We Become What We Think: A Positive Mindset Can Positively Affect Health

The following is adapted from Julie Shaw’s book, “Hello, Nausea. How Are You Today? How Yoga Helped Me Through Cancer” 

I was milling around a hallway at the Boston Sheraton, waiting to go into a class at a Yoga Journal conference in 2001. A soft-spoken woman and I began chatting, and within minutes—as women do—she felt comfortable enough to say, “Yoga got me through breast cancer.” She said she woke up and did her practice every day, no matter what. I could picture the routine she described—on her yoga mat, early in the morning, still dark outside, the light from her TV flickering in her living room as she followed a yoga video.

Fast forward 18 years. Now that’s me. Now I’m a person who can say, “Yoga got me through breast cancer.” 

I already had an established yoga practice when I was diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma Stage 2a in August 2019. I had practiced yoga for over thirty years and was certified in yoga therapy. But after the cancer diagnosis, I can’t overstate how essential my daily yoga practice became. It helped calm my nerves, exercise my body, restore my energy, and keep my heart and soul moving in the right direction. 

Heading into treatment, I wanted to stay as positive as possible, down to the words I was using and the thoughts I was thinking. A few years earlier, I had worked on a clinical team delivering a cardiac health program, developed by Dr. Dean Ornish.1 My role was to teach the participants how to use yoga techniques to reduce their stress levels. One of the key techniques we taught was positive imagery. This was the trickiest part of my job, because even though we provided clinical research showing that positive imagery and visualization are correlated with improved health and longer life, many of the participants just couldn’t buy into “imagining” themselves to health. 2  

When I became a cancer patient, I leaned into positive imagery. Psychologists and neuroscientists studying neuroplasticity have shown that repeated patterns of mental activity actually change the brain’s structure and function. In other words, you become what you think. Neuroscientist Richard Davidson’s research showed that meditation can alter patterns of activity in the brain to strengthen optimism and a sense of well-being.3 Bottom line: If you consciously practice a positive mind-set, your brain physically changes to reflect that positivity, affecting how your entire body functions. Conversely, a negative mindset creates negative effects on your health.4

It wasn’t just science I was listening to, though. The ancient wisdom of yoga had been saying the same thing for over 2,000 years. The Yoga Sutra of Patañjali, written around 400 CE, begins with this profound insight:

• Yoga is the ability to direct and focus mental activity.
• With that focused mind, we gain the ability to see what is most profound and important within us.
• Otherwise, when the mind wanders aimlessly, we identify ourselves with those aimless wanderings.5

Patañjali understood that “you become what you think.” He recognized that our true inner self is something much deeper than our busy, often negative minds. Importantly, until we understand this, we continue to mistake our busy minds for our inner being, and we miss out on a fundamental opportunity for the true happiness and well-being that comes from abiding in our true nature. Whether through the lens of modern neuropsychology or ancient yoga, the message is the same—the conscious choices we make about our mindset matters.

Yoga offers several techniques for putting the “power of positive thinking” into action. I reached out to a friend and colleague, Ellen, to help me create a positive imagery practice. She listened to the images and concepts that resonated with me, then wove them together into a meditation, offering back my own “healing medicine.” One of my favorite parts was, “Let your awareness settle into this pastel-filled heart, allowing and inviting your ancestors and angels to visit, to be with you, to accompany you, in whatever way is just right for you.” That image came directly from my imagination, which is exactly what made it so powerful and meaningful.

Here’s what I learned about depression during cancer treatment: serious illness, and often the treatment required, erodes our physical strength as well as our endurance and motivation to keep doing the things that help us stay mentally strong. It becomes an enormous effort to keep a positive mindset. Having a tool like this positive imagery meditation was invaluable. It consistently reminded me to choose positive thinking and gave me a reliable way to reconnect with something deeper than my worried or depressed thoughts. I saw it as “banking” the good energy I would need not only for the months of treatment ahead, but for the rest of my life. 

You don’t have to have cancer or any illness to benefit from a positive imagery practice. Life brings ups and downs for all of us. Doing what we can to face challenges head-on reinforces our inner strength. 

