Okay. So y’all know I went on a years-long mind-body healing adventure a while back (if you don’t know this, I tell a bit of the story here and a whole bunch more of it in an interview I did with the amazing Jenn Page here).

I’ve explored approximately a bajilliondy remedies for my undiagnosable mystery pain. (Here are some of my favorites.) I’ve traveled the world, met with the experts, and learned a LOT about how the brain translates danger signals *into* pain. Since December 26, 2017 (the date I first felt the “catch” in my hip that I’d been waiting for… in all the months before, so much was going SO RIGHT in my life, I had this feeling that there was NO WAY everything could be so good for so long without there being… a catch [hai, upper-limit problem]), I’ve grown a lot while getting fluent in how my system’s signals show up.

At one point in the early experimentation days, one of my doctors asked if I was game to explore the placebo effect. This is where you try something you KNOW is not really meant to work — like, you eat a TicTac but tell your brain it’s a painkiller — and much of the time, the brain will actually create the response we want (even though it didn’t receive anything to chemically alter our condition).

OF COURSE I’m game for this. I keep saying, these days, “Mala is medicine.” There’s good science to back the fact that pets can heal us — and here are the latest photos of Mala, my prescribed-by-doctors Gemini rocket of PURE JOY.

But back in 2018 or 2019, when we were experimenting with this remedy in non-pet ways, my doctor encouraged me to create a label for a bottle of some inert vitamin, so we could really have my brain go on the ride.

Now, I’ve spent my life in showbiz, working with creatives to help them turn their wildest dreams into their actual lived experiences, and OF COURSE in the creative arts, we *constantly* convince the world things are happening that are actually NOT happening. We WORK in the placebo effect. Our JOBS are all about creating a reality for audiences that go on amazing journeys with us. So, it stands to reason we could USE that talent for lots of non-job-related reasons, right?

One of the fun — random — things my doctor told me to help me choose the label for my bottle of fish oil pills that would masquerade as my “pain eraser” prescription is that studies show that prescriptions with the letters Q, V, X, Y, and Z in their name are PERCEIVED to work better. (You will now be obsessed with how many drug companies exploit this information, BTW.)

So, the hubs put a big ol’ label across the bottle with something like XZYXXARGVANIQUY written in big, black marker, and every day, I would dutifully take one of these and laugh at the silliness of it all.

Did it work? Sure. Everything works a little bit a little of the time (I wrote about this, re: what I’ve tried for relief from hot flashes, here, recently). And ultimately, who cares if it’s a placebo that’s making the difference for us? In the end, it’s the INTENTION behind the action, and *that* has impact.

Has the placebo effect ever worked for you? Do you practice living “as if” to help your brain take a break sometimes? Share with me what you’ve tried. Comments are open below and I’m excited to see what you have to say!

Woo Weather: Take it easy, y’all. Mars in Gemini is no joke *and* Mercury is now in its retrograde illusion, providing extra swirliness around all the fire and agitation. Breathe. Count to ten. And visit my tips on Mercury RetroGRACE here. Join us in my Chart Harmony Discord server here if you like chatting woo on the daily (like I do)!

All my love,

Bonnie Gillespie is living her dreams by helping others figure out how to live theirs. Wanna work with Bon? Start here. Thanks!