Mind/Body Medicine

by Catherine A Rolt  LIC AC

I have worked in medicine about Mind/Body/Spirit (eg: our ‘Life Force’) for over 40 years, which has been a deeply humbling and extraordinarily enlightening experience. Enlightening, as I had little experience of how extraordinary we can become, particularly when we or our loved ones are up against an unpleasant diagnosis or prognosis.

It took years of watching and witnessing courage, tenacity and blossoming wisdom in each patient to begin to see that the ‘Bridge’ between our mind and our bodies is one of the most important of all inner relationships. We impact our vitality, our chemistry and our relationships with others, as well as all our own behaviour, by beginning to understand this relationship more consciously. However, our educational system teaches us to learn (and therefore to live) through our minds, often to the sad detriment of our bodies and hearts.

I will use a simple and dramatic metaphorical example.

When a person came to my clinic for instance, after having had a metaphorical gun held to their heads, being told they had a year or less to live, they were appropriately enough ‘on their knees’ with heartbreak and shock. Shock, in Chinese Medicine, is associated with the heart, and so often this shock itself would have metaphorically and sometimes literally created a sense of reeling, devastation, and heartbreak.

As an important aside, there is now a condition in Western medicine called ‘Broken Heart Syndrome’. What happens in our minds is a result of the orchestration of the functions in our bodies and in our hearts. The integrated functioning of so much brilliant orchestration percolates into how we think, feel and behave.

The ‘Bridge’, which is what I call the Life Force between our minds (representing the male side of us) and our hearts and minds (representing the female side) is being called to an urgent MOT, when we get such a diagnosis!

Whatever our belief systems may be, it is interesting to consider with an open mind and heart the deeper meaning in: ‘Thou shalt honour and respect your mother and father’, one of the ten biblical commandments. This simply means, in a metaphysical phrase: ‘Bridge and align your mind/male/father with your heart/body/female/mother’.

In clinical practice I think it is important to support a patient with engaging with ideas about what they can do for themselves, rather than relying on medicine doing it for (or to) them. The quickest way to support anyone with any type of diagnosis is to engage that person with what I call the ‘Bridge’. Then, they can begin to have some fun with getting to know themselves better. Self-knowledge, in illness, is a massive ‘Yes to Life’, so a health crisis gives us an opportunity to turn this into increased self-awareness and knowledge. I actually looked up the word ‘knowledge’ in a dictionary, and below give two meanings, both of which stress the ideas of ‘experience’ and ‘practical understanding’:

1) facts, information, and skills acquired through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject

2) awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation

Saying a passionate and engaged ‘Yes to Life’, it is necessary sooner or later to become aware of how we really operate in our minds and our bodies, as well as  becoming aware of the need to engage the two.
Ask yourself ‘what is their congruency’?

It takes practice and humility to begin to have the ‘Bridge’ fully occupied, with constant awareness of the footfall between both!

Catherine A Rolt  LIC AC

Grief Recovery Specialist

Integrated Chinese Medical Consultant & Author of #1 International Bestsellers:-

The SlipStream to the Miraculous,The Power of Daily Prayer to Unravel Universal Truths

 The Pain Paradox: How Pain Can Lead to Inner Peace and Lightness of Being.

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