Love and Healing: What’s Love Got to Do With It?

Love and Healing

Yesterday I was speaking to one of my patients about a pain she had in her back. It was right behind her heart. She was wondering why she kept having pain there. I started speaking about how your heart has to do with love. When there’s pain in the heart area, its all the things that keep us from love –lack of forgiveness, sadness that love hasn’t come, fear that love will never be there for us. She asked why she had never had a conversation about love and her health with anyone before. I told her that for me, love was the cornerstone to healing.

In my many years of practice I’ve worked with thousands of people but I rarely get asked about emotions and how they might be impacting your body. One of the many reasons I love Chinese Medicine so much is that it incorporates all of who we are into how our bodies behave. Emotions are an important part of each organ system’s function. In fact – disease comes from two places – either inside your being, or outside. The disease that comes from inside is most connected to emotions.

As we talked, she admitted that she had been supporting a friend of hers who was going through a difficult divorce. It reminded her of having her heart broken many years before. She was afraid that if she allowed herself to really love, she might have her own heart broken again.

I was at a conference last month where the leader of a company called MindValley came to speak. His speech was about building an amazing team by creating a workplace that people want to work in. Vishen Lakhiani – is his name – http://www.mindvalley.com

One of my favorite parts of his speech was LOVE week. The week before Valentines day, the company has everyone pick a name out of a hat. Then they send anonymous love notes and gifts to that person for the whole week. I loved the idea so much I decided to figure out a way to do it in my life. I’m not sure it will all be anonymous but who do you want to tell that you love them? How much fun would it be to write notes appreciating your co-workers, or your friends, not just your significant others but the people in your life who mean something to you? The more you put love into something, the more you get out of it.

When we are sad, angry, hurting, or otherwise emotionally stressed, we set off cascades of hormones and chemicals from our bodies that prevent healing. But when we open our hearts, and bring love in, healing occurs.

Speaking of putting love in. We all find lots of ways to get mad at ourselves when we do things like eat a candy bar, or forget to pay a bill, or have a bad day. Instead how about putting some love into yourself?
Think of one thing you appreciate about your body, your health, your looks every day this coming week. Give yourself the gift of appreciation and love. When you eat something healthy, give yourself some love! When you go to work out, tell yourself how awesome you are. Try just putting a little bit more attention to your own goodness, see how much different you will feel.