Beyond the Power of Your Subconscious Mind (24 page)

The point being that the more transparent and emotionally honest one can be with their feelings, the greater their psychological and physical health. As one avoids or diminishes the expression of resentment or anger, the more they are diluting their expression of love. The more emotionally honest one is with the expression of anger, with harm to none, the more expansive and deepening will be their expression of love.

In my work with couples, following the history taking, I will have them take turns emptying their “gunnysack of grievances” that has filled up over the years. The only ground rule is that the person hearing or receiving the cumulated grievances cannot defend themselves. Once both “gunnysacks” have been emptied, they cannot go back and keep reminding their partner of their mistakes or wrongdoings or sins that may have happened years ago. From there, each partner makes a simple demand for the change that would strengthen or improve the relationship that is agreed upon by both persons.

This is a wonderful communication tool that encourages emotional honesty, transparency and an opportunity to be forthcoming and assertive, especially if one is conflict-phobic and fearful of standing up for themselves. This technique also creates a sense of equality even though one partner may tend to be more domineering or controlling. As one of my clients said following the session, “I no longer feel like the bottom dog. My husband had to listen to me and understand my frustrations. I feel much closer to him now.”

Thus, it is important to create mental antibodies to neutralize toxic thoughts. When you catch yourself drugging your mind with “bad hypnosis” or negative self-talk, constructively ask yourself why you are doing so? “Why am I planting weeds in the garden of my subconscious and watering the weeds all day long instead of flowers?”

Since we are all striving for optimal health, symptoms are a message from the subconscious that we need to change something in our lives. If you have a physical symptom, do not run away from it. Feel its reality in your body. Let the associated emotions flow freely. If you allow them to flow almost as if you are free associating, they will lead you to the root cause or beliefs that are creating the physical symptom.

Our psychic fault lines are rumbling and the tectonic plates of consciousness are shifting. While most of us may not have the important tools or insight to create emotional mastery and optimal health, in their book,
The Life We Are Given
,* Michael Murphy and George Leonard describe one of the best programs I am aware of for creating and maintaining the highest level of mental, emotional and physical health. The main theme of their program is that any long-term change requires on-going practice, not a fast-fix seminar.

Implicit in their program is that each of us has hidden human reserves or potential that has yet to be discovered. Secondly, change must be expansive and involve not only body and mind but heart and soul.

The integrated practice created by Murphy and Leonard was designed for people with busy lives. It includes the following commitments:

1. To establish a clear goal, a physical or mental achievement of positive human potential.

2. To create and utilize belief statements or affirmations daily for significant positive change. All of the participants shared one affirmation; “My entire being is balanced, vital and healthy,” in addition to individual specific affirmations.

3. To establish a Kata or physical action such as yoga, Qi Gong or Tai Qi that involves some stretching and strength exercises.

4. Every Kata ends with ten minutes of meditation and visualization.

5. Each person selected a specific part of their body or mind they wanted to heal.

6. Develop intellectual power by reading, writing and discussion.

7. Becoming conscious of everything one eats but emphasizing the benefits of low fat and high fiber foods.

8. Whenever possible, to open your heart to others in love and service, but also to nurture your own emotional needs.

Three things were crucial to one’s personal growth. First, a clear vision of the goal that was to be achieved. Second, the daily affirmations that reinforced ongoing change, and third, the Kata or ongoing physical training for both the body and mind, followed by meditation and visualization.

Some of the results reported by the participants in this project were truly extraordinary and bordered on the miraculous. A woman developed cataracts at the age of forty-two. Her father went blind from cataracts and this appeared to be a family condition. Two years after the diagnosis and increasing growth of her cataracts, which began to diminish her vision, she joined the Murphy and Leonard program which met every Saturday morning for two hours. The affirmation she chose was, “My eyes are free of cataracts and growing stronger daily.” Her doctor said, “Your eyes will never improve,” so she changed doctors. While doing her Kata or physical exercise, she decided her affirmation should be more specific, “My lenses are free of cataracts.” In addition, she would make energy passes over her eyes to move healing energy to the cataracts. She would also visualize water squirting over the lenses or the lenses cleaning themselves. A year later she went for prescription sunglasses and the doctor said that her left eye was totally clear and healthy and her right eye had a very small, hardly noticeable deposit but not big enough to be called a cataract.

The key to this extraordinary success is that sustained and focused practice, rather than talent, is the key to peak performance in any field. Murphy and Leonard provide a number of inspirational examples of success in their book. Their rule of thumb, however, is “mentors yes, gurus no.” In other words, don’t give your power away to gurus, who in many cases foster dependency, but to use mentors and your own power to create the most healthy, joyous and brilliant future possible.

One of life’s little puzzles is why some people tend to sail through life with few or no illnesses while others succumb to every bug they encounter? In a fascinating book,
The Immune Power Personality,*
author Henry Dreher argues that longevity and health are characterized by seven personality traits. Healthy people are:

1. Attuned to their mind-body signals of pleasure and pain, including such things as fatigue, anger and sadness.

2. Have the confidence and ability to confide their secrets, traumas and feelings to others instead of “stuffing” and keeping things locked inside.

3. They exhibit the three C’s: a sense of
c
ontrol over their health and quality of life, a strong
c
ommitment to work and relationships, and an ability to see stress as a
c
hallenge rather than a threat.

4. Are appropriately assertive about their needs and feelings.

5. Tend to form relationships based on unconditional love rather than frustrated power.

6. Are altruistically committed to helping others and being of service.

7. Demonstrate a willingness to be emotionally honest in exploring the many different facets of their personalities, good and bad, looking for the inner strengths to fall back on in case of challenges or failures.

