All Is Well: Heal Your Body With Medicine, Affirmations, and Intuition (20 page)

activities throughout your week that force you to interact with

people. Perhaps you can even use some of this time to interact

with adolescents through a volunteer position. These kids are try-

ing to develop their interaction skills—just like you. You can learn

a lot from observing their successes and failures.

If you can learn how to identify your emotions and skillfully

express them in a healthy or constructive way, you will reduce

your tendency toward heart problems. Otherwise, your frustration,

anger, sadness—even love—will boil over and be transformed into

high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular disease.

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From the Clinic Files: Heart Disorders Case Study

Paul is a 47-year-old computer engineer who was very comfort-

able at home, with his family, and in his cubicle at work. But if

you asked him to step outside his comfort zone to attend a cock-

tail party or other social occasion, he would become anxious and

introverted. His natural talents steered him toward a life that re-

quired little human interaction; even when he was home with his

family, he spent most of his evenings at the computer.

Things were great until Paul’s children grew up and moved

out of the family home. At this point his partner began to reach

out for more emotional connection. But Paul was unable to re-

spond, becoming more apprehensive and withdrawn than usual.

Soon his blood pressure shot up, he began to have palpitations and

chest pain, and he was diagnosed with a blocked coronary artery

in his heart.

To help Paul create a long-term plan to heal his heart and

blood vessels, we helped him first realize what a healthy circula-

tory system looks like.

The heart is a muscle that sends oxygenated blood through all

the arteries to all the body’s tissues. If the arteries get clogged with

cholesterol and become stiff and hardened via a disease called arte-

riosclerosis, people develop hypertension, or high blood pressure.

Among the body’s vast network of arteries, we have coro-

nary arteries—the arteries of the heart itself. If these arteries get

clogged from high cholesterol levels and arteriosclerosis, the heart

can’t get enough oxygen, and this causes chest pain, or angina.

If the clogged coronary arteries become extensive, the muscle of

the heart dies in a process called a heart attack, or a myocardial

infarction.

Paul’s first problem was arteriosclerosis. But he also had coro-

nary artery disease. He had a single blocked coronary artery, and

the chest pain he was experiencing was angina. He was lucky in

that he had not had a heart attack. Paul elected to have an emer-

gent cardiac catheterization to remove the 90 percent blockage

from his coronary artery. However, he learned that if he didn’t

change his lifestyle, other coronary arteries would soon become

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clogged. Fortunately for Paul, many of the solutions to addressing

arteriosclerosis—lowering cholesterol levels and trying to relax

the stiffness in the artery walls—also treat coronary artery disease.

But what about Paul’s heart palpitations? Paul was diagnosed

as having ventricular tachycardia, a heart rhythm disorder. In-

side the right side of the heart is an intricate series of nerve fi-

bers, called the SA node and Purkinje fibers, that control the heart

rate and rhythm. If the coronary arteries nearby get clogged, the

normal heart rhythm is disrupted and becomes an arrhythmia,

like tachycardia or fibrillation. Here, the solution was not merely

opening arteries but fixing the damaged nervous system that cre-

ated an abnormal rhythm.

To bring about freedom from the heart palpitations, Paul had

to employ both lifestyle changes and medicine. Paul’s cardiolo-

gist gave him a strict short-term medication regimen including

sublingual nitroglycerin (only if he experienced chest pain), baby

aspirin, a prescription calcium channel blocker called verapamil,

a beta blocker, and Lipitor to lower his cholesterol. He was also

warned not to use impotency medication like Viagra, which can

cause fast or irregular heartbeats.

But this was only medication. He had to change his unhealthy

lifestyle habits if he expected to avoid illness and even coronary

artery bypass surgery. So the first thing we did was address his

anxiety. He worked with a counselor to create an aggressive cam-

paign that would help with his fears and help him step away from

his one coping mechanism—smoking. Paul used cigarettes to calm

his “nerves.” This program Paul and his counselor set up included

the short-term use of the medicine Klonopin and long-term use of

mindfulness exercises and cognitive behavioral therapy to reduce

his anxiety and blood pressure and help him quit smoking.

It was important for Paul to lose weight. As you already know,

fat and cholesterol problems go hand in hand. So we worked with

Paul to figure out an exercise routine that he could maintain. He

lost 20 pounds by riding a stationary bicycle for 20 to 30 minutes

per day.

He also went to see a nutritional therapist who put him on

a pharmaceutical-grade multivitamin and antioxidant, which in-

cluded folic acid, B6, B12, vitamin C, calcium, chromium, copper,

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zinc, selenium, and alpha-tocotrienol. It’s important to work with

a skilled professional when creating these supplement plans be-

cause they can alter recommendations depending on your unique

case—including which prescription drugs you are already taking.

For his blood pressure, Paul used stevia, Hawthorn, dandelion,

and lycopene after checking with his physician.

One very important supplement that was prescribed—in addi-

tion to those listed above—was coenzyme Q10. This supplement

was critical because Paul was taking the statin Lipitor. While statin

drugs may lower your risk of heart disease, they also lower your

body’s coenzyme Q10 levels. This substance, which is naturally

produced by the body, is essential for the basic functioning of all

cells. So it is critical to replenish it.

