Some people carry their maladaptive reactions to extremes, and may spend the entire next week crying the blues, telling everyone they meet of their misfortune. This is an escape mechanism the unconscious uses to enlist the sympathy, friendship, and attention of others for secondary gain, but it intensifies incoherency. How much more rational it is, in light of this fact, to be aware that other options exist, and say, concerning your injury, "Oh, yes, I bruised my toe yesterday, but it's nothing significant. In fact, it seems to be getting better already." How much more sensible this is than saying, '1 really smashed my foot yesterday!" In fact, if you tell many people about it, then you are actually benefiting from the disease-it gives you something to talk about. You wouldn't tell other people if the telling didn't give you some kind of pleasure. If you do, your unconscious may figure that the injury is valuable (because it gives you some pleasure) and actually retard the healing or see to it that other injuries occur!

Probably the most effective thing to do during the days following an injury is to experience deep relaxation and healing imagery several times a day. This will serve to mobilize the body's proper responses. (See cassette #16, "Healing Journey," Appendix p. 288.)

The results of this approach are well demonstrated by the woman who, following delivery, walks comfortably back to her room in spite of the fresh sutures in the vaginal area; the man who recovers from complicated surgery without needing pain medication; and the emergency room patient who, with minimal anesthesia used, experiences rapid healing, with no infection, after having a laceration sutured.

The method is simple. First allow your mind to become totally quiet, and then begin to bring in the pertinent part of your body on the screen in your mind. As * comes in more and more clearly, you'll notice that you can feel the disease and experience it, in fact, you'll see that the disease is dimming the image. As you let the image grow in intensity, begin to illuminate this part of your body with health and let the unhealthy shadow fade away. As you do this, you will tend to restore a coherent neural flow to this part of the body, allowing it to respond at maximum speed and capacity.

I have had the opportunity to personally use this approach on a number of occasions. Once I contracted a severe case of laryngitis. I was scheduled to speak on a radio show that night, and so I listened to a tape of a self-healing process a few hours before going to the radio station, envisioning myself speaking to the audience with my normal voice. I found, as the radio show began, my laryngitis cleared up completely, and stayed clear for the remainder of the show. Then, as soon as the show concluded, my hoarseness returned. This tendency for the body to interpret images in a literal fashion is an important one to remember (in my image I had pictured myself speaking normally on the radio).

On another occasion I was injured playing basketball and was hardly able to walk. I knew that I had a hematoma (internal bleeding into the tissue) in one of my muscles, and had learned from previous experiences that it generally takes several weeks before this problem disappears. I used the "Coherency" healing imagery twice over the next twelve hours to limit any damage and to begin the restoration of normal neural impulse flow. I found that the following day my leg felt the way it usually feels after a week, and within several days it was completely better. Many others have had similar results with this method.