Arthritis – arthritis can be either osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis. Many people with hip pain are given a diagnosis of osteoarthritis (wear and tear on the joint, usually seen on an x-ray) and assume that they will be dealing with pain and anti-inflammatory medication for the rest of their lives. In many cases when pain is attributed to osteoarthritis the real cause is something entirely different. Yes, you may show some moderate wear in your hip joint, but the pain may in fact be caused by tension myositis syndrome (TMS).

Bursitis – a bursa is a structure that protects underlying bone in areas of high pressure. Bursitis can affect the shoulder (subacromial bursitis,) or the hip, (trochanteric bursitis.) But in many patients bursitis is a misdiagnosis and the real cause is TMS related tendonitis.

Tendonitis – is a group of disorders attributed to a painful tendon inflamed due to overuse. In certain clinics, it has been found that tendonitis is caused not by overuse, but by a subconscious pain creating mechanism of our own minds called tension myositis syndrome (TMS).

TMS, or tension myositis syndrome, is a painful condition caused by our subconscious mind. It is mistakenly diagnosed by doctors as many other conditions, including; bursitis, osteoarthritis, tendonitis, pinched nerves, eczema, and ruptured discs, just to name a few. The pain caused by TMS is real, but the reason for the pain is not due to a physical abnormality and therefore can be easily healed. TMS is used by our subconscious to distract us from the even more painful emotions of anger and resentment.

Since it is unacceptable in most cultures to express anger and resentment we learn to hold it in. The amount of energy associated with negative emotions is quite great and your mind’s way of dealing with this repressed negative energy is to ‘put’ it somewhere in your body, such as your hip, shoulder, low back, or neck. Your subconscious mind then creates a painful condition, such as tendonitis, by restricting the oxygen and blood flow to the area.

TMS is little known in most medical circles, so asking your doctor about it will most likely do you little good. For more information about TMS and to see whether it might be affecting you, look for Dr. John E. Sarno’s book Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection. In it, he describes in great detail how TMS manifests. I have used and perfected a number of mindbody healing techniques to heal myself from chronic neck, back, and hip pain and you can too.

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Your 60,000+ thoughts each day, therefore, are creating your life as you go along. Many people allow their mind to just think without thinking about what they are thinking about. Does that sound like you? It is very easy to do. So easy, in fact, that most people go through their entire lives simply allowing their minds to run amok, thinking all sorts of unedited and unsupervised thoughts. This unsupervised thinking mind can get us into all sorts of trouble, or with a little guidance and education, can turn our lives from misery to ecstasy instantaneously.

The first step to gaining a positive mental attitude is awareness. Simply become aware of your thoughts instead of allowing your mind to do its own thing. Listen to the voice in your head and take note of the types of thoughts that you have. Pretend that your thoughts are your best friend and listen to what your friend is saying to you all day, every day. Does your best friend support you unconditionally? Does she have compassion for you when you make mistakes? Does he have patience? Does she know how to have fun or is she only a taskmaster? Does your best friend criticize you endlessly?

To become successful and happy you need to think as if you are the most patient, compassionate, and supportive friend that you have. Your thoughts need to be based on non-judgmental self-love. If you find that you are not having thoughts that are patient, compassionate and supportive towards yourself, then the next step is to clean house.

Getting rid of a habit of negative thinking is easier than you think. After all, you have complete and total control over the process. One of the easiest ways to start eliminating negative thinking is to first become aware of those thoughts that are negative, and then to stop your thoughts mid-stream and change them into positive thoughts. For example: “I’ll never get that raise. This company hates me.” This thought is actually two negative thoughts; one about your ability to get a raise, and one about your company and how it may or may not feel about you. If you believe that your thoughts create your reality then you can quickly see how your future is laid out before you – it is unlikely that you will ever get a raise because you have already decided that your company hates you. Whether or not you believe these thoughts, you must start to change them to change your life. So, next time you start to think, “I’ll never get that raise.” Change it instead to something like, “I am an excellent employee and I know that I am going to be paid fairly for my efforts.” As for your thoughts about your company, change them to, “My company appreciates me.”

