Conference turris::womannotes-v2

    funny, liesl, i too believe that my mind has an awful lot of control
    over my body and its chemistry.  personally, i think my brain is
    a lot smarter and more capable than it seems.
    
    ex: antidepressants.  they act by righting an unbalanced chemistry of the
    brain (that unbalance is associated with depressive behavior). 
    but which came first, the patient's depression or the chemical
    unbalance? 
    
    ex: i was a skinny child (all knees and elbows).  when i hit puberty,
    i expanded very quickly (parts of my body are riddled with the stretch
    marks) to a size 16.  a couple of years ago, i lost my appetite
    and food became quite unappealing.  after several years of unsuccessful
    dieting, i went from a size 16 to a size 6-8 in a couple months.
    today, a diet means trying to eat a lot so i don't get too skinny.
    what happened?  did i decide that i didn't like eating and thus
    become skinny, or did some part of my brain decide i wanted to be 
    thinner and cause a sudden dislike of food?
    
    ex: my diet until i was three or four was exclusively cow milk,
    raw eggs, bananas, and nutmeg (heaven help us from the mothers of
    the 60s!).  after that, cow milk remained a very large part of my
    diet until about age 14 (mom moved out of the house).  nowadays,
    i have an allergy to cows milk - but _not_ noticeable in ice cream
    or cheeses.  am i allergic because i hate milk or do i hate milk
    because i am allergic to it?  i love cream and have terrible reactions
    to it; where does that fit in?
    
    Lee

    Sorry, this is off the point, but I'm fascinated!
    
    Why the nutmeg??  I can sort of understand the milk, eggs, and bananas
    (very sort of), but why nutmeg??
    
    Helen.

    Sometimes a person's metabolism just suddenly changes - not just
    women, but men, too.  I used to know a very "big" man - he must
    have weighed 380 or so, most of it pure surplus flesh.  He is about
    an inch shorter than I am, maybe 5'10" or so.  (At the time, he worked
    in the same office with another similarly-sized fellow, although
    the other guy was simply built that way and has only maybe 30 lbs.
    or so of extra fat (he has enormous hands and feet, great broad
    shoulders, and a huge head - and married a similarly-sized woman
    - both of them definitely of the race of giants....).)  A few years
    ago, he suddenly basically stopped eating more than enough food
    to barely sustain a normal-weight person of his height, and, within
    six months, he had dropped 200 lbs.!  He wasn't very healthy doing
    it, of course (I've no idea what his doctor thought about this).
    I had to have the fellow he worked with (the other big guy, that
    is) point him out to me at a convention we all attended - I didn't
    even recognize him, after six months!  He looked pretty awful, too,
    with folds of skin hanging from him.  He said at the time that his
    body had sort of rebelled against being fat, and he had had no appetite
    at all until he had lost the weight!  At least it wasn't a struggle
    for him to lose it; he wasn't "dieting".  By the way, he looks great
    now (several years later).   You'd never know that he used to be
    so big.                         

    I heard the piece on NPR, too, and it basically reinforced my
    thinking on the subject: That you don't *have* a body, you
    *create* it every moment you live.
    
    I know some people with auto-immune disease (not AIDS), both of
    whom have, or have struggled with low-self esteem. One of them has
    myasthenia gravis, which went into remission years ago when she
    first started dealing with the fact of her sexual abuse as a child.
    Recently, the symptoms re-appeared - just as the sexual abuse stuff
    came up for her again. She believes it has a lot to do with how
    she feels about herself, and how she internalized the feelings
    around the abuse.
    
    I know a bodywork/energy healer, who worked with a man who had broken
    his ankle in a bad car accident. After several casts, and (I believe
    18 months) his ankle had not healed, was showing gangrene, and he
    was on the ragged edge of having an amputation. What the healer
    did was put the man back in touch with his ankle. As a symbol of
    the traumatic accident, the guy had tried to "cut himself off" from
    the injury. Unfortunately, that also cut off the life forces to
    the ankle so it couldn't heal. (Yes, you can control circualtion,
    blood pressure, etc. - sometimes unwillingly) After a couple of
    sessions with the bodyworker/healer, the ankle healed in a few weeks.
    
