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Psychobiology of Soul
Neuro-Biology of Coaching © Martyn Carruthers 1998-2010

Click HERE to make an appointment!

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 focus, intelligence and analytical skills to goals, emotions and relationships.

Systemic Solutions and Brain Chemistry

I began using the name Soulwork in 1994, when I attempted to describe a stable resource state that seemed important to having meaning or sense of life. As many of my students and clients called this stable experience Soul, I called that part of our coaching Soul-work. That name seemed to stick, although some people complain that it has religious or New Age overtones. (See Origins of Soulwork.)

As many symptoms of mental and sometimes physical health problems seem to vanish following our coaching (see Human Consciousness), I wanted to better understand and improve the results that I already enjoyed [i].

Whenever I could, I interviewed people who had recovered from serious mental and physical disease without medical assistance. I found that self-healed people had typically:

  1. Resolved (not dissociated) guilt about past actions
  2. Accepted disease symptoms as teachers
  3. Resolved traumatic or abusive memories
  4. Found a stable experience of integrity
  5. Improved their relationships generally
  6. Chosen healthy role models

The challenge seemed obvious. How could I help people duplicate this healing? What was the underlying psychobiology of human consciousness? How could people apply this knowledge? To fulfill my goal of helping people live fulfilled lives ... how could I coach people to find integrity?

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. Zvolen, 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 inner and outer worlds may be called neurotic or psychotic. I sought to model how people create healthy inner worlds (see Quantum Thinking and Chaos Coaching), to help people make better decisions (see Expert Modeling) and to enjoy relationships (see Enjoying Partnership).

Consciousness is a long-standing mystery. Why are we aware of some (7±2) thoughts or feelings, while everything else lurks below our conscious perception? Why are some memories readily accessible, and other memories, even important memories, apparently buried without trace? There are many theories.

I like the global workspace theory developed in 1983 by Bernard Baars of The Neuroscience Institute in San Diego, California. Bernard says that people become conscious of information only if signals are broadcast to many regions of their brains simultaneously - a global workspace - and people may become conscious of a flurry of coordinated activity.

If accurate, I find that this coordinated activity can be hidden if the information risks damaging important relationships ... but who decides? This question leans towards theories of an unconscious mind.

My coaching model is based on the idea of partitioned minds. I like to say that,
"We all suffer from borderline multiple personality ... well, part of me thinks so!"

Clues to helping people develop health, wealth and happiness appear to lie in the psychobiology and coordination of the neurological structures that mediate perceptual, emotional and cognitive experiences - the body-mind. Changes in the body-mind are often quickly followed by changes in emotional reactions, relationship behavior and the physical body.

Damaged Children - Damaged Adults

I avoid researching people's past, rather focusing on what present perceptions of past events trigger emotional reactions or unwanted behavior. And then, resolving the emotional consequences of child maltreatment or abuse (as perceived by people now - not what really happened) is often a key step to coaching motivated adults to enjoy a lasting sense-of-life - a sense of worthwhile mission.

Structural consequences of childhood maltreatment include disruptive development of corpus callosum, left neocortex, hippocampus, and amygdale; functional consequences include increased electrical irritability in limbic areas, frontal lobe dysfunctions and reduced functional activity of the cerebellar vermis; and neurohumoral consequences include the reprogramming activity of hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis and subsequently the stress response.
Grassi-Oliveira R, Ashy M, Stein LM
.

Psychology Department, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

Together, the consequences appear to support the dissociation of emotions and memories. As I offer help in finding long-term resolution for these consequences, I look forward to a time when a medical professionals can view brain scans before and after my coaching.

Coaching the Body-Mind

I coach people to change their perceptual, emotional and cognitive experience. Short-term change is commonplace and is offered by very many people. For me, 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

It now seems clear that cognitive coaching interventions (thoughts) are unlikely to communicate with brain structures that mediate emotional, perceptual and somatic change (feelings). So I explored how my coaching works in the strange realm of psychobiology and psychobiological change.

Psychobiological Change

Motivated adults acknowledge and respond to logical questions and requests. People also respond to imagery, music, metaphors, movement and symbols. (I can check if verbal messages were accepted by observing people's nonverbal responses).

