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Can Miracles Be Created?
Do miracles happen by chance or can they be created?
Are the following stories true or are they a figment of someone’s imagination?
A professional singer and musician was struggling to establish her freelance presence in the competitive world of music. She was not finding much success. She dreamed of getting work as an actress where her music skills could also be used. She loved to do theatre where she could also play music. Such assignments were hard to come by. Then suddenly she got this offer. She got offered a part in a play. Also tied in with this commitment was the offer of doing music for the play. She was over the moon. She thought it was a one off opportunity. As weeks have gone by, she has so much more work now that she has difficulty in handling the assignments.
A budding film producer/ director was trying to find work. Contacts were limited. But the experience in working with ad films was to her advantage. She was hoping she would get some engagements to prove her mettle. Then suddenly, she got five emails in one day offering her different film projects. She had to then decide which ones to accept and which ones to leave.
An airline crew member was in the job for many years. Other colleagues had been promoted but this person was finding it difficult to go up the ladder. She did not know how to change things for her. Then she did something that changed her life. She got the promotion she was looking for, without making much effort.
A businessman was in debt with the banks for a six figure sum. He was distraught as business was in a mess. Then he did something that changed his business. In another six months time, he had a six -figure sum in the bank, having paid off his debt.
A young lady was struggling to conceive after eight years of cohabiting with her husband. She was not sure what could help her. She then did something that changed her life. She conceived successfully after six months.
A struggling small time actor had the dream of joining Broadway. He was based in Ireland and Broadway is in London. He thought that it was just going to be a dream. Then he did something. One day out of the blue he got a call from a director in Broadway to offer him a role in a play on Broadway. He grabbed the opportunity.
These stories are actually real life experiences and observations. What did these people do to make things happen?
What is common to each of them is that each person involved, took the steps to change themselves as a person at an emotional level. Each of them was my client. I had the privilege to guide them through their journey.
They knew that they were responsible for their own destiny. But did not know how to change it. They were carrying on with their daily life, in their respective professions without even expecting something dramatic to happen. Some of our experiences were contrary to what we had read in some of the books on creating miracles.
It is as simple as this. Change your emotional state to a more positive state by getting rid of your anger, fear and grief. This is what creates miracles.
It may sound quite “unscientific”. But what we do in my clinic, involves only science and nothing else.
You have within yourselves the power to create miracles. The only thing is you need to know is how to shift your emotions and then just do the work to shift them in a focused manner. The world around you changes accordingly. The resources around you will re-align themselves to create what you wish to have. The above experiences also proved that there are certainly some rules in Nature that you need to follow to create miracles in your life.
These are the four lessons we learnt:
1.Not one of these people was expecting miracles to happen but their lives did change.
2. All of them had a certain wish but did not know how the wish would be fulfilled.
3. They simply took it to rid themselves of their negative feelings of anger and fear that had been parts of their life till that time.
4. They were certainly not “striving hard” to get what they wanted.
Is Human Suffering A Subjective Experience?
We can reduce our suffering if we have discipline
It is said that one of the reasons Siddhartha Gautam Buddha left home for the forest was because he wanted to explore why we suffer. His whole journey was about wanting to overcome suffering. As the story goes, he was successful in achieving his goal after being in meditation for many years. His conclusion was that we, as human beings, suffer because we cannot bring ourselves to a point of living when physical and mental suffering is not experienced. It means that almost all of us can bring ourselves to the point where we can stop suffering physically and mentally. This belief was the key on which Buddhism was based.
This was all a philosophical issue for me at one time. It was something that was in the realm of “spirituality”. It meant nothing to me in real practical day-to-day life. I was one of those people who was ignorant of what it meant to be free of suffering and what Buddha had stated. Suffering is a part of human life. It has been taught to us by our elders. It is also a common belief in many religious faiths.
How can one stop “suffering”?
As time and experience has taken hold of my senses, it has dawned to me that there may be truth in what Buddha had stated.
What does it mean by- you can stop your own suffering- statement?
