Archive for Spirituality in healthcare
The healing power of music
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Henry Garza, guitarist and vocalist with Los Lonely Boys, wrote the lyrics to their song, Heaven. It was a prayer; a prayer motivated by his families financial and emotional hardships, combined with the death of his first-born son from sudden infant death syndrome. The prayer expressed his deep desire for healing. “I know there’s a better place/Than this place I’m livin’/How far is heaven?”
Henry’s heartfelt plea touched hearts worldwide. Because of the strength of the message, the album that included Heaven sold over 2 million copies.
Melodies move us emotionally and change us physically. Read More→
What can fear do to you?
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Recently, when asked, “What can fear do to you?” I was reminded of two experiences.
The first started with me asking a Sunday School class of first graders, “What would you say if someone wanted you to pray for them?”
A visitor to the class, a young girl, spoke up and confidently said, “I would tell them that they were safe in God’s pocket.”
A few hours later, my phone rang. A man, suffering with a physical problem, asked me to pray for him. Because the girl’s simple but confident response had so impressed me, and since I understand the cause of most problems to be fear, I was led to say, “You are safe in God’s pocket.”
He began to cry and hung up, without giving his name.
A week later, he called back to report he’d been healed of the physical problem the instant he hung up the phone. He also stated that for the next few days, every time he tried to smoke cigarettes, they tasted terrible. Not only had he been healed of the physical trouble, he’d stopped a long time habit of smoking, as well. Read More→
Cheating death 101
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You enter the room of a gravely ill friend where hope has vanished. Your thoughts weigh heavy. The family expects a quick passing. Doctors have proclaimed there are but a few hours left. The room is dark, both mentally and physically. You feel helpless.
But, what if you could do something, something that made a difference?
Two last-minute healing experiences, I am aware of, show it’s possible for you to be of help. The first involves Joseph Mann and a thirty-two-caliber revolver. The second details Mary Belt’s time at the Clara Barton Hospital in Los Angeles. While I briefly describe these accounts, for a point of emphasis, I am suggesting that you are the healer. Read More→
Why love matters
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When I got married, I became an instant dad to my wife’s two sons. One day just before we were married, Joanne and the boys came to visit me. Jarrod, the older, was four. He sat on my lap, and we played with his teddy bear. I would take his teddy and pretend he was talking to Jarrod. When it was Jarrod’s turn to make the bear “Talk,” he swung it and hit me hard across the face.
He didn’t mean to be violent, but got carried away with the game. However, when he saw the blow had shocked me, he quickly put both hands up in a defensive position, expecting me to hit back.
I was stunned more by his fear than by being hit. At that moment, I realized what it was going to take to be a father figure – forgiveness and love.
I slowly reached out, took both his shoulders, pulled him close, and kissed him on the cheek. I can still remember the amazed look on his face. He relaxed, and we started playing again.
It would’ve been easy to try to “teach him a lesson.” But both of us needed an instruction in love being lived. And we needed to learn, most of all, that love matters. Read More→
Make it a great wait
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Unless you enjoy uninterrupted minutes of Angry Birds, Draw Something, or Scramble on your smartphone, you may be finding wait periods in doctors’ offices frustrating.
In a world where most of us are in super, hyper motion, slamming on the brakes and just twiddling thumbs is emotionally painful.
A recent look at data from over 700,000 physicians’ offices revealed that patients in the US spend significant time in a room their physicians almost never enter. The national average is 21 minutes, but some wait for hours. Read More→
Stop saying “I can’t”
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It isn’t just the world-class competition, or the crowning of champions, that makes me excited to watch events like the upcoming Acrobatic Gymnastics World Championships in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. It’s seeing barriers get broken—shattering common expectations—that brings me to my feet.
But you don’t have to witness a standing back full twist on the balance beam to feel that same breakthrough excitement and come out a winner.
Have you ever tried to learn a foreign language and then hit a barrier? Couldn’t take it to the next level? Maybe it was the guitar or piano you were practicing, and then found yourself stuck. That happened to me. Read More→
Master and Commander
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Apparently, our beliefs can help us. It’s been proven. If we believe we will be healthier, we can be.
For example:
Patients in a Baylor School of Medicine study were divided into three groups. Dr. Bruce Moseley performed surgery on the first group. With another group, he utilized a different surgical technique. Both were standard treatments for arthritic knees.
The third group, however, received a fake surgery. They were sedated, and the doctor talked and acted as if there was a real surgical operation taking place. He even splashed salt water, simulating the sound of a knee-washing procedure. Each of the groups was prescribed the same postoperative care, including an exercise program. Read More→
Great Expectations
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I am intrigued by the power of expectations; by the impact they have on our well-being.
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Thomas Curry, a licensed Texas psychotherapist about this phenomenon.
Dr. Curry explained, “Expectations are a hot topic in healthcare practice and research. It is widely recognized that an individual’s, or group of individuals, expectations either help or hurt healthcare outcomes. Why this is so, and how it happens, unfortunately remains a mystery. However, what is not mysterious at all is the fact that expectations play a very pivotal role in the progression of mental and medical disease, as well as it has a strong role in any treatment effect.”
This makes me wonder: Do expectations of decline and illness allow for unchecked fear to manifest as disease on the body where it can develop and spread? Are expectations of health possibly divine urgings that animate us to discover more than we are accepting of life at a given moment? Read More→
Health: Just like Texas
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When people around the world think of Texas, I have found that images of Dallas, oil fields, and cattle ranches come to mind.
However, there is much more to our grand state than cattle barons and oil tycoons.
Citrus groves thrive in south Texas and the tall Piney Woods flourish in the east Texas red soil. Sand dunes and beach houses line the coast from Galveston to Post Isabel, and I haven’t even mentioned the Chisos Mountains in the Big Bend National Park.
Texas is big and there are a lot of big things in it. And health is one of them. Yet, just like Texas, there is a lot about health that is relatively unknown. Read More→
Einnie, meenie, miney, mo, — I choose health!
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One of the important responsibilities of parenting is making sure children are physically cared for. Because of this, parents should be helping their children cultivate greater self-control. So suggests the findings from a 32-year study, which showed that children whose self-control improved were more likely to have better health.
There are many ways to improve self-control, but what the study suggests is that the effort could be rewarded with greater well-being.
Self-control allows children to cope with difficult situations. Rather than responding immediately to impulses, they are able to plan, examine alternative actions, and side step what they may later regret. This mental management has been considered an innate human ability. However, many are finding it to be much more, a spiritual faculty – a talent wisely exercisable when coupled with spiritual awareness. Read More→
