The Magic Pill Of Healing

All too often we chase healing modalities and pills and procedures as if they are the cure all.  Sure, they help at times and they have helped me.  However, there is much more to healing than getting lost in the cures and losing site of what really makes a difference.

Far too easily, we give up our own innate healing power to beliefs, opinions, and the latest fad of the day.  Sometimes these things are not proven or tested, but everyone believes they work.  Sometimes they do work.

I recognize fully that we cannot always quantify what works.  It is not always because it cannot be tested, but sometimes we just don't have the methods to test it.  Sometimes our knowledge has not advanced in our human civilization to quantitatively make a statistical conclusion.  I know there are people who think if it can't be tested in a scientific laboratory, that you discard it.  This is short sighted.

On the other hand, if you accept every premise that comes along without careful evaluation, you will set yourself up for chasing pretty rainbows as treatment options.  There are many things out there that people think work, but they don't even begin to understand what the "essence" of the modalities is or what truly works.

A moment of pause...

If you can't repeat it from person to person, the magic pill of healing should bring you a moment of pause.  If you become part of a group think, even if it is subconscious and you believe something is happening when it isn't, it should bring you a moment of pause.

Yes, there are elements within healing modalities that work, but far too often we build a belief system of rules and procedures around that.  We end up obliterating what is truly there that is healing in lieu of the human ego with its desire to control.

Feeling it in the body...

You can chase magic pills of healing all day long.  You can give your power up to others, but if you don't go in and connect the experience, the thoughts, and the emotions that arise with where it is felt in the body,  you're working with half a deck. There are far too many snake oil salesman selling a tonic that has no medicinal value.  The key emphasis being on feeling it in the body!

We have so much more within us that we ignore.  We have far more ability to understand and find the answers we need, then we ever allow ourselves to admit.  We have the ability to enact so much physical change in our body, but we subscribe to the fears we are born with and are taught in our life.

It is when we go into those fears and recognize our innate ability to heal that we find true healing.  We see at that moment what are just magic pills of healing and which are tonic sold by snake oil salesman.

There are just far too many things out there that don't pass the sniff test, let alone could stand up to the rigors of repeatability.  We may think our "modality" stands the test of time, but if it doesn't continue to evolve and change and grow, then please challenge what you think and believe.  Don't mislead others even if you're misleading yourself.  It harms people.

In many ways, if you want something to work, more than likely it will.  In the same manner, if you don't want something to work and think it is puff and stuff, than that will most likely be your outcome.  Choose wisely, because your own healing could depend upon it.

#Placebo

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly

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False Assumptions In Healing And Clinical Errors

Candy For Medical
Treatment

On KevinMD.com, there was an excellent article on clinical errors.  While I realize this was written more for the medical community, it applies to healing and alternative practices.  I'll let you read the full article but I'm just going to highlight a few that stuck out to me as I was reading it.  The following is my own take and perception on these items.  They are not meant to be aligned with the article on KevinMD.com that I reference. 

1)  The Placebo is just as powerful as modern medicine.  While many pharmaceutical companies do not highlight the effect of placebos, they often heal just as well as the medication or treatment.

2)  Many diseases do not all of the sudden show up.  There is a progression over time.  They are gradual.  Identifying what is going on in the person's life prior to the symptoms appearing is critical.  Learning how to help the client change their life is more likely to offer long term healing, rather than a quick fix.

Clutter In Our Life, Part 6

Clutter #6 - Health care, Doctors, and Medicine
Part 6 of 10

At one time, I thought the only way you became healthy was going to your doctor for a checkup and then running to the pharmacy to fill the prescriptions the doctor prescribed. Of course, after some life changing moments I went through, I woke up and realized that I was chasing an illusion instead of something based upon reality.

Doctors, medicine and health care do have their place. Please do not misunderstand me! However, when we fail to take care of our bodies and we fail to heal ourselves from our past, going to the doctors for answers is like jumping off the edge of a cliff and hoping we'll fly like the birds and butterflies do.

We as humans pound our bodies to death each and every day, then we wonder why we get the pains we do, the heart disease, diabetes, cholesterol problems, as well as anxiety, depression and various other conditions. Most of these things are a result of us ignoring our bodies and numbing ourselves to what we feel.

