How to Make Your Healing Stick

Have you ever had a big insight, perhaps about the lie you’ve believed for years, and you start to heal that, and you begin to live in the vision, the energy of the Truth about you, and then . . .

Then you find yourself falling back into that old pattern again, next time you’re triggered?

It’s a natural part of healing. Everyone goes through it.

Why does it happen?

Because that old pattern is actually a neural pathway in your brain that, every time you think those same old thoughts and feel those same old feelings based on those same old memories, you deepen the groove of that neural pathway.

Picture a well-worn pathway in the forest.

When you try to change, transform, you are literally building new pathways in your brain.

When you do that, though, it triggers something in your brain that says, “Oh no, this is new, this is different, this is dangerous. Must not go there.”

This is your “survival brain” speaking. The part of your brain that is fueled by negative memories and a probable belief that “change is dangerous.” It’s also called “automatic negative bias” which is geared toward focusing on possible danger in the environment.

Thus your “default” will be to fall back into the old ways of thinking and feeling. That well-worn path is familiar, even if it’s not at all comfortable.

You need to consciously create a whole new path. And the more you practice “walking this new pathway,” the more you will establish that new neural pathway in your brain.

So how to do that?

Well, built into the whole Healing Codes approach is the infusion of a new pathway, via a new vision of who you are. Using Truth Focus Statements and/or a Love Picture while doing your Healing Code anchors those new truths, that new vision, in your actual brain.

In my Monthly Momentum and Healing Intensive programs, I keep holding you to that new vision and introduce even more tools—all to help you Infuse and Integrate the new energy of what you desire to create for yourself.

There’s another way to infuse the positive that can help you overcome that “automatic negative bias” of your survival brain.

For years, I kept what I think of as a “gifts journal.” Many would call it a gratitude journal. I like the idea of “gifts” because it feels so personal, like a gift picked out specially for me. And some of the things that come up do feel personal. (I ended up writing a whole book based on this idea, Abundant Gifts.)

My gifts journal is an important part of my healing work.

Example: One day, when I was focusing on healing something, that very night in my Bible study a clear answer came. The issue was my tendency to overgive, and the Scripture we discussed was from Acts 20:35, which says, “In all things, I [Paul], have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

This verse always caused me problems, because it fed my overgiving tendency. It seemed to be saying, “You’re not as good a person if you receive. Giving is much holier than receiving.” A lot of Christians teach that, and it always triggered codependency in me.

Turns out, that verse doesn’t mean anything like the way it’s been interpreted by so many. It doesn’t even actually refer to giving at all. What it means is that if you have wealth, don’t hang onto it—it’s better to use it to help others rather than keep it for yourself. It’s not at all a blanket principle about giving and receiving.

In fact, I felt that God had been trying to show me that receiving is extremely important. We are to receive from him first, then out of that overflow we give to others. As they receive from us, the circle is complete and we feel satisfaction. Both giver and receiver are blessed.

When this truth finally struck home for me the other night–the very same day I focused on healing overgiving–I felt free. It was what I call a personalized gift, and it goes in my gifts journal. I am taking 20 seconds right now to savor it all over again! (According to Julie Bjelland, it takes 20 seconds for a positive thought to register in our brains and cancel out the default of negative bias.)

In our healing work, the challenge is always to stay in the “new energy” of our healthy Truth, rather than stay in the “old default energy” of the lie we had (often subconsciously) believed for so long. Doing Healing Codes to infuse the positive, and keeping a gifts journal are two ways to integrate healing and keep us in that healthier energy of truth.

If you would like to learn more about keeping a gifts journal, go here. And if you would like a custom Healing Code and coaching to help you identify and heal the lies that bind you, and discover the real Truth about you, check out my coaching at HealingCodesCoaching.com.