You Can Change the Story of Your Health

Our stories are the way we understand our experiences. Just as you have a story of your life, you have a story of your health. What is it? “I just want my health problems fixed so I can get back to my old life”? Or perhaps “I don’t have time to eat right, get enough sleep, or exercise, and I’m scared”? Is your story that you are a cancer patient, a cancer warrior, a cancer survivor, or someone who has had cancer? Maybe it’s a story called “I’m not getting older. I’m getting better!” Or “It’s all downhill from here.” If you are not satisfied with your health story, remember: We are the storytellers and can tell a different story. I truly believe you can Change the Story of Your Health, Using Shamanic and Jungian Techniques for Healing—the title of my new book, available now.

As a Jungian analyst, clinical psychologist, and shamanic practitioner, I have helped many people rewrite their health stories and experience greater wellness—and even healing as they define it. Recently, I have been having health challenges of my own, and I’ve been recognizing that health is very much on the minds of many who discovered my work through my previous book, the best-selling and award-winning Change Your Story, Change Your Life. With the health care system in the U.S. in transition, many Americans with health challenges are feeling very stressed about their health. And I know many healers, including physicians, who are looking for complementary techniques based in energy medicine that they can recommend to people seeking to improve their health stories. It felt natural for me to write a book on a shamanic and Jungian approach to health and wellness.

That’s why I’m very happy to announce the launch of my new book, Change the Story of Your Health: Using Shamanic and Jungian Techniques for Healing, available in online and brick-and-mortar bookstores. In it, you will discover journaling questions for discovering your health story and writing a better, more satisfying one. You will also find what I call expanded-awareness practices drawn from shamanic, Jungian, and other traditions. These practices empower you to gain insights, balance energies, dialogue, and interact with nature and her healing energies and elements (earth, air, water, and fire) and work with dreams, your chakras, your inner healer, your symptoms, and more.

Do these practices really help?

One of the stories I tell in the book is of the time I had a blocked artery in my kidney that would have required surgery. But before my operation, I used techniques you’ll find in the book to work on releasing that blockage. Afterward, tests showed it had disappeared. I no longer needed surgery. (I always recommend that people who use energy healing techniques also work with Western, allopathic physicians if they have health issues.)

In Change the Story of Your Health, I share stories from my own experience and that of clients I’ve worked with in my shamanic practice who used the techniques I offer and reversed or improved health conditions. I can’t claim the practices caused their health to improve, but in the book, I share research on energy medicine and insights into why the sorts of practices I recommend may actually help you to experience better health and wellness.

My new book will help you learn to work with your inner healer, a wise inner self that has the power to turn on your body’s internal healing mechanisms. You’ll discover three questions to ask your inner healer, your symptoms, an inner figure or symbol you encounter in a dream or during a meditation or journey, or your emotions about your health condition. Posing these questions—what message do you have for me, what do I need to release, and what do I need to take in—can bring you insights and energy for healing.

Whether you work with the nature painting practice and discover clues to why you are having trouble sleeping lately, or you come to face the hidden beliefs that you realize you need to release because they’re holding you back from writing a better health story, I think you will find Change the Story of Your Health a valuable tool.

Every one of faces health challenges at times. Many of us know we should have better habits to prevent any health problems, but we don’t always recognize what the obstacles to transformation are—or how to use the mind-body connection to try to halt or even reverse health conditions. Research shows our attitude toward our health in the past, present, and future really can determine our experience of our health and lead to better outcomes. I believe expanded-awareness techniques from or related to the field of energy medicine turn on your body’s healing mechanisms, which can further help you live according to a better health story. Why not try them?

I hope you will join me in a healing journey by ordering your copy of Change the Story of Your Health.