If we spent as much time taking care of ourselves as we do listening to the medication advertisements on TV, we might all be surprised at how much healthier we become. Our country is spending records amount on so called health care and in reality, we are no more healthy than we were 50 years ago.

Taking a pill or drug to treat one symptom so affects some other part of the body that the next thing we find is we are treating another system of the body. It becomes a viscious circle until one day we will find that that drugs and pills have done us in.

Come back tomorrow for part 7 of this series, Clutter In Our Life. Below are the various parts to this series that you can read as well.

Clutter In Our Life Series
- Introduction
Part 1: Spending our hours watching TV news
Part 2: Keeping Ourselves Constantly Busy
Part 3: Numbing Ourselves
Part 4: Following Blindly
Part 5: Food Choices
Part 6: Health care, Doctors, and Medicine
Part 7: Hydrating Our Bodies
Part 8: Thinking We Have The Answers
Part 9: Exercise Is For Another Day
Part 10: We Fail To Evolve
- The 30 Day Challenge


Blog Post & Images (c) 3/20/11 Don Shetterly - use by permission only
http://www.donshetterly.com

Masking Trauma With Surgery, Part 2

This is part 2 of a 2 part series, please read Part 1, Masking Trauma With Surgery for a better understanding of what this post is about.

Much like Mary, I suffered great traumatic moments growing up. However, I had neither the resources nor assistance to deal with them and so instead I lived in a land of illusion where I escaped into a world of daydreaming. My world became my striving towards excelling at work, school and anything I did. It was my drug. It was my salvation. The rest of the time I spent countless hours on my piano and playing the piano for church to hide myself from the horrors I so badly did not want to face.

Throughout childhood, I went through some very rough moments where I had to undergo a series of antibiotic shots. Then there were the times that I could barely breathe and the doctor would say I was under too much stress. The prescription would be not do any physical activity for a period of time and have moist heat applied to my chest. From there, I struggled with allergies that sometimes would really pull me under. In high school I spent several days in the hospital being misdiagnosed with appendicitis only to later discover that I had a nervous stomach/pre-ulcer. Each and every day I would struggle with headaches, sometimes very severe.

While some people would tell me during these times that it was stress that caused it, I really had no clue how to cure the stress. I remember asking a few people and all they would tell me is that I had to learn how to deal with stress, yet they could not give me any other advice. Of course, I was living in a world where stress was the norm.

As life progressed, I took on more and more stress while I buried the traumas of the past. I worked harder, tried to gain more perfection and showed to the outside world that everything was completely fine while I fell apart inside.

Even when the stress was beginning to catch up with me, I was seeing a chiropractor. In the three times a week visits to his office, I would feel very good and relaxed when I left his office. Within a couple of hours after the appointment, the stress and body pains throughout my back, neck and shoulders would come on like a herd of horses charging through the field.

For me, the switch got flipped when one event took place and landed me face to face with the trauma from my past. It caught up to me even though I wanted nothing to do with it. All the procedures, medical treatments, pills and tests could not save me. I soon learned, that it was only I that could save me. The story is much more detailed than this but for the sake of simplicity, I'm glossing over the details. You can read more about it in my book, "Hope And Possibilty Through Trauma."

I just want to help shine the light on this a little and help people to become more aware that when physical things happen in your body, it is your body's way of getting your attention. Try not to be so quick to dismiss it through surgery, procedures, tests, and pills. While they may alleviate the symptoms initially, the body will once again find a way to get your attention. The only way to completely alleviate these conditions is to go within and find the answers.

I'm not going to tell you that is easy because I know how much fear and ego try to distort, twist, lie and confuse us. Fear and the ego are very powerful forces that will manipulate all of what I just said into nothing but a bunch of hogwash and pie in the sky thinking or new age mumbo jumbo.

For me and many others, these are not just concepts that I am talking about. They are real and for each of us that have conquered many physical situations by healing the trauma, we know first hand what this is all about. It is much more than concepts to us. It is real and through the healing in our bodies, we can prove it.

I'm just asking that each person who is reading this post, take a moment and consider that there are answers within to what your physical body is experiencing. Maybe you don't agree with me on this but at least allow the thought to sit in your consciousness. Try to prove it wrong and try to prove it right. Don't settle for a diagnosis or surgery or pill just because someone tells you that this is what you need. Seek out every possible option you have and go deeper into the understanding of it.

