I have come to realize during my years of practice as a psychotherapist and psychiatrist that true emotional and physical healing can only come about as a result of an individual's ability to experience Love. In fact a corollary of this is that any illness is the direct result of an individual's inability to Love. I know that some might find such statements to be be bold and unsubstantiated. After all, they might ask, can we even define Love from a scientific perspective let alone measure it or its effects? In spite of such challenges I would like to offer an operational definiton of Love and then show how it can be applied to the measurement of health outcomes. So from a strictly practical standpoint I would like to define Love manifesting as any intention that is clearly and exclusively beneficial to the individual who holds such an intention. For example, the intention to eat healthily would be classified, according to this definition, as a manifestation of Love. Interestingly, having an intention to treat others respectfully is also a manifestation of Love because it indirectly makes the person holding such an intention feel good about themselves and this is clearly beneficial to that person. So with this tool in hand let us move on to consider how it might play a role in healing. In order to address this I would like to address an example of a situation of a person who is not able to fully Love. So what does it mean to be unable to fully Love. It essentially means that the ability to hold intentions that benefit one are impaired. In other words, one finds oneself inviting intentions that are "not beneficial" into one's life. This leads to that person allowing, yes allowing, undesirable outcomes into their life. By undesirable, I mean something that is unpleasant and unwanted. An example of something undesirable would be say, the feeling of guilt. If you feel the experience of guilt for yourself you will, I feel, find it to be an unpleasant experience. If you then ask yourself whether you enjoy or genuinely desire having such an unpleasant experience you will likely say no. Now I know that, for whatever reason, you will try to justify to yourself, reasons why "it is necessary" to hold on to such an unpleasant experience. For instance you might say to yourself things like: the feeling of guilt helps to make me a moral person, it helps to steer me along a virtuous path, it therefore helps nurture a sense of self esteem and self worth, it therefore makes me feel like a good person and therefore makes me feel good about myself. So notice what you have just concluded i.e. that guilt makes you feel like a good person. So if that is so, why do you feel so bad about yourself whenever you allow yourself to feel the guilt? If you are feeling a bit confused by what appears like an apparent contradiction it is because you are just beginning to become aware of it, perhaps for the first time in your life. Are you noticing that you have bought into a lie about the feeling of guilt. You have believed, without challenging it, that having the intention to invite guilt into your life actually was beneficial to you i.e. a manifestation of Love. In other words, that something that is unpleasant and makes you "actually" feel lousy about yourself would be beneficial to you. Well buying into such a lie, is clearly detrimental to you, is it not? So you now have an awareness that allows you to make a choice about this unpleasant thing called guilt. If you truly wish to experience Love then you can simply ask the guilt to no longer intrude on your life. Yes, I know it may sound too simplistic, but if you have a sincere intention around this you may find interesting things happen for you emotionally and physically. So rather than my having to convince you of the health benefits of Love I ask you to measure the results of this experiment for yourself over time. After all, isn't this the only proof that anyone would really respond to? |
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