10 Myths About Self-Healing Debunked

by Lissa Rankin MD -

Positive psychology and New Age ideas about health and healing have flooded the internet and bookstore shelves in recent years.

As a doctor who wrote a science-based book about the physiology of the body’s natural healing process, it strikes me that some of what’s out there is giving the idea that the body can heal itself a bad rap.

Why do I say that?

Well, there’s a lot of pseudo-science and quasi-psychology masquerading as real data, when people are hungry for truth.

Here’s some help debunking popular myths that may confuse what’s real.

1. It’s “just the placebo effect.”

Just the placebo effect? Why do people say “placebo” as if it’s a four-letter word? Don’t they understand that the placebo effect is proof positive that the body is brilliantly equipped with natural self-repair mechanisms that can fix broken proteins, kill cancer cells, fight infectious agents, and retard aging?

Don’t they realize that even if a clinical trial fails to demonstrate that a drug or surgery or alternative medicine treatment is better than a placebo, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t “work” when 18-80% of the time, the body heals itself when given a sugar pill or saline injection in a clinical trial. And that’s GREAT NEWS!

The placebo effect needs a major image overhaul. I suggest we call it the “self-healing effect” to remind ourselves that it’s just a measurable phenomena related to the body’s known self-repair mechanisms.

2. The placebo effect is all in your mind.

While thoughts, beliefs, and feelings originating in the mind can activate placebo-like “self-healing effects” in the body, the placebo effect doesn’t just make people feel better; it effects measurable outcomes in the body’s physiology.

When patients are treated with sugar pills, saline injections, and fake surgeries, warts disappear. Colons become less inflamed. Bronchi dilate. Bald men even grow hair.

It’s not just in your mind. It’s in your body.

3. Placebo effects only happen to gullible people.

Nope. All of us are susceptible to placebo effects. In fact, some studies suggest that people with higher IQ’s may be even more susceptible than average.

The only ones who seem to be relatively immune to placebo effects are those with Alzheimer’s.

4. You can heal yourself.

To say you can heal yourself is kind of a misnomer. As I elucidate in great detail in Chapter 3 of  Mind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof That You Can Heal Yourself, the data suggests that your body can heal itself but it does so much more effectively when the process is facilitated by the right kinds of healers who support the body’s self-healing process.

These may include doctors and nurses, but they may also include therapists, acupuncturists, energy healers, naturopaths, shamans, and many other modalities of healing practitioners.

A combination of positive belief on the part of your provider and nurturing care that leaves your amygdala feeling calm and safe has been scientifically proven to improve health outcomes.

5. Doctors don’t use placebos in clinical practice.

Psych! Approximately 50% of doctors admit to using placebos in clinical practice, usually without the patient’s consent. They’re not trying to be sneaky. Those who do this are just trying to help. (For example, when a patient has maxed out her pain medication and will be at risk if she gets more, a doctor may inject saline into her IV and tell her it’s morphine. Very often, she gets relief.)

It’s not always a sugar pill or a saline injection. Sometimes, instead, it’s a drug known to be ineffective for the condition being treated or a vitamin proven not to work.

It’s an ethical dilemma for doctors, and many are conflicted about their choices, but if you think it doesn’t happen in medical offices,think again.

6. If you can’t heal yourself, you’ve done something wrong.

No! No! No! While thoughts, beliefs, and feelings that originate in the mind can trigger stress responses in the body that deactivate the body’s natural self-healing processes, predisposing the body to illness, the presence of illness does not mean that you’ve been a bad patient with bad thoughts and you deserve a cosmic spanking.

There’s  no place for blame, shame, or guilt  when it comes to the healing process. Such thoughts only trigger more stress responses.

As Dr. Christiane Northrup says,

“We are responsible  to our illness, not for our illness.” 

Instead of blaming yourself, try asking yourself,

• “Is there a lesson I might learn from my health condition?” or 
• “If my illness had a message to deliver me, what would it tell me?”

If the answer to both questions is “Nada,” cool beans.

Even if your health condition has something to teach you, it doesn’t mean you’ve done anything wrong. It means you’re doing something very right by allowing illness to be an opportunity for awakening.

