God loves you as a good father loves his child. You can climb on His lap and tell Him everything. He sees your tears in the night and wants to help. Ask Him for what you need.

He touched their eyes and said, “Become what you believe.”
– Jesus,
   Matthew 9:29

Past Questions of the Month:

Hope and Assurance

This website was created for those acquainted with mental illness and in need of hope and assurance.

Question of the Month

How much control do you believe we have over mental illness? So much is heard nowadays about chemicals in the brain being responsible for depression, schizophrenia, and other mental illnesses.

I believe we have a whole lot more control than we may realize and sometimes even care to admit.

Our mind and our body are one. What the mind thinks, the body will respond to with feelings, sensations, actions, and symptoms. Dr. Christiane Northrup, M.D., in her book, Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom, states, “The mind can no longer be thought of as being confined to the brain or to the intellect; it exists in every cell of our body. Every thought we think…and every emotion we feel has a biochemical equivalent.”

For example, when we are fearful and tell ourselves we are afraid and cannot do a certain activity, our body believes us and responds in physical ways to “help” us not be able to do the activity: lightheadedness, sweating, fainting, rapid, shallow breathing, stomachache, nausea, crying, headache, etc. We may become so uncomfortable that we physically cannot do the activity. We have become sick or immobilized to the point of not being able to respond. What our mind says, our body believes and reacts in accordance.

Chemicals in the body are responsible for these sometimes sudden and intense changes that take place in response to our thoughts and beliefs. When our mind focuses on certain thoughts to the exclusion of healthy ones over a period of time, changes can occur. The balance of chemicals can be upset. Medication is able to impact certain chemicals quickly to improve our mood and thinking. Then we are able to process information with a more positive and realistic outlook. Medication can give us the edge we need to get back on our feet. Then as we learn new coping skills and ways of thinking, we may be able to reduce the medication or even get off of it entirely.

A decade of research at the W. M. Keck Laboratory for Functional Brain Imaging and Behavior found that choosing specific thoughts and emotions can permanently change the working of the brain. When participants practiced feeling loving and compassion, their brains began connecting and building new circuitry at high speed.

Cognitive therapy is a type of talk therapy that involves changing a person’s negative thought patterns. It can be as effective as medication in treating depression and patients are much less likely to relapse. (Archives of General Psychiatry, April 2005; vol 62:pp.409-422.)

Since our body listens to and supports our mind’s perspective, our thoughts and beliefs become very, very important to our health and well-being.

Contact

I welcome your comments and suggestions about this website. If you have a question that you would like addressed, please let me hear from you.

My email address is carolyn@hopeandassurance.com.

My mailing address is:
P.O. Box 3041
Jonesboro, AR
72403-3041.