At first, it may feel like a lie to you because your mind has convinced you that it knows the truth. But keep this thought in mind: The truth is what you make it. If you really want to be broke and constantly looking for a new and better job, then keep thinking negatively. If you want more money, to be appreciated, and compensated fairly, then you first have to start with yourself, with your thinking.

Another great way to start eliminating a habit of negative thinking is to use affirmations. Affirmations are simply positive statements said in the present tense. An example of a positive, present tense affirmation is, “I am a great employee.”

One of the most effective techniques that I have personally employed to reverse a life-long habit of negative thinking is to tie affirmations to flooding. Flooding is a training technique, often used on animals, and entails continually subjecting yourself to a new way of thinking. I committed to using flooding with affirmations for 28 days, and within only a few days, had very good results. Each day upon awakening, I would start with silent affirmations. With each breath out, I would say an affirmation that I made up on the spot. “I am beautiful.” “I am creative.” “I am capable of anything.” “I have good friends.” “I am compassionate.” “I am trustworthy.” I just made them up. As the day went on, whenever I would find my mind wandering to negative thinking, or just thinking about something that wasn’t important or directly related to my life, I would start in again with the affirmations.

Another aspect of flooding that I used involved reading inspirational books or articles every day. Whatever you may be interested in, find the best, most positive authors on the subject, and read at least 10 pages each day. For instance, if you are interested in making more money, start reading some of Napoleon Hill’s books, such as Think and Grow Rich.
If you want to learn how to harness the power of The Secret, try The Power of Intention
by Wayne Dyer. If you want to improve your diet or exercise, search for inspiring stories, books, or role models that you can learn from.

Changing your habitual thinking will require a concerted effort on your part, but it won’t take nearly as long as you think if you make a commitment to change and employ some of my suggestions. There are also many books available on positive thinking. Go to Amazon.com and simply search for ‘positive thinking.’ Changing from a negative mindset to a positive one will have far-reaching effects on your life, all good. So, good luck!

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If you are drinking a lot of alcohol daily, and not also drinking a lot of water, you are running a very high risk of early mortality from a variety of degenerative diseases. These diseases would include: Crone’s, Lupus, MS, Cancer, heart disease, atherosclerosis, stroke, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and dementia. Any illness or disease, though, will be made worse with the use of alcohol and its associated dehydration.

If you want to kick your addiction to alcohol one of the most natural ways to do it (which may also lead to a spiritual awakening for you) is to switch cold turkey to a raw foods diet. Within a couple weeks of switching to eating only raw, vegan food your body will tell you to stop drinking, and for the first time you will not only listen, you will be able to agree and comply with your body’s request. The raw foods diet detoxifies the body better than any other diet. It will rebuild you from the inside out because you will finally be feeding it the high nutrition that it has been begging for. Interestingly, alcoholism is actually a sugar addiction. When you balance your body chemistry out with the use of raw foods, especially a lot of dark, leafy greens, your cravings for sugar (and alcohol) will start to go away. It happens pretty quickly too.

This is not a diet that you go on to just lose weight; this is for the rest of your life. When you experience the profound affects that eating raw food have on you, and you stick with it for more than a few months, you won’t want to go back.

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The first thing to realize is that all form is impermanent. People die. Animals die. Buildings will all eventually crumble to the ground. Even mountains are in a continual state of eroding back into the earth. There is no form that exists that will not some day be destroyed. It is the way of form. As humans, this is hard for us to understand. We want life to be predictable, safe, humane, and everlasting. We suffer when we lose things that we love, that keep us safe and comfortable, and that we are familiar with.

