Centered In The Mind

Psychosomatic:  Pertaining to diseases, symptoms, etc. which have mental causes.

So does anyone ever project rainbows and sunshine or is the norm doom and gloom?  I've never heard anyone in a meeting say: "My rent was coming up and I was down to my last few dollars in my checking account, wondering if I would lose my place, when the weirdest thing started to happen in my mind: I kept imagining that I won the lottery and everything was OK.  I couldn't get this image of me winning the lottery out of my head.  It was in there for like two weeks.  Whenever a negative thought popped up it was overcome by this image of fame and fortune."

No, we're out on the street, dying a horrible death - a painful horrible death - alone, unloved, spiritually bereft.

This is how I work the scenarios . . . 

I'm getting older.  I'm going to see some decline unless I get hit by a bus which I do not plan to do.  I'm going to lose more and more people that I love - which is bad - unless I die first - which would be worse.

Or . . . 
I'm a healthy, vibrant man with a lot of interests.  I have a stiff back but other than that I'm healthy as a horse - no real injuries or diseases, no family history of scary diseases, no awful tests coming up.

Seems like a simple shift.  

A few years back I decided that maybe I suffered from Irritable Bowel Syndrome.  I was experiencing what I believe was a normal change in my bowel habits as I got older - talk to someone who is old about the subject of "shitting" if you don't believe that it's a very popular topic among those of us of a certain age - but I couldn't find any real terrible disease that I might have.  IBS is one of those conditions marked by numerous, nebulous symptoms so it's a very popular diagnosis among the Worrying Set.  I came across a reference to this syndrome in something I was reading lately and was stunned to find out that it cannot be attributed to anything organic in one's body; rather, that it's a syndrome that starts in one's mind.

That is: if you think you have it then you have it and the more you think about it the worse it becomes.  Quite the syndrome, IBS.

One of my many favorite Simpson's episodes includes a scene with a character - Selma, if you must know - who thinks she is having a heart attack, a worry that drives her to Google up symptoms.  Number one on the list?  "Think you're having a heart attack."  I understand this - if you're trying to drive eyeballs to your web site you don't want to start saying stuff like "ah, you're fine, just relax."