All Is Well: Heal Your Body With Medicine, Affirmations, and Intuition (10 page)

affirmation for hives is “I bring peace to every corner of my life.”

Rashes in general have to do with irritation because things have

not turned out exactly as planned, and the affirmation for these

is directed toward patience: “I love and approve of myself. I am at

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peace with the process of life.” If you have psoriasis, you fear being

hurt and may refuse to take responsibility for your own feelings.

In this case, the affirmation would be “I am alive to the joys of

living. I deserve and accept the very best in life. I love and approve

of myself.” Try some of the affirmations set out here or refer to the

table on page 183 to find an affirmation for your specific ailment.

To address some of the other emotional issues that create skin

problems, it is necessary to work on your ability to handle change.

As they say, change is the only constant in life. So what can you

do? Probably the easiest way to work on this is by shaking up your

routine, routine, routine. Though it’s seemingly counterintuitive,

plan some spontaneity into your life. Every once in a while, set

aside a time to just let life take you where it wants. For example,

you could leave an hour in your calendar and simply start walk-

ing. See what you come in contact with. You’ll be introducing a

little variety, which can help you see that a world without back-

to-back plans isn’t necessarily terrible. You could also take a bold

action by stepping into a particular role
because
chaos comes with

the territory. Put yourself in a situation where it’s not possible to

control everything—volunteer at a shelter or in a kindergarten

classroom. Who knows what could happen there?

You might also want to sit down with your schedule to deter-

mine whether there are certain areas of your life where you can

focus on letting go of a tiny bit of control. You may not want to

give up the power in the boardroom, but perhaps your child’s play-

time could be freer. The goal with all of these suggestions is to

develop flexibility. If you are more flexible, you’ll be better able

to handle change. The confidence this will inspire in your ability

to work with the world—rather than against it—will decrease the

amount of anxiety you feel on a day-to-day basis.

From the Clinic Files: Skin Problems Case Study

Carl, age 52, is a family man. He also is a successful business-

man who is involved in his community, volunteering for local

charities and attending city and family events alike. To the world,

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including his family and friends, he is grounded and reliable—

a pillar of the community.

But inside, Carl is obsessive and rigid in his ways and he hates

change. As long as things stay within his control and he feels safe,

Carl is able to run a company and be there for his family, friends,

and community.

After years of being vigilantly in control, Carl started develop-

ing itchy rashes and scaliness on the skin found at the creases in

his joints. After a visit to the dermatologist, Carl was told that he

had a severe case of psoriasis.

While psoriasis is a skin condition, it often indicates a prob-

lem in the immune system, which can be associated with other

serious health conditions, including diabetes, heart disease, de-

pression, inflammatory bowel disease, arthritis, skin cancer, and

lymphoma. Along with psoriasis, we often see an overproduction

of a protein called tumor necrosis factor (TNF) that causes cells to

grow too quickly. Why? No one knows for sure, but we wanted to

see to it that Carl had a good internal medicine doctor who would

maintain consistent evaluations of his heart, digestive tract, and

joints. So the first thing I requested was that Carl go to his physi-

cian for a baseline screening of each of these elements.

Next, Carl needed consistent skin treatments to relieve and

prevent itching. There are six types of treatments available: topical

skin creams; light therapy, a treatment in which skin is exposed to

UV light on a regular basis, slowing the growth of skin cells associ-

ated with the ailment; systemic oral medicines like cyclosporine,

methotrexate, and acitretin; injected IV medicine to block TNF

production; Chinese medicine; and nutritional treatment.

Carl had tried all the over-the-counter treatments for psori-

asis with no relief. Topical steroids helped some but eventually

the scaling came back with a vengeance. So we suggested that he

consider light therapy with a competent dermatologist. Carl also

was directed to an acupuncturist and Chinese herbalist who gave

him gypsum, Imperatae, scrophulariae, paenae, rehmannia, Flos

japonica, Artemisia, and Forsythia, among other herbs. And a nu-

tritionist helped Carl identify which foods irritated his psoriasis—

oddly, tomatoes were one that did. Carl also began taking DHA.

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We Are Family

In addition, he started incorporating small bits of spontaneity

and controlled chaos into his life. And he worked to change his

thoughts with the affirmations for general skin health (I feel safe

to be me); general skin problems (I lovingly protect myself with

thoughts of joy and peace. The past is forgiven and forgotten. I am

free in this moment); rash (I lovingly protect myself with thoughts

of joy and peace. The past is forgiven and forgotten. I am free in

this moment. I feel safe to me be); and psoriasis (I am alive to the

joys of living. I deserve and accept the very best in life. I love and

approve of myself). With all the changes Carl had made, his skin

cleared up . . . and he was simply thrilled.

All Is Well in the First Emotional Center

You have the power to strengthen your immune and muscu-

loskeletal systems and heal skin disorders using medicine, intu-

ition, and affirmations. When you learn to recognize the negative

thoughts and behaviors underlying your physical problems and

heed the messages your body is sending you in the form of first

emotional center health issues, you can finally start to move to-

ward true healing.