The painful emotions that you feel when something bad happens, even if you are not directly affected by it, are due to feelings of powerlessness over, and attachment to, form. Your ego wants form to remain. It wants your loved ones never to die, your home to never burn to the ground, and for bad things to not happen. This is not the way of our world, though, and to fight it with negative feelings only makes you feel bad and has no direct affect on keeping bad things from happening.

It is your attachment to things, people, and places that cause you to suffer. Perhaps you have heard the saying, “Attachment is suffering.” Since form is not permanent, any attachment (emotional, physical, or otherwise) that you have to form will always disappoint you. Your car was clean and you were proud, and now a bird has shat upon it. Do you become angry and frustrated? Or do you let it go? Your wife loved you, now she has left. Do you become despondent, angry, or sad or do you let it go? Your ability to let go of attachment is one of the key ingredients to peace of mind.

Your thoughts are the only thing that makes a difference in how you feel about bad things. It is that simple. First comes a thought, then an emotion. An emotion is your body’s response to your thoughts. This works for both things that you think are good in your life, and things that you think are bad. When bad things happen in the world, it is your thoughts about it that make you suffer, not the bad thing. It is your attachment to bad things not happening that makes you suffer.

So, you may wonder, “What do I do when bad things happen?” The thing has happened completely out of your control. You can accept that it happened and eliminate any thoughts about it from your mind, or you can think about it endlessly, feel bad, and lose sleep. But realize this: your feeling bad, crying and losing sleep does only one thing: it makes YOU feel badly. It does nothing to change the bad things that have happened. And your bad feelings will affect the people around you: your children, friends, co-workers, and everyone that you come into contact with. It will do nothing to keep future bad things from happening, and it will do nothing to help those who are currently suffering.

Perhaps as you read this you are realizing that there is some guilt in you about not feeling badly. Maybe you are thinking, “But if I don’t feel badly when bad things happen to other people, does this mean I am not compassionate? That I am callous? That I am selfish and self-centered?” No, it does not. The best that you can be for the world, your loved ones, and the people that you come into contact with every day is to be at your best. If you are focused on the bad thing that happened recently, and talk about it, and feel bad about it, how can you help those who are closest to you be at their best? How can you be at your best?

Letting go of attachment to form is one of the quickest ways to a higher state of consciousness. You realize that form is impermanent, and you accept that you have no control over it. You can own form, and have relationships with form, but form will go away at some point. It may affect you directly – your car is in a crash and now you don’t have one. Or, it may affect you indirectly – you hear on the news that some people have died. Either way, it is done. Your car is gone, and the people are gone. It is your choice – you can be mad about the car, or you can simply start making a plan to replace it. You can be sad about the people who have died, or you can accept that people die every day, sometimes tragically, and that is the way of the world.

To take this a step further, the only thing that is permanent is love. If you are feeling badly about things that have happened, focus instead on the love inside of you. Love is the only thing that is permanent and it can never be taken from you. It is an energy that permeates everything and connects us all together. As you discover more about your attachment to form, you can start experimenting with feeling love instead of anger or resentment. Love really is the answer. It is the only true emotion, all others are simply some sort of fear. Fear and love cannot live in you at the same time. Fear is a projection of an imagined future that you don’t want. If you are feeling something other than love, look deeply and track the emotion back to the source. You will undoubtedly find fear if you look deep enough.

A couple books that I often recommend to people who are struggling with fear-based thoughts and emotions are both by Gerald Jampolsky: Good-Bye to Guilt: Releasing Fear Through Forgiveness and Love Is Letting Go of Fear. These books will help you begin to understand how your emotions have led you astray from your true self.

But in the mean time, if you are feeling overwhelmed by current events, go inside of yourself and find the love in your heart. Focus only on feeling that powerful feeling of love. Do whatever it takes to generate that feeling inside yourself: imagine someone that you love, or doing something that you love. Once you get that love feeling inside of you, it will push out all other bad feelings and bring you right back into the present moment, which is all that there is anyway.

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1. Any surgery that involves a general anesthetic carries a significant risk of death. It is much more likely that you will die under the knife than while flying in a commercial airplane.

