Archive for the ‘Healing’ Category
Recently, thousands of people attended the Mind Body Spirit Festival in Brisbane. I made my way there through the gloomy weather on Sunday, to find a really ‘happening’ event, a lot like the Health Harmony and Soul Expo held on the Gold Coast earlier in the year.
There were a surprising number of Millennials and Gen Ys amongst the Baby Boomers and Gen Xs in attendance, as ready to explore the ideas of philosophy and religion, as they were to try out the organic tea or get their ‘reading’.
I got the impression that there was general agreement between those on stands and within their vibrant audience that health is about very much more than treating a body.
Quite a few I spoke to had pondered the mental nature of health, had heard about the medical research into the effects of spiritual and religious sentiments such as forgiveness and gratitude.
Dozens were eager to add their contribution to the ‘gratitude tree’ by writing down what they were grateful for … and pinning it on the murraya bush in the Christian Science Reading Room stand.
Don’t get me wrong. The majority of these people harboured a healthy scepticism of anything nonsensical or obviously geared to a purely money-making concern.
The astounding thing is that these were your average Aussie ‘blokes’ and ‘sheilas’. Just like the lady I met today. While her job was in real estate, she confided when I mentioned that I was a health blogger, that she’d investigated kinesiology and other alternative therapies and knew how important her thoughts were to her wellbeing.
It’s not surprising to learn that two-thirds of Australians use complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), and many of these recognise the interconnectedness of our thoughts with our health.
Suddenly results from thought-based treatments such as placebos, epigenetics, psychotherapy and meditation are big news.
A medico who turned from Western medical treatments when they failed to help her, took matters into her own hands. Through her research, Dr Lissa Rankin discovered that traditional health care was missing a couple of crucial insights:
taking responsibility for your own wellbeing is essential; and that we need to care for the whole package – our mind, heart and soul.
Rankin’s book, Mind Over Medicine, advances understanding of the great conundrum of the past 150 years – how our mind, bodies and spirit interconnect.
She found that thoughts, feelings and beliefs can alter the body’s physiology, discerned that loneliness, pessimism, depression, fear and anxiety damage the body, while intimate relationships, gratitude, meditation and creativity turn on the body’s self-healing processes.
Theologian, author, and founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy wrote and taught about the mental nature of disease way back in the 19th century.
She proved that a Mind-based (or God-based) view of health and life leads to cures in both mind and body.
Eddy described some of the states of thought that might generate disease in her book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, which endorses what many people like Rankin recognise as harmful to health today.
She wrote, “Hatred, envy, dishonesty, fear, and so forth, make a man sick, and neither material medicine nor Mind can help him permanently, even in body, unless it makes him better mentally, and so delivers him from his destroyers.”
For me, it’s imperative to recognise my spiritual identity, which Jesus exemplified and explained so well, and can be nurtured and discovered through daily prayer and meditation. I find that this also keeps the body healthy, as well as repairing and healing.
It looks like many are now ‘on the same page’, sharing the profound knowledge that happiness and health are dependent on a healthy mind, body and spirit.
This article by Kay Stroud, a health blogger who is interested in the mind-body connection, was originally published on her blog, Spotlight on Spirituality and Health. It was also published on these media websites: Toowoomba Chronicle, Wanganui Chronicle, The Aucklander, Grafton Daily Examiner, Coffs Coast Advocate, Bay of Plenty Times.
It’s Never Too Late to Find a Deeper Understanding of Love
At the invitation of the Christian Science Church in Canberra international speaker, Beth Packer, will be speaking to the Canberra community on Sunday 22 September at 2.30 pm in the Reception Room of the Legislative Assembly Building on London Circuit.
Worldwide, people have heard and loved her moving talk titled, “Love Heals”.
Beth says, “I’ve found that people everywhere, at all stages of their lives, are looking for much the same things – to know that there are solutions to their problems – whether they are problems related to health, companionship, family, finances or our individual sense of purpose. We all need to know that we’re not alone or lost in the world, that there is hope and healing”. She says, “I’ve found through personal experience that the knowledge that God knows each one of us and loves us, is like turning a light on in the darkness, and has brought practical healing solutions to my life even in the toughest, most uncertain times.”
This beautiful talk shows through a personal journey and through healing examples, that the recognition that we are all truly known and deeply loved by God, who is Love, can bring healing and restoration to our lives, our relationships, and our health. It includes examples of the healing of illness, deafness and severe accident, as well as thoughts of suicide.
Beth said, “Together, we’ll explore our true identity as the dearly beloved of God, a knowledge that can transform our lives, making us happier, healthier, and holier”. These ideas are based on the teachings of Jesus as recorded in the Bible, and as discussed in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.
