Did you know that our health and wellbeing is influenced by the thoughts and words we use every day? Annie Cap explains how to think yourself happier and healthier
Did you know that our health and wellbeing is influenced by the thoughts and words we use every day? Annie Cap explains how to think yourself happier and healthier
You are probably oblivious to how you express your ‘wishes’. Your thoughts, moving as fast as the speed of light, are speaking to your genie, announcing your intentions.
Even saying things like “It pains me to see this”, “I’m irritated” or “I’m worried” have an immediate effect on you. Outside of your normal awareness, and without a second chance, your body chemistry is instantly changed – for better or worse. These innocent and not so innocent words and feelings, along with your perceptions about your life, can seriously impact your health.
As an example, let me tell you about a client of mine called Marianne. She came to me last year suffering with severe back pain which she said was destroying her life. She told me I was her last resort as her painkilling prescriptions were no longer working. Her GP had resorted to injections and a morphine patch and even these were almost useless in controlling her pain.
Although she was just 22, Marianne had been in pain almost her entire life. Over the past five years she’d seen numerous consultants. She’d had every test and scan imaginable, including neurological exams but her doctors could find nothing wrong with her.
That’s when she was told: “It must be all in your head”. Although she took this as an offhanded callous comment, if it had been delivered with compassion it’s far from derogatory – it’s merely stating the truth. Medical science now confirms that, as we think, our body creates corresponding chemicals, and for every human emotion there are matching physiological reactions. Everything you think about is experienced within your cells. You alter your biology as you think, believe, speak and feel. The sciences of epigenetics, neuro-pharmacology and psycho neuro-immunology (PNI) have proven this fact over and over. It should be common knowledge now that the mind and body are inseparable and influence one another.
Jean Watson, a biologist and chemist, says: “Every cell in the body is affected by thought and if you continue with harmful thoughts you may develop a chronic illness. Thoughts and emotions can affect our DNA long-term and even be passed down generations”.
What you think and feel is therefore of extreme importance. It should be accepted as part of your personal responsibility and a major component of your health. Even the placebo effect is the measuring stick that pharmaceutical medications are compared against. They must be ‘as good as’ the placebo to gain certification.
As Marianne told me her story, it didn’t take long to realise that her physical problem had an emotional origin. I noticed something fascinating, which I’d seen before in others. Almost every other sentence contained some variation on the word “pain”. Her childhood was “painful”, it “pained her” to think about her future and her mother had told her since birth that she was “a pain in her side”. She said her mum still says that she should have aborted Marianne because she’d made her life so “painfully challenging”.
Listening to Marianne I could almost feel her pain myself. She was so overwhelmingly sad. I began to suspect that Marianne was mistakenly ‘programmed’ for pain. Perhaps she was punishing herself and accepting her mother’s verbal curse. The taunts of “you’re such a pain” being echoed within her, her body’s genie had very few options. It had to react somehow; why not literally?
Remember, your mind-body is constantly listening and responding in what it thinks is the appropriate manner and, unlike Aladdin’s genie, there’s no limit to your wishes. Each thought and feeling creates what the neuroscientist and pharmacologist Dr Candace Pert refers to as “a chemical cascade”. Marianne hadn’t understood the extreme power of her thoughts and what her actual words might be summoning.
For a moment, I stopped Marianne’s personal berating, long enough to explain that I was different to the other therapists and doctors she’d seen. I wanted to delve into her programming using EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) along with The Iceberg Process, which uses personal language clues to isolate the mind’s preoccupation. Scientific studies have shown that EFT is effective in rapidly reducing emotions surrounding a memory or incident which contribute to physical as well as emotional issues. By tapping lightly with your fingertips on specific points on the face and body, which correspond to specific points of the body’s energy meridians, you are able to release painful, negative emotions.
Before we started, I asked Marianne how great her pain was: 10 would represent the worst pain she’d ever felt and zero would mean no pain at all. She said “I’m definitely a 10”.