2. Our hospitals are not safe places to hang out. Hospitals in the United States are currently losing the war against some very aggressive forms of bacterial infections, including antibiotic resistant Staphylococcus, and Necrotizing fasciitis, the flesh-eating bacteria.

3. The possibility of becoming worse after your surgery is a real risk and should not be taken lightly. Many patients who undergo surgeries are finding that the problem that they assumed would go away is now actually worse. Surgery adds scar tissue, trauma, stress, and deformity to an already bad situation. Your pain may be worse, or even more disturbing; you could come out of surgery with an additional permanent injury such as constant numbness, tingling or strange sensations, or loss of flexibility or use of a limb.

4. You could become more disabled than you already are.

5. The most important thing for you to know is that back surgery may not resolve your pain. There is an epidemic of failed back surgeries in the U.S. and although doctors are doing their best to try to help us, in most cases the cause of the back pain is not addressed through surgery.

There are a few doctors are who know how pain becomes chronic and how to heal it, but they are not getting much attention because pain is a multi-billion dollar industry. John Sarno is one of a very few back doctors who is having an almost 90% cure rate. His theory is that our chronic pain is caused not by an injury or defect, but by repressed emotions, such as anger and resentment. Dr. Sarno found that some patients just needed to realize that their physical pain was not real to instantly heal themselves. For other patients it takes a few days to a few weeks.

So, before embarking on risky surgery, be sure you literally try everything including using your own mind to heal yourself. For more information see my eBook on low back pain.

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Usually sciatica affects one side of the body. The pain may be described as dull, burning or sharp. Sometimes you will have shooting pains intermittently down the low back, buttock, or the side of the leg. Other symptoms may include tingling and numbness. Sitting may be painful and difficult, as may attempts to stand up from sitting. Coughing and sneezing often intensifies the pain.

The most difficult part about sciatica is that there is no good diagnosis for its cause. Orthopedists will tell you that there must be some ‘abnormality’ in your spine, which is pinching the nerve. Sometimes chiropractic can help, but any pain that has become chronic needs to be looked at with a more open mind. These are some of the easiest cures for sciatica that doctors typically overlook:

Proper hydration – I could write an entire set of books on the diseases and conditions caused by chronic dehydration. Pain is one of the first symptoms of a dehydrated body. Your body needs water for a multitude of purposes, and pain is one of the clearest indicators that you are not drinking enough water. To see if drinking more water will help your level of pain, try this experiment: for 5 days, drink at least 3 quarts of fresh, filtered water daily. Not tea. Not coffee. Not soft drinks. Just water. See if your pain (and other symptoms) decreases. For the first day or so, you may have to pee every hour. This is a very good indication that you are dehydrated: your body, when dehydrated, is like a desert – when it starts raining (hydrating) in the desert, at first the water runs off in a flash flood. It takes quite a bit of hydration to get the body’s cells ready for more hydration. Just stick with it and eventually you will get rehydrated. Then, make it a habit to drink at least 2 quarts of water daily to not get dehydrated again. Headaches are another clear symptom of dehydration.

Stress reduction – The gluteus maximus and piriformis muscles are located in your butt and lay on top of your sciatic nerve. Many people hold stress in these muscles and the tension that they create often aggravate the sciatic nerve. Physical therapists will often recommend stretching exercises, but the origin of your pain, your stress, will still be there. Stress usually has obvious causes, such as: family, work, or money concerns. But there are hidden stresses in our lives, sometimes hiding in our unconscious as thoughts and emotions. If you have been suffering from chronic pain, especially in the butt, there is a good chance that you are holding some emotions in and expressing them through your tense muscles. Learning mindbody techniques for releasing unconscious emotions often relieves chronic pain, sometimes overnight.

