The Growth Mindset Book Podcast: Mindset Mastery Chapter by Chapter

Healing Through Belief

• Michael Fox • Season 1 • Episode 18

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Unlock the extraordinary power residing within your subconscious mind. This transformative episode reveals how scientific research from Harvard, Princeton, and the CDC validates ancient wisdom about our mind's ability to shape our physical reality.

Discover the fascinating story of patients who experienced complete knee healing without actual surgery—simply because they believed they'd been operated on. This remarkable study demonstrates how our beliefs directly influence our physical bodies, something we all have the ability to harness.

Faith operates like a seed requiring proper care. Many people plant intentions but fail to water them with genuine expectancy, essentially pulling their seeds out of the ground with each doubt. Learn practical techniques to maintain and strengthen your positive thought patterns through consistent affirmation, especially in the face of negativity.

The science of visualization is particularly compelling. Basketball players who merely visualized free throws improved by 23%—nearly identical to those who physically practiced! Olympic athletes use this same technique to activate identical muscle patterns whether physically performing or simply imagining their performance. These studies conclusively show that your brain processes imagined experiences similarly to real ones.

Perhaps most remarkable are the scientific studies on prayer's tangible effects. Hospital patients receiving prayer from strangers (without their knowledge) experienced measurably better recovery outcomes. In another study, focused prayer actually altered DNA structure without physical contact. These findings demonstrate consciousness can influence matter remotely.

Your thoughts generate vibrational frequencies throughout your trillion cells, creating environments either conducive to illness or health. By choosing positive thoughts, practicing visualization, and replacing judgment with blessing, you harness this innate power for transformation.

Try this simple practice: next time judgment arises, pause and offer a silent blessing instead. Both you and the recipient will benefit from this positive energy exchange. What frequency are you choosing to operate at today?

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Speaker 1:

We are today on chapter four. We're going to hit the review points and discuss them one by one. On page 60 of the power of the subconscious mind. The most incredible thing is this power of the subconscious mind exists right inside of you. That means that you have all the power that you possibly could have to have some incredible things in your life. If you believe that that's a possibility and that's what we're going to talk about today. As we go through some of these points, is it possible to heal yourself with the power of your subconscious mind? Remind yourself frequently that the healing power is in your own subconscious mind. This healing power exists in every single one of us, if we believe it to be the case.

Speaker 1:

They did a study. What they did was they had two groups. Every one of them needed knee surgery. But what they did was they had two groups. Every one of them needed knee surgery. They all had significant damage to their knee. However, what they decided to do in this experiment was they were going to take one group and they were going to put them through the actual surgical procedure, and they were going to take the other knee, where they would normally do the laparoscopic surgery. However, it didn't do the surgery, but they were going to tell them they did the surgery and they were going to tell them that everything went well. What do you think happened? It's incredible A majority, large majority of those patients that didn't have the laparoscopic surgery but thought they did, and thought that, based on what the doctor said, that everything went well, guess what ended up happening. Years later, they were walking without difficulty all based on their belief. Do you think that's a possibility? It was just proven that our subconscious mind is so powerful if we believe that it's a possibility. And those people believed it was a possibility because they had a doctor tell them that they had the surgery. They told them that it went well and then on their knee, they had the little incision marks. So, as far as they knew, they had the surgery. However, they didn't, and both groups recovered the same way, which is absolutely incredible.

Speaker 1:

This power exists right inside of you and right inside of me. It's a healing power. It's the same power that beats your heart consistently, that controls all the organs in your body. We talk about it every week. That power is inside of you. If you believe in God. That is God right inside of you, working through you and this powerful place inside of you that has all the answers to anything that you ever wanted to know. The answers do not exist outside of you. You can go searching all you want and you might find it. You might find people that give you advice and suggestions, and that's okay, but the truth of the matter is the answers that you need are right inside of you. You just need to tap into that power, ask the question, listen for the answer and act, and you will see that, magically, you have this incredible power right inside of you.

