Our health or lack of it, has long been seen as something that happens to us and that we have no control over it. In recent times research has shown that perhaps we have more control over it that first realised.

Many doctors are now seeing how important our state of mind is in relation to our health. Louise Hay’s book You Can Heal Your Life, was one of the first to become mainstream as one that supported the idea that our thoughts create our health or lack there of.

"No matter what the problem is, our experiences are just outer effects of inner thoughts.” Louise Hay.

Doctor Bruce Lipton in his book The Biology of Belief talks about our health in a similar way; “genes and DNA do not control our biology, that instead DNA is controlled by signals from outside the cell, including the energetic messages emanating from our thoughts”.

His work details how the environment is important to the quality of the cells we have The environment being the thoughts and beliefs we hold. If we are constantly having depressing thoughts, we are creating a toxic environment, and it is more likely that we will experience health problems.

The body is constantly renewing itself, so why does illness perpetuate? Is it due to the thought process that created the problem being continued? There is a lot of information available online about spontaneous hearings, and miracles that have occurred through the use of positive thinking and affirmations. Perhaps there is something to be said for this.

There is a story documented in The Secret that tells of a man who was involved in an aeroplane crash. All he could do was blink his eyes. His breathing was enabled by a machine and he could not speak. However, his mind was still functioning.

He spent all his time visualising himself walking out of the hospital by a stated deadline and within time he was off the respirator, and undertaking physiotherapy to teach him to walk again. He did walk out of the hospital as stated. Doctors had originally written him off and had told him he would be ‘a vegetable’ for the rest of his life.

Laughter, positive thought and visualisation have played a large part in many ‘healings’. A Course In Miracles says that; ‘all healing is of the mind’. Everything is perfect as it is, although we do not believe that. A Course In Miracles teaches that until we believe ourselves to be perfect, we will continue to experience ourselves as imperfect. Leading The Course to conclude that the mind is all that has to be fixed in order to experience health and perfection in life.

Some people can die from their diagnosis, while others take it as a sign that the body is telling them something is wrong, and use it as an opportunity to change. How do you respond to health challenges?