There is truth out there that is real for us and if we search for it, we will find it. If we hide our eyes to it, we will find everything that takes us away from it. Go into that which you don't know and find your own truth, the truth that is grounded within your body. For once you find this truth, you will know without a shadow of a doubt, the power of trauma and the power you hold within your cells, your mind and your body.



Further Reading:
1) Heal Trauma Internallya
2) Hope And Possibility Through Trauma by Don Shetterly
3) Evolutionary Healing Institute, Dr. Paul Canali
4) Masking Trauma With Surgery, Part 1




Blog Post & Images (c) 2/4/11 Don Shetterly - use by permission only
http://www.donshetterly.com

Masking Trauma With Surgery, Part 1

This is part 1 of a 2 part series, please read Part 2, Masking Trauma With Surgery for the complete story (2/5/11).

Several years ago in a workshop presented by Dr. Paul Canali of Evolutionary Healing, a lady named Mary, shared her story that really amazed everyone there. In her story, she talked about having 48 different surgeries and medical procedures in the course of her 52 years of life.

She was the by product of many hospital stays, surgeries, medical procedures and university studies. In fact, her medical file was so thick and extensive that she was a virtual who's who of medical diagnosis.

From what I can remember when she was telling her story, was that each doctor would take on the "current symptom" and either medicate her based upon that or prescribe some medical procedure/surgery to alleviate the condition. The minute they would work to get one condition alleviated, another would show up. Mary had many internal organs removed or transplanted if I recall correctly. This continued on for years until Mary was so exhausted that she sought out a different option.

I still remember the gleam in her face, the tears in her eye as she told her story and as she now knew what hope was about. She realized that after the work with Dr. Canali to go in and deal with the trauma that had happened to her early in life, that there was hope for her. She no longer needed to live in the fear of having to have all these medical procedures to give her the false illusion that somehow they would make her better. Each time she had one of these surgeries or procedures, she would realize that it never solved the problem.

This is often the case in the medical world. We go to the doctor to find out what is wrong with us, what the name of our condition is and what pill or surgery or test we can take to alleviate it. We never stop to consider what we can do if we go within and search our own selves to see what is going on. Most of the time, we do not even consider that we have any power or knowledge or awareness to do this. So we give our power over to the doctors, drug companies and medical establishment.

Now, I'm not saying there is no place for the medical profession or surgery or procedures or even sometimes medications. We have to have a balance here so please don't get me wrong on that. However, all too often we treat the symptom instead of treating the entire person. The medical establishment looks for the easy way out in diagnosing someone and often the patients want the easy way out as well. They want to identify with the name of the condition they have and they want a pill or procedure that will just make it all better. No one really wants to do the hard work of going within and asking the tough questions or facing what they know.

Trauma impacts the body in a negative way and it lingers there robbing the body and mind of precious health and energy. Many of us (myself included) often go through life hoping and wishing it away or trying to cover it up by not thinking about it. We do all kinds of things including several new age practices that just mask the trauma. Instead, we need to go into the trauma and take our power back. This is not a one time process but an ongoing process of self discovery and awareness.

In Mary's story, there was much trauma that she had tried to forget and distance herself from. In fact, many of us that live through traumatic moments whether it is an abusive childhood, engagement in wars, experiences we are part of or an overwhelming load of daily stress. However, if we do not deal with these things, we will find out just as Mary did that the trauma will catch up with us. It may not be today or tomorrow but it is lurking in the shadows just waiting for the right moment for the switch to be flipped.

Yes, I know that there are plenty of tests and research to indicate that you may have this or that disease and condition. I know there are xrays that will show the body is in this position and surgery is required. However, that is like looking up at the sun and exclaiming that the ONLY reason for its existence is to give us light during the day. There is more to the picture that most of us do not see nor do we want to, but please, let us not fool ourselves here into thinking we are seeing the entire picture.

If you do not deal with the trauma, it will deal with you. If you choose to try every procedure and surgery and pill that is known to civilization it may temporarily help but in the end, you will not have eliminated the source. The source is not physical. The source of the condition is in the trauma that you have experienced. If you truly want to heal, look to the source of the condition, not just the symptoms showing up. Learn from Mary's example that after 48 procedures and surgeries, she realized that healing the trauma, healed her life.

