You have probably heard of the placebo effect, where a certain number of people are given a sugar pill during a medical study and yet some of them report that they got the actual drug including all the benefits.
But most people don’t know that there have actually been placebo surgeries that have resulted in pretty amazing results.
In the the attached study, Dr. J. Bruce Moseley scheduled 10 patients for need surgery intended to reduce arthritis and pain.
All 10 were wheeled into the operating room and anesthetized. However only 2 of the men would actually get the intended surgery. The other 8 only got three incisions, which were then sutured to appear as if they also had the surgery.
Six months later ALL of the patients reported less pain and easier movement.
Two years later, one of the men in the placebo surgery group reported “The surgery was two years ago and the knee never has bothered me since.” he says. ”It’s just like my other knee now. I give a whole lot of credit to Dr. Moseley. Whenever I see him on the TV during a basketball game, I call the wife in and say, ‘Hey, there’s the doctor that fixed my knee!”’
”The surgery was two years ago and the knee never has bothered me since.
Placebo Surgery Patient
So what does this mean?
It means that your mind has more power over your body than you think it does.
Many of our aches and pains are tied to the story we tell ourselves about them, a chance to say “I’m in pain because of (insert your story here)!”. And so we relive the story which justifies feeling the ache or pain in a horrible loop of suffering.
The Placebo Surgery simply gave the Patient permission to tell themselves a different story about their painful knee.
Once the new story was told about how “I had surgery and now I have no pain at all!”, the mind basically told the body to turn that new feeling of optimism into chemistry which then healed the knee and reduced the pain.
So I’ll leave you with this, on the path to TRUTH, you must first become conscious of the stories you tell yourself on a day to day basis, and throw away the stories that no longer serve you.
