The power of the placebo effect is in its ability to shift my mind from patterns of thought related to sickness to patterns of thought related healing.
When I release my mind from suffering, my body follows.
Since mind is cause and world is effect, since my body is quite literally brought about by my mind, a shift in belief will quite naturally bring about a shift in the expression of belief I call my body.
When I think I am well, I am well. What other data do I have?
For example:
If I stood at the mirror and looked at my body, two arms, two legs, standing on my own, upright and a doctor came in and said, “I have some bad news: you’ve lost your legs,” I’d just have to laugh. He could show me charts and numbers, he could cite his experience, he could go to work trying to convince me of my own faulty perception, but if I look in the mirror and see legs, if I feel myself standing on them, if I slap them with my hands and feel them there, if I crouch and push off and leave the ground, if I do a couple of deep knee bends and find that they work, I would have to conclude that the doctor is out to lunch.
Everyone in the world could agree with him, but if I have no internal evidence of having lost them, it would be the height of insanity to agree that they’re gone. If I believe I have legs, I just ...do. If I believe I am well, I am well.
The same goes for sickness. If I stand at the mirror and I look pale and my eyes look sunken and my shoulders slumped. If I feel nauseous and weak and my joints ache, and the doctor comes in and says, “Great news! You’re as fit as a fiddle!” (This used to happen to me all the time) I’d just have to cry. He could show me charts and numbers, he could cite his experience, he could go to work trying to convince me of my own faulty perception, but if I feel like I’m going to throw up, if my ribs cry out in pain at every movement, if I see my pale, gaunt face in the mirror, I would have to conclude that the doctor is out to lunch.
Everyone in the world could agree with him, but if I have no internal evidence of being fit, it would be the height of insanity to agree that I am fit. If I believe I ache, I just ...do. If I believe I am sick, I am sick.
I go to sleep at night and for at least some part of the night, I fall into a dreamless sleep. No awareness. Just lost time. What happens to my sickness? Am I sick in those moments? Where is my pain when I have no awareness of it?
When I wake up in the morning, there is a fleeting moment where all is right. And then I remember myself, and I remember the stressful situation I left behind last night and then I move and I feel something in my side. “Pain,” my mind says. “Nausea.” and I’m back in my sickness.
No belief… No sickness.
Belief in my sickness… Sickness.
This is why a doctor can give me a tic-tac, tell me its a magic cure and my real symptoms recede the next day. And why a doctor can give me actual medicine and I don’t get better. If I believe I am getting better, I am. Literally. If I think I’m staying sick, I am. Literally. Because it all occurs in what I’m thinking and believing.
This doesn’t mean I won’t die one day because my body stops working. It just means I don’t have to spend a single moment sick before (or even while) that happens.
So how do I come to heal from sickness without kidding myself?
I open my mind to the possibility of my wellness.
Then I go in search of evidence of the truth that I am, in fact, well.
Kidding myself won’t work. If I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it and I will just stay sick.
There are infinite ways to look. The way that works best for me is Inquiry because it’s simple and it works through my own wisdom, not through faith in someone else’s.
When I believe in my wellness, I instantly become well (at least, for as long as I believe it…which may only be a fleeting moment at first).
As I work with belief, I get better at being better, for longer.
After a while:
I lose my ability to believe in my sickness at all.