How Mental Image Can Change and Heal Your Physical Body – Guided Imagery & Talk [Episode 25]

The show you're about to hear is a recording from Dr. Miller's webinar series titled Life Meditations. He began this series in response to the pandemic, and his goal has been to provide wisdom, practical tools, and comfort to people during these stressful times. Watch the entire series at drmiller.com/lifemeditations. That's drmiller.com/lifemeditations. Hello, this is Dr. Miller. Welcome everyone to today's webinar. And our title today is How a Mental Image Can Change and Heal Your Physical Body. I'm going to be focusing particularly on osteoporosis and osteopenia because that happens to be the most recent program, uh, that we've published. But also we'll talk a little bit about viral infection and inflammation and how, um, how we can intervene in disease processes and illness through the use of our heart and mind. A few housekeeping notes, um, we're still getting our internet up to speed. Every once in a while it blanks out for 15 seconds, and every once in a— once in a while it'll go off for about a minute or a minute and a half, and that's because it's crashed the whole computer and has to reboot. But I will be back. We've done it a number of times, so if that should happen, just use that period of silence as a special gift enabling you to just sit back and relax and enjoy being in the present. You might think of it as one of my teachers, Thich Nhat Hanh, who was one of the best-known Zen masters, a wonderful man who I talk about very often. When he would give his teachings to his groups on Zen or Buddhism or whatever he was doing, they would practice meditation, but they would also have conversations. Sometimes people would be talking to each other, might be questions going back and forth to him, but they— he had a chime Tibetan bells. And every once in a while the bells would ring. And the practice was, at the moment that you hear those bells, that bell go bang, silence. No matter what, no matter how interesting your topic was. You become quiet and go into that meditative place, into that place of presence. And for those of you who aren't aware of the concept of going into the present moment, and people say, "Aha, the present moment, where else can—" of course you're in the present moment, where else can you be? There is no other place to be. I mean, that's true, but mentally it can be in many other places. We can be worrying about tomorrow, we can be upset about yesterday, we can be thinking about someone else in the room, or we can be thinking about someone a thousand miles away, we can be thinking about an ex-president or a, or a boogeyman or the zombie apocalypse. Your body is present in the moment, But your mind is not, and the reactions within your body and the behavior in your body is reflecting where your thoughts are. And even though you may be in a safe place, in a quiet place, and your body is free to relax, your blood pressure can slow down, your mind can become more and more clear, clutter, and you relax even more deeply, and all tension drains away, and you begin to feel more relaxed. And then after a minute or so, ding, he'd ring the chime again, and you'd be where you are. Maybe you continued the previous conversation, maybe not. Very interesting process, which I think is wonderful. In fact, I think I'll get a chime and we'll practice that, because as we will practice— and we'll begin in a moment with a meditation to actually have an experience of the things that I'm talking about— the more you practice getting into that quiet place, which is— we live in a culture which is absolutely set upon denying us that safe place. They want us moving, they want us afraid, they want us anxious, they want us worried, they want us worried about the next conspiracy. There's the deep state and there's QAnon and then there's the outer space lizard people who are taking over the mo— and on and on. And the reason is because we're anxious. The anxiety inside, the fear inside, the anger inside produces a drive within the unconscious part of our mind, the monkey mind, for relief. What am I gonna do? I mean, look at the big Bills are piling up and I can't go out, I gotta wear this mask all the time, and I need relief. And then they give us a commercial, and the commercial says, want peace? Just have a drink of this incredible vodka, or come here to Club Med and escape from civilization, or take these pain pills and get rid of the pain that's being produced in your body because of the chronic tension that you have because you're chronically worried about things and you don't take a moment to relax. Let your mind be clear. It's okay to be in the present. But if you learn how to do that, then any time you want, any time of the day or night that you're not driving a car and that you're not being attacked by wild animals or something like that, or mosquitoes aren't attacking you, you can stop. And the more you practice, the more quickly you can go into that place of peace. Just as we can— oh, I think I'll try next week to show you this amazing photograph of a movie where the pitcher pitches the ball in, the batter hits the ball back, and the ball's speeding back right toward the pitcher, pitcher's head, which is exposed because he's just pitched the ball, and instantly his left hand with the glove on it comes up and catches the ball. And so of course that means that the batter is out. But if that glove hadn't been up there— and it's like in the split second from the— when that ball hit the bat and the direction of the ball toward the pitcher's head was defined And between that time and the time it actually reaches his head, the glove was up there. And that is your sympathetic nervous system reacting to emergencies. Our goal is to train the parasympathetic system. Parasympathetic system is what we use to relax and heal the body. The sympathetic system is part of the stress response, um, and