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Mind "The old adage 'healthy mind, healthy body' has never been more true." says Martin, "Our bodies follow our thoughts and emotions and so before I had even begun I knew that whatever path I was to take I had to have total belief that it was going work for me."
There are four pillars that form the foundations for creating a healthy Mind-Body connection:-
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To take such a path of self healing is a dramatic life style change which requires complete focus, self discipline and total commitment. Positive attitude and self-esteem are essential. "The positive attitude and self belief can only come from a place of self love and self confidence." Says Martin. " If you really want to take care of yourself, then you have to love yourself first. That is why the Outlook courses were so important for me." In the book, Martin describes how through Outlook, he came to identify the origin of all the emotional toxins, negative beliefs and attitudes that he had been holding onto in his subconscious and how he freed them to enable himself to have the self love and self belief to adopt the positive attitude that he needed. "This underpinned everything for me." says Martin, "Without this belief it doesn't matter how much wheatgrass you drink, how much raw food you eat or how many supplements you take, the program just won't work." "In my case, I had already done a lot of the emotional work before I was diagnosed and so when I learned of my diagnosis my immediate reaction was not to feel sorry for myself or become a victim but to accept the fact that I had cancer and that I had to face up to it and deal with it. Armed with my positive attitude and self belief, I set about my research and made my choices. My intention was clear and I knew what I had to do. I had already identified the emotional traumas that I had been suppressing, all the anger, grief and frustration that I had been carrying and all the feelings of fear, anxiety and inadequacy that had been weighing me down and holding me back. But now I understood and related them all back to the past events in my life and connected them to the cause of my cancer. Then through various processes I was able to release them all which unlocked the healing potential in my subconscious." "It's so important for anyone on a similar journey to detox the mind not only of the suppressed emotions but also of all the negative thoughts, beliefs and attitudes. Everyday, we all have conversations with ourselves," he continues, " we constantly tell ourselves on a subconscious level that 'we aren't good enough' or 'we can't do that'. These negative beliefs subconsciously affect our attitudes and the way that we behave. By 'unlearning' these beliefs and learning new ones we can free the mind of the things that hold us back and open up endless possibilities." Understandng the Mind-Body link was another important facet. The modern science of Psycho-Neuro-Immunology (PNI) has confirmed what Chinese doctors have known for centuries - that there is a direct link between the mind, body and health. It is now widely recognized that the body's immune system responds to psychological stimuli. It therefore follows that the immune system can be conditioned by channeling one's thoughts in a positive and creative manner. Martin explains - "We have all heard of the Placebo Effect. Placebo drugs are just ineffective substances which have been scientifically proven to be effective against a whole range of illnesses. This powerful healing effect is attributable to one thing - the power of the mind, and this is where Creative Visualization or Guided Imagery comes in. It is a method of using the imagination to create a clear image, idea or feeling of something that you wish to manifest into your life, for example perfect health. By regular and continued focus on this desire it gives it a positive energy until it becomes objectively real. In effect, it is sending positive messages to the subconscious. The book describes several of these immune enhancing visualizations and explains how actual biochemical changes take place in the body as a result of what is happening in the mind. "By repeating this process daily I effectively re-trained my mind to believe that I was healing" says Martin, "and my body responded." Finally, Martin had to learn how to deal with his stress. "Stress is one of the major contributing factors to ill health and the causes are manifold." He states. " We all worry about many things - money, work, relationships etc and the stress can manifest in the body in many ways. In Chinese medicine, worry is directly linked to the spleen and stomach which explains why we can feel physically nauseous when we are worrying or stressing about something. It also affects hormonal activity which for someone with Prostate Cancer is crucial since Prostate tumors respond directly to hormonal imbalances and so controlling stress is one of the most important aspects in the healing process." Martin describes in his book various techniques for managing stress, how to resolve it and to how use it in a positive way. "There are many techniques for dealing with stress such as meditation and massage but one of the most effective that I found is Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). It's like an emotional form of acupuncture without needles and is a simple process of tapping key acu-points on the head and body which has immediate and amazing results". Martin goes on to conclude, " Emotional health is key to our physical and mental well-being. By reflecting inwardly, experiencing and understanding our emotions we can restore our health. The mind must be trained to function positively so as not to allow it to sabotage even the most intense physical efforts to recover one's health".
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