How would Western philosophy be different if Descartes had said, 'I feel therefore I am'?

The words conscious and unconscious seem to refer to which parts of the brain process certain information. In most people, the left cerebral hemisphere is considered to dominate the processing of logic, reason, judgment and understanding (thoughts), while the right hemisphere is believed to dominate the processing of images, metaphor and inferred communication (feelings).

Coaching the Left Cerebral Hemisphere

The left brain hemisphere appears to store and process logical information. I can coach people to define their goals, to explore the consequences of achieving those goals and the blocks to achieving them. People become actively and consciously involved with the cognitive details of their own coaching.

Coaching the Right Cerebral Hemisphere

Research on alexithymia (people cannot express emotions and develop somatic symptoms) implicates the right brain for storing and creating emotions. I can communicate with the right brain hemisphere using humor, metaphors, puns and symbols.

The work of Milton Erickson, MD, inspired me to research a Hawaiian dreamtime ritual (moe uhane) and develop what I often call interactive metaphors. Interactive metaphors appear to simultaneously stimulate both cerebral hemispheres. I generally call it Dreamwork - using interactive isomorphic metaphors to help people understand and integrate their emotional and cognitive responses. Dreamwork helps people change emotional reactions that delay or prevent them getting what they want.

What do you want?

My coaching seems to stimulates left and right brain activity simultaneously. While verbalizing goals, people unknowingly communicate objections by nonverbal incongruence, which can be recognized and dissolved by people we have trained. I assume that verbal/nonverbal incongruence indicates dissonance between verbal language processing (left brain) and nonverbal or body 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 postures or gestures.

The ability to gently dissolve yes-no incongruence is a powerful tool for helping people find inner peace and congruent goals by dissolving verbal and nonverbal objections. (I teach this on my Systems 2 training, which also includes dissolving self-criticism and sentences beginning with "Yes, but...”).

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Coaching the Limbic System

Right brain and left brain communications appear to be simultaneously processed through the limbic system, which associates thoughts with emotions. Emotional states generated by the limbic brain influence and can override the cognitive processes of the neo-cortex. The limbic brain seems to trigger both somatic sensations and psychosomatic symptoms.

Coaching at the limbic level can help people change emotional states. (Common examples include the emotional reactions to certain art, poetry or music). When the limbic system is engaged, people's physiology and emotions change. Many people find better solutions for problems if they listen to music, for example. This concept is utilized by young adults everywhere, and also in hypnosis and meditation.

A knowledge of the limbic brain helps explain simultaneous incongruence, for example knowing (intellectually) that something is true, while feeling (emotionally) that it is false. (This is especially common when thinking is influenced or distorted by identity loss and unpleasant relationships bonds).

The limbic brain is the source of 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.”

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. Emotions may not be subject to the logical neocortex - even a good actor may be unable to spontaneously choose to feel angry or happy.

As the limbic system operates without conscious logic, classical conditioning can influence people. Classical conditioning techniques can be used to access people's emotions, and to merge or dissociate them (often outside people's awareness and without their consent. Such techniques are often taught in predatory sales and seduction courses.)

By communicating with the limbic brain, I help people change their perception of their own emotions, so that they can experience emotions as interesting body-mind communications. (I note that integrated brain function seems to minimize the impact and influence of hypnotic language, unwanted sales pitches, seduction attempts and political rhetoric! People can better choose how they want to react!)

Coaching the Pineal Gland

The pineal gland is in the center of the 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 the nervous system to ambient light.

The pineal gland synthesizes and secretes melatonin and pinoline during darkness, entraining the nervous system to the 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.)

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

People are affected by the rhythm of their pineal glands and thus by ambient light levels. (This hints at why dark retreats were favored by Buddhist and Taoist monks). I find that coaching with interactive metaphor (Dreamwork) leads to predictable ecstatic states of consciousness that are commonly described as light-filled, clear light, etc, which may affect pineal gland function.

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.

(Pineal stimulation may resolve some frigidity and erectile dysfunction issues ... more needed here).

