The world only exists in your eyes—your conception of it. You can make it as big or as small as you want to.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald, an American novelist (1896–1940)
Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls.
—Joseph Campbell, an American mythologist, writer, and lecturer (1904–1987)
Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All kinds of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. . . . Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a German writer and statesman (1749–1832)
Each of us is creating our own reality, guided by our thoughts, beliefs, visions, and attitudes. How thrilling a journey it has been for the past thirty years to consciously create the life of my dreams. It hasn’t always been smooth sailing, but for the most part, I’ve stayed true to the mission of transforming health care by establishing a new specialty based on the belief that love is life’s most powerful healer. For one of the elders of the baby boomers, who protested the war in Vietnam in Washington, DC, in 1968 (my first year in medical school) carrying a sign, Make Love Not War, my life has been a dream come true!
What’s your wildest dream? It may be something that you’ve dismissed because you believed it would never be possible to have, be, or do whatever it is you’ve envisioned for yourself. But suppose while enjoying your Sabbath or after getting high, you let go of your overprotective and limiting mind and surrendered to your heart. Picture in your mind’s eye what you’d love your life to look like, even though you may not have a clue how it could possibly happen. Trust that your heart will guide you in the direction of the most fulfilling, enriching, and nurturing vision.
I realize this poses a challenge for most of us. It’s not the way you normally do things. But the more calculated risks you take, the greater will be your capacity to trust that the outcome will benefit you in some way. If you remain committed to your goal in spite of the setbacks (see them as valuable lessons), you’ll find that ultimately you will manifest something quite close to what you envisioned, although it most likely will not occur in the way you expected or as quickly as you wanted.
The combination of desire, belief, expectancy, persistence, and patience is a winning formula for manifestation. Unless you are continually meeting with formidable obstacles (a message that your vision needs some modification), the process of living your dream can flow almost effortlessly. It doesn’t mean there won’t be setbacks, but none of them will prove to be insurmountable, and a solution is often found relatively soon. This is especially true if your goal will benefit others.
Even if it’s just for three hours a week, that’s more than enough time for cannabis to serve as a masterful facilitator in the co-creation (you, along with your higher self/soul, spirit guides, and God) and evolution of the blueprint for the life of your dreams.
After you’ve vaporized and possibly recited the Invocation of the Cardinal Directions, the process of heightening self-, soul-, or heart-awareness can comprise the bulk of your Sabbath ritual. You will always learn something of great value while in this altered state. Your heart opens, fear diminishes, and trust that your life is unfolding perfectly expands. You might also feel a deep sense of gratitude for everything and everyone in your life (they’re all your teachers, especially those who repeatedly push your buttons).
Each of us is unique and no two people will react exactly the same way. If this is a new experience for you, I understand the fear of the unknown, but if it is used appropriately there is nothing to fear from the psychoactive (THC) properties of marijuana. Quite the opposite is true. It can be a highly nurturing and enlivening experience.
The quality of your experience while you’re high is dependent on several variables, including the specific strain of cannabis, the setting in which it’s being used, your emotional state before partaking, and the clarity of your intention. An intention is the compass for keeping you on track and directing you along your healing path. For the purpose of clarifying your dream, your intention might be: To envision the life of my dreams. Or more specifically (this is preferable): To relieve my chronic pain; to create a vibrantly healthy body; to work at a job that I find fulfilling and fun; to find my soulmate; to take the next step in my healing process and have the courage to confront and feel my emotional pain.
Getting high might also serve as an opportunity for you to listen to the voice and possibly the anguish of your largely ignored and neglected inner child, the part of you with unmet needs. Perhaps you didn’t receive the love, nurturing attention, and playtime you most needed when you were younger. To a great extent your current physical pain may be associated with the deep emotional wounds you experienced as a child. Your parents may not have done such a great job (they did the best they could), so you are, in essence, re-parenting your inner child. In this case, a broad intention might be: To heal my inner child—with more specifics to follow as you heighten self-awareness. This pact for healing your wounded inner child is the most direct path I know for practicing exceptional self-care and relieving your pain.
• • •
Your desire to relieve pain is quite clear. But when the pain is gone (or on the way out), what would you like your life to look like? What are some of your passions that have for many years lain dormant? What other aspects of your life have you been neglecting? You can clarify some of these questions, while measuring your current state of holistic health, by completing the Fully Alive Questionnaire (FAQ), and then using these results to identify aspects of your life that need more attention and intention. This information will help you to eventually get high on life without the use of marijuana or any other mind-altering substance.