7. Healing yourself is all quantum physics.

I’m studying energy medicine and what I’m learning fascinates me. But I think there’s a tendency to try to explain everything with science, when perhaps some things are better explained in spiritual terms.

These days it seems like everyone and her mother is referencing quantum physics as the explanation for things some may find hard to believe or understand.

Perhaps we need to cultivate our tolerance for ambiguity, rather than trying to couch what we don’t fully understand in pseudo-scientific language that just gets the scientists up in arms.

In other words, if you’re gonna quote science, make sure you get it right. Don’t throw scientific language around if you’re not really sure what you’re talking about.

8. All illness results from past life karma.

I’m learning all about past lives after recently meeting psychiatrist  Dr. Brian Weiss, author of  Many Lives, Many Masters, with whom I had the privilege of experiencing a past life regression when we were both speaking at Hay House’s I Can Do It! conference in Atlanta. (Read about my past life regression here).

I’m not dissing past lives or suggesting that we can’t learn a lot about how we’re behaving in this life by looking at the arc of our soul’s journey in past ones.

Whether past life regressions illuminate real past lives or are metaphors for what our soul is here to learn in this one, I think they can be profoundly healing to body, mind, and soul.

But to suggest that all illnesses are the result of bad karma we inherit from things we did “wrong” in past lives strikes me as off base. It sounds too much like blame, and if you’re an 8 year old who has leukemia or you just got hit by a semi and are now paralyzed, the last thing you need to hear is that past life karma is striking you down in this life.

9. Illnesses that resolve without medical treatment are the result of miracles and magic.

While I’m not denying the presence of Divine intervention and miracles (I believe!), and while I’m certainly open to the possibility of magic, the body’s ability to heal itself can be explained with pure physiology.

The people in the medical literature who experience spontaneous remissions from seemingly “incurable” illnesses aren’t just lucky. Instead of learning helplessness and sitting back passively, feeling like victims, many of them chose to be proactive about increasing their odds of spontaneous remission. (Read here to learn the 6 behaviors people who experience spontaneous remission from Stage 4 cancer have in common).

Mind Over Medicine  explains in great detail the physiology of how such behaviors influence the amygdala in your brain, which affects hormones in your blood stream, and affects every cell in your body. While magic may exist, when the mind is optimally healthy, the body may follow.

10. It’s all about cure.

Yes, when we’re sick, it’s natural to focus on how much relief we’d feel if only the disease would vaporize completely.

But what if there’s a deeper sense of peace we can access when we let go of the need to control outcomes and instead, surrender to what is, while simultaneously doing everything within our power to make our bodies ripe for cure?

Kris Carr  and I will be appearing together on a DVD that we’re filming this week as part of a public television special about  Mind Over Medicine.

In preparation for our interview, I asked her how she handles the fact that she’s done everything “right” on her healing journey, but she still has Stage 4 cancer. Kris eloquently told me that she long ago relinquished the attachment to cure, choosing instead to define success as thriving, with or without cancer. Within such surrender, true healing lies.

lissarankin.com

 healhealthcarenow.com

wakeup-world.com

Creating the Future

by James Clair Lewis -

Causality and Gravitation:

The future is a wavefront of potentiality. It is very maleable. Nothing is entirely fixed because people are constantly making decisions. 

To understand the process, you first have to look at it from an individual standpoint and then at a collective standpoint.

The two laws which have the most to do with the Cascade are Causality and Gravitation. 

Causality 

Our actions and inactions are Causal, generating Karma. You may deal with your Karma at any point along the Cascade.  

If you deal with your Karma on the higher planes, then that Karma is dealt with and cannot manifest on the Physical plane.  

If you don't deal with your Karma on the higher planes, then the Cascade will bring it to the Physical, where it will smack you in the face... really hard. 

Gravitation 

Gravitation draws conditions into your midst that match what is going on inside your head. Turmoil inside yourself, will be reflected as turmoil around you.  

Tranquility within yourself, will be reflected as tranquility around you. When you keep a clear head, solutions to problems will make themselves known to you. If you don't keep a clear head then you will drown in muddy waters.

