Radical Well-being: A Biblical Guide to Overcoming Pain, Illness, and Addictions

by Rita M. Hancock

What’s blocking you from experiencing total wellness?

Research increasingly shows a strong connection between our spiritual life, our emotions, and our physical well being. Yet too often our physical conditions are treated without taking our whole lives into account.  In  Radical Well-being , Dr. Rita Hancock shows you how your mind, body, and spirit are connected and addresses the factors that can contribute, and even cause, illness, addictions, and chronic pain.

 

If you suffer from medical conditions like fibromyalgia, migraine headaches, neck or back pain, irritable bowel syndrome, jaw pain, food and drug allergies, depression, anxiety, or unwanted behaviors such as overeating, an eating disorder, overspending, drug abuse or alcoholism, Radical Well-being will show you a biblical, whole-body approach to overcoming your condition. With nearly twenty years of experience counseling patients from a balanced, mind/body/Holy Spirit perspective, Dr. Rita gives you practical nuts-and-bolts advice, including how

 

·           Identify the lies that are manipulating you from a subconscious level

·           Deal with emotional factors that can make your pain seem worse

·           Address addictive behaviors that you want to get rid of

·           Fully accept God's love and forgiveness on a deep, healing level

 
True freedom and improved health come when deeply-rooted lies are illuminated and replaced with knowledge from the merciful heart of God. Radical Well-being will help you feel better in all three domains--in your mind, body, and in your spirit. You will end up feeling the way one of Dr. Rita's patients put "Like the weight of a skyscraper has been lifted off my shoulders."

 

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 8, 2013

Reviews

[Kathleen E. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Monday, January 7, 2013
Radical Well-Being: A biblical guide to overcoming pain, illness, & addictions by Rita Hancock, MD, ©2013

Do you want Christian medical help to overcome depression, anxiety, fibromyalgia, migraines, neck and back pain, IBS, TMJ, or compulsive behaviors like overeating or taking drugs or alcohol?

About The Book
If you suffer from chronic pain conditions like fibromyalgia, migraine headaches, neck or back pain, or if you have irritable bowel syndrome, jaw pain, food and drug allergies, or even mental health issues like depression, anxiety, or unwanted behaviors such as overeating, an eating disorder, overspending, drug abuse or alcoholism, Radical Well-Being may be the right book for you. This is especially true if you desire an overtly Christian or biblical approach to solving your problem.

Achieve the radical well-being God wants you to have in mind, body, and spirit.

With nearly fifteen years experience counseling patients from a balanced, mind/body/Holy Spirit perspective, Dr. Rita gives you practical nuts-and-bolts advice, including how to:

* identify the lies that are manipulating you from a subconscious level, e.g. "I'm worthless," "It's my fault," "I'm stupid," "I'm bad," "I'm ugly," "I'm dirty," "I'm damaged goods," etc.
* fully receive biblical truth to replace those lies
* heal the emotional factors that can make your pain and unwanted behaviors seem worse
* overcome addictive behaviors like overeating, taking drugs or alcohol, over-shopping, etc.
* overcome depression, anxiety, and anger issues that threaten your relationships
* fully accept God's love and forgiveness on a deep, healing level

Activate spiritual and genetic potential to become healthier, stronger, happier, sharper, and better.

My Review

Before I go on, let me clarify what this book is about. Even though my personal battle was with obesity, this isn't just a weight-loss book. This is a total health book. I tell you not only how to triumph over obesity but also how to triumph over chronic pain, stress-induced illness, depression, anxiety, anger, drug and alcohol abuse, and other types of physical, spiritual, and emotional bondage. --Dr. Rita Hancock, MD, Introduction, xiv

Dr. Rita Hancock, MD, has brought an office visit for good health to your door: correcting the underlying thoughts and beliefs that have led you to where you are.

"Behold, You desire truth in the inner being;
make me therefore to know wisdom in my inmost heart."
--Psalm 51:6, Amplified Bible

Beyond one visit, Radical Well-Being will bring information and education in five areas:

Part One: "You're No Good" ~*~ bad old lies and what they do to you (3 chapters)
Part Two: The Whole You ~*~ connecting mind, body, and spirit (3 chapters)
Part Three: The Spiritual You ~*~ seeing through God's eyes (3 chapters)
Part Four: Take Captive Every Thought ~*~ how right thinking leads to right actions (9 chapters)
Part Five: Hope in Your Future ~*~ biblical steps to healing and health (5 chapters)

Each chapter closes with an Action Point: Questions to Ask God in Prayer

~*~ There is application that goes beyond reading. ~*~

Disclaimer:
People and names in this book are composites created by the author from her experiences as a medical doctor. Names and details of their stories have been changed.
Dr Rita's book is not to take the place of professional expertise in person for you.

