In all the workshops I teach, and in the consultation groups I offer, I always begin the group by asking people to attune not only to their own internal source of support, but also to the larger information fields within which we constantly live.  These fields of information - whether they are from our family, community of colleagues, or our collective human experience - offer us both support and inspiration even if we are unaware of their presence. 

For me, collective consciousness is an ever-present, powerful source of both inspiration and support and it was a delight to have recently seen a documentary called "The Living Matrix".  It is a series of interviews with scientists who are exploring the realm of healing and wellness and who are doing research into both the presence and impact of the larger fields of information that are all around us all the time.

As I watched the film, and heard the many comments about the fact that we are constantly surrounded by and interacting with these fields, I was both delighted and inspired that our awareness of the importance and impact of these fields is expanding.  While not mainstream by any means, to have scientists doing research on the effects of these fields creates an emerging resource for healing and well-being. 

Some of the conversations were about the "placebo effect" - about how our minds can heal us, regardless of the fact that we may take only a sugar pill or have a sham surgery.  For example, patients who were scheduled to have knee surgery for arthritis showed a powerful placebo effect.  Half the patients got actual surgery and the other half had a sham surgery.  For those having the sham surgery, the surgeon made an incision in their knee, did all the motions of performing surgery without actually doing so, then sewed them up.  In a two-year follow-up, all the patients reported having no further pain - even those who didn't have any real surgery.  The power of the evidence for the placebo effect is that it shows us that the body responds to imagination and belief as deeply as it does actual physical interventions. 

For this week's experiment, I invite you to be aware of the kinds of messages you give to your body - the information fields with which you resonate and from which you draw.  Do you tell yourself that you are healthy and vibrant, or do you focus on what's wrong with you or out of place in your life?  While I don't want to take a stand that we can create good or poor health just with our thoughts, I would like to invite you to explore what happens when you track the quality of your thoughts about your health and well-being and notice what happens when you emphasize the positive side of things.

Since I place such an emphasis on wholeness, engaging this experiment doesn't mean ignoring or denying what may be wrong or out of place in your body or life.  Rather, it offers you an opportunity to notice what happens when you focus on the glass half full rather than half empty.  Remember, both sides are true - it's just a matter of playing with where you place your emphasis and, with the presence of information fields augmenting your focus, it's worth becoming more conscious of the themes you resonate with on an ongoing basis.  This process of resonating literally reveals the kinds of psychological food you feed yourself and, through that process, the kinds of messages you give your body about your basic health and well-being.

Also, notice what you discover about your basic beliefs about what's possible for you, as a person and in your life.  We automatically resonate with fields of information that come from many generations of our families and cultures, not to mention the overall field that contains human experience over all time.  Just as I've written before about being conscious of the quality of "station" we tune ourselves into, notice the beliefs with which you resonate most powerfully.  If you discover that you tend to resonate with beliefs that emphasize lack or limitation, play with shifting your focus to a point of view that offers possibility.  If you bump into parts of you that aren't comfortable looking at the glass half full, that's good information to have.  Again, it's important to remember that seeing things as half full doesn't in any way overlook that there are also things that actually are half empty.

As with all the experiments, remember to play with curiosity.  These experiments are ongoing invitations to notice what happens when you consciously focus your attention in a particular direction.  I've mentioned many times how we're constantly in a self-hypnotic conversation with ourselves, and these experiments you offer an opportunity to become more conscious of the nature of that internal conversation and its impact on you.