H – Higher Power Help
Why consider higher power help?
Because symptoms of grief and trauma can be so varied and overwhelming, some form of prayer, meditation, or ritual that calls upon a higher power, a “larger force,” or God can aid in healing. Numerous research studies linking prayer and meditation with overall wellness have been conducted, including Dr. Andrew Newberg’s How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist. Newberg’s findings conclude that “Spiritual practices, even when stripped of religious beliefs, enhance the neural functioning of the brain in ways that improve physical and emotional health” and “intense, long-term contemplation of God and other spiritual values appears to permanently change the structure of those parts of the brain that control our moods.”
How does higher power help promote healing?
• By reducing levels of stress
• By decreasing blood pressure and heart rate
• By slowing rate of breath and inducing a sense of calmness
• By strengthening the immune system
Resources
Audio and CD
- Soul Meditations by Medium Fleur and Derek McCarty
- Transforming Trauma: A Seven-Step Process for Spiritual Healing by Caroline Myss and James Finley
- Prayer May Reshape Your Brain … And Your Reality (NPR)
Websites
- House of Healing – Christian based healing
Books
- A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows through Loss by Jerry Sittser
- A Grief Workbook for Skeptics: Surviving Loss without Religion by Carole Fiore
- After This: When Life Is Over, Where Do We Go? by Claire Bidwell Smith
- On Life after Death by Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
- Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife by Dr. Eben Alexander
- Talking to Heaven: A Medium’s Message of Life after Death by James Van Praagh
- When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Rabbi Harold Kushner
- Invisible Heroes: Survivors of Trauma and How They Heal (Belleruth Naparstek, 2004)
- God, Buddah, Jesus all by Deepak Chopra
