The Power of Symptoms

Two Sides of the Same Story

A new twinge shows up in your lower back at two in the morning, and within a minute the mind runs a well-worn pattern. What is this? Is it spreading? What does it mean for the scan next month? By sunrise, one sensation has become a story, and the story has become a forecast.

Now think about a different morning. You get out of bed and the stiffness isn't there. The stairs take less negotiation than they did in the spring. You reach for something on a high shelf and only realize afterward that it didn't hurt.

The mind rarely builds a case for that morning. It files it under luck. A good day. Probably won't last.

Both are symptoms. One is a symptom of disease and the other is a symptom of healing, and the body produces each with the same accuracy. Yet one gets our full belief and the other gets a raised eyebrow.

It's Not a Character Flaw

The doubt isn't weakness, and it isn't evidence that the relief is less real than the pain, though we might try to convince ourselves it is. It's how the mind is built.

The human mind is a threat detector. It has been on duty every hour of every day since long before any of us arrived, scanning for what could go wrong — because for most of human history, the person who noticed the rustle in the grass lived long enough to raise children. A twinge registers as a possible threat, so it moves to the front of the line. Ease registers as no threat at all, so it gets waved through without a second look.

If you've ever wondered why humans don't linger in peace the way they linger in worry, this is the reason. Peace doesn't need monitoring. Threat does.

This isn't a flaw in you. It's a default setting.

And a default setting has consequences. Every two-in-the-morning forecast produces a chemical. Every thought and emotional response creates chemistry that travels to the cells and instructs them how to operate. A mind that believes only the symptoms of disease keeps writing the biochemistry of disease, and walks right past the evidence that something else is possible.

This is Why Healing Mastery Begins With the Mastery of the Mind

The goal isn't to silence the threat detector. It has its uses. The goal is to stop letting it set every priority.

The mind can be retrained. It can learn to expect good things. To dwell on delight. To notice the highlights with the same attention it has always given the low lights.

One way to begin takes less than five seconds. Before your feet touch the floor in the morning, say one sentence:

Show me what a marvellous day looks like.

It is a small sentence. It is also an instruction, and the mind follows instructions. It has been following the old ones for years.

The Reset

The Healing Mastery Neural Reset was built for this same reason. It gives you a direct experience of your own influence over your body — and, with it, the felt experience of the symptoms of healing — so that when they show up, you recognize them for what they are instead of dismissing them as luck.

Here's a tiny assessment you can do right now...

Think about the symptoms of disease or your particular diagnosis. Now watch what your mind does. Feel what your body does.

If you felt a pang of worry, or even fear...

If you can feel your body tightening even slightly...

That's you creating chemistry that's being sent to your body's cells as instructions about how to operate.

Now try this...

Think about being healthier than you ever thought possible. There's literally nothing you can't do with the full support and power of your body. You're strong. Powerful. Better than you've ever felt in your life.

Watch what your mind does in this scenario. Feel what's happening in your body.

If you experienced even a moment of elevated emotion....

If you felt even a hint of freedom in your body...

That's also you creating chemistry that's being sent to your body's cells as instructions about how to operate.

The beauty about you right in this moment is that you get to choose.

If you're a Healing Mastery student, the Neural Reset is already part of your program.

For everyone else, the back-to-school sale ends at midnight tonight. There's no better time to begin building a new kind of trust in your own body.

Until next week,

Patricia