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Many people use drugs as a substitute
for changing relationships. Self-medication with alcohol or nicotine,
or prescription anti-depressants and stimulants are easier than applying
intelligence, focus and analytical skills to complex relationship
situations. Drugs are also cheaper for patients (in the short term)
and more profitable for health professionals.
Soulwork Systemic Solutions and Brain Chemistry
We began using the name Soulwork in 1994, when our students
and clients attempted to describe a stable resource
state that seemed important to having meaning or sense of life. As many people called
this stable experience Soul, we called that part of our coaching Soul-work.
That name seemed to stick, although some people find it too
religious or too
New Age. See Origins of Soulwork.
As many symptoms of physical and mental health problems seem
to vanish following our Soul-work coaching (see
Human Consciousness), we wanted to better understand and improve the results that
we already enjoyed
[i].
When we interviewed people who recovered from serious mental
and physical disease without medical assistance, we found that self-healed people
had typically:
- Resolved (not dissociated) guilt from past actions
- Accepted disease symptoms as “teachers”
- Resolved traumatic or abusive memories
- Found a stable experience of integrity
- Created quality relationships
- Chosen healthy role models
Our challenges were obvious. What was the physiology and psychobiology
of human consciousness? How could we apply this knowledge? And how could we coach people
to take these steps?
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I translated psychobiology and
quantum thinking into
Slovak language. You talk to the whole brain.
You understand wide connections and binds. That is why people mark your coaching
methods and articles as the most effective and understandable. SG, Slovakia |
Which Reality is Real?
Do you want to understand your past, to live appropriately
in your present and to plan future events? People who confuse their subjective
models with objective reality may be called neurotic or psychotic. We sought to
model how people create inner worlds (see Quantum Thinking), to help
people make appropriate decisions (see Expert Modeling)
and to enjoy relationships (see Enjoying Partnership)
Clues to coaching people to move from disease to health lie
in the biology of the neurological structures that mediate perceptual, emotional
and cognitive experiences - a body-mind. Changes in your body-mind
worlds are followed by changes in your emotional reactions, your behavior
and your physical body.
Coaching the Body-Mind
We coach people to change their physical,
perceptual, emotional and cognitive experience. Short-term change is
commonplace. For us, long-term change indicates that:
- appropriate neurotransmitters are now generated, and
- changes were appropriate and were rightfully accepted, and
- the coach communicated with many brain structures simultaneously
Cognitive
coaching interventions (thinking) are unlikely to communicate with brain
structures that mediate emotional, perceptual and somatic change. Our systemic
coaching goes deeper ... applying the strange realm of psychobiology -
communicating with the limbic system ... and more.
Psychobiological Change
A person can acknowledge and respond to logical questions and
requests. You can check if a verbal message was received by observing a person's
verbal responses. A person can also respond to imagery, music, metaphors, movement
and symbols. You can check if a nonverbal message was received by observing the
person’s nonverbal responses.
The words conscious and unconscious seem to
refer to which parts of the brain process the information. In most people,
the left cerebral hemisphere is considered to dominate the processing of logic,
reason, judgment and understanding, while the right hemisphere is believed
to dominate the processing of images, metaphor and inferred communication.
Coaching the Left Cerebral Hemisphere
Your left brain hemisphere appears to store and process logical information.
We can coach you to define your goals and to explore the consequences of achieving
those goals and the blocks to achieving them. You are actively and consciously
involved with the cognitive details of your own coaching.
Coaching the Right Cerebral Hemisphere
Research on alexithymia (people cannot express emotions
and develop somatic symptoms) implicates
your right brain for storing emotions. We can communicate
with your right hemisphere using humor, metaphors, puns and symbols.
The work of Milton Erickson, MD, inspired us to develop a
Hawaiian dreamtime ritual (moe uhane)
into what we call interactive metaphors.
Interactive metaphors appear to simultaneously
stimulate both cerebral hemispheres. We call it Dreamwork - using interactive
isomorphic metaphors to help you understand and integrate your emotional and
cognitive responses - to change emotional reactions that prevent you getting
what you want.
What do you want?
Our systemic coaching stimulates left and right
brain activity simultaneously. While verbalizing goals, you unknowingly
communicate objections by nonverbal incongruence, which can
be recognized and dissolved by coaches we have trained. Such incongruence is commonly observed
between verbal language (left brain) and accompanying nonverbal language
(right brain), or between the cerebral cortex and the hind-brain. (For example, you may say, "I understand", while
shaking your head from side to side.) Other common signs of incongruence include
asymmetric posture, gestures or facial asymmetry.
A coach who can gently dissolve yes-no incongruence has a
powerful tool for helping people find inner peace and congruent goals by
balancing brain communication. (We teach dissolving verbal and nonverbal
objections during our Systems 2 training,
including self-criticism and responses beginning with
"Yes, but...”).
