Cynthia was upset when she first came into my office. She felt she was so out of touch with her body that she finally decided to explore the possibility that there was more to her thyroid condition than what was being diagnosed by her medical practitioner. "It seems like I'm on a roller-coaster. Ten years ago I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism. I was tired, often depressed and very moody," she said with exasperation.
"These are common symptoms of an under-active thyroid," I commented.
"Yes, I know this now, and for a number of years my Synthroid prescription seemed to help me have more energy. Even my hands and feet felt warmer. But, still I was very moody despite all the tests done and the medications tried. You name it and I've tried it."
"It's excellent to see your conviction to be well. A determined mind is the most important ingredient in healing," I said.
"But that was before when my thyroid medication failed me. Apparently I had built up such a resistance over the years that even that medication failed to help me anymore."
"The body is a very complex system of organized intelligence that interacts with your emotional and mental states to seek a homeostasis. It seeks balance to ensure its own survival. Your brain has some 10 billion cells each with a potential of 20,000 connections operating at lightning speed in conjunction with your mind. It is not uncommon for your system to readjust itself to prevent a perceived artificial interference from damaging its natural immune and biological defenses," I explained.
"Exactly! This is exactly what brings me here to you today. I realize there must be something deeper inside me that caused this to occur which is not merely of a physical nature. A friend of mine gave me Dr. Deepak Chopra's book, Quantum Healing where he speaks about the powerful mental mechanisms of consciousness that can be instrumental in healing many illnesses that have not fully responded to medication. When I passed by your offices last week and saw your centers' sign Quantum Healing I felt that this was some type of synchronicity. It was no coincidence that I had just been at my doctor that morning and he wanted to try me on a new combination of drugs including Zoloft."
I gently smiled at Cynthia Yes, it is amazing how the universe can send us certain messages if we have our eyes open and are willing to listen to the signposts which surround us. I named my healing center after that very book because after thirty years of working with the mind/body connection for healing, I felt Dr. Chopra epitomized the medical alternative way of thinking better than anyone. I have spent thirty-two years working and researching in this field and it seems at last the recognition of the power of the mind to heal itself and the body was at last acknowledged. There are many people like myself who have spent their lifetime traveling the unconventional roads without seeking the approval of the mainstream medical community. Many renowned physicians as Dr. Andrew Weil, Dr. Carl Simonton, Dr. Candace Pert and hundreds more have strayed from their allopathic roots in search of a deeper mind body connection. The dominance by the pharmaceutical industrial complex has dictated the direction of health care due to the dependence by medical doctors for research funds. Our health care system has been organized to create long term annuities for drug companies who have exerted too much control over the insurance companies in the claims they are willing to pay. Preventive health care and healing the conscious and unconscious psychological factors that maintain chronic illnesses are either barely reimbursed or ignored altogether.
Smiling herself now Cynthia chimed in. "Great, it seems like we're both on the same page so where do we begin?" "At the beginning of course!" I declared. "In my many years of research on the interface of the endocrine system with the mind I have found there are three situations present in any illness. The three P's I call it. The first one is predisposition. This is an emotional and/or life situation, which creates a non-optimal condition of living. When an individual lives in a household of this nature an underlying sense of fear, danger and guilt permeates the mind which causes it to get stuck in the stress mode often called a fight or flight reaction. This creates a continual strain on the body. As the lungs overwork, the immune system is weakened and harmful levels of cortisol and adrenaline are produced to create chemical imbalances. This is why we see such an epidemic of serotonin deficiencies today.
"The second P is precipitation. Our body/mind system for most of us is very resilient and can often overcome, in our earlier years, much physical and emotional abuse. Yet, over l time as we age even the strongest are weakened and the resistant negative beliefs and decisions that were made in our lifetime due to the negative conditioning we had will finally bear its toxic front. One day a physical or emotional trauma occurs and this can precipitate an onslaught of system breakdowns that can bring cancer, heart disease, hypo or hyperthyroid conditions, colitis, irritable bowel syndrome, anxiety-panic disorders or any number of maladies into symptomatic consciousness. It is important to understand that whatever finally emerges did not just happen. These imbalances were in the mind/body system before the symptoms manifested. We all have a potential for cancer in our bodies. Yet it is through the systems' weakening by the trauma that the illness in waiting debuts.
By this time tears were rolling down Cynthia's face. "I know your Ph.D. is in clinical hypnotherapy and you specialized in psychoneuroimmunology, but are you a psychic too? I feel you're reading my mind and telling me all about my life without me saying a word. I've had a horrible childhood. My parents were always fighting and my father sexually abused me as a child. I always felt frightened to speak out about it as I thought my mother must have known but did nothing. Even when I tried to bury myself in outside activities I always had this terrible feeling inside me when I went back home. As a kid I always seemed to have stomach problems which my doctor told me was because I took life too seriously. Too seriously, my God, I was afraid to go to sleep at night in my bed. My stomach problems went away when I went off to college and things went pretty well.
I dreaded the holidays for it meant going home but I learned to stuff my fears deeply inside. My parents eventually got divorced so it made me easier and my dad to never bother me again. But then I got married - my first. Things just got off on a bad foot and like my father, my new husband had a drinking problem that I was in full denial about. I tried the best I could but before long became too much and I started having trouble getting out of bed in the morning. When I went into my doctor he ran a lot of tests and told me although unusual at my age, my thyroid was very low and he started me on the various medications. Finally we found Synthroid was what worked best and we stuck with that up until recently. I divorced my first husband and remarried five years later to a really nice man. We get along pretty well most of the time but sometimes I feel like running for my life."
