Over the last few years, there has been a consistent rise in the number of people living with chronic or long-term illness. In 2015, 45.8% of the population of the United States were on prescription medication¹, compared to just over 66% of the adult population in 2023².
"In 2023, over 66% of the adult population of the U.S.A. take prescription medication, compared to just over 45% in 2015."
Why is there a rise in prescription medication and an implied greater dependency on symptoms management and coping mechanisms rather than a journey back to health? Certainly, the strains on the healthcare system, and time and budgetary constraints are factors.
And, given the systemic strains and limitations on the healthcare system, what can we do to actively support our own health?
In this article, I intend to show you the subtle ways in which we are encouraged to live with dis-ease, rather than work towards a full recovery. And, more than that, I will show you 6 ways you can support your own healing, starting today.
Read on to assess your attitude towards your body and health and learn how to make these powerful mindset shifts.
3 Ways We Adopt Limiting Beliefs About Our Ability to Heal
While I do not believe that these factors are intentional, we are all exposed to messaging which influences our beliefs in our ability to heal; partly from cultural and societal attitudes, and partly due to the way each patient is treated within the healthcare system.
1. We Believe Mind and Body Are Separate
Think about how not just health professionals but most of us talk when discussing illness. We refer to a specific part of the body that has a particular set of symptoms. We talk about it like an object separate from us.
Over time we tune out from the body's signals. We ignore them, medicate them, numb them. Because of this, the body needs to give us stronger and more powerful signals until we cannot avoid paying attention to the body's needs.
Ask yourself the following:
Can I tell when I feel stressed or relaxed? Where and how does stress manifest in my body?
Do I know how to eat intuitively; am I tuned in to my body's nutritional needs?
Am I aware of when my body needs to move and exercise and when I've done enough and need to rest and sleep?
These are just some questions to help you begin to strengthen the mind-body connection.
2. We Are More Passive Than Active In Our Own Healing
The messages that train us to be passive in our attitude to our own health come in many forms.
We become vessels into which medication is injected, swallowed or infused.
We are inspected or X-rayed and then informed.
We are given a timeframe after which we are told not to expect any further improvement.
The very language used in healthcare is disempowering, tinting the future with limitations by using terms such as "coping mechanisms" rather than an action plan for recovery.
We are not only encouraged to accept the inevitability of a prognosis but our passive role can also create a sense of helplessness and hopelessness.
All of this can lead some to accept both treatment and prognosis as a doomed fate instead of a temporary state from which we can improve and even recover.
3. Prognosis Becomes Fate
An ex-colleague once mentioned to me that his mother was diagnosed with cancer and was given exactly 3 months to live. And on that exact day, 3 months later, she passed away.
The colleague in question had no spiritual or religious beliefs. But I will never forget the look on his face when he turned to me and said that, had his mother been given a date of 6 months, 1 year, or even longer, she would have lived for that length of time.
"We live within the limits of our beliefs."
This is an example of what I would term "negative hypnosis". As hypnosis can be used to release limiting beliefs, it can also be used to impose them. In a state of shock the mind becomes wide open to updating beliefs again, and the mind can accept even the most extreme of limiting beliefs.
6 Powerful Mindset Shifts to Accelerate Your Healing
So how can we become active agents in our own journey to healing? Here are 6 simple yet powerful ways you can shift your mindset to help support your healing , all of which you can start to implement today.
1. Update Your Identity
If you have lived with long-term illness, you may have subconsciously updated your self-image to identify with your ill health.
When people ask you how you are, do you automatically include your symptoms, aches and pains? The more you do this, the more dis-ease subconsciously becomes not just what you experience but who you are.
To change this, start by changing your language and thought patterns. Yes, you may be experiencing illness, but just as you may experience different emotions, both painful and joyful, so you are capable of experiencing a spectrum of health that can shift and improve.
Begin to change your identity by changing the way you speak and think about your health, as something you experience but still separate from the permanent aspects of your character.
And every time you speak of your health, add to your statement by taking a minute to observe and state the ways in which your body is working well. We forget the hundreds of tasks the body performs perfectly every day and limit our view to just what is not working as expected.
2. Heal Limiting Beliefs Related to a Prognosis
Have you taken on a prognosis as fact or, worse still, as fate rather than a possibility? How has this influenced your perspective of the future and, more specifically, how has the prognosis influenced your own actions?
While I understand the good intentions behind a prognosis which is to help set expectations for the future, a prognosis can inadvertently cause the patient to abandon their own sense of control over their health and healing.
To identify any limiting beliefs, ask yourself the following:
Do I believe I can return to full health?
Do I believe I can influence my own health?
Am I prepared to take an active role in supporting my health?
And if yes, start taking action today.
3. Recognize the Choices and Actions Available to Accelerate Healing
Leading on from the last question, you may now be open and ready to acknowledge the many ways in which you can support your body.
As I mention in my Heal Your Body Sleep Affirmations, we all have so many ways in which we can make positive choices to support our health.
