Golf_ The Mind Game - Marlin M. Mackenzie [58]
Knee Surgery
Here’s a personal testimony. In the early 1970s I had surgery on my left knee for a torn ligament. Ten years later I had severe pain and limited movement in my right knee. The orthopedic surgeon who had diagnosed and assisted in the left-knee surgery told me the same problem existed in my right knee. He prescribed surgery identical to the previous procedure.
I told him I wanted to use visualization to heal my knee before I underwent any surgery. I asked him to fully describe what had to happen for my knee to heal naturally. Although he was extremely skeptical, he told me what would have to happen inside the knee capsule. I left his office and he wished me success.
I created a metaphorical movie to parallel the healing and watched it in my mind daily for a couple of weeks and then once a week for several months. It is now seven years later and I no longer have pain. I had no surgery, and I’m as active as I was before my right knee acted up. I attribute this to my healing movie.
Below is a description of a simple visualization method of mental healing that I have developed and used successfully with scores of athletes; it doesn’t always work. It’s based primarily on Carl Simonton’s work. You, too, can use it as a supplement to the treatment and medication prescribed by your physician. It consists of the following steps:
META SKILLS HEALING
Consult your physician and ask him to give you a complete and accurate description, in mechanical and chemical terms, of what must happen in your body to bring it back to normal, including the effects of medication on the healing processes. Make sure that you understand exactly what that process is by restating to your doctor in your own words his or her description. When the doctor verifies your layman’s description, it becomes the basis for creating your own mental-healing movie.
Create a movie that metaphorically represents the mechanical and chemical processes of healing. (For example, a balloon deflating could represent reduction in swelling; a weaver working on a loom could signify the rejoining of torn tissue.)
“Run” your movie several times a day. Include a segment in the movie that portrays yourself as gradually healing, regaining energy, and becoming physically active again.
After successful healing, praise yourself for the work you’ve done.
If your condition doesn’t improve following a week or so of visualization, then the process you’ve been using may need to be continued for several more weeks, or it may need to be changed. The ineffectiveness of your metaphorical movie could be the result of incomplete medical knowledge, since physicians are not always totally sure of exactly how medications work or precisely how the body heals. Therefore the movie may not represent the recovery process accurately. It’s also likely that your movie may not match the doctor’s description.
In any case your unconscious mind will indicate where the movie is inaccurate by distorted images, muffled sounds, and uncomfortable feelings as you watch. Corrections, based on more knowledge from your doctor and better interpretation of that knowledge on your part, can be made in the movie at the places where you experience distorted sensory information.
If your health status has not improved after changing the movie and watching it for several more weeks, then it makes sense to abandon the process and maybe see another doctor.
What you do with your mind off the golf course, without a club in your hand, is equally as important as applying metaskills techniques on the course to improve your swing and lower your handicap. So let’s move to the 19th hole, where we can discuss a few things: what your outcomes and expectations might be, which metaskills techniques are most appropriate for getting what you want in golf, and making sure that you don’t play mind games that keep