I would say that Dr. Rita's book will lead you to the healing you need. God's truth and love win.

"For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland."
--Isaiah 43:19, Holy Bible, New Living Translation

About Dr. Rita
Dr. Rita is a graduate of Cornell University and is a board-certified Physical Medicine specialist with subspecialty board certification in Pain Management, and is fully licensed to counsel her patients regarding emotional issues. She has been in full-time practice for fifteen years. In addition, she serves as the Oklahoma delegate in the House of Representatives of the Christian Medical And Dental Association and is their official spokesperson on matters of diet and nutrition. Dr. Rita is an avid blogger on three blogs, one of which was recognized as being a top writer's blog by Publisher's Weekly. She is also a regular columnist on matters of faith and health for Life:Beautiful Magazine and is the author of a Christian-based diet book, The Eden Diet (Zondervan, 2008, www.TheEdenDiet.com). She appears as a regular guest on Moody radio's This Is The Day and periodically on Trinity Broadcasting Television's Doctor to Doctor as an expert on health matters. Dr. Rita has been married for nearly twenty years and has two teenage children.

*Thank you to Dr. Rita for sending me an advance reading copy to review in my own words.*

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

…A biblical guide to overcoming pain, illness, & addictions (by-line from the from cover)

This is truly a biblical guide. “Your answers start with your submitting your mind to God.” (from the introduction, page xix) “Before you read the list, please pray”. (from chapter one, page 5) There are numerous exhortations to pray and involve God in your healing. In fact, more than half of the book is devoted to exploring the spiritual aspects of disease and healing.

Being a coach, I love asking questions, and asking questions of God. Because of this, I greatly loved the “Questions to Ask God in Prayer” points at the end of almost every chapter. They were wonderful and if you are someone who has a little trouble hearing God (or think you do) she has tips to help with that on page 9 of chapter one.

Being a medical doctor, the author includes a lot of medical advice but she is open to other modalities of healing, especially prayer and inner healing. Being trained in inner healing myself, I thought this was fantastic. It is rare to find a medical doctor so open to the spiritual.

She includes several client composite stories that I found insightful. For most readers you will find yourself to some degree in at least one of these stories. Between the medical stories and further exploring the spiritual side of healing, the author explores such issues as emotional eating, stress, believing lies, the need for forgiveness and more.

Some other gems are:

prayers for emotional healing
scripture for self-talk and meditation
the author’s acronym for BUSY as Being Under Satan’s Yoke
the discrepancy between heart and head belief explained and remedied (p. 85-86)
the emotional eating quote by Dr. Marleen Williams, “It’s not the food you want. It’s how the food makes you feel.”
and one of my personal pet peeves…an index IS included

On the medical side, I should note that the author favors OMM (osteopathic manual medicine). That’s because that is what she is trained in so that is to be expected. Every reader needs to seek God for themselves as to which modalities, medical or otherwise, they need to be exploring to further their own wellness.

If you are interested in finding a truly Christian book that explores both the medical side of sickness and healing and the spiritual side of the same, do yourself a favor and buy yourself a copy of this book.



Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the author herself. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commision’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Title: RADICAL WELL-BEING: A Biblical Guide to Overcoming Pain, Illness, & Addictions
Author: Rita Hancock, MD
Publisher: Siloam
January 2013
ISBN: 978-1-41236-000-1
Genre: Healthy living


What’s blocking you from experiencing total wellness?

Research shows a strong connection between our spiritual life, our emotions, and our physical well being. Yet usually our physical conditions are treated without taking our whole lives into account. In Radical Well-being, Dr. Rita Hancock shows you how your mind, body, and spirit are connected and addresses the factors that can contribute to, and even cause, illness, addictions, and chronic pain.

If you suffer from medical conditions like fibromyalgia, migraine headaches, neck or back pain, irritable bowel syndrome, jaw pain, food and drug allergies, depression, anxiety, or unwanted behaviors such as overeating, an eating disorder, overspending, drug abuse or alcoholism, Radical Well-being will show you a biblical, whole-body approach to overcoming your condition. With nearly twenty years of experience counseling patients from a balanced, mind/body/Holy Spirit perspective, Dr. Rita gives you practical advice, including how to:

· Identify the lies that are manipulating you from a subconscious level
· Deal with emotional factors that can make your pain seem worse
· Address addictive behaviors that you want to get rid of
· Fully accept God's love and forgiveness on a deep, healing level

True freedom and improved health come when deeply-rooted lies are illuminated and replaced with knowledge from the merciful heart of God. Radical Well-being will help you feel better in your mind, body, and spirit. You will end up feeling the way one of Dr. Rita's patients put it: "Like the weight of a skyscraper has been lifted off my shoulders." (from the back cover)

RADICAL WELL-BEING is written in a friendly style, as if Dr. Rita is sitting across her office desk from you, holding a conversation. The book is divided up into five parts:

< “You’re No Good” (identifying lies and what the do to you
< The Whole You—connecting mind, body, and spirit
< The Spiritual You—seeing through God’s eyes
< Take Captive Every Thought—How right thinking leads to right actions
< Hope in Your Future—Biblical steps to healing and health

Combining personal stories with biblical truths and medical advice, Dr. Rita will encourage you to start taking the steps today to improve your whole health. Recommended for those struggling with illnesses (ranging across the board), pain, and additions. $16.99. 288 pages.