Come back tomorrow for Part 2, Masking Trauma With Surgery, where I share some of my own experiences.


Further Reading:
1) Heal Trauma Internally
2) Evolutionary Healing Institute, Dr. Paul Canali
3) Part 2, Masking Trauma With Surgery



Blog Post & Images (c) 2/3/11 Don Shetterly - use by permission only
http://www.donshetterly.com

What Is Healing?

The body can perform in the way that the healer or doctor or drug company expects and predicts they will. Doctors give patients a name for their condition or an option of a test or surgery to help alleviate the person's condition. They desire to help heal the person and all too often, many people believe what the doctor or test is telling them without even ffirst getting to know and connect with their own bodies.

Pharmaceutical drug companies and pharmacists or even herbal experts and food healing nutritional experts say that if you take this "substance" or this "capsule" or this "drink mix" or this "pill" that you will be healed of your condition. How many billions get paid to these companies that push all kinds of these products in a year and yet, how many of these conditions have actually improved. If you can't find the answer to that, I'll give you a hint - not many!

Then we get to the healers that have a goal of taking people out of pain and helping them heal from their conditions. Yet, all too often some of these things work while all too often, they do very little. There is no consistency because most healers are missing the basic points of healing. They create a "system" of healing along with specific procedures and practices so that you can truly heal people and take them out of their pain. In all reality, you could give them a sugar pill and accomplish much of the same thing. So much of what we THINK works out there in the healing professions (alternative methods included) really is nothing more than a placebo.

I've been on a massage table when I noticed my body responding to the massage therapist and acting as if it was relaxing and enjoying the massage. However, my mind was on a different path stating, I don't want to feel - I don't want to sense - you go ahead body and just play along. If that sounds ridiculous or impossible, let me be the first to tell you that it is not. I've seen this happen many times in my own body and that of others that I have worked on or observed. Our minds are very powerful at protecting ourselves and they do whatever they need to in order to accomplish this. One important point to note here is that this is not a conscious thing that someone does. It all happens in the unconscious mind and the unconscious body, before anyone can usually notice that it is taking place. So if you tell someone to be aware of it or to be conscious about it, you're talking to the wrong part of the person you are trying to heal.

One time, I was in a training class for a massage technique that involved very gentle, slow movements. The person on the table had an arm that was not wanting to move and the practitioner said in these commanding words "let go of your arm"! It startled the person on the table because they were not aware they were doing this and in all reality their conscious mind was not. Yet the practitioner was talking as if they were. They were talking to the wrong part of the body and mind for the person laying on the table. If they would have just stayed there with the person in a way that offered safety and trust for them, the person's arm most likely would have let go.

I've seen people (and been one myself ) who went into a doctor and the doctor listened to the symptoms that were described by the patient. However, the doctor looked at the situation through their focused view of what healing was about and prescribed either medication or further testing to take care of the condition. At no time, did the doctor suggest that the person needed to evaluate their lifestyle and make appropriate changes. They might have alluded to this fact but did so very insignificantly. Yet, they were only treating half of the problem but failing to get at the source of what was going on.

I have had situations throughout my life where doctors believed I had the early stages of MS and began treating me accordingly with medication. Later they found out that this of course was not the case after my body had severe reactions to it. So doctor after doctor, and test after test, kept confirming one thing. The doctors did not know what was wrong with me in this situation. Each doctor would conclude they did not know and pass me on to someone else until one very wise doctor began to ask important questions. These questions were not about any medical procedures that I had gone through but were about things going on in my life. Only then, did I begin the opportunity to start healing my life.

There is far more to healing them popping some pills, following some new age concept or undergoing surgeries and test procedures. Our bodies can and they do influence how we react to various drugs, procedures or alternative treatments. The skilled health practitioner can spot this if they are looking for it but all too often, the blinders are on and they fail to see it. We are so busy in the health care world expecting to see the results that we want to see, so we feel like we're making a difference, that we miss the important stuff.

Then you get to the healing philosophies that just want to take people out of the pain or alleviate the pain. These healing professionals feel that this is the best thing because a person that feels no pain, is a happy person. My question is to healing professionals, why would you want to mask the pain? This is the body's way of getting someone's attention and trying to get them to come to terms with an issue they need to face. Taking that message away or burying it in them could cause potential side effects on down the road that are much more difficult to deal with.

