reason, our thoughts can actually make us sick. If our thoughts can make us
sick, might they also make us well?
Let’s say that a person had some experiences within a short time frame
that caused him to feel resentful. As a result of his unconscious reactions to
those occurrences, he held on to his bitterness. Chemicals corresponding to
this emotion flooded his cells. Over weeks, his emotion turned into a mood,
which continued for months and changed into a temperament, which was
sustained for years and formed a strong personality trait called resentment.
In fact, he memorized this emotion so well that the body knew resentment
better than the conscious mind, because he remained in a cycle of thinking
and feeling, feeling and thinking, that way for years.
Based on what you learned about emotions as the chemical signature of
an experience, wouldn’t you agree that as long as this person clings to
resentment, his body will react as though it is still experiencing the long-
ago events that first caused him to embrace this emotion? Moreover, if the
body’s reaction to those chemicals of resentment disrupted the function of
certain genes, and this sustained reaction kept signaling the same genes to
respond in the same way, might the body eventually develop a physical
condition such as cancer?
If so, is it possible that once he unmemorized the emotion of continuous
resentment—by no longer thinking the thoughts that created the feelings of
resentment, and vice versa—his body (as the unconscious mind) would be
free from that emotional enslavement? In time, would he stop signaling the
genes the same way?
And finally, let’s say he began thinking and feeling in new ways, to such
a degree that he invented a new ideal of himself related to a new
personality. As he moved into a new state of being, might he signal his
genes in beneficial ways and condition the body into an elevated emotional
state, ahead of the actual experience of good health? Could he do this to the
extent that the body would begin to change by thought alone?
What I just described in simple terms happened to a student in one of my
seminars, who overcame cancer.
Bill, 57, was a roofing contractor. A lesion had appeared on his face, and
a dermatologist diagnosed malignant melanoma. Although Bill underwent