when we're under stress, remember, under stress your body is essentially dissolving the organs of your body to turn them into glucose so that you can run like hell over the next 5 seconds and get away from the saber-tooth tiger. Of course, we're not running from a saber-tooth tiger, which only attacks maybe once every few months, but we're running from the the 350,000 different stressors that are thrown at us at every moment. So if we stop for a moment, take that as a moment to see how deeply relaxed and present you can become. Uh, let me also take this moment to Thank you very sincerely for your donations. The webinar is free. Unfortunately, my rent is not free, and it takes quite a bit to put these shows together, and it is your donations which are supporting it. And my goal is that we can gather more people so we have more donations and I can put more— I can gather more photographs, more things to be able to share with you as we're here. I can set up a music system so that we can have the music doing what we want and so forth. Again, for those who just stopped in, I am Dr. Emmett Miller. I am one of the originators of the concept of mind-body medicine from back in the 1970s, and today we're talking about mental imagery and how it can be a part of healing your physical body as well as your mind and your emotions. So welcome everybody, and thank you for Thank you for your lovely comments so far. And yes, you may play your own background music. That's a wonderful idea. If you know, so as I'm doing the guided imagery, as I'll be doing in a moment— oh, looks like we lost audio for a moment. Let me see if— oh, The internet got unstable there for a few moments. And let me know when the audio comes back. I'm sending audio. Oh, I'm back. Good. So there is an example of how the internet freezes us up every once in a while. Sorry about that. At any rate, so let's begin with, with a little, a little guided imagery or meditation. So find yourself a comfortable place to be where you can relax peacefully. And we begin as usual by remembering that there's no other place that you need to go at this moment in time. There's nothing else that you need to be doing. There's no problem that you have to solve. Of course, that's something that you know consciously. But you want to hold that thought in mind so that the unconscious part of your mind knows that as well. Good. Take a deep breath in and let it out. As you do, let it be a feeling. Of just letting go, releasing. Good. Now allow your awareness to travel down into your physical body. Be aware of your physical body and the soft sensation of the surface beneath you right now, free from anything that might tend to distract you from allowing your awareness to be here in the present. Relax. And let your body sink deeply into the surface beneath you. For a moment, allow your eyes to be open. Choose a point in the distance across the room, a still point, a motionless tiny point, and keep your eyes focused on that point and let everything else out to the periphery of your vision sort of fade into a blur. As you begin to bring your awareness more and more into an experience of yourself within, and as your body relaxes more and more, relaxing more and more deeply. Feel it melt into the surface beneath you like an ice cube melting on the warm sand of a sunny beach. Relaxing deeply. The rising and falling of your chest with each breath, steady rhythm. With each breath in, be aware that you're breathing in. And with each breath, simply be aware that you're breathing out. To help focus your mind, you might think, with each breath in, I'm breathing in, and with each breath out, I'm breathing out. With each breath out, feel your body emptying itself of all unnecessary stress, breathing out tension with each breath out. And with each breathing in, as you allow the air to breathe you, the air is breathing in deep relaxation. And whenever it feels more comfortable for you to do so, let your eyelids close. And aware of each breathing in and breathing out, noticing within yourself the exquisite balance between the amount of air that enters and the same amount being breathed out with each breath out. Emptying your body of toxins and waste products. Each breath thus maintaining perfect balance automatically, effortlessly. Good. And at the end of each breathing out, noticing that little pause. That moment of stillness, the quietest time of all for all your mind and body. And let yourself sink quietly into this pause, this moment of silence and peace and balance. And at the end of that little pause, you notice there's a tiny spark of energy that automatically begins your next breath in. You don't need to do anything at all. Sink down into that pause. And that pause may become a little bit longer, but no matter how long it becomes, that little spark of life comes along, that precious inner spark of life. That divine gift that glows from within starts a new breath, filling you with peace and light with each breathing in. This spark is a gift that brings you balance and nurturance and inner wisdom. It maintains that precious balance while you allow yourself to rest. It brings life and healing into every cell of your body. Feel it. And anytime any distractions or unnecessary thoughts come along, simply imagine those unnecessary thoughts like words written on a blackboard or on a video screen in your mind, and with each breath out Imagine a wet eraser being drawn across that blackboard, or mentally visualize pressing the delete key, erasing the unnecessary thought, and allow yourself to effortlessly sink into this moment of peace and calm now. Good. And allow your mind to continue to erase each unnecessary thought in this way. And be aware that the same spark of life that initiates each little breath has been doing that for a long, long time, and that it is this same spark of life that originally gave rise to the wonderful bones that are the structure of your physical