It means that if you and I are in a trauma situation then we will perceive pain based on our personal perceptions. You come from a different background than me. You will experience pain in a different intensity than I. If I come from a deprived, traumatised upbringing, I will experience pain- emotional or physical- more intensely. If you come from a safe, loving upbringing, your perception of pain will be different.
An article was published in Psychology Today, authored by Susanne Babbel PhD. In it she mentions that there is a link between chronic pain, stress and trauma (see reference link below).
When the body experiences trauma, the muscles become tense. Simple day- to- day experiences are enough to create tension in muscles. This tension mounts up as life goes on. We do nothing about it. As this tension increases, it sensitises the body to experience pain. It also lowers the threshold for experiencing pain. A minor traumatic event is then perceived to be painful.
The body tends to remember trauma. A lady who had had a road traffic accident had pains and aches in exactly the same spots 25 years later when she recalled the experience in therapy. She was under the impression that she had left the event in her past as a closed chapter.
Depending on how much tension someone’s body holds, they will experience physical pain in proportion to that.
What is the solution?
Clear the body’s tension regularly. This can be done by regular physical exercise AND by meditation. Any kind of physical exercise including yoga, tai-chi, walking, aerobics or moderate gym exercises is good. Meditation relaxes the body and releases the tension. This “relaxation” can also be accumulated over time. When a trauma happens, the body responds by increasing muscular tension because it goes in a defence mode. For a regular meditator, this tension is not enough to be experienced as a painful event. So they experience less hurt.
So Gautam Buddha was right after all. Physical and emotional tension make us more prone to subjectively suffer pain. Release of physical and emotional tension on a regular basis is a must to reduce our suffering. The more tension you carry in your body, the more likely you are likely to suffer physical pain.
Reference:
Can Stress Contribute To Recurrent Infections?
Many years ago, a middle aged lady presented in the clinic with a history of recurrent urinary tract infection that was ongoing for many years. Her doctor had put her on an ongoing low dose of an antimicrobial medication. All investigations and evidence could not pin point any particular cause of the recurrence of infections.
Chronic stress is a known culprit in many infections. It is particularly relevant when no other obvious cause is apparent. It is usually not recognized by the person suffering. The reason for it is that as stress gets built up in the body, the body continues to adjust itself. With this adjustment more and more stress piles up, unless you are meditating regularly. With the increase in body stress, the immune system becomes weak. This causes the body to be vulnerable to successful attempts by the disease causing organisms inside and outside our body to thrive.
A research report was published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine in 1993. It was authored by Herbert & Cohen. It was one of the earlier findings that chronic stress resulted in decreased immunity. (1). Another article was published in Brain, Behavior and Immunity in 1997. This research was done by Dhabar and McEwen. They stated that acute stress or stress that lasts for a short period, strengthens the immune system. Chronic stress on the other hand, weakens the immune system.(2).
In my own work with stress, I have seen people having recurrent respiratory infections, tooth abscesses, digestive tract infections, among others.
Chronic stress can usually come from the way a person has been brought up. Because the immune system is not under voluntary control, a person may not be able to realize that their immune system is compromised. The rational mind can successfully suppress emotional stress by being creative and by avoiding the sources of stress. This suppression and avoidance, however, leads to a build up of tension that hits the immune system. Recurrent infections then become the norm for the body.
What is the solution? In the above mentioned case of recurrent urinary tract infections, a few months’ of treatment was taken in which the chronic emotional tension was “processed”. The person stopped having frequent attacks of infection.
Another person with Chronic Asthma stopped the use of inhalers after 40 years when he got treatment for his physical and psychological stress. Though Asthma is not necessarily caused by infections, there is still an inflammatory response of the immune system in it.
Stress plays an important but not commonly recognized role in causation and in suppression of the immune system. Once the long term impact of stress is “worked through”, the immune system kicks in.
1.Stress and immunity in humans: A meta-analytic review. Herbert T., Cohen S. Psychosomatic Medicine. 1993. Mendeley.
2. Acute stess enhances while chronic stress suppresses cell mediated immunity. Dhabhar F., McEwen B. Brain, Behavior and Immunity. 1997. Mendeley.