A patient just sent me the title of a great new book she is enjoying called "Learned Optimism".

As human beings, I think we all struggle with being optimistic. Falling into a negative pattern may be easy for many of us as we focus on our woes instead of our blessings. Endeavoring to deal with the negative in a positive way can be quite an undertaking. But, I do believe it helps. Having positive energy driving us as we move through our journey in life puts such a different life force into our hours, our days and our months and contributes to the struggle towards wellness in a very significant way.

My patient said the book has scientific support to back up the philosophy in the book. While sometimes science is not important in such matters (it never has been able to offer much support as to how meridians work), in a case like this, I think it is really interesting and may offer the kind of encouragement one needs to embrace some of what is said in the book. I myself have not read it yet, but it is now on my "to do" list.

Struggling with negativity is something that I see my patients dealing with a lot, and ironically, not as much because they are suffering from IC, but because they come with a history of negative behavior that has been downloaded into their subconcious thought patterns that drives the way they function. So, trying to undo this is very important. Another aspect of these thought patterns tends to be control. I refer to this in my dissertation. One's need for control (over control) is typically created from early childhood where the child has learned to feel out of control and develops the need for more control due to poor bonding between his or her main caretaker (typically the parent or parents). This subconcious drive needs to be re-wired so to speak, as, letting go allows us to be so much more fluid and supple. With IC, often people have developed a kind of emotional stiffness as they try to control everything in their lives. Nothing can flow easily through tight passages!

Changing one's health is in the physical and is very real. Often people think if the mind has anything to do with a condition, it is a disease of the mind. But, I am not suggesting that. But the mind and body are a two way street-one is often an expression of the other. So working on both simultaneously is really helpful and sometimes critical.

So, anyway, I htought I would suggest the book, and as I said, I will be reading it myself. Happy reading.

Dr.M