Speaker 1:

The problem is, most people believe they don't have the power and therefore, if they ask a question, they say this is nonsense, this isn't going to work and it doesn't work and they don't get an answer and therefore they don't believe they have this power. Yet, all along, god created you, put you here on earth through this miraculous process, through the joining of a sperm and an egg and the dividing of the cells, somehow formed this most incredible thing, which is the person that you look at in the mirror. Person that you look at in the mirror. That power is incredible and that power is right inside of you. And if all you take from today is that I have. This power exists right inside of me, and you just keep repeating that to yourself. What will happen is you will eventually start to believe it, because that's how faith is formed.

Speaker 1:

Okay, let's go to point number two. Okay, let's go to point number two. Point number two says Know that faith is like a seed planted in the ground. It grows after its kind. Plant the seed in your mind. Important point Plant the seed in your mind, water and fertilize it with expectancy, and it will manifest. What do you think the most important point in that sentence is? Let me read it one more time Know that faith is like a seed planted in the ground. It grows after its kind. Plant the seed in your mind, water and fertilize it with expectancy, and it will manifest. Water and fertilize it with expectancy. What does that mean? It means that when you plant this seed in your mind, I'm going to be healed. I'm going to hit my goal. I'm going to lose the weight. I'm going to hit my goal. I'm going to lose the weight. I'm going to get the job.

Speaker 1:

There has to be an expectation and knowing a faith that it actually will occur. That's the problem that most people face is they don't have the expectancy. They plant the seeds, they say an affirmation I'm going to get a job that's going to yield me a hundred thousand dollars a month. They say that and the problem is they don't expect that it's actually going to happen. They don't believe that it's going to actually happen. And if you don't believe and you don't expect it, imagine going to the garden. You take a seed, you plant it in there, you water it and then you have this negative idea like this isn't going to work. It's again like pulling the seed back out and then you'll say the affirmation again and then you plant it back into the garden and then you have the negative thought and then you pull the seed out and then you put it back in. How soon will that seed grow? It's not going to grow because you keep pulling it out. It doesn't have its opportunity to actually grow.

Speaker 1:

And so when you plant the seed, what's going to cause it to grow the water that you're putting on it is the faith and the expectancy. So a lot of people say okay, mike, that's great, but how in the world do you get faith and how do you have expectancy when you've never had a result like that in your life before. There's a couple of things. One you have to repeat it over and over. You have to repeat that new belief I am. I have released 15 pounds and I'm now at my ideal weight, and you have to say that over and over again. I am now in the most loving and caring relationship, and you have to say that over and over again. If you don't do that, it's like pulling the seed out of the garden and then planting it back in and then pulling it out and planting it back in. It's through the repetition of saying it over and over. If you say it over and over every time that negative thought comes up and you then say that statement again, you're keeping the seed underground. But if you don't repeat it after the negative thought, it's like pulling the seed out and you got to wonder why isn't it growing? It's because you're not watering it with faith. You're not watering it with the repetition of the affirmation that this is happening in present tense. It's unfolding, it's happening. Period, the end.

Speaker 1:

All right, let's go on to the next point. Point number three the idea you have for a book, a new invention or play is real in your mind. This is why you can believe. You have it now. Believe in the reality of your idea, plan or invention and as you do, it will become manifest.

Speaker 1:

Let's talk about some studies that prove this case, that if we can see it in our mind and we use visualization, that it actually works. Rather than me telling you, let's use real studies from real people that actually worked. Okay, so they did a study on visualization at the Harvard Medical School. What they did was they got participants and they had them imagining practicing the piano. Again, these were people that played the piano somewhat, knew how to play. The same part of their brain lit up on brain scans as in those physically practicing. So they had them set up to brain monitors. They had one playing the actual piano and they watched their brain. And then they had another group of people that all they did in their mind was close their eyes and play the piano in their mind, and yet both areas of the brain in both patients lit up the same way. What does that tell us? It says that if we have imagined experiences, they work the same as the real in lighting up and making neuro associations and connections within your brain. Those connections get stronger by playing it in your mind. So do you think that if you envision yourself getting that goal that you want and you see it literally, picture it and take yourself through that process, do you think that might work? Here's proof that it does.

