Integrative Health Blog

Authentic Healing- What it Means for Our Brain and Others

Posted by Dr. Charles Gant on Wed, Jan 29, 2020

If I suggested that you invest in the stock market, and no matter how hard you worked and applied Dr. Gant bookyour creative abilities, that you would always fail- how interested would you be in investing? 

The business of healing can be like that, because everyone eventually gets old, gets sick and dies.  In fact, my Buddhist friends call old age, infirmity and death the Three Heavenly Messengers!  I googled this term and got over 2 million hits, suggesting that it is a very popular term in certain circles.

As a “healer,” a functional medicine physician,  I know how easy it is to get my ego wrapped up with my powers to end infirmity (for a while), extend life (for a while) and put death off (for a while).  Inevitably though, no matter how good I am at this trade, I too will always fail.  Therefore, I am constantly questioning my motives and asking my colleagues to engage in a little introspection and ask questions like, “Why am I in this business of healing, when the Three Heavenly Messengers, old age, infirmity and death, will always prevail?” 

The answer to this conundrum is spelled out in my latest book, Awaken Your Godly Brain, so here comes another shameless plug for everyone to please buy it and study it.  The latest research suggests that 1/6th of our brain, our prefrontal cortex, situated just above our eyes, is the only part of us that makes us distinctly human.  The other 5/6ths of our central nervous system, including our very primitive intellect, is our “animal brain” which is designed to help us survive.  Our Godly Brain, on the other hand, is designed to transcend death.  In fact it also can help to dispel pain, as any woman who has used Lamaze childbirth will tell you.  Fight contractions with your animal brain and the pain gets worse.  Breath through contractions with your Godly brain and the contractions are much easier to deal with.

Brain Chemistry and Healing

Our Godly Brain also heals infirmities and extends life because the autonomic, fight/flight nervous system, the animal part of our brain, is quieted.  Roughly 50% of the people you meet will suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder this year, driven by their animal (“reptilian”), sympathetic nervous system.  It seems that all of our institutions, our healthcare system, and the whole world is dead set on keeping everyone in the dark about our Godly Brain, which if Awakened, could improve chronic degenerative diseases and extend lifespans dramatically.

So here is my message to all healers and healthcare practitioners.  Healing is a tough business that you will ultimately fail at.  That can cause burnout.  Instead, simply recognize that every authentic healing technique ALSO SERVES TO HEAL THE PREFRONTAL CORTEX in your patients and clients.  Unbeknownst to you, until now perhaps, is that your healing methodology, whatever it is, is also freeing up the part of the brain that is designed to transcend infirmity, old age and even death.  Maslow called the attraction to self-actualization a “need” and all authentic healing can make it easier for patients to envision that need more clearly, once our animal, survival-based, lower needs are satisfied.  St. Thomas Aquinas called it a “pull” towards transcendence.   

The Gift of Healers

So healers, please get this – your gifts are not just about healing – which you ultimately cannot win at.  Your gifts directly or indirectly Awaken the Godly Brains of your patients and clients.  And to healthcare consumers out there, that’s the ultimate purpose of seeking healthcare. To awaken the part of you that is designed to help you discover your purpose for being alive.  Express your gratitude to your healthcare providers, that their efforts are also healing your brain and opening you up to this deeper wisdom that explains our purpose for being alive at all.

The research of Paul McLean at Yale Medical School and the National Institute of Mental Health, and the messaging of Carl Sagan in his Pulitzer Prize winning 1977 book, The Dragons of Eden, brought to the world this early knowledge about Our Godly Brain.  Now it is up to us to carry on this tradition.  Both McLean and Sagan passed on before the explosion of research on the prefrontal cortex in the last 10 years was available.  This latest research compelled me to sum it up in my latest book, Awaken Your Godly Brain.  However, in some of McLean’s latest communications, the writing was on the wall so to speak, and his decades of brain research was summarized in a simple phrase. When asked about the ultimate purpose of the human brain, he suggested that it is not to promote survival, but instead, “To care for one another.”  Now that evidence crystal clear.  Caring for one another, in an age of germ warfare, terrorism and nuclear weapons, is the only way we can survive.  That’s why we heal and why we are healed by others; To Awaken Our Godly Brain so that we can better care for one another.

Check out Awaken Your Godly Brain on Amazon

 

Dr. Gant functional medicine doctor Wash DCCharles Gant MD, PhD,  is a physician, author and teacher and has practiced Integrative and Functional Medicine for over three decades. He specializes in molecular health and healing, especially as it supports growth and recovery from problems such as ADHD, substance dependence, chronic diseases, metabolic and immune disorders, infectious disease, and more. He is an expert in interpretation of functional medicine testing to diagnose precisely what is deficient in each patient, and then replenish those missing, essential items. 

 

Topics: brain health, spiritual health