The Placebo Effect?

Today I was talking about Reiki with some friends.  I was talking about how real the effects of Reiki are even though they are hard to prove.  How one has to experience the effects to believe in the power of the Japanese healing energy Reiki.  How the healing effects of Reiki is not a placebo effect.  I was talking about how I have seen Reiki work on people who do not believe in Reiki at all.  And this evening as I am re-reading a book an American friend of mine from Cornell University had recommended me a couple months ago, I am thinking that the healing power of Reiki is not a placebo effect, but also that the power of our thinking is an amazing healing tool.  I am reading about an experiment that was done in 1979.  The results of the experiment as amazing as they were 33 years ago.

This experiment was done on a group of 75 year old men.  These men spent a week at a retreat centre.  They were not allowed to bring any pictures, books or many documents that was dated later than 1959, twenty years earlier than the year of the experiment.  Even the ID cards they used had their photos of when they were 55 years old or younger.  The newspapers or books they were allowed to read where from 1959.  Their clothes and the decoration of the retreat centre were also like they used to be twenty years ago.

These men were tested for various bodily functions before and after this one-week long experiment.  Other people were shown these men’s before and after the experiment photos and according to the ratings, on average they looked three years younger after the experiment.  Their eyesight was measured to improve by ten percent on average after the experiment.  Their memory test performances also improved by ten percent.  In one week.  Isn’t it amazing?  Is this not a sign of the amazing power of the mind?

NLP Neuro Linguistic Programming is a personal development approach developed by Richard Bandler and John Grinder in 1970s.  It is one of the most well known techniques in the world.   It is quite popular among life coaches as well.  NLP is about understanding and using our mind to control and improve our lives.  And similar to Reiki, it is not possible to scientifically prove the effectiveness of NLP. There are many books on NLP and you can find a lot of free material on the internet as well.  I use NLP as one of the tools in my sessions.  I usually choose to use a couple techniques together.  I think NLP is one of the tools that we can use on our own very effectively.  To be aware of the fact that we have a control panel in our minds and even though there might be things in life that we cannot change, there are many that we can influence and change immensely.  Also, that we have automatic responses to what we see, hear and experience, and most of these mental responses have been programmed by our previous experiences.  Some of these automatic responses might be serving us, some of them might be stopping us.  Understanding and positively shaping the way we think does bring about healing, health and happiness.  I will write about NLP more in the coming weeks.  It is not as popular as it used to be, but it is worth looking into.

Reiki, NLP, EFT Emotional Freedom Technique are some of the personal development and healing tools that I use. There are many more.  Yet, the most important thing I believe is to think constructively.  To be aware of the problems, but work to overcome them, to go around them, to continue with life.  The more we concentrate on the problems, the harder it becomes to find solutions. I have seen it happen so many times like you also must have seen.  In coaching we have an agreement.  When we start to work with a client, we start with setting an intention for the coaching process and the session.  The intention needs to be a positively stated sentence.  “I want to fight less with my husband” is not a valid intention for us.  We go on to work with the client to clarify what it is that she really wants to experience with her husband. Fighting less is usually never enough. “I want my husband to show me more attention” is also not a valid intention sentence since we can only control ourselves. Trying to control others becomes manipulation. Then we work together to understand the need behind the words that want the attention.    Setting a goal always gives power.  Setting a positive goal that you really want and believe in makes a big difference.

So my question to you this week is: What do you want?  What do you really want in life?  I do ask myself this question in meditation every couple of months.  I ask and I sit down with a soft music for twenty to thirty minutes, to let the thoughts clarify.  You may also choose to write all of the replies that come to this question every day for a week.  Finding out what I really want has always been the best beginning I ever did.

May your days be filled with joy and happiness.

Zeynep.

Affirmation of the Week:

From Louise L. Hay:  “I am safe when I express my feelings.  I can be serene in any situation.”