All Is Well: Heal Your Body With Medicine, Affirmations, and Intuition (7 page)

basis of this, you’ll see that a suppressed immune system often

comes from problems in your bone marrow, which is responsible

for producing new blood cells and is a key component of the lym-

phatic system, which supports the immune system.

What can science tell us about the connection between mind

and body health and the affirmation system?

Family—a sense of belonging—is fundamentally important

for health in our bodies.1 Social interaction plays a vital role in

everyday regulation of our body systems. If you isolate yourself,

you remove the metabolic regulators that are present when you in-

teract with a group, and your rhythms—your life, it seems—goes

kind of kaflooey, which affects the health of your first emotional

center.2

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Research has shown that there is a biology of belonging, an

actual biological nutrient passing between people who live together—

a nutrient that has physical and metabolic consequences.3 All

our body rhythms having to do with sleeping, eating, dreaming,

hormones, immunity, cortisol levels, heart rate, and endocrine

systems are governed by these metabolic regulators. And when

people are together in a communal situation, their biological

body rhythms become synchronized and regular. Being together

in close and constant fashion the way we are in a family—eat-

ing, sleeping, conversing, playing, working, praying—causes us

to synchronize our biological watches. In one study, for example,

the individual members of B-52 bomber crews were all found to

have similar levels of stress hormones while they were working

together.4

When you lose this nutrient of belonging, feelings of isolation

and lack of meaningful relationships give rise to a sense of hope-

lessness, helplessness, and despair. And these emotions can cause

problems with your physical health. Quite literally, your immune

system becomes inflamed when you are depressed. Prolonged de-

spair, loss, and bereavement that turn to chronic depression make

your immune system pump out inflammatory substances like cor-

tisol, IL1, IL6, and TNF-alpha. These can make your joints ache

with pain; make you feel tired, like you have the flu; and increase

your risk for a host of bone, joint, blood, and immune system dis-

orders, including osteoporosis.5

Another instance of health being affected by losing the feeling

of belonging was shown in people who were separated from their

parents too early or grew up with mothers who were depressed or

unavailable. These folks had a tendency toward depression and

immune system dysfunction. Because of this early and painful

separation, they were unable to negotiate their sense of loneliness

in the world.6 They often unwittingly found themselves in situa-

tions that re-created—emotionally, nutritionally, and biologically—

their initial feeling of abandonment. They lived sparse, frugal, and

solitary lives that led to a sense of deprivation. The hopelessness

they experienced throughout life ultimately rendered them more

vulnerable to cancer.7

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A lack of security can also come after a huge shock: the loss

of a beloved family member, an abrupt and painful move, or any-

thing else that leaves you feeling disoriented—like a plant that’s

been pulled up by its roots, or like being traumatically pulled from

your home and sent to a foreign land. And science shows us that

during these moments we can also lose our biological “roots”—

our hair. When there is chaos between family members, there is

an increased risk of hair loss (alopecia), not to mention psoriasis

and other skin problems.8

So as you can see, having solid external relationships is essen-

tial to our health. Science backs this up by showing that “social

integration”—wide social networks and social support—creates

stronger immune systems. In fact, studies show that more and bet-

ter relationships mean more and better white blood cells, which

help us resist infections and protect us from a wide variety of

health perils, including arthritis, depression, and the worsening of

symptoms of conditions like tuberculosis. Social interaction also

decreases the amount of medication people need and accelerates

their recovery from illness.9

Other studies show that those who had three or fewer rela-

tionships caught more colds and were more susceptible to viruses

than those with more relationships. Those who had six or more

relationships got the least, and when they did develop colds, they

had the mildest symptoms.10

This isn’t what you’d expect, is it? You’d think that having

more friends would expose you to more germs and therefore cause

more colds. But germ theory obviously doesn’t have the full an-

swer to why we get colds and infections. The reason people with

fewer friends are more susceptible may be because they experi-

ence stress from being alone and unsupported most of the time.

That stress causes the adrenal glands to release norepinephrine

and suppress the immune system. In fact, it’s been shown that

people who have few friends are at greater risk for health problems

than smokers or the obese. They also have higher levels of corti-

costeroids, immunosuppressants that make them more susceptible

to chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, HIV,

frequent colds and infections, and osteoporosis.11

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Depressive thought patterns are also potent. Depression’s ca-

pacity to increase one’s risk of osteoporosis is equal to the risk of

having low calcium intake or smoking.12 So next time you see yet

another TV commercial or magazine advertisement for calcium

supplements to prevent bone loss, your thoughts should also go to

lifestyle changes and affirmations to support your health.

If you are unlovable to other people—you are frightened so-

cially or have grief that causes you to seclude yourself—you must

aggressively try to change the thought patterns that keep you en-

trenched in self-imposed exile, or soon your bones, joints, blood,

skin, and immune system will let you know that your solitude is

unhealthy. But enough of all this scientific, medical stuff. What

do we actually do to heal ourselves?

