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Choose life and love, otherwise you will get sick
Many of us try to find some peace of mind amongst all the everyday things we have do, such as fetching kids from day care, our jobs, cooking, friends and leisure timeÉ What can we do to feel good in spite of all the demands and stress? The controversial medical doctor, Bengt Stern, who once practiced at Skärholmen, has a challenging formula: Meet your fear and pain!
Sure, it can be nice to relax by taking a brisk walk, listening to pleasant music or to soak in a hot bubble bath. But if that was enough there wouldn’t be so many people going around feeling bad, getting sick and dying far too early.
“Most illnesses are psychosomatic, whether it is migraine, heart attack or cancer. Stress diminishes our immune defence, contributes to our becoming ill and is often related to painful memories from our early childhood. Becoming ill should be a warning to us that we must now begin to take responsibility for our own lives.”
This volley of fire comes from Bengt Stern, doctor and therapist with a former practice in Skärholmen. Today Bengt runs the Mullingstorp Health Centre, which lies close to the sea several miles from Norrköping. Advanced courses in self-knowledge, called Meet YourSelf courses are offered here.
Bengt is convinced that our health is linked to our lifestyle. This is based on both his own personal experience and his experiences as a therapist.
His own life has truly not been a bed of roses. As a child, his mother suffered from depression and died of breast cancer when he was only four years old. His father was constantly away, his childhood was characterised by loneliness, bullying, performance anxiety, and at times poor school marks. Between the ages of 28 and 38, he was totally knocked out by the abuse of sleeping pills. In March 1994, he was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer.
Not necessary to die
“I pictured myself wasting away and dying far too young. But already the next day I realised that it was not necessary to die. Instead, I chose to take responsibility for my illness and my recovery and thereby came into contact with my energy”, says Bengt Stern.
There are a few special events which have changed Bengt’s view of life and what is necessary for us to feel good. In 1977, he was working as a traditional medical practitioner in Skärholmen. A patient proposed that he take part in a weekend workshop led by a man educated at an American institute inspired by the New-Age Movement.
On the Friday evening when Bengt Stern first met the other participants, he felt left out. The other men in the group were younger, more handsome and probably more intelligent, he thought. Moreover, he was the only one in the group who was overweight. The women in the group were all very attractive. All this convinced him that none of these people would be interested in pairing up with him for group work.
The course leader shared his knowledge and newly won abilities with each and every person in the group. When it was Bengt’s turn he pointed to a large rug. Would he allow himself to be rolled up in the rug? Bengt thought he had nothing to lose so he agreed. When he was rolled up the course leader asked the male participants to sit on the rug. Bengt was unable to get out and his panic grew as he fought violently to get out - but it was impossible. He realised he was going to die in there, stopped fighting and gave up. Everything went still.
Pleasure and peace of mind
But he didn’t die in there. The group let him out and he lay on the floor exhausted gasping for breath. Strangely enough, all sorrow, irritation and feeling of inferiority and being bullied were gone. Instead, he felt pleasure and a great peace of mind swept over him. Quite simply his suffering had disappeared by being stuck fast in a rolled up rug!
Afterwards, Bengt understood that the dramatic improvement of his mental well-being occurred at the very moment his panic and fear of death culminated. He could no longer handle the situation but was forced to let go of his intellectual control. Obviously some sort of release and healing take place when a person moves outside of his intellect.
After the workshop, he decided to find out more about this remarkable healing phenomenon. Intuitively, he realised that this could be the key to improved mental and physical health for himself as well as for others. As a doctor, he began to incorporate psychology and psychotherapy into his everyday work.
Some years later, he had the opportunity to try out his “rug miracle” on another person. He was in Bombay at a big congress. Amongst the participants, there was a married couple from Sydney. The husband was a big, strong, self-confident stockbroker; the wife was tall, slender and fragile with an unhealthy look. The stockbroker was in the habit of buying antiques whenever he came across them and the wife followed him like a good dog on a leash.
In Katmandu one of the congress participants came running into Bengt’s hotel room and shouted “Bring your bag and come, she’s dying!” Without his bag and not knowing who was dying, he followed the man out. Down the corridor, people were gathered around a woman lying on the floor. It was the stockbroker’s wife.
