Luck of the Draw?

Hello I’m Peter Winslow, a life coach in private practice. In my practice as a life coach I often encounter people eager to maintain that “luck” is the most powerful indicator for personal outcomes regarding an individual’s health and wellness.

It’s all due, they say, to the environment into which we’re born into. It’s the luck of winning or losing the genetic lottery; the fortune of whom we meet and who comes into our lives on a personal level; the grace of which tax bracket we fall into; on and on it goes.

Still others will tell me there's no such thing as luck—yet they’ll agree it sure feels like an apt descriptor of the conditions and situations they find themselves in.

As for outcomes, it is readily apparent that people look to the future from the perspective of their previous experiences and current circumstances. When being unhappy, the future is dim and `challenging; when joyous and elated, triumph is all but carved in stone.

The difference is found in our own personal biases which determine how we feel about whatever actually occurs. Knowing this, it becomes obvious that we tend to attract what we expect and therefore focus on. The upshot here? The days to come will be great for those who create greatness within themselves.

As such, nothing happens to you, until it happens through you. You are the filter through which your current experiences pass from perception into reality. The wise have often written that we always stand at a fork in the road; we choose our path and can only experience the result of that choice.

Which path will you choose?

 –Peter Winslow

Part 3: Can My Thoughts Really Affect My Health?

I’m life coach Peter Winslow. Throughout my years in practice I’ve worked with many people who believe that what they think about has little if anything to do with their physical health. If you agree, buckle your seat belt because you’re about to discover a whole new reality.

Consider this: thoughts in the mind create changes in the body, many of which we can easily observe. For instance, if you see or hear something that you find embarrassing, you might "blush" and your face turn red. That's a good example of a chemical change that happens in the body in response to your thoughts.

Our thoughts produce physical reactions, many with predictable results. Sexual thoughts can create responses in the anatomy that are easy to observe; creepy thoughts will make your skin crawl and your hair stand on end. Scary and stressful thoughts cause us to secrete catecholamines, the stress hormones including cortisol and adrenalin that must be burned off regularly to prevent ongoing tissue damage.

Conditions like hypertension, stroke, ulcerative colitis, heart disease and many other health challenges are clearly impacted by mental stress, establishing the fact that there's a link between our thoughts and the internal chemical reactions that affect how we feel and how we heal. This is called the "mind-body connection."

Every day we feel our bodies respond to our thoughts and subconscious beliefs. Unfortunately, attitudes like anger, jealousy, resentment and guilt are stressors that can create grave consequences for our health and well-being. These emotions deplete a lot of the energy we need to maintain healthy immune function.

Emotional stress is a problem which worsens the pain and symptoms of chronic illness. Now researchers are discovering that we can reverse chronic illnesses through changing our beliefs and behaviors, which are the central factor in our own health outcomes. The good news is that your body is designed to heal itself naturally and keep you healthy. Your job is to get your mind on board to help it succeed.

-Peter Winslow, Life Coach, Counselor and Trainer

Part Two: Can My Thoughts Really Affect My Health?

I’m life coach Peter Winslow. When I look back to my days with Ankylosing Spondylitis, I realize that deep and heavy emotional stress was constantly with me, which weakened my immune system and made my body more susceptible to chronic illness.

By releasing the deep-seated toxic emotions and buried stress I carried, I helped my body do what it is originally designed to do—repair itself.

Only now, years after recovering from the symptoms of Ankylosing Spondylitis, do I truly understand the role that toxic, stressful emotions play in creating and sustaining chronic conditions.
You might think the daily challenges of your life are stressful, but how you respond to those challenges is what counts. What we refer to as “distress” is the type of stress universally recognized as a primary cause of illness.

Distress is often an emotional response that affects the body. As the body becomes so stressed that it begins to break down, the immune system can no longer repair the damage.
This is because under stress, the cells in your body don't take in proper amounts of oxygen, water or nutrients. They don't release wastes and toxins, and they don't communicate to other cells with messages intended to help keep your body healthy.

