A Healing Mindset for Curing What Ails Us

Medicine has its place in a moment of crisis. For instance, when we’ve been working way too hard and the pressures are mounting. We have what feels like a heart attack, but is determined to be a panic attack instead. Medications are given to relieve anxiety and to prevent future heart-related events. In an acute scenario like this, if the house is on fire we want to call the fire department, not a medical detective.

Sometimes a quick intervention is warranted to quell the emergency. We take medications long enough to implement changes in our life that are beneficial. If our health keeps deteriorating and we continue to come down with mysterious ailments, we want an investigator. We want a Columbo of sorts to keep asking the pointed questions.

And because it’s our life and we live it all day every day, we also want to get to the root of the problem and take care of as much of it as we can ourselves. This is a healing mindset, and here are the shifts involved in achieving that mindset:

From affliction to conviction: Shift your headspace from a feeling of affliction to one of conviction about what it will take to get better. Look at the whole picture, and connect the dots as you realize that your health problem did not happen overnight. This is not about a lightning bolt coming out of the sky; it’s about a conscious examination.

From helpless to accountable: To become personally responsible for changes that had to occur in your life, you must hold yourself accountable for what went wrong and also for what is going right. Look at your relationships, your well-being and your happiness. Chronic does not mean intractable, and it does not imply hopeless. What it means is that you have to learn new habits and put them into practice immediately for your own benefit, holding yourself accountable for your own aches and pains.