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I�d like to just take a moment first to express appreciation and gratitude. First
and foremost to obviously the person that means more than anybody in my life, and the
person that�s responsible for the vision of this gathering, for creating this gathering,
all the details � you have no idea what went into this gathering � so for a moment,
I�d like to thank my wife, Alina.
I�d like in specific to thank and weave and collaborate with those that have walked
before me. Certainly that goes back to Gary and everybody else, but specifically today,
to the other presenters, because you made it easy for me to come now and summarize and
integrate and collaborate. I couldn�t have literally designed any better. Joanna speaking
about the power of words and meanings and being specific with words, because that will
culminate in something important. Nancy, the power of images, metaphor, and meaning; you
couldn�t have known the story I was going to present. Thank you for that. Sarah Jane,
talking about your body and having a felt sense and standing in and being in your bodies,
perfect. I really don�t even have to be here; you did it all. Damon on beliefs and
settings, how we think about what we do. So now I just get to summarize, basically.
My vision today at the outset was to somehow, being a chiropractor, combine how emotions
and pain weave and work together. I�ll start with a story and a question first. If you
were a surgeon and you needed your hip replaced, who would you turn to for that? Another surgeon.
If you were a psychiatrist with depression, who might you turn to? Another psychiatrist.
A massage therapist with tight muscles might go to a massage therapist. And a chiropractor
with back pain would go to�
Another chiropractor.
No. Not when you�re married to Alina. But that�s a very important concept, because
it changed my life. In other words, I had spent a lot of money and a lot of years knowing
what pain and back pain meant and what caused it and what initiated it and how it was physiologically
working in the body and what tissues were� so believe me, I can tell you more than you
ever want to know about back pain.
Now let�s go to a time a few years ago. I had already learned EFT. I was in a relationship
with an EFT master at the time, and I had been working in the yard too hard one day.
Now, I know better. If anybody, I teach my patients all the time how much to do and not
to do, to listen to their bodies, to not overdo one activity, but there was a lot to get done,
and I just didn�t listen to myself. I was a bad patient that day. So I was digging and
yard working and spent the entire day doing far too much in the yard, and basically walked
in the house like this.
�I�m okay. I know what I did. It�s all right; I�ll use my ice and I�ll do my
stretches.� She�s like, �Let�s just tap on it.� I�m like, �It�s not an
emotional issue, okay? I know that tapping is good stuff. Really, I do. I value it so
much.� For other people. No. �If it was emotional, if had to do with anything that
was more than me digging in the yard, it would be useful. But I know what I did, and I know
I just overdid it. I know how to take care of it.� She�s like, �What are you, scared
to tap on it?� �No, we can tap. Whatever, fine.�
Now, as it turns out, that day working in the yard I didn�t think had any emotional
implications until �Even though my back�s in spasm and I feel frustrated by it� � because
I�m like a 6 in the Enneagram, I�ve got to think about things, I�m pretty left brain
overall � so yeah, �I�m a little frustrated by it, and maybe I�m a little frustrated
because I had to spend all day on it. Maybe I�m frustrated because I had to spend all
day because I�m having to get the house ready for sale, and maybe I�m having to
get the house ready for sale because I just went through a divorce. And maybe I�m a
little angry about that, and maybe�� But it�s not an emotional issue; I overdid it
in the yard.
Let�s just say that day changed my life. At the one hand, it scared the heck out of
me because it had the potential to ruin my professional career. Because that meant that
every person that came in for back pain might have emotional stuff that I�d have to refer
out for, in which case I didn�t have a clientele anymore. But that is a point that I think
is worth facing when we have to re-paradigm what we think the world looks like, especially
when it has to do with what we�re spending every day doing.
But it brings up the idea and the concept of what �psychosomatic� refers to. Psyche
is mind, and soma is body, and never the twain shall meet, according to old science, which
is now obviously old science, because we know it�s next to impossible to have a thought
or a belief that turns into a feeling that doesn�t affect the body, that doesn�t
cause what you think about or feel about to affect the body. There�s no way to separate.
When we talk about pain and we talk about EFT and we talk about emotions, pain is literally
your way of interpreting what you�re feeling.
