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Dr. McGarey
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Healing
Let’s Take a Look
at Our Attitudes
by William A. McGarey, MD
Staff Physician, Ret., A.R.E. Clinic
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An attitude might be defined as a pose or a posture designed to indicate action, a feeling or a mood, such as for instance, a kindly attitude. It could indicate the direction one takes — a spiritual attitude, or perhaps a material attitude taken toward life. These imply action, also.
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I recall once sitting in a hotel lobby with a friend, and we were interrupted by an argument at the check-out counter of the lobby. A man’s loud voice and angry face pinpointed the disturbance, as he protested his hotel charges. My friend said, “Boy, he’s really got an attitude!” Well. I’m sure he did, but the nature of the attitude was assumed by both of us to be very negative — an attitude that leads only to turmoil inside the body.
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Then there was the sign I saw in a friend’s office. It read “Attitude is everything.” This man meant, of course, that by choosing the right attitude, you can do anything. Again we made assumptions about whether the attitude was positive — creative; or was it like the man at the hotel lobby check-out counter. Perhaps it might have been like this quote from Charles Swindoll — “The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude is more important than facts, money, failure, success, and what other people think or say or do. It will make or break a company, a church, or a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. We are in charge of Our Attitude.”
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Attitude is indeed learned. We choose our attitudes and implant them solidly in our unconscious mind as habits — just as real as the nose on our face, but tremendously more powerful. That attitude — good or bad — which becomes habitual in our activities day by day, can be nourished and made stronger by repetition, or it can be let go through inattention. We need to learn what our attitudes are and then use them to satisfy what our deeper desires really are. For our attitudes create or destroy, and we need to understand what we have chosen in the past and what we want in the present.
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Cayce indicated in his readings that God sees how we react in a variety of circumstances, and that gives Him a picture of how close or how distant we are in attunement with Him. Our reactions come from our unconscious mind, while our conscious mind uses our choices to formulate our actions. With our conscious mind we teach ourselves what our desires or our wants are, at the same time making those desires and wants stronger in our unconscious minds. Then, when there is no time to consider what we would best do, our unconscious mind reacts, totally out of the attitudes we have taught it in times past. The conscious acts, the unconscious reacts from its habit patterns. That simply is what we do, for good or evil. And that’s why we often say — “Well, that’s just the way I am.”
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When we are dealing with our attitudes, we should realize that we have — at some point in this lifetime — chosen a path to take, and thus have already taken the first step to make our attitudes consciously active in our daily lives. We are always moving in time, while we are on the earth plane, and our attitudes — as well as our emotions — shape and add design to our actions. This moment in time is always ended when the next moment in time comes about. Thus, the first moment becomes a part of the past, and the attitudes we have already chosen have altered our lives just to the extent we have been true to those attitudes.
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What direction, then, have we been guided by these reactions, these attitudes, throughout our lives? Most likely, we have been directed either in HIS way; or in “MY” way.
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We only have this present moment in which to live. The past is always unchangeable, and the future is still to a great degree unknown. In this instant — this moment — we may make a choice which alters our attitudes, and the end point or goal of the prior instant is forever changed. Because of the power of choice, the future is always at least clouded.
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In reading 715-2, a constructive mental attitude and a spiritual attitude believing that there is a purposefulness in all of the physical and mental activities brings about a life that is serving mankind — not one that is selfish. What happens then, is that the body and the mind are more in attunement with the Infinite, the God within, and healing is enhanced, no matter what the ailment might be.
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“Keep the mental body in a constructive manner. Let the spiritual attitude be that there is a purposefulness in all of the physical and mental activities, and those purposes not for self-aggrandizement of glorification, nor for preservation of body alone — but rather to the glory of the Creative Forces that are each individual’s heritage through the Christ power in the earth.” [715-2]
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We already know that the body itself is atomic in nature and thus subject to the material world. The mind and the spirit are active, of course, in either aiding or disturbing the physical/atomic body. If these two parts of our being are motivated by attitudes that are constructive, creative, then they become a positive factor in the process of healing.
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However, we must not forget that all substances are created by that Force we call God, and can do their part in the healing process:
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“While the body is made up of an atomic structure, with all of the pathological effects of a physical reaction, and the motivative force or the builder in such is mind which is set in motion, in inception in its forces, we find that it is added to by the attitudes maintained towards spiritual influences.
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“When a body becomes unbalanced through infectious forces or any forces that make for a pathological condition, while the mental and spiritual attitudes are a portion of those influences that may make for corrective measures, it is necessary at times — to create a normal balance — to add through the physical application those elements, those influences which may be lacking in a system for the proper coordination and a proper cooperative reaction in that coordination.” [1245-1]
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“Do keep the attitude creative. Know from what source all healing must come. For it is not of self, it is the practical use of elements of which the individual man is made and in which the constitution is lacking. These must be added. All power, all force is one source — the Creative Force of God. Without such there is little hope. In using these there is hope.” [4099-1]
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Attitudes might be thought of as the direction in which we have chosen to move. The most important fact about attitudes is that they are subject to revision. We can always redirect ourselves and move toward a Oneness with the Divine, whenever we find ourselves confused or lost. That’s when the power of choice serves us well.
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