This past Wednesday Dr. Joe and I held our latest Live Discussion. (Our next one is May 11th, save the date!) We covered several topics including how our thinking helps to determine what meaning we take from an experience.
For example, if you think that since you’ve been diagnosed with diabetes type 2 and that’s more than likely genetic, since your father had diabetes and your uncle and grandfather too, then you will be more likely to feel resigned to having diabetes type 2 and taking some medication to help you with this “inescapable” problem.
If on the other hand you are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and you subscribe to the thinking that it’s a lifestyle disease, then you will be more likely to find the motivation to change your lifestyle, including changing your dietary habits.
It really depends on what your thinking is … that will determine the course of the matter.
Dr. Joe and I tend to take it further back and we look at what energy state someone is in. Your energy state determines the quality of your thoughts.
But to continue about how your thoughts determine the meaning that you extract from life, this relationship can be seen at different levels: Levels such as habits, thinking patterns, what we attract into our lives, diseases and symptoms.
The relationship between our thoughts and meaning can also be seen in the relationships that we have with ourselves and others. For example, early on in our lives we can learn to hide our authenticity in order to meet our parents’ expectations of us. We can then end up feeling like we don’t fit in, anywhere. Then we’re more likely to go along to get along, or we’ll not set clear boundaries in order to be more pleasing to others. When we have this kind of experience of life, we may find that we attract people into our lives that remind us of our parents or we may come across situations that test our boundary-setting practices.
There is a specific distortion that happens in our spines when this is our version of reality. It occurs in the tailbone area. And if that distortion is there long enough, we can develop symptoms such as sciatica, piriformis syndrome, uneven legs, fallen arches, hip/knee/ankle pain that favours one side more, just to name a few.
When we find this distortion, not only do we focus on helping the body heal it, but we also focus on helping the person express their authenticity more. It takes so much energy to bury our authenticity and it can lead to grief, frustration and even rage.
We can learn to overcome the protective survival habits of the past, even when it feels like we won’t survive without them. Our lives and the world are better when we finally allow our authentic nature to express itself. As Marcus Aurelius said “The obstacle becomes the way.”