This is a question I’ve been pondering for many, many years. This is also on the mind of many of my clients, as they wonder how much their beliefs and/or intentions will either aid or hinder the effectiveness of the sessions they receive from me as well as how their beliefs and intentions affect their bodies and their healing processes. What if they don’t really believe in the effectiveness of these healing modalities, or they question the underlying theories? What if they can’t help but doubt? Does that mean it won’t work for them? Or will it work regardless of what they believe? The confusion is understandable, as we hear conflicting answers to this question. Some people claim it doesn’t matter what you believe; if it works, it works. Others say your intentions and beliefs actually create your reality and have everything to do with whether or not you heal. Others fall somewhere in the middle and/or just don’t know what to make of it all, although they acknowledge beliefs must play some kind of role (e.g., in the placebo effect).

I certainly don’t have all the answers, and this is still an open question for me. But, this morning I was pondering how sound healing works, as an example. Clearly, many people have experienced profound transformations through sound healing. Yet, as Jonathan Goldman (an expert in sound healing) often points out, the frequencies used to treat specific organs and energy centers vary greatly among different traditions, theories, and approaches. The theory of sound healing is based on the idea that we are vibratory beings (more specifically, that the entire universe is vibratory in nature, of which we are a part). So, these frequencies are said to aid the body in healing because they vibrate at the “healthy” frequency of the specified organ or energy center in human beings. As the person is exposed to this specific frequency, the energy center or organ then begins to resonate with the “healthy” sound, which leads to health in that particular organ or energy center. However, given this theory, how is it that two completely different frequencies can be used for the same organ or energy center and both seem to be effective in producing a healing or transformational experience (which is often the case)?

Jonathan Goldman says that after a time of consternation over this issue, this answer came to him: frequency + intention = healing. He explains that not only is frequency a factor in healing, but the intention of the person offering the sound, as well as the intention and beliefs of the person receiving, is critical as well. This is why he believes different frequencies can be effective for the same energy center or organ, and also why some people notice benefits while others do not. This explanation still left me in a quandary, though, because I naturally started to think that this meant intention alone could explain the effectiveness of sound healing. After all, if we can use different frequencies and get the same results, and the only other factor involved (besides frequency) is intention/beliefs, then it seems that intention is the main factor in the effectiveness of sound healing, right? But, this didn’t sit right with me. What about the whole vibratory universe thing? What about the physics of how the universe (and thus the human body) seems to work? Shouldn’t that have an effect as well?

That’s when I started to wonder… what if at least part of the confusion is a misconception that “frequency” and “intention/beliefs” are separable? What if, in fact, they are two sides of the same coin, so to speak? What if one does not (and cannot) exist without the other? This is what I’ve been pondering today. Perhaps part of the problem is that we think we can isolate “intention/beliefs” and then answer the question of how they (alone) affect healing. Perhaps the problem stems from this (mistaken) unspoken assumption in the question itself. If this is the case, then both frequency and intention/beliefs are factors in the healing/transformational effects of sound healing for the simple reason that they come as an inseparable package… they are two aspects of the same thing.

If this is true, I can see how, for instance, a frequency that may not be a perfect match for an organ’s “healthy” frequency could still be quite beneficial if the intention embedded in the frequency from both the giver and recipient were very coherent and strong. I could also see how a perfect match frequency-wise embedded with incoherent or even detrimental intentions/beliefs could be ineffective or even cause disruption. This would be because the total package being delivered to the person comes as a kind of net effect of both frequency and intention/beliefs (and probably a lot of other factors, by the way), and you cannot separate out one from the other. The separation is only a concept in our minds but does not represent the actual reality of what is being delivered.

This idea could then be extended to other approaches that support healing, such as nutrition, aromatherapy, structured water, Earthing products, or any of the healing modalities I practice. For instance, I recently have been experimenting with different nutritional approaches and actually became quite obsessed with “eating right.” I was approaching it from a fear-based perspective, and I can see now that my beliefs/intentions were in opposition to my health. Even though I was eating foods like veggies and such, I actually became less and less healthy physically. It became clear to me that my belief structures and intentions were affecting my ability to heal even though I was eating nutritious foods. (And, of course, there are probably other factors as well.) Yet, at the same time, imagine if I had approached eating with the same fear-based perspective but instead ate donuts and Doritos all day long. I would imagine that would have been even worse on my physical body because the nutritional and energetic content of the food does actually make a difference as well. Other factors related to intention would be how the food was grown, who was growing it and with what intention, who harvests the food and with what intentions, who handled the food on the way to the store, what the atmosphere was like in the store, etc. All of this, along with my own beliefs/intentions, combines into a complex package of what makes up that food and how it affects me.

As for healing modalities such as Polarity therapy (one of the modalities I practice), if this idea were true, then it would be quite important that I have knowledge of energy anatomy and know how to apply that knowledge practically to a person’s energetic system for the benefit of the overall physical functioning of the system. Concurrently, my intentions/beliefs as well as the intentions/beliefs of my client would also be critical. For my client, his or her intentions/beliefs would be important because the energetic dynamics of his or her system (how balanced is the flow, etc.) is not separate from the intentions and beliefs embedded in that system. And, since I (as the practitioner) am interacting directly with my client’s energetic field vibrationally, my intentions/beliefs as well as the overall coherency of my energetic system also have an impact on my client.

These are my ponderings of late. What it comes down to for me in a practical sense is that all of these factors make a difference… my intentions, my beliefs, as well as the vibrational coherency of whatever I’m coming into contact with. Therefore, for example, it matters what foods I eat, and it also matters that I prepare and eat that food with love and gratitude. It matters whether or not the water I drink is structured, and it also matters whether or not I believe structured water has an effect on my health. It’s a “both/and” situation, not an “either/or” situation. That’s what I’m going with for now, anyway!

What do you think? Leave a comment below. I’d love to hear from you!

In love & gratitude,
Penny