To measure progress, most patients find it helpful to re-take the FAQ following a minimum of a three-month commitment to the holistic medical treatment program for their specific condition, which also includes the practices described in this chapter.
FULLY ALIVE QUESTIONNAIRE
Answer the questions in each section below and total your score. Each response will be a number from 0 to 5. Please refer to the frequency described within the parentheses (e.g., “2 to 3 times/week”) when answering questions about an activity—for example, “Do you maintain a healthy diet?” However, when the question refers to an attitude or an emotion (most of the Mind and Spirit questions)—for example, “Do you have a sense of humor?”—the response is more subjective and less exact, and you should refer to the terms describing the frequency, such as often or daily, but not to the numbered frequencies in parentheses.
0 = Never or almost never (once a year or less)
1 = Seldom (2 to 12 times/year)
2 = Occasionally (2 to 4 times/month))
3 = Often (2 to 3 times/week)
4 = Regularly (4 to 6 times/week)
5 = Daily
BODY: Physical and Environmental Health
MIND: Mental and Emotional Health
1. Do you have specific goals in your personal and professional life? |
___ |
2. Do you have the ability to concentrate for extended periods of time? |
___ |
3. Do you use visualization or mental imagery to help you attain your goals or enhance your performance? |
___ |
4. Do you believe it is possible to change? |
___ |
5. Can you meet your financial needs and desires? |
___ |
6. Is your outlook basically optimistic? |
___ |
7. Do you give yourself more supportive messages than critical messages? |
___ |
8. Does your job utilize all of your greatest talents? |
___ |
___ |
|
10. Are you willing to take risks or make mistakes in order to succeed? |
___ |
11. Are you able to adjust beliefs and attitudes as a result of learning from painful experiences? |
___ |
12. Do you have a sense of humor? |
___ |
13. Do you maintain peace of mind and tranquillity? |
___ |
14. Are you free from a strong need for control or the need to be right? |
___ |
15. Are you able to fully experience your painful feelings such as fear, anger, sadness, and hopelessness? |
___ |
16. Are you aware of and able to safely express fear? |
___ |
17. Are you aware of and able to safely express anger? |
___ |
18. Are you aware of and able to safely express sadness or to cry? |
___ |
19. Are you accepting of all your feelings? |
___ |
20. Do you engage in meditation, contemplation, or psychotherapy to better understand your feelings? |
___ |
21. Is your sleep free from disturbing dreams? |
___ |
22. Do you explore the symbolism and emotional content of your dreams? |
___ |
23. Do you take the time to let your guard down and relax, or make time for activities that constitute the abandon or absorption of play? |
___ |
___ |
|
25. Do you enjoy high self-esteem? |
___ |
TOTAL MIND SCORE: |
________ |
SPIRIT: Spiritual and Social Health
1. Do you actively commit time to your spiritual life? |
___ |
2. Do you take time for prayer, meditation, or reflection? |
___ |
3. Do you listen and act upon your intuition? |
___ |
4. Are creative activities a part of your work or leisure time? |
___ |
5. Do you take risks? |
___ |
6. Do you have faith in God, spirit guides, or angels? |
___ |
7. Are you free from anger toward God? |
___ |
8. Are you grateful for the blessings in your life? |
___ |
9. Do you take walks, garden, or have contact with nature? |
___ |
10. Are you able to let go of your attachment to specific outcomes and embrace uncertainty? |
___ |
11. Do you observe a day of rest completely away from work, dedicated to nurturing yourself and your family? |
___ |
12. Can you let go of self-interest in deciding the best course of action for a given situation? |
___ |
___ |
|
14. Do you make time to connect with young children, either your own or someone else’s? |
___ |
15. Are playfulness and humor important to you in your daily life? |
___ |
16. Do you have the ability to forgive yourself and others? |
___ |
17. Have you demonstrated the willingness to commit to a marriage or comparable long-term relationship? |
___ |
18. Do you experience intimacy, besides sex, in your committed relationships? |
___ |
19. Do you confide in or speak openly with one or more close friends? |
___ |
20. Do you or did you feel close with your parents? |
___ |
21. If you have experienced the loss of a loved one, have you fully grieved that loss? |
___ |
22. Has your experience of pain enabled you to grow spiritually? |
___ |
23. Do you go out of your way or give your time to help others? |
___ |
24. Do you feel a sense of belonging to a group or community? |
___ |
25. Do you experience unconditional love? |
___ |
TOTAL SPIRIT SCORE: |
________ |
TOTAL BODY, MIND, SPIRIT SCORE: |
________ |
Health Scale
325–375 |
|
275–324 |
Excellent Health |
225–274 |
Good Health |
175–224 |
Fair Health |
125–174 |
Below Average Health |
75–124 |
Poor Health |
Less than 75 |
Extremely Unhealthy: SURVIVING |
The greatest discovery of any generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering the attitudes of their minds.
