by Vera Bellamy | Oct 3, 2017
I would like to take you into the world of the placebo and show you how powerful a thought or a belief can be in making you feel better.
Imagine participating in a surgery trial where there is a 50% chance that you will receive a fake surgery. You are made to believe that your surgery is real and that an actual surgeon performed the surgery on your spine. Miraculously, you feel better after the surgery despite the fact you were in the fake pool, but you don’t know it.
“It appears that the mere belief that patients had received a potent treatment was enough to ease-and in some cases banish-their symptoms,” says Joe Merchant about this real spine surgery study in her book Cure.
This is one example of the placebo effect and the power of belief to improve and make our health better. The Italian neuroscientist Fabrizio Benedetti, who is the biggest expert on placebo in the world, thinks that placebo can be applied in all areas of life from sex to music, writes Merchant. Maybe just by believing that the music is wonderful, its effects on us will be more powerful in terms of positive emotions and experience.
Beneditti’s team in Italy is conducting real studies on the placebo effect, and measuring the role belief plays in improving symptoms. Let’s say you take a drug and you feel better after taking it. The kind of questions they would be asking are: Is the improvement due to the medication you took or your belief that you took the medication? And it looks like this can be measured through clinical trials, according to Merchant’s research.
The placebo has been proven to work for a variety of psychiatric disorders like anxiety and depression. The more we know that we are taking the medication, the stronger the effect. For example, Joe Merchant says that Benedetti has discovered that Valium, which is an old drug for psychiatric disorders, has no effect unless patients know that they have taken it. Studies show that some painkillers are effective only if we know that we have taken them. If we don’t know that we took them, they don’t work.
When scientists discovered endorphins- the brain’s natural painkillers, it became natural to inquire if taking a placebo triggers the release of endorphins in the brain. And they have discovered that it does. This is how the science of the placebo was born. There is a mapped out neuro-chemical mechanism occurring after taking a placebo.
A study at the University of British Columbia discovered that when a placebo medication is given to patients with Parkinson’s, physiological changes do occur in the body, as dopamine levels increase significantly. In some trials involving Parkinson’s disease patients, the placebo effect has been shown to have the same effect as a response to a real drug.
So something interesting is going on in our bodies, and probably by extension, to our external realities, when our minds are focused on sending a positively charged belief and thought. At least scientifically, the placebo effect has been proven to reduce symptoms of patients and improve the quality of their lives. So let’s ponder on that, and when you feel down, think of the placebo and how you can apply it to your own life to turn things around. Hmm, something to consider today for everyone. As I’ve heard Joe Dispenza say, we are the placebo effect.
Source: Jo Merchant, Cure: a journey into the science of mind over body, 2016
by Vera Bellamy | Sep 20, 2017
Listening to the news about natural disasters or phenomena happening everywhere around the globe, I couldn’t stop thinking about what is needed of us, when events of such magnitude threaten our material and physical security?
The earth is always evolving and changing, and the changes are opportunities for us to grow and learn as human beings.
The uncertainty of the events, and of life in general, teaches us that certainty can be found only inside of us. If we have a strong core and a strong sense of who we are, we will face these events with courage and calm.
The truth is that life is all about learning how to live with uncertainty. And becoming more comfortable with not knowing what tomorrow will bring.
That is why we need to develop courage. If we cultivate courage as a human quality and if we recognize the value of becoming courageous, we will fare much better in times of high stress and uncertainty.
If you don’t have courage, you will let your anxiety and fear topple your calm, when what you need the most is calm and self-control.
If you don’t have courage, you will not be able to examine the information given to you, and to make the right decision for yourself and your loved ones. You will let negative thinking, thoughts and feelings of gloom and doom, overtake you and make you lose your ground.
Without courage, you will hastily abandon your property, your pets, your life and embrace the fear of others.
Courage is the quality to stand on your own, to think on your own, to listen to your radar system, and to be plugged into a deeper awareness and intelligence. Courage allows you to say no to the herd mentality, and to always act with dignity and empathy.
In times of volatility and uncertainty, we need to learn to stay present, grounded, and to trust our senses.
And most of all, we need to trust life and to trust ourselves and that requires a lot of courage!
I am inviting you to start examining yourself, setting new intentions, and developing and living with more courage!
Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world. – Archimedes
by Vera Bellamy | Aug 26, 2017
I felt that August 21th, the day of the Solar Eclipse, was an extraordinary day in the U.S. I bet that almost everyone was able to step out of their worries and dilemmas, and look up to the heavens for magic. So many people were feeling happy thanks to the moon hiding the sun, thanks to a natural phenomenon that excited our imagination, vision and hope. I felt the happy vibes myself, and I am sure than many people did as well.
These events are glimpses of how interconnected our minds are with other minds and objects in this holistic reality. Or as Dean Radin says in his book, Entangled Minds: “It is as though we live in a gigantic bowl of clear jello. Every wiggle-every movement, event, and thought-within that medium is felt throughout the entire bowl.”
Many scientists measure our subtle human entanglement through the coherence of the frequencies we emit. This is called global coherence or field consciousness research. I refer you to consult the Global Consciousness Project conducted at Princeton. On their first page one reads: “Coherent consciousness creates order in the world. Subtle interactions link us with each other and the Earth.”