If Paul’s cardiologist decided that the adverse effects of Lipitor

were too great, he could transition Paul to a more natural path.

Red yeast rice is an alternative nutritional supplement that pro-

duces similar results to some of the major statins. In fact, Lov-

astatin—another popular prescription drug—is synthesized from

red yeast rice. Astaxanthin carotenoid, an antioxidant found in

microalgae, salmon, trout, and shrimp, also has statinlike effects

on cholesterol.

Paul also began taking DHA to help stabilize his artery mem-

branes as well as his mood. He took acetyl-L-carnitine to protect

both his heart and his brain. Last, Paul started Siberian ginseng to

improve his heart health and to aid in relieving depression. With

his physician’s permission, he also visited an acupuncturist and

a Chinese herbalist, who started him on some herbal remedies to

help with his cholesterol and blood pressure. These included herbs

such as Eucommiae, ramulus, scutellariae, and Prunella.

Paul also considered hyperbaric oxygen treatment since the

prolonged stress and hypertension injury to blood vessels may be

improved by this treatment, but in the end he decided against

it—simply because of the logistical problems of getting to a clinic

where it was offered.

While also addressing the physical ailments he faced, Paul

worked to change the behaviors and underlying beliefs that were

likely adding to his poor health. He worked with the affirmations

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for general heart health (My heart beats to the rhythm of love);

heart problems (Joy. Joy. Joy. I lovingly allow joy to flow through

my mind and body and experience); artery health (I am filled with

joy. It flows through me with every beat of my heart); and anxiety

(I love and approve of myself and I trust the process of life. I am

safe). He also worked to learn about emotion. He studied the lists

of feeling words, and he practiced—starting slowly—expressing

his needs to those closest to him. If he ever felt a sensation of

being overwhelmed by emotion, he was able to stop and look at

what was happening rather than just running away or exploding.

By changing his thoughts and actions, Paul was able to bring

about a healthy and happy future that included other people. He

learned to express his emotions and hear the emotions of those

around him.

Lung Disorders

People who have lung- or breathing-related issues such as

bronchitis, pneumonia, runny nose, coughing, asthma, or hay

fever have trouble engaging fully in life because they are trying to

breathe through a cloud of emotions. Their emotional porousness

and sensitivity are so great that they can downshift from the high-

est high to the lowest low in an instant, and their emotions are af-

fected by everything around them. Just the opposite of those who

have heart problems, folks with lung problems may be
too
im-

mersed in, too saturated with their emotions. This makes it hard

for them to function comfortably in society and in relationships

without getting overwhelmed.

So how do you get past the sniffles, coughs, and wheezes? First,

as with all acute physical problems, address your medical concerns

with a physician or nurse practitioner. But as always, remember

to pay attention to the subtle messages your body is sending you

about how healthy you are.

Breathing problems indicate that you must look at your ca-

pacity to handle your emotions in your daily interactions with

people you love and care about. If you are overly porous to other

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people’s emotions—anger, irritability, sadness—you will be prone

to asthma attacks, colds, flu, or other respiratory problems.

To complete the mind-body makeover for lung problems, we

must conquer the negative thought patterns that have dictated

our actions for too long. Louise’s affirmations for lung problems in

a broad sense address issues having to do with fears about engag-

ing with and living life to the fullest. A good affirmation to com-

bat colds and flu is “I am safe. I love my life.” Coughing expresses

a desire to bark at the world,
See me! Listen to me!
For the repetitive

barking of a cough, Louise recommends the healing affirmation

“I am noticed and appreciated in the most positive ways. I am

loved.”

Lung problems—such as pneumonia, emphysema, and COPD

(chronic obstructive pulmonary disease)—are about depression,

grief, and fear associated with not living life fully or not feeling

worthy of life, so to counteract this use the affirmation “I have

the capacity to take in the fullness of life. I lovingly live life to the

fullest.” Lung disease is all too common among those of us who

have intense emotions we don’t know how to handle. With em-

physema, not only is there fear of taking in life but these people

would rather not breathe at all. They should try saying aloud, “It is

my birthright to live fully and freely. I love life. I love and cherish

myself. Life loves me. I am safe.” Pneumonia has to do with feel-

ing desperate, tired of life, and having emotional wounds that are

not allowed to heal. To start over and begin to heal old wounds,

try repeating, “I freely take in Divine ideas that are filled with the

breath and the intelligence of Life. This is a new moment.”

Asthma is about an inability to breathe, feeling stifled or sup-

pressed. If you have asthma and are feeling stifled, try meditating

on the words “It is safe now for me to take charge of my own life.

I choose to be free.” For more affirmations Louise recommends,

look up your specific ailment in the table on page 183.

Your negative thoughts and behaviors will begin to shift as

you get more accustomed to this new way of thinking and be-

come more adept at using affirmations. This is a critical time, so

try to keep with it. It took years to develop your old habits, and it

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will take some time until you can break yourself of them. But we

promise you can.

People with lung problems need to learn to control their emo-

tions, to not be overwhelmed by them, and to not let the emotions

of others affect them so extremely. Though it may seem counter-

intuitive, one way to do this is to create a different relationship