Joe’s Story of Seeing the Power of Mind in Illness
In the summer of 2017 I was noticing my overall energy level drop and waking up feeling sluggish and down. At first I thought it was just summer allergies and ignored it. As it got worse I began to feel aching in my finger joints—“perhaps arthritis due to my turning 69 and the aging process.”
As the summer went on my symptoms worsened to the point of excruciating pain in all my joints and especially my spine. The fatigue, low mood were joined by loss of memory that felt like early Alzheimer’s. Then one night while alone at my cabin in the Canadian wilderness, I woke up in a sweat and the pain was more than I could bare and I began to wonder if it might be cancer or Lyme, something systemic. I had Lyme twice before and the symptoms came on immediately, so that confused me as to what it was. I had prevented getting the chronic Lyme. by taking antibiotics right away but this time I had the symptoms for three months before I suspected it was Lyme. I felt a deep fear I hadn’t felt in a long time.
Even though I had a deep understanding of the principles, I evidently ran into a blindspot when it came to my own physical health.
When I returned home I immediately saw my family doctor who suspected it was Lyme and he put me on antibiotics again and ran blood tests to be sure. He called as soon as he got the results and said it was the worse case of Lyme he had ever seen and said I need to see a specialist in Lyme so he referred me to a well known doctor in my state. Fortunately, she had a cancelation so could see me in two weeks instead of waiting her normal year long waiting list.
Dr. V. was very knowledgeable about Lyme, having had it herself and finding that western traditional medicine didn’t know much about it and had little treatment that was effective. To cure herself she went outside the normal boundaries of medicine and through trial and error started to heal herself and many others.
She met with me for four hours doing all kinds of tests and blood work and spent a lot of time educating me. I took food tests and as a result changed my diet dramatically and lost 30 pounds. (I don’t recommend getting Lyme to lose weight!) I gradually felt better but not well. I was on 40-60 pills a day and a strict diet.
My mind became consumed with learning all I could about the disease. I read books, talked to my colleagues at the Mayo Clinic and other doctors, searched websites and spoke with other people I knew who also had it. Unknowingly my mind was working against my bodies natural ability to heal through my obsession and fear. My doctor said in the first meeting that my mind was the most important variable in healing from Lyme. I agreed but somehow missed the depth of what she was saying, even though I had a deep understanding of the principles, I evidently ran into a blindspot.
On a trip to Malaysia with my wife Michael I met a healer from Switzerland.
I During treatment I cut back on my work significantly and decided to go to Malaysia with my wife who was going to a Kung Fu training in Penang with a Grandmaster. He was offering a course on Qi Gong healing so I decided to attend that while we were there. We went down early and spent a week on the beaches of Thailand, sleeping, resting and healing.
My wife Michael’s course of five days was first so I stayed at our Air B &B by the pool and visited with friends who had moved to Penang from the US. While she was in her course I decided to join her group for lunch one day in Chinatown as I was wanting to meet Andrew who was a sifu (teacher) of Qi Gong and a well known healer from Switzerland. As we walked the busy streets of Penang I caught up with Andrew and asked, “Could I set up a time to meet with you for a session regarding my illness?” He immediately said, “Let’s do it now.” “Now” I exclaimed, “here on the busy streets?” “Why not?”, he said casually, so I said reluctantly, “OK, if you say so.”
His first question was simply, “So what’s the problem?”
I responded, “Well, last summer I got Lyme disease.”
He interrupted me and said, “Stop right there! Don’t ever say you have Lyme disease if you ever want to get completely well.”
Puzzled I tried to correct him, “But I had the symptoms long before I realized I had Lyme.”
With an absolute sense of knowing he repeated what he said earlier.
I responded, “I understand the power of the mind in healing and its relationship to illness and mental health. I’ve written several books on that topic. I believe in what you are saying.”
“No you don’t believe me, you just think you do. Every time you say I am sick with Lyme, you send all the beliefs and thoughts you have about the illness to every cell of your body. Your body and mind are one.”
Again I agreed. “I know that but….”
“Do you believe me?”
“Yes, I do, I think I do.”
“No you don’t, I can see it in your face. If you don’t change your thinking about your illness your body’s natural capacity to heal will be interrupted by your signals of being sick to the body. You don’t believe me except intellectually.”
I knew he was right at that moment and I felt humbled by his resolve and certainty. He wasn’t going to let me off the hook. At that moment I realized all the thinking I had been doing about my symptoms, my treatments, all driven by fear. I had set up a “public relations department” in my own mind and I suddenly saw it for the first time.
“Now you believe me!” I hadn’t even said anything but he intuitively saw that I now understood insightfully what he had been trying to tell me.
“How did you know that?” I hadn’t uttered a word.
“i could see it in your face.”
I felt something lift from my whole body—all the invisible worry and thinking was falling away. My mind swirled as it had when I met Syd Banks that first encounter. I knew he was right but my brain kept trying to understand what had just happened.
So I said, “Shall we set up a session?”
“Why, we just had it.”
“That was it? But we only talked 15 minutes at most and here on the busy noisy streets of Chinatown.”
“You got it, you’re done.”
“Really?”
“Why set up a session, you are already done.”
“Can I pay you?”
“That’s OK, don’t worry about it.”
“But…”
The next day I woke up early and felt wide awake, totally awake in a way I hadn’t felt in many months, perhaps years. My head was clear and I felt all this energy. I decided to go down to the gym and work out and go for a swim. I doubled my weights from the day before and did it with ease. I went for a swim and felt like I could swim forever. I didn’t know what happened but I was grateful.
When I walked into my friend’s apartment she said, “What happened to you? You look ten years younger.”
I told her what had happened. She looked shocked and said, “Blake and I were worried about you. You had aged so much since we had seen you and you had always been so youthful for your age. You were our inspiration. “
“You should have seen me before our vacation in Thailand. I thought I was doing a lot better than I had.”
Andrew the healer had never heard of the principles of Mind, Thought and Consciousness, but he had a deep understanding of the mind it was clear to me. My own understanding of the principles grew immensely from my brief encounter and resulting healing after meeting Andrew.
To this day I feel completed healed from that which I won’t name anymore. I feel and look years younger than before I got the illness. I just turned 70 and at my party people thought I looked 20 years younger than my age. I not only healed from my illness, I moved to a higher level of physical, mental and spiritual well being. I shared my story with some colleagues which was being video taped and my story has now been seen by over 4000 views on my Facebook page. I am so grateful that I keep learning, evolving and growing from the understanding of the Transformation Principles you are learning in this book.
Joseph Bailey, M.A., L.P.