I had this idea today that I was going to come out � we�re at Bastyr University,
it�s prestigious; I�m going to play scientist today, because I have this picture of my favorite
professor at chiropractic school, Dr. Murphy, who could recite literally the page number
of the paragraph of a study that he read 13 years ago, and tell it like he read it yesterday.
I have this vision that someday I�m going to be like that, and I�m not, but I keep
believing it anyway.
So I prepared my studies for today, and it was fascinating because I love bridging the
gap from science to mainstream, and I�ve always been a connector and a bridge-gapper
from here to here. The longer I sat here today, I said, �I can�t do that.� Literally,
it changed today, and I said, �I�m not going to do that. I don�t have as much fun
when I do it. I have this belief that I can do it well, and I really don�t do it so
well.� So I changed it. For those of you that saw me in the chapel at lunchtime and
were wondering what I was doing there, I was rewriting my talk.
Now, there are a couple of ideas that people have � actually, there are thousands of
ideas � about how pain and how we think about pain relate. I thought I�d bring up
a few. How many people know, for example, John Sarno? The heretic M.D. that ran a neuro
rehab, wrote lots of books, Mind Over Back Pain. Basically, the thing that most people
take away is all the people that have back pain out there in the world, they�re basically
unexpressed angry people. That�d be a synopsis. He writes a whole book on it, but it actually
can come down to that.
What he really says � and now I just realized that Chris asked me to stay still back here,
and that�s the last thing that I�ve done. Sorry, Chris.
�Even though I told him to not move.� It is. All right. John Sarno is an M.D. that
ran a neuro rehab place, and basically what he discovered and what he found, which is
really not new to anybody here � and I do love that everybody here are a bunch of hand-rubbing,
head-tapping, wacko� we�re this great group that just integrates and collaborates,
and it�s a fabulous group of people, so thank you for being here.
John spoke to the idea, which was quite revolutionary within the medical circles, that when we feel
things, when we feel emotions, and we don�t express them and we bottle them up, that that�s
got to go somewhere. I know, it�s brilliant, isn�t it? It�s got to go somewhere, and
as he described it, it goes into tension in the body. He came up with the diagnosis called
tension myositis syndrome, which is basically tight muscle syndrome from stress. Which results
from unexpressed emotions, which results from being in pain. And all you have to do is counsel
people a couple times that that�s what they�re doing, and they get better.
It worked for him. It really did. Study after study that he showed thousands and thousands
of people came to his clinic, he actually stopped referring out to physical therapy,
he stopped teaching them exercise, he stopped teaching them everything else except �This
is what you�re doing; now get better.� And a lot of people did. So that�s one idea.
Another one is certainly Hans Selye. General adaptation syndrome, the father of stress
syndrome. He said, �Look, those biological systems were meant to be under some stress.�
Saber-toothed tiger comes chasing after you, wherever that was � or maybe it was a snow
leopard, anything� anyway, something comes after you fiercely, with great sovereignty,
and you know, fight, flight, freeze, to do something. Your body knows it needs to do
something to respond appropriately in the situation. That�s fine.
The problem is that when our body starts to adapt to that chronic level of stress, biologically,
our hormones, the chemicals in our brain, the neurotransmitters, everything starts to
cause your body to adapt to that stress in its attempt to reach equilibrium. The problem
is that has a lot of effects that don�t help your body. Cortisol levels, which I�ll
talk more about. There are a lot of things in the body that start to raise. Your body
gets used to them, and that results often in pain, high blood pressure, hypertension,
heart disease. We can go on and on with the different chronic diseases in our current
culture resulting from ongoing stress.
Stress is the key. If you want to have a bridge builder for any hospital, for any discussion,
for anybody that thinks that EFT is woo-woo, stress is your word. Stress is the word. Everybody
say it: �Stress is the word!� Exactly. Because you can use that anywhere. You can
use that with athletes, you can use that in the hospital setting, you can use that with
psychotherapists. You can use that with anybody, and you�ve got plenty of background to say
that as stress levels increase, what is one thing that EFT does? It relieves stress. And
that�s your door opening, and then you get in the door.