That is how it works on an individual basis. 

Some people have thought that by pointing out this aspect of total personal responsibility, that I blame victims for what happens to them. 

What I am actually doing is explaining certain processes so that you can stop being a victim of circumstances.

These processes work on a collective basis as well as a personal basis. 

We sort of inherit some Karma from all of the people to which we are attached and the fact is that we are all in this together. 

There is a vast network of mutual influence going on. What people believe on a mass scale, sets the pattern and the context for what comes about. 

Both action and inaction are extremely significant. Humanity might run itself off a cliff into the ocean, like over-populated lemmings OR people may decide to work together to actually establish civilization on Earth. The human race has a tremendous track record of blundering its way into and then out of, total disaster.

So you may be wondering which way it will all go. Let me point out the curve of statistical probability. 

Every possibility of how we might relate to events, will be tried by somebody. Some strategies will work out much better than others. 

Did you know that the vast majority of human beings, (as represented by the large bulge in the probability curve) are primarily interested in living their lives basicly in peace with their neighbors? 

That is an important fact that you must never forget. Thinking of people as ignorant sheep, makes it more difficult for them to behave differently.

We need some Courage here. 

We need faith in ourselves, that we can figure out solutions to problems otherwise we won't figure them out, even though they do exist. 

We need faith in other people because that empowers people to work together and implement solutions. Humanity desires life and we can make that happen. Think of this not as a choice but as a duty. Now let's get on with it.

jamesclairlewis.com

The Master of Karma

by John Gregor - 

PURIFICATION:

To really understand purification you need to understand Karma first. Karma is like doing something because we did something else. 

You can pretty much get to the root of your Karma if you keep asking yourself “why you are doing that?” and following it back.

In any case, eventually you will come back to sensation which is where all action, thought and impulse comes from. 

This is the Karma regenerator – it’s what keeps churning out those programs, reactions and instincts.

Ever wonder why you are having such a good life? Karma.

Ever wonder why you are having such a bad life? Karma.

Ever wonder why you never think about these things at all? Karma.

Ever wonder why you have ethics or values? Karma.

There’s no getting away from it as long as you play its game. 

The moment you stop playing the game, Karma begins to dissolve. 

This is what purification is all about. 

It is essentially taking a consciousness of purity and applying it to all the rest. The two meet and because true purity can’t really be tarnished it purifies everything that it meets.

This essence of purity is the esoteric version of the story of the Philosopher’s stone which turned all material substances into gold.

So the key as you see is tapping into that essence of purity. 

This is the link between all religions, spiritual paths and Esoteric Mystery schools.

Sure the details have become a bit askew over the years with arguments over this way of reading it or that way but the message remains the same – purification leads to “God.”

thepathofpower.net

Shedding 3D Illusions

by DL Zeta -

Many of you are currently in a "waiting" space. You are observing the changes taking place around you and waiting for the next step to open before you. 

This next step is often perceived as a great opening in human consciousness where love, world peace and blessings flow in abundance. This is occurring, but some aspects of the New Earth are still not widely understood.

The next step may not be exactly as you have perceived it, and this is why there is a sense of waiting and uncertainty. 

Remember, it’s impossible to enter a new space by continuing to do the same things. Only the new can activate the new. 

To step into the new, you must become the new. 

You must bring your energy into alignment with the New Earth.

To take this step of activating energies still latent within your consciousness, it is necessary to look closely at ways in which you are still habitually entrenched in old ways of being. 

Fifth-dimensional consciousness is accessible within your present moment. If you hold beliefs or attitudes that say otherwise, it’s time to examine ways you’re blocking your access to these energies.

The Nature of the Karmic Wheel 

A belief that binds many into third-dimensional consciousness has to do with karma. Many still habitually see themselves as needing to satisfy karma, whether it is from this life or another. 

This is similar to the perennial student who has difficulty leaving the university setting. The final stage of "graduation" requires you to take on a new level of self-responsibility that allows you to move beyond cause-and-effect.

What you think of as the "karmic wheel" is simply a set of universal understandings set forth as the curriculum of Earth school. 