    This is one reason why, with obesity, hating your body only makes
    things worse.
    
    --DE
    

    re .4
    
    be careful...you're venturing into the realm of witch craft and
    could be subject to extermination via burning at the stake.
    
    Actually, pyschic healing is a wonderful, powerful area to explore.
    There is a woman in Quincy, MA by the name of Diane Mariechild who
    teaches an art/philosophy called 'WomanCraft' and it's all about
    psychic energy and power.  Diane has 3 books out now, the first
    one (which may be out of print) is entitled "WomanCraft", the second
    is "Mother Wit" and I can't remember the name of her third book.
    Wordsworth (at least the one in Harvard Sq.) carries her books as
    does New Words Bookstore in Inman Sq., Cambridge.
    
    There are still alot of negative images conjured up by the term
    witch or witch craft, which is why I like the term, WomanCraft.
    And yes, the mind is very powerful, and the driving principle of
    WomanCraft is that these psychic powers must never be used for
    manipulating people's thoughts or causing harm to others.  If one
    uses these powers in a negative way, then negative things will be
    attracted.
    
    There are times when alternative forms of healing are far more
    humanitarian and nurturing, and definitely do get the results that
    traditional western medicine sometimes cannot achieve.
      

    RE:  .5 by PRYDE::ERVIN
    
      Here in Denver, some of the people involved in the "Craft" refer
      to it as the CRAFT OF THE WISE or THE OLD RELIGION or just the
      Craft.  Of course different traditions call it different things.
    
    Blessed Be,
    
    Pat

"be careful...you're venturing into the realm of witch craft and could be
subject to extermination via burning at the stake." 

Why do you help prepetrate this drivel and fear?   Why do you think that it is
more helpfull to keep bringing up the past instead of working on the future.

'WomanCraft'

That title carries the assumption that such powers are exclusively a woman's
province which is strictly sexist, and just plain not so.

JMB 

    Re: .2
    
    My guess: banana "milk shakes" made by putting milk, banana, and
    raw egg in a blender, giving it a shake of nutmeg for extra flavor.
    I used to do a lot of things along that line in the 60s myself.
     
    Nina
    

    re:.7
    
    �Why do you help prepetrate this drivel and fear?�
    
    Can you say "sarcasm"?
    
    I knew you could.
    
    --- jerry

    re: the banana milkshakes --
    
    throw in a little peanut butter and it's almost a balanced
    diet....
    
    --bonnie 

    my mother thought banana eggnogs were balanced, too.  but after
    a few years of _nothing_else_...
    
    as i said, heaven help us from the mothers of the sixties...:)
    
    lt

    During a period in which I was having serious problems with a
    highly acidic stomach (I just barely avoided an ulcer), and was
    on a bland diet, my mother insisted on feeding me banana milk-
    shakes (made with chocolate Instant Breakfast) with yeast added
    to them. Ick! (Actually, it was just the yeast that was Ick; the
    chocolate and banana combo was pretty good, and was almost strong
    enough to blunt the yeast flavor.
    
    --- jerry

    RE .9
    
    I *said* you can control circulation, not open and close
    vascular valves. People *can* do this. *I* did it in biofeedback
    training to help migraines, in a biomedical hospital, having
    been referred by an M.D. The deal is: you try to warm your hands,
    (for lack of a better term) "mentally". Should you succeed in
    doing this, what actually warms your hands is an increase in blood
    flow to the area - the theory being that it will decrease the
    blood flow to the cranial vessels. It does work. An I consider this
    "controlling one's circulation".
    
    In tune with the theme of this note, things like blood pressure,
    circulation, heart rate...were all considered "involuntary" - even
    20, years ago when I was taking anatomy/physiology. Today, we know
    that all of these are under our control, and I believe we will find
    that many other parts of our bodies which we thought were under
    "involuntary" control are actually within our ability to affect.
    
    mike, you make a good point - people shouldn't necessarily give
    up one method of healing for another. But many methods which had
    previously (by Western medical standards) to be "ineffective" and
    "quackery" have become accepted for what they are - effective and
    sometimes preferable, methods of healing.
    