Bone and Joint Problems

People who tend to have bone and joint problems like arthri-

tis, fractures, osteoporosis, back pain, joint pain, or slipped disks

likely feel overwhelmed by the responsibilities of caring for family

and friends, always putting the needs of everyone else before their

own. They have become so obsessed with caring for others that

they don’t have the ability to stand up for themselves. If you are

one of the millions of people who have bone and joint problems,

listen up. It is critical that you identify what it is about your inter-

action with family and friends that is making you feel unsafe or

insecure. You must address these behavioral patterns and beliefs if

you are going to fully heal.

For individuals with illness in the first emotional center, there

is hope. Using medicine and affirmations to address the intuitive

signs your body is giving you, you can create a strong, healthy

body. While your doctor can give you specific instructions for

how to address your medical concern, no prescription for long-

term health is complete without changing the negative thought

patterns that have paved the way for illness. A good general af-

firmation for bone and joint problems is: “I lovingly release the

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past. They are free and I am free. I am my own authority. I love

and approve of myself. Life is good. All is well in my heart now.”

While the overall theme of the affirmations addressing health

in the first emotional center is about creating a feeling of safety

among your family and other social groups, your affirmation var-

ies depending upon the specific body location of your bone or

joint problem (see the table on page 183). For example, if your

entire back gives you problems, you have general issues with sup-

port. However, if you feel pain in only one part of your back, your

affirmation becomes more specific. If you suffer from chronic

lower-back pain, you probably have financial fears, while upper-

back pain relates to feeling very alone, without having enough

emotional support.

Louise also looks at the illnesses that can occur
between
bones

and joints, and these, too, are addressed with different affirma-

tions. Arthritis is about experiencing criticism in unsupportive

families. So for arthritis sufferers in difficult families, the affirma-

tion would be: “I am love. I now choose to love and approve of

myself. I see others with love.”

And as you are changing your thinking to a healthier mind-

set, turn your attention outward and look at the balance between

your needs and the needs of your family or other social group. Are

you letting these people take advantage of you? Are you not stand-

ing up for yourself? Do you seem to give more to your friends and

family than you receive? Remember, to feel safe and secure you

need to learn how to protect and support yourself in addition to

adding to the safety and security of these other people. Always

remember that you are not the sole resource for everyone—they

can look to others for help and advice, too. If you have a prob-

lem stepping aside every once in a while, there are groups you

can join. Look into Co-Dependents Anonymous (CoDA) or other

groups that can help you learn to balance your own needs with

the needs of others.

So remember, love your family, but love yourself, too. Worry

and care about your friends, but spend some time looking at your

own life and make positive changes. Think of yourself in the same

way you would a good friend, and don’t neglect that relationship.

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We all have times when we lose sight of our own needs. The key is

to recognize and rectify this behavior before more serious health

problems occur.

From the Clinic Files: Immune System Case Study

Starting at age eight, Andrea, now 17, was caretaker to her five

younger brothers and sisters. Her parents were unavailable to the

children, so Andrea took responsibility for creating a more stable

home environment. But her siblings’ comfort came at a great per-

sonal cost to Andrea. She sacrificed her own needs and even her

safety time and time again, and she never had the chance to enjoy

a carefree childhood or cultivate an independent identity.

Too young to handle the role of surrogate mom, Andrea devel-

oped a series of health problems from an early age—she had a mild

curvature of her spine, which was treated with a brace. She tended

to get joint and back pain when family stress became unbearable.

After her parents died, her spine and joint pain was agonizing

and she developed a butterfly rash. This combination sent her to

the doctor, who eventually diagnosed her with lupus, or systemic

lupus erythematosus (SLE). She had been getting warning signs

for years in the form of bone and joint problems but disregarded

them because she was handling the turbulent lives of her siblings.

The first thing we did for Andrea was recommend a specific

test to verify that she actually had lupus. She went to her internal

medicine doctor, who administered a test to find out if the anti-

body ANA DS (antinuclear antibody double strand) was present.

With lupus the body makes these cells that can “attack” almost

every organ of the body—whether it’s in its mildest form (fever,

bone, joint, skin, or thyroid illness) or its more severe cases (lung,

kidney, and brain ailments).

The test came back positive, so we knew that lupus was indeed

the cause of her pain. If this and other blood tests had repeatedly

come back negative, lupus wouldn’t be the issue. In addition to

the ANA DS test, her physician tested blood cell counts, checking

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the total number of white and red blood cells and platelets; lupus

tends to lower these numbers.

Like most “autoimmune illnesses,” lupus goes through ups

and downs—there are periods of painful joint, skin, respiratory,

fatigue, and other symptoms, and then there are symptom-free

intervals of remission. We directed Andrea’s treatment toward get-

ting her immune system into remission, which involved getting

control of the cells that were making the tissue-attacking antibod-