I love our common sayings that we have about our bodies: ‘he is a pain in the butt.’ Having a pain in the butt and being a pain in the butt are most likely closely connected. Stress (he’s a pain in the butt) can cause a pain in the butt. Drinking plenty of water, and learning to relieve your stress, and release repressed negative feelings, can relieve your chronic pain quicker and easier than any stretching exercises.

For more information see my bestselling eBook Free From Buttock Pain

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Our bodies are designed to heal without lingering pain, and our backs are no exception. Numerous studies of asymptomatic patients have shown that spinal abnormalities, such as herniated discs and stenosis of the spinal canal are not in themselves indicative of painful conditions. Many patients, believing that their herniated discs are the source of their pain, opt for surgery as a last resort. Failed back surgeries are common; surgery on herniated discs does not necessarily eliminate the pain and many patients find that they are still in pain, sometimes much worse pain, after surgery.

The problem goes way back to the diagnosis – most doctors believe that low back pain is caused by herniated discs, pinched nerves, or other physical problems, however, nothing could be farther from the truth. One doctor proved that almost 90% of back pain patients can quickly and easily heal themselves using their minds alone. Dr. John Sarno, a back specialist, discovered that most chronic back pain is fueled not by physical injuries or malformations, but instead, by repressed emotions.

Healing from back pain, then, becomes a matter of understanding how our minds affect our level of pain and learning to change learned and conditional behaviors that contribute to a negative emotional state. The emotions that contribute to chronic pain tend to be hidden in the unconscious and are not readily accessible to us. The patient represses socially unacceptable emotions, such as anger, resentment, and anxiety in an attempt to protect them from dealing with the emotional pain that they would otherwise cause. The unconscious, in an attempt to distract the patient from the painful emotions, creates instead a physically painful condition. These conditions often do have what appears to be a physical injury or malformation associated with them, but this is just a convenient ‘place’ for the mind to store the pain.

Recovering from chronic pain with an emotional component requires the patient to accept that their pain is most likely caused by repressed emotions and to work to turn around the conditioned habit of avoiding reinjuring themselves. Additionally, patients must work to reduce stress and understand the source of the repressed emotions so that they can let go of the physical pain. The good news is that the prognosis for healing is very good for patients with emotionally caused pain – almost 90% of patients recover completely and no longer suffer from pain.

For more information, see my eBook: Free From Low Back Pain

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In your essence you are pure and perfect. But dealing with being human, including the pain, suffering, and guilt which permeates our lives, the lives of our loved ones, and the lives of countless people that we hear about can be such a burden to our soul. Our negative emotions can run rampant over our desired happiness, and life situations can become overwhelmingly difficult to handle. So difficult, in fact, that we may accidentally harm ourselves by repressing socially unacceptable emotions, such as anger, resentment, and guilt, and turning these emotions into physical pain instead.

The emotional component of pain is so misunderstood that an entire medical industry, Pain Management, is having a heyday prescribing drugs, surgery, and physical therapy simply because of our inability to cope with the stressors of life. The only way to truly become healthy and pain free is to understand how your emotions, especially those that you may have repressed, may be causing your pain.

Your body has an amazing ability to heal from injury. Even horrendous injuries can heal without lingering pain. Our nerves are early warning devices to warn us of possible harm, but they are not meant to keep screaming long after the danger has passed. Consider a sprained ankle. It really hurts, maybe for a few days, or if the sprain is really bad, a couple weeks. But remember that time you sprained your ankle years ago… it doesn’t still hurt, does it? Or your skinned knee when you were 5. How about that? Does it still hurt? No, it wouldn’t make any sense for it to still hurt. You have healed. Sciatica pain is like this. There is no reason for your sciatic nerve to keep screaming in pain. And it makes no difference if your doctor finds a problem with your low back, such as a herniated disc. Doctors are very good at finding little things on x-rays and blaming your pain on them. It is important for you to know several research studies of the x-rays of people’s backs have shown that herniated discs are not indicative of pain. In these studies they x-rayed people both with and without back pain and found just as many instances of herniated discs on pain free people as they did those who reported pain.

