Happiness is Good Health and Bad Memory: Correcting Imbalances in the Nervous System with EFT
by Maurice Kouguell, Ph.D., BCETS.
"Happiness is good health and bad memory." --Albert Schweitzer
In his book Freedom From Fear Forever, Dr. James Durlocher writes:
"Most of what is recorded is not in your conscious memory but rather in your subconscious where it can affect you physically, chemically or emotionally throughout your life."
Dr. George Goodheart, Jr., a chiropractor-physician, always starts his seminars with quotations from the great humanitarian and physician Dr. Albert Schweitzer who said: "Happiness is good health and bad memory….". The author also quotes Hans Seyle: "God will forgive you but your nervous system won't." Dr. Goodheart explains that if you do not correct the disturbance in the nervous system, there will be adverse effects in the physical, chemical or emotional sides of the health triangle.
There has been a trend today to give more credibility to bodily responses than to words. Gendlin, in his innovative technique known as Focusing, makes it clear that words may not be truthful but bodily reactions never lie. Process work as described and practiced by Arnold and Amy Mindell makes it clear that old issues are stuck in the body. Some have referred to this as "cellular memory." Everything that has happened to us since birth, if not at conception, is remembered because it has been recorded in the nervous system. This includes all traumas, all experiences…everything.
When the body functions normally, it sorts out the important information. When one is stuck or when the flow of energy is interrupted, then one experiences anxiety, because the discomfort is maximized and is perceived as life-threatening.
There seems to be a growing awareness and recognition that Chinese Medicine, Applied Kinesiology, Energy Medicine, Meridian Therapies, Vibrational Medicine,as well as many other techniques such as Emotional Freedom Technique can be utilized therapeutically with successful results. All these techniques are gentle, rapid and effective.
This article will focus on Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT).
This technique is based on the theory that the cause of all negative emotions is a disruption in the body's energy system. Thus, by correcting the disturbance on the energetic level, we can correct it on the emotional level.
New or old emotional upsets can often be released in less than half an hour. Life long phobias, compulsive behaviors can be eliminated. The basic assumption, which is widely accepted, is that any discomfort, physical or emotional is due to a disruption in the flow of energy.
The following is the first chapter of Emotional Freedom by Gary Flint.
Changing Unwanted Beliefs, Memories, Addictions, and Any Chronic Symptoms
Changing such Issues as unwanted beliefs, memories, addictions, and chronic symptoms is something that we all want to do. Before I teach you how to do The Method, I want you to have some understanding about how to use The Method to change or eliminate painful emotions from your Issues. In the next section, I will give you a brief overview of the different parts of The Method. In the following sections, The Method and its use will be discussed in detail.
Beliefs and memories are slightly different from addictions and chronic symptoms. Beliefs and memories are simply memories with emotions attached to them whereas, addictions and chronic symptoms have multiple memories which interfere with changing them. Though change is briefly described in this section, there are sections later that fully describe how to use The Method to change beliefs, memories, addictions and chronic symptoms.
By using a painful belief as an example, you will obtain a general idea of how The Method is used to reduce or remove painful emotions. Changing painful memories, emotions, pictures, intrusions, nightmares, addictive urges and chronic symptoms, etc., are all similar to changing a painful belief. The similarity is that they are all based upon a memory and that you can use The Method to change the emotions connected to the memory. An example of using The Method will be given to change or remove the emotions an unwanted belief which will provide you with a general understanding about how The Method can be used for removing pain from other Issues.
Beliefs and Memories
It is the painful emotion connected to a traumatic memory that is the part of the memory that causes problems and disrupts your life. The memory of an emotion is different from the memory of what happened. All mild and severe psychological problems, self-limiting beliefs, intrusive memories or emotions and painful memories are memories with painful emotional memories connected to them. Again, it is painful emotional memories connected to experiential memories that make them painful.
