The Healing Power of the Mind

by Serina Aramaki

Have you ever considered your life as a “workbook”?

What if all of us make life plans before we come down into this world? What if we choose who our parents, siblings and friends will be? What if we decide what we’ll study in school and pursue as a career, who we’ll marry, what illnesses to experience, when to die, and so on?

Whether you believe it or not, every single person plans their lives while still on the spiritual plane. And many people actually plan to experience hardships, such as heavy illnesses, disabilities, abuse and dysfunction because they know, on a soul level, that these kinds of experiences are what they need for their soul growth and personal evolution. Are those decisions easy to make on the spiritual plane? Yes, they are. Are they easy to live with down here on planet Earth? No, they’re not!

Unfortunately, when we incarnate into human form and find ourselves dealing with a disability or a serious illness, suddenly we start to feel as if all hope is lost. Under difficult conditions, it’s very hard to keep having courage and hope for a better future.

Workbooks are designed to get us to learn and think differently. They present problems that we must work hard to solve. And there are always solutions to each problem! The experiences and problems might get harder as we progress through the workbook, but then that’s the whole point. How else can we grow and progress? Even if it takes a long time, in the end we always solve the problems. And when we solve the problems, it makes us smarter, more knowledgeable, and even more grateful. This, in turn, brings us more joy and happiness. If you didn’t have any problems in front of you, there wouldn’t be any joy or more challenges for your soul to grow bigger and greater.

What a difference having this larger, spiritual perspective makes! Try it. Instead of feeling put upon and victimized by an illness, for example, think about that illness as the problem you gave yourself before you were even born. Once you face an illness or other misfortune in this way, you can start thinking of ways to solve the problem for the first time. Of course, seeing doctors, getting proper medical attention, and prescriptions are important. But, at the same time, it’s equally vital to contemplate your inner self and focus on the cause of your illness. If you planned this in between lives, what was the purpose? Maybe you planned this particular illness because you had also planned to be a hard worker and very focused on your career. You knew coming into this life that you would need a break at some point to deeply contemplate your life and come back into touch with your spiritual nature somewhere along the way.

Maybe you chose an illness so that you could realize how the mind works, and the impact that your mind has on your life and others around you as well as your own body. We all know that the mind is very powerful. Thoughts can evoke strong negative emotions, like hatred, anger, jealousy and depression, and scientific studies have proven that these emotions have a damaging effect on the body, triggering the release of stress hormones and the creation of free radicals, which damage the cells and cause autoimmune diseases and dysfunction.

Many people still believe that the mind is simply an operation of the brain and that it has no impact. But that is not true. When we think thoughts that make us feel sad, grief fills our hearts in an instant and tears begin to flow. When we unexpectedly recognize an old friend and hug that person, our hearts fill with love and gratitude. These feelings are not the logical reactions of the cerebrum, but rather the result of our thoughts triggering chemical reactions within the body. And all of this is overseen by our deeper spiritual nature and intuition. Cerebralism—the theory that consciousness is merely a function or product of the brain—is just another form of materialism, which we must dismiss as simply wrong (The Laws of the Sun, p. 78).

Our mind has very special and strong powers. Depending upon our perspective, we can use these powers to help others. We can change our minds to become more empowered in life and cease being a victim of life and circumstances. We can use it to solve problems and heal others and ourselves, body and soul. After all, if the power of the mind itself set up the conditions and situations found in the workbook of your life this lifetime, isn’t it logical that the power of the mind can resolve them?