"This is the third P-Perpetuation. Buried deep in your unconscious mind are large amounts of traumas some painful, some threatening and others filled with loss or rekindling of old negative feelings and beliefs. Although you have some conscious awareness of what these stem from an undeniable axiom of healing is - you're never upset for the reason you think! When the core issues have been taken from the unconscious portion of your mind and brought into consciousness, the hidden nature of the real seed of discontent will be removed. The key is awareness of what is buried beneath your current consciousness. It's like having a garden filled with weeds; you can quickly create an appearance of a well groomed lawn just by mowing it, yet after a few days the weeds will once again pop up as the underling roots are still there.
Unless you dig beneath the soil (your conscious mind) and pull the roots completely out (the unconscious traumas you have forgotten) the weeds (your negative symptoms) will return. This is why in 1954 the AMA authorized the use of hypnosis as an approved modality of healing. As helpful as medications and talk therapy have been over the years, it was often discovered that over time the symptoms returned or found a different way to demonstrate themselves. Instead of appearing as one form of dysfunction (an uncontrollable anger, ulcers, colitis) it now emerges as an apparently different symptom (depression, or hypothyroid). Without going deeply within to bypass the conscious gatekeeper that's afraid to examine the painful memories it has shut itself off from - only temporary releases are possible."
"You're both exciting and frightening me at the same time" Cynthia said, I am scared to think there is more trauma than I know about. I don't want to re-experience any more pain then I already have nor do I want to give up control of my mind to someone else. Isn't there another way?" she nervously related.
"Your concerns are understandable and I assure you that many people I have worked with have felt the same way before we began. Fortunately it is not necessary to have to experience any of the pain you had before - ever. That's the benefit of working with today's modern approaches to hypnotherapy. Let's face it once was enough! And let's acknowledge you survived it or you wouldn't be sitting here before me today. All hypnosis is self-hypnosis, which really is just a deeply relaxed state of comfort and focused mind. You are aware of exactly what is happening at all times and can return to your regular state of mind anytime you like. With different modes of hypnotherapy like Neurolinguistic Programming or Core Transformation, there isn't even any induction done. Every client I have worked with over the years has said how much easier it was then they ever thought and how peaceful and relaxed they felt afterward.
"The first thing we'll do before we touch upon any deep issues is to spend a session getting you comfortable with the different types of processes I use so you can feel at ease. This allows me to discover which techniques will work best for you."
"I'm ready," she exclaimed. "Let's get the show on the road."
Over the next 16 weeks we met 24 times for sessions - a total of 40 hours in all. Each week we incorporated a different approach depending upon what was presenting itself into her life. The mind is an amazing powerful instrument with a self-protecting mechanism. It only permits those issues, which the individual is ready to access to come into existence.
Within four weeks of working with Cynthia she communicated to me how much better she felt and she really could see "the forest through the trees."
In one portion of our work we uncovered a dozen or more conditioned beliefs that she had learned in her early childhood from her parents that were sabotaging her relationships causing her to make unreasonable demands on her partner to protect and defend her insecurities. These were quickly replaced by new beliefs that were healthy and based on the knowledge she had gained over the many years of her life experience and study.
In another portion of our regression work we discovered forgotten memories in her first three years of life that left such a deep impression we actually saw facial shifts in her body that thinned at her cheek line and lifted her head in a renewed feeling of self confidence. The actual incidences of abusive despite the years of talking about them could never clear as they gained their staying power from earlier events of observing others being abused that caused her to hold on to her pain for protection. Twice during regressions she came upon unexplainable images and experiences that she felt were past life memories. This brought her much new clarity of the life lessons she was asked" to learn and why it was she had the parents she did. Each time although still uncertain if real or not she had tremendous releases of negative energies and was incredibly vibrant in her day to day activities.
Cynthia was very determined not only to heal but also to learn how to think, feel and act in new ways that weren't dependent on what behaviors she had modeled from her parents. Each week she came to meditation class to learn how to relax and learn a sense of detachment from her previous way of thinking as well as learning about her inner spiritual nature. She also regularly attended a class I facilitated called A Course in Miracles. As she told me, it gave her so many tools to deal with any ongoing situations she now encountered that instead of piling up resentment and unresolved grievances, she now felt peaceful and happy most of the time.
After seven weeks she noticed that she was no longer lethargic or depressed and decided to set an appointment with her medical doctor to have her thyroid retested. Cynthia returned with her physicians test results in week 9 and told me how amazed her doctor was that her thyroid now operated at near maximum efficiency.
After 15 weeks, Cynthia was tested again. Her thyroid was now completely normal. Moreover Cynthia completely renewed the joy in her marriage to such a noticeable point her and her husband acted like newlyweds when they were together. She also found her relationships with both her two grown boys and parents were greatly improved and was she was happy to be around them. Cynthia was a new person and had regained her inner most beingness. Her creativity also began to flourish as she renewed her interests in painting and music which she had abandoned twenty years earlier. Cynthia was having fun as a daily part of each day. The glow upon her face and warmth she radiated were clear indications of a happy healthy thyroid and mental mind self.
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