This article was first published on these APN regional news websites: Toowoomba Chronicle, Bundaberg NewsMail, the Northern Star and Fraser Coast Chronicle.

A friend related how an acquaintance was in hospital recently, suffering from a life-threatening illness. Things were looking pretty grim and it seemed that he was hanging on by a thread. Then his heart stopped and he ceased breathing. At that moment, the medical staff on duty in that area of the hospital noticed that he was passing on and began to congregate around his bed …. not rushing to him with defibrillator or drip, but unexpectedly telling jokes, laughing and talking loudly and animatedly about everyday things. They continued by his bedside including everyone in the ward in the jovial conversation until he began to regain consciousness. When he later asked the fellow in the next bed what had happened, he related the incident. The man made a full recovery.

What had happened? Did the nurses and doctors know that their happy and caring presence was more effective than apparatus or medication?

Something similar is at play when a teacher disregards the ‘label’ attached to the child and responds with love and recognition of that child’s higher nature and abilities, bringing a turnaround in attitude at school. Or when a brick wall tumbles down between two people who haven’t spoken to each other for years as one reaches out with forgiveness.

You might well ask if there could be a rule or principle in place governing the outcomes.

Many believe that the reasons for such changes for the better spring from dropping a negative viewpoint and trusting our instinct to be warm, kind and caring despite appearances.

While some of us are still getting over the influx of visitors, festivities and sun-soaked holidays, in the back of our minds is the niggling thought that the New Year is squarely upon us and now would be the time to make that New Year’s resolution. Some are choosing to eat healthier and exercise more. That certainly can make us feel better.

But for a really life-changing resolution, take time and trust your instinct to be kind and to care more for others. It can heal all manner of mental and physical problems in both ourselves and others. It can change our world.

In her newly released book, Mind Over Medicine. Scientific Proof You Can Heal Yourself, Dr Lissa Rankin explains that the concept that you can heal yourself is really a misnomer. For her, the most essential part of any health treatment is the nurturing care of the healthcare provider.

She explains in her TEDx talk that for over 50 years the medical establishment have been proving that a mind filled with peace and happiness and love can heal the body. A database compiled by the Institute of Noetic Sciences holds 3,500 case studies in the medical literature of patients who got better from seemingly incurable illnesses like HIV, cancer and heart disease without the use of drugs and often only through the faith placed in a placebo.

Delving deeper into these and other results, it’s becoming clearer that along with a patient’s faith in the medical practitioner, it is often the loving care for their patients and their altruistic administration of treatment that forwards healing, not the drugs themselves.

Rankin also strongly pointed out that doctors’ negative pronouncements or impersonal attitude can have dire effects on patients, just as their positive predictions can have the opposite effect. Most teachers and parents soon discover the detrimental effects of their sometimes negative views and behaviour towards their charges.

I’ve never thought of it this way before when reading the Bible, but did Jesus mean in his parable that the warm and loving care that the good Samaritan showed had as much to do with the healing and restitution of the traveller who was set upon by thieves, as the bandages, oil and wine provided?

It’s interesting to note what an important researcher into consciousness and health, Mary Baker Eddy, discovered in her investigations and successful treatments through prayer that “Whatever holds human thought in line with unselfed love, receives directly the divine power” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p.192).

I think this has implications for us all! It’s an explanation, a principle, that’s food for thought. In my experience, many carers know this instinctively.

I hope your year takes wings. Seems it’s sure to do so as we choose to trust our instinct to see a positive principle in place (some like me would call that principle God or the divine), and actively and warmly care for others.