Back in grad school, during my stress management class, we were given the assignment to watch a web-series by a man named Steven Horne called, Slaying Dragons. It is an incredibly interesting (and LONG!) series, but it really made me think about thought patterns.

We have known for a while that our emotions can help or hinder our body’s ability to heal from disease and even prevent some diseases from setting in. However, this is often overlooked by Western Medicine because it seems a bit “woo woo”.

Think about how this plays out in your own life. Have you ever had a bad day and then something happens, maybe nothing big. Maybe something like you knocked over a glass of water? On a normal day, this would probably be no big deal. Annoying yes, but a catastrophe? No. But on this particularly bad day, it was the last straw and sends you into a tailspin. Everything else becomes that much worse. Someone asking you a question could set you off. Someone looking at you wrong could cause your blood to boil. Everything seems like the end of the world. Your rational mind knows it’s not, but your rational mind isn’t in control.

Think about this from your body’s perspective. Your reaction causes your body to go into fight or flight mode. Are you going to run from the angry lion trying to eat you for dinner? Or are you going to fight him? Either way, your body kicks into high gear to keep you alive. Little does it know you just spilled some water. There’s no hungry lion.

Horne explains that negative thoughts can also come from a person’s experiences and his or her perspectives of those experiences. Negative thoughts can often come out as complaining about what is lacking in life or general dissatisfaction with life. This pattern of thinking about challenges and difficulties often causes a person to lack gratitude and also live in a world where nothing is ever “good enough”.

These negative emotions have been shown to cause negativity within your body. Your heart, digestive tract, and muscles can be impacted. Stress can cause just as many physical symptoms as emotional ones. When you are nervous, do you ever get butterflies in your stomach? Or when you’re angry, do your shoulders become tense? That’s stress manifesting as physical symptoms.

Positive thoughts, on the other hand, are thoughts that can be acted upon to change the current situation for the better. The person is willing to accept the emotion they are feeling, such as fear, and be confident that he or she will find a way to successfully cope with the emotion.  Positive thoughts allow a person to express gratitude and brainstorm ways to eliminate things he or she no longer desires or that no longer serves a purpose. Horne believes positive thoughts are a strong tool that a person can have when working on a transformation.

Patients with positive thoughts and a more positive attitude have been shown to have better outcomes when diagnosed with a disease or recovering from surgery.

Now, we get to the really interesting type of thoughts! Magical thoughts! According to Horne, magical thoughts can be similar to positive thoughts in that they are positive, however, what differentiates the two is that magical thoughts are the belief that simply thinking about positive things will attract them.  There is no action in magical thinking.  Sometimes people can create alternative realities because these magical thoughts give them the illusion of not experiencing negative emotions.  They expect to never experience negative emotions, which is unrealistic. 

How do magical thoughts impact healing and our health? The simple answer is we don’t know. Are you able to “trick” your mind into believing everything will be okay without taking any action? Maybe. On one hand, think about the stress that may cause. On the other hand, think of the phrase, “fake it until you make it.” Does that apply to health? Again, we just don’t know.

I think common sense has to play a role here until we are actually able to study this idea. Denying you have a serious illness while not doing any type of treatment likely will not cure your illness. Could it play a small role? Maybe. But the action you take is going to have the real impact.

Magical thoughts probably have their place but accepting reality and making a plan would be my best recommendation regarding any health decision! Positivity can be a powerful tool!

Finding ways to boost your positive thoughts and have more of them can be beneficial not just to your health but also to your overall enjoyment of life. At the end of the day, that’s what all this is about, isn’t it?

On that happy thought, I’m off to eat some kale!

Peace, love & kale!

Lindsay

References

Horne, S.  [Steven Horne]. (2018, July 23).  Slaying Dragons with Wuestion-Affirmations: Emotional Healing Training [Video file].  Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QSeTDLh-UU

Iancu, I., Bodner, E., Joubran, S., Lupinsky, Y., & Barenboim, D.  (2015).  Negative and Positive Automatic thoughts in Social Anxiety Disorder.  Israel Journal of Psychiatry and Related Sciences. 52(2).  129-35.  Retrieved from: http://doctorsonly.co.il/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/11_Negative-and-Positive.pdf

Lozano, L. M., Valor-Segura, I., García-Cueto, E., Pedrosa, I., Llanos, A., & Lozano, L. (2019). Relationship Between Child Perfectionism and Psychological Disorders. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1855. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01855

Seaward, B. L. (2018). Managing Stress (9th ed.). Burlington, MA. Jones & Bartlett Learning.