“...the basis for all healing is a change in belief.”
-- Thomas Troward --

In the realm of healing, we have a long history of treating symptoms and not necessarily rooting out the ultimate source of a disturbance, “dis-ease,” or illness. Indeed, if there is one thing even the best medicine, treatment or technology cannot touch, it is one’s beliefs. Clearly such therapies treat illness, but do they get underneath it, to the place where we are already well, already clear?

As a long-time writer, writing teacher and personal coach, I have had the extraordinary privilege of closely studying the mind and its movements over time. Consequently, I am intimately familiar with the myriad ways we expand or limit ourselves according to how we direct the mind. It is clear to me that there is much suffering and distress in our midst which could be reversed at the change of a thought. Try this exercise: say to yourself -- and mean it -- “I’m so confused.” Then say with equal focus and meaning, “I am perfectly clear.” Even in this simple exercise, one begins to get a sense of the vast power of thought. Such a simple shift of thought can commence a whole cascade of other effects.

Thirty-odd years ago, I sustained a neck injury in a minor motorcycle accident, which was successfully treated. Years later, I started having neck and shoulder trouble which I attributed to the earlier accident. I decided I had a neck problem. A chiropractor confirmed it. What was the effect of this decision, diagnosis, and its companion ongoing complaints? X-rays, chiropractic appointments two or three times a week, a chronic condition, and a prognosis which assured me of no permanent relief from it, ever. At best, I could expect to freeze the frame: no better, no worse. And I was told to forget about reading in bed.

For several years now, I have been enjoying bedtime reading without consequence, and have suffered not at all from a neck condition. How so? I stopped pointing to my X-rays and saying, “See?!” I started swimming regularly and attending to the circumstances in my life which had me clench. I stopped saying I had a neck problem. I stopped thinking I had a neck problem. I stopped being someone with a neck problem. And before long, I stopped having a neck problem.

Even with perfect clarity about a condition or situation, we won’t get far if we are bound by a hidden thought or belief. Such a thought or belief might manifest as a chronic condition, as fear, as apathy, or just plain inaction. Recently, a client came to me thinking he was unsure of what he wanted to do, of his next step in life. It was quickly apparent that he was absolutely, perfectly clear about what he wanted to do. What he didn’t know was that, figuratively, he was trying to move while strapped down. I used this analogy: it was as if for years he’d been in-patient, in bed, restrained. Having restored himself to his native wholeness, he was ready to get up and walk. But try as he might, he could not make a move. Our session focused on finding the hidden source of the restraint and removing it.

Often I ask a client to do some writing exercises prior to coming to a session. Time and again I see evidence of the deep wisdom in each of us in these writings and in the session itself. To “know that you know” is a most powerful first step in shedding any one of a number of restraints. How often do we find ourselves walking around saying, “Oh, I don’t know...?” Consider that with every such utterance, we actually add another brick to the foundation of the structure of not knowing -- just the structure we say we want to eliminate! Fast from such statements -- or negative affirmations, if you will -- as “I don’t know.” “I can’t do it.” “I’m so sick.” “I have a bad back.” Then watch your circumstances begin to shift.

One must have the intention to be well, clear, happy, etc. You reach a destination -- Sausalito, say -- when you set one; otherwise, you circle aimlessly, or end up in Schenectady! Intention is a magnet. It sets a course. It pulls for its own fulfillment. Take a moment to close your eyes and visualize the preferred condition of a situation that is currently dogging you. Formulate your intention from that. I once ended a week of torturous, confusing indecision by saying, “By 3 p.m. today, I will be clear,” then letting the whole thinking process go. Once I’d let it go, I realized I needed one more piece of information (the decision involved others). I made a phone call, got the information I needed, then peacefully went about my day. Sure enough, by the appointed hour, I knew what action to take.

If we want to drive to Sausalito or St. Louis, we get a map. We know there’s a route, but we don’t know the route until we pick up the map and study it. Consider your thoughts and words are your map to your root beliefs, to the source of your experience and conditions, as well as your clarity, confusion, wellness and illness. How often do we listen to and observe ourselves completely impartially, without judgment? Rather than “thought control,” this is a process of bringing to awareness that which we are unwittingly setting or keeping in motion. Get curious about the nature and pattern of your thoughts and words. In the words of the enlightened master Maitreya, “The only way to deal with any problem in life is to understand how it came into being. The moment you know its process, you can reverse it.”

Abandon the illusion of confusion. Begin by knowing that you know -- even if you can’t yet see that you know -- then watch the details of your condition take on a new light. They will cease to appear as obstacles or discouraging symptoms, and begin to appear instead as clues, pointers and helpers providing invaluable information. You will begin to recognize them as the signs and the means by which you will reach your destination. In other words, start being clear and intentional in this way -- practice it -- and watch the path straighten before you.

Kathryn Deputat’s work with the mind has spanned two decades. Drawing on her highly attuned listening and intuitive gifts, she coaches those who seek to cultivate clear, authentic expression -- in life or in writing. Her teaching and consulting practice is based in Boston, MA. Kathryn may be reached at http://www.claritywork.com/ or (617) 522-2737.

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