As Alina would always tell the story, when she used to try to speak at the local hospital
and say �Try EFT on everything,� the door would close every time. I�d be speaking
about metaphysical concepts and she�s like, �How do you get in?� I�m like, �Well,
because when I start it off, I start talking about back pain.� Then I did neck pain,
and then I did back and neck pain, and then I did back, neck pain, and stress, and then
I did back, neck pain, stress, and ways to relieve stress. And here I am stepping forward
again. Poor Chris. So stress is your word.
A few things I wanted to talk about. So John Sarno first, and basically he said that there
were two primary things that move us in the direction of stress and this tension syndrome
of pain, and one of them is our personality traits. Some of us tend to be more Type A,
as he would describe them, personality traits that tend to get stressed more. We can all
look to all our body-mind systems that types of people and ways we react that tend to move
more towards stress than others.
Then he said there are life situations. Duh. In other words, you have a personality tendency
and you have a life situation that tends to cause these times where you get stressed,
you hold it, and if you�re in a society that doesn�t let emotions flow freely and
you hold them, they end up in your body.
An aside about emotions � and this is completely my own personal opinion. I�ve heard Alina
and many other people say that EFT works with � basically, at the root of every problem
is an emotion. I would actually say for me � and I might be getting your terminology
wrong, but from my mind, it�s either an unexpressed emotion or it�s a dysfunctional
emotion. What I mean by that is not that an emotion is good or bad, or any one is good
or bad. Anger is appropriate here and anger is inappropriate here, etc.
In my teaching, my learning, my understanding, when we experience something newly, it is
absolutely natural to have an emotion about it, whether it�s grief, sadness, anger,
and any of the emotions. But when we tend to repeat them unnecessarily from the same
situation, over and over and over, and we tell the stories about it over and over and
over, and every time somebody reminds us of that same situation, we feel that � when
it basically gets recycled, that�s not healthy. That�s what leads to the blockages that
I think EFT helps the most with.
When I�m talking about emotions and pain, I�m not saying emotions are bad that cause
pain. I think emotions are part of the greatest part of us as human beings, but only when
they flow freely, or they flow without blockage.
When I work with patients, for me � and I think that this would apply most to those
practitioners that are not just solo EFT practitioners. You might be a psychotherapist, you might
be a massage therapist, you might be a nurse, you may be any other profession that is using
� actually, let me ask you: how many people are in, for example, the mental health profession?
Okay. Nursing? Let�s include caregiving in some way. Okay. EFT solo? Okay, so we have
a random mix, plus lots of others, obviously, I�m not mentioning.
I think we have to find ways, especially for example when we�re working with pain � and
as a chiropractor, obviously that�s the primary reason that people come to me � is
we have to be able to successfully, if we wish to use EFT with them, bridge that gap
from the expectation they walk in with of what kind of care they�re going to receive
to how I broach the subject of working with their emotions and/or with EFT. Because if
somebody walks in to me as a chiropractor, �I�ve got this great tool,� they�re
looking at me like I�m crazy, right? For me, most people now, really we�ve hit a
paradigm shift where people understand that pain and what they feel in their body, and
especially how they feel and what they think, have some connection. It�s pretty rare to
find somebody that doesn�t get that on some degree.
For example, when a patient of mine that�s a friend comes in the other day, she�s 65
years old, she comes in with this back pain going in her butt and sciatica. She�s already
had the x-ray, the MRI, dadadadada. She gives me the whole story, and I�m listening, and
this is a very Type A person. And I�m listening. I have a listening for, as a physician, what
physically may be going on. I have to. It�s my responsibility to be listening of what
tests have been done, what does it sound like, what does it look like, etc. I still have
to come up with a diagnosis and an appropriate treatment protocol, etc.
But at the same time, I also always have a listening for what�s going on underneath.
That ear is always there for me now, especially after you. I love you, just kidding. but really,
after understanding that there�s always some interconnection. Because even if it�s
just pain alone that�s purely physical, you think they�ve got some thoughts about
that? You think they�ve got some feelings about the pain that might possibly be now
intertwined with it, especially if it�s chronic pain? So even if it started with,
we�ll just say, a very physical-only/mostly thing. Certainly then what happens is the
emotional feeling about �Who am I with that? What does that mean for me? What is the meaning
behind that?�, and that often will relate to the piece that the EFT dovetails into.
