Energy Psychology as a Method for Creating Personal Change
publication date: Aug 19, 2009
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author/source: Dr. Julie Roberts
By Julie Roberts, Ph.D.
 Energy psychology (EP) is a relatively new method for creating change in your life. If you want to improve motivation, relieve depression, alleviate anxiety, or remove blocks to your potential, EP can help. EP is typically faster and more effective in creating change than traditional methods such as cognitive, behavioral or talk therapies. There are a number of different energy psychology methods, which use one or more of the following: pressure or tapping on acupressure points, tapping on alternative sides of the body (bilateral stimulation and EMDR), charkas, hands on healing, visualization, and muscle testing (or kinesiology). How We Develop Blocking Beliefs These unique techniques eliminate blocks that negatively influence behavior, thoughts, and feelings. Blocks are formed from one or more events that have occurred in the past. When we experience negative events (such as watching our parents fight or being told that we are no good), we don’t like what we feel or think, and we tense up to block out or avoid our painful emotions. Avoidance of feelings actually insures that the event will get stuck in the body because the incident is never fully processed. What we resist persists. Energy psychology changes the chemistry of the brain to inhibit the alarm response and release the stuck issue. It helps relieve depression, anxiety and phobias, and it helps free individuals from blocks that impact their ability to move forward in life. What Energy Psychology is and How it Works The particular method that I use is called CLEAR®, which integrates a number of energy psychology methods. It uses acupressure point therapy, bilateral stimulation, somatic experiencing, clearing of blocking beliefs and muscle testing. I will explain each of these, except for muscle testing which is not used in the simplified version described below. For more on muscle testing, you can visit: http://www.changeworksinc.com/muscletest.html There are fourteen acupressure points on the body that correspond to various emotions (see the table below). With CLEAR, light pressure is applied to each point successively while putting one’s attention on the topic that is being addressed (some energy psychology methods such as EFT and TFT tap on the acupressure point—I find light pressure is sufficient). Bilateral stimulation originated in Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) and was systematically developed by Francine Shapiro and called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). It involves tapping alternately on right and left sides of the body while thinking of the issue being worked on. The theory here is that the trauma is “frozen in time” and is energetically stuck on one side of the body or the other and alternatively tapping on the body while thinking of the issue frees it up. Somatic Experiencing, developed by Peter Levine, is a practice I use with both the acupressure point technique and bilateral stimulation. Levine developed Somatic Experiencing after watching animals in the wild experience trauma. He noticed that animals, when they can’t fight or flee, go into immobility (which, he speculates, dulls the senses so they don’t feel the pain if they are eaten). And if something scares away the animal that put them into this state, and they are not badly injured, they will lie there, presumably processing the trauma as the body twitches and eyes roll. They then get up and walk away. Levine surmised that because humans think, we avoid this processing. We don’t want to experience the feelings and sensations that usually accompany a trauma because they are unpleasant and they don’t feel good. We think, “I don’t want to feel that; I don’t like that feeling. It is unpleasant and I won’t be happy if I feel that. I want to get away from that feeling.” Our resistance to feeling is what gets trauma stuck because what we resist feeling cannot be fully processed by the body. Using somatic experiencing, we are present in the body and allow feelings and sensations to surface to our awareness so that the trauma can be reprocessed and thus be freed. Beliefs define who we are—what we think, how we behave and the actions we take. Blocking Beliefs are thoughts that prevent us from being who we want to be. We make decisions about ourselves and life when bad things happen to us as children. For example, if I experienced parents who were not present much in my life, I might decide that, “I don’t deserve attention, I am not good enough to get attention,” and “they don’t love me or they would pay more attention to me.” And perhaps I believe that “something is wrong with me” to explain why they didn’t spend time with me. If I was hurt emotionally or physically, I may decide, “I am not safe,” or “I can’t trust people.” These beliefs, like the traumas, also get stuck in the system. Untreated, they will impact much of what occurs in life. For how can I have a healthy relationship if I feel unworthy or unsafe around people? But CLEAR frees these beliefs so we can actualize our dreams. If you want to try clearing some of your own limiting beliefs, you can follow the simplified process below. (NOTE to editor: the article could be stopped here and readers could be referred to the author’s website to do the exercise) In this version, muscle testing is not used. Because muscle testing isolates the particular points necessary to clear a particular issue, the simplified process below will clear beliefs, use bilateral stimulation and all of the acupressure points. Yes, the process might look a bit strange, but try it, it really works! The Steps for using CLEAR®
ACUPRESSURE POINTS Point Location Emotion
About the Author  Julie Roberts, PhD, developed CLEAR. She teaches CLEAR and leadership courses. She sees private clients, and has written a book describing CLEAR (Change Works with CLEAR, Clearing Limits Energetically with Acupressure Release). Julie is certified by the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology. To contact Dr. Roberts or purchase her book: www.changeworksinc.com |