I read the book of Dr J. Coleman [Stop Parkin and Start Livin] as well as many other books & it is encouraging to know we can recover. I understood that 90% of the work is to nurture healthy beliefs, to find & release known & unknown negative images – bottom line to change the mind. This is what the placebo effect is all about. It is a daily routine to maintain the focus on wellness & recovery while we are feeling symptomatic. I must confess it is a tough journey but it is worth it. I choose this path & GOD is helping.
I don’t like the way the drugs make me feel & my plan is to reduce the doses when I am ready. I started to take regularly FAVA BEANS as part of my diet, also taking 3 serving of fish/week pm. I cannot describe my way any further because we are told there is no specific program, everything must be individualized.
at last my question for Dr. Rodgers – What is the best way to trigger a placebo EFFECT & maintain it to reach the recovery.
Thank you for your work
Abi
About the Placebo Effect
I agree totally that the key is a transformation of our negative thoughts. I believe this transformation was so critical to recovery that I recently published my book, Five Steps to Recovery, and recorded meditations that go along with the book that say absolutely nothing about therapies that can help and everything about the five critical steps that are necessary to transform thought forms.
The placebo effect is simply a way of installing the belief that you are going to get better. You have already triggered a placebo for yourself by virtue of your acknowledgment that thoughts are the difference that makes the difference to recovery.
The formidable challenge turns on the second part of your question: How do you maintain the belief that recovery is possible, especially when symptoms can flare at any moment. It is easy to switch a positive outlook into a negative one in a matter of seconds.
The key is to acknowledge that maintaining the belief that recovery is happening is a moment to moment process. We all can choose in any given moment to criticize, judge and be negative about our situation or to instill thoughts that embrace hope, new possibilities, new visions and new life for ourselves and our family.
We have over 60,000 thoughts a day. An interesting twist for most of us is that 90% of those thoughts are the same thoughts we had yesterday, the day before and a year ago. We trash ourselves with negative thoughts day in and day out.
Simply put, we humans are really not very creative when it comes to the thoughts that we express to ourselves. Perhaps we have an affinity for being redundant. Perhaps we get negative pleasure in beating up on ourselves.
A practice that works is to recognize the hamster wheel of negative thinking when it starts to turn – to acknowledge the power of negative thought forms when they rear their ugly head – and to release, remove, detach and eject and shield those thoughts from pestering us again. The challenge is to hop off of the hamster wheel and hop onto a vehicle that takes us on a road we do want to travel, the Road to Recovery.
Maintaining the beliefs that will make us well depends on a steady focus and unwavering intention. Day by day negativity is released, allowing new possibilities to become manifest. This is not an easy process. It takes time and focus. But, it is doable.
At Parkinsons Recovery we devote time and attention to helping people come back into balance and nurture the spirit of our souls.
Robert Rodgers, Ph.D.
Founder 2004
Parkinsons Recovery
