Ask the Author: Question & Response
I have OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). There is evidence this is caused by a biochemical imbalance in the orbital frontal cortex and caudate and putamen sections of the brain. I lack peace of mind due to repetitive and intrusive thoughts caused by this problem in my brain. I lack the peace and confidence I know are within me because of it. I am wondering how someone like you would suggest feeling joyful, happy and at peace when a problem like this blocks that. Or even if someone suffers from another physical ailment? Thanks.
– Anonymous, North Carolina, USA
My family and I have more knowledge of biochemical imbalances and physical ailments than one may first perceive from reading my writings. In our gene pool, we have chosen Huntington’s disease as our gift and challenge. Many in our family have this gene and are currently dealing with it in one stage or another.
Huntington’s disease is a fatal autosomal-dominant neurological illness causing involuntary movements, severe emotional disturbance and cognitive decline. Huntington’s usually strikes mid-life, in the thirties or forties, although it can also attack children and the elderly. There is no treatment to halt the inexorable progression, which leads to death after 10 to 25 years. Because it is an autosomal-dominant disorder, each child of a parent with Huntington’s disease has a 50% chance of inheriting the illness.
It is my belief that, as extensions of God, we do not just enter this world as a roll of dice on a craps table. We come here understanding what our souls intend to work on, and the gifts and challenges that will help us develop into more peaceful and joyful beings. Because we have chosen our path, our challenges, regardless of physical manifestation, are gifts we are offering ourselves, our families and this planet. Our free will allows us to see, react and interact with our challenges as we choose.
You already understand and acknowledge that peace and confidence are within you. That, in and of itself, is a great and strong foundation to build on. Now, two choices are presented. Will you choose to carry your past programming into the present, creating a future like your past, and significantly reducing the possibility for development and growth? Or, will you allow yourself to be open to the gift that the present offers? If you decide to keep living in the past, then you will continue to reinforce within your mind that: “I lack peace of mind due to repetitive and intrusive thoughts caused by this problem in my brain.” Giving your power over to a problem reinforces this belief, strengthens it and hinders you. My friend, you are more than your problem, and you are much more than your brain. Thus, if it is your desire, you can begin to take back the power you were programmed to give away.
When an intrusive or repetitive thought comes in, instead of judging or cursing it and losing your peace of mind, try spending those 10 seconds in gratitude for it. When you receive a gift, don’t you immediately smile and offer gratitude before you even open it? What do you have to lose? Haven’t you listened to your ego-self long enough? Now, you may ask what could 10 seconds possibly do? I would reply that this effort might possibly change your life. For if you can take 10 seconds that you once believed were impossible to receive peace in, and you now encounter gratitude and peace, wouldn’t this open up the same possibility in many more moments?
Study different meditation techniques and slowly build mental resistance to your intrusive thoughts. Anytime intrusive thoughts of Huntington’s try to get me down, I stop them and refuse to let them rule me. I then thank God for giving me the chance to offer myself more peace. My friend, your thoughts don’t control you. You control your thoughts, and meditation is one tool that helps you realize this. Start taking control of what you allow your mind to focus on: increase from 10 seconds an hour to 20 seconds, then to 40 seconds, and so on. The simple awareness that you have a choice, where you once believed you did not, will bring more peace into your life.
I encourage you to start doing something that helps people with the same issues and challenges you are facing. Look within and ask yourself if OCD is a curse brought on by evil chemicals that you are going to allow to control your life. Or will you choose to stand up, understand that this is your challenge, and lead other scared and confused souls out of the tunnel of darkness that the ego sold to all of you as being your home? Here in the USA, our family works with the Hereditary Disease Foundation. We have helped them raise well over a million dollars. In addition, our family goes to Boston once a year to allow them to give us all kinds of measurement tests to research how the disease progresses. In Venezuela, we help the largest Huntington’s live-in community hospital in the world, where again the Hereditary Disease Foundation comes to do research on developing new drug cocktails and ways of coping with this illness. We look at it from the perspective that God has entrusted us with the opportunity to help take people who are dealing with these challenges to a more peaceful place. As we take them there, we get to experience this wondrous state too.
Taking control of your thoughts has a lot in common with training for a marathon. If you try to run a marathon without prior training, you would most likely not finish. However, if you trained for four to six months in advance, you would probably have little trouble completing it. In marathon training, you might begin with a three mile walk/run. Four months later, a few weeks before the actual marathon, your practice run might be up to 28 miles. In the first week of marathon training, you probably would have looked at completing that 28 mile run as an impossible fantasy. Five months later, you’re in absolute bliss that you completed it.
With meditation and commitment, you can start taking control of your thoughts. At first, taking control of your mind for 10 to 20 seconds might seem like a small and stressful step, but it’s a step in the direction you truly desire to go. Soon that first step, that you once perceived as a hike up Mount Everest, will feel like a walk in the park.
Also understand that the brain is living tissue, and that the food you consume can help heal and strengthen or hurt and weaken the brain. Add fruits and vegetables with some nuts and seeds to your diet, and reduce or eliminate processed food and products with added sugar. There is a lot of very good research on how the food we consume affects our bodies and brains. Try making the understanding of this research a hobby for you. In fact, try becoming a bit of an expert on it and help disseminate the information.
My friend, join me on this journey and be a model to those who share your struggle. Light the way for those who find it too dark to see and for those who will one day look for a more peaceful and joyful way. This is the opportunity and gift God has laid in front of us. This is the trust God has in us. Although our physical proximity on this journey is not necessary, know that my thoughts and prayers are with you, as I know yours are with me.
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