I immediately narrowed in on the fact that she thought she was ‘a pain’ and the experiences with her mother. As we talked and tapped on these destructive memories and long-held beliefs, her pain quickly began to drop. She couldn’t believe it. Next I worked on transforming the idea that she was “worthless and a pain”, something her mother had always told her. Marianne’s pain melted away. It was gone for the first time that she could remember.
Observe your own patterns and improve your life by ensuring you’re wishing for what you really want.
At the end of our session, I gave her some homework. I asked her to tap each day on any feelings of pain she felt using the standard EFT phrase that anyone can use: “Even though I have this (state your problem or negative thought), I deeply and completely love and accept myself”.
I asked her to repeat the phrase at least three times whilst continually tapping on the ‘karate chop’ point of her hand (see illustration on left). Then she should tap on each of the eight body points (see illustration on left again), individually, beginning with the first point on top of the head. She was to tap about six or seven times on each point whilst repeating the phrase aloud (or in her head).
I also asked her to tap in this way whilst saying: “Even though for a long time I thought I was a pain and responsible for all my mother’s problems, I choose to allow myself to feel good and begin to love and accept myself just as I am.”
As Marianne left that day, I reminded her how she had completely reduced her pain simply by changing how she thought of herself.
Like her, remember to practise happier, healthy thoughts. You can find out what your mind is focusing on by simply listening to the clues in your repetitive words and thoughts. Once you have observed your own patterns and programming, actively change and improve your life by ensuring you’re ‘wishing’ for what you really want.
6 health-promoting strategies
1. Be more conscious – Decide to play an active role in your own health and start by choosing healthy words, thoughts and feelings.
2. Pick the best – Choose the most positive words in all cases and use those that match how you’d like to feel.
3. Break the cycle – Purposely shift your attention away from your problems and physical symptoms and talk or think about something else. Get a new hobby, project or goal.
4. Learn to tap – Identify the things you would change in your life if you could, physical or otherwise, past or present and then tap on these to elevate your perspective and how you feel about them.
5. Be ready to lift your own spirits – Do things deliberately to make yourself feel better emotionally and physically, especially when you’re down. Prepare a list of what you like and what makes you happy including people, activities, animals, smells, colours, flowers, music, good memories, photos etc. It can be something as simple as listening to your favourite band, watching your favourite movie or walking along the beach.
6. Practise gratitude and appreciation – Find things to be thankful for in your life (including friends, family, your home and nature) then focus your attention on these rather than anything negative.
Main Tapping Points
Top of the head
Eyebrow (beginning)
Side of the eye
Under the eye
Under the nose
On the chin
On the collarbone
Under the rib cage
Karate Chop
On side on hand below little finger
Annie’s checklist of healthy wishing
Do your words draw attention to your negative physical conditions?
Have you ever exaggerated your symptoms or feelings?
Do you talk about your health problems like some people talk about the weather?
Do you commonly disrespect, insult or threaten your body?
Have you used phrases that refer to illness, like “I’m sick and tired of this”?
Do you talk about a particular part of your body as if it is separate from you?
Do you frequently use the words ‘pain’, ‘stiff’, ‘tired’, ‘struggle’ or ‘weak’?
If someone asks how you are, would you say “not bad”?
Do you forecast or joke about declining poor health, incapacity or death?
Have you ever faked illness to get attention?
Have you said you’re unwell to break a commitment when you were fine?
Have you stopped doing things you think might be too risky or might hurt?
Do you believe you’re powerless over your condition?
Have you ever knowingly used your health condition to manipulate?
Does it feel easier to be unwell?
If you answered yes to any of the questions above, it may be time to rethink your behaviour and start rephrasing your wishes.
Annie Cap is the author of It’s Your Choice:Uncover Your Brilliance using The IcebergProcess (£15.99, Paragon Publishing) She is a leading US life coach and teacher of The Iceberg Process,...
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Annie Cap is the author of It’s Your Choice:Uncover Your Brilliance using The IcebergProcess (£15.99, Paragon Publishing) She is a leading US life coach and teacher of The Iceberg Process,...
Discover more
By Annie Cap