When this person walks in and I start listening and I start asking my medical type questions
of how long have you had it and what does it feel like and what kind of things aggravate
it, what I�m listening for is what was � and I might throw in �What was happening around
the time that you hurt it?� �Oh, nothing. I woke up with it.� �Any stress going
on in your life around that time?� �No.� �I don�t believe you.� �Because I
know you and I know things that are happening in your life that you just aren�t connecting
yet.� So there�s a gentle lead. �What does it mean for you to have this? What is
it like to be you?� That�s my favorite � I totally stole that from Alina. �Tell
me what it�s like to be you. I want to be you. What�s that like with regards to this?�
What then came up is �Well, this is an old person�s condition, and I�m not old. And
if I admit to this happening, or give it any space in my life, and if it�s not gone tomorrow,
that means I�m having to deal with getting old stuff.� Oh, oh, okay. I�ll put that
aside, because that might be as much as they�re willing to do in that moment. But all of a
sudden, I have a really important piece of the puzzle.
With pain, pain is literally just the signal, because they could be describing it as ache,
as stiffness, as this, as that. Pain is one sensation. It�s one that people use the
most; they�re very comfortable with using the word pain, and sometimes they don�t
know how else to describe it but pain. But pain is a very useful one for me to explore
further about what that means, and meaning is everything with pain.
There is another researcher, Eisenberg, and what she�s done � very fascinating studies
� is she�s actually found that the part of the brain, the anterior cingulate gyrus,
has an area in the brain that has a complete overlap. #1, it has a lot to do with physical
pain processing, but it also has a lot to do with for example, �What happens socially
when I feel excluded, when I feel not accepted, when I feel not a part of the group, when
I feel not bonded or connected to?� And guess what? They are starting to find that
they are sharing the same wiring and same neurons, and they may be collaborating with
each other.
All of a sudden there�s new meaning to me feeling left out, me being angry or frustrated
about that, and feeling more pain in my neck. That they�re actually using the same neuronal
connections and sharing that part of the brain. Fascinating. I mean, we are in a time of brain
science that�s mind-blowing. And it is.
I love this one. I�m going to give you an example. Here�s where I�m going to bridge
the gap with research for a moment. I�m going to give a plug to a journal for a second
called Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing. Larry Dossey is the primary editor.
My friend Stephan Schwartz is a regular contributor. In this most recent issue, I�m just going
to read a short quote. It�s called Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing, but Explore
is good enough for you to find it. It�s really one of the most leading-edge journals
speaking to consciousness, speaking to healing, speaking to energy psychology, speaking to
many of the different things.
And we�ll also give a plug to Dawson�s Journal, which really anything that�s coming
out with energy psychology and EFT is coming through that. Really important, I think, that
we start to have a languaging for some of the research. Some of it, I know, is just
haughty languaging for what you�re already saying, but it helps you bridge a gap with
those people for which the science is important.
In this last issue, the article is called �Symbolic diseases and �mindbody� co-emergence:
A challenge for psychoneuroimmunology.� Cool. Listen to this and then I�ll interpret
it. But it�s EFT. �Physical diseases that appear to be symbolic somatic representations
of patients� personal meanings or individual �stories� continue to be reported in the
medical literature.� She�s a pain in my neck, and then I�ve got a pain in the neck.
That�s it. And they give story after story in the literature of cases of people coming
in, a woman with rheumatoid arthritis, that when she started to describe her story, she
felt bound up in her relationship, she was limited by her life. All these things that
were describing the inability to move in her life and developed arthritis in her joints.
Another woman who had been sexually abused very early on developed, later in her life,
uterine bleeding and a lot of other menstrual-related problems. Once she realized the connection,
they went away. And these are all case studies in the literature where somebody�s story
about what happened, somebody�s belief then had a direct correspondence with the physical
condition.
