The Mind-Body Connection Can Help or Hinder Healing

The mind and the body are not separate entities. Descartes was indeed incorrect.

Mind and body are so intimately linked, it's impossible to treat or heal one without affecting the other.

In fact, there is no "other" in this scenario. Mind and body are one.

As a fledgling personal fitness trainer in 1999, I discovered this fact by accident.

My first foray into the realm of the mind-body connection happened when I saw that:
  • my fitness clients’ beliefs alone could prevent them from reaching their physical goals; literally nothing but their own beliefs stood in their way, and
  • by being a trusted, trustworthy healing partner and helping those clients develop a safe relationship with and understanding of their body, I could create a space in which clients would modify the unhelpful beliefs that had been standing in the way of their physical goals.
Since that time, I’ve logged more than 20 years of near-constant education, training, and practice that consistently confirm this truth:

The mind and the body can work together in subtle but powerful ways to create either health or illness, and the choice is ours… once we realize we have that choice.

Personal and Professional Mind-Body Experience

My experience with the mind-body connection is both personal and professional.
 
Indeed, like many folks in fitness, psychology, and other healing arts, my choice to enter the field of mind-body healing was driven by my own experience.
 
I had to reconcile some deep body image issues I had as a result of severe scoliosis and subsequent surgery that left me with long metal rods in my back.
 
The struggle to heal eventually led me to yoga and to EMDR therapy, and those healing modalities have intensified and enriched my own practice of mind-body healing over the years.

For years, I believed I could not become a yoga teacher because I physically can’t bend my back (see a photo of my amazing spine hardware in this blog post about why I love yoga).

I had spent years proving the old mantra correct, that “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right”!
 
That is, until I discovered during meditation that that belief of mine was a load of horseshit. (I might be an academic researcher, but I love to swear.)

I quickly was able to dismantle that horseshit belief and replace it with this: I can do anything I want, as long as I really, truly want it!
 
So I became a certified yoga teacher in 2011 and started teaching my Yoga without Back Pain workshops immediately afterward.

I developed the Hauber Method, a sound and simple method for treating back pain by working with the whole person--muscles, joints, and fascia, plus safety, trust, and self belief.

The hundreds of hours of continuing education I have completed since 1999 include many courses focused only on the mind-body relationship. I also earned an MA in health communication, during which I founded a campus-wide women’s network to help all of us women deal with the enormous stressors inherent in higher education by accessing the healing power of support.

(Did you know that support from others can even impact our physical pain? See what I mean about the mind and body being one and the same!)

Mind-Body Research

I’m in the middle of a 4-year doctorate program in which I am putting all of my previous training, practice, and experience into my work.
 
Curiosity about how I can help advance the field of whole-person healing is driving me down this fascinating road.
 
If you’d like to come along, check out my mind-body blog. I’d love to hear about your experiences in the comments.