The Mind-Body Cure. Bal Pawa
have negative subconscious thoughts or you run automatic self-limiting programs. Perhaps you have raw untapped potential that you need to develop. Gather feedback from trusted friends and family about your unique strengths and weaknesses (like a business “strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats” or SWOT analysis). If your self-talk is negative, take steps to upgrade your inner dialogue using the stop, observe, detach, affirm (SODA) technique.
➤ Stop, Observe, Detach, Affirm
The SODA technique, often used by cognitive behavioral therapists, is a way to consciously reframe a situation. It’s especially useful when your thinking patterns are stuck on repeat and you need to hit pause so you can take a step back and assess what’s going on. I originally learned this technique when I took a course with integrative medicine advocate Deepak Chopra, and I have found it helpful for both myself and my patients. I highly recommend this as your first step in cultivating a health mindset.
Stop refers to our ability to gain control over our thoughts. Be the mind that does the thinking.
Observe refers to metacognition, your mind witnessing your thoughts and emotions as a third party without judgment or action.
Detach means to abandon negative, automatic, fear-based pathways once you recognize them.
Affirm means to create another, positive thought so it can replace the automatic negative thought.
When trauma interferes in our lives, we have the power to become stronger and better. We need to understand how to do that, use the right tools, and seek support. As a physician, I urge you to consciously and objectively evaluate your mindset. If you are inclined to sit back and let someone fix you, acknowledge that. But to heal, you will need to cultivate a health mindset. Learn to take responsibility. Research, participate, and contribute to creating ways to fix the problem. Believe that you can help fix the situation. If you are willing to put in the time and effort, developing a health mindset is possible.
TRY THESE ADDITIONAL STEPS to master your health mindset.
➤ Surround Yourself with Positive Role Models of Health
It is much easier to adopt a health mindset when you see it working for others, so look around you and observe the behavior of healthy people. Meet people who have learned to overcome their health obstacles. Join support groups if that is helpful. Read books that encourage and inspire you in your journey. Listen to podcasts or watch videos on how others have navigated the transition from illness to health. Then emulate these individuals who possess a health mindset, even if you have to “fake it until you make it” when you start.
➤ Be Passionate
Give yourself a reason or a set of reasons to be passionate about pursuing a health mindset. For example, remember a time when you felt vibrant and healthy and dwell on that image with all your senses. Feel that strength. When passion fuels our goals, we align our body, heart, and head and feel content, which makes it easy to do what we love. Passion, purpose, and perspective help motivate us for more self-improvement.
➤ Be Persistent
It takes determination and hard work to reprogram a mindset. Acknowledge that you will need to navigate obstacles and be tenacious enough to do so. Prepare for challenges by setting and writing down interim goals for yourself. If or when you slip back into old thought patterns and behaviors, gently and consciously bring your attention back to your new program and to one of your interim goals. Use the time just before you go to sleep to think of all the things you are thankful for. Think about the gains you’ve made to help you stay motivated and cultivate persistence.
➤ Practice Self-Compassion and Kindness
This is the cornerstone of mastering a health mindset. Unconditionally accepting ourselves, knowing we are resourceful, knowing we are imperfectly perfect and inherently good, and knowing we are never alone are vital beliefs to create the foundation of self-trust. Instead of saying, “I am never going to get better,” focus on what you are doing to heal and tell yourself, “I am getting better every day.” Say these words out loud to make them real and powerful. If you occasionally slip into your old illness mindset with a negative comment or if you eat some junk food or don’t make time for exercise from time to time, be gentle and forgive yourself. Vow to try harder next time and move on!
Don’t just take my word for it: research shows that self-forgiveness is associated with both mental and physical health. In a review of many major studies involving almost 18,000 participants, researchers found a robust correlation between self-forgiveness and psychological well-being.8
➤ Be Open and Curious
Health and wellness are broad topics. Gaining knowledge and information about your illness is important, but try not to become consumed with the details. Be willing to ask questions to enhance your current knowledge. You don’t have to be an instant expert in any one subject, but pay more attention to how you could be a more active participant in your health care. Asking questions and actively listening to answers improves results.
➤ Practice Mindfulness
“Mindfulness is a state of active, open attention in the present. When you are mindful you observe your thoughts and feelings from a distance, without judging them good or bad. Mindfulness means living in the moment and awakening to experience.”9 Bringing your attention to the present moment and remaining fully in the “now” is the foundation of mindfulness, and it’s a great way to pause the brain’s automatic playback loop of past fears and failures. Use all your senses to register what you are doing at that moment, whether it is breathing, eating, buying groceries, etc. Enlisting the senses to hyperfocus on something you can touch, smell, or hear magically turns off the stress response.
Try doing this with a raisin (or an almond). Begin by observing it visually. Really notice how wrinkled it is. Look closely at the color: how dark brown it is, how it has a slightly frosty tinge. Now pick it up. Touch all the ridges and squeeze it gently to test its consistency. Close your eyes and explore it with your fingers, and then lightly place it on your tongue. Feel the ridges on the raisin and notice how it makes contact with your palate, cheeks, or gums. Now gently bite into the raisin and notice the soft flesh in your mouth, savor the sweetness. Feel grateful for having this experience and being able to fully enjoy the raisin before you swallow it.
Being mindful is having a state of active, open attention in the present moment while observing your thoughts and feelings without judgment. A heightened sense of awareness during mindfulness, using all your senses, allows you to re-create the memory of the raisin later without actually eating one. Your brain registers this experience so deeply on a multisensory level that when you recall it, your body will produce the same chemicals as if there were a raisin on your tongue. The same applies to your health. When you are in an illness mindset or your stress level is rising, you can slow down, be mindful, and allow your mind to re-create the memory of health and positivity.
The Benefits of a Healthy Mindset
When we move from simply knowing about health to actively cultivating a health mindset, our thoughts, actions, and feelings change. We form a habit of self-approval rather than seeking outside validation. We become more resilient. We become more open to learning from others and from our own mistakes, and we become more confident in our abilities to persevere when challenged and to develop strategies that support our health. Our attitude adjustment is our responsibility and no one else can do that for us.
Challenging your automatic thoughts and learning to reframe situations and view them in different ways creates new neural networks and allows you to manage your own health.