The mind and the body are intimately linked via the immune, endocrine, and central nervous systems. Today, mind/body research is confirming what ancient healing traditions have always known: that the body and the mind are a unity. There is no disease that isn't mental and emotional as well as physical.

 
Energy Fields and Energy Systems

 
Humans are made out of energy and sustained by energy. Our bodies are ever-changing, dynamic fields of energy, not static physical structures. They are a hologram in which every part contains information about the whole. We know from quantum physics that at the subatomic level, matter and energy-which can also be called spirit-are interchangeable. The best expression of this that I have heard is that matter is the densest form of spirit and that spirit is the lightest form of matter. We can view our bodies as manifestations of spiritual energy. Our mind and daily thoughts are part of this energy, and they have a well-documented effect on matter and our bodies.

Psychological and emotional factors influence our physical health greatly because our emotions and thoughts are always accompanied by biochemical reactions in our body. The mind/body continuum can be adequately understood only when we appreciate ourselves as an ever-changing energy system that is affected by, and also affects, the energy surrounding it. We don't end at our skins.

Though we cannot see this energy that makes up the bodymind and sustains us, it is nevertheless a vital part of us. It is the life-force that keeps our hearts beating and our lungs breathing even when we are asleep. Anyone who has had the experience of being with a dying person will tell you that after the moment of death, something changes. Though the physical body is still present, the person they knew is no longer there.

Energy fields interact within an individual person. They also interact between one person and another, and between one person and the world in general. These interactions, whose existence is well documented, are important for lifelong human growth and healthy development. A study at the University of Miami on premature babies, for example, found that babies who were stroked regularly gained weight 49 percent faster than did those of the same weight who weren't stroked. (Both groups of babies were fed exactly the same amount of food.) The stroked babies were longer and had larger heads and had fewer neurological problems at eight months of age than did the controls.l Babies who are not touched and cuddled, even though they are fed and cared for physically, are at great risk of death from the elusive diagnosis "failure to thrive."²

Even accidents, which we think of as "random" events, have been shown in a number of studies to be related to the emotional and psychological states ( or energy fields) of the "victims." Several studies have indicated that accident-prone individuals have certain personality features that include impulsiveness, resentment, aggressiveness, unmet dependency needs, depression, sadness, loneliness, and unresolved grief. They tend to punish themselves when they feel anger toward others. So in the language of energy systems, it appears that the energy field of certain individuals interacts with the environmental energy field in a way that increases their incidence of accidents.

Clearly, human interactions have profound effects on health. These effects can be either positive or negative, depending upon the state of mind of the people involved in those interactions. When we begin to appreciate ourselves as fields of energy with the ability to affect the quality of our own experience, we will be getting in touch with our innate ability to heal ourselves and create health every day of our lives.

Our bodies are influenced and actually structured by our beliefs. We inherit many of these beliefs from our parents and the circum- stances of our upbringing. Scientific studies conducted by Dr. Leonard Sagan, a medical epidemiologist, underscore this and show that social class, education, life-skills, and cohesiveness of family and community are key factors in determining life expectancy. Of all these factors, however, education has been shown to be the most important. A review of all the major epidemiological data on health makes clear that the major determinants of health are not immunization, diet, water supply, or antibiotics. In fact, the dramatic decline in death rates from infectious disease earlier in this century began long before the routine use of penicillin and antibiotics. Hope, self-esteem, and education are the most important factors in creating health daily, no matter what our background or the state of our health in the past.³ Even illnesses are affected by our emotional state. Dr. Jeanne Achterberg has shown that the course of cancer can be better predicted by psychological variables such as hope than by medical measurements.⁴ We always have the power within to educate ourselves more fully about what will help us heal and create health.

One of my patients told me, "I had a flash of insight on the way to your office today. When I was little, the only way I could get my mother's attention was to be sick. So I've had a lot of broken bones, then cancer, and now an abnormal Pap smear. I just realized today that I don't have to get sick to get her attention anymore!" She added that at the moment she had that insight in her car, the sun broke through the clouds, reinforcing her insight with its brilliance.