Image by Katerina Knizakova
Dr Rupert Sheldrake and journalist Lynne McTaggart have both written extensively about the powerful effects of “attention and intention”. In his 2004 book, The Sense of Being Stared At, Dr Sheldrake wrote about how our minds extend beyond the brain and how we can affect someone through space by looking at or thinking about them.
I am sure that we have all had the experience of thinking about someone, only to find they then telephone you. This frequently happens to me. I will become aware that I am the focus of someone’s attention and then they will telephone or send an email. Sometimes, someone can be thinking about contacting me, and they will keep coming into my attention all day.
I have a few times been moved to message somebody to see how they are, and they will tell me that they have been thinking about getting in touch all day! If I am quiet, I can intuit more information—sometimes their state of mind or being. This is an example of how we are vibrationally connected. In essence: we are drawn towards each other by our focus, a kind of energetic broadcasting.
Thoughts Are An Actual, Physical Energy
In her 2008 book, The Intention Experiment, Lynne McTaggart researched whether we can use our power of intention to create wellbeing, peace, and success. McTaggart defines intention as directed, focused thought, and has concluded from her research that thoughts are an actual, physical energy, capable of affecting and transforming life—from plants to complex human beings—when focused in a particular way.
For example, Dr Gary Schwartz of the University of Arizona worked with McTaggart to research intention and its effects on light emitted from leaves. Two groups of leaves were grown in the same biological conditions; one group was subject to the researchers’ intention for them to be luminous, and another was not. The leaves that were given the intention to be luminous were, as measured by a special camera, indeed found to be more luminous.
This experiment was repeated across the globe by thousands of participants via the Internet; this time with four different groups of seeds. Participants chose which group of seeds to send intention to without revealing their choices to researchers and sent the intention for their chosen group of seeds to grow rapidly. This experiment was repeated six times. Each time, a statistically significant result showed that the group of seeds subjected to intention did indeed grow faster than the control groups.
This exciting work demonstrates people methodologically utilizing the power of their own intention for good, but also, the magnifying power of a collective in directing their intention. In her 2015 documentary, The Abundance Factor, McTaggart reported all sorts of incredible healings, including subjects going from ill health to complete wellbeing with repeated group intention. The power of positive, focused thought to heal, from reversing human disease to encouraging skin growth or healing bone structure, is phenomenal. The focused thoughts of one person or a group can permanently affect the physical structure of another human body.
Importantly, the conditions for optimal intention, as described in The Intention Experiment, involve focusing the mind and using all five senses and a focused heart state to bring awareness to the specific intention. This means imagining the person or situation being healed in every way; to see them as healed, and to hear, feel, touch, and taste that they are.
To multiply this intention, participants unite in a group, holding hands, centring the breath with this shared, focused intention. Lynne McTaggart’s 2017 book, The Power of Eight, explains how joining intention with eight people or more (eight being a vertical infinity symbol) brings significantly greater results to intention experiments. There is power in our shared intention for good.
The ongoing work has expanded to now include experiments to bring peace to violent places in the world, with apparently great success to date. For example, in the American town of Fairfield, Connecticut, rates of violent and property crime were on the increase compared with the previous year. McTaggart conducted an experiment where the specific focus of intention for one week was to lower violent crime by 10 percent. Over the next six months, there was actually a 46 percent reduction in violent crime in Fairfield.
More experiments are needed in order to substantiate the theory, but already the results are compelling: we can unite to share a positive intention that impacts the behavioural choices of others. If a shared focus can do this for other people, just imagine what our thought and focused attention does to influence our own reality!
Intention As A Focused, Loving Thought For Good
It appears that intention as a focused, loving thought for good is the key to healing, so we must be aware of the meaning behind our intentions, as this is what determines the outcome. Words spoken without purposeful and meaningful thought are not effective in creating change; it is the intention behind our words that appears to carry the strongest vibration and is felt by another.
We have all experienced this when someone is paying lip service—saying one thing but meaning another; it is the vibration, intent, and feeling that is felt as truth. We know when someone is not fully on board with what they are telling us.
Bringing The Subconscious Mind On Board
Our subconscious mind can interfere with our best intentions, too, preventing a full coherent resonance with our intent. To have a clear intention in the conscious mind and heart is wonderful, but we must stop the subconscious mind from emitting its own limiting broadcast and having a hand in creating an unwanted reality.
When we use intention to create change in our lives, it’s essential to bring the subconscious mind on board by aligning our beliefs with the intention. This disables the subconscious mind from replaying thoughts of limitation and fear while we are not deliberately engaged in manifesting positive intentions for our health, wellbeing, and prosperity.
An interesting side effect from the peace intention experiments is the so-called “mirror effect”, which is also described in the Law of Attraction as “like attracting like”. All participants who sent good intentions during the experiments reported a positive change in their own personal lives. People reported that not only did they feel increased harmony but also positive shifts and reconnections occurred in their personal relationships.
