Just How Much Control Does the Mind Really Have?

How much influence do thoughts have on well-being?

The conclusions we can easily extrapolate from studies on the mind-body connection is that our thoughts, attitudes, beliefs, and emotions influence our state of general health and even our survival. Notice, however, that I used the word “influence” and not “control.”

For example, it is one thing to refer to yourself as a “survivor” rather than a “victim” and talk about chemotherapy as “powerful medicine” rather than “toxic chemicals.” It is another thing altogether to make no provisions for the future because you believe you can simply “will” your cancer away. It’s also a great burden to be overwhelmed by guilt because you blame yourself for getting a disease in the first place “because you weren’t positive enough.” And it is even more disturbing if you are so sure your mind can control your body that you ignore prudent care.

Unfortunately, that was the position of a very dear friend of mine. She was absolutely committed to the idea that one could prevent cancer by not thinking about it. Once, when I asked casually if she had had a doctor check out a mole that seemed strangely shaped, she jumped on me and said, “You can believe that cancer is possible in other people, but don’t put those thoughts into me. I won’t entertain them.” A few years later, she died of cancer, not from melanoma, but from lung cancer from earlier years of smoking that had metastasized to the bladder. The saddest part for me was seeing her spend the last months of her life in pain because she firmly believed bloody urine was her body’s way of dealing with “long-suppressed sexual abuse,” although she had no evidence that it had happened.

The best approach would seem to be that of Elaine Ferguson, M.D., author of Healing, Health and Transformation: New Frontiers in Medicine, when she says she encourages her patients “to find a happy medium between the you create your own reality mind-set and disease just falls from the sky belief.” When you take responsibility for your health in a balanced way, then your emotional patterns and your choices of lifestyle, diet and work will affect your susceptibility to disease and will facilitate health.

The path to this balanced approach can actually be found in an unexpected consequence of having to deal with disease, which I referred to in the introduction to this section. When people have to focus on their disease and step back from the “distraction” of work and normal activities (though one could say that the “activity” of going to treatment is distraction enough), they’ve had to spend more time by and with themselves. Consequently, they’ve had the opportunity to reach inside and do some exploration of their lives.

Perhaps they have decided to use this crisis as a catalyst for growth and have made changes in their general outlook on life. Or they may have taken classes on imagery for hope, peace and healing and learned how to reduce stress — so they now experience greater calm and quiet, a genuine peace of mind they had previously thought unattainable. In being reminded of the uncertainty of life, they may have decided to live more fully with joy and passion and, in the process, have become as physically well as they possibly could.