 |
|
Memory CSI, CSI Miami, CSI New York, Numb3rs, Criminal Minds and others. Now, why do you suppose I've mentioned these TV shows? There are two reasons: Each commands a phenomenally large viewing audience (CSI is the #1 show on TV), and all of these shows are about science. To many people's surprise and delight (probably including the producers of the shows) there are many people that want to know the science behind the scenes. They want to understand what's happening, and once they do, they will more readily accept a new innovation or technique. "It" now makes sense to them. As those of you
that have attended my workshops know, I like to mix in a little science
into whatever subject I'm teaching because doing so helps many people
to accept the new information they are about to learn, more easily.
Of course, there are some people that don't need or want to know the
"how" of how things work, but upon hearing the information, admit it's
interesting and end up wanting to know more. It's usually at this point
in a workshop that Berit has to rein me in, and remind me I'm teaching
EFT, NLP, etc., and need to get back to the topic at hand. |
 |
|
Also, as readers of this newsletter, most of you know that I am very interested in the newly emerging worlds of Energy Medicine and Energy Psychology. I have been researching these fields for some time, hoping to sort out what actually has been demonstrated to work, and what still remains in the realm of experimental, or as in some cases, is only hype. One of the areas that interests me a great deal is the subject of memory which leads to the following questions:
To answer these questions, we need to take a journey inside of the human brain and have a look at some of the "little black boxes" involved in memory formation. Memories are formed in two major ways. The first one is easy - repetition. Remember kindergarten? The information was repeated over and over again. At some point in this repetition, the lights went on, and the subject matter was then "known." This is the same process involved in learning to ride a bicycle, drive a car, and so on. The other major memory formation is called an imprint. In essence, this is a one time learning experience and to understand it, we now need to peek under the hood, into those little black boxes. These "little black boxes" have funny sounding names, so please bear with me while I explain what happens. Let's say you find yourself in a situation, event, or circumstance that evokes a strong emotional response. For example: You see your mother-in-law and immediately feel a bit queasy in your stomach. Or, your boss asks you to do a presentation and you want to throw up just at the thought of talking in front of a group of people. Both these are examples of an unwanted emotional response. Any emotional response that makes you uncomfortable (when you would rather not respond that way) can be classified as negative or unwanted. So, there you are, in some situation that evokes an unwanted, or negative emotional response. This signal is immediately sent to the first of the little black boxes, the Amygdala. The Amygdala immediately releases stress hormones. These hormones are information carrying chemicals designed to enhance memory formation, and they accomplish this by enhancing the senses (the input channels) thus making them more acute. This supercharged information (what you saw, heard, felt, smelled, etc.) is now sent to the Hippocampus and is quickly encoded into long term memory and then stored in the Cerebral Cortex. Due to the "supercharging," no repetition is necessary; the information is now permanently stored, and ready to be used as a reference in the future (see mother-in-law and feel queasy). Along comes a new situation - if we use the example of the mother-in-law, you are now divorced and remarried, with a new mother-in-law. This mother-in-law is really a nice person but unfortunately she has a few similar traits and characteristics to your first mother-in-law. With the new situation (mother-in-law), the brain checks its stored data for reference and says, "Ah! I know what this is. Based on past experience, the sky is falling! Run! Run! Because the original imprint was stimulated during the referencing, it downloads from the Cerebral Cortex, back to the Hippocampus, and once again triggers the release of stress hormones into the system, which attach themselves to this new experience, reinforcing the original imprint. Enter Energy Psychology. Remember I said earlier that the new stimulus triggers the imprinted one to download again, tripping the same stress released hormones. The idea then is to once again trigger the imprint and then "tap out" (yes, there are other techniques that work just as well) or otherwise "discharge" or neutralize the charge. Done properly, the brain will then re-file the memory without the energy charge. This is called "healing" because the original negative or unwanted experience no longer influences new future experiences. Since it no longer signals the release of the stress hormones, the comfort zone of the individual expands in proportion, so the more "traumas" that are adequately resolved (i.e., no discomfort upon recall) the happier the person will be and that is (1) A good thing, and (2) The science behind the scenes. So, now you know why and how you sometimes feel bad or stressed... and the "science bits" weren't that complicated where they! Knowing why and how something like memory works allows us to change it, especially if we don't like the feelings we're having.