body. This spark gave rise to the heart that effortlessly propels the blood through your body, gave rise to your eyes that now can gently roll up behind your eyelids, can picture the word relax as if it's there, focused on the back of your forehead. Think, relax. That same little spark that gave rise to this magnificent mind that you can guide because this mind belongs to you. And perhaps you can recall a specific memory of yourself Enjoying your healthy body in the past, maybe even in childhood, just running to the house next door or across the playground, or running to the top of a hill, or rolling down a hill, or dancing, or skiing, or playing a sport, or hugging, whatever you can recall. Imagine yourself back at that point in the past and let yourself be there, playing games or jogging, riding a bike, hiking through beautiful countryside, whatever. Perhaps many different scenes pass through your mind when you've really enjoyed this body, when you felt the fresh air, breathing Breathing in the green hillside, the fragrance of flowers, enjoying the sight of a sunset or bright stars in the sky, or the face of someone you love or someone who loves you. Or maybe you can even imagine holding in your arms someone you love, a child even, a pet even, a parent or grandparent or lover, whatever is the easiest person or being that you can feel love with right now. Feel yourself with them. Or if you like, just imagine yourself in a beautiful scene later today or tomorrow or next week with that person. Be there. And the point is to feel the love, to feel the love within you. With each new breath, let it breathe more love into you, because each new breath is love, because love is the spirit of wholeness, the spirit of oneness that balances all the organs of your body. And as you let go of all unnecessary thought, feel love for whatever you are engaged in doing. Good. And feel gratitude to the source of this love, this love that comes to you as freely as the air that breathes you with each breath. Feel a sense of deep gratitude and reverence for the source of this love. And if you know the source of this love, be aware of it. And if that source is not clear to you, no problem, you can still feel the gratitude. Loving the feeling of having this healthy body and this healthy, strong skeletal system and this healthy, strong muscular system, healthy digestion, healthy immune system, Good. Your deeper mind knows what it's like to have health in all these parts of your body. Feel it right now. Feel that knowing. Feel the love and the gratitude. And gratitude for how this love and this body, these bones and the organs of your body, have served you. And worked together automatically and effortlessly, feel a sense of joy and peace. Good. And what would you call this feeling? What would you call this experience that you're having right now? Think of a word or an image or a sound or a piece of music, whatever, something to anchor this feeling. Maybe a signal in your body like squeezing two fingers together or placing your hand over your heart or touching your tongue of your mouth. Choose a signal. And this signal can be used to bring you back into this state of mind, into an awareness of this feeling of the gratitude, of the love, of the wholeness that is the essence of who you are. Anytime you wish, when you know that you want to return to this place, and you know you're in a place where it's safe to relax. Picture this image. Give yourself this anchor, this signal. Squeeze those fingers, touch your tongue to the roof of— wherever you've chosen, and you can come back. Good. Great. Now in a moment I'm going to count from 1 to 3, and as I do, I'm going to ask you to bring your awareness back to the sound of my voice. 1. Back to the position of your body and where it's resting in physical space. 2. Feel everything touching your body, where the clothing or covers over your body Aware of the coolness of the air as you breathe in. Take a deep breath in as you let it out. 3, allowing yourself to feel wide awake, fully aware of your surroundings, alert and clear. And if you wish, you may allow your eyelids to open. Welcome back. Take a notice— take a moment to notice how you feel. Good. When I ask you to think of a word to describe that feeling within today, what word or image or phrase came to mind? Enter it into the chat box and again address it to panelists and attendees, because I love to know. Relief, peaceful, bliss, the beach, peace, restoration. Peace. Gentle peace. Looks like peace is winning, folks. Quiet. Wholeness. Engaged peace. There is only one life. Love. Faith. Balance. There is only love. Calmness. Gratitude. Isn't that interesting? You all got to hear the same words, but maybe the experience was a little bit different. Similar but different, because you are unique and your experiences are unique, and the really important thing is to learn how to have your experiences and how you can work with your experiences to create the life that you want to create. My life and my medical practice changed back in probably 1968, '69, the day that I discovered that my patients could be active participants and healing their bodies as well as their minds. And that was when I had a practice. At that time, I was actually in the, in the Army prior to my practice in Carmel, California. The next thing that I had to do was to figure out just how something as evanescent and non-physical as thoughts and wishes of the human mind can be transferred into the very corporeal and physical muscles and organs and bones and blood of the physical body. And so I'd like to share with you some thoughts on, on just how, just how this can happen. And I want to use osteoporosis and osteopenia really as a, as a way, as a way to think of and, and understand how, how this seems to happen. Because my experience was, and I had first learned hypnosis and hypnotherapy quite by accident, of course it had been deeply studied by the