The Power of Affirmation

Today marks a departure from discussion of musical topics, but in my next post I plan to examine the study methods employed by the pianist Walter Gieseking, which I think everyone will find an interesting approach to learning not only music, but other skills as well. Today I wanted to share a personal story that I thought would offer much to ponder. Generally I try to avoid blog posts that focus on myself or my own family--we can save those for Christmas letters--but in this case I felt the following story would give all of us something to ponder. It is a spiritual story, and is posted, fittingly I hope, at the close of the Jewish sabbath.

Lately I have been reading a lot about the power of affirmations--short, positive phrases repeated over and over, like a mantra. It is perhaps a New Age notion, but such writers as Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich) emphasized their usefulness in the 1930's as an enhancement of personal faith in ourselves and our beliefs, and, also, I feel the teachings of biblical Christianity encourage personal affirmation as a sign of faith. I have read and heard of some remarkable stories of seeming miracles that have been attributed to the power of affirmations and their ability to uplift our thinking.

This week my younger daughter Ellie (Ariella) went in to have all four wisdom teeth extracted, just as her sister Marisa had done last year. She was given general anesthesia, and the whole procedure went quickly and easily. In no time I was driving her to our favorite ice cream shop for something soft afterwards.

When I checked on Ellie later in the day, she complained that the anesthesia had worn off and the pain medication was simply not working. She said she was in intense pain, but didn't want me to contact the oral surgeon. She tried to go to sleep, but the throbbing pain was too great. As a parent, naturally I was distraught.

I was scheduled to go on an early even bicycle ride with a friend. On my way to the bike trail, I began repeating over and over, "Ellie is fine, Ellie is fine...." It was like a chanted prayer in my head. After about ten minutes I got the strangest feeling that Ellie really was fine, but I was afraid to trust my intuition at that point. I then called a couple of friends who told me they thought Ellie's prescribed pain medication dosage was way too low and that I should contact the surgeon or the pharmacist. At that point I called Ellie's mother, Joanne, to tell her I thought we should do that. When I called, Joanne told me that Ellie was "fine"! All this happened within a span of probably no more than twenty minutes after I had left her side. As nearly as I can tell, Ellie's pain vanished right around the time I felt the intuitive message that all was well.

OK, I know what you're probably thinking: this is anecdotal, unscientific--and will it work for bigger issues? Could the pain medication simply have kicked in after a certain time? You'll have to draw your own conclusions. But I find the timing of the whole affair very interesting. We all know that thoughts have power; this incident helped me realize just how powerful thoughts are indeed. I began thinking that maybe sometimes we need to clean up our thinking just as we sometimes need to clean up our homes and offices.

Next post--back to music!

Thanks,
Gary