EFT & Wellness

Dr. Candace B. Pert, Ph.D., Everything You Need to Know to Feel Go(o)d, Hay House, Inc., Carlsbad, California, 2006, page 35. Dr. Pert writes:

"'This psychosomatic network requires a new way of thinking about physiology in order to be understood.  In the reigning-paradigm mind-set, the term psychosomatic is used pejoratively, as if symptoms that are psychosomatic are false and don't deserve attention or treatment. After all, they can't be 'real,' because they're all in your mind!

"But in the new view of medicine and wellness, a psychosomatic state is the basis for a fresh approach to healing disease; for feeling well emotionally; and for creating a different, more desirable reality. Yes, your symptoms are in your body, but they are also always in your mind, either consciously or subconsciously. Mind and body are not split in two, so what happens in one occurs in the other, too.  This is the fundamental tenet of what I call the new-paradigm physiology.'"

Rene Descartes (1596-1650) began this dualistic split between spirit and body in the 16th century. Up until that time the Church frowned upon scientists probing the body to find its "secrets". It was pretty much simply forbidden. Because he was a mathematician & scientist, he looked at everything in those terms. Mathematics defined the entire physical world. The physical could be seen, but the mental (emotional & spiritual) could not, and Descartes separated them into two completely different realms. In his mind, neither one had anything to do with the other. If the mental, meaning spiritual, can't be measure then it all fell outside the walls of the scientific castle. It was left to the priests to decide. Scientists wouldn't touch it.

This all worked well for a couple of centuries, as it kept the scientists out of prison for meddling in spiritual affairs of the mind. It also has given us today a very mechanical sort of medicine. Take a pill and all will be well. Most physicians aren't taught, nor have, or take the time today to ask a patient what is going on in their lives, meaning emotionally or spiritually. Thus, we still are suffering the effects of Descartes' philosophy.  It's doesn't seem to be serving us too well anymore.

Illness is more than just a mechanistic breakdown of the body. And the paragraph above from Dr. Pert shows, there is a new approach to medicine. Much more is happening than meets the physical eye. Our emotions and spiritual state do impact our health.  In fact, they probably impact us more than we could ever rightly imagine.

As this new approach and the new scientific evidence continues to mount, it is time we all begin to reexamine our health in light of these new, or resurrected, ideas. Spirit was once part of medicine, back centuries, when the whole man was treated. Unfortunately, centuries ago we didn't have antibiotics or surgery to help heal, as we do now.

Many of the complementary "energy medicine" modalities of today are beginning to reconnect these 2 realms. If the emotional health impacts physical health, why not use both to treat disease? Why not explore & "pull out" any negative emotional events, and then treat what is left of the disease with modern medicine? Sometimes, negative emotional events can also be associated with some spiritual issue, too, like unforgiveness or unconfessed sin. Illness is the effect of sin in our world. Because EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) does ease many physical symptoms because those same symptoms are rooted in emotional/spiritual events of the past, maybe time has come to consider using it in addition to conventional medical treatment?

For more information, go to  www.eftforchristians.com

To schedule a free EFT consultation coaching session, email me at eftforchristians@gmail.com

Always remember to take complete responsibility for your own health and well-being.

Sherrie Rice Smith
Author of EFT for Christians 
EFTforChristians.com 

Christian Disbelief and EFT

Recently I had this question pop up on one of my author’s boards: “How do you deal with Christians who are resistant to EFT? I am not a Christian, but I have met people who seem afraid to take responsibility for their own wellbeing and development. How do you address this?”

I would love to answer this question!

Often Christians are fearful, like everyone else, of what they don’t know or don’t understand. We in the West are conditioned to believe that God heals us through doctors and medicine. And sometimes God heals supernaturally. The body is a mechanical machine and it must be treated as such. There apparently is no in-between.

Back in the 16^th century, when Rene Descartes was alive and active in his philosophical thinking, he concluded that much of matter is simply mechanical. He supported a dualism that mind and body were completely separate, and those parts did not interact with each other, except at the pineal gland where there could be some intersection.  Touch was the only true “sense”, according to Descartes. http://www.philosophypages.com/hy/4h.htm

This philosophy was at complete odds with Eastern ideas which teach our body and our mind is a cohesive unit. Each part influenced the other and each was integral to the functioning whole.

Due to this 16^th century thought Western medicine until recently has view the mind-body connection as non-existent. The body was the body; the mind was the mind and each was treated as separately existing. If one had a physical disease, the state of our mind had little to do with the disease itself, or the healing process. The idea that a physical illness was the manifestation of an emotional (mind) problem was near impossible to fathom.

This thinking is rapidly changing, meaning that Eastern ideas of how our body heals was correct all along, and these new ideas are making rapid inroads into Western medicine. The mind-body connection exists, as our whole body works in unison, not as separate parts as Descartes suggested.

It is new science, and most of the disbelief of Christians can simply be addressed by explaining that EFT is all physiology the way God created us. I use Scripture to address their concerns, too. Too many Christians figure if something has Chinese medicine in it; it follows that some Chinese religious belief must be mixed in there, too. This isn't at all true.

Many universities are now doing amazing amounts of neuro research, and I try to keep up on that as much as possible, and use it in my new articles, blogs, and upcoming books, as well as incorporate it into my EFT classes. Internet searches will bring up hundreds of research articles around this subject. Most of it is fascinating reading.

You & I know people heal when they are ready to heal. If they are satisfied to be where they are, afraid to think outside the box, try something new, we can pretty much guarantee not much healing is going to happen!