Yesterday, I posted on Facebook an episode from the "Truth about Cancer" video series that discussed how 70% of "Energy Medicine" is understood in Western medicine terms. Much of it is just plain science!
Here is a small piece of that science: Memory reconsolidation and memory extinction are part of what goes on subconsciously during tapping and Matrix Reimprinting. Science appears to show we have 10 minutes to 5 hours to change an old memory before our psyche puts it back into our subconscious memory box (hippocampus) as either a more positive or more negative memory.
It appears that as we "talk" about our negative hurtful emotional memories, we more deeply encode them (like learning a new skill - the more practice we get the better we are at doing the new skill), even though the details within the memory may change a bit each time we "tell" that same story. Tapping while reiterating the story seems to do the opposite - it allows the emotional pull contained within the memory to release.
I've repeated this dozens of times: Dr. Eric Kandel won the 2000 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his research that explains we double our neural pathways to a memory for every hour we think about that memory! Every time we recall something emotionally tragic in our life, we exponentially build the brain's nerve cells (neurons) to reinforce the memory AND the perception it produced in our subconscious mind (building a skill!) . That negativity breeds powerfully more negativity! We are trapped in our own thoughts and beliefs about ourselves, and about others, including our God. Tapping appears to halt this neural growth process nicely! But we often must tap regularly and efficiently.
"Memory extinction" is when an old negative memory no longer has any hurtful pull contained within it when the memory is recalled.
I bring this up now because some of you may see on internet videos that some practitioners have eliminated the Set-up. I did for awhile, but I am now back to using it consistently.
We believe that using the Set-up (Even though this is happening, add in the acceptance or safety statement), begins the memory reconsolidation process, along with shifting toward a positive reframe. A reframe is when we shift our perspective about some memory, even though the memory and facts contained with it stay the same. Reframes are personal and come organically within a tapping session as our painful emotional angst around an event begins to lift and forgiveness starts to settle in. Sometimes, as Cathy Reiling says, forgiveness begins with us just "allowing" an event to exist in our memory. We know it happened, but we can do nothing to change it, so as we tap we just "let it be". We stop fighting the memory (what we resist, persists - Carl Jung, I think); we let it exist without having any emotional attachment to it.
It is a bit like "co-existing" with a crabby neighbor or in-law. We cannot control their behavior, but by tapping we can change our perspective, allowing the bad feelings their behaviors produces in us just slide off us, like eggs in a teflon skillet!
Our hurtful memories release with tapping, permitting our emotional perspectives around the memory/event to change with it. Often with the emotional release, our behaviors and habits wrapped up in the painful perspectives change with it. Subconsciously we give ourselves permission to act and believe differently - and that different most often has a positive, helpful bend to it!
"Memory reconsolidation is the brain’s natural, neural process that can produce transformational change: the full, permanent elimination of an acquired behavior or emotional response. It is the brain’s innate process for fundamentally revising an existing learning and the acquired behavioral responses and/or state of mind maintained by that learning. (Ecker, 2015)."
Remember EFT is not a substitute for good medical advice or care, so please consult your own personal physician when medical or psychological help is needed.
Sherrie Rice Smith
Certified EFT Practitioner