Speaker 1:

Let's talk about another study that was done. There was another study done at the University of Chicago. They took basketball players and they split them up into three groups. Group one practiced free throws daily. Okay, so they actually sat at the line and took shots and they did that every single day. The second group all they did was visualize making free throws, so they didn't actually take a shot, except for in their mind. They were lining up and taking the shot in their mind. And group three did nothing. Listen to this statistic. This is incredible. After 30 days group one that's the group that actually took the shots they improved by 24%. Okay. Group two they only did visualization. They improved by 23%. What that means is there was only a 1% increase from the group that actually took the shots versus the group that didn't take the shot.

Speaker 1:

Now, if that's the case and they were able to improve by 23% only by envisioning it, would it make sense for you to potentially take some time out of your day to envision what it is that you want. Now, one of the things that I often hear people say is Mike, I am not good at visualizing. And then I say to them think about the last negative fight or argument you got into with a friend, and it takes them maybe a few minutes and then they come up with and I said now, how many times did you replay that conversation in your head after it happened? And they start to laugh and they say oh, I did that five, 10, 20 times. So I said that's interesting. So actually what you're telling me is you're really good at visualizing. We're good at visualizing in the negative. We're used to doing that. We're used to playing these negative scenes in our head over and over. All we're going to do now is we're going to start to use this tool that we have, this power that we have of visualization, which again, has been proven in two cases so far, and I'm going to give you another case. We're going to use that to our advantage or we're going to use it to help ourself improve, to help ourself get what we want.

Speaker 1:

Number three Olympic athletes consistently use visualization so powerfully that when they hook them up to these biofeedback machines, the muscle patterns activated identically. Machines the muscle patterns activated identically, whether they were skiing or just imagining skiing. So think about that. You have one group of skiers that are actually skiing and they have. They're monitoring their brainwaves and their patterns and their muscle patterns. And then they have a second group. They're just sitting there imagining that they're skiing and the muscle patterns activated identically. So there's real power in this visualization. And again, how much time do we actually spend doing it? If they're going to keep Olympic athletes spending time visualizing, if they're going to keep basketball players Phil Jackson, who won so many championships he used to have his team consistently visualize and meditate there's a reason that people are doing it. There's a reason that their athletes, who are getting paid $20 million, are taking time to meditate and visualize it's because it works. These are just three of hundreds of studies that they've done proving the fact that this works.

Speaker 1:

Let's use an example. Let's say you want to lose weight. The visualization is you see yourself stepping onto a scale. You see yourself moving the scale, moving the weights over so you can see how much you weigh and you're at the weight that you want to be. You see yourself preparing meals and preparing healthy meals for yourself and you just keep envisioning that. And what you're doing is you're creating these neuro associations in your brain, these connections in your brain, and, even though you haven't actually done it yet, your brain doesn't know the difference. It's forming these connections, so you're tricking your brain into believing, and that's what we want to do.

Speaker 1:

Visualization is so important for you to get what you want. It's so important for this faith. We're building the faith in these things happening by by again picturing it as if it's already occurred. Visualize it, see it be the skier who's skiing down the mountain in their mind and they, they see a big mogul coming up and they're easily pivot and they jump it perfectly and they see themselves landing and they can feel it in their muscles. This is what we can do to help us get what we want. Does that make sense?

Speaker 1:

Let's go on to point four, which I find to be fascinating. Do you think that if you pray for another person that's having some kind of struggle, whether it's a physical struggle, a mental struggle if you say a prayer, do you think that can affect the other person's subconscious mind and bring about positive results? What do you think? Do you think that's a possibility? Let's see if the power of prayer work by reviewing a few of the studies that are out there.

Speaker 1:

So they did a study in 1988. It was at San Francisco general hospital. There were 393 patients in the coronary care unit, the heart unit, and they assigned patients randomly the people in that unit, 393 patients in two groups. One group, which was group A, they received prayer from strangers, so the strangers knew that they were praying for people in this unit. The other group received no prayer. Do you think that the people that got the prayer from strangers, do you think it would make a difference? Prayer from strangers, you think it would make a difference? Result says the prayer group had significantly fewer complications, needed less medication and had better recovery outcomes. Now, remember these people that were put into these groups. It was random, they just randomly placed them there and there were a majority of the people in the group that got the prayers that had fewer complications, less medication and better recovery outcomes.