Later in the article, when it ends, the importance of symbolic diseases, or SDs: �Symbolic
diseases are vivid pointers to the role of subjectivity� � in other words, how we
perceive it to be � �in physical disease, and it opens up clinical horizons that are
not currently allowed by the biomedical models. Symbolic diseases suggest that meaning and
the body are co-operative.� I know. For those people that read Science, this is like,
�Are you serious? It says that?� �It appears that a co-emergent framework commonly
allows recovery from chronic illnesses that are unresponsive to biomedical treatment,
and this needs research exploration.� Hallelujah, amen. Seriously. So it�s out there. It�s
not what you�re reading on the front of Time Magazine, but it�s out there, and we
can use that.
So there are models out there that we can use to describe what happens, and basically,
whether it�s pain or stress, what we do know is that it all of a sudden raises our
stress levels. It raises the cortisol in our body. That cortisol and the other hormones,
they start to cause muscle tightness, they start to cause our heart to be � basically
they cause our sympathetic response. Like I�m feeling a little bit right now. The
heart�s beating a little faster, my eyes are a little wider. All those things.
When that happens, what does tapping do? Let me do one more journal piece. I love this.
I love playing with the languaging for something so simple. Here we go: �The neurochemistry
of counterconditioning: Acupressure desensitization in psychotherapy.� This is what you do.
Give yourselves a round of applause. James Lane in Energy Psychology says: �A growing
body of literature indicates that� � get this � �imaginal exposure� � this
is what you do, this is your visualization that you were talking about. I�m imagining
myself in the situation. Matrix reimprinting. I�m picturing myself at 12 years old, and
this is happening. Okay, I have this in my consciousness.
This is imaginal exposure, �paired with acupressure,� or rubbing or tapping, whatever
you�re doing using the meridian points, �reduces midbrain hyperarousal and it counterconditions
anxiety and traumatic memories. Recent research indicates that manual stimulation of these
acupuncture points produces opioids and serotonin and GABA. It regulates cortisol, it reduces
pain, slows heart rate, decreases anxiety, shuts off fight/flight/freeze response, regulates
the autonomic nervous system, and creates a sense of calm. This relaxation response
reciprocally inhibits anxiety and creates rapid desensitization to traumatic stimuli.�
This is scientific jargon for what you�re doing when you�re doing this with your little
kid or your mother or your friend. And we understand, we borrow from other literature,
from acupuncture literature. What happens when they�re stimulating acupuncture points?
We borrow that. What happens in psychotherapy when we do imaginal exposure? What happens
to brainwaves when we decrease cortisol?
This is the collaboration and the time that�s so exciting, and also so important. When I
hear people that are working in mental health wards here, or people that are working in
the VA, and we start to have a growing understanding of not only what we already have in our back
pocket, but we get inspired to actually do more. The opportunity to write up case studies.
Poor Alina is getting ready, for those of you that don�t know, to go to Israel at
10:00 tonight. She�s going to be working with those people that have been subject to
war in Israel last year from a bombing, and hopefully getting enough case study information
to give back to Dawson to put into some of the literature that we�re working with PTSD.
Now, she�s a practitioner just like many of you are, but �Okay, I�ve got to learn
what to do here and get these forms, and I�m just starting to think about that what I�m
doing can contribute to the much bigger version. Because research literature starts to open
doors that wouldn�t happen otherwise.
Total blank. Hold on.
�Even though��
Yeah, �Even though I totally blanked out after that, I went off course��
A senior moment.
I don�t accept that. Even though I just blanked out and I don�t feel badly about
it, I just need to pause long enough for it to come back.
What�s the name of that article?
I�ll have the articles out on the table in the back. And I do keep research that I
use like that, and EFT Universe has a wonderful � you can get the abstracts on the EFT Universe
site. ACEP also has a good site for understanding how to do, if you want to begin to do some
of the research.
David Feinstein has a wonderful article where he had to butt and rebut. After an article
he wrote, people that had � �Okay, they say it�s like this, and this is where you�re
wrong,� and he went back and forth, rebuttals. They�re fascinating to read, they really
are. I remember one night that I finally started to look at the search and I was up late, very
late. Because it�s like a rabbit hole, and once you start to enjoy that � if you do
(laughter) � it�s fascinating.