—Albert Schweitzer, a French-German theologian, philosopher, physician, and medical missionary (1875–1965)
In his classic treatise The Science of Mind, noted spiritual teacher Ernest Holmes wrote: “Health and sickness are largely externalizations of our dominant mental and spiritual states. A normal healthy mind reflects itself in a healthy body, and conversely, an abnormal mental state expresses its corresponding condition in some physical condition.” At the time Holmes wrote those words, in the mid-1920s, modern science was far behind him in understanding how our thoughts directly influence our physical health.
Socrates, a Greek philosopher considered one of the founders of Western philosophy (lived during the fourth century BC), stated that an unexamined life is not worth living. Based on today’s research in the field of behavioral medicine, I would paraphrase his statement to say, the unexamined belief is not worth believing in. Yet most of us have never taken the time to reflect on the beliefs we hold. We therefore remain unaware of the extent to which they govern our behavior, and how effectively they are currently serving us or affecting our state of well-being. Do most of your core beliefs, the majority of which you’ve held since childhood, reflect the truth of who you are today? If not, you can choose to replace them with those that do.
Today a growing body of evidence indicates that it is our predominant, habitual beliefs that determine the thoughts we primarily think, and supports the accuracy of Ernest Holmes’s conclusions. I consider it one of the most exciting developments in the field of medicine in recent decades—the scientific verification that our physical health is directly influenced by our thoughts, beliefs, and emotions.
While Eastern systems of medicine, such as traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda, have for centuries recognized these facts and stressed the importance of a harmonious connection between body and mind, in the West this mind-body connection did not begin to be acknowledged until research conducted in the 1970s and ’80s conclusively revealed the ability of thoughts, emotions, and attitudes to influence our body’s immune functions. In fact, many of the scientists exploring this relatively new field of psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) have concluded that there is no separation between mind and body.
Scientists now commonly speak of the mind’s ability to control the body. In large part, this belief is the result of the scientific discovery of “messenger” molecules known as neuropeptides, chemicals that communicate our thoughts, emotions, attitudes, and beliefs to every cell in our body. In practical terms, this means that all of us are capable of either weakening or strengthening our immune system according to how we think and feel. Moreover, scientists have also proven that these messages can originate not only in the brain but from every cell in our body. As a result of such studies, scientists now conclude that the immune system actually functions as a circulating nervous system that is actively and acutely attuned to our every thought and emotion.
Once you accept the fact that there is an ongoing, instant, and intimate communication occurring between your mind and your body via the mechanisms of neuropeptides, you can also see that the person best qualified to direct that communication in your own life is you. Learning how to do so effectively can enable you to become your own twenty-four-hour-a-day healer by becoming more conscious of your thoughts and emotions and managing them better, to improve all areas of your health. This awareness, coupled with the belief that anything’s possible, can provide you with the opportunity to have, to do, and to be whatever you want.
The first step in this process is acknowledging that you can no longer afford to continue feeding yourself the same limiting messages you most likely have been conditioned to accept since early childhood. This is especially true of someone who was continually shamed by a highly critical parent. The belief that “I’m a bad boy (or girl),” and not deserving of love, doesn’t just disappear when you become an adult.
Scientists estimate that the average person has approximately fifty thousand thoughts each day; yet 95 percent of them are the same as the ones the person had the day before. Typically such thoughts are not only subconscious but often critical and limiting. For example: “I’m going to have to learn to live with this pain for the rest of my life.” “I’ll never get better.” “I’ll always be dependent on these narcotics to relieve the pain.” “There’s nothing more that can be done for me.”