American Medical Association back in 1955. That found that hypnotherapy had enormous use in medical practice and advised that every physician have at least 70 hours of training in hypnosis and hypnotherapy. Here I had gone to one of the premier medical schools in our country and I had learned nothing about hypnosis at all. So I got very interested in that, and I would find that people who had very severe physical symptoms could make changes in those symptoms by changes that would go on in their mind. A case that occurs to me is a There's a fellow who had Parkinson's disease. He had had it for a number of years. It was so bad that he wasn't able to work anymore. He was a— had been a machinist. And he came to see me because he had heard that hypnosis could somehow help people heal things. He said, can it help me heal my Parkinson's? And I said, I don't know. I said, I've been surprised at all of the things that I have been able to see it do, like cause eruptions and rashes to melt away in front of my eyes, to see people whose headaches would vanish over a period of 5 minutes when, you know, for days or weeks they had been suffering from it, and on and on and on. But, you know, Parkinson's is pretty physical, but You know, if you want to try, I'm, I'm willing to try it. Uh, and so I induced a state of hypnosis in him, which is basically just a relaxed state in which you're willing to accept my suggestions. And I had him, um, go back to that point in his life at which the trauma took place that injured his nervous system that ultimately turned out to produce Parkinson's, something like that. And, you know, the unconscious mind is incredible of being able to take us back. Well, the interesting thing about this fellow is he was missing 3 fingers on one of his hands, and he had Parkinsonism. But what I noticed, that this hand shook more than the other hand, the one without the fingers. Well, I also noticed as I took him through a couple of experiences in his life in which he was experiencing his Parkinson's most strongly, and at those times he seemed to be angry about things. And I would ask him, do you feel angry? And he said, no, I don't feel angry. So I went back to his— this initial experience and he was working in a company where he was feeding materials into a big crushing machine, something like was kneading bread or something like that. At any rate, his hand got caught in this machine. It started sucking his hand in to macerate it, so he's pulling back on his arm to try to keep his hand from going any deeper in, uh-oh, and he's yelling, "Turn it off! Turn it off! Turn it off!" And there are 5 other people in the shop, but nobody knew how to turn the machine off. You know, finally someone found the button. But as he was going through that experience, I could see he became very angry. How can it be that nobody knows how to turn this machine off? And his anger was linked up with having his hand caught in the machine. And What it turned out then is that those times— but he didn't admit his anger, so I had him relive the experience and to actually say, "I'm angry." And as he said the words "I'm angry," the vibration of his hand got quiet and his symptoms went down to less than a tenth of what they had been before. Fortunately, when I first saw the man, I had an internist who was working in the office next to me come in and examine him. Says, yeah, this is classical Parkinsonism. And now the man's tremor had stopped. So I went next door and I called the internist in, and I said, you know, I worked with him and, you know, the tremor stopped. And the internist looked at it And he was absolutely amazed. He says, I have never seen, you know, such a dramatic spontaneous resolution of Parkinsonism. I said spontaneous, and he couldn't hear any more than that. It was, you know, he could not— did not make sense to him that anything could cause this to happen intentionally. So that was remarkable. And his symptoms stayed very minimal for a month or two. He actually went back to work and he was able to work just fine. He was still a machinist and he worked, I think, for about 2 or 3 months. And then it turns out the guys in the shop were having fun and throwing huge cardboard boxes around where these machines are whirring And this was very upsetting to this fellow, and he's yelling to him, stop, stop throwing those boxes, you can cause an accident, stop, stop. And they wouldn't stop. He became angry again, and his Parkinson's started up again to the point where he couldn't work. So these are the kinds of experiences that I had early on, and I had to try to figure out, you know, what's going on. Well, what is the role of the mind in healing? Let's take a simple example of muscle. Now, your muscle, if you stick a pin in the muscle or you punch it with your knuckle— in fact, we used to do that, thump, hit like that, a little frog would jump up in the muscle. They call that making a frog in your muscle. Or if you stick with a pin, the muscle— muscles respond to pain or injury by tensing. By tensing, let's say there's a cut, then their tensing closes off the blood supply so that the bleeding will stop and the muscle can heal. So, and then the muscle can relax again. Works fine ordinarily, but the stressors on us now are not being bitten by a wolf or something like that. The muscles The stressors that we're having are mortgages and paying the bills and relationship issues, arguments at work, being passed over for position, not knowing what the economy is going to be, not knowing when the pandemic's going to end, on and on and on and on and on, when I'm going to see my friends again. Every one of these creates stress. We've talked a lot about this and in previous webinars, and you can go back, you can see those if you go to drmiller.com/life-meditations. They're still available for free. I highly advise you to go take a look at them. But at any rate, so now what happens is you feel these stresses, you