Establishing new thought patterns using Louise’s affirmations

will give you the foundation and strength to change the behavior

patterns that add to first emotional center illnesses. You’ll learn to

balance your individual needs with those of family, friends, and

community.

The world is a safe and friendly place. All is well.

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The Second Emotional Center:

Bladder, Reproductive Organs,

Lower Back, and Hips

The second emotional center is all about love and money. If

you aren’t able to bring balance between these two areas of life,

you will be prone to health problems of the bladder, reproductive

organs, lower back, or hips. So the key to mastering health in this

emotional center is learning how to manage your finances with-

out sacrificing your love life and vice versa. Easy enough, right?

Wrong. There are very few people who are naturally good at this,

so let’s get started.

Just as with all other emotional centers, the part of your body

that is affected will depend on what type of thought pattern or be-

havior is causing the imbalance in this area of your life. For second

emotional center problems, we find four types of people: those

who would rather focus on love than money, those who focus on

money rather than love, those who have an unbridled drive to

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move forward in money and love, and those who can’t responsibly

handle either love or money. We will get more specific as we work

through the body parts, but in all cases it is important to listen to

your body. Remember, your body is an intuitive machine, and it

will alert you to problems in your emotional health by yelling out

physically.

The negative thought patterns associated with the second

emotional center involve anxiety, anger, or sadness about gender

identity and sexuality, as well as relationship struggles and finan-

cial concerns. This, of course, makes sense because when we leave

the safety of our family (the first emotional center) and strike out

on our own in the world, the first challenges we have to handle on

our own are love and money, relationships and finances.

So what is standing in the way of
you
making the critical

changes in your finances and relationships to create better health?

Are you holding on to anger at your partner? Do you always let

other people handle your money? Are you irresponsible with your

money? Do you feel stifled?

These are just a few of the types of emotions and behaviors

that lead to second emotional center health problems. If you can

identify the thought patterns that underlie your health problem,

you can begin to make the necessary emotional, behavioral, and

physical changes to improve the health of your bladder, reproduc-

tive organs, and lower back and hips. Identifying the root cause is

the first step. The next step is to transform these negative thoughts

and behaviors into new ways of thinking to create health.

Second Emotional Center Affirmation

Theory and Science

As with all other illnesses, Louise’s affirmation theory looks

at the emotional nuance behind the health problems in the sec-

ond emotional center. For example, the health of the menstrual

cycle as a whole and a woman’s capacity to be free of amenorrhea,

dysmenorrhea, or fibroid tumors depends on whether or not she

has a healthy sense of her femininity. Rejection of femininity is a

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It Takes Two

negative thought pattern associated with female problems in gen-

eral. Sexual guilt and anger at a mate are associated with vaginitis

and bladder infection.

Alternatively, the prostate represents the masculine side of the

principle. Sexual pressure and guilt, as well as a person’s attitudes

about aging, are associated with prostate problems.

Power struggles in relationships set the scene for sexually

transmitted diseases. Whether it’s gonorrhea, herpes, or syphilis,

beliefs that genitals are “sinful” or “dirty,” sexual guilt, and a feel-

ing that you need to be punished are all thought patterns that

are connected to venereal disease. A belief that sex is bad or the

experience of sexual pressure creates thought patterns connected

to impotence.

Looking at fertility through the lens of affirmation theory, we

see that if you have trouble conceiving, you have concerns about

the timing or the need to be a parent in general.

And, finally, who hasn’t had a lower-back problem when

they were concerned about money? Fear of money and the fu-

ture are negative thought patterns associated with lower-back pain

and sciatica.

So what does science tell us about the mind-body connection

behind negative thoughts and emotions affecting the organs of

the second emotional center?

Studies have found that the rate of infertility and menstrual

cycle irregularities is higher in women who have inner conflicts

about being a mother and who are worried about changes in their

bodies.1 While they feel social pressure to have children, mother-

hood may not fit in with their long-term goals. The emotional

stress surrounding this issue increases cortisol and decreases pro-

gesterone, which hurts successful implantation of the embryo into

the uterus. It also decreases oxytocin and increases norepineph-

rine and epinephrine; all of this works together to suppress sex

hormones and turn off the mechanism that pulls sperm up into

the uterus.2

If a man is under a lot of pressure, the anxiety he experiences

causes his body to produce antibodies that make sperm “impotent,”

as they say. The stress and sadness also cause the testes and

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adrenal glands to produce more cortisol and less testosterone,

which decreases sperm counts. Both of these problems can lead

to infertility.3

There is a lot of scientific literature that shows how relation-

ships affect the health of the pelvic organs. Depression and anxi-

ety stemming from relationship trauma have been shown to affect

female reproductive health by making the adrenal glands produce

too many steroids. This changes the levels of cortisol, estradiol,

and testosterone in the body. The imbalances between these three