Is it time to start favouring your mind over your body?
Is it time to start favouring your mind over your body? While there is a huge emphasis to looking after our body I wonder why there is still a stigma attached to looking after our mental health and having any kind of mind therapy. Why would you choose to favour your body over your mind when, in fact, it is actually your mind that is the control centre to your whole body. If we have a problem mentally, then it has a detrimental effect on your body. Anyone who knows anything about Emotional Freedom Technique knows that when we have Emotional problems, more often than not that will affect you physically. If we can identify an emotional or psychological problem then tapping into that can also help relieve physical problems. Different feelings and thoughts are linked to specific parts of your body. Understanding your body’s language of symptoms can increase your potential for healing. The mind and body connection is explained in great detail in the book “Your body speaks your mind” by Deb Shapiro.
Bearing this in mind it is suprising that so many people still favour looking after their body before their mind. The health industry is worth a fortune with people spending millions on health products and vitamins, health foods, plastic surgery, exercise, lip fillers, permanent make up, make up, diet products etc….. yet people are still more reluctant to spend their money on therapy and looking after that ‘control room’ that controls their body. Your mental health is actually the most important part of you that should be nourished. You can spend money on drink and drugs that may mask your symptoms but there is nothing like getting to the root cause of your symptoms and using psychological interventions to weed them out. Don’t get me wrong looking after your body definitely also has a positive effect on your mind. There is a great psychological boost after you have had a good gym session. Exercising releases all the feel good hormones into your body which make you feel so much more positive. What we need to do though is start giving some favouritism to our minds. Years ago when us humans started giving much more attention to personal hygiene then there was a rise in life expectancy! It is a fact that if we have a more healthy mental state then that will also have a positive effect on our life expectancy. Depression and negativity Is a killer!
Society is much to blame for this attitude to looking after our minds. You may confide in someone that you feel depressed and get the reply “shake it off, its all in your head”, when in fact depression is an illness that needs working with. Can you imagine telling someone you have broken your leg and them saying “Oh just just shake it off, its all in your leg!” The problem is mental health problems cannot be physically seen yet have a huge detrimental affect upon us, often much more so than many physical symptoms. Its time to close the gap between our physical and mental health and make them more equal. We need to start paying more attention to our thoughts and feelings. We cannot repair a psychological wound if we don’t realise that we are wounded.
In the 17 years I have been working as a mind therapist I would be extremely rich if I had a penny for every time a client has said “I can’t afford therapy every week” yet would then go on to tell me they need the money for something else like a trip to Butlins for an 80s weekend drinking copious amounts of alcohol! Although its great to have breaks and some good times if we have a psychological problem then we could just be using this as escapism or masking the problem with drink and drugs. We would be far better off addressing our issues first then we could enjoy the good times so much more and not need to put so much stress on our bodies with negative toxins. We can heal ourselves by tackling negative thinking. If we start tackling emotional hygiene then can you imagine what a better place the world would be? You can start doing this just by changing a few simple habits like addressing negative thoughts. When you start getting a negative thought then make a conscious effort to focus on something positive. The more you practice this the more it will become a habit instead of the negative habit. Hypnotherapy will also help with subconscious positive suggestion for deep rooted problems.
Of we have to look after our bodies too, but remember it all starts with the mind!
For more information on looking after your mind www.positivelycalm.com.