Speaker 1:

So it's clear in that study that if we have prayer and what is prayer anyway? Right, it's a thought that we're passing in our mind, it's energy that we're passing. Can energy be felt? Of course it can. Again, you go over to someone's house and they're arguing. You don't know that they're arguing, but when you get to their house you can feel this negative energy. You feel the energy. You can feel it. Everything is energy. Our cells are vibrating. It's energy. Every component of our body is energy.

Speaker 1:

So prayer has a lot of power. Our words have a lot of power. If these prayers that strangers sent out to the people in the hospital actually seem to have power, imagine what we can do with our words. Our words create. Our words are energy. Our words create. Our words are energy. Our words have power. So it's important to really pay attention to these words that are coming out of our mouth, because they have significant power. They've done this study I'm sure you've seen videos potentially on it where they had a large group of people thinking positive thoughts about this body of water and then they would look at the water molecules under a microscope and they would see these incredibly beautiful patterns and then they would have them now think these negative thoughts and then suddenly the pattern of the water when it's seen under the microscope completely changed. It's hard to really believe that this can work but again, there's been study after study on it and it's showing that our words have a lot of power.

Speaker 1:

Let's talk about a study that could potentially be near and dear to your heart, which is, if I say love prayers and marital well-being prayers, will they have an impact? They did a study at Florida State University and they took participants and they prayed for the well-being of their partner for four weeks. They did this. The result was that the couples reported higher levels of relationship satisfaction, greater forgiveness and increased selfless concern. The partner being prayed for also reported improved feelings, even if they didn't know the prayer was happening, they just started to feel it, and so the conclusion was that there is an energetic or subconscious pattern that can be affected by prayer. Again, these are real studies, real people, real effect. It works.

Speaker 1:

Here's one more that's really powerful. They wanted to see if you had prayer and you focused on love and prayer, would that have an impact on vials of DNA, prayer, would that have an impact on vials of DNA? And what they found was this love and this prayer. Focused love, focused attention, focused prayer, focused meditation actually changed the DNA winding and unwinding, which was observed without any physical contact. It was just based on the thought, and the conclusion of the study was that consciousness and intention, us focusing on prayer and love actually may influence matter, including DNA remotely, again, without touching it, and from a distance, it actually worked. So, again, all this to say that this power that we're talking about, it exists right inside all of us and we can pray, not only for other people, but we can say prayers for ourself. And, based on those studies that you just heard, it's proof that this works. So why not take what works and use it to help ourselves and to help others? Prayer works.

Speaker 1:

Have you ever come across someone and they say something and it rubs you the wrong way and you start to judge them in your mind? We were just talking about how the power of our words, the power of prayer, has an impact in. It could be negative or positive, depending on what we're focusing on. If we're judging other people, do you think that's having a positive impact or a negative impact on both them and us? Based on the studies, it would most likely say that it's certainly not going to help us. So, interestingly enough, if we're putting out that negative energy's certainly not going to help us, so, interestingly enough, if we're putting out that negative energy, we're going to get that negative energy come back to us, because that's the negative energy we're putting throughout our whole body is focusing on judgment. What if, instead, we were to say instead of judging this person, I'm going to say a prayer for them. I'm going to say a prayer for love and kindness. I pray that they have more kindness and love in their heart and that God blesses them. If we say that, instead of doing a judgment, what do you think it's doing for that person? Based on the studies, it's certainly going to help them. And then what do you think it's doing for us when we're blessing other people? That energy is flowing through us and through all of the cells in our body. If we have this positive blessing that we're putting out there, do you think it might be having a positive impact on us as well? And it is having a positive impact. So let's use our words, let's use our prayers to help people rather than judge people. So the next time you feel that judgment come up, pause, take a second and ask yourself if I put this judgment out, is it going to help this person, is it going to help me? And the answer to both of those is no. So the way that you can help them and the way that you can help yourself is to put a blessing out there. Put a blessing of love, support, kindness, ask God to help heal them and give them love and kindness, and you're doing the same for yourself, and that will have a magical impact on you.

