Don't Make Your Illness Worse

I have never written much about Health because it is something I rarely dwell on. I am seventy-eight years of age and in excellent health in both body and mind. That might sound vain but it is how I think and feel and feel about myself, most of the time anyway. It is most of the time which is important, because what we think about habitually and without real consideration, that determines our life; the way we interpret it.

As a man thinketh so is he

On YouTube I came across the profound writings - by way of an audio recording - of James Allen and his fifty-five minute talk (read by someone else, of course) called, "As a man thinketh so is he." All of it made so much sense. I took down quite a few notes, each of which could easily eventuate in an essay of itself. But I made note of something to do with ill health that so many people do not even consider. 

Here is what was said:

 "There is no physician like cheerful thoughts for dissipating the ills of the body."

So plain, so easy to understand, but so rarely practiced by those who inadvertently make their own ills worse by dwelling on them. Yes, thinking on our sickness only makes it worse.

Dwelling on ill health

The saying is that: 'We bring into our lives that which we think about most,' and I really do believe that. There is also Dr. Wayne W Dyer's observation and the title of one of his books, You See It When You Believe It. So it follows that if we talk and think about our illnesses - even worse, if we give a label and then identify with those labels as being a part of ourselves - we are not doing ourselves any favours where our health is concerned. We are in fact, undermining it.

One of the worst things we can do, yet you see it being practiced daily by people everywhere, is to chat to friends and even strangers about our illness. "Oh, it's my lumbago!" or "Oh, my arthritis seems to get worse over time." Of course it does. You keep thinking and talking about it. You have made it a part of your life and you expect it to go away! By talking and thinking and dwelling on something we draw it to us. By continuing to think and talk about it we keep it with us. This is a natural psychological law. In fact, according to the late Dr. Roberto Assagioli, the very first psychological law. It is Psychological Law Number One.

Psychological Law is as valid as the Law of Gravity

Here is what Assagioli wrote: Law One: Images and mental pictures and ideas tend to produce the physical conditions and the external acts that correspond to them." The way I interpret this in simpler language: We bring into our lives that which we think about most.

The message I want the reader to take away here is simple: Practice awareness. Don't talk about your illnesses, real or imagined to anyone except the doctor or medico who happens to be treating you. Avoid idle gossip on the subject. Certainly do not give that illness or ailment a label in your mind by naming it. Let the doctor do that. He or she could be wrong anyway.

I will finish with another quote from James Allen. "If we alter our thoughts towards things and other people, things and other people will alter their thoughts towards us." What you think is up to you. It is your responsibility and should be under your command. Work on your thinking by working on your awareness... and see what happens then.