I wanted to get back to patients for a moment. With pain, you have it in your outline, some
research pieces that I put together, and also some questions. Let me ask you this: I want
you to say if, for example � everybody think of some time in their body that they had some
pain. It may�ve been an injury, it may�ve been a car accident, it may�ve been just
you woke up with it. Can everybody come up with some time that they had pain? How many
people, when you had it, thought that it might�ve had an emotional cause? Good, we�re in an
EFT room, so of course. How many people didn�t be brave? It was a physical thing, it was
diagnosed, �You know what, I have an x-ray to prove it and an MRI, it happened after
this.�
Okay. I want you to partner up with the person next to you, and I want you to just have one
minute to go, �Okay, if I thought it was physical and it had some emotional component,
what might that have been? I�m going to make it up. Not that it was, but I want you
to just discuss for one minute, so that somebody else can hear somebody else saying it, what
my physical issue, illness, pain � let�s focus on pain � was, and what emotional
causality or involvement may have been partaking in that. You have one minute, go ahead.
I wanted to do a little piece on what is some of the research that�s out there, and then
I�m going to move in a slightly different direction. Just so you know, I timed that
exercise perfectly, so that in my pause, I could catch back up to where I needed to be.
That�s efficient.
Some of the research studies that are out there that you can use or talk about. Some
of the EFT working with PTSD studies are showing about 86% statistically significant improvement
in six sessions or under. One of the studies showed 70% within three visits, 86% within
six visits. Fabulous. Fabulous stuff, because PTSD, for any of you that know, is probably
about going to be the top of your list of tough conditions to work with. So if there
are studies showing 86% success rate with that, you guys are golden.
Pain diminishment. Sixty-eight percent, in two studies, right around that 60%-70% range
with EFT, within 20 minutes. They did one with healthcare workers. I love this one,
because if you were to read this one in the journals and they�re talking about EFT effectiveness
with healthcare workers, reduction in anxiety, emotional distress, pain, etc., when you read
further you realize, �Wait a minute, that was one of Gary Craig�s conferences they
did it at.� Because that�s what they�re talking about, the EFT healthcare workers
that were done in groups, measured pre and post while in a conference, and published
that. We could�ve done that today. Missed opportunity. Next year.
One of the things that actually Dawson does speak about is in these studies that we�re
seeing about a 70% improvement with reductions in pain, he speaks to � because in a good
research, you�re going to say, �What might be the cause for that? What might we be doing
wrong? Where�s our strengths, where�s our weaknesses?� He�s saying maybe 30%
of the time that it is true organic pathology, that it�s absolutely the cause of the pain.
But if we can affect it 70% of the time, either 70% is emotionally caused, or at least involved.
Please be careful with saying, �We help everything all the time.� If you came to
me and told me that, I�d shut the door, because I don�t believe you. Because nothing
helps everything all of the time. Does it have the potential to help most of the people,
most of the time? Yeah. Research backs you up. And that�s all you need, and any reasonable
person in the health profession or science, that�s what they want to hear.
Fibromyalgia syndrome, an eight-week program of self treatment significantly decreased
pain rumination, decreased feelings of helplessness, increased overall activity. And this was without
working with an EFT coach � which I do recommend, but even with eight weeks class online by
themselves, significant results.
Another one, after a car accident, PTSD-related. Post-traumatic stress disorder for people
that had been in a car accident. They were taught EFT in two sessions; there was 100%
immediate improvement afterwards, and those who continued afterwards, a significant amount
showed, when they did brainwave studies, a significant decrease in cortical arousal.
In other words, those stress levels that are measured on brainwave for how high-stress
they are in their brain, those that continued working on themselves showed a significant
decrease not only in the PTSD symptoms, but also in brainwave function. Did you know that
stuff was out here? Some of you may have, but maybe many did not.
They compared EFT to EMDR, somewhere between four and fifteen sessions, and they showed,
again, about an 80%-90% reduction in PTSD symptoms. Pretty equivalent to EMDR in that
study.
Dawson did a study on measuring cortisol reduction, which is a really important part. If I do
this and then I can measure cortisol is decreased, that opens all kinds of doors for me because
I now have a measureable way that I objectively decrease stress, which, believe me, VA, everybody
else is interested; how can we decrease stress levels that result in changes in behavior,
conditions, etc.?
