Dear HLife: What is your perspective on emotional healing techniques like EFT?

Dear HLifer,

Emotional healing begins with research and analysis. Without those two, there is no healing. Emotional techniques like EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) do work, but they do so more like an aspirin. They may give you temporary relief but do not solve the problem (heal). A holistic approach is about delving deep into all of the aspects of the self to arrive at and understand the root of the problem, and then truly begin to heal. Otherwise we are just numbing the pain.

Negative emotions hide in the dark side of our minds, our subconscious mind, and they feed off of more negative emotions. Emotional healing is not about annihilating our emotions, it’s about educating and transmuting them. We need to be in control of them, not be run by them. Remember that everything in the Universe is recycled and transformed. And in order to transform our negative emotions into positive ones, we need  to know all about them, which ones they are, how they work, and where and how they originated. This is where research comes in, where analysis follows, and where healing begins. Fear usually comes from lack of knowledge. Knowledge will allow us to turn on the lights in our minds. This way, when we observe and analyze our subconscious mind, there is nothing to fear as we see everything so clear. It is that darkness  also known as ignorance (lack of knowledge and information about the emotion) that the body will quickly interpret as DANGER. On a chemical and biological level, it sets off a major sequence of physiological events, from increased heartbeat to release of certain hormones, some activating an internal environment for more negative emotions to arise, and some that make you sweat, turn red, and halt the functions of your digestive system. On a psychological and non-physical level, this uncertainty generates in us all sorts of negative emotions like fear, insecurity, anxiety, and nervousness. Research will give us knowledge (light), which will allow us to understand our thoughts and to heal any negative emotional state.

Emotions are chemical and electrical. They are cognitive processes that induce a REACTION. This happens when thought patterns don’t go through the process of reasoning. In other words, we act without thinking. Why do we react? Because we are made up of nerves. We are organic electrical systems, not just machines. And if we don’t know how our organic, chemical, and electrical machine works, reacting can be a negative sequence of Cause and Effect and it can continue from one life to the next, until we break the chain of reaction with knowledge, understanding, and love. Here is the part where we get into the vicious cycle of hurting others. But most of all, since we are all connected, we end up really hurting ourselves. Whatever we emanate (emotions, words, feelings, thoughts) comes right back to us. It is all different forms of energy. Some positive energy (if we choose and work for it) and some negative energy. Regardless, the energy we send out into the Universe will come right back to its originator. This is a huge responsibility, and it is ours to own. This is why we need to do the personal work of research and analysis to transmute our negative emotions into positive ones. Because we want to heal —> to be optimally healthy —> to then emanate positive high frequency energy —> which then comes right back to us <—. And we will do this through knowledge, understanding, and love.  This is called ‘the positive energy feedback loop’. In other words, good food for your WHOLE being.

As far as one emotional healing technique in particular….well, nothing is ever just one way or one thing. When it comes to healing period, there are multiple things to address/work on for our different bodies: mind, physical body, emotional body, etc… You can use EFT as one of your  tools to help you calm down at the moment, but your journey to actual healing begins once you face that emotion head on, break it down, understand it, and transmute it.

Dear HLife: If all illnesses start in the mind, what does a fibroid mean?

Dear HLifer:

You’re on the right track asking this question, because the minute something happens to your body, you need to focus on one thing: What is my body trying to tell me?

The physical body is a map to the mental “body”.  Your physical body has many jobs and one of them is telling you exactly what is going on in your mind, which is something that you may not be able to see. The point of connection between the mind and the body are the emotions. There are healers who say that all problems are emotional, and that’s not untrue.  A holistic approach to health looks at all bodies – physical, mental, emotional and spiritual – to get a whole picture of what is causing the imbalance.

So, as you have to analyze your particular situation, let’s walk through an example on how to do this.  The first thing you need to do is look at the part of your body that is affected. Let’s say this fibroid is located in the uterus (as many are). The uterus is an area of the body intimately connected to femininity, as it is an organ that only females have. It is also a part of the reproductive system, the place of ultimate physical creation (babies). Let’s say it is located on the right side of your uterus. The right side of the body is governed by the left brain, and the left brain is linked to the masculine, the father, analytical processes.

All of this is beginning to paint a picture: There is an extraneous mass (something that stands out and is not supposed to be there, but is calling attention) located in the feminine, reproductive and therefore CREATIVE center of you, a place deeply connected to you as a woman, relationships, children…particularly placed on the masculine/paternal/analytical side of the body.

All illnesses begin with a thought (in the mind, like you said). And this thought generates an feeling, and then an emotion. This emotion is then expressed physically in your body.  It looks like there was a thought, an idea (“I should already have children), which then funneled down to an emotion like fear (“Maybe I’ll never get to have children”). Perhaps this is a personal fear, pressure on part of your parents (father, perhaps? Patriarchal/societal, maybe?) that has to do with having children, relationships. If you’re single and older, it is normal that this would be on your mind. If you’re not, perhaps this creation or “child” is a project/dream of yours, one that you are not paying attention to but deep down inside needs to manifest – a creation you need to give birth to.

Identifying the idea that started the physical problem is key in treating something. Many women have uterine fibroids that are benign and don’t cause much trouble, and others can be easily treated with alternative or Western methods. But it is your job to treat this WHOLLY, and this means getting to the source of the problem, the place where the fibroid began – IN A THOUGHT.  From there, analyzing how you feel about that idea/thought, and where that thought decided to manifest itself in your physical body will help you treat your condition holistically, so that it is solved on all levels of your being and it will not resurface to call your attention again, as happens oftentimes when just the physical body is treated.

Once you have identified the cause, the negative thought and emotion, you can treat these with opposing (positive) thoughts and feelings that reinforce what you want to CREATE, instead of what you don’t want.  In other words, you need to reprogram your negative programming into positive programming. An example in this case would be thinking: “Creation is a gift that all of the Creator’s children have. I am a creator, too. I have the power to create, and, when the time is right for me, my creations will manifest into the most beautiful of truths.”  Or, “I am confident and secure in the fact that I can create my own destiny, beyond societal expectations of me. I am a unique individual with a unique path, and it is up to me to decide what that path will include. I am safe and I trust in myself.”  Also, “Thank you, fibroid, for showing me what I could not see.  Your job is done.”

You need to get into the habit of interacting with your internal world – your organs, your cells, your thoughts. All of these energy clusters belong to you – they make up who you are, and you need to get to know them and communicate your will to them clearly. The healing process and the self-analysis it requires can only work when you begin to become intimately connected to your inner Universe.

Good books to help you understand this process and how to do it are Louise Hay’s Heal Your Body A-Z guide, which has a “dictionary” of health issues and the probable thought pattern that gave rise to it, along with new thought patterns that you can adopt to help you in the healing process. Another great book is Del Cuerpo Al Espiritu by Dr. Rogelio D’Ovidio, which I highly recommend if you speak Spanish (or if you can find it in English, which I have not been able to do yet.) Louise Hay cured herself of cancer by changing her thoughts and negative emotions as well as her diet – and she has been changing the world for the better ever since.  Dr. D’Ovidio is an MD who discovered a whole-body approach to healing and whose book walks you through every single organ and organ system, to help you identify the source of your condition.