A Series of Thoughts on the Power of the Mind, Part 1

Back in May, I read a post on the blog Course of Mirrors called “. . .on awareness. . .” (To read it yourself, click here: http://courseofmirrors.wordpress.com/2011/05/14/thoughts-on-awareness/ )

The central assumption of the article is that there are psychological laws as immutable as scientific ones. Roberto Assagioli, M. D. has included a list in his book The Act of Will. Assagioli and the blogger Course of Mirrors discuss how the mind (through psychology) affects humans, and specificly the writer.

The mind is powerful. That is why I posted several quotes on New Year’s Eve about the power of preparation. If you re-read those quotes before pondering the postulates I present (how’s that for alliteration?), you’ll begin to see the importance of the mental connection.

So, today I want to emphasize the simple mind-body correlation.

Chris Teo, Ph. D. says:

“Philip Parham wrote about two men who contracted tuberculosis  around the same time. They both went to the same sanatorium. One went home after  eighteen months, fully recovered and healthy. The other man was dead within six  months. The disease was the same but the outcome was different. Why? William  Osler, a famous American physician said: ‘What happens to a patient with  tuberculosis depends more on what he has in his mind than what is in his chest.'”

and

Dr. Robert Good, a leader of psychoneuroimmunology said:

“A positive attitude  and constructive frame of mind all improve our ability to resist infections,  allergies, autoimmune disorders and cancers, whereas depression and pessimism  decrease our ability to do so.”

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/320854

In the post from Course of Mirrors, the author writes:

Having experienced Feldenkreis work — and practices deriving from it  –  after doing a gentle physical exercise and repeating it in my imagination only, with eyes closed, the same physical reactions happen in my body. This  explains why active imagination can affect mind and body at a deep level and change physical symptoms as well as states of mind.

When I hit my toe, elbow or head on an object, I repeat the exact contact and, in my imagination, send the impact back. There remains hardly any pain and the usual swelling is mild or does not occur at all.

Therapeutically, if a tense or hurtful part of the body is listened to and  allowed a voice, the result can be  instantaneous,  much like when you lower yourself at eye-level to a toddler who has a tantrum, and do nothing else but acknowledge the rage, surprise, surprise, the tantrum stops.

What seems like magic, is actually simple and applies both ways: physical activity influences mood and mind,  active imagination influences mood and body.

If researchers, patients and physicians believe that mind set–or use of the mind through thought process or imagination–alone can make a physical difference in our bodies, then we, as writers, should consider how to harness that tool for our work.

The Right Quote

A lot of space is devoted to quotations on this blog. If the blog is a writer’s blog, why quotes? Gayle King, co-anchor of CBS This Morning and editor-at-large at O said it best:

The right quote can change your mood and change your mind.

— Gayle King

For writers, it is often the mood or state of mind that makes a difference in output. Discipline also plays a role. Even so, after I have disciplined myself to sit at my writing table, writing originates inside my head. The inner mechanisms sometimes require a lubricant to get things moving. A quotation sometimes serves that purpose.

Throw Enough at the Wall. . .

. . . and something will stick.

I used that quotation in yesterday’s response to Rarasaur. Immediately, I knew I had to share a motivational thought with you.

Having several irons in the fire can be a good thing, providing you are continually working to complete the projects. Eventually, you will finish a project, then another, then another. As a writer, this means that you will end up with several salable items.

This tactic only works for folks like me whose brains like to jump from one thing to another to avoid boredom. It won’t work for those who start things, but never finish them. You have to finish the projects. It’s finishing them that brings a pay day.

Rarasaur has a good method. She has a list and a concrete goal for each item listed; for example, creating one idea a day for thirty days for a book project. At the end of a month, she will have thirty possibilities to consider for her next writing project. Of the thirty on her list, one is bound to seize her imagination.

You may want to try the “many irons” approach to see if it works for you. The key to success is devising your own method to complete the projects on your list.

Quotation for 10-17-2012

The world is all gates, all opportunities.

 

–Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

 

Quotation for 10-10-2012

The best way out is always through.

–Robert Frost

Do It!

I am not witty, clever, critically acclaimed, astute, profound, pithy or any number of other things that brilliant writers are. But I am one thing: I am a doer.

Good grief. I have had this blog up since the last days of February and have penned 170 posts, give or take, since then.  I’m nothing if I am not prolific.

So how do I make that work for me? I get myself out there.

I operate on the premise that for every writer there is a reader. Some writers draw hundreds of readers to my one, but the more I make myself available to the reading public, the more likely I am to connect with my one. Then my next one and the next. You get my point.

So how am I do-ing?

I have this blog. The writers group I belong to is publishing its first anthology in the fall. I will be represented in it.  A friend and I are working on a joint e-book s-l-o-w-l-y, but we are working on it. My daughter and I are getting ready to launch past the talking stage to the doing stage on a joint venture on a children’s book. And I am, ever so slowly, working on the novel. I accepted T’s challenge to participate in a story circle which got published at http://camerondgarriepy.com/2012/06/28/the-story-circle-the-reunion-part-four/  . (Thank you, Troy and Cameron.)

For once, I am practicing what I preach. (In case you didn’t pick up on it, this is a sermon directed at YOU.) I am not just dreaming about it, I am doing it. You can, too.

There is a saying that remotely resembles my next line: 99% of success is showing up. Show up! Find your one reader. Keep showing up till you have ten readers, then 100 readers. Do it!

Getting Distracted – A Cure

http://bradgeagley.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/feverish-restless-writers-and-spring-fever/#comment-693

 

Writer Brad Geagley discusses how he turns guilt into motivation when he has been playing hookey from writing.

Observation: The liquid libation distracting him (named in the post) would distract me, too. Especially on a day like today when I am home in bed feeling yucky.