Huna Article

Huna International

A Mind-Body Partnership
by Serge Kahili King

Some scientists and medical doctors consider the mind to be no more than a side-effect of the brain. If that is so, then their opinion is no more than a side-effect of the brain as well, and worthy of no more respect than the mental ramblings of anyone else.

And yet, many of these same "experts" deny any connection between the mind and the body, which is like denying any connection between the digestive system and its excretions, or any connection betwen the skin and body odor. So we can dismiss that idea as well.

Other scientists, doctors and healh specialists accept the idea of a mind-body connection. In this assumption, the mind is not the same as the body, but neither is it separate from the body. In other words, the activities of the mind affect the state of the body, and the activities of the body affect the state of the mind. Using this idea, healing techniques have been developed for changing the mind to heal the body and changing the body to heal the mind, without drugs or surgical intervention. Of course this is a good thing.

Now, though, I want to introduce you to the idea of a mind-body partnership. The difference between this and the previous idea is that the concept of a connection only requires awareness, but a partnership involves awareness plus direct communication and cooperation. This idea assumes that your body is always a willing partner if you treat it like a friend, and that it always has a good reason for whatever it does. At the same time, it is always willing to change its behavior if you give it good reasons for doing so.

The body communicates with the mind through physical sensations, emotional responses, memories and intuitive insights. The mind communicates with the body through imagination, silent or vocal speech, conscious movement, and purposeful memory recall.

Ku Talk
One technique using the partnership idea is what we call "Ku Talk." "Ku is a term used to represent the consciousness of the body, but it could also just be called "Body Talk." The technique is about as simple as it can get. All you do is mentally talk to your body to let it know how you want it to behave. Here are some of the ways and reasons used:

1. Compliment your body for good behavior. This helps to reinforce such behavior and develop good habits.

2. When preparing for surgery, cancer treatment, birth, or any important strenuous activity, find a quiet spot and explain to your body in detail what to expect, how you want it to behave, and what the benefits will be of getting through it successfully. During the process itself, as far as possible, guide your body through it with suggestions, directions and requests, and compliment it for any positive behavior, no matter how small..

3. Sometimes the body understands symbols better than words. So another way of "talking" to your body is to ask it to give you a memory or a symbol of a problem (which will be based on a memory of some kind). Then you use your imagination to modify that symbol in some way (color, shape, size, substance, quality, etc.) until you get a good feeling. The good feeling is your body's way of letting you know that a positive change has been made. This may solve the whole problem or only a part of it, so more "symbol work" can be used if you want to do it.

The Repetition Technique
Another partnership technique I have written about in several places is what I call "The Repetition Technique" or "The Mindblower Technique." This is very useful whenever you get an injury like a blow, a cut, a burn or some other physical injury. It is a kind of conscious physical communication to give your body a different pattern to follow. Here are the steps:

1. Immediately repeat the physical action that caused the injury, but WITHOUT completing it. If you hit your thumb with a hammer, repeat the same motion with the hammer, but stop just short of touching your thumb again. Keep repeating this modified action until the pain stops. Most of the time, if you do it soon enough, there will be no bruise, or swelling. In the case of a cut it will stop bleeding and heal quickly, and in the case of a burn there will be no blister and maybe even no redness.

2. As an alternative, when you can't repeat the action physically for some reason, you can imagine doing it as vividly as you can and get the same effect, but it may take longer. This can also be used for past injuries, but the results depend on how well you can accept the change in what originally happened.

3. In addition to using imagination, you can "act out' the original movement in some way, either by duplicating it as much as possible, or by making symbolic movements, like a very small movement to represent a much larger movement. Some people have used this successfully for healing the present effects of past injuries.

4. To make the process even more effective, you can add words, silently or out loud. Saying "See, nothing happened!" each time you repeat the motion works very well.

Thoughtforming
A third partnership technique is to use your imagination to create healing or relaxing thoughtforms along with a healing or relaxing narrative to help keep the focus. In this context, a "thoughtform" is a full-scale imaginary object or situation that you create in your immediate external environment, complete with sensory input like sight, sound, touch, taste, smell and emotional feel. A "narrative" is just a description of what's happening, either silently or out loud. Usually this can start to produce good effects in less than a minute. Here are some ideas:

1. When you are feeling too much tension or anxiety, surround yourself with a peaceful scene. Depending on your preferences and location this could be a tropical beach where you are sitting in a lounge chair sipping a Corona or a Piña Colada, standing on the deck of a log cabin in a pine forest looking out at a beautiful sunset, swimming in a pool at the base of a waterfall (with or without a friend) and so on. Just make sure it's something enjoyable for your mind and for your body.

2. When you have an illness of some kind, imagine healers from the future zapping your body with healing energy from a device of some kind, or imagine a great magician from the past giving you a magical healing potion to drink.

Try anything that appeals to you. Again, vividness is an important factor for effectiveness and it may have to be repeated, but anything will help, even if it doesn't do the whole job. Even for simple things like a cold or an ache or an upset stomach you can talk your body out of it most of the time with simple words or symbols. Something like, "Hey, buddy, take a deep breath and let that go." Imagining a tension area in the form of a rock or a block of ice and turning it into sand or water can produce good results faster than you might think.

Treat your body like a partner or, even better, a friend, and it will do the same for you.

Copyright Aloha International 2016