When you’re hearing messages like these repeated many times during the course of a typical day, it’s easy to understand why for most people with chronic pain, fear, anger, hopelessness, sadness, and depression may become their predominant feelings. These painful emotions not only weaken your immune system but also contribute to increasing your physical pain. However, by consciously taking control of your thoughts and recognizing how they govern your behavior, you can dramatically change your life and heal your dis-ease. You will gain the freedom to think, feel, and believe as you choose, thereby flooding your body’s cells with positive, life-affirming messages capable of contributing to your optimal health.
Learning how to free yourself from such distorted and illogical thinking patterns, often rooted in the past, and to create a life filled with passion, purpose, and play, one that you love living, is the primary objective of the self-care approaches presented in the remainder of this chapter. You can begin practicing them immediately to heal your mind, your emotional body, and your relationships, along with your backache, migraines, or any other chronic pain condition.
We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.
—Buddha
Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
—Albert Einstein
To move from the vision to the material reality of living your dream requires some structure, a discipline to help you manifest your greatest desires, a willingness to take risks and to make mistakes.
The practice begins with creating new beliefs and establishing clear goals through the use of affirmations. Affirmations are positive statements repeated frequently, always in the present tense, containing only positive words, and serve as a response to an often-heard self-critical, limiting, or negative message, or as an expression of a need, desire, or goal.
For example, many of my chronic pain patients are very hard on themselves, and often hear their inner critic telling them “you should have ___” or “you could have ___ (done it differently)” or “you’ve made a major mistake.” They might also be repeating to themselves the limiting belief they’ve heard from physicians, “I’ll never get rid of this pain. I have to live with it.”
Affirmations that would help counteract these beliefs include the following: I love and approve of myself. I’m always doing the best I can. My (back, knee, GI tract, ___) is healthy, strong, and pain-free. Even though the affirmations may run counter to your rational analytical mind (some people comment, “I feel like I’m lying to myself”), these positive thoughts create images that directly affect the unconscious, shaping patterns of thought to direct behavior and strongly impact desired outcomes. They act as powerful tools to unleash and stimulate the healing energy of love present in great abundance within each of us.
Keep in mind that the dismal prognosis from a physician, which might be, or feel like, a death sentence, is merely a belief. It is based on the limitations of modern medical science, a highly scientific and technologically advanced approach to the treatment of disease, and delivered to the patient by a highly educated individual in a society that defers to perceived expertise.
These negative predictions are quickly accepted by most patients and become a part of their own belief system. The vast majority of people with terminal diseases who accept whatever their doctors tell them (these patients are called “compliant”) die very close to their predicted life expectancy. By contrast, patients who challenge their physician’s “death sentence” tend to survive much longer, and some of them go on to achieve full recoveries.
Most of the beliefs held by Americans have been defined by the standards, or norms, of our parents and society, but how well does the norm fit you today, as a unique adult? If all of us attempted to conform, the world would be a boring place, devoid of creativity and innovation. We certainly wouldn’t be enjoying the ease of living that technology has provided us were it not for the adventurous few who deviated from the conventional belief system.
An effective exercise for helping you become more conscious of your thoughts, beliefs, and emotions is to devote fifteen minutes writing out all that you are thinking during that time. Do this when you are not likely to be disturbed and don’t edit anything out. After a few days of practicing this technique, many of your predominant beliefs will have been expressed on paper. Read them over. If they don’t feel nurturing, build confidence and self-esteem, or regenerate and revitalize you, clearly they are not serving you and need to be either eliminated or changed.
Pay particular attention to the shoulds, coulds, and nevers. Before you discard what you write, examine your statements for possible clues to aspects of your life that may require more of your attention. For instance, if one of your statements reads, “I hate going to work,” more than likely you may need to change your attitude about your job, or leave it for one that is more fulfilling and better suited to your talents. If the thought of leaving your job raises the thought “How will I provide for myself and my family?” then realize that this in itself can be a limiting thought. Once you liberate yourself from your old assumptions and beliefs, numerous options will become available to you, whatever they may be.
After identifying beliefs that are holding you back from your goals and desires or are negatively impacting your health, the next step is to begin to reprogram your mind with affirmations and images more aligned with what you want.
Most of my patients have come to me with one or more chronic physical and emotional problems. Their objectives are clear: to stop living with chronic pain, to stop having sinus infections, to eliminate their dependence on opioids, antibiotics, steroids, sleeping pills, or other medications, to have more energy, to suffer less anxiety, to get more sleep, and so forth. Once they have begun to see a definite improvement in their physical condition, which is usually after they have changed their diet and have been taking supplements for at least six to eight weeks, I recommend that they create a “wish list” in the form of affirmations.