Gary is an energy therapist (using EFT, NLP and many other energy based modalities) and also presents EFT workshops. He lives in the Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire) area of England. Gary is also the sponsor (along with his partner Shirley) of our workshops in England. To contact Gary gary@lifeforcetapping.com or visit his website www.lifeforcetapping.com Addiction
and EFT Some time ago I was approached by a client called Andy who at the time was 32. Andy had been addicted to heroin for 10 years and with great determination and strength had managed to get beyond it. When we first met he came across as a decent man, who for what ever reason had fallen from grace, but still seemed so determined to create a good life for himself, even though in his own words he said "he was still held back and haunted by his past". Andy has a interest in energy therapies, and he was keen to try Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) as a self-help tool so that he could use it to control and release his reactions to emotional discomfort. Something that he was having to deal with every day. When we first started to work Andy explained how It had been a real struggle for him and how he had undergone rehab for his heroin addiction about 12 months ago and has still managed to stay clean of drugs. This was all good news, but Andy still had an everyday challenge around anxiety and his emotions. During my first session with Andy he seemed a little nervous about talking with me so I made a concerted effort to try and build rapport with him. Once the rapport had been established Andy started to discuss some of his negative thoughts and feelings about past issues. He felt his real challenge now was trying to manage the negative emotions he was experiencing.
One of the most important parts of a session is the gathering of information, I am not one who goes straight in with the tapping as I have found people can abreact. Especially if they have not told me about a previous trauma that could be easy to recall and to slip into. So I find it important to ask the right questions and enter into my client's world. One of the processes I use is the dominant personality test, this helps me to find those people in my client's past or present who may have dominated them in a negative way. If this process is combined with asking carefully crafted questions, this can lead to all kinds of discoveries, but best of all no abreactions. So where were these negative feelings coming from? As we started to tap on the names and the answers that he gave me Andy uncovered issues around his childhood, issues that included sexual abuse by a family member. It became obvious that it was these memories and his difficulty in dealing with them, that had been the original trigger to his using heroin to "cushion" him and help him to feel safe. At some level Andy was already aware of this but the session was helping to confirm his feelings. I asked Andy, "When do you feel real anxiety, when are you at your most vulnerable?" Andy replied, "It's on the weekend, and Sundays in particular, as I have a lot of time on my hands, time when I often feel overwhelmed with my thoughts and feelings. These are the times when I most felt the need to use heroin again. I am beginning to dread Sundays and becoming ever more anxious regarding managing to stay clean." We then tapped on the "Sunday feeling" and the "dreaded Sunday feeling." "Even though I just dread Sundays, I deeply and completely love and accept myself." "Even though Sundays always seem to be dreadful, I'm open to the possibility that everything in life changes." I then asked Andy if he thought it was fear or anxiety, and if there was a difference between them? We tapped for both separately, and as we did this Andy identified that the weekends used to be a time when he would spend time with his family. Having Sunday lunches together and generally behaving like normal families do. In the ten years of his addiction, his family had all got on with their lives without him and even though they were extremely supportive, he still felt that he had been left behind. It was at this point I felt a strong feeling in the pit of my stomach, a feeling I normally get when things are right on track. I could also see in Andy's eyes that this seemed to trigger him and when asked he said "I'm right up there, it's a ten". So we spent some time tapping on the feelings of rejection by his family and we started with the loss of the "special weekends". "Even though I have lost those special weekend feelings - I deeply and completely love and accept myself" "Even though I really want those special weekend feelings back - I choose to make my weekends special anyway" We tapped the points with the reminder phrase "special weekend feelings" He then reported that he felt he was at a two on the "weekend feelings" and shifted to a nine on "not being wanted". So we turned our attention to rejection from the family and tapped on all the members of Andy's family. I then took things one stage further and exaggerated the situation. "Even though the whole universe has abandoned me and I am not wanted - I deeply and completely love and accept myself as a human just being" This made Andy
laugh and he reported he was feeling calmer and more in control with
a level around one or two. I felt there was more to do and I wanted
to challenge the results, but as we were nearing the end of the session
I felt it was a good time to close and talk about what we would do next
time.
