All Is Well: Heal Your Body With Medicine, Affirmations, and Intuition (30 page)

worse no matter how much money and resources you pour into

the problem? Maybe you need to try a new tack. In our expe-

rience medicine is helpful but it is not the complete answer. If

you can combine medicine, affirmations, and intuition to guide

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behavioral changes you are much more likely to see shifts in your

health and in your life. There’s nothing like a health crisis to help

you take stock of your past, present, and future—and reevaluate

your priorities.

Louise believes that at the heart of the imbalance between the

personal and the spiritual is a fundamental refusal to change old

ways of thinking; an inability to let go of old hurts, resentments,

patterns, and beliefs; and a failure to believe in oneself. Chronic

disease in general is about refusing to change because of fear of

the future. To foster the ability to change in spite of your fears, use

the affirmation “I am willing to change and to grow. I now create

a safe, new future.” Looking at some of the degenerative diseases,

we see a similar pattern of fear. People with ALS are often extreme-

ly capable but deep down believe that they are just a sham. They

live with the terror that arises from thinking “If only people really

knew . . .” They have deep feelings of not being good enough, and

the closer they get to success, the harder they are on themselves.

Remind yourself that you are powerful and talented with the af-

firmation “I know I am worthwhile. It is safe for me to succeed.

Life loves me.” AIDS is associated with similar thought patterns of

being defenseless, hopeless, and alone. To combat these feelings,

you can use the affirmation “I am part of the Universal design.

I am important and I am loved by Life itself. I am powerful and

capable. I love and appreciate all of myself.” If you are told that

your illness is incurable, offer yourself hope by meditating on the

affirmation “Miracles happen every day. I go within to dissolve

the pattern that created this, and I now accept a Divine healing.

And so it is!”

Changing thought patterns is vital to achieving health in the

seventh emotional center. As you begin to shift your negative

thoughts and behaviors to healthier ones, it is also important to

look at your relationship to the mystical world and realize that

your life’s purpose is not something you decide and carry out

on your own. This life-altering condition can help you evaluate

what your life’s true purpose is, if you are open to it. Search for

guidance using more than just your own logic. Accept that there

is a higher power there to support you in your efforts and try to

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tap into the wisdom inherent in this. Your belief in something

greater than yourself will help you banish the fear and hopeless-

ness that come when you experience chaos in your life.

One tool that we recommend to people who are trying to cre-

ate a connection with the Divine is something called a Life Grant

Proposal. This is like the grant proposals researchers or nonprofit

organizations write to get funding. But this is one that you send to

the universe, God, or whatever higher power you believe in, out-

lining how much longer you want to live and what you intend to

do with whatever additional years you’re allowed to have.

To do this, take a piece of paper and write your name and

date at the top. Then, along the top of the page, write: life grant

proposal. Follow that with a time period in parentheses, such as

“for the interval 2013–2048,” using the current year and whatever

year reflects how much longer you want to live. Underneath this

heading, break up the proposal into five-year phases. So in the

above example, Phase 1 would be 2013–2017, Phase 2 would be

2018–2022, and so on.

Under each phase, write what you think your Divinely guided

life purpose would be during that period of time. Then itemize

what supplies you’d need to accomplish the plans you’re propos-

ing. Don’t write down goals that you’re already involved in, like

volunteering at the soup kitchen or enjoying nature. That’s for

a grant-renewal form—not a grant proposal. With this exercise,

you’re preparing a whole new purpose, not renewing the old ones.

Also, avoid vague purposes, such as “creating world peace” or

“loving my grandchildren.” Chances are you already love your

grandchildren, and creating world peace isn’t specific enough;

these phrases weaken your proposal and making it less likely to fly.

A better life purpose would sound something like this:

I used to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. In the first

phase of my new life I intend to decrease my workday to 8 hours,

6 days a week. I will spend the rest of my day engaging in loving

and leisurely activities with my grandchildren, including but

not limited to going camping at least once a year, coaching their

soccer team, and teaching them fishing and needlepoint.

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Got it? Be detailed, but not so much so that you don’t leave

room for a higher power to have some input. The process of writ-

ing a Life Grant Proposal is truly a profound exercise in reevaluat-

ing your life design, enabling you to set your Divine purpose into

motion, with humility and intention.

Many aspects of how a disease progresses are well out of your

control, but there is much you do control. Try not to let anxiety

overwhelm you. Be in touch with your friends and family to form

a supportive circle around you. Learn to listen to your instincts

and gut reactions, as these are Divinely guided signs leading you

toward your true purpose. Choose to believe in yourself but also

in something more.

From the Clinic Files: Degenerative Disorders Case Study

Yvette was 62 and in excellent physical shape when she first

came to us. Everyone in her family was an athlete. Yvette appreci-

ated the rituals and structure of sports and had become an avid

long-distance runner in her teens.

