The Body Doesn't Lie (18 page)

Make three copies of the blank chart shown in table 5 (or print them out at elixirliving.com), one for each of three days of data collection, and paste them in your program notebook or put them in your three-ring binder. Keep them with you at all times so that you can track your activities.

You may already have guessed that you’re going to do a lot of affirmations and meditations on the Positive Feedback plan. Often my new patients roll their eyes and give me a “Do I have to?” whine about these, as if they were just a silly waste of time. But believe me,
these are not optional.
They
work.
They help you reprogram your brain, one affirmation and prayer and meditation at a time. My most successful patients, the Grammy-Oscar-Tony winners, the heads of state and multinational corporations, the amazingly creative and talented artists—they all meditate at least once, twice, or even three times a day. These busy folks force themselves to find those few minutes because those brief pauses pay back such enormous benefits in clarity, focus, productivity, and peace.

Meditation is a miracle that makes it possible for you to control your body and your health with your mind. The research is overwhelming: Meditation decreases stress hormones, insomnia, recurrence of depression, anxiety and panic, blood pressure, and many other debilitating diseases and conditions.
¹²
At the same time, it also increases focus, concentration, memory, contentment, immunity, blood sugar control—even the very
size
of your brain—and more.
¹³
When meditation is sustained long enough, it can turn back the clock on your genes, preserving the length of telomeres, the caps at the end of your chromosomes that protect them from fraying, and in so doing, guard against aging and disease.
¹⁴
One study found that just twelve minutes a day of meditation for eight weeks increased anti-aging telomerase activity by 46 percent.
¹⁵
Researchers are not entirely sure how meditation is responsible for all these physical benefits, but they suspect it has something to do with reducing activity in the sympathetic nervous system and increasing activity in the parasympathetic nervous system.
¹⁶
All these benefits from sitting quietly for fewer than fifteen minutes a day. Amazing!

Perhaps the biggest effect I’ve seen is what meditation can do to relieve pain. Meditation is about finding your own power and believing in yourself. Many women are able to deliver their children by tapping into this amazing innate power. One Wake Forest University study found that meditation can have a stronger effect on pain than
morphine!
Most pain-relieving drugs reduce pain by about 25 percent. This study found that meditation reduced pain intensity by 40 percent and pain unpleasantness by 57 percent after just one hour of meditation training.
¹⁷
The subjects did a form of mindfulness meditation: Whatever sensation or thought came to them while meditating, they would consider it, label it (“worry,” “hunger”), and then release it. The study researchers learned that the meditation caused multiple reactions throughout the brain. For example, they found (via brain scans) that it triggered the orbitofrontal cortex, a part of the brain involved in reframing pain perceptions, and thus reduced the unpleasantness of pain. Meditation also quieted the activity of the hypothalamus, basically heading off any messages to the amygdala and putting a cool-off period between the sensory input and executive brain function.

Meditation is like a highly potent antistress serum—it increases the activity of the laid-back parasympathetic nervous system while it simultaneously cools down the hot-headed sympathetic nervous system. As a result, your entire body—not just your emotions—can calm down after stress more quickly and efficiently, cooling off your inflammation and reducing the wear and tear on your tissues. Thus meditation is a very effective tool for you in the Positive Feedback program, and one that you should use all day long. I want you to come away from this book knowing that meditation can change your brain and alter how your body reacts to stress. It’s a greater, more powerful instrument of health than almost any medicine on earth.

While some purist meditators might find this sacrilegious, I like to pair the calm, open space of meditation with powerful affirmations—positive statements constructed in a way that can break through mental blocks and change long-standing negative thought patterns. I find that our brains are at their most receptive at moments of quiet, meditative stillness. For that reason, “installing” powerful affirmative ways of thinking is much more effective when we’re at peace and our negative thoughts have been cleared away.

As I mentioned earlier, you can adopt any of the meditations and affirmations included in this book. In addition, though, you’ll want to create your own, targeting your personal needs and goals. The more personally meaningful to you, the more positive and potent the effects.

Meditation is really just a simple breathing exercise. You can sit in any quiet space—in the bathtub, in your car, in your office—close your eyes, breathe deeply in and out of your nose, and say something like the following to yourself:

This is
me
time. I am reconnecting with my cells, relaxing my muscles, and helping my nerves feel less tension. I am reflecting on where I am; I am helping my brain calm down from worry. I am talking to myself, my brain: I am safe. I am strong. I am calm. I am at peace.

When you’re creating a meditation or positive affirmation, the key is to get right to the heart of what’s holding you back. Let’s consider an example:

Cristina was having trouble growing beyond her preconceived notions of her own ability. Through her work with her Body Timeline, she realized that she was stuck in fear and unable to grow because of a deeply ingrained faulty self-image. She had been raised to be a wife, but not to have her own life, her own passion. Now she was lost in her own unfulfilled dreams. This meditation is an example of the kind that helped her find her confidence:

I grow beyond where I am today. I exceed beyond my parents and teachers. I live for myself. I dream. I visualize. I ask for the right man or husband. I release the past. I believe in myself, and my dreams come true.

I truly believe that if you don’t believe in yourself with passion and discipline, nobody can help you. That’s why building yourself up with the Morning Glory ritual and crafting very specific meditations is so important. If you really believe in yourself, what you wish for
will come true for you.
Even if it’s a tough journey, you have to stay in the positive and things will unfold for the best.

When I meditate in the morning, as part of the Morning Glory routine, it’s about clearing my mind and starting my day positively:

Okay, this is a good start to the day. I feel positive. This day is a new beginning. I attract the positive; good things can and will happen to me.