Often times healers, cannot stand to see someone suffer and that is a good thing. However when it gets in the way of our healing, than it is a detriment to what we do. There are many times that we get patients and clients who come to us and their symptoms or conditions resonate with issues in our own life. So, we work to clear this from them, in an unconscious way of hoping that we heal ourselves. On one hand, desiring to help someone heal from some condition is a noble thing, but on the other hand if we allow our self unconsciously to divert that healing to our own body, than are we really there for the client? What if we worked on our self first and healed those things in our life that need to be healed? Than, we set out to help others heal from these same conditions. Consider just how much more effective and focused we would be. Consider the difference we could make in the world if we did this.

Healing is not about looking through our own blinders and having an emphasis of just masking the pain. It is much more than that. It is about connecting the mind, the body and the entire person together using all the information that we have and then working to bring about increased awareness to the person. When the person we are working with has more knowledge, more awareness and are connected to all parts of themselves, there is the potential for true healing to take place. Only emphasizing one or two of those things does not bring about true healing. Until we change the physiology and the biology of a person, we have accomplished little.

Until we do the intense healing work on ourselves that we need to do, we can only be there in a limited capacity with our clients. It is in our best interest and in theirs to work hard on ourselves and to heal ourselves. Anything less is holding our potential back as well as our clients and patients.

There are so many things out there that claim they are the ultimate in healing and yet, some of the times they work and some of the times they do not. Instead of claiming to have all the answers, we should be seeking to find out why some do not respond. What is the underlying truth that we are missing? What have we failed to see or understand in trying to help others? Healing is not about using a set of procedures and organized modalities or practices that we subscribe to. It has nothing to do with that and yet, it seems to be the overall emphasis in western culture. No one has all the answers even though I see many healers appearing as if they do.

It has been well tested that placebos often respond as well as the actual drugs given in clinical trials or various treatments. All too often though, the results of these placebos are buried so no one really knows about them. Placebos do not bring in income to companies producing them nor to health practitioners prescribing their modalities and practices. In addition, many people follow blindly, the truths expounded upon by TV advertisements as well as the claims that are passed on from one healing practitioner to another, without anyone ever verifying if these things are backed up by hard science. We can no longer sit by and just repeat and regurgitate that which we are told or hear from others. We must begin to open our eyes and see all the facts or the absence of facts in any healing procedure and treatment we subscribe to.

It is time for us as healing practitioners to really begin to learn that healing is so much more than we currently know and are aware of. It is time for us to begin to learn that if we fail to heal ourselves, working to heal others becomes like dog chasing its tail and never quite catches it. Healthcare is not about spending billions of dollars or making treatments that cost $200-$300 a session to give them value. It is about making biological and physical changes in the life of our patients and clients so that their life can change and grow and evolve. Anything less than that, is not healing.


*For more articles, check out the Mind Body Thoughts Blog

Death by Medical Error

Something to think about


The IOM (Institute of Medicine) estimates that between 44,000 and 98,000 people die each year from medical errors.





Even at the lowest rate of 44,000, it is higher than the annual mortality from

• Motor Vehicle Accidents (43,458)
• Breast Cancer (42,297)
• AIDS (15,516)

Medical Errors are the eighth leading cause of death in the United States.

A study by AHRQ (Agency For Healthcare Research and Quality) found that just one type of error, preventable adverse drug events, caused 20% of the yearly patient injuries or deaths in the hospitals that were studied.

I learned a long time ago, the hard way, that doctors in all of their testing and science and education do not have the answers. If a human does not search out through their own wisdom and knowledge in conjunction with modern health care that is available, than they are only blindly being led along life's path as sheep heading to pasture.

There is so much more we can do as humans in our own health care that does not require drugs, surgeries and billions being spent. However, if the first thing we do when we suffer any type of physical condition is rush towards the status quo in medical care, that we have given up on some of the most valuable cures in our life - that is the healing power within the human body and the awakening to so much more.

Don't wait until you are sick or in pain to start seeking the most healthful route for your life. Begin today listening to your body and taking appropriate steps to take care of yourself. Only you will know what is best for you to do and if you take those steps, your body will be a much happier place to inhabit. Not all health care comes in a pill, a syringe or a surgery!