Oftentimes when Course students learn about and adopt the teaching that sickness is in the mind, they become obsessively preoccupied with their thoughts in the hope of preventing any sickness from manifesting in the world of form. I know I myself went through a period where I tried to be vigilant about my thoughts, thinking I needed to root out anything which might have negative effects on my health. I quickly dropped it, though, as I realized my preoccupation was born of fear, the very thing from which the Course was helping me to find freedom, and that sickness does not represent failure of any kind. To believe that it does is to give birth to guilt.

So what’s a Course student to do about sickness, and about thoughts of sickness?

You need do nothing.

Unhook from the thoughts that health must be controlled by preventing the “wrong” thoughts. In and of themselves thoughts are not a problem. The problem lies in believing thoughts to be true. Believing thoughts to be true fuels them, which just keeps them going. By withholding belief, thoughts eventually die down on their own, just as a fire dies down when it runs out of fuel. This isn’t something that happens quickly; it can take time for a mind to wind itself down from certain thoughts. Especially from those which have received a lot of fuel over time.

And if you are sick, or get sick, know this: Sickness is of the mind, but You are not. You are beyond the mind, a part of God Itself. Sickness is nothing. It’s an effect that appears in the world of form, but effects don’t change Reality. Sickness is in the mind because the world is in the mind. But That of which the mind is a part is unchanged by what appears in the mind. Go behind appearances to the Truth within, and rest as what You truly are. Sickness may resolve, or it may not. It will cease to matter. And when it truly ceases to matter, the full power to shape experience comes available. The interesting thing is that the desire to change experience from sickness may go unexercised because it presents no barrier to God and Love. And when the full awareness of Love is present, what need is there to change anything?