The following is an extremely effective exercise for relieving your pain, manifesting your goals, and transforming your life.
1. List your greatest talents and gifts. You have several. These are things that are most special about you, or that you can do better than most other people. Ask yourself, “What do I most appreciate about myself?”
2. Next, list the things you most enjoy—both activities and states of being (e.g., “I love the creativity I experience with computer programming.” “I really enjoy being in the mountains, or on a beach.”) There will be some overlap with your first list. Many of the activities you enjoy doing are the things you’re best at.
3. Next, list the things that have the most meaning for you. This is important, because if your goal doesn’t meaningfully encompass more than one area of your life, or have benefit to others in some way, more than likely it is incomplete, and you will lack the passion necessary to commit to it. As you list the meaningful things in your life, you will more easily recognize the talents and activities you enjoy that are most worth your while.
4. Now make a wish list of all your goals or objectives in every realm of your life—physical, environmental, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual. Physical goals can include relieving your pain or curing your chronic condition, engaging in or mastering a challenging physical activity (e.g., running a marathon, climbing a mountain, or anything you’ve ever considered doing). Environmental goals might mean living or working in a certain place. Mental goals could address career plans, financial objectives, and any limiting beliefs that you’d like to change. Emotional goals have to do with feelings and self-esteem (e.g., “I’d like to be able to identify, express, feel, or accept all of my emotions”). Social goals are about your relationships with other people (e.g., “I want more intimacy in my marriage.” “I’d like to have more close friends.” Or “I’d like to heal my relationship with _____ [a close friend or relative].”). Spiritual objectives have to do with your relationship with God or Spirit.
As you do this part of the exercise, ask yourself, “What does my ideal life look like?” “Where do I see myself three, five, or ten years from now?” “What is my purpose—what am I here to do?” Do not give yourself a time frame within which to attain any of these goals, and remember, it is not necessary to have a definite plan for attaining them.
5. Next, reword all of your goals into affirmations. For example, a goal might be “I’d like to be free of back pain.” Some simple affirmations might be: My back is now completely healed or My back feels a little better every day. Then reduce your list to approximately ten affirmations that address your most important goals and desires (those that you’d like to have happen by tomorrow), and the most limiting beliefs or critical messages that you’d like to change. If you suffer from back pain, you may have read in Chapter 7 that back pain is often triggered by a lack of support. Effective affirmations for backache might include: I am loved and supported. All of my needs are being met.
After reading the section “The Issues in Your Tissues” in the chapter(s) of Part II that relate to your specific problem(s), you should be able to create at least one affirmation associated with your particular chronic pain condition.
6. Recite your entire list of affirmations at least once a day, and whenever you hear a negative, limiting, or critical message, recite the affirmation corresponding to that message. Or you can record them and listen to them in your own voice (several patients listen while in bed, as they’re going to sleep). Perhaps the most effective method for deriving benefit from affirmations is to write, recite, then close your eyes and visualize them. Using this method, you would write your affirmation (have a notebook solely for this purpose) while reciting it aloud, and then close your eyes and imagine what the affirmation looks and/or feels like, engaging as many of your senses as possible. If you can’t picture them, it helps to feel your affirmations as you recite or write them, since this brings more energy to the experience. Make the process as vivid as possible.
I’ve seen several patients who have practiced this exercise daily and after sixty consecutive days reported that approximately half of their affirmations had become reality, including the resolution of severe headaches, curing of chronic sinusitis, and major improvement with several chronic pain conditions.
I worked with one woman from Tennessee via phone consultations for chronic fatigue, allergies, and sinusitis. An RN in her fifties, she taught in a nursing school in a small town and had never married, although she wanted to. She had resisted putting marriage on her goal list because, as she explained to me, “I know all the eligible men in town and in my church, and there aren’t any possible candidates.” I encouraged her to include it, and her affirmation read simply: I am happily married. Within a few months, she received a letter from a former professor with whom she’d had a friendship years earlier. His wife had died the year before, and he wanted to visit his former student. Within months they were engaged, and a year after beginning her affirmation the woman was happily married. Her tears of joy over the phone and her gratitude left me in tears as well. We both felt as if we had experienced a miracle.
