Mind-Body Connection
Mary Pat Henehan
Routledge eBooks October 24, 2018 DOI: 10.4324/9781315809236-21 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Practical guide or manual Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Interventions | Focusing Meditation |
| Key points | The chapter proposes that greater mind-body awareness—knowing one's own thoughts and feelings and how they affect the body—can support healing, and offers exercises such as focusing and meditation toward that end. It draws on Toni Morrison's Beloved to urge loving one's body and on Joan Borysenko's work, which discusses joy's role in immune health and endorphin release. |
Abstract
This chapter examines the following mind-body topics: the placebo effect; the body as friend; discovering the meaning of our experience; risking doing something new; and reflection questions and exercises to assist in mind-body awareness—focusing and meditation. One of the goals of the chapter is to know what one&s;s own thoughts and feelings are and how they affect their body. It provides some exercises in the body and the healing. One of the best theologies of the body was written by Toni Morrison in her novel Beloved : Love your hands! Love them. Raise them up and kiss them. Touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face ’cause they don’t love that either. You got to love it, you! And no they ain’t in love with your mouth. Joan Borysenko, in The Power of the Mind to Heal , discusses the role joy plays in keeping the immune system healthy and how endorphins are released into the body.