Mind, Body and Soul: Mental Healing

Of all the techniques that I've used since 1976, the following eight techniques have been my basic mainstay for my mental health:

1. Upon awakening, recite or write a gratitude list. Always begin with the gift of breath. Without breath, we'd have no life. My spirit is so
rebellious at times that many days my gratitude list included only my breath. But having gratitude for even one thing was a growth from having no
gratitude. Do 5 minutes of deep breathing-relish the feeling good lungs gives you.

2. Living with a positive mind is a continual discipline. Remember your thoughts are your choice. You need to learn to tune in to your thoughts. If you are thinking negative, you're feeling negative. Is anything getting better with the choice of negativity? Be careful not to condemn or judge yourself as these choices are negative also.
Learn how to get a check on the committee of voices that live in your head. Become your "observer self "when you are feeling negative. Change your thoughts and change your feelings.

3. Exercising your body daily for 30-60 minutes. The exercise can be divided into segments but it generally takes 20 minutes of exercise to change your level of metabolism.

4. The type or kind of food you eat isn't as important as the portion. Count the calories or guess at the total calories involved. Use a small
plate at every meal as a way to keep a check on the quantity of food eaten.

5. Help others every day. When I started this practice, I made it a rule to call 3 people that I ordinarily wouldn't call in order to monitor
my motives in helping others. My condition for myself on these calls was that the help had to be only for them and couldn't include anything
I might want from them for myself.

6. Spend some quality time with yourself enjoying or discovering your personality. This practice can be added to your meditation daily as you ask the God of your understanding to guide you.

7. As you let go of judgment, you learn to love yourself. Anyone else that you tear down, tears you down, too. Use the mental picture of throwing mud and notice that you get dirty. As Maya Angelou reminds us, "We did the best we could, and when we knew better, we did better."

8. Begin acquiring books that are easy to pick up and review. Each day choose one section of a book to reflect on for the rest of the day. Even if you just have time to copy down a sentence, it will give you a path of self-improvement to follow.

Flipping the switch is what I call shifting your point of view. The two points of view that I am currently choosing between are scarcity thinking and prosperity thinking-the old glass half-empty or half full. The mind creates whatever thoughts we focus on. If I focus on what I don't have instead of what I do have, I am in scarcity mode.

One of my favorite teachers for the prosperity thinking is Catherine Ponder. She was a Unity Church minister who wrote in 1958 a great book, The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity. The book was written via a series of sermons during a recession. She established her belief in prosperity being available to everyone by teaching that the Bible teaching of "not serving God and Mammon" was right. This teaching meant not worshiping wealth but to always recognize who the Giver is.

She was the first I knew who recognized that the brain works by the mental images we produce. She also believed in projected positive images to others so that they can prosper also. With prosperity thinking, you focus on what is and what can be added to the wealth you already possess. I think of it as pyramid. At the base of the pyramid, I have the love of the God of my understanding, my health, my husband, my dog, my loved ones, my business, my home, my computers, the Internet, my spiritual program, my experiences, my plants, the canals, etc.

She also taught one of the spiritual laws I believe-giving away surplus to make room for new. When my cup is full, I have to empty it to get more. So it is with possessions, love, experiences, etc. I have to make room for the new.

The Changemaker products are available at kathyberman.com. In the Changemaker ebook and the password-protected site, Changemaker Online, you will receive the following:

1) The Changemaker Weight Loss Program (now known as the Emotional Eater's Diet) includes food program tips and guidelines. From these food ideas, you will design your weight loss plan around the food that you most enjoy. Portion control is the only guideline that we advocate. This means counting the calories. To help you design your plan, we recommend developing an extensive list of 100-200 servings of all your favorite foods.

2) A modified exercise program will be chosen by you from five exercise books that teach you how to exercise. Also included are references to tests that should be taken before, after, and during exercise.

3) Mental techniques from many sources are included to begin helping you to listen to your negative self-talk.

4) Emotional support is giving by teaching deep breathing, meditation, becoming centered to begin helping you to learn how to substitute relaxation for stress. Everyone experiences stress but staying in the stressful state is a choice.

5) The Changemaker Personality Profile Test is included in an 80 page ebook that includes all the 25 personality labels for the test. With this information, you can help others to better understand themselves. The test includes NLP (neurolinguistic programming), MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator), family roles, emotional energy types, and birth order. Included in the ebook are many links to websites giving more information about each of the personality test categories. Also included are links for the Big Five Test, the enneagram and the Holland Test.

6) The basic goal of the Changemaker Program is to help you to help others. The best gift I have received during my recovery that began in 1976 is the ability to forget about myself while helping others. So the plan includes techniques to help you set up your own small groups. In the phenomenal change in Protestant religion today happening in the United States and throughout the world is the realization that we need small groups--the community-to feel connected.

7) All these tools will be what we will used throughout your weight loss. Your daily weight loss plan should include emotional, mental, physical (food and exercise), meditation, and relaxation techniques. The individual topics may be unique with each session.

The Changemaker products are available at kathyberman.com.

The Changemaker Test only (explanations included for all personality labels) ($19.00)

The Emotional Eater Diet (also labeled the Changemaker Diet) ($19.00)

The complete Changemaker ebook (which includes Changemaker test, explanations resources for small groups, and the Emotional Eater Diet) ($29.00)

Changemaker Online (which includes everything in the ebook but it is interactive as it is a password-protected blog) ($29.00)

After my two years with clinical depression, I finally understood that I needed medical attention. Although I have always looked for help, I generally have had to be self-diagnosed. Most medical doctors don't recognize depression in their patients. If a patient says that s/he is depressed, many times the doctor will ask the patient if they need medication.

This turning the diagnosis over to the patient doesn't happen in most of fields of medicine. So the patient, who is already has depleted energy, has to have the strength to fight for what he/she instinctively knows he/she needs-relief.

I think the difficulty for doctors is caused by patients seeking drugs for an escape from reality rather than for the need of chemical imbalance. The other large difficulty for medicating mental problems is the fact that it may take several different prescriptions to find the right anti-depression (anxiety, etc.) drug to work for each patient.

This slows down the rapid delivery system of getting medications to heal all as we have become a nation of "instant fixes". This selection of drugs is difficult as any of the drugs for mental illness take 4-6 weeks to be effective in the system. So if one doesn't work, the next one prescribed will be 4-6 weeks also. The patient feels that the doctor doesn't know what she/he is doing so many times the patient returns to the self-medication he/she has found to work.

The only question that the doctor needs to ask is if the patient has been feeling this for more than one two week period. If the answer is yes, the patient needs help. So most of the population who suffer from a chemical imbalance continue to be self-medicated (alcohol, other drugs, sex, work, food, etc.