When I was 26, I was involved in a head-on collision on a rural highway in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I was flown by air ambulance to the Mayo clinic in Minnesota.
I had fractured T-12 and displaced my spinal chord by 40 degrees. The doctors at the Mayo Clinic gave me less than 5% chance of walking again.
In addition to the trauma, I was beside myself with pain. (Breaking your back is excruciatingly painful.)
At some point, a nurse walked in to the emergency room. She whispered in my ear: “Close your eyes and imagine that you’re floating on a cloud.”
Almost immediately, my body shifted into a place of peace. I relaxed. I could breathe again. From that point forward, I started to heal.
That simple shift–from trauma to peace was instrumental to my healing and eventually, allowed me to fully recover from my injuries. I not only recovered my ability to walk, but one year later I played soccer.
Westerners dismiss the imagination, as “not real” or “make-believe.” We think of the imagination as playtime (like Disneyland.)
But the power of guided visualization is well-known and documented. Our imagination has the power to shift us and heal our bodies. Our minds can’t do that. They don’t have access to that kind of power.
It only took a moment. One minute I was in excruciating pain and trauma. The next moment, I was in a place of peace. Of course, I still had to deal with a critical injury. But something else–Something from another world–gave my body a place to rest and heal.
That place of wisdom and healing is available to all of us.