Speaker 1:

Let's go to point six. All disease originates in the mind. Nothing appears on the body unless there is a mental pattern corresponding to it. Do you think this is a possibility? Let's use a really small example. Imagine you go to a party and you're around a lot of people and it turns out you get a phone call the next day and 15 of the 20 people that were at the party now all have the stomach virus. What does your mind start to do at that moment? Is it thinking positively or is it thinking negatively? Your mind goes into oh my God, what if I get sick? I ate a lot of the food that those other people ate. I'm starting to feel a little under the weather. I'm not feeling perfect. What if I'm coming down? And that negative thought perpetuates and then the next thing you know you're sick. How many times have you experienced that? Let's go to a couple studies to see what actually happened. The Center of Disease Control did a study and they took people. They had these emotional patterns of negativity because of all this abuse, neglect and trauma. They found that there was a much higher risk of people getting heart disease, autoimmune disorders, cancer, depression and addiction. The conclusion was the emotional stress and trauma creates patterns in the nervous system that can later manifest as disease.

Speaker 1:

Let's create a picture for a second. I want you to imagine all the cells in your body. There's trillions of cells and they're all operating on a specific frequency. So a frequency is the level of vibration. For example, when we're feeling good, our cells are operating and vibrating in a specific pattern. When we're not feeling good, our cells are operating at a different pattern. When we're not feeling good, our cells are operating at a different pattern. If we're having negative thoughts, what do you think it's doing potentially to our cells and our body? Are they operating at a positive frequency or a negative frequency? Clearly, it would most likely be a negative frequency. If those cells are operating in a negative frequency long enough, that's the breeding ground for sickness, because when you're sick, the cells in your body are operating on a different frequency than they are when you're healthy. So if we can keep our cells operating on a level of frequency which is surrounded by love, happiness, peace, authenticity, all positive emotions. What do you think potentially happens to an illness that you're around? Do you think you're more susceptible or less susceptible to catch that if you're operating in this positive frequency, it would be less, because your cells are operating on a different frequency. There's less inflammation in your body, there's less negative things going on. The breeding ground for sickness doesn't exist because your cells are operating on a very positive frequency.

Speaker 1:

Today because I'm going to cut it here is our subconscious mind is extremely powerful. Our subconscious mind can be completely influenced and create a breeding ground for either positivity or negativity and, depending on what frequency, how we're feeling, what type of thoughts we're going to allow into our mind. Are we going to allow positive or negative If we're feeling, what type of thoughts we're going to allow into our mind. Are we going to allow positive or negative? If we have negative, that's going to create this negative environment and we're going to be potentially susceptible to more illness, more negativity, not good things. And if we can just flip that switch listen to positive music, go for a walk, do deep breathing, which gets us in a state of mind where we're feeling positive. That's creating a breeding ground for more good, and we saw today also that we have this incredible power in our words and in our visualization. If we allow our mind to visualize the things that we want and we do it as if we're really doing it and with the intensity of really doing that thing, what we're going to find is we're going to get more of the same, which is good, and if we use our words to judge others, we're going to get more of the same which is negative, and that's creating that negative frequency and that negative breeding ground. However, if we use the positive words and positive prayers for others, it's going to help them with the frequency that their cells are operating with and it's going to help us with our cells operating at a specific frequency.

Speaker 1:

Now, the reason today I used a lot of studies is because if I just say this without the studies, there's a lot of people out there that say, mike, this is a bunch of nonsense.

Speaker 1:

But we have universities like Harvard and Princeton and the Center for Disease Control all backing a lot of the things that we're saying with scientific research showing that it works. So take something that we learned today. Maybe it's just the power of prayer, the power of using prayer versus judgment. And the next time you hear something negative from someone and you have this judgment that comes up. Or you see someone and they're wearing something you don't like and you have this judgment come up. See someone and they're wearing something you don't like and you have this judgment come up. Instead of judging, give a positive prayer in your mind. You don't have to say it out loud, you just say it in your mind and by doing that, they're going to pick up that energy. You're going to pick up that energy and it's a win-win. Everyone wins. That's it for this week. Have an incredible week and I will see you next week.

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Michael Fox

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