Having been both an award winning artist and a successful retailer, Beth has lived with her husband and two girls in both Australia and the Middle East. Whatever she was involved in, always she found that prayer was her most effective means for solving the practical problems of everyday life. Eventually, it became clear that this was the best way she could help the world so, fulfilling a lifetime desire to help and heal others, she became a full-time practitioner of Christian Science healing.
Beth is a member of the Christian Science Board of Lectureship. She travels worldwide from her home on the South Coast of NSW.
This free public lecture is given as a gift from the members of Christian Science Church to the people of Canberra. It brings a message of hope and reassurance.
For further enquires ring 0408274498 or visit the Bookshop and Reading Room on the corner of Macquarie and Bligh Streets, Barton.
Listen to a recording of Love Heals.
Surveys, Conferences, Flash Mob!
It’s been a happy morning so far… 6am gym-without-walls; hearty breakfast; mental fitness session with God; caught up on the news; watched an impromptu flash mob on-line (these always bring a smile!); read a recent report on a scientific breakthrough regarding the “happiness gene” 5-HTT; read the latest health survey finding “Australians are the happiest people in the world”.
What would make me unhappy right now? If the plumbing sprung a leak. If my internet connection bombed out. If the café ran out of cappuccino this morning. If I felt unwell. If a loved one phoned to say there was a death in the family. How quickly happiness can be ripped away! What sure foundation of thinking can I hold on to, especially for my latter “ifs”? Is there such a thing as being completely happy, as opposed to positive thinking making us happy?
1828 Webster’s Dictionary: ALL-HAP’PY. a. Completely happy.
In the 1913 Webster’s dictionary this exact word was not found. I wonder… did the word disappear because it wasn’t believed any longer?
The 5-HTT gene discovery doesn’t claim to have all the answers. Scientists analysed genetic data from more than 2500 participants in a US investigation looking at health-related behaviour in adolescents. A Sydney Morning Herald article quotes: “Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, a behavioural economist from the London School of Economics and Political Science, who led the research, said: “Of course, our well-being isn’t determined by this one gene – other genes and especially experience throughout the course of life will continue to explain the majority of variation in individual happiness.””
There’s no shortage of surveys and conferences in the quest to understand happiness and wellbeing. The OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-op & Development) rates Australians as the happiest people in the world. The survey was done on income, education and health — news.com.au.
How to find it? How to feel it? How to keep it?
Most of these health surveys indicate that thoughts are seen as brain-based. When it comes to feelings like happiness and wellbeing, it makes sense that we should be looking beyond brain into consciousness. Philosophers, theologians and all the thought-storming schools you can muster have looked at these fundamental questions throughout history. But ‘now’ belongs to the individual and we have other choices. It would be an unjust “sentence” to be told that you don’t have the right length “happiness genes” to be happy like some other lucky ones. There are scads of accounts of depression and other mental illnesses being completely healed, through the power of reasoning against sentences of that nature. We have divine authority to expect to be happy and well – these are spiritual qualities that are the makeup of every person. I’ve found in my practice of Christian Science, that reasoning our way through physical problems to spiritual answers is imperative. It’s beyond chemical control, and beyond the common idea of positive thinking.
Some very helpful excerpts from ‘Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures’ published in 1875, by Mary Baker Eddy:
“Through human consciousness, convince the mortal of his mistake in seeking material means for gaining happiness. Reason is the most active human faculty.”
“Happiness is spiritual, born of Truth and Love. It is unselfish; therefore it cannot exist alone, but requires all mankind to share it.”
In the Science of Mind Forum at the Happiness and Its Causes Conference – held in Brisbane, QLD Australia – the Dalai Lama spoke about “human nature that makes it so difficult to change our unhelpful thoughts and bad behaviours.” His talk was titled: ‘Changing our minds for a happier life’. Natasha Mitchell spoke with the Dalai Lama on the subject. Mitchell is a science & health journalist in Australia, and host/producer of the popular program, ‘All in the Mind’ on ABC Radio National and Radio Australia.
It’s great that there’s no shortage of discussion on happiness. At the end of the day, are you feeling any better? If not, it’s worth looking into mental fitness sessions with God (Truth and Love), and understanding that it’s normal to feel “completely happy”.
This article was orginally published on Health 4 Thinkers by Carey Arber. Sydney-sider Carey writes on health, incorporating research on the link between consciousness and wellbeing.
Recently, thousands of people attended the Mind Body Spirit Festival in Brisbane. I made my way there through the gloomy weather on Sunday, to find a really ‘happening’ event, a lot like the Health Harmony and Soul Expo held on the Gold Coast earlier in the year.
Christian Science Canberra 