I am reading a book called Relaxation Revolution by Herbert Benson, MD and William Proctor, JD. It is somewhat poetic in a way. Someone with an MD behind his name is describing pretty much what I did for myself with meditation and healing. I guess I have been validated! I am not so weird after all.
I am finding the book boring in a way because I lived it. You can tell the writing has been researched, not lived through. It has test cases, subjects, clients and it has good information. It gives you the how and why about the way relaxation works in healing.
It seems Dr. Herbert Benson wrote a book called The Relaxation Response 35 years ago. I am going to find that book and read it too.
This is bitter-sweet for me. On one hand I am happy that this book caught my eye and I checked it out. I am happy that I have been validated and that doctors are researching and publishing evidence of the mind-body stress connection. However, my disappointment is that this has been out there for 35 years and the medical world has been far too slow to accept it. When I told my first GI doctor what I was doing with meditation he called me a fool. (I should thank him, I feel so much better now.)
It seems this model does not fit into the definition of the business of ‘medicine’. I’m not saying that doctors and medicine are bad and shouldn’t be part of your recovery; what I am saying is that we live in a society where money rules. And it pays to sell medicine and tests and keep you coming back. Once this simple treatment and cure of learning to focus your mind is learned, it cannot be controlled, charged money for, or manipulated. So, in the business of medicine there is not much encouragement for this free option. The biggest thing of all is business medicine does not understand how it feels to be so desperate for some relief from this disease, and let’s face it from any disease. But I have faith that those who are in the medical community to help bring healing instead of business profit do understand and this path is the way to healing. Let’s join forces and unite medical treatment with a proven path to healing: focusing and relaxing the mind.
When medicine offers high priced solutions that feel out of reach, despair can set in for those who are working to heal. This perpetuates stress for the patient and leaves health professionals who want to help feeling helpless. Teaching relaxation will empower both those in search of healing and those in the medical field who want to help others heal.
I sound bitter in this post and I apologize, it was a tough fight back then, but like the business of medicine, I too have to move forward.
I Healed my Crohn's Colitis 