As an adult, Yvette kept up her running, even through her

pregnancy, and she was still running when we met. Throughout

her life she’d had occasional injuries to her knees and back but her

positive attitude and belief that she would get better helped her

through these times. For the most part, Yvette was content. She

had a large house, a handsome husband, plenty of money, and her

health.

Then things started to fall apart. One night Yvette was awak-

ened by strange tremors in her side. They continued for days. She

saw her doctor, then a neurologist, and then another neurologist.

There was no definitive answer, but the doctors thought it might

be ALS. Yvette was devastated.

The first thing we did was to explain that before “cementing”

her mind to the label of a diagnosis, she needed to remember what

her physician had said: she
might
have ALS, and there was “no de-

finitive answer.” We stressed to Yvette that it was good news that

her symptoms fell only in the “gray area”—the “prediagnostic”

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phase. This may not seem very comforting, because people often

want a definitive name for what they are suffering. But from our

point of view this was key, because without a firm diagnosis, it is

easier to reverse your symptoms and put them in remission. ALS is

a perfect example of that kind of disease.

ALS causes a progressive degeneration of the nerve cells in

the brain and spinal cord that control movement. An individual

can experience arm and leg weakness and, at later stages, diffi-

culty talking and swallowing. This disease used to be universally

thought of as fatal but this is no longer the case. It has been shown

that if a person with ALS is engaged in their life purpose, they will

have fewer physical symptoms and live longer.

Although she had resisted her neurologist’s earlier suggestions,

we recommended that she go back for more in-depth diagnostic

testing to find out if another illness was causing her tremors. Ev-

erything checked out okay. She didn’t have problems with her

neck, thyroid, or parathyroid, and she didn’t have any other odd-

ball disease that could account for her illness. Her MRI and EMG

were both normal. So Yvette focused on finding a way to put her

ALS into remission.

Yvette went to see an integrative or holistic neurologist, who

would follow her symptoms over time but also suggest a series

of nutritional supplements to help stop the degeneration in her

nervous system and promote its recovery through a process called

plasticity. The first treatment he suggested was a series of hyper-

baric oxygen treatments. This method has been shown to have

some effect in the neurodegeneration of multiple sclerosis, so phy-

sicians are beginning to use it to treat ALS as well. In addition, the

physician recommended a series of potent antioxidant treatments,

including glutathione and a pharmaceutical-grade multivitamin,

along with DHA.

The final physical treatment for Yvette was a combination of

tai chi and
qigong,
as these practices have been used for centuries

in China to counteract complex neurological disorders that are

especially common as people age.

Yvette also started working with affirmations to address the

ALS (I know I am worthwhile. It is safe for me to succeed. Life

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loves me); general brain health (I am the loving operator of my

mind); and tics and twitches (I am approved of by all Life. All is

well. I am safe).

Empowered by all of her treatments and the affirma-

tions, Yvette began to take a long, hard look at her life and what

she wanted to accomplish with it. It took the crisis of a possible

illness like ALS to force her to begin to listen to her intuition and

live with passion and purpose. And when her physician examined

her once a year, her illness had not progressed. From time to time

when she was stressed she would get an arm tremor, but there was

no escalation.

Life-Threatening Illness

What is it about someone’s life that would increase the chances

that disease would progress to threaten it? People who are prone

to life-threatening illness have often felt helpless about their lives

for a long, long time—even before they got sick. They believe that

all events in their lives are in the hands of fate. They feel powerless

to make their lives better, and they wait, wait, wait, hoping things

will somehow get better. But they don’t.

The treatment of life-threatening diseases is varied and unique

to each case; however, we can see a string of similar behaviors and

thought patterns that may contribute to the disease. After working

with your medical provider to figure out what treatments are right

for your situation, it’s important to incorporate intuitive thinking

and affirmations into your plan. Since life-threatening illnesses

stem from ill health associated with other emotional centers, you

must change the thoughts associated with both centers. So, for

example, with breast cancer, there is a tendency to mother and

nurture others but also a deep hurt and long-standing resentment.

To free yourself from these thoughts, you would work with the

affirmation for breast problems (I am important. I count. I now

care for and nourish myself with love and with joy. I allow oth-

ers the freedom to be who they are. We are all safe and free) and

the affirmation for cancer (I lovingly forgive and release all of the

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past. I choose to fill my world with joy. I love and approve of my-

self). This is just one example. You may want to refer to the table

on page 183 to find out the connection between the organ of the

body your cancer is in and the thoughts associated with that area.

To address the behaviors that may be contributing to rapid

progression of your disease, you have to take healthy control of

your life. You need to realize that though there is a Divine pres-

ence supporting your life, it is not in charge of everything. You

also have personal power. You can co-create your world.

With this knowledge you can work with the health issue using

the recommendations in the other chapters of this book. If you

have leukemia, work with the information in the blood section

of Chapter 4 to help you create safety and security in your family

and friendships. If you have breast cancer, turn to Chapter 7 and

learn how to care about yourself as much as you care about others.