    Even Western, biomedical medicine cannot help someone who does not
    *want* to get well - that is a fact which even Western medicine
    acknowledges. The mind (soul?) must be involved, or the body won't
    change.
    
    Dawn
    

    Excuse me, Mike, but Dawn is correct.  Check any elementary text on
    behaviorist psychology written since, oh, 1970. Several researchers
    have demonstrated this phenomenon on curare-paralysed rats --they were
    trained to make one ear blanch on cue-- and one quite intrepid
    psychologist (George Miller? my memory for names is rotten)
    demonstrated it on himself under curare-induced paralysis. 
    
    						=maggie

    re .15:
    
    Well, I have read that the most effective drug in the world overall
    is...
    
    placebo. I think I read it averages 30% effectiveness.
    
    I take this figure with a huge grain of salt however.
                                                   
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    RE: .17
    
    ...of course, if it *is* true, then the "mind/body connection"
    theory would seem to have more evidence...
    
    --DE
    

    
    The "mind/body" connection has always fascinated me but it's the
    "mind/machine" connection that has recently piqued my curiosity. 
    Apparently, there is a new book, _Mind Over Machines_, which examines
    the effects of our attitudes, feelings and reactions on machines.
    If and when I find a copy, i'll post author and publisher.
    
    Ann Marie
      

    I don't know if this has anything to do with healing but a while
    back I was having some real problems which cause me to practical
    stop eating solid foods.  I ending up with an gastral problem. 
    Since then I have realize what my problems have been which were
    stress relating and I learn how to relax and get in touch with my
    body to find out what was going on.  I know that by meditation and
    relaxing you can slow your body down and cut out of alot of stress
    related problems.  
    
    Denise

    I'm currently reading a book called _Who Gets Sick_, which
    examines the mind/body/brain/stress connection. One of the
    premises of the book is that stress, in and of itself, does
    not cause disease. (Yes, even Western medicine is acknowledging
    the stress/disease connection and saying that 85-95% of disease
    may be stress-related)
    
    The point of _Who Gets Sick_ is: it isn't the amount of stress
    you have to deal with, it's *how* you deal with it...what your
    coping mechanisms are, how effective they are...
    
    RE: .20
    
    I think our minds/bodies tell us a lot about what's really going
    on "inside" us, and most of us don't listen. Sounds like you listened.
    
    --DE
    

	I just bought a book called "what to say when you talk to yourself"
	that deals with the positive image ways to view yourself. I don't
	know for sure this stuff works but it sure can't hurt. 

	When I was first going through my separation the EAP counselor had
	me repeat the phrase "I am a strong and worthy person" over and
	over again. I think it did help. At any rate I made it through the
	dark times without a major illness or injury which I've read commonly
	happens to those going through a major stress period. I even learned
	to ski again, something I'd been afraid of ever since I had a fall
	that gave me a minor broken shoulder. liesl

    Since we're on the subject of books and healing, I can recommend
    a book called "Love, Medicine and Miracles" by Bernie S. Siegel,M.D.
    
    I'm about half-way through the book and have aready found strength
    in it's words.  It is written by a surgeon who has found that the
    mind and frame-of-mind can be as much a healer as the surgeon's
    knife.
    
    He tells about many of his exceptional cancer patients that recovered 
    through positive thinking and love and trust. He talks about what makes
    a patient exceptional. 
    
    The book is not only written for people with life-threatening illness,
    it's also recommended reading for doctors.  It teaches them that
    they can care and love and still remain somewhat clinical in their
    treatment.
    
    It's definitely about healing with the mind.

