The Power of Negative Thinking

I believe negative thinking has a very negative side affect. It makes sense, doesn't it? Vancouver Oncologist, Karen Gelmon, explains this theory in greater detail; "What happens with our body is a matter of flow-there is input, and there is output, and you can't control every aspect of it... it's not a battle, it's a push-pull phenomenon of finding balance and harmony." We learned in health science that the part of our brain that controls our thinking, motivation, and aggression is the frontal lobe.

Dr. Gabor Mate connects this theory with some of his patients. The first one he talks about doesn't understand why she has cancer when she has eaten healthy, exercised well, and led a healthy life. The one area she overlooked was her stress level. Dr. Mate states that, "if we gain the ability to look into ourselves with honesty, compassion and with unclouded vision, we can identify the ways we need to take care of ourselves." This makes complete sense because someone else's advice may be the complete wrong path for you. If you could figure out how to solve a problem by listening to your body, things would be a lot easier to figure out. The easier you can slide by obstacles, the less stressed you are. With less stress clouding your brain, the less likely you are to be diagnosed with some disease.

The Seven A's of Healing

At the very end of his book, Dr. Mate explains the "seven A's of healing". Since it would take a whole blog to discuss each word in detail, I picked the first one that caught my eye and the one that I thought would be the most interesting to write about - Autonomy. What made me want to read further about this word was the first two sentences; "Illness not only has a history but also tells a history. It is a culmination of a lifelong history of struggle for self." At first I was confused because I didn't know what autonomy meant. So I looked it up on dictionary.com and it defined autonomy as, "The condition or quality of being autonomous; independence."

Now that I knew what Autonomy meant, I wondered so how can we find independence in order to heal illness? Well... Dr. Peterson says that asking yourself questions such as, "in my life and relationships, what do I desire, want more of, or less of, or what don't I want, what are my stated limits?" begins the process of becoming autonomous. I totally believe that those are extremely important questions to figure out in one's life. How does someone go about in their life with no passion towards anything? Or on a bigger scale, how does someone enjoy their life with a job they absolutely hate? One of my favorite quotes is, "If you don't like something change it; if you can't change it, change the way you think about it." Maybe it is because I change my mind a lot, but I don't think you should feel stuck in a mud pool if you are really miserable with your life because that is what you chose to do with it at the age of 17. This reminds of the past 4 years of high school and planning 10, work experience, the grad interview. All of these things prepare us for the world ahead of us. Reading about autonomy also reminded me of our Health Science class because it was our first college course, which I believe gave us all a heads up of what college is like. Of course different areas are not going to be the same and our course load will be a lot heavier, but it was really nice to have an introduction to a college classroom, teacher, lab, course outcomes.. etc.

Dr. Mate continues talking about autonomy in children and how boundaries affect them. He explains how it is important to create boundaries for children and how some parents don't understand how to implement them because they themselves have never had boundaries. This is sad to think about because it is like a chain that will continue from generation to generation. Without a clear boundary between the child and the parent, the child remains enmeshed (tangled) in the relationship. This is later implemented for his way of connecting to the rest of the world. Connecting with people is so important in every type of job. With any job, you are going to have an interview and a job is also much more enjoyable when you don't mind who you work with. I have had 3 different jobs and worked with completely different people and think that I finally know how to interact with certain people. I think it is also because I am older, but I think it is mostly from experience. Therefore, I believe that the ability to be autonomous is possible in anyone - regardless of their childhood.