It is important to know that the discs in our neck and low back start to get compressed early in life simply due to gravity. Compressed discs are not in themselves a cause of pain. They have just become a convenient scapegoat for the pain. Your pain, if it has become chronic, is more likely caused by repressed emotions of anger or resentment. Dr. John E. Sarno, a back pain specialist, found that 88% of his patients were able to cure themselves of their chronic back pain, including sciatica, by simply understanding that their unconscious minds were causing the pain, not their bodies. In many cases their pain was gone overnight. Dr. Sarno believes that our unconscious mind, which also operates our bodies on autopilot (think breathing, blinking, and your heart-rate) takes the emotional pain and creates a physically painful condition by contracting blood vessels, which reduces blood flow to the area, to which our nerves react by shouting out a warning of pain. What this pain is really saying is, “Hey, we need a little more blood flow down here. We need more oxygen.” But all you feel is pain.

Humans are complicated creatures, but we make our lives much more difficult by blaming our pain and suffering on everything beside ourselves. I cured myself of 16 years of chronic neck pain once I understood the concepts of mindbody healing and applied them to my own pain. I sometimes have pain in my neck, and when I do, I check my unconscious. What am I stressed about? What is making me angry? I have learned to live in the moment and this has done wonders for my pain management. I don’t take painkillers for pain, nor do I treat it as if it is a physical problem by getting massage or sitting in hot tubs. I know that if pain comes, it is emotional and I deal with it. Try it yourself, and see how it works for you.

For more information see my worldwide bestselling eBook http://www.free-from-sciatica-pain.com/.

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Pain in the Buttock/Butt muscle – Do you have pain in the big muscle of your butt while sitting, standing, walking, or during sex or other physical exercise? If you push on the center of your butt muscle does it hurt worse? How about during massage when they rub you hard in that area – do you just about jump off the table in pain? Does the pain radiate down either or both legs? Is it sharp, dull, burning, or aching, there all the time? Does it keep you from sleeping? Is it crampy? All of these could be describing butt pain caused by your sciatic nerve.

What is the sciatic nerve? - The sciatic nerve is a big nerve that comes out of your spine at the lower back, runs through your butt muscle and down your legs. It can easily be aggravated by stress. When stressed, your muscles become more tense and squeeze down on that nerve, causing all sorts of symptoms and generally making your life pretty miserable.

Pain in low back/butt - The lower back and buttocks are closely connected, so often if you have pain in one area you will also have pain in the other. The sciatic nerve runs through both your lower back and your buttock. Some people have pain only in the lower back, some only the butt or just one butt cheek, some people have pain in the low back radiating down one butt cheek all the way down the leg. All of these describe a typical sciatic nerve issue.

Pain in your anus (or butthole) – This is more than likely hemorrhoids. Hemorrhoids are veins in your anus, or right outside of it, that become swollen, hard, and very sensitive. Sometimes you can even see the hemorrhoids if you aim your butt toward a mirror, bend over, and spread your butt cheeks. They may look like little, round purple balls (that is the vein,) or they might be red and swollen. (Google ‘hemorrhoids’ and select images.) Hemorrhoids are caused by sitting (truck drivers often suffer from them,) constipation (straining while trying to crap will create hemorrhoids over time,) pregnancy can cause hemorrhoids due to constipation and pressure from the growing baby, and dehydration. Being chronically dehydrated is one of the main causes of constipation, and therefore, hemorrhoids. You should be drinking 2 quarts of water, minimum, each day. Coffee, tea, and soft drinks don’t count. You can get Preparation H at your local drug store which will provide temporary relief of the itching, burning, and swelling. But to really get rid of them for good you have to add more water to your diet, and more fiber. I like to drink 2-3 quarts of water per day PLUS eat lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. I don’t get hemorrhoids any longer because of these changes. If you think it is hemorrhoids, but it doesn’t go away after a couple weeks of hydrating yourself and curing your constipation, please see your doctor. P.S. the toilet is NOT a library. Don’t sit there for hours and read – that is one of the main causes of hemorrhoids.