Below is a sample positive imagery meditation. You can follow along with the attached recording, or record yourself or a friend reading the script. Adapt any words or concepts to make them more meaningful to you. 

Relax and allow yourself to be present in the moment. Let thoughts like, “Isn’t this just me telling myself what I want to hear?” fade away. Trust your capacity to tap into your inner self. I know that might sound “squishy” or corny. How do I tap into my inner self? All I can do is try to explain by describing what I experienced: it was a sense of having a boundless well of existence or “being-ness” inside me, and then it was as if I was that existence itself. See what I mean? It’s hard to describe! But it’s available for you to experience. I wish you health and happiness. 

Positive Imagery Meditation

Instructions to the script reader:

• Read slowly and thoughtfully in your normal voice; the practice below will take 20–30 minutes.
• Instructions in italics are directions to the reader and are not to be read aloud.

Script:

1. Please lie down. Get comfortable. Cover up to stay warm if you like. (Pause; allow time for listener to get settled.)
2. Take a few long, smooth breaths. Let your whole body relax. (Pause; allow time for listener to relax.)
3. Continue to breathe slowly and smoothly as we do a relaxation exercise. (Pause between each instruction below.)
4. Bring your attention to your right foot.
5. Inhale and flex the ankle. Hold it. Feel the tension.
6. Exhale and relax the foot.
7. Bring your attention to your right leg.
8. Inhale and tighten all the muscles of the leg. Hold it. Feel the tension.
9. Exhale and relax the leg. (Continue, slowly, in the same manner; progressing as follows: left foot; left leg; buttocks; right hand; right arm; left hand; left arm; shoulders; facial muscles.)
10. Bring to mind an image, a place, or an idea that is nourishing to you. Picture it in as much detail as possible, noticing color, textures, smells, sounds, light, and sensations.

1. Focus on how your nourishing image is benefitting you. Take time to immerse yourself in this imagery. (Pause to allow time for visualizing and focusing.)

1. Tune into how your body feels as you visualize your nourishing image. Immerse yourself in that feeling. (Pause to allow time for feeling.)

1. Recognize that you have the capacity to create a positive mental state as you go through treatments or recover from an illness or navigate a difficult situation. Recall that a positive mindset has a positive impact on the brain and on well-being.  Rest in that knowledge. (Pause to allow time for resting.)

1. Prepare to emerge from your relaxation. Slowly deepen your breath. Feel vital energy returning to your limbs, to your lungs and heart, to your brain. Keep your focus inward and gently rotate your wrists and ankles. Roll to your side and carefully push yourself to sitting. Gently open your eyes to conclude your practice.

1. You may want to jot a few notes in a journal to reflect on your experience.

Notes:

1 “Ornish Lifestyle Medicine,” accessed November 2024, http://ornish.com/

2 David Bresler, “Physiological Consequences of Guided Imagery,” Pract Pain Manag, 2005;5(6), https://www.medcentral.com/pain/chronic/physiological-consequences-guided-imagery.

Diane Serra et al., “Outcomes of guided imagery in patients receiving radiation therapy for breast cancer,” Clin J Oncol Nurs., Dec;16(6) (2012): 617-23, doi: 10.1188/12.CJON.617-623. PMID: 23178354.

3 Richard Davidson and Sharon Begley, The Emotional Life of Your Brain (Plume, imprint of Penguin Books, 2013).

4 “Dr. Rick Hanson,” accessed November 2024, https://rickhanson.net.

5 Ranju Roy and David Charlton, Embodying the Yoga Sutra (Weiser Books, 2019), 14-29.

 

Julie Shaw, C-IAYT, M.Ed., has practiced and taught yoga for more than 35 years.

She is the program coordinator and lead faculty for American Viniyoga Institute’s clinical yoga therapist training program.

As a yoga therapist in medical and private settings, Julie has worked with clients over a broad range of health conditions.

She teaches public yoga classes and therapy-based yoga to cancer patients and survivors.

She is the author of “Hello, Nausea. How Are You Today? How Yoga Helped Me Through Cancer,” a memoir/guidebook based on her experiences during breast cancer treatment.

Purchase Julie’s book HERE