While not everyone can immediately shift into a new way of thinking and being, with awareness comes choice and commitment. Emotional mastery involves the decision to begin reinventing ourselves at one’s own speed and style for long-term gains, happiness and health.

When Dr. Joseph Murphy wrote the first edition of his book nearly fifty years ago, aside from hypnosis and medications, there was very little to offer people who were suffering from stress, phobias, trauma, performance anxiety or depression. Twenty-five years ago, however, psychologist Dr. Roger Callahan developed a technique based on acupuncture theory and treatment processes that emerged from applied and educational kinesiology that he labeled Thought Field Therapy, or TFT. His treatment process evolved into Emotional Freedom Technique, or EFT which is based more or less on the same theoretical thinking as TFT but is easier to learn and is just as effective.

I have utilized both TFT and EFT for almost twenty years and teach it to most of my clients in our first session. That way, the client can begin utilizing EFT on their own at home, and once the technique is mastered, one can treat themselves in under two minutes.

EFT works with our energetic anatomy. For over four thousand years, insights into our energetic anatomy have emerged from both China and India who have shared the knowledge that there are energetic rivers or pathways along which our vital force, our life energy, flows through our bodies. These could be thought of as similar or analogous to the unseen network of underground streams in the earth.

In Asian medicine, these pathways are called “meridians” and are energetic streams that flow through twelve meridians and form the basis for acupuncture and EFT. They contain the acupressure points that will be stimulated for treatment. Chinese physicists and German doctors have established that meridians emit light and can actually be seen with infrared photography. Researchers have found that with stress, fear, or illness, less light or energy is emitted from the meridians and acupoints and that acupuncture, or with EFT, tapping or rubbing certain points increases the amount of light released or emitted.

There are twelve meridians in the body that travel to twelve different organs and energize twelve separate sets of muscle groups. In addition, there are two carrier meridians, one in which yin or sedating energy flows, and yang or energizing energy is transported by the second carrier meridian.

There will be two simple set-up procedures that will be done prior to the tapping or rubbing the twelve treatment acupoints on the head, body and fingers. Of importance, each meridian or treatment point has an emotion that is associated with it. For example, the emotions for the bladder meridian are trauma and fear, for the gall bladder meridian rage, for the stomach meridian stress and anxiety, and so on.

Also of importance, while doing the treatment you must focus on the problem or issue. While that may seem counter-intuitive, I ask my clients to think of themselves as a violin. If their issue is anxiety, metaphorically, the first string of the violin is out of tune, or sour notes, representing their anxiety. As they focus on their issue while stimulating the twelve acupoints in sequence, the tapping of the points triggers the brain to release beta endorphins which are the body’s natural morphine molecules and are twenty-seven times more powerful than synthetic morphine. What else releases beta endorphins? Exercise, laughter, good music, sex, acupuncture, and of course, EFT.

For example, I recently saw a young woman who was referred to me because she was suffering from moderate PTSD following a serious motor vehicle accident. We were able to “re-tune” the first violin string from an eight to a one on a ten point scale, which significantly reduced her fear and unease about driving. However, she said, “Something still doesn’t’ feel right.” As we explored a little further, it turned out there were two more symbolic violin strings that were out of tune. The first, driving at night in the rain and second, taking a left turn which is how she got t-boned, almost totaling her car. We did EFT for both the “new” dissonant violin strings, reducing all three strings to a one and she broke out into a big smile and remarked, “I can breathe now. I don’t feel like having a panic attach or terrified to think about driving in the rain or turning left.”

As you go through stimulating the sequence of acupoints, most people find that two, three or four acupoints feel especially relaxing. I suggest that you spend more time stimulating those points as the emotions associated with those meridians will have more relevance to your issue.

Following the reduction of fear, stress or depression to a SUD (or subjective units of distress) of one, you will then install a positive affirmation to support the more empowering belief. As an example, if your issue was stress or anxiety, you will stimulate each acupoint of the head and body in sequence while repeating, an affirmation such as, “I am confident, calm and relaxed.”

Once you do the procedure on yourself two or three times, it will be very easy to memorize the sequence so in the future you will be able to complete the complete order of acupoints in under two minutes.

The complete step-by-step set-up, treatment sequence and installations of positive affirmations will be provided in the appendix of this book along with detailed graphics to help you identify the acupoints on your head, body and hands.

EFT has revolutionized the way many practitioners deal with trauma, simple and complex phobias, panic attacks, addictions, depression, anger, stress and generalized anxiety, pain and sleep dysfunction. There are now 70,000 EFT practitioners in fifty-five countries.

With a little bit of practice and review of the EFT protocol in the appendix, you will be adding a new dimension of control and emotional mastery to your life. I wish you well on your journey to an optimal and brilliant future.

24

Moving On . . . An Invitation to the
Path of Enlightenment

In the pursuit of knowledge,

something is added every day.

In the pursuit of enlightenment,

something is dropped every day.

Lao-tzu

So, what have we learned? We should have a clear understanding of the three areas of the mind (conscious, subconscious, and supraconscious) and how they interact with each other.

1. The
subconscious
is our “hard drive” in which all learning, experiences and the feelings associated with such are stored. It is constantly at work carrying out the instructions given to it by the conscious mind, for better or for worse. It is non-judgmental and proceeds to help facilitate the wishes and commands from the conscious mind. It also monitors and manages all of our bodily functions.

2. The
conscious
mind is the traffic cop. It determines what is good or bad, right or wrong (not always the TRUTH, but rather its perception of the truth based on prior data and experiences stored in the subconscious). It directs us to move toward those events and situations that will bring us comfort and make us feel good, and avoid those situations which may create discomfort (i.e., moving toward pleasure and avoiding pain).