Guest Post: 4 Ways to Train Your Mind To Promote Healing

In living a life with chronic health challenges, it's essential to get good medical care. However, I've found that medicine doesn't have any cures for my three autoimmune diseases, immunodeficiency, severe malabsorption syndrome, and other conditions. Once I finally realized that there were no cures and that no cures were likely to come in my lifetime I began to look around to find what I could do beyond medical care and the usual things such as good diet, exercise, and sleep habits. Despite good health habits, discomfort, disability, fatigue, and malaise were with me more days than not, and I wanted to get beyond them. From work with clients, literature reviews and personal experience, I learned quite a bit and came up with these 4 tips for training your mind to promote healing.

Healing Pictures: Finding Peace In Your Surroundings

A few months ago I wrote about a very personal experience where I found peace and healing from pain in the beauty of Nature's surroundings.  I believe that we all can be more aware each day of sources of healing around us.  This kind of awareness and gratitude can awaken your senses, lift your spirit, and help you break free of the physical bonds of chronic illness.  It can also help you see the hidden, yet wonderful opportunities that lay ahead of you if you will only look for them.

I carry my iPhone everywhere.  About 6 months ago I decided to capture these healing moments whenever I came upon them.  I've found myself returning to them again and again whenever I need to help my spirit remember.  They've given me solace and peace during difficult times and I wanted to share them with you.  So without further ado, here are some of my favorite "healing pictures" I've taken this year (Hint:  Click on pictures for larger view).