4. So plastic flowers are real after all… are they?
Good to know (yet not a recent finding) for all asthmatic patients: you can seemingly get an asthmatic attack through contact with a plastic flower or even distilled nebulized water (*). It may surprise you at first, but this is extremely good news, since it means that the relation between allergen (the thing you react to) and your reaction itself is not without intermediate. We should have known of course. There’s a person in between: you. So also there’s always a possible solution somewhere between, if you only know how to use this you.
◊◊◊
This of course also says something about all of us. We are all asthmatic. ‘Ich bin ein Asthmatieker.’ So are you. We all have an immune system that can start to react to flowers, plastic ones or others. Think of this next time you pass a flower shop. Think of this next time, OK, whenever you may buy some flowers for your partner (recommended, unless of course…).
◊◊◊
In the present age of increasing asthma, especially in children, we may look at this growth as a warning. Apparently this warning is getting stronger and stronger. Asthma may be telling us that we should take better care of ourselves as total beings. We do have an inner mind that needs to be looked after. It needs attention just as our body needs physical exercise, just as our teeth need brushing and our stomach needs food.
◊◊◊
As our lungs are in need of air, our total beings are in need of ‘inner air’. The ancient Greeks used to call both ‘pneuma’. Apparently they knew what they were talking about. Asthma may be an effort to keep the ‘pneuma’ inside. Don’t let it go! Don’t let it leave you unless you are very certain that you will get it back.
◊◊◊
Pneuma. ‘Inner air’. Say: presence of nature, good art, religious feelings, meditation, autosuggestion. Or, put in a negative way: not being addicted to superciality itself.
◊◊◊
Listen to the asthmatic message
or the world may turn completely plastic.
◊◊◊
(*) Butler C; Steptoe A Placebo responses: an experimental study of psychophysiological processes in asthmatic volunteers British Journal of Clinical Psychology. 1986(25) P 173-83
◊◊◊
Related Posts
Self-Tolerance in Body and Mind with Focus on the Immune
The 2025 Nobel Prize in Medicine honors the discovery of how our immune system learns not to attack the self. This is a reflection of something deeply human — the art of living peacefully with oneself. Just as the body needs self-tolerance to stay healthy, the mind needs inner harmony to remain whole and balanced. Read the full article…
Are Non-Specific Factors Specific?
Non-specific factors in therapy are ‘non-specific’ to instrumental therapies. What if these factors are instrumentalized? Please read first: [see: “Non-Specific Factors of Therapy“] “If we can delineate them, they are specific.” Logically, if you can conceptualize the non-specific factors, you are building a new kind of psychotherapy based on these factors. You can put the Read the full article…
‘Being Certain’ (or Not) in Mind-Related Medicine
Physicians, including me during years of practice, experience many moments of ‘feeling sure’ about a diagnosis or the underlying cause of a disease. But how sure should we be when we feel certain? Especially in mind-related medicine, the answer may surprise us. The overconfidence trap Overconfidence is not unique to medicine. It is a cognitive Read the full article…