The Difference Between Helpful Hope & Disheartening “Not Good Enough To Deserve A Miracle” Messaging About Healing When All Else Has Failed

My original draft of Sacred Medicine opened with a story about a child who had a life-threatening condition that conventional medicine had abandoned. The parents of the child sought the help of a Sacred Medicine healer in desperate times. It might give hope to people suffering from “incurable” diseases.

However, when I asked my colleague to read it she turned her head. She has a sick baby. She tried every possible thing to find a miracle cure for her child, but her child continues to suffer. She begged me to not tell that story. She said that I could throw it in later, if it helps people find hope when all seems lost. When you feel helpless and hopeless, there is hope. She begged me to not make mothers feel that they aren’t good enough or not favored enough by the deities to receive their miracle cure.

I listened to her plea and put the story under a mountain full of disclaimers. I didn’t want to give false hope, make people who were doing all they could feel bad, or make them feel bad about themselves or their children.

This way of thinking, teaching or preaching is, in my humble opinion, the opposite of healing. It might offer hope for desperate people to hear stories of miraculous healings. It’s not compassionate enough for people who are still in pain to suggest that miracles are only available to those who have earned them.

Through a trauma-informed lens, I see that there are some people who were so hurt by things being uncertain or out of their control as children that they believe that we can control our reality 100% with the power of our thoughts. This is the “law of attraction” approach popularized by The Secret teachers. It suggests that you can create vision boards of what you desire, visualize good things happening, and then focus your disciplined thoughts towards creating all you want.

If you continue to think this way, if anything bad happens, it is your fault. If you have been negative thinking, doubting your faith, expressing negativity, and failing to pray, meditate or say affirmations enough, it’s likely that you are manifesting bad thoughts. If you are raped it is because you have manifested it. If you are an inncent Black woman and get pulled over by police for a registration violation it is because you attracted abuse and violence through your violent or abusive thoughts. You are being punished for your impure and unspiritual thoughts if you get cancer. If your child is diagnosed with cancer or is born with disabilities, it is because Mama did something wrong in the past. This is her chance to expiate her karma and have a better life.

It’s a cruel, pathetic shitty world, people.

One reader wisely commented on my Facebook post:

“There is a vast landscape of complexity between total certainty, despair and powerless despair. It’s this complexity that overwhelms, confuses. Complex ‘possibilities” can be too difficult to comprehend when we are sick or in desperate situations. Many people want the easy, straightforward answer because they don’t have the time or the mental capacity to think about anything else. Stories of total healing can be both beautiful and terrible. Even though vulnerable people may jump to one interpretation or another, they might be able to see the truth and make a more informed decision. After many years of supporting people with chronic illnesses, the only thing I can add is that to tell someone that they are unable to overcome their own lack of faith, positivity or determination is cruel and disempowering. It pushes some people over the edge. Even if this is a small minority of cases, it means that we must share stories of miracles with great care em>

Is there a baby in the bathwater of the idea that “Thoughts create Things?”

As I discuss in the “paradoxes” of healing that I weave through Sacred Medicine, I believe there is a baby in law of attraction practices. We don’t have to throw away the baby with all the water. Reality is influenced by your thoughts. Some things can be “manifested” with will, intention and discipline. Your thoughts cannot control reality. This fact is as destabilizing to trauma survivors who believe they have control over everything. However, your thoughts simply aren’t powerful enough to control all aspects of your reality.

This means that we must reject, turn away from and not share the teachings of these people. We also need to stop promoting, sharing on social media, compensating financially or otherwise amplifying the voices of those who spread this harmful nonsense. You already know the names of these people so I don’t have to mention them. It’s quite obvious. Follow the exaggerated law o attraction claims and promises all the way to bank. My colleague and the Facebook reader reinforced my point. We need to be cautious about sharing stories that seem miraculous or unexpected. When it’s grounded and realistic, hope can be kind and encouraging. Promoting magic thinking or denial, especially if you’re making a profit, is unethical, false, and unkind.

