If you are struggling with mental or physical health problems, it’s easy to think you are somehow ‘broken’, or that healing is not possible for you. My clients tell me things like that all the time, for very understandable reasons. Let’s say you have been struggling with depression, on and off, for 30 years now. It’s entirely reasonable – logical, even – to think that you will have depression for the rest of your life.

You might also feel this way if you struggle with chronic pain, musculoskeletal issues, addiction, low self-esteem or any of the myriad mind-body problems that humans are vulnerable to developing. Again, I see this as eminently reasonable, because to believe otherwise requires a great deal of optimism and hope – both of which are in short supply if we have been in mental or physical pain for a long time.

But, as I often say to my clients struggling with depression, let me hold the hope. Because I am full of hope, confidence and optimism that you can heal, whatever you are dealing with right now. Why? Because I have spent many years working with people who are suffering and have seen them change, grow and heal in ways which surprised us both.

I have also studied many different therapy models and – in my previous life as a health journalist – interviewed some of the world’s leading scientists, researchers and medical professionals about all aspects of health, including illnesses like diabetes, cancer and heart disease, as well as cutting-edge treatments and strategies to optimise human health. All of this has left me brimming with hope, for the following reasons.

The miracle of being you

It is truly a miracle that you are even alive as you read this. For you to be you required four billion years of evolutionary twists and turns, any one of which could have gone slightly differently to mean there would be no you existing on this planet. (We could take that back even further, for the 13.8 billion years of deep time since the Big Bang, but I don’t want to make your head hurt too much!).

And for you to be exactly you meant that just one out of millions of your father’s sperm had to meet exactly the right egg in your mother’s womb. And you had to grow, from that miraculous moment on, cells multiplying as you went from the simplest possible organism to the person who can read blog posts, and drive cars, and walk in the park, and see the achingly beautiful world in which we all live.

And how can you read this post or drive that car? Because, in your skull, is the most complex object in the known universe. A brain. And your brain is made up of around 86 billion neurons (nerve cells), with each neuron connected to up to 10,000 other neurons, meaning there are 1,000 trillion synapses (connections between cells) in your brain.

And for you to think, or see, or just be alive, day to day, information must flow between those billions of neurons in the form of electrical impulses, which get fired from one neuron to another via neurotransmitters like serotonin or dopamine. All of this happens, completely outside your control or conscious awareness, every second of every minute of every day of your life.

Tell me that isn’t a miracle.

How the brain and body heal

Enough science, already, I hear you clamour (I love this stuff but it drives my wife nuts when I go on about it over breakfast, so I know I’m a bit of a health/science nerd! Apologies). OK, what does all of this mean for you. Well, all that remarkable neural architecture is not only what makes you, you – it’s also why we can heal from trauma, or neglect, or 30 years of depression.

Because the way those cells are wired up is in no way fixed or set. Your brain is not like a lump of marble, sculpted and fixed forever in the same shape and configuration. It’s more like wet clay, which can be moulded and shaped by experience – which it is, every second of your life. This rewireable ability is called ‘neuroplasticity’, which I have often written and taught about, because it’s such a wonderful thing.

It means your brain can change and heal, whatever painful experiences you have had and painful memories it therefore holds. You can think, feel and behave differently – this is not just hopeful or wishful thinking, it is a science fact backed up by decades of neuroscientific research.

So whenever you are feeling down, or stuck, or hopeless, try to hold these ideas in your mind. Because there is always hope. And I will do everything in my power – with posts like these, my webinars, workshops and guided meditations – to help you on your healing journey.

Sending you love and warm thoughts,

Dan