Archived News of the Week

We Are What We Think

Nocebos vs. Placebos

Most "awakened" people, eg. Indian gurus like Nisargadatta, or Eckhart Tolle, and I really think to some degree, Wayne Dyer and Deepak Chopra have worked very hard over many years to recognize and find ways to release the negative ego's hold over their lives. Personally, I don't think that you really ever get rid of the ego, and sort of like a serious illness, you learn to manage it. But maybe this is because I have not yet "awakened" from the comatose state that my ego has relegated me to for its selfish yet misguided reasons: "I will keep you safe through pain and fear and occasional torment."

Our pain bodies are usually activated by past pain. Tolle claims that we are born with some sort of pain body, having taken on the pain of our parents and that of the universal consciousness. Let's say, you, a man, were emotionally or even actually abandoned by your mother. Now, when it even smells remotely like abandonment, your pain body will rouse itself from its serpentine nap, because it senses an opportunity to feed. Yes, this is very vampiric, isn't it?

If you are not aware of what is happening, you might think that this awful feeling that you are having about the abandonment that is occurring to you as an adult, is who you really are; that it is you who are sad, and mad and unrequited etc. But your experience of the pain is not who you really are; it is just your ego's pain body feeding. The best way to deal with the pain body is to become aware of it. We all know the names of our particular "buttons" whether it be abandonment, getting old, getting sick, scarcity in money. Train yourself to be on the lookout, and when you are aware of a button being pushed, you do not have to react, except to say "I refuse to feed my pain body anymore. I will let this go now."

Guess what? Over time, you will become more and more aware of when your buttons are being pushed, you will handle the situation and the emotion, and the pain body will eventually release its strangle-hold on your happiness. And, you might just be one of the lucky ones who will awaken to the universal "witness" behind the ego and the pain.

We all know what placebos are. Sugar pills acting like the real thing and actually creating a change in physiology. Nocebos are the evil twin of placebos. A nocebo means that if you assume the worst, then it will probably happen. It's a negative self-fulfilling prophecy. For example, about ten years ago, researchers stumbled onto a striking finding that women who believed that they were prone to heart disease were nearly four times as likely to die as women with similar risk factors who didn't hold such fatalistic views.

I strongly believe that what we tell ourselves shapes our very lives. Our consistent and persistent thoughts and our allowing of our pain bodies to run our lives, will eventually manifest into reality with our negative natterings creating all the bad things that we are most terrified of having happen to us. A friend of mine likes to quote: "Your worst fear becomes your most fervent prayer."

What I do is this: I try to recognize when my pain body is alive and well and talk it down off the tenth floor ledge. I also try to catch myself talking trash about myself to myself. Woody Allen and I tend to worry about our health a lot. I have already figured out that this is not a good thing, since I believe that I create my reality through my thoughts. So I have trained myself to use a mental "delete" button and I have also taped little signs beside my bed, on my bathroom mirror and on my computer with wonderful placebo-affirmations, specifically designed for my personal nocebos.

Sometimes I am horrified at what patients tell me their M.D, has told them. Larry Dossey, M.D. mentions in his Dark Side of Consciousness, a famous Harvard cardiologist Bernard Lowen who gives several examples of "words that maim" or in plainer language, "voodoo hexes" that his patients reported having been told by other doctors: Like "You are living on borrowed time." Or "You could have a heart attack any minute" or "You are a walking time-bomb." These extremely harmful nocebos are usually spoken in an egoic attempt by the doctor to force his patients into some sort of treatment.

It really is like voodoo. Haven't you wondered why evil witchdoctors can tell someone that they have put a "hex" on them and three days later they are dead? I suggest that we all find our personal voodoo statements and eliminate them instantly. I suggest that we talk nicely to others, too. Most of us are unaware of the power our words carry.

No statement or content in this web site shall be construed as offering diagnosis, cure, mitigation or prevention of any disease. Anyone having questions regarding the content of this site should contact their own health care provider for verification.