Topics Include:

Finding peace of mind while dealing with serious illness or physical ailment
General peace of mind strategies
 

Ask the Author: Question and Response
 

I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). There is evidence this is caused by a biochemical imbalance in the orbital frontal cortex and caudate and putamen sections of the brain. I lack peace of mind due to repetitive and intrusive thoughts caused by this problem in my brain. I lack the peace and confidence I know are within me because of it. I am wondering how someone like you would suggest feeling joyful, happy and at peace when a problem like this blocks that. Or even if someone suffers from another physical ailment? Thanks.

- Anonymous 

My family and I have a little more knowledge of biochemical imbalances and physical ailments than one may first perceive by reading my writings. In our genetic gene pool we have chosen Huntingtons as our gift and challenge. Many in our family have this gene and are currently dealing with this in one stage or another.  

Huntington’s disease is a fatal, autosomal-dominant neurological illness causing involuntary movements, severe emotional disturbance and cognitive decline. Huntington's disease usually strikes in mid-life, in the thirties or forties, although it can also attack children and the elderly. There is no treatment to halt the inexorable progression, which leads to death after ten to twenty-five years. Because it is an autosomal-dominant disorder, each child of a parent with Huntington's disease has a 50% risk of inheriting the illness.

It is my belief that, as extensions of God, we do not just come into this world as a roll of dice on a craps table. We come here understanding what it is we are coming to work on, and the gifts and challenges that will help us develop into more peaceful and joyful beings. Because we have chosen our path, the opportunity - regardless of physical manifestation, is a gift we are offering ourselves, our families and this planet. Our free will allows us to see, react and interact with it as we will.

You already understand and acknowledge that peace and confidence are within you, and that in and of itself is a great and strong foundation to build on. 

Now, two choices are presented: Will you choose to carry your past programming into the present, creating a future like your past and thus never allow yourself the possibility of development and growth? Or, will you allow yourself to be open to the gift that the present offers? If you decide to keep living in the past, then you will continue to reinforce within your mind that “I lack peace of mind due to repetitive and intrusive thoughts caused by this problem in my brain.” Giving your power over to a problem or your brain is a reinforcement of this belief, strengthens it and paralyzes you. My friend, you are more than your problem or your brain. Thus you can, if it is your desire, start taking back this power that you have been programmed to give away.

When an intrusive or repetitive thought comes in, instead of judging, cursing it, and losing your peace of mind, try spending those 10 seconds in gratitude for it. For when a gift is given, do you not immediately smile and offer gratitude even before you have opened the box? What do you have to lose? Have you not tried it the ego-self way long enough? Now, you may ask what could 10 seconds an hour possibly do? I would reply that this effort might possibly change your life. For if you can take 10 seconds that you once believed as impossible to receive peace in, and you now encounter gratitude and peace, would this not open this same possibility in many more moments? Study different meditation techniques and slowly build mental resistance to your own thoughts. Anytime intrusive thoughts of Huntingtons tries to get me down, I stop it and refuse to let it rule me. I then offer thanks to God for the opportunity that He has allowed me to offer myself. He has entrusted in me the opportunity to take all my brothers and sisters who are dealing with these same issues to a more peaceful place. And as I take them there, I also get to experience this wondrous place. My friend, your thoughts don’t control you. You control your thoughts and meditation is one tool that allows you to understand this. Start taking control of what you allow your mind to focus on; increase from 10 seconds an hour, to 20 seconds, then to forty seconds, and so on. The simple knowledge and acknowledgement that you have a choice where you once believed you did not - this realization by itself will bring more peace into your life.

Start doing something that helps those with your same issues and problems. Look within and answer, is OCD some curse brought upon by evil chemicals that you now allow to control your life, hiding with those equally cursed and migrating together to the dark shadowed crevices in the brain, or, will you choose to stand up, understand that this is your battle and lead all those scared and confused souls out of the tunnel of darkness that the ego sold to all of you as being your home? Here in the USA, our family works with the Hereditary Disease Foundation. We have helped them raise well over a million dollars. Also our family goes to Boston once a year to allow them to give us all kinds of measurement tests to research how this disease progresses. In Venezuela, we help run the largest Huntingtons live-in community hospital in the world, where again the Hereditary Disease Foundation comes and does research to develop new drug cocktails and ways of coping with this illness.

If you try to run a marathon without any prior training, you would most probably not finish. Yet, if you were to train for four to six months prior, it would be quite trouble-free. Working on taking control of your own thoughts is much like this. In marathon training, you might begin with a 3 mile walk/run. Four months later, a few weeks before the actual marathon, your practice run can be up to 28 miles. As in the first week of marathon training, you looked at that 28 mile run completion as an impossibility and total fantasy. Four months later, you’re in absolute bliss that you completed it. With meditation and commitment, you can start taking control of your thoughts. At first taking control of your mind for 10-20 seconds might seem like a small and stressful step but it’s a step in the direction where you truly desire to go. And soon that first step you once perceived as a walk up Everest, you will now know as a walk in the park.  

My friend, join me on this journey and be an example to those who share your struggle. Light the way to all those who now find it too dark to see, and to all those who will one day look for a more peaceful and joyful way. This is the opportunity and gift God has laid in front of us. This is the trust He has in us, that He safeguards his sons and daughters to us. And although our physical proximity on this journey is not necessary, know that my thoughts and prayers are with you, as I know yours are with me.
 

View larger images of front & back cover 
of the great spiritual / self development book You Have Chosen to Remember: A Journey from Perception to Knowledge, Peace of Mind and Joy by James Blanchard Cisneros.