Pain or burning in the top of the butt crack – If you have soreness, redness, itching, burning, and/or mild bleeding at the top of your butt crack, you could have a pilonidal cyst.

From Wikipedia: “Pilonidal cysts are quite painful, afflict men more frequently than women, and typically occur between the ages of 15 and 24. Although usually found near the coccyx, the condition can also affect the navel, armpit or penis”

These cysts often get bacterial or fungal infections. If you want to try treating it yourself, get an over-the-counter anti-bacterial cream and treat yourself twice a day after showering. If you still have the issue after a couple weeks, you might want to see your doctor. I know, embarrassing. I had to go to the doctor once for an extremely painful hemorrhoid. Please check out Wikipedia for more on this issue.

For further information, check out my worldwide bestselling eBook http://www.free-from-buttock-pain.com/.

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Have you ever seen someone walk into a room full of people and cause the energy in the room to either spike or plummet by their mere presence? It is a known fact that people are energetic beings. The energetic frequencies of our brain and heart can easily be measured as an electrical frequency. Although we may not be consciously aware of it, as a society, we have accepted that we have the ability to detect our own and other people’s energetic fields.

We feel and respond to each others energy without even realizing it. We have highs and lows, which we experience as emotions – depression is a low, joy is a high. These are high and low emotional expressions of our inner vibrational frequencies. These vibrational frequencies range from depression and despair at the very bottom, to bliss and enlightenment, which are the highest frequencies. All other emotions fall in between these highs and lows and have their own, specific frequencies, depending on the person. Once you understand that your vibration and emotions are inter-connected, you will have a greater ability to purposefully raise your frequency level by using your emotions as a frequency gauge. If you are feeling good, your vibration is high. If you are feeling badly, your vibration is low. It is as simple as that.

Raising your vibration is important for a number of reasons, the most important of course being our own emotional and mental health. But raising your vibration has additional societal benefits. Raising your vibration to one of compassion affects the people that you come into contact with in positive ways. Kindness and unconditional love have a spreading and multiplying effect. Holding on to lower frequency emotions such as anger, resentment, and depression increase your risk for many chronic diseases. The positive healing effects of higher frequency emotions, such as joy and hope, have been studied extensively, and it has been also been proven that prayer is as effective, and often more effective, than Western medical treatments in healing the sick and injured.

One of the most effective ways to raise your vibration is to quiet your mind. Relieving yourself of the destructive ego chatter of lower emotional states by quieting the mind allows room for higher emotional frequencies, such as joy and happiness.

It all became clear to me while experiencing extended periods of joy. For days and weeks on end I experienced utter joy from some situational changes that I had made in my life. One day, while in this state of joy, I realized that my mind was quiet at long last and that I had very few thoughts. When I did have a thought, it was very simple, such as “bird!” “ocean,” “Beautiful!” “nice breeze…” “thirsty.” I noticed this and wondered what had happened to my ego chatter. I didn’t miss for one minute the constant conversation that was usually in my mind and I felt such peace that I wanted to be sure that I could continue to feel this joy. I wondered which came first; quietness of the mind, and then joy? Or joy, and then quietness of mind? I decided that it didn’t matter, but the point is that we want to feel joy, which is a very high frequency, and if we aren’t currently feeling joy, quieting the mind is surely a way to get to joy.

One of the most powerful and effective ways of learning to quiet the mind is through meditation. I have read many books by successful self-help ‘gurus’, who all say that they include meditation as a part of their daily routines. I myself meditate as soon as I wake up and right before I go to sleep at night. If you are like most people, you are thinking all the time. This thinking mind is actually a false self – you may think that it as ‘you’ but the real you that is buried beneath your chattering you is quiet and peaceful and not thinking at all. To find out more about the importance of quieting the mind, read Eckhart Tolle’s bestseller The Power of Now.

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