know, we got this you know, threatening phone call or something like that, and the body goes into a protective mode. So when you do that, your muscles tense up and you're really stressed. Then stop for a moment and feel your shoulders and let them go. Let them go right now. How come you're holding your shoulders up there? The more stressed you beget, you get, the more your muscles in your shoulders tense up. But these chronically tense muscles begin to create micro-injury to the cells of the muscle. That injury to the cells of your muscle is experienced by the nervous system as an injury. And how does it respond? The way it was programmed to respond by evolution, it tenses the muscle. Oh well, the greater tension in the muscle produces more injury, which produces more tension, which produces more injury, which produces more tension, hour after hour, day after day, week after week. And pretty soon there's enough injury to where you begin to have pain in that muscle, and you feel the pain in the muscle, or you feel it— you say you have a headache. it'll cause that headache just from pulling on the aponeurosis of the scalp. Or you say— what's the expression?— "A real pain in the neck." It really is a pain in the neck because of that tension. So now you begin to have physical symptoms as a result of the way the body is reacting to the stressors in our life, but the stressors in our life are what we call Type 2 stressors, whereas that kind of response is great for being attacked by a wolf or being shot by an arrow or something like that. Is our sound back again? Uh, I think our sound went out for a moment. Is it back? Yeah, let's see if we can get the sound to come back. There we go. Okay, so those are Type 2 stressors, but we're designed for Type 1 stressors. So Type 1 stress responses actually produce more problems for us. So again, another thing that it can do is, let's say, those types, those type 2 stressors that we're having, they continually have us worried about this and worried about that. And the worry— when you're worried, you kind of feel helpless, you don't feel strong, and you, you sink into a kind of depression, not necessarily clinical depression, but You don't feel very energetic, and so you don't exercise. You want strong bones and strong muscles? You gotta exercise! You gotta move! And— but you stop moving and you become a couch potato, and, you know, maybe you look at television to distract you from all of these thoughts that are weighing you down, and then you go and eat foods that can actually harm your— can actually harm your health. And so gradually different organs of the body over a period of weeks and months and years— I mean, they do well for years, you can get away with this, but as you get older you don't have the reserve that you have anymore— and so you begin to become susceptible to these imbalances showing up as symptoms and diseases in your body. And that may be high blood pressure from your— the tension in the arteries of your body being maintained because you're, you're still in a fight-or-flight mode, or tension in your back begins to produce injury to your back and back pain, and that slows you down, and you can't exercise, and then you can't exercise, and so your heart doesn't stay in good aerobic shape, and you lose the ability to extract as much oxygen from the air, and so forth. And in future— in future webinars, I'll talk about dealing with other physical issues and how the mind can help you create those illnesses or block having those illnesses. And the basic way that we do that is to recognize that your illness is the result of an imbalance. I mean, before we've talked, and we talk often about the notion of homeostasis. And Claude Bernard, who— Pasteur said, does microorganisms cause our diseases? And Pasteur said, no, it's more important the imbalance within the body, that when our body is in balance, when we're eating right and thinking right and breathing right and exercising right and loving right, and then there's a balance, and that balance keeps your immune system doing what it's supposed to do. And in the case of the bones, uh, it keeps the bones of your body strong. And when you slip out of balance, then illness begins. And so how do you get into balance? Well, first of all, The massive, massive problem in our world today, at all levels, from the political level— look at it, it's polarization, the lack of wholeness, the lack of peace, the lack of acceptance, the fear of each other. We're attacking each other, we're mocking each other, and we're unwilling to come together and really be as one. There's some movements now, at last, where there's some movements in that direction. It's— we are so far from it, but it's happening all around us, and it gets into our bodies because of the pressure of this world on us, as I said before. That's what kicks off the imbalance. For most of us, most of the time, when you return to a place of peace, you begin to restore the balance. And so by doing that meditation on a regular basis, doing deep relaxation, imagery, whatever you're doing, praying— you gotta do it every day because you're up against enormous forces outside. You can't just exercise for 30 seconds a day and think that's going to do it. The same thing, you need to spend more time in deep relaxation. And when you're there, that begins to redress the stress imbalance, but it doesn't do it altogether. The next thing you need to do is to begin to change how you're thinking, how you process the world, because most of us are processing the world most of the time with System 1, the ancient system, the monkey mind within us, instead of going to System 2, the higher mind that can analyze and that can strategize, that can think about the future and that can create a desired future, create a plan for reaching there, and then cause us to stick to that plan. And that's the role of guided imagery in the affirmation. And so there are two ways to