No one expresses the mind-body connection better than early 20th century physician and noticer Dr. Orison S. Marden. In Peace, Power, and Plenty he reveals the secret to a life of abundance—of youthful well-being.1
I offer Dr. Marden’s ideology here for two reasons: for the well-being of the face-enhancing surgeon, and so that members of the profession can imbue these truisms into the minds of their patients. Doing so will help facial surgeons maintain their own heath, prolong career spans, obtain extraordinary outcomes, and provide a level of care not routinely offered throughout the appearance-enhancing industry. Readers who have not experienced the signs and conditions of aging should also heed the admonitions expressed in this chapter. The day will come when they will apply to you. In the meantime, you can help your patients slow the aging process. That you do will set you—and your practice—apart from other surgeons.
I summarize Marden’s remarks. My own thoughts are parenthesized. For emphasis, some words and sentences are italicized.
Few people realize how largely their health (and appearance) depends upon the saneness of their thinking. You cannot hold ill thoughts, disease thoughts (old-age thoughts), in the mind without having them “out-pictured” in the body. The thought will appear in the body somewhere.
The health stream, if polluted at all, is polluted at the fountainhead—in the thought, in the ideal. We can never reach perfection by dwelling upon imperfection, harmony by dwelling upon discord (or youth by dwelling on aging).
We should keep a high ideal of health (youth) and harmony constantly before the mind. Never affirm or repeat about your health (or appearance) what you do not wish to be true.
The mind is the health and appearance sculptor, and we cannot surpass the mental pattern (upon which our minds focus). If there is a weakness or a flaw in the thinking model, there will be corresponding deficiencies in the health-statue.
We (facial surgeons) take infinite pains and spend many years in preparing ourselves for our lifework. We know that a successful career must be based upon scientific principles of training, of system and order, that every step of a successful career must be taken only after great thought and consideration. We know that it means years of hard work to establish ourselves in life in a profession or business; but our health, upon which everything else hangs— upon which it depends absolutely—we take very little trouble to establish.
We (facial surgeons) should lay a foundation for our health just as we establish anything of importance—by studying and adopting the sanest and the most scientific methods. We should think health, talk health, hold the health ideal, just as a law student should think law, talk law, read law, live in a law atmosphere. Thinking is building; our thinking will be reflected in our bodies (and in the bodies of our patients).
Thoughts are things, and they leave their characteristic marks on the mind. Every true, beautiful, and helpful thought is a suggestion that, if held in the mind, tends to reproduce itself there—clarifies the ideals and uplifts the life. While these inspiring and helpful suggestions fill the mind, their opposites cannot put in their deadly work, because the two cannot live together. They are mutually antagonistic, natural enemies. One excludes the other.
The human body is made exclusively of cells. We are nothing but a mass of cells of 12 different varieties, such as brain cells, bone cells, and muscle cells. The maximum of health and power depends upon the absolute integrity of every cell. Sickness and disease simply mean that some of the cells in the body are impaired.
Many people seem to think that thought only affects the brain; but the fact is we think all over.
The body is a sort of extended brain. Every thought that enters the brain cells is quickly communicated to every cell in the entire body, thus accounting for the tremendous instantaneous influence of a shock caused by fatal news or some terrible catastrophe on every part of the body, instantly affecting all the secretions and functions. When the diseased thought goes, the body at once rebounds and becomes normal.
A short time ago I read a story about a young officer in India who consulted a great physician because he felt fagged from the excessive heat and long hours of service. The physician examined him and said he would write to him the next day. The letter the patient received informed him that his left lung was entirely gone and his heart was seriously affected, and it advised him to adjust his business affairs at once. “Of course, you may live for weeks,” it said, “but you had best not leave important matters undecided.”
“What on earth have you been doing to yourself?” demanded the physician. “There was no indication of this sort when I saw you yesterday.”
“It is my heart, I suppose,” weakly answered the patient in a whisper.
“Your heart!” repeated the doctor. “Your heart was all right yesterday.”
“My lungs, then,” said the patient.
“What is the matter with you, man? You don’t seem to have been drinking.”
“Your letter, your letter!” gasped the patient. “You said I had only a few weeks to live.”
“Are you crazy?” said the doctor. “I wrote you to take a week’s vacation in the hills and you would be all right.”
The patient, with the pallor of death in his face, could scarcely raise his head from the pillows, but he drew from under the bedclothes the doctor’s letter.
“Heavens, man!” cried the physician. “This was meant for another patient! My assistant misplaced the letters.”
The young officer sat up in bed immediately, and was entirely well in a few hours.
We are all at some time in our lives victims of the imagination. We are just beginning to appreciate the marvelous power of suggestion to uplift or depress the mind (and, thus, body).
When we are thoroughly entrenched in the conviction of our unity with the All-good, when we realize that we do not take on health from outside by acquiring it, but that we are health, then we shall really begin to live.
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