I’ve been learning that our thoughts create our reality, but always from a position of skepticism. After being reminded about the placebo effect, however, I realize these ideas have already been scientifically proven.
You’ve probably heard of the placebo effect. When they test a new drug in traditional medicine, they give the real cure to one group. To another group, they offer a placebo or a sugar pill with no inherent value.
Time after time, the placebo group will experience benefits similar to those who received the real healing medicine.
So, there’s nothing woo-woo about the idea that thoughts create reality. It’s all there in the most traditional studies in western medicine.
The placebo effect in surgery
We often think of a placebo as a pill. But have you heard of placebo surgeries? In one study, doctors performed fake surgeries on patients who went on to do as well as those who had received authentic surgery.
Patients with arthritis so painful they could barely walk, healed themselves because they believed they had received real surgery when nothing had been done to them.
When told later that their recoveries were indeed miraculous, they wept in disbelief. Not only had their thoughts healed their bodies, they had done so with no effort on their part.
This further proves the placebo effect comes not as a result of trying to heal your body with your thoughts. But of letting go and believing that something else is at work.
Instead of “trying” to create our realities or heal our bodies with our thoughts, we are better off to trust that the healing will come. Some might say the universe has your back. Others will say God will provide.
Whether it’s prayer or manifesting or envisioning, the key to healing yourself lies in trusting something bigger than you. In the words of Louise Hay, “All is well. Everything is working out for my highest good.”