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HOME PAGE email school Articles & Resources Index North American Institute This article was published in Spiral Journey The Answer Within By Marilyn Michael copyright 2000 M. Michael |
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The Answer is within you, learn to unlock it.
That statement has so much more meaning today than ever before in
history. “The Answer” can seem to be such a broad statement. A
first reaction says it should mean something different for everyone,
but does it really? Exciting areas of medical science that have been
studying how the mind and body interact are showing that there is a
common core underlying emotional weakness. That knowledge is now
enhancing the pathways offered through spirituality and psychology for
finding “The Answer” within. Thoughts to Emotions Everywhere
there is evidence of how assaulting the effects of the everyday world
are to the human mind, body and spirit. Moment after moment, there is
a stream of reactions rushing through people’s brains and bodies.
Frustration, fear, anger, or depression and their resulting stress,
the eruptions are never ending. Even in sleep, the dreaming brain
reshapes the emotions but still affects the body.
The answer people are vaguely aware of seeking is that
of meaning in life which they hope will bring a philosophical peace.
The real answer that brings that inner peace may be less specific than
people expect but it is there deep within them to unlock. Its
mysteries are less mysterious than ever before. The Eruption of Emotion The
frustration, anger and depression many people feel are called negative
emotions by psychology. Spirituality decries them as the negative
effects of the conscious, everyday world. Science separates itself
from value-based words like negative, but it also sees those reactions
as getting in the way of people’s positive experience and expression
of life. Science
takes negative emotions down to a more basic level and refers to them
as physical and chemical reactions that are damaging to the body. The
body enables the life force to express itself in the conscious world.
Certainly something damaging to the body would be considered negative
by either psychology or spirituality, fields dedicated to helping
people exist and express themselves with as much health and positive
strength as possible. Science, then, is helping to define more
specifically the forces of deterioration, both philosophical and
physical. Whatever one views as the specific sources of negativity
expressed through people’s lives, it is the process or eruption of
negative emotion that is the core problem. Stopping the Eruption Negative
emotions are powerful forces that shape lives. When people who are
hurting seek therapy or spiritual counsel, help can begin. But with
the new understanding of negative emotions as physical and chemical
eruptions that are damaging to the body, it is clear that the healing
must be deeper. The tools of the psychotherapist or spiritual
counselor, though important for people, are more directly focused on
what is triggering those eruptions. Emotional pain is often great. At
times it is hard for people to see through the fear or anger, and to
stop the body from reacting with stress to those triggers, however
well a therapist may work to help in understanding them. And, when
people work through one negative emotional trigger, how will they
handle the new triggers that emerge every day? The Drug Model A
major evolution toward more direct management of the eruptions of
emotions in the body has been in the area of pharmaceuticals. When
people take a medication directed at mood or emotional change they
feel differently due to chemicals changing chemicals.
Unfortunately, taking drugs is in many ways still a crapshoot. Their
dosage is commonly adjusted by asking the patient “how they feel”
and by that observational assessment; the dosage of chemicals is
altered. Also, outside of clear psychosis, it could be fairly said
that average people should resort to drugs only for short-term
management of emotional states. And, many who are hurting do not want
to turn to drugs. Neurological Tools The
things that go on between a therapist or spiritual counselor and a
client generally involve talking about or counseling about what is
happening that is causing distress in a person’s life. At times the
professional may employ practices like relaxation therapy, and the
spiritual counselor may help the person partly through the use of
meditation or a quiet state of prayer. Those ways of using what could
be called an “altered mental state” are a beginning of more
directly quieting the “eruptions” of emotions in the body. They
could be considered neurological tools (affecting the working of the
brain and body more directly) as opposed to psychological tools
(affecting the content of the mind, thoughts, memories, etc.) Using a
computer analogy, neurological tools would more directly affect the
hardware of the brain, and psychological tools more directly affect
the software of thoughts and memories, what the brain does. The Ancient Alert There
is a powerful new addition to tools a therapist or counselor can use
that have a more direct affect on the hardware of the brain. It is a
tool that enhances the effects of using a concentrated state such as
relaxation therapy or meditation. The founders of the North American
Institute of NEURO-THERAPY, Henry Snyder and Marilyn Michael developed
it in the 1980s and called it SUBVERBAL SHIFTING®. For fifteen
years they have taught it to therapeutic professionals of all types
and to people interested in their own health and wellbeing. SUBVERBAL
SHIFTING is a way of stimulating within a person a reaction that is
described as an Ancient Alert.
While a therapist or spiritual counselor guides a person through the
experience of a focused or concentrated state of mind, basically
quieting conscious, analytical thinking, a very brief sound stimulus
is used. The sound stimulus presented to the focused mind causes a
fraction of a second shifting of mental states out of the quieted
mental state and into a mental state of readiness for survival. It is
a healthy way of tricking the hardware of the brain into responding as
if the person were needing to react in a survival situation. The brain
shifts into automatic, the chemistry of the body begins preparing for
possible extreme reactions required. But, because there is no
overriding survival response required, the conscious mechanisms shift
back in and the person’s brain and body return to a focused, relaxed
state. The After Effect Explained by its creators in
scientific language, it is the after effect of using this process that
so dramatically benefits the person. In readying itself for survival,
the reactions of the brain and body dissipated the electrical and
chemical residue or signature of emotions like guilt, anger, or
depression that existed in the body prior to the shift. Like shaking
the screen of an Etch-A-Sketch®, the person gets up from the session
retaining thoughts of the things that bothered them but without the
chemicals of emotion attached to those thoughts. The Body’s Natural Therapeutic
Ability SUBVERBAL
SHIFTING, by triggering the Ancient Alert, dramatically diminishes the
intensity and duration of emotions that a person feels. It takes
advantage of a natural response of the brain to do what drugs attempt
to do, change the electrical and chemical basis of emotions. SUBVERBAL
SHIFTING more directly diminishes the eruptions of emotions. The Answer Within The
discoveries of scientists studying mind body interaction have allowed
development of tools like SUBVERBAL SHIFTING. They truly unlock
answers within. If people can be helped to benefit from them they can
stimulate the desired long-term ability to manage negative emotions
without requiring an undesired dependence on medication. Unlocking
this inner ability can enhance the traditional help offered by
therapists and spiritual counselors. With more ability to directly
diminish the eruptions of fear, guilt, frustration, and their
accompanying stress, people can blossom emotionally, and spiritually.
With clarity of mind and calmness of body they can truly find the
philosophical peace they seek. -------------------------- SUBVERBAL SHIFTING is a registered
trademark of the North American Institute of Clinical Therapy Etch A Sketch is a
registered trademark of the The Ohio Art Company. |