[Jan Dunlap · Rating 5 out of 5]

In her new book "Radical Well-being: A Biblical guide to overcoming pain, illness & addictions," Dr. Rita Hancock offers readers clear information about the ways that medical science, psychology, osteopathic medicine, and Christian faith work together to bring authentic and practical healing into the lives of those who hurt. Easy to read and understand, tinged with humor and humility, "Radical Well-being" can help every reader improve the quality of his or her life and move toward realizing God’s own desire for our good health and happiness.

The holistic health movement has been around for quite a while, but with this book, Dr. Hancock demonstrates the practical applications of mind-body-spirit healing with examples drawn from her own clinic’s fourteen years of operation. A board-certified physical medicine and rehabilitation physician with a subspecialty in pain management, Dr. Hancock also knows personally whereof she writes, having found relief for her own pain issues through a creative melding of faith and science. While she acknowledges that faith alone may not completely heal every physical ill, she offers proof that incorporating faith into physical healing yields healthier, happier patients. Her insight into the ways our bodies and spirits intertwine makes so much sense to me that I wish she were my own physician!

As an anxiety sufferer myself, I found familiar strategies for healing in the book’s sections that deal with positive self-talk, affirmations, and releasing what we can’t control to God. Dr. Hancock’s emphasis on identifying the lies we have (often unknowingly) incorporated into our lives, however, was especially illuminating for me, and her strategies for replacing these lies with God’s truth found in Scripture were clear and direct. Since none of us are perfect, as Dr. Hancock repeatedly notes, everyone can only benefit from reading this book which urges each of us to uncover the lies in our lives, give and receive forgiveness, and claim our identities as healthy, beloved children of God.

I'm so glad I read it just before the New Year, too, because I'm definitely working a lot of what I learned from it into my New Year's resolutions to start the year fresh. But don't wait for the next New Year to read it, because you can begin to feel healthier and happier now!

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is one that can really help a Christian who is dealing with chronic pain, illness and addictions (it doesn’t have to be just alcohol or drugs, but maybe it’s food or maybe it’s caffeine) but this book is meant to help bring about healing in a Biblical way. At first I thought the author was going to assume that all of our troubles stemmed from some sort of wrong (whether to or by us) in our lives, but she did admit that not everyone’s illness or pain or addiction is the result of trauma and some have a physical issue. She uses stories of her patients to give credence to what she says in her book and it makes the book less lecture like and more personable – and easy to read.



There were a couple areas, where I thought, ‘this is getting weird’ and one of those is when the author talks of a vision she had where “fetus Rita” is talking to her and God wants Rita to look at her fetus self. I acknowledge that God gives us visions, some are given the gift of prophecy and I’m not doubting the author’s vision but it seemed, well weird to me, the reader to be part of something so personal. She also discloses a bit about her attempted and failed VBAC in which she also adds a side note that states it’s a procedure that is rarely done because it’s known to be bad. I’ve had 2VBA1C and while there are risks, as with everything, and I’m sorry she experience what she did, that doesn’t and shouldn’t rule out VBACs across the board or assume they are “bad”. Keep in mind she is a traditionally trained doctor with training and certification in pain management so as in all medical field there are going to be widely varying opinions on such things as what procedures are bad and what foods are good.



There is a lot in the book that many, even I can find helpful as long as everything is weighed against Scripture – such as the “Let God speak to Your Imagination” chapter to ensure that it’s good and true and pure. I can attest to the healing powers of Christ when I’ve been prayed over by my daughter during a migraine attack. I know the Lord can speak to us through His Word and His Spirit and I’m all for laying on of the hands prayer for healing as well. Like everything Christians take in on a daily basis it should be filtered through Scripture and prayer.

