LOVE, HATE, IGNORE Rice Experiment

It’s true! Negative thinking about ourselves will cause disease, illness and even accidents!!  
Positive thinking about ourselves isn’t just about our emotional wellbeing, confidence and self-esteem – our thoughts and self-talk actually affect every cell in our body physically. How do I know this? Because I personally conducted the “Love, Hate, Ignore Rice Experiment” and I found that hateful thoughts have a dramatic impact at a cellular level – but as I discovered, being ignored is worse than being hated!
I decided to conduct this experiment after a near death experience and I had turned to my holistic practices to regain my strength and my health with the minimum of pharmaceuticals and I declined further medical intervention much to the annoyance of my medics. One of my practices is reciting “affirmations” i.e. repeating a positive sentence throughout every day so that we reprogramme ourselves out of negative ways of thinking or belief patterns such as “my body has let me down”, “I’m not good enough”, “I can’t do that”,  “I’m unhealthy”, he’s more attractive than me”, “I’m not tall enough”, “I’m too tall”, “I’m too fat, thin, hair isn’t right” blah blah blah –
To prove or disprove the value of affirmations, I cooked up some white rice just as I’d read about, and I divided in into three jars which I labelled “LOVE”, “HATE”, “IGNORE”.  I sealed them and for two weeks and several times a day I fired appropriate words and thoughts at the “LOVE” and “HATE” jars and totally IGNORED the third jar.
I told the LOVE jar how precious it was to me, that I was thankful that it was in my life, that I loved it and it made me so happy looking at it and knowing it was here with me. I thanked it for helping me with this experiment and told it how gorgeous it looked and how clever it was. I thanked it for its nutritional value and for feeding me and I sent loving energy to it as I spoke these words of appreciation.
To the “HATE” rice I did the opposite, but I started to feel so guilty and quite awful about sending hateful vibes out to the HATE rice. It felt dreadful, so much so that I feared that it would affect the outcome of the experiment. The solution -  I blamed the rice for making me feel that way and for making me say these awful things!! Hmm, how many people do that to each other?!
Then, something else strange happened. I was struggling for hateful things to say when the archives of my mind spontaneously opened up and I started reciting some of the things one of my long-term lovers had said to me frequently during his bipolar depressive phases:  “I don't like you, I don't love you, I don' t want you here in my space, my daughter doesn't like you, my friends don' t like you, I fell out of love with you and I've been using your body for sex for over 6 months, you're an inconvenience, you cramp my style.”  Wow! Well I guessed that the “HATE” rice would no doubt show me what all of those negative words and thoughts did to my body, let alone my mind and spirit .... watch this space!  By the time the straw broke this camel's back and I walked away from that relationship (and others which were similar rollercoasters of amazing highs and horrible lows), the amount of negative energy was accumulating so much that it had the power to manifest into a broken physical heart. It was indeed all part of my journey which led me to write my book “Wakey Wake-Up, Rise & Shine”.
I had started the affirmations about three weeks after hospital discharge when I attended a follow-up appointment and the medics told me that my heart function had been just 17% when I was admitted and they hadn’t expected me to survive the night as I had gone into heart failure.  When I got home from that appointment, I lay down on the sofa in total shock but I thanked my beautiful heart for hanging on in there which I repeated throughout every day. During that appointment they informed me that my heart function was much improved but still a very poor 33%. It was also beating as erratically as a 2-year old on a drum kit, (maybe this was karma for buying that drum kit for my 2-year old nephew to annoy my brother) don’t ya just love karma?!  However,  I thanked my heart and told her she was doing a great job and that I was very grateful to her for continuing to beat and give me life. I also told her that she had my attention now and I’d do everything that I could to put things right (I repeated this as an affirmation every day) and that involved changing my outlook on life completely and utterly – a journey that becomes more incredible as it gathers pace and I’m now more than three years down the line.
So, what were the results, what happened to the jars of rice?
 
13 days later (my magic number) the results were in and the proof of the rice pudding really is in the eating - but when you take a look at the photos below you probably won't feel like taking a spoon to it!

The LOVE rice is still white and fluffy with no sign of any aging or deterioration whatsoever.
The HATE rice has a significant amount of black, yellow and blue mould and it’s furry.
The IGNORE rice, however, is pretty much completely black, yellow and blue mould and furry – but at a vastly accelerate rate when compared to the HATE rice.
 
Each jar of rice shows us exactly what happens to the actual cells in our body when we aim these thoughts, words and energy in that direction - or not as the case may be:
 
The HATE rice shows us what happens to our body when we berate ourselves and tell ourselves that we’re not good enough or wrong about this, that or the other – or indeed when someone else tells us that constantly!  When we’re exposed to anything other than positive vibes our body turns into mouldy furry rice unless of course we have the presence of mind to counter it with positive affirmations before we “take it to heart”.

Here's another thought. Now turn this around and think what the effect is on someone else when we constantly disapprove of them, hit them with machine gun fire of anger or resentment and tell them they're not trying hard enough or if we constantly try to change them. Instead, be kind shiny happy people. Even if we feel that way, there is a much kinder approach out there and, on a “need to know basis” rather than venting our own frustrations regularly. However, we do have to embrace the fact that if we’re getting triggered, it’s time to look at why and address that, although sometimes we just need to move to the side-lines of that relationship rather than it remain centre stage.
 
