From "The Speed Trap"

Jerry is a very successful motivational speaker and business consultant. Now in his forties, he has spent the last twenty-odd years perfecting his skills and learning everything he could on self-help and success, including going to every positive thinking and motivational rally -- from Anthony Robbins's to Stephen Covey's. For the past ten years, he has also been an ardent student of the principles in this book. He has always considered himself "Mr. Positive Thinking" and is considered successful by most standards.

Last fall, Jerry began experiencing a serious health crisis that would ultimately change his life. He had suffered from ulcerative colitis for many years, but this bout really brought him down. Bed-ridden for several months, he became totally dependent on his wife. He couldn't even get back in bed or onto the couch without help.

Frightened about his condition, Jerry asked his family physician what he could do. His doctor said, "Jerry, unfortunately I don't see a very positive prognosis for you. People with your type-A personality don't really change, and I'm afraid as long as you stay the way you are, you will be prone to this disease. Your colon is reacting to the stress of your lifestyle, and you'll probably lose your colon someday or die from colon cancer."

Horrified and shocked by this dismal pronouncement, Jerry thought, Oh my God! What have I done to myself? How could I have let this happen? I know how to be happy and calm. I teach it to others better than almost anyone else. But I know it's true -- I've made myself sick with my own frenetic lifestyle and speeded-up pace.

As Jerry reflected further, he realized that for years his doctor had been telling him that his stress was the cause of his colitis and his bleeding gums, but he had always refused to believe it. In fact, he was always offended that his doctor would even make such a suggestion to "Mr. Positive." Suddenly, he realized that he must have been in big-time denial.

The Fork in the Road

As he lay in bed for months, however, Jerry's mind began to slow down and a new sense of calm began to set in. He shared with me what happened.

"After all that time in bed, my thinking caved in on me," he said. "I finally started to slow down. I liked the new pace of my life, though I didn't like all the pain that was forcing me to slow down. But I began to see that this illness was my wake-up call -- a blessing in disguise. Once I realized this, I vowed to make a calmer pace a priority in my life. A calm life would become every bit as important as success. As I lay there I began to think that I should do a 'Jerry Seinfeld' and bail out while I was at the peak of my career, rather than on the downturn.

"Once I was healthy enough to go back to work, I began turning down business and limiting my speeches to one and a half hours, but keeping my fee the same. To my surprise, no one complained and I actually had more business than before with a smaller percentage of the effort. Suddenly, I realized I could have success and a calmer life too. It dawned on me that my own beliefs had limited my success and forced me into a crazy lifestyle that was destroying my health. Now my only regret is that I didn't realize this ten years earlier."

In retrospect, Jerry realized that his stress had been invisible to him. He had disguised his stress as something positive -- he had called it passion, focus, intensity, all of the buzzwords of the motivational world. And he had fooled himself into believing that living with stress was necessary if he wanted to succeed.

"I had understood the concepts of mental well-being before," he explained to me, "but only on an intellectual level. It was the shock of being ill that cleared my head, and suddenly I got X-ray vision for the principles. I really started to truly understand them.

"Recently, I got a call from a customer who said, 'Jerry, I've got a deal for you that could make you a lot of money.' "I began to salivate like one of Pavlov's dogs, but then I realized that old familiar feeling. I started to get revved up, and my whole body got an adrenaline rush. Then I remembered what I learned about listening to my feelings and sensations as a signal, that this is my body trying to tell me that my thinking is getting speeded up. Sometimes I can see this is happening right away, and other times I can't. But if I don't see it immediately in my thinking, it will show up in my gut and my digestive system. That's when I realize that this is my signal to back off. Then I listen to myself and reflect on what to do rather than react out of habit.

"I also feel now like I‰´¡Â«Â¡ï¿¸Â«Â¡'m getting my conscience back. My mind was so busy that I didn‰´¡Â«Â¡ï¿¸Â«Â¡'t notice what other people around me were feeling -- or how I was impacting them. I was so caught up in feelings of worry or being bothered by others that I didn't feel much compassion for anyone. But now something registers in me that makes me want to reconcile with others, either right at that moment or shortly after the incident. Before, I would have either ignored my conscience or tried to justify my behavior in one way or another."

Another thing Jerry notices now is that in certain situations in which he used to become angry, upset, or judgmental, he feels compassion instead. Recently, he was on an airplane and told me about an experience he had.

"Normally I fly first class," he said, "but it was filled, so I had to sit in the back of the plane next to a man with his young daughter sitting on his lap. She cried all the way from the beginning to the end of the flight. Usually I would have demanded that the flight attendant trade seats with me, but this time my heart went out to the father. In the past I had an intellectual understanding of compassion, but I didn‰´¡Â«Â¡ï¿¸Â«Â¡'t actually experience it. But this time, the situation didn‰´¡Â«Â¡ï¿¸Â«Â¡'t bother me at all. The man was very apologetic, and all I could do was imagine how bad it was for him. This was really new for me."

The Principle in Practice

Since Jerry has broken out of the speed trap, he has found not only his conscience, but the deeper and more positive feelings that come with a quieter mind. He used to merely preach about mental health and what it was like to live in a state of well-being, but now he truly lives it and is reaping the benefits of his understanding.

There is much that we can we learn from Jerry's story in order to experience our own "health realization."Through his illness, Jerry's body was trying to point him back to his innate mental health, as it does for all of us. When our mind gets out of balance with worry, stress, anger, or any other negative emotion, it feels uncomfortable to us. If we ignore that discomfort for long periods of time, it becomes chronic -- and often turns into disease. If we treat the disease's symptoms but ignore the message it is giving us, it will persist, as did Jerry's ulcerative colitis. So much of disease is innocently self-created and self-perpetuated, simply because we fail to recognize that feelings and sensations are all signals about something being out of balanc -- our diet, our lifestyle, or our thinking.

Jerry was fortunate enough to recognize the basic principle that thought creates experience when his own wake-up call arrived.

Disease is the body's way of communicating to us that we are out of balance in some way. When we understand the principles of mental well-being, along with good nutrition and exercise, we are able to truly be an active participant in the prevention of illness. Unfortunately, most people are totally unaware of how to change their level of stress other than to cope with it or temporarily alleviate it. Armed with an understanding of the principles of mental well-being, you will be empowered to regain your full health, as did Jerry.

Listen to your body. It is often connected to your thoughts.

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