Focusing their intentions on peace and harmonious relationships also increased these states in their own lives. It is also worth remembering that the act of giving to others adds meaning to our lives and increases our levels of happiness and wellbeing.
The Universal Law of Attraction
As we begin to understand ourselves as vibrational beings, sensitive to our world and having an effect upon it, we can begin to see how we attract to us the essence of what we put out. Our vibrational state of being is where we attract our experiences and is created by our beliefs, and our perception and interpretation of experiences, emotional states, and associated thoughts. We are energy beings, and our vibration attracts, like a magnet, experiences from the field that match its frequency.
If we don’t change our thoughts and vibration, we simply receive more of the same experiences. What we focus upon and pay attention to becomes the essence of our reality. If we are focusing upon illness and pain, we vibrationally tune into—and thus receive—a reality where we experience more illness and pain. If we place our attention upon abundance, we attune to a reality that includes the possibility of wealth and prosperity. If we focus upon lack, we have more experiences that feel lacking.
It is important to be mindful about where we focus our attention, as this will be the essence of what is drawn to us. Abraham teachings channelled through Esther Hicks (Hicks & Hicks 2005) tell us that worrying does not serve us, as it is a focus on the thing we do not want, potentially drawing that towards us.
When I work with clients I may refer to this, challenging them not to think of a pink elephant in a tutu dancing across a high wire. It is, of course, an impossible task: all of the detail is there in all of its glory. It is challenging in real life to actively put something out of our minds. This is why people have such a problem with positive thinking, as they are mostly trying not to think about being chronically ill, or to avoid being fearful of lack. Going over the details just perpetuates the current state of feeling, vibration, and ultimately the issue itself.
Focus On Feeling Good, Vibrant, And Healthy
It is in our interest to focus on feeling good, vibrant, and healthy, rather than feeling sad or helpless about our poor health. If moving in the direction of vibrant health feels too much of a stretch, we can at least move towards feeling more peaceful. When working with belief, it is important to clearly state our intended alignment with “having [our healthy desired intention]”, as opposed to desiring “not to have the problem any more”.
Applying the principles of the law of attraction is difficult when, at the same time, our biological drives are working hard to protect us from repeating previous painful experiences and warning us about a poverty mindset or ill health. This leads our biology to repeat the biochemical pattern, firing neurons that result in us experiencing the same old emotions about the same old issues. We have to focus differently, and one way is to install new beliefs, which in turn changes our perception, our interpretation of events, and our emotional responses and thoughts.
The Power of Belief and Visualization
The thought manifests as the word;
The word manifests as the deed;
The deed develops into habit;
And habit hardens into character.
So watch the thought and its ways with care,
And let it spring from love
Born out of concern for all beings.
The originator of this quote is unknown, although similar sentiments have been found in the Buddhist scripture Dhammapada, a Chinese proverb, and late 19th-century Christianity. A version of it is often attributed to Gandhi. Ancient spiritual wisdom teaches us that in order to experience an enriching life, we must build our character with love, honesty, and compassion, cultivating a mind free of troublesome thought, belief, and emotion.
The original reiki principles formulated by Dr Mikao Usui, who died in 1926, were translated by Japanese Reiki Master Toshitaka Mochizuki in 2000 and teach these same sentiments:
The secret art of inviting happiness
The miraculous medicine of all diseases
Just for today, do not anger
Do not worry... Be filled with gratitude
Devote yourself to your work. Be kind to people.
Every morning and evening, join your hands in prayer.
Pray these words to your heart and chant these words with your mouth.
— DR MIKAO USUI, Reiki Treatment for the Improvement of Body and Mind
©2019 by Nikki Gresham-Record. All Rights Reserved.
Excerpted with permission from the book:
Working with Chakras for Belief Change.
Publisher: Findhorn Press, an imprint of Inner Traditions Intl.
FindhornPress.com and InnerTraditions.com
Article Source
Working with Chakras for Belief Change: The Healing InSight Method
by Nikki Gresham-Record
Working with Chakras for Belief Change transforms people’s unhelpful beliefs through clearing their chakras, raising their vibrations, and creating a fertile space for the New to come in. The Healing InSight Method presented in this practical full-color book is based on affirmations used together with individual chakra work and specific bodywork exercises, including techniques drawn from kinesiology, qigong, whole-brain integration, visualization, and infinity symbol exercises. (Also available as a Kindle edition.)
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About the Author
Nikki Gresham-Record is one of the UK’s leading spiritual healers as well as a chartered counseling psychologist and teacher of Reiki and Qigong. She developed her Healing InSight Method for belief change by drawing on her professional background and her interest in vibrational-emotional healing and the power of belief. She works with a broad client base as well as facilitates workshops. For more info visit nikkigreshamrecord.co.uk