Furthermore, life is a reflection, meaning that what we see in others is what is alive inside of us as an individual, and so once we improve our opinions of ourself and appreciate our uniqueness, our positives and our quirks and embrace our negative aspects as merely something to work on and grow from; then we can show those around us the same courtesy and knock the negativity on the head all round! If we don’t like someone’s behaviour and it drives us mad, why expose ourselves to it? – find your tribe, those who are happy to accept and be accepting because some of those infuriating traits that you see in others, simply won’t be an issue to some other people.

As for the IGNORE rice, I was really surprised at this outcome as I expected it to be pretty indifferent and not actually as bad as the HATE rice, but as this jar shows, it would seem that receiving negative hateful energy is somehow better than being completely ignored! Breaks your heart doesn't it?!

So this begs the question what happens when you ignore your body's cry for change?  The IGNORE rice is what happens. When we ignore our body’s cry for our attention then our health deteriorates even faster. If we ignore an ailment, an allergy, or if we constantly take painkillers for a headache, hangover, achy limbs then we are ignoring the fact that our body is telling us that something needs to change in our activities or our lifestyle for example. If we are in a state of anxiety, worry or fear for example, these will manifest into physical complaints such as digestive issues, skin complaints, rashes, psoriasis, eczema, hives; nervous issues such as shaking, stuttering or mentally shutting down. Our body is our barometer for our levels of contentment and what is right or wrong with our life and it’s up to us to listen and act on it – It’s our life and our body after all.
 
When we take a pill to suppress the symptoms, we are ignoring our body instead of listening to what it is telling us by presenting us with an ailment, illness or disease. These ailments are simply clues that there's a need for change.  Pharmaceuticals can suppress the symptoms of course, so that we can carry on with our day-to-day lives, but it won’t cure the actual cause and I believe that this is why our body protests all the more and gives us side-effects!
 
A prime example of this is that when I was prescribed betablockers for heart failure when I was in hospital, the side-effects which I experienced were just as indicated on the leaflet (I investigated when I felt so awful a few weeks down the line) and included:  Breathing problems, tingling in hands and feet, chest pain, anxiety, weakness, tiredness, nausea, confusion, dizziness, tremors, irregular heartbeat, sweating, swollen feet or ankles – I don’t think that it's any coincidence that these are the symptoms of heart problems including heart attacks and heart failure. However, although I was doing my utmost to rebuild my health, these side-effects held me back as I was convinced that I was having another heart episode every day!  Not long after this realisation (along with the other insights from this experiment) I switched to herbal betablockers in the form of mistletoe, motherwort and Passiflora – and I have never looked back. I believe that pharmaceuticals have a place whilst we are unpicking the actual cause, but they are not the cure if we wish to explore our spiritual nature.

These results have also made me take time to realise that if we ignore or neglect someone, the devastating effect that can have on them. I started to realise what was happening with the IGNORE rice part-way through the experiment and so I made a conscious effort to smile at elderly people as our paths crossed because one often hears of how invisible they feel as the hand of Father Time sweeps the years into an ever-growing pile.

So if you’re getting symptoms, what needs to change I wonder? Your lifestyle, your reactions? What you're putting into your body in terms of food, chemicals and liquids?  What you do for a living? What you do with your time? Your living circumstances? Your work? Your circle of friends? Your thought patterns?

The LOVE rice speaks for itself doesn't it!  For a healthy body, mind and spirit practice love, compassion, unconditional love, and sometimes “if you love somebody set them free” (Sting I do believe) and appreciate yourself, your mind, your body and who you are and what you have achieved rather than berate yourself and be angry with how your body isn't functioning, behaving or looking because as The Beatles so eloquently put it all those years ago "All you need is love"!

My beautiful heart responded fantastically to the holistic therapies and practices and my constant affirmations including “my heart beats in a strong, regular rhythm of 60bpm” and “my heart is the perfect size and shape for my optimum health” and duly popped back into rhythm without the cardioversion (CV) that the medics were eager to administer, I congratulated my heart and shared my delight with her as I beamed and smiled inside and out. I assured her that I would listen from now on and I was grateful that I  hadn’t gone for the CV which would have bullied her back into rhythm (if successful). I did have some oopses along the way when I got cocky and overdid things, got tired, anxious, upset or threw teddy out of  the pram, but every time, I had the means to get my beautiful heart back into rhythm. I told her that I was listening and that it was OK, that I'll make the changes, shift the way I'm looking at something or remove that person from my inner social circle. I had heard her, I would have early nights this week. I thanked her for talking to me.

However, I wonder what the outcome would have been had I told myself that I was doomed? What if I'd told my heart how useless it was? What if I’d held the belief that I was broken and I handed myself over completely to others rather than owned the responsibility myself for my heart’s health and my actual existence on this planet? I do thank the medical profession from the bottom of my heart because without them (and Reiki) I wouldn’t have lived through that night, but it took me into the Dark Night of the Soul and on this fantastic journey which I hope will inspire others through their own events.

​What if I'd ignored my body's cry for a change to the way I was living and I'd continued smoking and drinking and stimulating my body with energy boosters such as caffeine and energy drinks to push it when it was tired? The IGNORE rice has a lot of answers.
 
The rice experiment is so full of answers and questions on so many levels and ultimately we’ll each take from it what we need at this moment in time. Whilst the rice demonstrates the physical cells of our body next time, I’ll be writing about the water aspect of our body and the impact of thoughts, energy and so affirmations on the 70% of our body that is made up of water! Like my page and subscribe to my site so that you get to read it.

Peace of mind and love to you all.
 
Linda Jane W – Holistic Mentor, Psychic Healer, Practitioner & Teacher.
Author of Wakey Wake-Up Rise & Shine. Second edition available on Amazon.
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