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The Power of Words: Healing the Past in the Present
by Brenda Stockdale

Editor's Note from Barbara Lazarony: Be inspired and informed by Brenda Stockdale, Director of Mind/Body Medicine for RC Cancer Centers, as she shares more about the healing power of words.

A first-rate storyteller, Nicholas Hall, PhD, put himself through school wrestling alligators and milking rattlesnakes. While he doesn’t need a cheap trick to hold anybody’s attention he introduces his lectures by reading a steamy passage from Lady Chatterley’s Lover. He says it absolutely illustrates that the mind is connected to the body! 

Such is the power of words. Blood rushes to your face at something said in passing. Your mouth salivates at the thought of biting into a juicy lemon. An awe-inspiring story on a hot August day can give you chills. All compliments of your Limbic System—a magical part of the brain where sights, sounds and feelings are translated with lightning speed into a chemical reality that affects every cell, every nerve, and every fiber of your being. Even your genes take part in the conversation! 

But this is tricky business because the brain is a narrative organ and the stories we tell ourselves about our lives and who we are affect the very architecture of the brain itself and are potent immunologic and genetic modulators. In a watershed investigation by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control), the largest of its kind linking stress in early life with disease in adulthood, lead epidemiologist Robert Anda shared, “As the results began streaming in I watched as the leading causes of death changed right before my eyes…The magnitude of the relationships surprised even me... The children who were traumatized or suffered neglect or abuse while growing up were over one and a half times as likely as others to develop (serious illness) in adulthood.” 

While the impact of the study lies in its size and the strength of its findings, the beauty of it lies in its totally unexpected clinical significance. A company specializing in neural net analysis, and trying to move into the medical field offered, as a gift, 2-years of follow-up on 120,000 participants who had a comprehensive medical exam along with the ACE (Adverse Childhood Experience) questionnaire. What were the results? A 35% drop in doctor’s office visits, an 11% drop in emergency room visits, and a 3% drop in hospitalizations compared to the year before. I asked co-author Vincent Felitti what he believed accounted for such an extraordinary outcome. He replied, “That’s hard to answer definitely. But I can tell you what all of us associated with this work believe. We were asking, and people were telling us the worst secrets of their lives, and they were still accepted as human beings.”

A new story developed with new meaning and new physiological results. Such is the power of our narrative. Tuning into that story—writing and re-writing—moves us beyond the past, anchors us in the present, and redefines our future with physiological results. 

Consider this: In a Harvard research project elderly people exposed to fleeting messages linking positive qualities such as wisdom and experience to the aging process experienced an increase in strength and stamina equivalent to that of a 12-week exercise program! What are the words, then, that we use when we speak to ourselves? The words we choose to define our lives? Ann Sexton’s advice is especially salient here: Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard.  And if you don’t like what you hear, write a new verse, a new chapter, a new life.

About the Author

Brenda Stockdale is a national pioneer in the practical application of psychoneuroimmunology. Her programs are endorsed by leading specialists and have been implemented in hospitals, cancer centers and primary care practices. In addition to her private practice, Stockdale is also the Director of Mind/Body Medicine for RC Cancer Centers. Her recent book, You Can Beat the Odds, is acclaimed by Harvard scientists and physicians as “the health book to read this year” and “as a prescription, in and of itself, for maximizing one's health.” Brenda has been featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, NPR, and ABC radio, in Bottom Line Health, Good Housekeeping, and Oprah Magazine. For more information about Brenda, visit her website www.brendastockdale.com and to purchase her book, You Can Beat the Odds click here.