particular potential to contribute to this world.
What is it that you alone can do, must do, if you are to fully express your potential?

9. THINK SMALL. Give up illusions of control. Recognize that we are all in the same boat, exactly the same boat.
The ego-driven values of Western culture (‘I am number one’; the need for wealth, power and control; the distrust of
all but the physical; the need to be the best in the world in what you do) stand in the way of healing.
Avoid power; neutralize the fantasies it creates in situations where it is bestowed on you. Humility and openness are
essential antecedents to healing; joy, peace and a sense of connectedness its products.

10. CELEBRATE. In the direst of circumstances, boundless peace is to be found within. Recall Viktor Frankl’s
hard-won observation, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to
choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” If Frankl can find life
worth celebrating in Auschwitz, chances are I can find my cup half full, perhaps full to overflowing, here and
now.

These are the 10 commandments of healing that our teachers have given us.
Healing involves a process of opening, slowing, centering, trusting, hoping and accepting. It involves recognizing
the potential that still remains, in spite of all that has been lost.

For each of us the path toward healing will be different. The most certain path I have found is meditation. I do
not imply that it is the only path. It is just the only path I know. The purpose of meditation, in its many forms, is to
create alert awareness with a still mind and presence to the moment.

There is no shortcut to healing. Carl Jung put it this way, “The attainment of wholeness requires one to stake
one’s whole being. Nothing less will do; there can be no easier conditions, no substitutes, no compromises.”
How do we find healing? We must take up the journey anew each day. What better day to recommit than today?

No-one else can do it for me. No one else can do it for you. Hillel expressed it succinctly, “If I don’t do it, who will do it? If I don’t do it right now, when will I do it?”
I wish each of you well on your journey. "

Balfour M. Mount
Emeritus Professor of Palliative Medicine, McGill University

love

~LL~

[Zach]

As a result, the healthy majority cannot understand how it is possible to get sick, since no matter how much high-fat, high-glycemic index, high-salt, high trans-fat, and high phosphate food they eat, or how little exercise they do, or how much time they spend out in the sun with no sunscreen, they can't make themselves sick.

You always seem to make this an issue about "us" vs. "them."

Get real, man!

Can you say "skin cancer?" Those who sit in the sun all day without sunscreen do in fact get it.  Maybe not right away, but down the road it will develope.

And let's not forget the rise in type 2 diabetes, mainly do to lifestyle choices (such as little or not exercise and eating high-fat foods).

As Pogo once said, "We're all healthy, until we get sick."

 

[LightLizard]

and as rodney dangerfield said, 'why should i exercise and eat healthy? no matter how well i take care of myself, the best thing i have to look forward to is getting sick, old, and dying.'
 

it's very difficult to relate to someone's experience until you have a similar one.
it's easy for the healthy to attribute their good health to their choices and lifestyle.
sometimes, this may be the case, but genetics plays a greater role than many would
care to admit.

[thegrammalady]

healing oneself through positive thought.....hmmmmm..... sounds like christian science...........don't even get me started!!!

[LightLizard]

healing oneself through positive thought.....hmmmmm..... sounds like cristian science...........don't even get me started!!!

hhmmmmm....'christian science'....is that an oxymoron?

 

[stauffenberg]

Psychologists and sociologists even have a term for the attitude of healthy people who attribute their good fortune to their having lived right, and the diseases of others to their having done something wrong.  The concept used is the "just world hypothesis," which stipulates that people make the interpretive assumption that everything that happens must be fair, even if its fairness is not obvious or cannot be easily explained.  Thus people born rich are assumed to deserve their money and to be better people, while people who are poor due to some economic catastrophe affecting their town or industry are assumed to have done something wrong.  While it may make the world seem less unpredictable and frightening to assume that everythng that happens is just, in fact a huge range of phenomena are completely random or out of our control.

[LightLizard]

yup. it's more of a crap-shoot than most like to admit.

[fluffy]

i believe positive and negative thought can have an influence on a condition, but thats it. anyone who thinks thought alone can cure renal failure has their head way up their ass.

[okarol]

If positive thought is all it takes -- what do you do for babies with cancer?

[angela515]

If positive thought is all it takes -- what do you do for babies with cancer?

If positive thought is all it takes, I should be superwoman. 

[AlasdairUK]

As Pogo once said, "We're all healthy, until we get sick."

Not to sure who Pogo is, but I like that quote.

[thegrammalady]

healing oneself through positive thought.....hmmmmm..... sounds like christian science...........don't even get me started!!!

hhmmmmm....'christian science'....is that an oxymoron?

 

just in case your tongue wasn't firmly planted in your cheek...............christian science, home church in boston, is a recognized religion with a rather large following. they don't believe in doctors, and believe in healing through god by the power of positive thinking..........i warned you not to get me started   

[LightLizard]

yeah, i know who and what they are, really.

but do you know if any of them have ever died?

[Bette]

This positive thinking stuff drives me crazy!  My Mom gave me a copy of "The Secret" and tried to convince me that my kidney disease was attracted to me because of negative thinking.  What a bunch of Crap.  I can't believe that people buy into this.  I guess its easier for some people to follow than the fact that life is random and very, very, very unfair. 

[Joe Paul]

yeah, i know who and what they are, really.

but do you know if any of them have ever died?

Wouldnt that defeat their purpose, if they let it out someone died? 

[Black]

This positive thinking stuff drives me crazy!  My Mom gave me a copy of "The Secret" and tried to convince me that my kidney disease was attracted to me because of negative thinking.  What a bunch of Crap.  I can't believe that people buy into this.  I guess its easier for some people to follow than the fact that life is random and very, very, very unfair. 

Oh, HOGWASH!  There certainly is a mind/body connection, and worry and stress can affect the body, but all of the positive thinking in the world is not going to prevent all disease or make your life all rosy.

"Expecting life to be fair because you're a good person, is like expecting the bull not to charge because you're a vegetarian."  I don't remember where I read that but I love it!

[kitkatz]

If positive thought is all it takes -- what do you do for babies with cancer?

If positive thought is all it takes, I should be superwoman. 

Me too!

Super positive women unite!! 

[LightLizard]

yeah, the 'secret' was a big scam aimed at the people that feel so powerless in their lives.
sure, being positive is always better than being mr or ms 'doom and gloom.' but no amount of positive thinking will heal damaged kidneys or other chronic conditions. a positive attitude will help one cope with the turmoil of having your life disrupted by such conditions, perhaps, but even the most positive people get sick and die, like everyone does, eventually.
i wrote to deepak chopra, just out of interest, to see what he had to say on the subject.
he does have a vested interest in this kind of thing, so his reply to me was quite political and non-conclusive, as you might expect.

[pdpatty]

What really made me real angry with this site is the idea folks make themselves ill with negative thinking. Guess my dad must have had some real negative thoughts when I was conceived 'cause I have PKD!
What morons! Bet some of them  still believe leprosy is caused by sin!

[thegrammalady]

yeah, i know who and what they are, really.

but do you know if any of them have ever died?

yes, my grandmother, but then she did let my mother take her to the hospital. and if i believed the way she does, i'd be dead by now.