When life presents problems, reach for an instruction manual

I HAVE HAD cancer-phobia for a while now and I think it is causing all sorts of psychosomatic rashes, IBS, insomnia, teeth grinding, snoring, panic-attacks, weight gain, fatigue, and memory loss. I keep envisioning Chernobyl disasters, mesothelioma, lead poisoning, and world financial meltdowns followed by anarchic coup d’états. It might seem as if I am a living/breathing dossier full of fears, nervousness and phobias, but the combination of all these hypochondriac ailments is attenuated by the fact that I’m an over-caffeinated, under-slumbered walking zombie. My half-awake haze is an insulating comforter, but the negative thoughts are still able to seep through and pollute my mind from whence they spread throughout the rest of my body eventually distilling in various places causing aches, pains and other types of malfunction.

A weak mind has the power to spread its bad energy via the nervous system to all other parts of the body leading to discomfort, organ failure or sometimes even death. Because of my current phobic state, I thought I would try to circumvent any future mind/body catastrophes by purchasing Emmett E. Miller’s book titled Deep Healing. Dr. Miller has been a highly acclaimed pioneer in the field of holistic healing for over 25 years. My mom used to work in health care and she had several of his deep relaxation/guided imagery exercises on cassette which she sometimes doled out to nervous and fearful patients. Each one of these exercises was accompanied by a cool synth audio performed by Steven Halpern, and once you tuned out the world and focused on Dr. Miller’s narration, you suddenly felt as free and safe as a strange sea creature feeling its way around inside of a big aquarium.

I can flip to any page in Deep Healing and find the same calming clinical reassurance offered in those deep relaxation cassettes. Check this out: “Our beliefs about the world often have a much greater impact on our health than what actually is true about the world . . . Your inner images, metaphors, and beliefs together constitute your personal myth about your relationship to yourself and the world.” Awesome! Here is some more food for thought: “The degree of disempowerment in our culture is extreme. At a deep level, many of us don’t even feel entitled to the simplest form of self-expression . . . This nameless dread is simply a learned helplessness.” Wow!

I have only been skipping around in the book so far, but I have found each of Emmett E. Miller’s teachings to be very much like a spiritual/philosophical epiphany. The copious sections of the book are framed by little quotations by famous people (e.g., “A person will become what he thinks about all day long,” – Earl Nightingale), and Dr. Miller provides several anecdotes and examples to clarify his analysis.

An affirmation which appears on page 277 that probably best summarizes the self-actualizing optimism in Deep Healing is, “My body belongs to me and ultimately will do what my brain tells it to do.” This truism is apt because what this book is essentially trying to teach to its readers is empowerment. Dr. Miller is trying to make us aware of how the mind/body processes work so that we can better control the intermingling between our thoughts (brain) and body (vehicle).

The mind truly is a treasure, yet at the same time it’s an inscrutable mystery. Like all complicated and intricate things, we often need experienced people to help us navigate our thoughts, and we also require instruction manuals for daily maintenance. Deep Healing by Emmett E. Miller, M.D. is a good instruction manual to have in any library.