Think about this: after you’ve eaten, you digest the food, right? So how do you digest and assimilate what you eat and then eliminate the waste without ever knowing how it works?

The answer is. . . you don’t have to know because the work is done by an intelligence that lives within you. Call it what you want—nature, instinct or higher awareness—this "inner intelligence" is found in every living creature on earth. It’s there now, working below your consciousness, directing bodily functions without you paying any attention to it. But what’s really interesting is that your inner intelligence pays close attention to you.

Your I.I. responds to your thoughts and emotions, and for better or worse, you’re communicating with it all the time. Here’s an example: studies show that stress disrupts the normal function of the digestive system. Stress is a mental condition; mental and emotional stressors cause physical symptoms like loss of appetite and ravenous eating binges. Stress also impairs the proper absorbsion and uptake of nutrients, and causes a host of irregularities with elimination and excretion of waste from the body. Tolerance for everyday stress is a key indicator for balance and proper function of the mechanisms at work in our bodies.

Your body’s inner intelligence is a mysterious and beautiful companion, constantly guiding you in the direction of health and wellness. If you cut your finger, you can watch as it seals the wound back together over time. It’s ever vigilant, always at work in you and through you regardless of the medical treatments you take.

Now open yourself to a larger and richer idea. Think of healing as a form of higher consciousness, an aspect of your inner beauty that literally watches over you with intention and benevolence. It’s the spirit that directs an incredibly complex and delicate balance of the physical and subtle energy systems in your body that maintain intricate relationships with each other and work together for the greater good of the whole organism—you.

I’ve found it’s helpful to think of this not in terms of science, but as a philosophy. Philosophy means the love and pursuit of wisdom. This wisdom brings an awareness of unconditional self-love, an inner power that protects you and wants you always to be well.

I know it can be difficult or controversial for some to think of healing this way. Many people don’t buy the idea of a "higher consciousness" or a meaningful connection between mind and body. This may be due to the fact that western medicine takes a purely scientific approach to healthcare.

For centuries, medical schools taught their students that the mind had little or no effect at all on the body, and that something as nebulous as "stress" couldn’t possibly alter the complex functions of anatomy and chemistry at work in a human being. Medical professionals have admitted they just didn’t see how on earth it could be that simple. Today, many are redefining their practices to include mind-body and other alternative models, recognizing the significance of these strategies.

When we speak of inner beauty and healing, we’re talking about things that can’t be accurately quantified by scientific control groups and empirical data. Statistics are uncertain and variable; medical practitioners are at best only able to state the odds for healing from an ill condition. If you’re given good chances for success, you feel better, more confident, with a strong expectation for a happy outcome. That positive attitude makes a big difference to your inner intelligence; it takes your thoughts and feelings and works them out to their logical conclusions in the body.

When you’re willing to incorporate the linear left-brain sciences of modern medicine with the right-brain functions of attitude, art and imagery, you’ll achieve success above and beyond the baseline of either alone. This is work we must do for ourselves but unfortunately, most people aren’t aware of it. Some people cannot entertain these beliefs at all, even when their lives may depend on it.

It may surprise you to learn that healing is a concept rarely discussed in allopathic medical schools. These schools expand the citadels of medical research and education by discovering new and amazing technologies which support their professions. They’re focused on the physical sciences that govern matter and molecules, the tissues they can observe with the tools of technology. They discover ways to interact with the body, and they translate their findings into methods of treatment.

Healing on the other hand, is what you do. You own the healing energy free and clear; the doctor doesn’t prescribe it and nobody can sell it to you. The power of healing is with you now and it will never leave until you die. Cut the finger on a cadaver and the wound won’t sew itself back together because the healing essence has "left the building" along with the life force within him.

This means that the healing essence in living tissue is linked to the source of life within us. It has never been conclusively defined by modern science or agreed upon by the world’s cultures and religions. The essence that does the healing in our bodies hasn’t been seen under a microscope. That’s why evidence-based mechanical medicine doesn’t focus on it directly.

You came to life equipped with a healing power, the province of an inner intelligence that supervises, repairs, operates and builds your body from the ground up. What’s more, it ever endeavors to keep your body moving toward optimal health and wellness, even when your behavior or the environment gets in the way.

I find it especially intriguing that we don’t need to know how it works to tell it what we want it to do. You’ve got an instinctive inner intelligence that already knows what it needs to, operating in every one of the trillions of cells in your body. Your objective is to communicate positive and meaningful messages to it. There are many ways to do this, and fundamental among them is a shift in attitude.

Let go of the limiting beliefs that no longer serve you and replace them with a bigger picture of who you really are. You are much more than you think, even more than you can think. Your body is a universe in itself, made of galaxies of atoms, elements and systems—and mind is the radiating nucleus around which it revolves. Expand your definition and awareness of inner beauty to include the benevolent healing essence within you. You’ll look and feel better, empower your self-image, and bring lasting health and happiness to the coming years of your life.