Coaching the Amygdala

The limbic brain (including the amygdala) also mediates music, speech intonation and metaphor. Coaching strategies that communicate directly with the limbic brain are interactive metaphors and symbolic integration. As the limbic brain responds emotionally to symbols, such as icons, mandalas and art, people can use real or imagined symbols to stimulate their limbic brains.

The amygdala associates emotions with symbols. The amygdala receives information from the neocortex, and integrates sensory information from both the external (objective) and internal (subjective) worlds, resulting in an experience of “reality”.

The amygdala has been called the heart of the limbic brain. If you take a moment and recall 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, I can better coach people to explore strategies for achieving worthwhile goals, and to reduce the emotional impact of trauma. I help people learn from traumatic, phobic or abusive events without being overwhelmed by emotion, until memories of trauma, phobia or abuse, etc,  can be peacefully evaluated and assimilated.

Coaching and Synesthesia

I often use synesthesia to cross-link (or unhook) heavy emotions. Coaching at the limbic level helps people interpret unpleasant feelings as communication, without being overwhelmed by sensations such as rage, depression or anxiety. This is very useful for people who want to dissolve psychosomatic symptoms, in which emotions seem to be expressed or communicated as body problems.

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 noise registers as a light, or vice versa: Encyclopedia Encarta

As the limbic system also interprets (attributes meaning to) music, speech intonations and metaphors, I can communicate directly with the limbic brain by changing the tempo, tone and pitch of my voice, and by using interactive metaphors and symbols. (Many people find symbolic maps to be very useful to aid evaluating history, relationships and goals (systemic diagnosis) during our coaching sessions.)

Coaching the Hind Brain

The 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 an auto-pilot when daydreaming - even if driving a motor vehicle.)

The hind-brain associates emotions with action (action can be called honest communication). People communicate aggression, submission and sexual interest through their often-unconscious body movements and nonverbal communication.

Like the limbic system, your hind-brain responds to metaphors and symbols. Hence I use interactive metaphors, symbolic language, puns and non-verbal signals to communicate with this part of the brain. This is particularly useful when coaching people to pull themselves together as they recover from abuse, trauma or identity loss.

Coaching the Adrenal Glands

The adrenal glands (they are not in the brain - rather above the kidneys) guide the famous fight or flight response to stress. Healthy adrenal glands release adrenaline, which causes people to feel alert and focused, and cortisol, which converts proteins into energy. Adrenalin also increases the heart rate, respiration and blood pressure while tensing muscles, sharpening senses and slowing digestion so that people can better fight or run away.

Chronic stress may cause the adrenal glands to maintain high cortisol levels, which can damage 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.

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A Brief Psychobiology of Love

Falling in love is a profound feeling; while falling out of love can bring profound suffering. Our brains change when we are in love, in similar ways to some mental illnesses or illicit drugs. Falling in love can be addictive, and falling out of love is often associated with withdrawal symptoms!

Hard-core science focuses on what can be easily measured, and may not appreciate nor include important aspects of human existence such as personality, beliefs and values.
Kosjenka Muk, Soulwork Trainer

Falling in love seems to have three phases, each accompanied by hormones and neurotransmitters

  1. Lust is associated with estrogen and testosterone (affecting both men and women).
  2. Attraction is associated with dopamine and serotonin. People in love often feel obsessed - they may eat less, sleep less and day-dream about their partner.
  3. Attachment is associated with vasopressin and oxytocin, which supports lasting commitment and helps bond lovers together.

There's convincing evidence that oxytocin is involved in mediating stability, pair bonding
and monogamy; the enduring parts of love ...
Hans Zingg, McGill University.

Many people experience a surge of oxytocin bonding during extended touch, for example during sex or massage, and a surge of dopamine during arousing activities. Both trigger feelings of love and romance, but as dopamine gives a feeling of pleasure or satisfaction (see Wikipedia), a desire for more satisfaction motivates behaviors that release more dopamine ... for example food, sex and power ...