use our guided imagery— several ways to use it, I should say. One way is to go back into the past and touch on the beautiful things in our life, the love in our life, the things that we most associate with healthiness and wellness. Number two is to relax and get to that place of peace frequently and often and have it always available. Uh, the next step is to begin to visualize yourself as healthy and happy in the future. It's amazingly powerful because with the stresses on ourselves, when we're feeling tired, when we're feeling afraid, when we're anxious, when we're angry, when we're resentful or shameful, or embarrassed or jealous or envious or guilty. All of those states are really pictures of us as victims. Instead, if we can see ourselves as being blessed beings living a happy, wonderful, rewarding life, no matter at what level— I can't do the things now that I could do when I was 22 years old, but this life is still good. And so when you can picture yourself as you want to be, that's called outcome imagery. And then there's what we call process imagery, and that's when you visualize yourself and your body doing the things that it needs to do in order to change to health. Now if we, if we look at, if we look at the, the idea of osteoporosis or osteopenia as a model, you know, those of you who can see your screen, there's a normal bone on the left. There are spaces in it, but that's okay. The bone is made up of this network of walls. And then on the right side is what osteoporosis looks like. There's a lot fewer walls and connections. And if we take a look, let's say, at the femur, there's a healthy femur on the left. And then as osteopenia takes place, that is when the bone begins to lose calcium, begins to look like the next one and the next one and the next one. As you go to the right in that diagram. Or if you take a look, this is what it would look like in the spinal column. And of course, that bone becomes more and more spongy, and it really can't support the body as well as it used to, you know, when it was healthy. Why does it do that? Well, it does because we— there's a balance in your body between osteoblasts and osteoclasts. Osteoblasts build muscle— I'm sorry, build bone. And here we have a picture on the right. There's an image or art concept of your little osteoblasts creating strong bone. On the left, those are osteoclasts, and they're dissolving bone because your bone isn't static. Bone is continually being remodeled. It's like you've got an internal contractor who's taking down some walls and building new walls. And, you know, let's say if you haven't exercised for a long time and you gradually go back into weight-bearing exercises, well, the osteoblasts come in and start building new walls, and you begin to build more calcium in your bones and to sustain the calcium that's there. When you start doing nothing, or if you're eating poorly, not exercising, and so forth, osteoclasts come along and they say, well, we don't really need this bone. He's not using it, she's not using it, so we'll just dissolve it. And yes, this tends to be a problem more for women, but probably maybe a quarter to a half of all an eighth to a quarter of all of the osteoporosis that's out there actually happens in men. It's just more obvious in women. Women happens more, uh, more quickly, and that's a hormonal thing. And this is how you might visualize an osteoblast and an osteoclast, and here's what they do. There's the osteoclast dissolving bone, there's the osteoclast building it. So they keep this process up, dissolving and building, dissolving and building in a very careful way, depending upon the pressures and work being done by the, by the bone. And that's how it should be when you're in balance. And so if you begin to have osteoporosis or osteopenia, which is just a slight reduction in the calcium, then what you want to do is to bring yourself back into balance. And so now we're going to do some imagery. And again, this is basically what process imagery is. And any of my programs that you, that you work with, you'll find that whatever we're talking about, if we're we're talking about dealing with cancer, if we're talking about dealing with the coronavirus, any of those things, we have you visualize the cells of your body taking charge and, and doing the right thing with those. So, so we'll just do that imagery again now, and it's okay if you don't have osteoporosis, there's nothing wrong with guiding the cells of your body to create a better balance inside and make your bones stronger. That's a good thing. So find that relaxed place where you can be comfortable and relaxed and become aware there's no other place you need to go. That there's nothing else you need to do. There's no problem that you have to solve, and therefore you can give yourself permission to relax. Being aware of your breathing. A little while ago you did some imagery during our opening meditation. Reflect back to that imagery again. Let yourself sink into that little pause after each breath out. Let the air breathe you. Take yourself back to that image. Give yourself the signal, the anchor, that you decided upon. Think of the word that you used to describe it. Say that word to yourself in your mind. Good. And anytime any unnecessary thoughts come along, Just let them float through your mind and disappear. Good. Remember that love, that love being that you are holding. Go back, touch into that quality of love within you. Imagine each spark that starts each new breath. Each spark. Okay, relaxing now. And allow that little spark that starts each new breath, each Spark is like a kiss from someone that loves you deeply and thoroughly and unconditionally. And imagine that kiss of love in your heart expands with each breath as you breathe in, breathes that love into all of your chest, and with each breath out That love flows out of your chest, down throughout all the rest of your body, into every organ of your