Each being that incarnates to Earth arrives with the goal of furthering their understandings and gaining needed insights and experience. At some point after many, many incarnations, you complete these basic understandings determined by the same laws that govern the universe.

The Challenge of Stepping off the Karmic Wheel 

You may find yourself feeling some resistance at this point. You may be saying "it's not that easy to step off the karmic wheel." Deep down, you may feel you don't deserve to live free from the duties of preconceived "lesson plans." 

This is not unlike the person graduating college who must now learn to design their own curriculum and lesson plans without the input of their team of advisors. 

It’s not that you will no longer undertake new areas of growth and exploration, but that you will now consciously choose and design these areas. This requires you to take 100% responsibility for every aspect of your existence.

This is what life is like beyond the confines of the karmic wheel. You step into the identity of “captain of your own ship.” From this point of empowerment, there is no longer any illusion of blame or victimhood. 

As an empowered individual, you meet each new challenge in your life with an open heart and mind, ready to embrace new levels of understanding. 

 From this perspective, you are no longer a burden on those around you. Instead, you lift others up with the gift of your life working.

Your Karmic Debts Are Paid 

Many old souls have already paid the price of admission to this new time. You have paid your karmic debts. You have completed all homework and lesson plans. 

You have examined yourselves repeatedly, taking great care to connect with your guidance and putting into place all that has been asked of you. There is nothing keeping you from entering the fifth dimension.

Understand, you cannot be forced to step past karma. In a free-will zone, you are free to grow through suffering and exist in state of limitation. 

This is a choice. 

What we're telling you is that you are free to enter a place of fifth-dimensional consciousness and step into a new dimension within your own consciousness.

We offer here a “snapshot” of a soul that has satisfied karmic lessons:

• This soul has practiced the ethic of good stewardship on the Earth, honoring and nurturing all kingdoms of life on the planet. 
• They have willingly assisted those who walk two steps behind them, opening doors and mapping every frontier they encounter that others may walk more freely there. 
•  They have come into the understanding that what they do to another, they do to themselves; 
• they have learned to see through the illusion, to joyfully greet all circumstances in their life as learning experiences and to readily transform all energies they encounter with unconditional love.
• They have set their highest intentions, cultivated high-vibrational energies within and radiated the light of spirit to all they encounter.

If this is the path you have followed, we congratulate you for your efforts. You may now receive your diploma and step off the karmic wheel.

If you still have some areas to complete, you can use the above description as a blueprint for bringing about this completion. You may also find it helpful to undertake a journey of self-examination to identify areas of your life you need to bring into sharper focus.

The Journey of Self-Examination 

In order to step fully into this new dimension, you will need to examine every habit, every remaining attitude and belief that binds you into the third dimension, tethering you to the karmic wheel.

1. Examine the vibration of what you put into your body. 

Do you put low-vibrational packaged, toxic, irradiated and energetically dead foods into your body? 

Drugs, alcohol and pharmaceuticals can also contribute to a low-vibrational existence. 

2. Examine your habits. 

Look at what you do on a daily basis. Are your habits lifting you higher, leading you to a time of greater love and peace or are they leading you into more of the same limiting energies you have experienced over and over?

3. Examine your emotions. 

•  Do you blame others for any aspect of your existence? 

• Are you engaging in self-pity and feeling yourself a victim of life? 

• Are there any ways in which you burden others by refusing to take complete responsibility for yourself? 

• Do you often experience negative emotions and feel the world is against you? 

If so, it is time to go back to square one and study the Law of Attraction and other universal laws. This is the path to understanding how the universe truly works.

4. Examine your vision for your life. 

• Is it limited in any way? 

• Do you receive visions that you write off as "undo-able"? 

• What do you see for yourself? 

• What is your current identity? 

• Is it in need of an update? 

5. Examine any ways in which you limit who you can be and what you can do.

As you examine and address each of these areas, you are able to snip any strings that still hold you into third-dimensional consciousness. 

Once this is done, you are free to step into the next version of yourself, the "you" who is free of karmic debt and experiencing the vastly expanded energies and flowing blessings of the New Earth.

celestialvision.org