Engineering is big in my family. Grandfather, father, sister, brother, husband, brothers-in-law and soon, my son as well. With a family history of engineers and being a science and math loving kind of girl, it was only natural that I gravitated to a career in engineering.
Facts, figures, calculations, and graphs were my comfort zone. Oh, the beauty of logic, precision, and accuracy! Scientific experiments were golden. If something could not be explained by science, well … it was hogwash. Obviously.
When a diagnosis of autoimmune disease, specifically rheumatoid arthritis, happened at age 50, I naturally took an engineering problem-solving approach. I consulted the scientific studies, read books, experimented, graphed and charted. Gradually my health improved.
And then it plateaued. I was nearly pain-free, and without medication, but not completely.
What was I missing?
As I dug deeper into the literature, something more was emerging: unexplainable ideas that make science-y folks squirm. Energy medicine. Mind-body connection. Spontaneous healing. Miracles. Things that couldn’t be scientifically proven, yet that many people claim are real.
Even though I am a typical right-brain thinking engineer, the unexplainable had been a secret interest of mine for many years. I was intrigued by stories of near-death encounters, out-of-body experiences, extra-sensory perception, clairvoyance, the law of attraction and the power of thoughts. The spiritual realm of indigenous cultures was fascinating to me. Also intriguing was hypnosis and the power of the subconscious mind, with associated physiological responses not linked to reality.
Maybe we are more than just a physical, machine-like body.
Could this be the missing element I needed in my healing journey? Or was it not that I was missing something but, rather, I needed to let go of something? Maybe I needed to release strict logical thinking and be open to the possibility that there was more to me than just a physical body.
Gradually, I let go of my logical machine-body model and began to see myself as something bigger: a spiritual being having a physical experience. With this paradigm shift, I considered a different view of myself: a new whole self, with a physical body connected to my mind and spirit. A being that was powerful, rather than a victim of a physical illness.
It turned out that letting go of logic was exactly what I needed in my healing journey.
Embracing the connection between body, mind and spirit took me to a whole new level of healing. Understanding that thoughts and feelings can have a physical manifestation in the body, I nurtured my mind. Learning to trust my intuition, higher self, spirit guide … whatever you want to call it … helped me know the next steps I needed to take. Learning to trust that my illness was happening FOR me made me see it in a whole new light, as a learning experience and that it was actually guiding me to where I needed to be.
And I got better and better. The pain subsided. My sleep improved. I regained energy. I could look forward to my future again.
Even though I let go of logic, it turns out that seeing the person as an energetic, rather than just a physical being may not be so illogical after all. Physics was a prerequisite for my engineering degree, but my 1984 introductory physics course didn’t touch on quantum physics. At the atomic level, quantum physics claims, all matter is made up primarily of nothing with some electrically charged particles. Essentially, energy. We are energy. Our thoughts and feelings are energy. Energy is what connects it all.
Science is getting closer and closer to proving that everything is energy and that everything is connected, but for now, some of us may just need to let go of logic and have an open mind.
If you have an illness or pain in your body, try letting go of logic, of the view that we are just a physical body. Using the body, mind and spirit, you become so much more powerful, and that is a MUCH better place to be!