Coaching the Limbic System
Your right brain and left brain communications are simultaneously
processed through your limbic system, which associates your thoughts with emotions.
Emotional states generated by the limbic brain influence and can override
the cognitive processes of your neo-cortex. Your limbic brain can produce
somatic sensations and psychosomatic symptoms.
Coaching at the limbic level can help you change
emotional states. Examples include the uplifting effect of certain art or
music on depressed people. When your limbic system is engaged, your physiology
and emotions change. You may find better solutions for a problem if you listen
to music, for example. This concept is utilized in
many forms of hypnosis and meditation.
Coaching, Logic & Emotion
Our knowledge of the limbic brain helps us understand
simultaneous incongruence between knowing (intellectually) that something is
true, while feeling (emotionally) that it is not true. (This is especially
common when thinking is influenced by
identity loss and relationships bonds).
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Your limbic brain is the source of your feelings of
conviction. Paul MacLean, a neurobiology
pioneer, said: "The limbic system, that primitive brain
that can neither read nor write, provides us with a feeling of
what is real, true and important.”
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Logical arguments (mediated by the neocortex) rarely change
emotional beliefs (mediated by the limbic system). Intuiting this, effective
salespeople and politicians often make emotional, rather than logical, appeals. Your
emotions may not be subject to your logical neocortex - can you spontaneously
choose to be angry or happy?
As your limbic system can
operate without conscious logic, classical conditioning strategies such
as the anchoring used by practitioners of Neuro-Linguistic Programming can be
used to access emotions, and to merge or dissociate them (often outside a
person's conscious awareness and perhaps without consent).
By communicating with the limbic brain, we coach people change
their perception of emotions, so that they can experience emotions as
interesting body-mind communications. (We find that integrated brain function seems to
minimize
the influence of sales pitches, hypnotic language and political rhetoric! People
can better choose how to react!)
Coaching the Pineal Gland
Your pineal gland is in the center of your brain. It is active until
puberty, then it shrinks and may calcify. It is rich in lecithin which
has both neural and endocrine properties. A neural connection between the eyes
and pineal gland sensitizes your nervous system to ambient light.
Your pineal gland synthesizes and secretes melatonin and pinoline during darkness,
entraining your nervous system to your local circadian 24-hour clock and perhaps acting
as an antidepressant. Melatonin is an antioxidant that inhibits pre-puberty sexual development
and may protect the nervous system against degeneration. Pinoline is also antioxidant and
induces Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep and dreams. (Pineal gland extract improves the
metabolism of sugar in chronically ill patients.)
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The pineal gland has been a mystery for centuries and has
been attributed
with superstition, myth and many metaphysical theories.
Many people claim
that the pineal gland is an intuitive third eye and
chakra.
"Lao Tzu described a small 'gateway to heaven and
earth' in the center of the brain behind the eyes and wrote that
concentrating on it leads to realizing oneness. In this pearl is a light
which Confucius called virtuous perfection (jen); the Book of Change
(I Ching) called it the ultimateless (wu chi), the Buddha called it perfect
knowledge (yuan ming) and Taoist literature called it an elixir of
immortality and spiritual light." Jan Sikorski
"The pineal gland is the receptor and sender of subtle
vibrations which carry thoughts and psychic phenomena throughout the cosmos.
The pineal gland converts brain waves into subtle electrical energy
traveling faster that the speed of light." Swami Sivananda
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You are affected by the rhythm of your pineal gland and thus by ambient light levels.
(This hints at why dark retreats were favored by Buddhist and Taoist monks). We
find that coaching with interactive metaphor (Dreamwork) leads to predictable
ecstatic states of consciousness that are
commonly described as light-filled, etc, which seem to affect pineal gland
function.
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As the pineal reacts to light and darkness, and as the
limbic system provides a sense of reality, subjectively
perceived light (during interactive metaphors or
meditation) seems to affect the pineal gland and melatonin / pinoline
production.
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(Pineal stimulation may resolve some frigidity and erectile dysfunction
issues).
Coaching the Amygdala
Your limbic brain (including your amygdala) also mediates music, speech
intonation and metaphor. Coaching strategies that communicate directly with the limbic
brain are interactive metaphors and symbolic integration. As your limbic
brain responds emotionally to symbols, such as icons, mandalas and art, we can use real
or imagined symbols to stimulate your limbic brain.
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Your amygdala associates
emotions with symbols. Your amygdala receives information from your cortex, and
integrates sensory information from both the external (objective) and internal
(subjective) worlds, resulting in your experience of “reality”.
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Your amygdala has been called the heart of your limbic brain. If you take a
moment and remember the bitter taste and smell of lemon juice ... what happens to your
saliva flow within a few seconds? Your amygdala rapidly responds as if imagined events
were actually taking place.
By stimulating the amygdala, we can better coach people to explore strategies for
achieving worthwhile goals, and to reduce the emotional impact of trauma. We coach
people to learn from traumatic, phobic or abusive events without being overwhelmed by
emotion, until the trauma, phobia or abuse can be peacefully evaluated and assimilated.