Here are just some choices you can make every single day:
Food Make nutritious food choices instead of junk food;
Water Choose to drink at least 8 glasses of water per day instead of pop or other drinks;
Physical activity Choose to spend time to strengthen your body with some physical movement. Notice what you can do rather than focusing on the limitations of movement. (Please check with your doctor before taking on or changing any physical activity);
Self-care Identify one activity for self-care every day. This may be meditation, yoga, or reduced screen time, as just some examples;
Set boundaries If you are healing, you need more time for yourself. This may mean setting better boundaries with others to have more time for yourself. It may also mean taking a break from people who drain you;
Thought patterns Become aware of your inner voice and banish the inner critic within you.
Above all else, rather than notice perceived or actual limitations, notice what you can do and are empowered to choose.
4. Resolve Emotional Root Causes of Chronic Illness
One of the signs that emotions are a likely influence on your physical health can be when chronic illness manifests in a much shorter than usual timeframe, and symptoms are acute and extreme.
This can be due to years of everyday stress, depression or anxiety, or can have far-reaching roots back to childhood trauma or other early adverse experiences.
The ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) study was an extensive research project³ conducted in the 1990s that found a link between early childhood trauma and adverse childhood experiences, and correlated these with higher rates of chronic illness in adults, as well as other negative links such as higher incarceration rates.
How can you know if your illness has an emotional root cause? Hypnotherapy is one way you can actually have a dialogue with the normally silent subconscious.
And if some of you prefer not to go back to memories in early life, you can always work with the Superconscious to help support your healing. As you may now realize that the mind-body is one and the same, my Rapid Healing While You Sleep at ALL Levels may well help you as it involves no regression back to the past, but rather calls on a higher power to work with your subconscious mind-body to heal.
5. Cultivate a Loving Attitude Towards Your Body
If your body were a separate person, an acquaintance or friend, what would they say about the relationship between the two of you? Would they say you treat them well, respect them, show gratitude, and provide support and care as a good friend?
Or would they say that you are indifferent to them, ignore them or, worse yet, hostile towards them?
"Your body hears every word you say."
As an exercise, note down the first thoughts that come to mind when you consider your body. Jot down 5 thoughts and opinions you hold about your body. And notice if they seem positive, neutral or negative.
If there are more neutral or negative than positive statements, begin by reminding yourself that your body works for you 24 hours a day. They protect you, nourish you, and provide you with mobility and senses through which you experience the best of this world.
Can you begin to reciprocate this constant support with kinder thoughts?
Even consider a ritual of forgiveness work for past criticisms of your body. Your body hears and remembers every word you say.
6. Remember Mind-Body Are One and the Same
And the most important mindset shift is to realize that mind and body are not separate and, more than connected; they are one and the same.
Whatever we put into the body influences not just one body part but all of it, and the brain too. Which in turn influences the mind. And of course this ripple effect flows both ways.
Emotions manifest physically, always.
All emotions influence hormone production and suppression. Stress generates inflammation. Feelings of joy and security increase our natural internal pain killers. These are just a few examples of how everything you think, feel and do influences the body.
"Even to speak about links between mind and body is to imply that two discrete entities are somehow connected to each other. Yet in life there is no such separation; there is no body that is not mind, and no mind that is not body."
Gabor Maté, When the Body Says No
Final Thoughts
I hope this has helped you to make simple yet powerful mindset shifts and take the first steps on the path to full health.
You can access my medical healing hypnosis playlist on my Youtube channel at no cost to you. All the points I've mentioned in this article are also incorporated into my Heal Your Body Affirmations linked below.
As the mind is in theta state as you fall asleep and as soon as you wake, I encourage you to listen to these every night and every morning for 21 days.
Start to notice the difference and you will find that it becomes easier to state these affirmations over time as they form part of your beliefs.
About Sarah Dresser, Clinical Hypnotherapist M.H. C.C.Ht
My name is Sarah and I am the creator and narrator of Unlock Your Life. I have worked as a Clinical Hypnotherapist for over 8 years. I am passionate about creating a safe space online where everyone can explore all that they feel and find support, compassion and healing.
Inspired by my previous years studying models of Sustainable Communities, I work to provide low-cost and no-cost support for all.
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You can find over 200 sessions to support your health in mind, body and spirit here on my Youtube channel.
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References
1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2019, May). NCHS Data Brief No. 334: Prescription Drug Use in the United States, 2015–2016. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db334.htm
2. Georgetown University Health Policy Institute. (n.d.). Prescription Drug Spending in the United States: A Review of the Evidence and Potential Policy Options. Retrieved from https://hpi.georgetown.edu/rxdrugs/#:~:text=More%20than%20131%20million%20people,United%20States%20%E2%80%94%20use%20prescription%20drugs.
3. Title: Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Website: National Human Trafficking Training and Technical Assistance Center (NHTTAC) URL: https://nhttac.acf.hhs.gov/soar/eguide/stop/adverse_childhood_experiences