    
    Jodi-
    

    
    Re: .22  Positive affirmations were recently suggested to me by
    my psychic (yes, I've been seeing psychics for years...I consider
    them spiritual guides).  She also recommended Louise Hays' book _You
    Can Heal Your Life_ which deals with the power of positive
    affirmations.
    am

    Just a random thought about the nature of reality and science:
    
    Through all time, the "state of the art" of science/empiricism is
    not so much a statement of "what is" as it is a statement of "what
    the current limits of empirical science are".  For the longest
    time, science "knew" that the Earth was the center of the universe,
    and "knew" that within the body there were (only) four "humours".
    When science became a bit more sophisticated, reality "changed".
    
    I tend to lean heavily towards the empirical/pragmatic view of things,
    but I try to temper it with the thought that tomorrow's newspaper
    is likely to carry a headline that goes "Scientists Discover [insert
    new discovery]; Current Theories Disproved".  Needless to say, those
    "Theories" had previously been stated as "laws".  Also, it wouldn't
    be a new headline.
    
    While I cannot *prove* the existance of the twilight zone, I can't
    *disprove* it either. . .
    
    Steve
    

    re: .7
    
    I do not feel that the mass extermination of (predominantly) women,
    although some men were also murdered for these practices, as drivel
    and fear.  WE MUST NEVER FORGET THE PAST.  As long as there is violence
    against women we must never forget the past.  If you were Jewish
    and any/all of your family members had been exterminated by Hitler,
    would you feel that you should forget, or not bring up the past?
    If you were a black person, would you feel that you should forget
    slavery and the oppression of people of color?
    
    Case in point...the backlash that midwives are facing in today's
    society...the moron majority that believes that women should not
    be able to make choices concerning THEIR own bodies, the courts
    of law that wish to prosecute addict/alcoholic women who give birth
    to unhealthy babies...the society that wishes to force women into
    pre-natal care...the right to life groups that will kill adult women
    in the name of their cause by blowing up abortion clinics....
    
    This is not drivel and fear, this is reality...TODAY'S REALITY.
    
    May I suggest some reading for your enlightenment as to why women
    must never forget that yesterday's oppression can easily be today's
    oppression?...
    
    Woman Hating   by Andrea Dworkin
    
    Of Woman Born  (and I have drawn a total blank on the author's name)
    
    If you take a peek outside your nice, white (I'm taking an educated
    guess that you're not a person of color based on some of your responses
    in this note file), male priveledged world, you may find that things
    aren't all so rosy and that we have a long way to go.  
    

    Of Woman Born was written by Adrienne Rich. 

    re: .28 
    
    Thanks.  It was driving me crazy not being able to remember her
    name.
    

    re the placebo effect:
    
    I'll try to get some references from biomedical studies.
    Biomedical research currently often includes *3* experimental
    treatment groups, for example,
    
    	1. A randomly selected subset treated with the experimental
    		drug, etc.
    	2. A randomly selected subset treated with the old/traditional
    		drug, etc.
    	3. A randomly selected subset treated with a placebo 
     
    It is, indeed, recognized that the effectiveness of a drug, etc.
    (especially if there are potential side-effects) needs to be
    evaluated above and beyond taking *just something*.
                                                       
    All of this is very interesting and raises additional interesting
    ethical questions about scientific research...but that is another
    topic...
    
    Pennie (who teaches courses in experimental design and in statistics
            in her "spare" time)

       I agree that there is a placebo effect but in a way that's the
       point of this topic. Are we saying that because a placebo worked
       that the patient was not really sick, or are we saying that
       thinking they would get better, they did get better? How much
       control can we exert over seemingly uncontrollable events in our
       own bodies?

       I believe this is especially pertinent to women as we as a group
       have often been told by the medical establishment that our
       problems are all in our minds, like PMS before they decided it
       was real after all. And if some of this is controllable how much
       are we helping ourselves by taking the drugs they give us? Having
       once been a valium addict (I could just walk in a doctor's office
       and have them prescribed) I know the harmful effects that
       medicating to remove symptoms, but not causes, has. In this case
       I would have been better off concentrating on my problems and how
       to fix them rather than not caring they were there. But, does
       that carry over into physical diseases? Will I heal faster with a
       good attitude? Is that all that I need? liesl