Poison Ivy

I never had poison ivy in my life until about six or seven years ago. I am sure this is how it happened:

Nancy, my friend from Pennsylvania, was visiting here. She is quite a gardener, and one day, as we were walking through my beautiful yard, she said: "Eeeeyooo, you've got poison ivy in your yard!"

I had never known what poison ivy looked like. I had even pulled poison ivy with my bare hands without knowing what I was pulling. It may well be that ignorance is bliss, for I had never come down with poison ivy.

Soon after Nancy's visit, I came down with poison ivy.  I swear to this day that if Nancy hadn't pointed out poison ivy, I wouldn't have come down with it.

Since then, I have come down with poison ivy several times and severely where my face was all swollen and my eyes slits.

Here's how it happened the first time, last time, and I believe this is how it happened every time: I could never remember what poison ivy looked like. I didn't think about poison ivy until someone said words to this effect: "Did you know you have poison ivy? You'd better be careful." Only when someone mentions poison ivy, do I seem to remember to come down with it. I would swear to this. I am susceptible to what people say.

Lo and behold, through Heaven Admin, I came across a scientist whose experiments have proved his theory which is the same as mine.  The study he did was with school children in Japan. There is a plant in Japan very much like American poison ivy. He took the offending leaf and a placebo leaf. Each was clearly marked. The researchers rubbed each child's arms with either the poison ivy or the placebo. Each leaf was clearly labeled. Incidentally, the children selected for the study were all children who were known to be allergic to the Japanese version of poison ivy.

Just as you would expect, almost all of the children whose arms were rubbed with the poison ivy came down with it, and almost all of the children whose arms were rubbed with the placebo did NOT come down with poison ivy.

The only thing is: The labels had been deliberately switched. Almost all the children who came down with poison ivy got it from the innocent leaf.  Almost all the children who did NOT come down with poison ivy had been exposed to the real poison ivy.

It's just as I thought. You could even say that all I had to do was knowingly look at poison ivy, and I would come down with it.

The scientist/author, Bruce Lipton in The Psychology of Belief, Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter, and Miracles wrote:

While most of us are aware of the healing influences of the placebo effect, few are aware of its evil twin, the nocebo effect. Just as surely as positive thoughts can heal, negative ones - including the belief we are susceptible to an illness or have been exposed to a toxic condition - can actually manifest the undesired realities of those thoughts.

What the children did not know was that the leaves were purposefully mislabeled. The negative thought of being touched by the poisonous plant led to the rash produced by the nontoxic leaf! In the majority of cases, no rash resulted from contact with the toxic leaf that was thought to be the harmless control. The conclusion is simple: positive perceptions enhance health, and negative perceptions precipitate dis-ease. This mind-bending example of the power of belief was one of the founding experiments that led to the science of psychoneuroimmunology.

Considering that a minimum of one third of all medical healings are attributed to the placebo effect, what percentage of illness and disease might be the result of negative thought in the nocebo effect? Perhaps more than we think, especially since psychologists estimate that 70 percent of our thoughts are negative and redundant.

Perceptions have a tremendous influence in shaping the character and experiences of our lives. They’re the reason why those faith-filled folks can swig poison, joyously play with deadly snakes and lift a car to free a loved one. Perceptions shape the placebo and nocebo effects. They are more influential than positive thinking because they are more than mere thoughts in your mind. Perceptions are beliefs that permeate every cell. Simply, the expression of the body is a complement to the mind’s perceptions, or, in simpler terms, believing is seeing!

...Our most influential perceptual programs have mainly been acquired from others and do not necessarily support our own personal goals and aspirations. In fact, many of our strengths and weaknesses, the parts of ourselves we own as who we are, are directly attributable to familial and cultural perceptions downloaded into our minds before we were six years old. Programmed perceptions acquired in these developmental years are primarily responsible for health and behavioral issues experienced in our adult lives. Consider how many children never realize their full potential or dreams because of limiting programming.Not surprisingly, these self-sabotaging programs also thwart us as we try to change conditions in the world. This insight tells us that before we go out to change the world, we must first look inward to change ourselves. Then, by changing our beliefs, we do change the world.

For those of us who have been reading Heavenletters, doesn't this sound familiar?

My question is: How do we come to believe in something now? How do we begin to believe that we are God's children and that we are invincible?

For the child whose mother always said: "If you don't wear your hat, you'll catch a death of a cold?" -- now as an adult, how can he begin to believe differently?

How can we come to disbelieve in germs and contagion? To disbelieve in illness?

How do we unprogram ourselves?

How do I stop believing that a certain leaf or thought of the leaf gives me a rash?

Honestly, just as we're talking here now, my face feels all itchy.