The goal/affirmation or wish list is a dynamic process that you will continually be refining as you gain greater clarity about your needs and desires. Remember that cannabis, when used occasionally (preferably on the Sabbath) with this intention, can assist in both creating and fine-tuning your objectives and affirmations with greater specificity. It can help you to identify and trust your desires, including the possibility of freeing yourself from the restraints of disabling chronic pain.
The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it.
—Chinese proverb
An essential aspect for meeting the objective of becoming pain-free is to commit to doing whatever you possibly can to care for your body, since this is something over which you have direct control. Your next step is to begin thinking of your body as a holy temple, and of yourself as its caretaker. It is your most valuable possession. You are solely responsible for maintaining your body in as pristine a state as possible and for overseeing its operation at peak efficiency. Sounds like a big job, but it’s actually quite simple if you focus on a few basic healthy habits.
In Part II, you’ve already learned how to modify your diet to care for your specific condition, and for most people that’s the most challenging aspect of their new job. If you adhere closely to the recommended diet along with the supplements, you will most likely lose weight while also reducing pain and inflammation. Maintaining your ideal weight is important for optimal health.
I’m assuming that if you’ve begun implementing the MMJ and holistic medicine recommendations in Part II, you’re beginning to see some progress with pain relief. By adhering to this regimen you have taken the first and most critical step in loving your body. I’ve consistently found that when your body feels fit, strong, energetic, and pain-free, you also feel healthier mentally and emotionally.
Norm Shealy, MD, PhD, and founding president of the American Holistic Medical Association, is currently eighty-four years old. He has been an inspiration and a mentor to me for nearly thirty years. In Life Beyond 100, he affirms that science has made it possible for humans to live until they are 140 years of age, and with good quality! That is his expectation for himself and he continues to teach others the healthy habits that will help them achieve the same result.
Now that you’re on the road to recovery, you are ready for the next step in rejuvenating your body and preventing any recurrence of chronic pain. Dr. Shealy has identified four of the most basic health habits that are necessary for optimal physical well-being. For the past forty years, he has questioned his patients, students, and the public, and determined that 97 percent do not have all of the four habits (the comments within the parentheses below are Dr. Shealy’s):
• Body mass index (BMI) of 18 to 24. (Only one-third of people have this one.) To calculate yours, visit http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/BMI/bmicalc.htm.
• No smoking. (About 74 percent have this one.)
• Eat five servings of fruits and/or vegetables daily. (Only about 25 percent have this one.) One serving is equal to 2.8 ounces, but since most of us do not have a scale on our kitchen counter, I suggest you Google “one serving of fruits and vegetables.” You’ll be able to see what one serving looks like.
• Exercise a minimum of thirty minutes five days a week. (Only 10 percent of people!!)
Dr. Shealy goes on to say, “And these are only the tip of a Titanic of health requirements, such as adequate sleep (7 hours minimum), positive attitude, a good social network, a spiritual foundation for life, etc.” I agree, but for now let’s stay with his basic four and add adequate sleep as a fifth. Without good quality sleep it is unlikely you will be able to implement the other four. I believe it is the foundation of optimal health. If sleep has been a problem, refer to the “Insomnia” section in Chapter 15.
By complying with these five basic healthy habits, you are essentially loving your body. As I have repeated throughout the book, love is life’s most powerful healer, and if you commit to these habits, you are also more likely to enjoy loving relationships. This aspect of life surpasses in importance all of these five basic healthy habits.
The most recent study reinforcing the healing power of love was published in April 2017. One of the longest (seventy-five years) longitudinal studies ever conducted, Harvard’s Grant and Glueck study tracked the physical and emotional well-being of two populations: 456 poor men in Boston from 1939–2015 (the Grant study) and 268 male graduates from Harvard’s classes of 1939–1944 (the Glueck study).
Since before World War II, they’ve diligently analyzed blood samples, conducted brain scans (once they became available), and pored over self-reported surveys, as well as actual interactions with these men, to compile the findings.
The conclusion? According to Robert Waldinger, director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, “The clearest message that we get from this seventy-five-year study is this: Good relationships keep us happier and healthier. Period.”
• • •
Your heart’s greatest desires are your mind’s way of marking the life path that will lead you to your purpose, and to feeling more fully alive. Commit now to manifesting the life of your dreams!