Mind: The Master-force for Health or Disease : Part 1

Vitality Supreme
by Bernarr Macfadden

(Page 20 of 23)

We hear of many miraculous achievements in the building of health and the cure of disease through mental influence. The mind is unquestionably a master-force. I will not go so far as to say it is limitless, for certainly a hungry man cannot imagine he is eating a dinner and secure the same benefits that he would from the meal itself. Nor can a man who is passing away into the other world, through a definite vital defect, bring back life through mental force.

But we should remember that many diseases are to a great extent imaginary. And some of those not actually imaginary may at least be brought about through fears that are the results of abnormal delusions. And where such diseases are combated by mental forces of the right sort, a cure can be effected in many instances. In numerous cases, also, it is well to remember that the mental state is the actual cause of disease. You become blue, hopeless and to a certain extent helpless. You see nothing in the future. Life is dull. Ambition, enthusiasm, have all disappeared. It would not be at all difficult for this state of mind to bring about disease in some form.

Health, strength, vitality of the right sort, should radiate all the elements and forces associated with life's most valuable possessions. Happiness and health are close friends. It is very difficult to be gloomy and miserable if you are healthy. It is perhaps even more difficult to be healthy if you are gloomy and mentally ugly.

Therefore it is a wise precaution to cultivate a hopeful spirit. If the day is gloomy, if the sun is obscured by clouds, then develop the sunshine in your own spirit. Try to radiate good cheer. By seeking to cheer up others you will cheer yourself up, for always when we help others, we inevitably help ourselves, though this should not be our main purpose in the action. When we try to build up the characters, improve the morals and add to the mental and physical stability of others our efforts develop our own powers. Therefore, the best way to help yourself is to help others.

We have a remarkable exemplification of the value of mental influence in what is known as Christian Science. Even the most prejudiced enemy of this cult will admit that many remarkable cures have been accomplished through the principles it advocates. These cures alone indicate clearly that the mind is a dominating force that works for good or for evil. They prove that your thoughts are building up or tearing down your vital forces; that to a certain extent "Thoughts are things," that good thoughts are a real tangible influence for developing mental or physical force, and-that bad thoughts have an opposite influence. It is well for each one of us to determine clearly whether the thoughts that fill our minds each day are constructive or destructive in nature.

Your thoughts can actually destroy you. They can kill you as unerringly as a bullet fired from a rifle. Keep this fact very definitely before you, and try to make your thoughts each day the means of adding to your life forces. There are many emotions that are harbored on occasions, which are devitalizing and destructive.

We are all, to a certain extent, slaves of habit, whether good or bad. For instance, there is the worrying habit, for worry is really a habit. Therefore, it is a splendid plan to become slaves of good habits. One who has acquired the chronic habit of worrying needs a mental antiseptic. Worry never benefited anyone; it has brought thousands to an untimely grave. To give prolonged and grave thought to a problem that may come into your life, with the view of forming an intelligent conclusion, should not be called worry, but anxiety. There is a very great difference between worry and concentrated study of a vexing problem. The characteristic of worry is a tendency to brood anxiously over fancied troubles.

The typical worrying mind will take mere trifles and magnify them until they become monumental difficulties. Many acquire the habit of going over and over again, and still again, the various unpleasant experiences which they have passed through during life. This inclination is baneful in its influence, To such persons I would say, eliminate the past. Try the forgetting habit, cultivate health and along with it good cheer. Make your mind a blank so far as the past is concerned, and fill it with uplifting thoughts for the present and the future. Worry is a mental poison, the toxic element produced in the mind by retention of waste matter, thoughts of the dead past that should have been eliminated with the passing of out-worn periods of existence.

Self-pity is another evil. It is closely allied to worry. There are many who cultivate a mental attitude of this sort because of the sorrows through which they have passed. Such individuals find their chief delight in portraying, in vivid details, the terrific sufferings which they have had to endure. No one has suffered quite so much as they have. They harrow their friends by going over frequently and persistently the long, gruesome details of their "awful" past. This habit is destructive to an extreme degree. Why harbor past experiences that only bring sorrows to mind?

Why add to the bitterness of your daily life by dragging up the lamentable past? Why pass along to your friends and acquaintances pain, sorrow and gloom? Each human entity is a radiating power. You have the capacity of passing around pain or happiness. As a rule, when you ask a friend to "have something with you" your offer is supposed to bring good cheer. You surely would not ask a friend to have pain with you, or share with you the gall of bitter, experiences through which you have lived.

Therefore, if you are the victim of self-pity and if your own past sufferings discolor your every pleasant thought, at least do not taint the minds of your friends. At least keep your direful broodings to yourself if you are determined to retain them. It is, however, far wiser and manlier to avoid such thoughts, in which case your memory of these torturing experiences will gradually fade away. Live in the future and forget the past. The man or woman who lives in the future, and for the future, will invariably be optimistic and cheerful. It is a good habit to cultivate.

About the Author

ernarr Macfadden (16 August 1868 - 12 October 1955) was an influential exponent of physical culture, a combination of bodybuilding with nutritional and health theories. He additionally founded the long-running magazine publishing company Macfadden Publications.