Our bodies, composed of more than 30 trillion individual cells, handle all of their complex functions on their own without our conscious intervention.

Our bodies are geniuses, but usually our thoughts and beliefs hinder their ability to achieve and maintain perfect health.

We think we need all kinds of medications. Unfortunately, these medications are generally designed to treat symptoms instead of causes. Often our bodies have to expend extra energy combatting those unnatural substances when the energy could be spent directly on whatever we’re intending to fix by taking them.

That’s not to say drugs don’t work, or that they’re not necessary. In an objective sense, most drugs do work and are sometimes necessary within our Western medicine belief system. However, a large part of why they work so well on us is our belief that they will work. In past cultures in which they understood the body’s ability to heal itself, modern medication wasn’t around, but these people were still able to be healed, and they lived to see another day.

Most of us don’t believe our thoughts have much or any bearing on our physical health, that we are at the mercy of diseases that happen to us randomly, that we are at the mercy of ailments to which we are genetically predisposed.

As with most beliefs, this one is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The common denominator in all successful physical healing systems, from Western medicine to witch doctors to shamans in the jungle, is the belief in the system’s ability to heal. And so it does.

 

Mind Over Body

We influence our bodies with our thoughts. This is an indisputable fact.

Our brains communicate with every cell in our bodies with hormones. Different thoughts release different hormones.

Imagine a juicy steak, or a vat of vanilla ice cream, whichever you prefer. Imagine the smell, the look, the taste. Now imagine taking a nice bite or spoonful. You have just made yourself salivate with thought.

Imagine, in vivid detail, having passionate sex with someone to whom you’re strongly physically attracted. Imagine the sights, sounds, sensations. Do that for a minute or two and your body will activating the sexual response: an erection or vaginal wetness.

You can do this exercise with any number of things. It’s a simple way to show the mind’s influence over the body.

Not only do our thoughts influence our bodies, but also the correct thoughts can heal our bodies. Some people are better at it than others. Those who excel at this skill share a deep belief that they are able heal themselves with thought, and those who largely lack the skill share the belief that it’s impossible.

At least in some small way, I hope to show you that you can heal yourself with your thoughts.

I’ll give you some easy practices to get started. If you try them out over a period of time, hopefully you will be able to prove to yourself, as I have to myself, that you are capable of healing pretty much any ailment you experience. Perhaps a more attractive benefit is that, with the correct thoughts and beliefs, you can maintain perfect health and not be at the mercy of seemingly externally caused diseases.

 

The Placebo Effect

I covered the placebo effect here, so I won’t discuss it in too much detail now.

The placebo effect is simply the body handling business without external factors, or often, in spite of them. It is indisputable proof of the mind’s power over the body.

The converse is the nocebo effect, where our bodies don’t react to medications, etc. that have been shown to affect us in an objective sense, because we don’t believe they will affect us.

So often we look to external factors and forces to make us feel a certain way when the answer was always within. As eternal consciousnesses, we express ourselves through our bodies as long as they continue to breathe, and there’s a definite give-and-take between our minds and bodies. We need to trust that communication and learn to engage it consciously.

When we embrace the placebo effect instead of discounting it, the effect becomes more pronounced and better able to be controlled and manipulated to our benefit.

 

Talk to Your Body

Something most people don’t realize is that we can talk to our bodies and command/ask them to do the things we want them to. Even though we don’t understand the entire processes by which our bodies function, we can know and feel the end results.

I regularly speak to my body. It understands and follows orders very well because: 1. I trust it to listen; 2. I treat it well (most of the time, and when I don’t, I apologize in earnest); 3. We’ve established a strong connection over the years – it’s a good friend of mine and we take care of each other; 4. I’m grateful for everything it does.

“Body, energize,” over and over while I take a few deep breaths, then I trust it to know what to do with the command. And it does. I did it just now before starting this post because I’m a bit tired from my new, abbreviated sleeping schedule. I’m now wide awake and feeling peachy.

Placebo effect? You bet. But the end result is real energy and wakefulness.

The Best Time to Talk to Your Body

We can have these conversations whenever we want, throughout the day and to whatever end, but the best time is right before sleep when our conscious focus fades into deeper realms.

While we sleep, our bodies undergo all kinds of complex functions to maintain or obtain health. To prepare for a new day, to recover from a long one. We become cornucopias of flowing hormones, and we can influence the flow to a large degree. We simply need to communicate our bodily desires and sprinkle them with a healthy dose of trust.

Our bodies will obey.

How to Talk to Your Body

The wording doesn’t matter. Only the intent. We can speak out loud, in our heads, speak as if to a god or as if to a child. The important part is that we relay our physical desires to our bodies in a way we can understand what we want. Our bodies don’t understand words, only the underlying meaning and intent of the words.

“Body, do what you need to do to heal yourself.”

“Body, do what you need to do to heal the ankle that has been giving me pain over the past few days.”

“Body, use that delicious dinner as efficiently as possible to build extra muscle and energize for tomorrow.”

Or you can speak to your body as if you’re speaking to a friend, like I often do. For example, last night:

“Hey Body, what’s up? You doin’ alright? Tough day huh? Thanks for crushing it in the gym today. That was awesome. I can tell you’re a bit tired and have some serious work to do tonight. I’ll leave you to it. Remember bud, I don’t know what you do exactly cuz you’re way better at that stuff than I am, but do whatever you have to do to maintain perfect health. Oh and that damn shoulder huh? A bit sore. Let’s work on fixing that tonight. Cool? Alright man, good luck. I’m going to sleep. Thanks for everything, you’re awesome…and incredibly sexy.”

