Our Thoughts and Their Power

“Be vigilant; guard your mind against negative thoughts.” ~Buddha (563-483 B.C.)

In our book, Whispers From the Soul: The Divine Dance of Consciousness, my husband, Don Pendleton and I wrote a chapter about the body, mind, soul connection and the scientific research being done in that area. We called the chapter The Journey Inward. We wrote about the use of meditation for healing, as shown and suggested by professionals such as Dr. Elisabeth Kubler Ross, Dr. O. Carl Simonton, Dr. Bernie Seigel, and others. We wrote about addictions and disorders and how body memory can be the root cause. (And even soul memories of past lives). We wrote how the body was an information highway and within our bodies is a vast communications network.

It has long been understood that the brain communicates with the body but recent medical research is now showing that messenger molecules, the route through which intelligence moves through the body, are intimately linked to every cell and that a never ending stream of information in both directions is moving between the mind and body. The vehicles of this intercellular communications system are ordinary chemical elements such as peptides, endorphines and neuropeptides and their receptors and they are found not only in the brain but also in the immune system, the endocrine system and throughout the body. The communication is accomplished by the bonding of the peptide to the receptors which are dynamically attached to the surface of every cell in the body. The entire body is operated by these messenger molecules. Moreover, Professor of Neurobiology David Felten, M.D., PhD, of the University of Rochester School of Medicine and his wife, Suzanne Felton, PhD, are credited with discovering that nerve fibers permeate the immune system and are in direct contact with the immune cell receptors, allowing for cross-talk between the nervous system and the immune system. The understanding that the immune system directly communicates with the mind has startling implications when we are also told that even emotions and feelings are firmly linked into this same communications highway.

Neuroscientist Candace Pert, PhD, at Rutgers has reached that same understanding: certain neuropeptides and their receptors produce the physical manifestation of emotions.

In other words, emotions must be regarded as both physical and mental when we understand that there is intelligence, or mind, in every cell of the body. Emotions affect physiology and vice-versa, and this is the route through which mood-altering drugs have their effect and conversely how emotional states can greatly effect the physiology of the body. Dr. Pert explains, "We can measure the chemical reaction that gives rise to an emotion, but we can't look under a microscope and say, 'That's grief.' We can say that a particular peptide, for example, can create euphoria not only in humans, but also in rats and simpler animals. In other words, we can measure behavior...the receptor is the interface where behavior meets biochemistry."

Those comments were made in an interview with Bill Moyers for his Healing And The Mind, in which Dr. Pert went on to describe the mind as "some kind of enlivening energy in the information realm throughout the brain and body that enables the cells to talk to each other, and the outside to talk to the whole organism."

Practical applications of this body wisdom is being done with kinesiology, the science of human muscle movements. A skilled kinesiologist uses muscle testing techniques which can isolate particular muscles, organs or nerves for the treatment of various physical aliments. This is often related intimately to acupuncture meridians and the lymphatic system. If a specific muscle is weak or out of balance, it has been shown that the particular organ systems which share the lymphatic and meridian pathways with that muscle can be impacted. By restoring the proper flow of vital energies to the effected system, the organ that is sharing that system will receive relief as the proper balance returns.

About twenty-five years ago we watched a demonstration of the power of thought in a video by Chiropractor Dr. John Thie, who developed Touch For Health® which uses kinesiology and is now performed by many health professionals.

Applied kinesiology can show how emotions are quickly translated into bodily functions. A simple experiment, easily performed at home, can demonstrate the dramatic consequences of negative and positive thoughts on the body. Have a friend assist you in this experiment. With both parties standing, place your left hand with palm open on the center of your forehead while your right arm is stiffly outstretched at a 45% angle (straight ahead) at shoulder level, or out to the side, palm down. In this attitude, think about something happy and beautiful. While holding that memory, your partner will attempt to lower your outstretched arm toward the floor by pushing down on the forearm area while you attempt to resist that downward movement. If you are working with a happy thought, the arm should be able to strongly resist the effort to lower it. Try again, but this time think of something sad or very unpleasant. Now when your partner attempts to lower your raised arm, you will be amazed to discover that you have no resistance whatever to that pressure –your arm simply falls toward the floor. This is a dramatic demonstration of the relationship between body and mind. Our emotions do effect bodily states–this is where thoughts meet biochemistry.

This also is the place where meditation and visualization impact the wellness of the body through a conscious dialogue.

The journey within is the most significant and empowering involvement of our existence. Each thought, emotion, image, memory and deed effects the totality of our being, moment by moment. Within us lies the intelligence of not only mind but body and soul and we have the power to consciously influence every facet of that trinity. We need only the wisdom to recognize it and the will to exercise it.

The most meaningful and powerful medicine we can receive is to allow our inner intelligence to speak to us–and to listen to those whispers from our soul.

~Linda