Now, pain is primarily a central pathway. It�s not so much a left or right pathway
in the central nervous system. But what this work also did is it took me in a different
direction that I didn�t expect beside EFT. I become involved with understanding and having
an absolute fascination with how we use our brain. I could go into a very long discussion
just on right brain and left brain, but just to really take it very small � and you help
me with this � for left brain � I�m not going to say people, but left brain traits,
can you help me with what some of those would be?
Language, analytical thinking, reasoning, more linear. In other words, it�s much more
of a �this happens, then this happens, then this happens.� It�s much more logical.
It makes sense. Causal, a timeline. So �I do this and then this happens as a result
of that.� Are those important skills? You bet, especially if you�re putting on a conference.
You do this and then this and then this and you follow up on this. Very important.
Right brain skills, traits? Creativity, emotional � there�s some subtleties in that, but
keep going. Intuition, intuitive sense. Singing. More creative expression, sure, and different
artistic� impersonation. Okay, because sure, because you�re going to have to think outside
of yourself to think and be like another person. Yes, and creativity is a big category for
right brain traits. But there�s also others. There�s being able to see places that you
haven�t gone; there�s the ability to think not just logically, but outside the box. A
lot of different things. More fun.
If one lives right brain, it tends to be more fun. Unless you didn�t take care of the
left brain stuff, in which case it can not be fun, too, right? �Whoops, where�s the
projector?� Therefore, what we�re really looking for is whole brain thinking. But because
we tend to be in a very left brain oriented society, tendency wise, most of us are having
to learn to use more right brain thinking.
I work with a woman who developed the idea called Right Brain Aerobics. It�s basically
just like exercising this part of the brain, just like we�d exercise any other muscle.
Exercises and ways for thinking, and you can use it for �How do I tap my intuition?�
We have these exercises called �Tap your inner genius.� All it is is, �Okay, I
write down, we do this exercise, now we write down.� �Okay, inner genius, how am I going
to get this talk done when what I had done is not what I want to do, and I�ve got to
give it in an hour?� �I don�t know, you should�ve thought of that before.�
So we start to develop dialogues with that part of our brain, starting to use writing,
which is very different. We start to tap other ways of thinking. We start to look at the
day with �What are six impossible things that could never happen today, but I don�t
know, I�m just going to start to stretch how I think about my day and my life.�
I�m going to do a very quick exercise that shows you � it�s at the basis, just like
beginning tapping on your karate chop is for EFT. I�m going to do, in a few minutes,
a beginning what we call right brain startup exercise. Everybody put their feet flat on
the ground. You can put your hands wherever�s comfortable, on your lap if you like. The
beauty of this exercise is that you can do it in the morning, you can do it before a
meeting, you can do it anytime that you want to reduce stress or think more creatively
and really start to use the right part of your brain.
Let�s say you�re working with a tough client, and you�re just not getting through
because you�re thinking a certain way and you�re not having that breakthrough that
you know you can have with them. This might be a way to use it for that. The steps are
simple and they�re in threes, and they utilize all the physiological responses that�ll
help you relax. It doesn�t have tapping in it. She didn�t know about that. We�re
working on that.
What I want you to do first is just move three times in your chair. Shrug your shoulders,
move. Just get in your body, get comfortable. Good. Now let�s go ahead and take three
deep breaths. Nice. If you have water in front of you, please use it. If you don�t, imagine.
Let�s just take three sips of water. Hydrating is important; we all know that. Especially
for kicking butt. She showed it in the video. Good.
With your eyes closed now, if that�s okay with you, I want you to go ahead � we�re
just going to do a quick inventory. I want you to check the inventory of the space around
you. The noise, the light, the room you�re in, the temperature. Then do a quick check-in
on your body. �How am I doing? Is there pain? Is there not? Am I comfortable? How�s
my body doing?� Then just do a quick check-in on your emotional state. �I�m happy, I�m
tired, I�m excited, I�m inspired, I�m whatever. I really like his voice a lot when
my eyes are closed.� Whatever it is.