However, stop fomenting the distress and you assist your cells to move out of their defensive mode and into normal growth mode. Your immune system then works to rid you of illnesses and protect your from creating new ones.

Your body is designed as a perfect healing machine, but only when it is not forced into the defensive position brought on by mental and emotional stress. How to stop that defensiveness is something you really should know about.

–Peter Winslow

Part One - Can My Thoughts Really Affect My Health?

I’m Peter Winslow. As a life coach I’ve worked with all types of people seeking solutions, but here’s an example of one who really surprised me. I was completely taken aback when she claimed, "I know exactly why I got cancer!"

She went on to explain how she realized that the stressful issues in her marriage had compromised her health and helped to create her illness.

My surprise came from the fact that this particular woman describes herself as an atheist, and  strongly believes that illness happens strictly at random.

As for the notion that "our thoughts influence our reality" she still considers it to be a steaming load of excrement, although now she is beginning to examine her own internal biases.

She's not alone; many people believe their thoughts and feelings have absolutely nothing to do  with their health, how they feel, or their healing outcomes.

When I suggested to her that we all can learn to think in a way that helps us be healthier, she  responded with vehement anger that I certainly don't know what it's like to be ill.

Well, I do in fact know exactly what it's like.

When I look back to my days with Ankylosing Spondylitis, I remember the anger, resentment, guilt, depression and other suppressed emotions I held. I didn't really understand what caused these feelings at the time because I was in the midst of living them, and coping with the constant, chronic pain of a cruel and punishing autoimmune disorder.

If someone had told me then that I was in any way responsible for my own condition, they wouldn't have wanted to stick around for my reply. But there is a wonderful silver lining to the story. If you’d like to know what it is, stick around for the next segment.

–Peter Winslow

Can Your Body Heal Itself? Section 4

I’m life coach and counselor Peter Winslow. As a life coach I’m often asked by my clients about stress and how it dominates the mind-body connection.

Doctors know that stress is a major cause of illness and dis-ease, and that alleviating the mental stress that causes health issues will often restore optimal bodily function. Medical practitioners typically prescribe invasive medication as treatment, but there are many alternative options which are free of harmful side-effects.

For instance, moderate movement exercises balance the mind and body by settling the brain chemistry brought on by stressful emotions. There are a variety of simple mind-body techniques and exercises you can use to help your body heal from stress, many of which can add quality and years to your life.

The astounding thing is, you don’t have to understand the mind-body connection in order to use it for powerful results. Consider it this way: do you need to know how to build a Ferrari to start one up and drive it down the street?

Your body—the Ferrari—was designed and created to operate smoothly. Your mission is to climb into the driver’s seat and steer your vehicle to happiness, health and wellbeing.

Remember, understanding the mind-body connection is not required for results. Case in point: do you know exactly how you digest and assimilate food and then excrete the waste without even thinking about it?

You don’t have to know how you do it because the work is done automatically. Call it what you want—the subconscious mind, inner intelligence, instinct, nature, or higher awareness—the system is operating right now, directing your physical functions without you paying any conscious attention to it.

This is where it gets interesting: even though you pay little or no attention to it, your inner intelligence pays close attention to you. How? It responds to your dominant thoughts and emotions, and for better or worse, stressful or otherwise, you are communicating with it at all times. 

–Peter Winslow

Can The Body Heal Itself? Section 3

I am Peter Winslow, a life coach and health counselor in Scottsdale. I have a question for you today that may make you think very deeply about your own health, and it goes like this: What makes us ill—and who, or what, can make us well?

There is a growing mountain of evidence that our beliefs and behaviors hold the key. The new science of Behavioral Epigenetics reveals new facts about the cause of chronic illness, and I am a firm believer. Why? Because behavioral changes led directly to my remission from the “medically incurable” autoimmune disorder known as Ankylosing Spondylitis.