That is partly why people meditate together for peace, or we have group peace or climate marches… the happy feelings of togetherness and joy experienced by us seem to amplify and spread, and this can be measured.
This could explain why when we are surrounded by happy people, we feel happier. Their vibration entrains coherence to our own less coherent states.
So the more we bring change to our consciousness, and the more we direct our attention to common goals for the betterment of all, we elevate our collective consciousness and influence the consciousness of others.
One piece of wisdom to take from this is that nature makes us feel happy, and that fascination with heavenly natural forces move us to a childlike joy. In rare moments such as solar eclipses, we realize that our lives are small pebbles in an infinite universe. So the question for everyone to ponder after this is that our own pebbleness matters, that the way we carry ourselves in the world, the joy and the happiness we emit, affects everyone around us and contributes to the subtle changes in the consciousness of our cities and the world. So let’s continue this happy project, chirp about it and create positive waves of change.
Blessings, Vera
by Vera Bellamy | Jun 29, 2017
I was inspired to write this post tonight by a friend of mine who is afraid to look at herself in the mirror. She told me that her challenge was her lack of self-compassion.
And I thought that it that might be you too right now, as it was me as well many years ago.
Now when I look back at pictures, I find that version of myself sweet and beautiful. Back then I hated every picture taken!
It took me a while to change the code of my being, but it has been such a rewarding process and so worth it.
We own it to ourselves to bring more self-compassion into our lives because it just makes living so much easier.
You might ask what is up with this idea that we all have in our heads at times, to spend so much energy criticizing and judging ourselves? Is it that we are wired to look for perfection all of the time? Why do we want perfect everything – the ideal hair, the ideal body, the ideal relationship, the ideal car, the ideal career…
Many of us can spend huge amounts of time and energy putting ourselves down for not having it all. For not fitting into the perfection program, for not looking or sounding super successful to the world.
The irony is that we all know deep in our hearts that this picture is dead wrong, that perfection is always woven into imperfection.
I have a suggestion for you tonight. Let’s start changing the code of this faulty wiring by writing a new song about ourselves.
Imagine if everyone of us decided to write a song to celebrate our lives, and all of our beautiful creations, including our bodies?
What would your song sound like?
Make this your summertime goal.
Find the time and spend a quiet moment writing your song and celebrating yourself. It is healthy for you to remember who you are, to remember where you have been, and who you have become.
Spend a memorable time in gratitude, and pen a new loving harmony. Love your song and love your life.
Enjoy everything about you going forward!
by Vera Bellamy | Jun 5, 2017
Vera J. Bellamy, Founder Colors of Wisdom
Recently, I had a change in my own life and for me it was a blessing because it gave me a lot of clarity and a boost of creativity. And this is exactly what we need in order to create the changes we aspire to.
I would like to stress a few points:
I am suggesting that we need to improve our inner dialogue and expand our intuitive guidance system.
I am also teaching that joyful change happens from a receptive mode when we relax into ourselves and let silence take over. Instead of actively seeking change in external circumstances, we let life happen to us in synchronistic ways. This is how life is supposed to work, when we feel that there is a flow to our manifestations and not a constant struggle.
I am suggesting that we need to live from an inner place of non judgement, connected to the heart, to quantum intelligence, and to the wisdom and honesty of the earth.
I believe that this way we can create happier lives, more in alignment with who we are, and every step of creating we take is a step that makes not only our lives joyful but the world a better place.
If you have failed in a business and you are constantly analyzing what you did wrong, stop interpreting now, stop analyzing yourself, and instead find the wisdom lessons by creating more clarity within yourself. I am certain that we can all rebound in powerful ways from trying situations that basically no longer work for us. Give a lot of compassion to yourself for the experience you are dealing with and went through, give yourself credit and start doing the exercise I am going to teach right now.
You are creating silence and clarity by letting the messages come to you. You are creating from the inside out. Even in the noisiest environments like the NYC train, you will be able to relax and work on yourself and your change! They are synonymous! You are the change.
You are using imagination to enter the micro world of energy.
Get in a comfortable place, and start anchoring your body into the earth. Start sinking slowly by letting the power of gravity connect you to the earth.
Relax your shoulders, your arms, your neck, your legs, scan all your body for tension and let it sprinkle down into the earth.
Put your attention into the center of your head and look for a silent place. There is a place in the head that is vast and silent. Don’t judge it now if you can’t find it, try to relax into it, and you will be surprised when you get there.
From that silent place, imagine being anchored in the earth through your legs, your pelvic area, your arms. Feel your body becoming denser and more relaxed. You will notice how the tension and the stress and the voices are leaving your body through this anchoring system. It is like a recycling system. You are recycling experiences faster now, so you can create experiences that reflect this current moment. This is the fastest way to change.
This is how you let go every day.
I recommend that you do this all week long for a few minutes a day, in the train, in the park, in the workplace. Just close your eyes, and sink in. And use intention to let go of anything you are ready to let go of each day, let go of one situation that bothers you. And always notice how your body feels.
By next week you should be more peaceful, silent and clear!
In the meantime, give yourself on a pat on the shoulder for being here, and being open to change! You are very courageous!
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