Saunter into the health and personal growth section of your local bookstore and you’ll find an avalanche of tools and techniques to tap, mantra or smudge away old beliefs and install new ones.
It can be fun and even fascinating to massage the psyche. But in the end psychological tools are just that; a tool.
In the same way that we can take a piece of clay and re-shape it using potters knives and shapers. Psychological tools can re-shape our thoughts and beliefs into different ones but they can’t turn clay into gold. Only a shift in consciousness does that.
How do we have a shift in consciousness?
When insight breaks into consciousness to remind us who and what we really are ~ infinite potential not bound by our body or beliefs. And delivers fresh thought and guidance fromuniversal consciousness (whatever is your word for the Source the Source of Life) to navigate our way into new possibilities previously untrodden.
We’re designed to have insights but it’s tricky because we’re not encouraged as children, or adults, to live by insight. So a moment of insight can easily be missed.
Like it nearly was for this client who’s ‘aha!’ almost slipped past her in the hot tub.
Our conversation, after the event, went like this….
[Client] I realized in the hot tub this morning that I no longer believe I can cure my arthritis.I’ve worked really hard to finally retire and do all the things I love and was left thinking I have nothing to look forward to but watch my body deteriorate. I felt so depressed.
But then a strange thing happened. I noticed that all the ‘poor me’ feelings evaporated without me doing anything and I ended up feeling fine.
[Response] Very cool. Our thinking and emotional state changes all by itself when consciousness shifts. [C] But if I no longer believe I can get well how am I going to get well? [R] Beliefs by themselves don’t heal the body. A shift in consciousness when we see insightfully does that.When you were in the hot tub your mind dropped into ‘hot tub’ mode. You weren’t over thinking, stressing or worrying. When there’s not a lot on our mind it opens up to insights.
In fact, you knew you knew you were having an insight because you said you “realized” that your belief had gone. A realization is a shift in consciousness that points to our true nature ~ that we’re the energy of pure potential that shapes and re-shapes itself over and over.
In a flash of insight habitual thoughts, beliefs, emotional reactions and even the body re-set in the direction of wellbeing. So it makes sense that you moved from a reactive ‘poor me’ state into feeling just fine.
[C] That’s a bit of a jolt. I spent most of my professional life teaching clients how to change their beliefs to change their lives. [R] I understand. The idea that beliefs determine our life experience is a popular one. [C] I still don’t understand what to do next. [R] How about nothing?By that I don’t mean sit on the couch all day.
Notice that your innate wisdom has been doing some house cleaning. It released a belief that you can only get well if you believed you’d get well strong enough.
You’ve seen that your earnest belief that you would get better hasn’t delivered the goods. That’s because beliefs are sticky. The belief that you would only get well if you believed it strongly enough was based on a belief that you’re unwell. So there was a tug of war going on inside.
[C] But I am in pain so surely I need to do something to get well. [R] Insights open our mind wider than beliefs to access our spiritual potential which, in turn, is a catalyst for healing and transformation beyond anything we can think or believe.The important thing is that the energy and focus you were using to strengthen your belief is now freed up to align with, and usher in, your healing potential. To show you what’s really possible.
[C] Is it possible for my physical pain to drop away? [R] Why wouldn’t it be? If you think about it you’ve experienced pain drop away in the past.For what it’s worth I’ve witnessed clients with chronic pain have an insight about their true nature and experience pain drop away completely. At other times insight delivers fresh guidance about the right treatment and support.
If the pain doesn’t drop away completely a shift in consciousness makes it possible to experience pain but not be bothered by it. Either way you look at it healing happens.
[C. Laughing] It seems so ridiculous now how many years I spent trying to program my beliefs. [R] If it looks to us that it’s important to change beliefs, then that’s what we’ll do. But when our insights reveal who we are and how life works we’ll drop doing what no longer makes sense. [C] I get that. I’m not going to speculate what’ll happen next. [R] Wise choice. Keep an open mind. Insights always point to the Truth that we are perfectly whole and complete exactly as we are. Not necessarily exactly as we’d like to be. But better than that.When we wake up to our true nature we experience being whole (healed, enlivened) and complete (satisfied, fulfilled, content) exactly as we are, pain or no pain.