The Sciences Of Psychoneuroimmunology & Epigenetics Explain How Our Thoughts Impact Our Physiology & Genetic Expression

What’s the baby doing? Well, it’s true that our thoughts, feelings, and beliefs impact our nervous systems, which impacts our immune systems, our epigenetics, our psychoneuroimmunology, and our endocrine systems, and this leads to chronic inflammation and end organ damage- and also chronic or life threatening diseases. We know that when these bodily systems are disrupted, it impacts our health and ability to recover from an injury.

What triggers the emergence of painful thoughts, beliefs and feelings? Trauma. Science has shown that trauma can make us sick. As I explain in Sacred Medicine, the answer is unambiguous. The treatment of trauma might change our negative thoughts, beliefs, and feelings in a way that may help to regulate our nervous system. This could prevent or reverse the development of disease. This hypothesis is not yet confirmed by science, but it could be. Given what we know about healing and disease, it would make perfect scientific and psychological sense.

Don’t Gaslight Your Parts!

What’s the best thing to do? Affirmations are worthless by themselves. Your conscious mind is only running the show about 5% of the times. This means that even though you can recall to say “I am worthy” 100 times per day, it’s still a small percentage of your total potential. Your nervous system will be all over the place if 95% of your unconscious mind runs the “You are a worthless piece degenerate garbage unworthy of love, wealth, validation and life isn’t worth living” program. This is because your parents convinced you that this was true.

Internal Family Systems (IFS), a way to gaslight your inner children is telling them that they are whole, perfect, healed and lovable. This is because they have been told this for many years. They knew this was false back then. So why should they believe it now? Lies to yourself will only make these hurtful parts of your beings more distant from the true healer inside you- what I call the Inner Pilot Light, or what IFS calls “Self”, with a capital S.

Telling an Oppressed and Suffering Person, “Your Thoughts Caused This Oppression” is Just Cruel

There’s also the social justice component. You can believe that all bad things happen because you thought it. To keep that belief alive, you will have to make abuse of your emotions and use social justice demeaning logical knots. Does this mean that every Black, Indigenous or LGBTQIA+ person on the planet is marginalized and oppressed because their thoughts aren’t pure enough? Does that also mean that people who aren’t oppressed – white, privileged men, women, straight, gay, cis-gender, wealthy people – are not marginalized because their thoughts and spirituality are superior to others? This bathwater can be used to expose the Aryan nonsense.

Last year, I was a refugee from a wildfire. I fled my home three miles away because of the crow flying and the wildfire was burning. My home was full of smoke and I couldn’t breath. Someone suggested that I let go my filthy thoughts so I could breathe again. I was confused. The. Actual. Fuck?”

Did she really believe that I would be able to breathe clean, smoke-free air around my head? Her complete lack of empathy for legitimate fear and suffering was shocking to me. She didn’t say a word about how sorry she was. Wow. She’s even more cruel than her cruelty by calling herself a “spiritual person.”

We Need to Identify the Bathwater In order to Save The Baby,

As I discussed in Sacred Medicine, there are many babies, and even more muddy water. But I want to know what your thoughts are on all of this. Is it helpful and encouraging to hear about unusual stories of radical remission for a child or loved one? Are you finding the law of attraction useful? It can feel abusive when you don’t get what your heart desires. Is it losing its cultural relevance?

If you’re interested in Healing With The Muse, I’m going show you a preview of something I’ve been doing with Jeffrey Rediger, a Harvard doctor, author of Cured, anti-racist teacher and somatic therapist. Resmaa Menakem is also the author of My Grandmother’s Hands, The Quaking of America Resmaa Menakem. On Monday, April 18, we will be discussing a statement entitled “9 Signs That The Mind-Body–Spirit Wellness Market Is Compromised.” Get Healing with The Muse here.

*Please review Sacred Medicine if you have read it! We value early reviews, so let everyone know your thoughts!