Berit's
Corner So it was bit of shock to our systems when we came out of our reverie and entered back in to the real world. The real world consisted of my computer crashing, which meant get a new computer and do all that fun stuff, like loading all the programs, etc. Once all that was done, I was actually looking forward to our first day back at work. All was well with the world... I had my new computer up and running, and for a couple of hours all was bliss. Then I went to
make a phone call. No dial tone! I did what any sane, rational person
would do... I kept clicking on the "talk" button only to listen to silence.
No dial tone. After doing that five or six times, it finally dawned
on me... the phone is dead. I immediately called the phone company (from
our home phone which was working fine) only to find out there were problems
everywhere. It took two days for the phone company to come and fix the
problem. I sure felt disconnected, which of course, I was. For those of you that called us and only heard an endless ringing, please accept our apologies. Hopefully when you call again... I'll be answering! I am pleased to say that we have drawn up our seminar schedule for the first six months of 2007, and it's jam packed! We'll do our regular EFT Level 1, 2 and 3, and we're adding something new - we'll do several one day workshops teaching NLP for EFT practitioners. And, we have a special event planned in March called the "Triad of Health" which will deal with the physical, emotional and spiritual aspects of our lives. Alex will teach the emotional "stuff," and Dr. Kira Frketich, N.D. and her partner will cover the physical and spiritual aspects. After attending this two day workshop you'll be well on your way to helping yourself live the best life you can in mind, body and spirit! And, last but not least, due to a scheduling conflict (that couldn't be changed) our sponsor has rescheduled the Art of Delivery - Combining the Power of EFT and NLP workshop in England to May 18, 19 & 20, 2007. As many of you know, I do believe things/events happen for a reason, and I feel that holding the workshop in May is a great idea. Having the workshop in May will enable everyone to arrange their schedule to attend and also budget for the workshop. I also admit to a selfish reason for being quite happy the workshop will be in May. It will be a wonderful time to be in England... all the beautiful gardens will be in bloom and my birthday is a few days after the workshop so maybe I can talk Alex into spending a few extra days in England to celebrate! I hope all your connections are good ones and that 2007 is a truly wonderful year for you and your loved ones. Take care,
|
|
It's
important to realize that the original experience was perceived
on some level as a threat to survival. The mechanism in place evolved
to "imprint" the danger level is equivalent to that of a saber tooth
tiger attacking, thus allowing us to call upon the tiger response to
protect us in the future. As you can glean, the mechanism is really
quite old and unfortunately, Microsoft hasn't come up with updates to
download, so we can still end up petrified by the experience. Naturally,
we would prefer to reprogram our response ( this mother-in-law
is OK), if only we knew how.
Next
month I want to discuss how we change or delete the unwanted emotion
so the stress hormones are not released, and let the poor saber tooth
tiger response (we all have in our system) take a much needed rest!
The first step will be about awareness. I'll write about ways to help
ourselves become aware of what we are doing; in other words, learn to
pay attention to what's going on, and leave the tiger sleeping.
Editor's
Note: Our regular Contributing Columnists Rehana Webster (in New
Zealand) and Dave Marshall (in Spain) are both off having a wonderful
holiday with friends and family. When they get back, they will continue
to write for our newsletter. Meanwhile, we are pleased to introduce
you to a new Contributing Columnist - Gary Williams.
Happy
2007! We had a lovely time over the holidays. Let's see... what did
we do... nothing! The "nothing" consisted of eating marvellous food,
reading, watching movies, going for walks every day and having naps.
Yes, whenever we became exhausted from stuffing ourselves and our eyeballs
couldn't read another word... we took a nap. Our time off was totally
indulgent and we loved every minute of it! We kept communication with
the outside world to a minimum. I guess you could say we hibernated.
It was the perfect way for us to relax and rejuvenate.
I'm
sitting on our deck writing this article under a full moon with wispy
clouds floating across the sky, and suddenly everything was crystal
sharp and the clouds formed a circle around the moon... it's so beautiful!
I wonder how many of you were able to see the same thing, maybe at the
same moment I was? The circle made my feel connected again... who needs
a phone line!
 |
(C) 20076 - Dr. Alexander R. Lees & Associates Inc.