body, especially those organs of your body that need to heal. Love and gratitude flow through you. Feel that warm glow and the tingling as the light flows from that spark of each new breath, soothing and balancing. Feel it flowing through each and every bone of your body. Good. And now imagine that your awareness is becoming focused like a laser beam and shrinking down to a tiny point like a laser beam. And imagine you're awareness is entering your body as if it's in a tiny little submarine that is capable of traveling around inside of your body like a little glowing spot of light traveling within your body, traveling through the vessels of your body. And just as your body can smos— can swallow a small bite of food, imagine your body swallowing this little submarine, and imagine this little submarine of your awareness traveling around, and imagine you can let it travel into the very bones of your body. And as you look about, you can see that your bones are not solid, lifeless things like rocks or metal, but more of a network of girders and beams. And not only that, but your bones are vital and alive and flexible, just like the stem of a rose. And imagine you can look even closer within your bones, and imagine that you can see that there are many, many cells traveling throughout the substance of your bone. And as you can see, each cell finally dwells within its own little cave or lacuna within the substance of your bone. Like the monks and the nuns that live in the caves in the mountains meditating, imagine you can see these cells in your bones meditating. Or maybe you could hear them chanting, sense their presence. And as you look more closely, you can see there are two different kinds of cells. One kind are the osteoblasts. They produce the bony substance that is the structure of your bones. They incorporate calcium into your bones. The other kinds of cells are the osteoclasts. They remove excess bone and they shape the internal architecture of your bones so that they function better and better. The osteoclasts remove what is not needed, reshaping, fashioning, and maintaining the health of your bones. Visualize these little bone builders, the osteoblasts, and they receive healthy nutrients and supplements or any treatments that you receive, and they convert these nutrients into new bone. Picture them laying down calcium over a network of collagen. See them making your bones stronger and laying down calcium, and feel your appreciation and gratitude to them for their service. And feel appreciation and gratitude to your osteoclasts for their service in remodeling your bone. Good. Now let that love and light flow from your heart throughout your body, into your bones, and right into those little workers those little cells and sense their improved activity. And if your bones need to be stronger and have more calcium, picture your osteoblasts working harder, laying down more bone. And if your bones need to discontinue dissolving bony tissue. Imagine your osteoclasts taking a break, going out for a cup of coffee, taking it easy, relaxing, and enjoying watching the osteoblasts do their work. And if there have been any osteoblasts that were feeling lazy or sleepy, imagine they're waking up to that call of love the call of balance, as you breathe love and appreciation into each of these beautiful cells that are producing stronger and stronger bones. And as more and more bone is produced, then the osteoclasts, they have a little bit of work to do, just shaping just refining, tweaking as it were, to keep the bones really strong. They know what to do, they've been doing it your whole life. Just imagine the love and the healing balance from that spark of life and love flow throughout your body like pure white light being breathed into these cells with each breath in. And out. Love flowing through all the cells of your body. Good. Now imagine your bones growing stronger and stronger and you growing stronger and stronger. Now let's focus forward into the future a little ways. Picture yourself doing the things that need to be done to nurture your bones. Imagine yourself eating the right foods, refusing to eat the foods that are not good for your body and for your bones. Picture yourself exercising, especially weight-bearing exercises, and taking whatever treatments you and your healthcare practitioner have decided are best for you, regularly, and imagine yourself growing stronger and stronger, more and more active, feeling more and more healthy in all ways. Imagine your muscles growing stronger, your workouts becoming gradually, very gradually, more vigorous, so that you only build strength and resiliency and balance and firmness and flexibility. And now picture yourself a few months into the future, maybe even a year or two, depending on whatever you need. Picture yourself being as healthy and as well as you can imagine yourself becoming. The person that you really came here to be, living a life of meaning and love, engaged in things that are meaningful to you, deepening valuable relationships, joining together with kindred spirits and helping to heal your relationships. Gradually, lovingly, healing your community and your workplace, healing the social system that you are a part of by taking part in a way that you're guided by love, and feel all of that being expressed by health in your body. Good. Step into this body and be yourself doing these things. Each time you picture yourself the way you really want to be, you become more and more this person, because this is the person you really are down deep inside. Each day as you relax, you strengthen all the understandings that we have explored today. Gently guide yourself back to being wide awake, growing more and more alert. Feeling joyful, happy. Good. When you're ready, tune in again to the space around you, coming back feeling wide awake, alert, refreshed, and clear. Great. And again, take a moment and notice how comfortable you feel. And let me know what your experience has been just by putting it in the chat box there. Why is the new imagery not available? So many gods, so many creeds, so many paths that wind and wind, while just the art of being kind is all the sad world needs. Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Great. Oh, there's some lovely feedback. Thank you. I'm also posting up for you some other suggestions, such as where you can watch past seminars. And someone mentioned their systolic blood pressure dropped 20 points. That's good, that's good. It's what we would expect. Good work. And you're feeling now empowered, noticing the disappearance of pain. Floating peacefully. Empowered. That's good. Lots of power. And that's what that kind of imagery is for, is to tune us in to the power. And the power, of course, is within. Imagination is so, is so powerful. I'd like to add one other quote about imagination here for you. Albert Einstein said about imagination, he pointed out, he said, at certain times I feel certain I'm right while not— while not knowing the reason. When the eclipse of 1919 confirmed my intuition, I was not in the least surprised. In fact, I would have been astonished had it turned out otherwise. He of course predicted the light would be bent by going around the moon. No one had any idea that gravity could bend light, but he figured out purely by working in, in his imagination. And so when the experiment finally proved that in 1919, he said, I wasn't at all surprised. Imagination is more important important than knowledge, for knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research. It's Albert Einstein from our century, but if we go back to 1500 AD, as Paracelsus said, the spirit is the master Imagination the tool, and the body is the plastic material. So, hmm, the spirit is the master, imagination the tool, and the body the plastic material, said Paracelsus. So back in 1500 AD, we already knew that, and of course we're having to relearn that again and again and again. Or as Steve Jobs said, think different. And that's what we're doing here, learning to think different to transform our bodies and to transform the world around us. So I'd like to thank you all for, for participating. You know, I, I've been for a while out of doing the actual prescriptions of diet and exercise for osteoporosis, so I won't, I won't try to do that. Because this field is changing. But I would say you want to take a look at what your traditional doctors have to say, but you also want to look at what you can find when you look at the integrative medicine practitioners. You want to take a look at those who are working with nutrition, And there's quite a bit that's available, and I think right now we have to do our own research, but I think diet is important, and I think there's some well-known facts about that. Um, let me remind you that you can watch past webinars at drmiller.com/webinars. Watch-life-meditations. DrMiller.com/watch-life-meditations with dashes between those last 3 words. Invite your friends to come and join. You can just send them DrMiller.com. If they go on there, they'll have an invitation to join. They'll just pop up on their screen after about 10 or 15 seconds, and they can just say yes. And again, for donations, you can send a check to Emmett Miller, Post Office Box 803, Nevada City, California 95950. 9. PayPal, go to accounting@drmiller.com, or you can go to our website where we have all of the really interesting products that are available. And there is a product, uh, the osteoporosis product that we called Healing Osteoporosis and, uh, osteopenia. You'll find that on shop.drmiller.com, and that's the one that's most relevant to what we're doing here soon. I don't know what happened, why immunoimaging dropped off, but there is a video that's called immunoimaging in which I have all kinds of photomicrographs of actual immune system cells, cells doing what they're doing. So really useful in terms of creating your imagery. So immunoimaging should be you know, available there within a week or two. And, um, the book Deep Healing, the classic book I wrote back in the last century, is still available as a book. It's also available with my voice reading it, if my voice doesn't put you to sleep too quickly. Um, just look up deep healing. Healing Journey is another excellent product for creating physical healing in your body. Upcoming webinars: on Thursday, the 11th of February, the title of our webinar will be Compassion: The Essence of Humanity, because as you know, I've spent 50 years trying to find out what is the holy grail of healing at all levels, and compassion is part of it. And then on February 25th— and all of these go on at 11 AM Pacific time. Secrets of Successful and Loving Communication, that'll be on Thursday the 25th of February. And then on March the 11th at 11, there is The Magic of Forgiveness, another one that is, I think, really, really interesting. And I would say most of the— most of these webinars that I'm giving are— I'm presenting things that I really haven't spoken a lot about publicly but have guided my work with individuals in my office. So I'm doing a data dump and an experience dump. Come and join me then every other week here. For our webinar. So I'd like to thank you again once more, to thank you so much for your, for your donations. No amount is too little, yeah, and no amount is too much either. It all, it all helps a great deal. So thanks a lot for participating Be well and do your best to fill your life with as much love as you can. Bye now and namaste. If you enjoyed this video and found its information helpful, please like, comment, and subscribe to Dr. Miller's YouTube channel. Doing this will help to get Dr. Miller's content to more and more people. If you'd like to watch the entire webinar series, you can do so at DrMiller.com/webinars. Drmiller.com/lifemeditations. That's drmiller.com/lifemeditations. Be present, be kind, and be well.