What’s Your Headache Telling You?
(Health Secrets) Years ago I read a study about the healing power of love which I then saw repeated in several locations. I have not been able to find this study, but the principle is sound, so even if I misquote it a little, the point will not be lost. The study was an attempt to induce heart disease in rabbits by feeding them high cholesterol food. Various groups of rabbits in different areas of the country were used and various people were hired to feed the rabbits the artificially altered food.
In each case the rabbits had indeed achieved heart disease by the end of the study — that is each case except one. The rabbits in this particular case were returned to their setting and their feedings were observed to see what was different in their case. The young boy who was paid to feed the rabbits did indeed give them the correct food and nothing else — except one thing. He would pick up each rabbit before feeding it and stoke it, love it, cuddle and fondle it. Then he would put it in its cage with its altered food and move on. None of the rabbits he took care of got ill in any way from the altered high cholesterol food!
Sometimes it is good to remember the healing power of love when we are thinking about how to be well or get well. Sometimes, as the prophetic Judeo-Christian scripture predicts, we find that the love of men has waxed cold. We are cold, we violate our consciences, we do not love our fellow man and subsequently we invariably find that we do not love ourselves. We do not have healthy associations with our communities. We do not contribute, but we whine, confess other peoples’ sins, get angry often, push and pull instead of support and love. We think only about ourselves and only a cold, withdrawn image appears, driven by want and hunger, lust and distaste. It is only natural that we gain such things in return. We do not enjoy the journey, only the destination and that only fleetingly.
A mentor of mine once told a story about a man who attended a religious congregation in an area. He then went to the regional leader of that particular sect and complained that this one congregation had been cold and unsociable to him.
The leader of the region replied, “Now, let me get this straight. You came in early to get in the spirit of things, right? You sat down and shook hands with people who sat around you and talked to the person next to you, and that person would not talk to you and made you feel unwanted, right?”
‘No” came the reply.
“Well, then, maybe what you did is come in late?”
“Yes”
“You sat in the back?”
“Yes”
“You looked down and avoided talking to anyone and did not shake anyone’s hand, right?”
“Um, yes.” The man replied.
“That’ll do it every time.” The religious leader told him.
You see, we have imploded in our own view of the world so much that we no longer have a sane picture of the world around us and other people–other human beings–around us. We have lost the ability to experience the healing power of love.
The warmth of community is gone or going for most of us. Where we have the opportunity for it, we are a liability, instead of an asset. Here the heart is damaged. Here the food, however healthy or not, coursing through our veins is becoming poison to us, and our very river of life is turning against us. Our meals are held in tense situations where warmth, mutual respect and kindness are not practiced. Often, we eat out, with unknown personalities preparing and serving our food, people we may not even treat well. We may also be eating in our cars or in haste at the worst type at fast food restaurants. The result is that our food no longer feeds us!
Heart disease and even our diets and the food choices available to us are not entirely the product of circumstances, but are the product of our own choices and the collective choices of society. These are not bad things happening to us, they are bad things we are creating. We do this through non-principled living, where the means is justified by the ends and substance is sacrificed for pretense. We happily pretend a life that is actually without authenticity. We live in violation of our own consciences, our own authenticity and our own natures…which are actually loving and communal.
Every person can make improvements here. Each of us can start now and merge one ideal into our lives starting today, this second, which will replace the violations and incongruities we have been living with. We can love others — this is no effort to generate an artificial feeling, but this is about serving others, asking ourselves what they really need and want that we can share and provide. In generating this warmth for others, I promise that we will generate such warmth for ourselves as well. When we experience the healing power of love, we will enjoy rich returns of the kind that heal our hearts, repair the real cancers in our lives (before they congeal into the actual disease for us and our children), boost our immune factors, improve our digestion and so much more.
Published with permission from Alignlife. Original article link is here.