People who are unusually willing to manipulate others for personal gain - such as psychopaths - have unusually high levels of dopamine, a chemical that motivates people to seek pleasure. Joshua Buckholz, Nature Neuroscience, DOl: 10.1038/nn.251O

Buckholtz suggests that a strong desire for more dopamine can motivate people to act impulsively, without considering the consequences of their actions - which may hurt others.

Hence love can be addictive (probably to forms of amphetamine-like adrenaline), and falling in love can have symptoms similar to substance abuse. Falling out of love can have symptoms comparable to withdrawal from addictive drugs (adrenaline), perhaps accompanied by a dopamine-driven urge to regain the lost love and/or to express power over the ex-lover.

A Brief Psychobiology of Soul

When balanced in harmony, these various parts of the brain can function and communicate simultaneously ... and ecstatically. People can 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. Many people report a sense of transcendental awareness. (As many people called this experience Soul, I called this part of my coaching Soul-work. The name stuck.)

I asked you for coaching to plan a kindergarten ... and now I have a sense of mission and almost transcendent life purpose! I can focus on achieving this goal without losing anything ... the beliefs that slowed me down were parts of me that were concerned that my project might damage my relationships with my husband or children ... I feel I have communicated with my Soul ... I am a complete person ... it's hard to describe ... London, England

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 idea!)

Some of my graduate students believe that our coaching can enable or enhance spiritual connectedness – while others believe that Soul experience is a normal result of integrated brain activity. Whatever is true, what we call Soul experience seems to provide a rational basis for significant body-mind healing in short time frames.

People who cannot experience Integrity (Soul)

In my experience, about 25% of motivated adults cannot experience this existential harmony without making some changes. The main reasons seemed to be: immaturity (lack of responsibility), trauma (preoccupied), guilt (need to suffer) and codependence (independent happiness may damage an important relationship). Less common were people who suffered long term dissociation (lost identity), had identified with another person (identification) or had identified with two people (identity conflict).

Hence I developed strategies for quickly dissolving these (relationship) issues. My resulting systemic solutions are steps towards optimal immune system function (as part of a spectrum of modalities, including diet, supplements and exercise.) While this appears to help reduce aging, increase resistance to disease, and offer potential solutions for psychosomatic illness and autoimmune disease, my overall goal remains ... to help people live fulfilled lives.

Please consult a physician about any medical or psychiatric conditions!

March 2010

Since I wrote this article twelve years ago, my graduates and I have refined and greatly improved our systemic solutions. And our paradigm has shifted. At first, I expected people to welcome fast, effective change ... but many people remain loyal to their conditioning ... and cling to their suffering. Most people seeking relief from emotional and relationship problems prefer to medicate or distract themselves.

We invite people who are searching for sense of life (without drugs) - people who search for integrity - to explore the applications of our transformational change-work.

Click HERE to make an appointment!

Plagiarism is theft. Copyright © Martyn Carruthers 1998-2010 All rights reserved


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Good Questions

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Training

1. Where are you now? Assess relationship bonds and entanglements Systems 1
2. What are your life goals?  Identify your life goals ... and what blocks you Systems 2
3. How to reach your goals?  Use your conscious and unconscious resources Systems 3
4. What stops you?  Dissolve abuse and trauma to rebuild motivation Systems 4
5. What else stops you? Change your limiting beliefs to end dependence Systems 5
6. What else stops you? Resolve identity loss to recover qualities and skills Systems 6
7. What else stops you? Heal mentor damage and find quality mentorship Systems 7
8. What about your partnership? Build happy partnership (or separate peacefully) Systems 8
9. What about your children? We coach parents to resolve family problems Systems 9
10. What about your success? We coach team leaders and teams ... together Systems 10
11. What about your community? We coach community leaders and communities Systems 11
12. What about complex goals? Specialty coaching & training for unusual goals Specialty

Plagiarism is theft. Copyright © Martyn Carruthers 1996-2010 All rights reserved. Soulwork Systemic Coaching was primarily developed by Martyn Carruthers. We help people define and achieve goals, resolve emotional blocks and improve relationships. This information is for general knowledge only. Consult a physician about medical conditions and before changing any medical treatment. Don't steal ... ask Martyn for permission to post or publish his work.