By LaTesha W. Thomas
Imagine you’re in the prime of your life. You have only yourself to care for. To this point, things have happened for you with relative ease. You’ve learned to dust yourself off, recover quickly from small challenges, and keep a smile in your heart and face. You’ve been reaching beyond the stars to become your ideal self – then suddenly, you notice consistent, subtle changes in your body, and your test results are cause for alarm.
Not all health challenges are sudden. There are many that we can work to prevent or decrease our chance of acquiring. Then sometimes, in spite of our efforts, we walk headlong into an unexpected medical diagnosis that usurps our lives, not only physically but emotionally and mentally. Just think about the countless commercials you see asking for support for major hospitals and children’s clinics. We see families and children share how our support has helped them navigate their health challenges.
Mindset matters when you have to work with medical professionals on a care plan in hopes of turning things around in your life. Getting to the turnaround point starts with a mindset of HOPE. Although it is imperative to treat the body, it’s just as important to nourish our minds, hearts, and spirits. If you do some research, you’ll come across all types of literature that describe how healing includes the mind and spirit. In 2017, Stanford Medicine News published an article titled “Patient mindset matters in healing and deserves more study, experts say.” The writer, Alex Shashkevich, pens a growing body of research that has shown that people’s mindsets can measurably affect physical healing.
I know this to be true in my own experience with health issues. Prayer and spiritual meditation and reading were helpful, as well as having spiritual family support to pray and study with me regarding healing. There were significant spiritual practices such as the laying of hands and prayer from pastors and other believers in the church. The practices I used affirmed my hope. Reading a daily devotional was pivotal and helped keep my mind focused on what could be achieved, not on what was happening to me. This gave me a sense of empowerment. I couldn’t control what happened, but I could control my response. Like the Bible verse reads in Colossians 3:2, I chose to set my mind on what I hoped for: healing.
Yes, feast on all the treasures of the heavenly realm and fill your thoughts with heavenly realities and not the distractions of the natural realm. – Colossians 3:2, TPT
Dr. LaTesha W. Thomas is owner and operator of PACE Synervations LLC, which is a private counseling, Christian life coaching and consulting practice; and she works as a full-time social worker with the Mississippi State Department of Health. LaTesha can be found at facebook.com/latesha.thomas.9; on her business Facebook page, PACE Synervations Counseling, Coaching & Consulting; and on YouTube and Instagram as LaTesha W. Thomas. You may also email her at info@pacesynervations.com.
