Level 5: The Nature of Mind

Level 5 takes the journey of inner awareness and healing a step further. Here, patients and family members begin to develop an understanding of how their conscious and unconscious thoughts, beliefs, and the meanings they give to events impact their experience of cancer—and indeed all aspects of life—at the very deepest levels, in every moment.

It is important to emphasize that this level of exploration in no way suggests that negative thoughts “create” cancer or that positive ones can make it go away. However, the experience of cancer is always deeply subjective. To an extraordinary degree, one’s experience of the journey through cancer is mediated by one’s mental processes.

Understanding “the nature of mind”—how the human mind works, and what its tendencies are—is of great importance in cancer care. In addition to impacting one’s personal experience of reality in every moment, it profoundly affects one’s decisions and approaches to treatment. The thoughts and beliefs patients have regarding their illness, their relationships with doctors, and the treatments they have been offered, will significantly impact their ability to assess, choose, and respond to care. Inaccurate assumptions may burden the unconscious mind, and indeed often do. Deeply held convictions or disempowering beliefs can significantly inhibit a patient from healing as fully as possible. Conscious and unconscious beliefs among family members can also powerfully influence a patient’s choices and decisions about their care, often with negative consequences. Similarly, the unconscious meaning that patients may give to their illness can inadvertently undermine every aspect of their entire experience on the journey through cancer—and that of their family members as well.

Without promoting a particular orientation or philosophy, Level 5 of The Seven Levels of Healing® program gently helps patients uncover their individual thought patterns and beliefs, and assess the degree to which they are helpful or not. Patients need to be given options that strengthen their internal process of healing. The realization that conscious choices and possibilities may exist even beyond one’s imagination contributes in a deep and powerful way to healing on all levels.

Take action: see How You Can Accomplish Level 5 Today.

Subscribe to Seven Levels of Healing® eNewsletter

< Previous Level   7 Levels Overview Page   Next Level>