Coaching and Synesthesia
(Synesthesia
is an experience in which the stimulation of one sense elicits a perception that
ordinarily would be elicited had another sense been stimulated, as when a loud
noise registers as a light, or vice versa: Encyclopedia Encarta)
We often use synesthesia to cross-link
(or unhook) sensory systems. Systemic coaching at the limbic level helps
a person experience unpleasant feelings as interesting communications,
without being overwhelmed by body sensations such as guilt,
sadness or anxiety.
As the limbic system also interprets music, speech
intonations and metaphors,
we can communicate directly with the limbic brain with interactive metaphors and
symbols. We find symbolic maps and relationship matrices to be valuable tools for
utilizing synesthesia during our systemic diagnosis
and systemic coaching.
Coaching the Hind Brain
Your hind-brain also translates body-mind communication. It is
sometimes called the reptilian hind- brain and controls everyday repetitive
behaviors such as habits, rituals, routines and motor skills. You might think of it
as your auto-pilot when you daydream - even when driving.
Your hind-brain associates emotions with action (action is
often honest communication). You communicate aggression,
submission and sexual interest through your actions. Your body movements and
particularly your unconscious nonverbal communication involve your hind-brain.
Like the
limbic system, your hind-brain responds to metaphors and symbols. Hence we use interactive metaphors, symbolic language,
puns and non-verbal signals to communicate with this part of the brain. This is
particularly useful when we coach people to pull themselves together as
they recover from crisis, trauma or identity loss.
Coaching the Adrenal Glands
Your adrenal glands (not in your brain - they are above your kidneys) guide your “fight or flight”
response to stress. Healthy adrenal glands release adrenaline, to make you more
alert and focused, and cortisol, to convert proteins to energy. Adrenalin
increases your heart rate, respiration and blood pressure while tensing your
muscles, sharpening your senses, and slowing your digestion so that you can
fight or run away.
Chronic stress can cause your adrenal glands to maintain high cortisol
levels, which can damage your body tissues. Some people say they have
adrenaline addiction, although subsequent adrenal fatigue can cause
mood swings - depression, fatigue and insomnia. Adrenal exhaustion can cause
serious health concerns and mental breakdown.
We can help you control stress reactions, and we can
coach you to define and achieve your life goals. This provides you with the
energy, focus and intent to live a fulfilled life.
A Psychobiology of Soul
These various parts of your brain can function and
communicate simultaneously ... and ecstatically. We coach people to enjoy a stable
experience of integrity as a basis for congruent decisions and long-term
inspiration to choose and fulfill life goals.
People experiencing this integration display verbal
congruence and nonverbal symmetry, which may indicate that the both
cranial hemispheres, limbic system, amygdala and hind-brain are in an unusual
state of cooperation. During this experience, people can simultaneously focus
on abstract concepts and on specific details. Most people report a sense of
transcendental awareness. (So many people called this experience Soul
that we called this part of systemic coaching Soul-work.)
Many people, during and after Soul experience, have told us that Soul
has an independent existence; that Soul
existed before they were born; and that Soul will continue
after the death of their bodies. (Psychobiology cannot confirm or disprove this
concept,
although many people enjoy this notion!)
Some of
our team believe that our coaching can enable or enhance spiritual
connectedness – while others believe that Soul experience is a
natural result of integrated brain activity. Whatever is true, Soul
experience seems to fulfill the requirements
for spontaneous health described above and provides a rational basis
for significant body-mind healing in short time frames.
People who cannot experience Integrity (Soul)
Some people cannot experience this existential harmony because of
trauma
(preoccupied), guilt (a need to suffer) and
codependence
(independent happiness may damage an important relationship). Other reasons
were that the person suffered long term dissociation
(lost identity), had identified with
another person (identification) or
had simultaneously identified with two people
(identity conflict).
Hence our systemic coaching includes strategies for dissolving these
systemic (relationship) issues. Our systemic solutions are steps towards optimal immune system function (as
part of a spectrum of modalities, including diet, supplements and exercise.) This appears to
help reduce aging, increase resistance to disease, and offer potential solutions for
psychosomatic illness and autoimmune disease.
Please consult a physician about any medical or psychiatric conditions!
October 2008
Since I wrote this article ten years ago, we have redefined
and improved our
systemic solutions. Our paradigm has shifted. At first, we expected
people to welcome effective change ... but so many people remain
loyal to their conditioning ... and to their suffering. So many people seeking relief from emotional and relationship
problems prefer to medicate or distract themselves. If you are searching for
sense of life - for integrity (without drugs) we invite you to explore our
transformational coaching.
Do you want
telephone coaching or professional training?
We coach
people to resolve emotional and
relationship challenges.
Copyright © Martyn Carruthers 1998-2009
All rights reserved
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