The woman was suffering such a serious asthma attack that she was at risk of suffocating. Her face was already blue from lack of oxygen, her eyes staring and pupils enlarged. Bengt figured that she had only a few minutes to live and he, the only doctor present, must do something. Without any medicine he remembered one thing he could do, namely the “rug miracle” he himself had experienced previously.
He folded the woman’s legs over her stomach and shoulders. Then he lay down on top of her legs to show her how blocked her energies were. He looked deeply into her eyes and said “You have got two alternatives, you either accept your rage or you die. There isn’t NO third alternative”.
Only a few seconds later she started sucking in air through the corner of her mouth. After that, she wailed like a newborn baby. The wail was a mixture of fear, rage and despair, which pierced the very marrow of everybody around her. Then the recently dying woman lay totally exhausted on the floor all traces of asthma gone and her colour back to normal.
This phenomenum in Katmandu proved to Bengt that the deep healing he experienced from his own “rug miracle” was no chance happening, but was something which could be used again. The release of intellectual control had, once again, miraculously improved a person’s health.
At Mullingstorp, under Bengt Stern’s guidance, the original “rug miracle” has now developed into advanced exercises around birth and death.
“I guess its hard to believe what I am saying,” he says. “You don’t really have to believe. It is better to try it out yourself.”
Body and soul one unit
“Traditional western medicine is going to get hopelessly left behind in this new century if it does not learn to treat body and soul as a unit and combine medical treatment with self-knowledge”, continues Bengt.
A child learns early on what is “right and wrong”. But if the child is not allowed to express all his feelings he will turn this energy back on himself which in turn creates a feeling of guilt. His guilty conscience hides unreleased rage and fear. This can mean being betrayed, abandoned or having the feeling of being unloved when little.
A child cannot emotionally protect himself from these painful experiences but as soon as his intellect begins to develop it is used to strengthen his defences against pain. One good example is a child with an alcoholic father who protects his father by lying to his friends about his alcoholism.
Later in life, one is unconsciously guided by the struggle to suppress these unpleasant and painful memories from early childhood. The risk is that all the energy and stress used by the intellect to keep these memories away, will cause a blocking of life energy, weaken the immune system and make one more vulnerable to serious illnesses.
As long as one avoids facing up to those memories and daring to meet fear and pain, the same destructive pattern tends to repeat itself over and over again until one understands that something must be done about it. Not until then can a person be liberated and come in contact with his inner strength and thus become an independent individual.
Life for many is a constant escape through work, power, control, alcohol, resignation and tyranny.
“Unfortunately it seems as if we have to suffer before we are ready to undergo any change” says Bengt Stern.
“Do you mean that if we happen to get a serious illness, for example cancer, that this is our own fault?
“I don’t mean that we should feel guilty, but on the other hand we are essentially part of what is happening to us and our health. We must be ready to take responsibility for how we feel and how we live. My motto is “Mastery and the courage to stand up for one’s beliefs”. By this I mean that you should add that little bit extra to your life and stand up for what is true and what you believe in. An aware person is guided by love and not by fear. He wants to understand why he doesn’t feel good or is sick. He poses important questions like “Why am I unwell?” “What can I learn from this?” and “How can I help myself?”
“Will your view of health be listened to in the future?”
“Well, yes, healthcare based on advanced self-knowledge, body cleansing and bioresonance therapy will, in ten years time, dominate a large proportion of traditional medical treatment. Why take strong and dangerous medicines if one can, instead, produce the same effect by non-dangerous electro-magnetic vibrations?”
Bengt Stern says that his cancer came as a relief to him. It came with a crystal clear message that he needed to change his life. Since then he has worked with many of the things around him which he can influence and which can affect his health. This means a plain vegetarian diet, ceasing to drink coffee, black tea or alcohol. He exercises every day, walks or cycles and sees that he sleeps enough. In addition to this, he can measure and get rid of energy blockings in the body by bioresonance therapy at Mullingstorp Health Centre.
Those factors which most affect his inner stress he works with by meditating and by participating in different training programmes and body therapy.
“I can truly say, today, that my cancer is no longer going to shorten my life or to limit it in any way,” says Bengt in conclusion.
(This article is based on Bengt Stern’s book “Feeling Bad is a Good Start”.)
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