Sometimes—and it happens to all us—we start the day with negative thoughts. Whether it’s some
thing
or some
one
, we’re worried and upset before we even get out of bed. Instead of allowing a cloud to hang over our head, we can turn to a positive meditation:

Okay, I have something negative in my mind. I am feeling [state concern]. I have control over this feeling, and I can free myself. This negativity does not have the power to ruin my day. I am in control, and I will work on it. Things are going to be okay. I am focusing on all the positives and finding the calm to attract positive things.

My morning meditation sets the tone for my day and helps me prepare for any negative things I can anticipate. It’s like a morning vaccine: I’m building up positive antibodies to fend off the day’s incoming negative viruses.

My afternoon meditation is done during stolen time. I try to find ten to fifteen minutes of quiet
me
time in between patients and running to pick up my boys from school. I see it as a simple breathing exercise, and I think to myself:

I close my eyes; I reconnect with my cells. I relax my muscles and help my nerves feel less tension. I reflect on where I am, helping my brain calm down from worry and tension. I talk directly to my brain. I am safe; I am strong; I am not sick. I grow beyond and I exceed my parents and my teachers. I live for myself. I release the past. I believe in myself and my dreams are coming true.

My afternoon meditation is more of a visualization of what I’d like to have happen:

I am strong. I close my eyes and connect with my power. I am clear and my brain is creative: I finish my project and feel confident and happy with the result. I am productive and happy and proud of my work.

The evening meditation/affirmation is all about reflecting on the day. What went well? What am I grateful for? What would I have preferred not to have happened? Evening meditation is about getting rid of all the bad and recognizing the good:

My husband and I had a squabble today, but we are done with that. I forgive him and he forgives me. We are rid of that argument. Please help me release from pain—physical, emotional, conscious, unconscious. I forgive all the people who have hurt me.

Evening meditation is also about loosening your grip and realizing you don’t have control over other people:

Please let me or help me forgive people who have hurt me. I want to send them love so that we can both be free. I release the need to control [partner’s name]. I celebrate his uniqueness and our love and respect for each other. I do not try to change him.

In reflective meditation, it’s important that you acknowledge your grudges, your anger, and your pain.

I ask for forgiveness from myself, from all people, all ego, all anger, all children, for all the universe and its ancestors. All people forgive each other. God [or the universe or nothing], I am full of gratitude. God, give me all the love, peace, and joy. Thank you, God. Thank you, body.

At the end of each day, remember to use your positive sleep strategy and commit to those seven to eight hours of quality sleep every night. Restorative sleep will help build up your system so that you’re less emotionally reactive and more able to calmly assess your feelings and not carry them around with you. The less reactive you are to immediate annoyances, the more energy you have to delve deeply into your issues during week 1 and get ready for the intense work of week 2.

Now that you’re at the end of your Reflect week, you’re probably chomping at the bit to jump into the Release stage. Having spent the better part of this week really facing your pain, you may be incredibly motivated to make huge changes. If that sounds like you, fantastic. But before you leap ahead, I want to check in and make sure that you’ve completed some of the critical pieces of the Reflect stage, because they give you the raw material to work with in the Release and Radiate stages.

Have you committed to getting seven to eight hours of sleep every night, and have you woken up with the Morning Glory ritual at least three days this week? Do you feel like those habits are becoming fairly solid and a part of your everyday routine?

Have you completed your Body Map, Body Family Tree, and Body Timeline? Have you begun to notice some patterns and connections there?

Have you practiced mindful eating at least twice (or even three times)? Did you have an “ah-hah!” moment when you savored your food fully for the first time in months?

Have you filled out the Food Diary and Time Audit for at least three days? Were you honest with yourself? Did you include all the junk food and time-wasters that might embarrass you? (If not, please do the work again before moving on. Facing the pain of reality, especially when it comes to wasted time, is a critical part of your breakdown-to-breakthrough transition.)

If you’ve answered yes to most of these questions, I’m thrilled. That means you’re ready to let all your pain and negativity go. Let’s turn to the Release stage and put your newfound information and resolve to work.

5

Week 2: Release

Anything I cannot transform into something marvelous, I let go.

—Anaïs Nin

M
ost people come to my office looking for release. Put another way, release is the primary purpose for most of the visits in my practice. People want to get rid of the bad junk in their bodies and their lives.

Most often, they want to lie down on my table and get up again half an hour later refreshed and renewed. They want
my work
to enable them to skip out of my office, leaving behind all their negative energy. I do my best to help them feel better right away, because I know that pain can blind a person to forward progress. But the most successful patients know that the true work is really
up to them.
I can provide momentary release with a treatment, but that effect will last only one or two days.

As is the case with those patients, only
you
can do the work to create a full release that will change your life. By following the Release protocol outlined in this chapter, you’ll systematically begin to let go of all that doesn’t serve you: the inflammation-causing foods in your diet, the toxins in your muscles and skin, the waste buildup in your lymphatic and glymphatic systems, the habits that get in the way of your life, and the pain that’s been hampering your every move. In addition, and this is vital, you will get rid of the negative energy that’s pulling you and your choices in a downward spiral. By releasing the negative in this chapter, you will regain your power and step back into your body—as my patient Kerry did.

Kerry was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen. At forty-five, she had endearing smile lines around her big brown eyes. When she did smile, her entire face lit up from her brilliant white teeth.

When she came in to see me, though, she wasn’t smiling. She had been contending with fatigue and general aches and pains, and she was hoping for some kind of cure. A disciplined woman, she went to the gym every day and did yoga and stretching religiously. But her pains remained, and she said they were starting to interfere with her marriage. She said she and her husband hadn’t made love in months. I sent her home with my program and asked her to come back the following week.