Sherry Radoff, CNC, SMC-C

How do you cope with your illnesses, grief, or other stressful situations?

What keeps you going despite your difficult circumstances?

Perhaps like many other people, you turn to prayer and faith to help you get through these difficult times.

Talking with God has been proven to be a powerful source of comfort and support as you struggle to get through your trials...to those who may be grieving, suffering from job or family stresses or facing illness. According to medical research, those who are faith-based are generally in better health and more able to deal with illness.

Prayer can change how you view your illness or the situations you are in. Talking with God will make you feel less angry, less lonely, less guilty, less anxious and more hopeful and courageous. An added plus, is that you can talk to God whenever you feel the need, as opposed to relying on family members or friends who are often unavailable. God will always be ready to listen and will always there.

Prayer can greatly interact with traditional medical treatments. In fact, I have found that praying with my clients has been particularly helpful when asking for the presence of God to minister to them, in the midst of their grief, stress or pain.

Cardiologist Herbert Benson, stress researcher and author of Timeless Healing found that repetitive prayer, has the same relaxation-inducing effect as meditation. Benson's initial interest in prayer stemmed from his frustration with people giving up meditation. He thought that, if they meditated on prayer, they might be more apt to stay with their relaxation program.

Many illnesses may not initially begin in the body. They can begin in the mind with repressed anger, unresolved grief from important relationships, feelings of powerlessness in certain areas of life, loneliness, stress, anxiety, bitterness, hatred, selfishness, self-centeredness, lack of faith and forgiveness, a critical attitude, unthoughtfulness.

Scientific documentation of the human energy system has proven time and again, the human body's physical effects from mental and emotional patterns. For example, illnesses of the heart, shoulders, diaphragm and upper esophagus can be an expression of one's incapacity to feel fully and to outwardly communicate feelings (joy, love, grief, forgiveness), have hardening of the heart and inability to have true intimacy with loved ones. The probable mental pattern of cancer is one's inability to resolve deep hurts, longstanding resentments or deep grief accumulated over a lifetime.

It is God who can bring us to understand the problems in our mental patterns that we must deal with in order to get well. Who else can you turn to when your doctor tells you your blood tests indicate a life threatening disease?

God WILL respond to your prayers. He WILL give you the courage to face your unresolved issues. Often, it's difficult to face the truths about ourselves. For example; Why do we hold on to grudges or why do we hold certain loved ones at a distance in our lives? It's necessary to discover what needs to be changed in our spiritual nature, in our attitudes and disposition, so healing of the mind and body can take place.

We must learn to submit to His guidance, to walk in His will. Sometimes, for example, the person who is causing your grief, may not want to or be able to communicate with you in order to resolve longstanding resentments. That is when we have no choice but to go to God, ask for His counsel and pour all your feelings out to Him. God listens and He WILL respond to you.

Negative, obsessive thinking, critical, judgmental, anxious, stressed people automatically decide that a situation is dangerous, difficult, or painful and they may feel they don't have the resources to cope. These mental patterns cause the "fight or flight response" in which a series of biochemical changes occur in different parts of the body to prepare the individual for their perceived threat of danger. Any problem, imagined or real, can cause the cerebral cortex (the thinking part of the brain) to send an alarm to the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus then stimulates the sympathetic nervous system to make a series of changes in the body. Your heart rate, breathing rate, muscle tension, metabolism, your extremities and your digestive system are all involved in this process. You experience butterflies in your stomach and your diaphragm locks, your adrenal glands secrete corticoids which inhibit digestion, reproduction, growth, tissue repair and your immune and inflammatory systems shut down.

Fortunately, the same belief system and physical mechanism that turns the stress response on...can turn it off. This is called prayer and/or relaxation. As soon as you pray, talk to God and surrender the situation over to Him, your brain stops sending emergency signals to your brain stem, which in turn ceases to send panic messages to your nervous system. Three minutes after you pray, the "fight or flight response" burns out!

I suggest you discipline yourself to pray, if you don't already. Schedule time with God and/or talk to God all during the day, while at work or play. Having a relationship with Him is our decision and no one else can make it for us. God wants to speak to you on a one-to-one basis every day. He wants to be involved in even the smallest details of our lives.

Permission granted to reprint with author credit only. Permission is not granted to reproduce, copy or distribute any part of this article without prior approval from Ms. Radoff. ©1995 - 2010 Sherry Radoff. All rights reserved.

To contact the office for an appointment, please call (818) 609-9458, 9am to 5pm (PST), Monday to Friday, excluding holidays, or via email at sherry@sherryradoff.com

Although Sherry's programs do not replace medical care, they may be used as adjunct and complimentary to primary and specialty care.