Next, I want you to do three gratitudes, three things in your life � be it your work, your
family life, here � three things that you�re grateful for. Let yourself feel it. I�ll
give you about 30 seconds for that. Let the feeling spread. That�s good. Your heart
matters are already doing that, okay.
Next � for some people this is challenging, but not in this room � I want you to affirm
three things about yourself, be it about your physical being, be it about your mental capacity,
be it about your emotional wellbeing, be it about what a good listener you are. Whatever.
Once you�ve done that, simply keep your eyes closed, and we�re going to be silent
for what would normally be three minutes, but we�ll just take one minute right now.
Just go into your silence. When I do the silence, I�ve started to develop an idea that I have
this feeling of this wave coming into my right brain. But you can do whatever you�d like.
You could just simply be silent.
When you�re ready, you can slowly open your eyes. I know we all know we should meditate,
and I know we all want to and all of those, but sometimes it seems daunting. Sometimes
it seems too big, because why bother meditating for five minutes? If you don�t do it for
at least a half hour, it�s just a waste of time anyway. Or whatever that says.
Right brain startup is just simply the foundation exercise that we begin with, for beginning,
and then we go from there. But sometimes in the morning, I can do that so easily. Before
coming in here, I can do that so easily, and it begins to really activate the right brain,
all the pieces of that simple exercise, the three breaths, the three sips of water, the
three gratitudes. And you know what? There�s a ton of research for everything we just did.
There�s more research on gratitude, on meditative focus states, and it�s just exploding.
So you want to teach a beginning exercise to a client to relax, the beginner relaxation
response, as a collaborative approach to EFT, or as a pre-approach to a session? Just know
that there are tools like that. It�s not my website, RightBrainAerobics.com, but I�m
associated with it. I help teach it. Right now my primary web presence is as the Chiropractic
Zone. But what do I want to conclude with�
Would you go over that again?
DR. CRAIG: Sure, the three things? Good. I really think of them from the outside in.
So three physical movements to just get situated and get present; three deep breaths; three
sips of water; three inventories: external, the environment, the physical, and your psychological
and emotional state; three affirming thoughts about yourself. I have a problem with the
word �affirmation.� I just don�t like it, so I change it to �affirming.� And
three minutes of silence. Three minutes of silence. Did I miss � oh, I�m sorry, I
missed the three gratitudes. I apologize.
So the gratitude is after the inventory?
Inventory is great, yeah. Thank you. I�m sorry. Three gratitudes. I look at it as gratitude
for those things, especially in my environment, and then I do self-affirmations. I just think
of it coming deeper and deeper into me. That�s how I think about it. But if you did it the
other way, I think you�d be okay.
To conclude and wind things down, because we�re going to have a panel here in a few
minutes, when people come to you with pain, it�s very real to them, and they have a
lot of story about it. Please respect that. You may have other thoughts about it and what
it means, etc.; please honor what they come to you with, the seriousness, the realness,
etc., because it is for them. However, also know that there�s any condition known to
man that you could have that could be with pain or without pain. So you are not necessarily
healing, fixing, changing the condition. When I see in the research literature, �EFT for
scoliosis,� and immediately I�m looking at, �Are they going to tell me they changed
the shape of their spine with EFT, or am I looking for they changed the pain? They changed
the muscle tension level.�
In other words, just know that any condition that somebody comes in with that�s painful,
with EFT you can help to some degree, and maybe completely. There�s nothing that you
can�t, because there�s always a mind-body connection between all of them. You already
know that, but hopefully that just reaffirms for you that you can help everybody to some
extent. Even if it�s giving them greater peace and acceptance with the condition they
have, which can be incredibly healing.
Know that you have a gift that is so powerful that � really, you�ve been given a gift.
As Gary said, it�s a gift from God. Please honor it that way, and use it that way and
share it that way. I know you do; I�m just affirming you to be able to. And know with
confidence that there�s literature behind you, that it�s not just a woo-woo thing.
In conclusion, what you do can help a lot of people, especially those in pain. There�s
a reason why it happens; we�re still understanding it. I thank you for doing it, I thank you
for the times you�re going to do it that you haven�t done it yet. And thank you.
That�s what I want to say.