Seems a bit crazy, I know. Sue me. Fortunately, you don’t have to ever tell anyone you do this. You can keep it to yourself and your craziness will remain private. I can no longer do so after this post, or many others on this site.

In the end, it doesn’t matter how you talk to your body, just that you do. Use whichever method you prefer.

Visualize

In addition to talking to your body, it’s highly important to visualize the end result you desire. Make sure to do so in vivid detail and to focus on the positive emotions resulting from the visualizations. When the emotions spring up, revel in them and experience them fully.

If you want to feel refreshed and energized, visualize yourself feeling thus, in vivid detail. Enjoy the energetic feelings and imagine all of the things you’ll do.

If you want your broken arm to heal more rapidly (after a doctor or other professional sets it, if necessary), imagine your arm in perfect working order, as strong as it ever was. Feel in your mind what it would feel like to have a perfectly healed arm.

If you want to lose weight, visualize yourself in detail at your desired weight. Imagine what it would feel like as you navigated Earth as a fit person, and revel in those emotions as you drift off to sleep. This is a bit of a different example from the others since, if you’re overweight, you have directly caused the condition by eating too much and exercising too little. While your body can burn extra fat overnight and during the day if you ask it to, visualizing yourself as a fit person will not only help your body achieve the state, but it will inevitably alter your eating and exercise habits if you constantly visualize yourself as fit and revel in the accompanying positive emotions. More to be discussed on this tangent in the future. Stay tuned.

If you want to heal yourself of anything, visualize and imagine what it would feel like to be experiencing your desired result. Do so in as vivid detail as you can muster, really focus on the positive feelings, and when you’re done, forget it all and just trust that your body knows what to do.

Odds are, your body has healed you from quite serious ailments in the past without your conscious knowledge of it. Now all you need to do is give it a little prodding, and again, the very best time to do this is right before you go to sleep when the body has several hours of uninterrupted healing ahead.

Visualizing is just another way of communicating with your body, and it can be especially powerful when combined with having an actual conversation in your mind.

 

Personal Examples

I’ve only been talking to my body for a couple months now, but I’ve experienced numerous benefits as a direct result of the practice. Below are three examples.

Allergies: “Body, do what you need to do so I don’t experience unnecessary allergies.” I had fewer allergy symptoms this spring than I’ve had in many years, without taking Zyrtec, which worked, but also dried me up like crazy and made me feel kind of gross. Some allergy symptoms (e.g. sneezing, slight runny nose) may be necessary to expel excess pollen from the system, but there’s no reason to be sneezing and blowing our noses and getting sinus headaches all day long during pollen season.

Ankle: “Body, do whatever’s necessary to heal the left ankle that’s been bothering me lately.” I stepped on my foot wrong during a run…or something…and was occasionally limping over the course of a few days. Sometimes it would even give out and I’d experience a sharp pain while walking normally. Before sleep, I would ask my body to do whatever it had to do to heal the ankle, and behold, it’s perfect now, less than a week later. Many people probably would have gone to a doctor for such a condition, only to be told, “Well, the x-rays don’t show anything, but it appears you strained _____. Make sure you stay off of your ankle for a while, don’t stress it too much, and here, have some painkillers.” No thanks, doc.

Sickness: “Body, do whatever you have to in order to prevent this oncoming sickness from materializing.” A few days ago I woke up with a headache, and felt nauseated and exhausted. After trying to work for a few hours, I decided to lie down and have a lengthy conversation with my body. I didn’t want to get sick, but I felt exactly what I have felt hundreds of times in my life: sickness was coming fast. In this particular case, I spent a full hour in bed, completely relaxed, and spoke with my body. I asked it to energize me and remove whatever was causing the oncoming sickness. When I rose, I felt perfect. I didn’t get sick at all and was perfectly energized. In the past, I would have assumed there was nothing I could do, and would have likely spent several days feeling terrible.

 

Prove It!

Sorry, can’t. You can only prove it to yourself, and you can only even do that by trying it. You may be amazed at the positive physical effects communicating with your body can have.

What do you have to lose? It takes a few seconds or minutes as you’re going to sleep.

No, you can’t regrow a lost limb or heal a broken spine overnight. There are some steadfast rules by which we human creatures are bound in this particular physical reality. But many rules which only seem steadfast are not even rules at all. By believing we are bound by these seeming rules, they become limitations. We create these limitations, then live bound by them. How stupid!

And if the body of someone with multiple personality disorder can change its eye color, eyeglass prescription, or allergies immediately depending on which personality is inhabiting it (i.e. depending on the beliefs governing the body), is it such a stretch to imagine that our bodies can make quite immediate, positive changes overnight with a little prodding?

 

The Most Important Message of All

If you love and respect your body, it will love and respect you back.

Give it a little tough love by pushing it physically, then feeding it some natural, nutritious foods. Think of it as your pet that loves you unconditionally and craves your love, but who can’t be a good pet to you if you’re not a good master.

Be the best master you can be.

“Body, I love you. You’re very sexy.”

This is a sentiment I’d also like to extend to you.