There are multiple definitions of spirituality and they will normally be related to the religion or culture of whoever expresses it. Even defining the spirit is very complex. Spirituality focuses our immaterial and transcendent essence, the reality beyond the immanence of what we call existing. It includes our state of mind, the conceptual associations we make, our way of feeling, symbolic language, attitudes, worldview, our freedom from our instincts, etc. It is what most differentiates us in the Animal Kingdom and what has determined that we are called “the spiritual species” (Konner, Melvin).
We have an animal part, which has to do with our diet, sexual-reproductive life, satisfaction of our instincts, the need to hoard material things, etc., but we also have a part that transcends the material, which is related to our higher levels of consciousness, abilities to think, reflect, interpret the world, love, hopes, dreams, etc.
Traditionally, medicine was linked to spirituality, from which both physical and mental health were integrated, the healer focused on health disorders as a whole, considering both the manifestations or symptoms of the pathology that occurred, such as food, rest , mood, social situation, worldview, etc. The current doctor tends to make fun of how limited medicine was in those times, however sometimes he is only able to see the disease, but cannot see the patient; he could only control symptoms, without making patients healthier.
We usually say that people were cured by simple suggestion (placebo effect), however, it is important to note that many drugs used today as placebos continue to cure patients. A high percentage of patients are cured simply by believe that a supposed medicine can heal him, the key would be precisely in: believe. Obviously, many drugs do have a determining effect on patients.
We have come a long way in the study of psychosomatic disorders, in such a way that in most physical diseases we know that there is a noticeable influence of our mental states. It is often known in someone suffering from a serious physical illness: a great grief for an unresolved duel, a resentment, a total lack of desire to live, a great feeling of guilt, etc., large psychology studies are not needed to knowing that emotional states out of control can cause even serious pathologies.
The magic of healing is in our own mind, when we truly believe that we can heal ourselves, healing processes are triggered in our bodies. Our adequate mental states favorably affect our limbic system, which releases neurotransmitters that act on executive areas of our brain, initiating neurovegetative processes that will determine the correction of the disorder we call disease. Jesus Christ clearly said: “Your faith He has healed you” (Mark 5: 34) and if we analyze what we were saying before, it comes to be the same thing that Jesus Christ said, but explained in medical terms.
At a biological level, when our cells interpret that living is not convenient, they trigger the process of apoptosis, which is programmed cell death (like a kind of suicide). Similarly, when we consciously understand that our lives are not worth living, we unconsciously trigger processes that will lead us directly to death, which may be through: heart attacks, strokes, cancer, serious infections, etc. Anyone who knows a little about medicine will tell you that a serious infection is caused by a dangerous germ and not by a mental state, but it is also true that a depressive state can lead to a significant depression of the immune system (defense) and allow the entry or development of a bacterium that causes septicemia. It’s simple, it’s not healthy for you to be sad.
Don’t waste so much time impressing others anymore, it’s you who you have to convince that your life is worth it, that will give you more years of life and these will be of higher quality.
Although we know that our mental states have obvious repercussions on our health and social life, we are doing very little to develop our voluntary control of the healing processes, in fact, some doctors consider it almost impossible, since they are unaware of their own mental faculties; They accept that it can happen involuntarily, but they doubt that we could voluntarily develop this ability.
We tend to trust technology, money, natural resources and our social contacts, but we trust our mental abilities less and less. Not only do we not have faith in them, but we have developed a kind of anti-faith, which makes us convince ourselves that we are wrong and hopeless. Some pride themselves on “being so realistic.”
Although for many, Faith is simply believing that God exists, Faith is also knowing that we can, that there is always an option, it is believing in ourselves, knowing that we are creatures superior to what we have discovered up to now and that the day we wake up, we will not we will have to fear nothing. Limit your conversations with those who do not see hope or solutions, even if they claim to be believers