Let’s look at beliefs as an example. It is easy to change an unwanted belief using The Method. A belief is either true or not true for you depending upon the intensity of the positive or negative emotions attached to the belief. If a negative belief is true for you, it can pop up in your thoughts frequently. To get rid of an unwanted negative belief, you simply have to change the belief from being true to being not true. When it is not true for you, you will tend to forget about it.
Hurt, by the way, is a term that stands for all negative emotions and will be explained further below. Unwanted beliefs are beliefs that are true for you because they have Hurt associated with them. It is the Hurt that makes the unwanted belief true. When you remove the Hurt from the belief, the belief becomes not true for you and does not intrude into your thoughts. You can use The Method to remove the Hurt from a belief. You can also strengthen weak, positive beliefs so they are totally true for you. This will be explained later.
Fears, bad feelings, thoughts and memories of bad events, including all the symptoms they cause, are memories with Hurt associated with them. So to change one of these Issues, all you have to do is use The Method to remove the Hurt from the memory. Similar to beliefs, if the painful emotions are removed from an intrusive voice, image, or "movie," they will stop occurring to you. The memory is not lost and may even be more accurate or complete, but what it won’t have is Hurt associated with it. Then, the memory or experience will have less or no impact on your life. Without it, your life can be more satisfying.
Addictions
Addictions can be stopped. The Method eliminates addictive urges. Since all addictive urges are driven by Hurt, The Method gives you choice because it gives you a way to change the Hurt and neutralize your urge or craving whenever it occurs. To be sure, it takes a strong desire to stop an addiction. It is important to do The Method before you do your addiction - before you binge eat, drink, or smoke - otherwise, The Method will not work. Because of the complexity of addictions, you will be encouraged to persistently and routinely use The Method to change your addictive urges whenever they are present. The strategy for changing addictions will be described in a later section. Do not try to change an addictive urge while you are reading this book. First, understand how to do The Method; then, build confidence that The Method will work for you by using it on less difficult Issues. Because addictive urges are sometimes more resistant to change, it is confidence that it will work for you to give you the patience and persistence necessary to change addictive urges.
Chronic Symptoms
Physical ailments, aches and pains and symptoms of chronic illnesses often have learned or remembered painful symptoms associated with them. You can use The Method to neutralize those remembered painful symptoms. Also, stress causes tension in the muscles that aggravates the Hurt caused by physical damage. If you remove the stress, then you reduce the muscle tension and relieve the Hurt. Sometimes when you use The Method to change a pain, inadvertently you can change underlying emotional Issues. It will never hurt to use The Method to try to reduce your symptoms.
Here is a sample of physical ailments and chronic illnesses for which partial or complete success has been obtained by addressing stress and remembered painful symptoms using The Method.
Allergies
Morning sickness
Arthritis Multiple sclerosis
Asthma Muscle tightness
Back pain
Numbness in the fingers
Bee stings
PMS
Body sores
Poor coordination
Cancer Psoriasis
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
Rashes
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Sexual dysfunctions
Constipation
Stiff neck and shoulders
Eyesight
Stomach aches
Headaches
Sweating
Insomnia
Toothaches
Irritable bowel syndrome
Trembling
Itching eyes
Ulcerative colitis
Joint pains and Lupus
Urination problems
(After Craig and Fowlie, 1995)
Innerself Healing
A part of your personality is always alert and present in all of your activities and experiences. This is your subconscious. I call this part your innerself. The innerself is like a sleeping resource that most of us use only for insight and problem solving. In the last 20 years, it has become increasingly obvious to many that the innerself can participate in change processes. The Method is one of the change techniques that can be learned by the innerself. Once learned, the innerself can use it to change the emotions of negative beliefs, experiences or memories as they occur. As you read this book, your innerself will pay close attention and remember everything you read. Once learned, the innerself can mimic The Method and Troubleshooting corrections and do a change process. The final section of the book will reveal to your innerself additional resources. These resources will increase the ease, the independence and safety of the innerself change processes.
(ISBN# 0-9685195 0-4. Reprinted by kind permission of the author.)