It's all mental - is that true?

I was talking to a guy on the phone today and I mentioned that I was having problems with my left ear and he said - oh you know Barbara all sickness is mental. And I thought - is that true? In one way you can say it is true, because everything is mental - our whole experience of the world and everything in it is mental... but I know that's not what he meant. He meant (I think) that our health is determined by the way we think. And I believe he said that to me because I wrote about this in The Road to Power / Fast Food for the Soul so he thought I should know this! But let's look at it again.

Is it true that our thinking affects our health? I think the problem with this belief is that it's too black and white and too linear. I don't think it's fair to say that if you have a negative thought you are going to get sick or that if you are sick it's because of some specific thoughts you are having. That's too simplistic a way of looking at it. And it's also a very cruel way of treating ourselves. And what does it mean? Does it mean that if you have cancer it's because of the way you think? How cruel. Nobody wants to get cancer. Nobody wants to be sick. It's just not that simple.

On the other hand, it seems that our thinking does affect our health! At least that's what a lot of research points to. But it's a more general, benign type of influence and we can all understand that if we are thinking kind, loving and positive thoughts, we tend to relax and feel more at ease with life and the world and this influences everything in our body which is good for our health. It reminds me of the story I read in Sogyal Rinpoche's book The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying... he writes about this woman who had terminal cancer who went to this lama in New York and was crying oh help me I am dying and have only 3 months to live. The lama laughed and said we are all dying. Then he taught her how to meditate and find peace of mind... so she began meditating and did find peace and then to everyone's surprise, her cancer went away....

Comments

[Kristin]

No, it's not about thoughts be they negative or positive but it's the attitude rather, either we are focused on positive or negative and it's truly about being happy and being FREE. As soon as we start supressing us in some ways we get some kind of physical signals about it.
BTW, I just bought your book (Are you happy now) yesterday and I'm very pleased to see that you have a blog too and you are actually posting into it :)