We now know beyond all doubt that long-standing toxic emotional states greatly constrict the immune system, a natural defense mechanism which exists to protect us from premature aging and disease.

Ask yourself this question: if you repress your resentment, guilt, shame, anger, and other difficult emotions, can this behavior lead to illness? Recent medical studies prove that yes in fact it can.

This is all due to what is called the mind-body connection, a natural phenomenon that many people remain skeptical about. Yet medical studies continue to find that how we think and feel affects our health, especially when what we think and feel leads to chronic stress.

In the United States, stress-related illness accounts for 85% or more of the complaints that patients report to their doctors. Here’s a common example: Studies show that emotional stress directly affects the human digestive system. Mental and emotional stress is frequently cited as causing loss of appetite, uncontrollable cravings, or unhealthy eating binges. Stress also impedes proper absorption of nutrients and causes further issues with elimination of waste matter.

Chronic stress is proven to cause symptoms of illness in the physical body. The long-term solution is found in lifestyle and behavioral changes, rather than quick-fix addictive drugs whose positive results never last. 

-Peter Winslow

How the Body Heals Section 2

This is Peter Winslow, a health and life coach in private practice. Today we’ll discover the difference between “medical treatment” and “self-healing.” You may be surprised to learn that they often have very little in common. 

“Treatment” concerns external means to manipulate for an outcome, while “healing” is what occurs naturally within the body. 

When we discuss “healing” we’re talking about a subject that cannot be accurately predicted by medical data or controlled studies. Outcomes for healing are always variable; doctors can at best discuss the probabilities for any successful outcome. 

In fact, the natural energy that heals the human body is almost never discussed in western medical training. Scientists focus on the laws that govern physical tissues, systems and the matter they can observe with the implements of medical technology. They seek ways to interact with those things and they evolve their findings into methods of medical “treatment.” 

“Healing” is completely different, because healing is what you do. You already possess the energy to heal; the doctors don’t prescribe it and no one can sell it to you. In fact, “healing” is an act that ultimately depends on you. 

The energy that heals your body lives within your body, and it will never leave until you die. If you cut the finger of a cadaver you will notice that the wound will never heal. At this point, no medical treatment is useful because the healing energy is no longer in the body. 

This indicates that the power to heal is connected with the animating life force within us. This has never been studied by medical science, and the organic energy that heals your body cannot be witnessed through a microscope. It remains “meta-physical” or beyond the physical, and beyond the scope of medical technology. 

–Peter Winslow

Can the Body Heal Itself?

Hello I’m life coach Peter Winslow, and I have a radical question on tap for you today: do you believe that your body can heal itself?

If so, you’re in the minority. Most people believe that “healing” only comes from doctors and drugs, and that the body has little if any internal healing ability. As a life and health coach, I hear this constantly from my clients. Yet it’s a misguided misunderstanding—and a dangerous one at that.
For you to better empower your own healing ability it will be useful for you to think of healing the body from injury and dis-ease in terms which are not limited to medical science, but which also include a powerful healing philosophy.

The word philosophy means “love of wisdom.” The natural philosophy we can use to comprehend self-healing includes wisdom about the communication between your mind and body which evolved over eons to protect you and keep you free of illness.

The concept of a “mind-body connection” has often been rejected by the modern mainstream and by those who find it difficult to think of healing as a holistic (mind and body) phenomenon. This is likely due to the fact that western medical training has not endorsed mind-body methods of treatment as being useful or good for business.

For years, medical facilities taught that the human mind has little or no impact at all on the body. They reasoned that something as ambiguous as “stress”—which is a mental state—couldn’t possibly have any effect on the complicated anatomical workings of a human being. Most medical instructors now willingly admit that they just didn’t believe it was that simple.

Today many medical practitioners have seen the light about the toxicity of mental and emotional stress. They have evolved their practices to include recommending holistic approaches for stress relief as they recognize the powerful benefits of these “new-age” practices and how effective they are for their patients.

–Peter Winslow