Dad is a State of Mind

A dear friend recently commemorated the anniversary of losing her dad to Cancer. She told me about a dream she had with her dad in it which he gave her some very sound advice, giving her confidence to move ahead and make big changes in her life. Depending on how you see the world, you will interpret what dreams mean in a particular way. I would love to be ‘visited’ in my dreams by my parents once they shuffle off this mortal coil. Lucky for me, I can still get advice, love and support from both my parents by picking up the phone.

I have recently considered that if I am lucky my parents will die before me. I am becoming increasingly aware how difficult this transition will be and how little our culture prepares us for it.

My mother has had Multiple Sclerosis for the last 25 years, and so I have been emotionally prepared for her to die for a very long time. She is still relatively energetic and mobile as she heads into her 6th decade. Good on her - she has worked hard to maintain her health. She has a very strong mind and will, and from my observations, this has been the source of her good health. When I say ‘good health’, I need to qualify this. She struggles with standing for any period of time, she has speech and balance impairments, and she deals with pain on a daily basis. But she is consistently glowing and positive and makes a real effort to project this attitude. I have more “Duvet and Tim Tam” days than she does, and I am 25 years younger and sans incurable disease!

Watching her over the years, It has made me conclude that good health is a state of mind. Don’t get me wrong - I don’t think it is as simple as the mind can cure the body. I guess what I am saying is that people can live with and die from Cancer or Multiple Sclerosis and yet their state of mind can have been one of experiencing good health for the most part - intermingled with pain and suffering.

I recently had a health scare and watched my mind assume the state of ‘bad health’. Nothing had changed in my experience of my health and body, except that a letter had arrived in the mail with test results that were a bit scary. All of a sudden I found myself going from a happy, well and positively spirited person into a scared person who was was now entertaining ideas that I was host to invasive cancer cells in my body (none of this had been suggested in the letter!). What had changed? Nothing. Except a letter arrived. That was all it took to change my attitude. I don’t yet know yet whether there is anything serious going on. But its not the point. I realized that whenever I experience some illness in my body then I go on a process to deal with that. But I don’t need to identify with illness, in whatever form it takes. My mind can still be strong and happy.

The Biomedical view of the world has brought us some incredible technology and a lot more information about our bodies and their ‘state of play’. But I am reminded that this wasn’t always the reality. People used to know very little and I guess this meant that they just lived blissfully unaware. I’d like to get to a point where I can be blissfully aware.

We never know what life has in store for us. We have the precious now. And it seems we can choose the ‘state’ that we find ourselves - in this ‘now’ moment. I can be in a state of good health (even though I don’t know what the letter means). This leads me to wonder about other states of mind. What other states can we produce for ourselves?

It struck me that in our dreams the subconscious mind takes over, conjuring up a whole bunch of states from our past experience. In my friends case, she experienced the state of mind she would get from having received advice from one of the people she loved and trusted the most. She woke experiencing a state of calm resolution, the sort you feel after pouring out your heart and receiving advice and cuddles from a wise parent. Rather than ‘believing’ that she had been actually visited by her father, it seemed to me that she had produced this wise counsel and sense of ease for herself. She had channelled her Dad and his special brand of wisdom.

This made me conclude that Dad is a state of mind. Nothing replaces the role a parent plays in ones life (positive and negative). But I am pretty convinced that we can get our minds into a state where they can provide the wisdom that we might normally get from our parents, our mentors, teachers, yogis and priests. The sage advice that we need can be accessed within us. We just need to get ourselves in the right frame of mind to access it. This is all part of the larger subset of the topic ‘Fake it Till You Make It.’

So I conclude: Need some advice? Imagine you are a wise and loving parent or minister who cares about your wellbeing giving you the truth and perspective that your heart yearn for. Dad is a state of mind.

Got a letter in the post about the results of a test? Go: “Ah. Interesting”. Take down the client number and the date of your appointment and scrunch up the letter and toss it over your shoulder. Don’t let it take you anywhere that you are not. Especially if when you open the letter you feel healthy and alive. Health is a state of mind.