**Special thanks to Althea for sending me a review copy.

[Debbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Radical Well-Being A biblical guide to overcoming pain, Illness & addictions" by Rita Hancock MD gets 5 stars from me. Are you ready to put on behavior that leads to better health? Are you ready to set your mind on Scripture and positivity? These two sentences are direct quotes from the book. And if your answer is yes to these two questions then read this book. I usually pass on the books I read to others but I am keeping this one. I have done alot of underlinning so that I can use the things Dr. Hancock has said to help me overcome my emotional eating. I really believe if you follow her guidelines it will help you overcome the stress and the pain and illness that comes from hidden sins,generational curses and emotional baggage. The stress talked about in the book are physical,emotional, spiritual ways of your family heritage, fear, depression, believing lies about yourself and perfectionism and unforgiveness. In her practice Dr Hancock uses OMM, which she explains fully in the book but she also uses prayer and helps you discover which of the stresses are causing you pain after she rules out that there is not a physical problem, after doing all the normal xrays and tests. In this book she tells of patients and their problems and what God and she and the patients have done to help and gives useful tools to realize this healing ourselves. She also advices us to seek Professional help in areas that are just too painful to deal with on our own. She also includes specifics prayers to pray and Scriptures for self talk and emotional healing and even gives websites where you can get more help from the professionals. I believe everyone that reads this books will gain at least one or two and probably many more tools to help them live a more healthy and less painful life. I am going to end this review with a direct quote from the book again " Neither God nor I promised you'd be perfected at any stage of the game in your physical body. But if you follow the principles in this book, you ought to feel less stress. more peace, and less physical pain along the way as you see greater and greater levels of Spirit-led healing." This book was given to by the author for an honest review.
Her website is Www.RadicalWell-being.com
Her diet book website is WWW.The EdenDiet.Com

[Anne Campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

A couple of months back, I volunteered to review a book by renowned author, physician, professor, and licensed mental health counselor, Rita Hancock, MD. To my surprise, she accepted my offer sent me a copy of her book. I began reading it immediately, reading a chapter or two a day.

I'll be honest. When I first began reading, I wasn't too sure about this doctor's approach to healing. Connecting the spiritual, physical, and mental to achieve healing of, say, migraine headaches seemed optimistic and simplistic.

I was raised to believe doctors were the answer--they knew everything about the body and how to heal it. I looked on doctors with almost hero worship.

Years later I became a Christian, and I found out firsthand that sometimes God heals supernaturally with no help from doctors. Again, hero worship, this time of One who deserved worship.


However, it never occurred to me to connect abuse as a child with migraine headaches. In this case Dr. Hancock made a believer of me. She takes this book through cure after documented cure to demonstrate her points; the more I read, the more I nodded in agreement. I think if you read her book, you will concur. I give this book and this author a four-and-a-half thumbs up. (Don't ask where I got the extra thumbs...)


Radical Well-Being, a Biblical Guide to Overcoming Pain, Illness, and Addictions released yesterday (December 8) at Amazon and Barnes and Nobel; it can be preordered for March 19 from Christian Book Distributors.

[Teri Lynne Underwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent book for those of us who believe our physical well-being is inextricably linked to our spiritual well-being. Dr. Hancock presents a well-researched and well-supported case for a biblical view of living well. Each chapter ends with "Action Points," prayer prompts to help the reader in the journal toward healing.

My favorite section of the book was Part 4: Taking Captive Every Thought: How Right Thinking Leads to Right Actions. In this section, Dr. Hancock deals with issues such as comparison, fear, perfectionism, and difficult family relationships to show how spiritual issues have a real impact on our physical issues.

I appreciated her use of Scripture to establish God's desire for healing in our lives—in all areas. I found this book to be immensely practical and would highly recommend it to anyone who desires to understand the connection between our spiritual health and our physical health.

{I received a free copy of this book for the purposes of review. I was not, however, required to offer a positive review. The opinions shared are mine based on reading the material.}

[Tracy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full disclosure: I received a free book for this review.
This book is written by a doctor who specializes in pain management. She shares how children tend to misunderstand things which produce lies in their thinking that stays with them for years. In Cognitive therapy and Rational Emotive therapy, this is a strong part of the assumptions that is made and taught to clients. So, this premise has strong support within the mental health community. She takes this idea a step further and shows that God can help us to see these lies and help us see the truth. God's truth can help us heal from these lies.
I enjoyed the author's humor and her examples of patients that she has treated for pain. I am now curious to learn more about inner healing due to reading this book.

[Kalyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really really like the concept in this book. Even though I sort of knew that emotional stress could create physical problems, I never really thought about it like Dr. Rita explains in her book.

However, I encountered some doctrinal issues that make me very unlikely to recommend this book to others. Dr. Rita goes in depth with two, how do I say, interesting visions, and later in the book, dives into the subject of physical healings through touch.

[Diana · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was intriguing at first. Midway through it lost me for many reasons. I finished it but was not pleased with the overall pace of the author. Will not be looking for any other books on Hancock MD.

[Haelie · Rating 4 out of 5]

See my review here:

http://tonotdecideistodecide.blogspot...