Love Heals

Love and Healing Miracles

My husband and I were just talking this week about how always loving the community is at our Juice & Raw Foods Retreats. Truly loving people seem attracted to come. In this atmosphere of love where people bond so quickly, we have seen amazing healing miracles take place—-heart disease healed, tumors shrunk, torn rotator cuff healed, emotional issues dating back decades suddenly released and the pain gone….even getting out of a wheelchair for good with no more arthritis pain. We know it’s a combination of juice fasting, cleansing both the body and soul, prayer, and love that brings about the miracles.

As we continued talking I thought about a very popular book that’s been around a long time—Love, Medicine and Miracles by Dr. Bernie Siegel. It was written in 1986 and the message is timeless. “Unconditional love is the most powerful stimulant of the immune system. The truth is: love heals.”  In a recent blog post he writes, “Researchers [at the University of Iowa] found that when ovarian cancer patients had a strong feeling of connection with other people and had satisfying loving relationships, they had more robust “natural killer” cell activity at the site of the tumor than those who didn’t have those social ties. In other words, when we feel real love in our life, our immune system’s white blood cells are even more capable of KILLING cancerous cells.”

As I searched the web for more information on love and healing miracles, I found the amazing story of Evy McDonald on singer/songwriter Greg Tamblyn’s site,(1) which he found in Bernie Siegel’s audio book Peace, Love and Healing. I’m excited to share it with you. And after the story, I really encourage you to listen to the song Greg wrote about Evy,”Unconditional Love.” It’s simply beautiful.

Evy’s Story of Healing

In 1980, Evy was diagnosed with ALS, Lou Gehrigs Disease. By the time the doctors had figured out what the problem was, the disease was quite advanced. In Evy’s words, she was “a bowl of jello in a wheelchair.” The doctor came into her hospital room and gave her the news that the best she could hope for would be about six months. Evy had a masters degree in nursing and knew this was a fatal illness.

She went home and raged about her situation for a couple of days. Then Evy had a thought: even though she was dying, even though her body just barely worked anymore, and even though she only had six months left to live, was there something she could do to make the most out of her last six months?

She came up with a plan. She sat in front of a mirror naked and looked at herself. She’d had polio as a child, so she had two withered limbs. In addition, she’d been overweight her whole life. And now, she was dying of a wasting disease. She sat there and experienced all the negative thoughts and feelings she was having about her body and her life. She wrote them all down in a list. It was a long list.

Then Evy did three things. First, she started a new list of things she liked about herself. She began with her hair and her hands, because she’d always been proud of them. But this list of good qualities did not come as quickly as the other list. She decided to sit in front of the mirror without any clothes every day, three times a day, to work on this new list. She would set a little timer for 20 minutes to make herself stay there, because it was hard. All these negative thoughts and feelings were intense and overwhelming at times. But before she would leave, she would find at least one new thing to like about her body or her life that she could add to the good list.

The second thing she did was to accept the negative feelings as her own. She took responsibility for them. She owned them. Then she did something else, a little practice she developed. She would say, “God, these are my feelings and thoughts. I accept them as mine. But I don’t know what to do with them. You take them.” So every day she would accept her feelings as her own, and then give them away to God.

In addition, she decided to forgive anyone and everyone she needed to. She did this daily. Over time, Evy’s list of positive qualities grew longer, and eventually it became as long as the old list. Still, she kept practicing. Her new list grew longer than the old list, and kept growing.

At some point, she literally crossed a threshold. She wheeled into the mirror room and for the first time, all the negative thoughts and feelings had gone. They simply weren’t there anymore. All she could feel for herself that day was love and compassion. Not only for her body, which she now saw as a miracle of creation and a vehicle that still served her, but also for the person, the soul that she was inside. She was able to see herself as a blessed being who could experience these wonderful feelings and thoughts, and as a person who had done much good in the world.

Still, she kept practicing.

At some point, she began to have more strength in her limbs. Pretty soon after that, she could walk again, feed herself and clothe herself, and do everything normally. Evy became the first person to completely recover from ALS. And when that happened, she realized she must have more work to do in the world.

AFTER NOTE: Greg eventually met Evy. He said she has been ALS free now for 26 years. She went back to school and became a minister.

PLEASE LISTEN TO THE SONG ABOUT EVY BY GREG TAMBLYN TITLED UNCONDITIONAL LOVE!

Notes

1 http://www.gregtamblyn.com/blog/2010/04/23/six-months-to-live-the-story-of-evy-mcdonald/

Do You Need A Loving Community to Heal?

Whether it’s inner pain or physical challenges, love is a mighty facilitator in the healing process. I invite you to attend one of our retreats this year and join our loving, healing community. We will be in Santa Fe, NM August 18-23 and in Carefree, AZ (Phoenix area) October 20-25. We have just a few rooms left in Santa Fe. One rooms is very large and has 3 twin beds. If 3 people share that room, it is just $875 per person. There is also a 2-bedroom apartment that shares a bath. That is $1150 per person since you are sharing the bathroom; you have your own bedroom. If you are interested in either of those options, please let me know. You can Register here.