While eating healthy food, drinking plenty of clean water, daily exercise, taking time to rest and relax, getting adequate sleep are all important ways of dealing with stress, it is essential to find ways to diffuse unresolved feelings and emotions. So what exactly are unresolved feelings and emotions, and how do you diffuse them? Click here to read the whole article.
High levels of stress have become synonymous with our busy, active everyday lifestyles. We recognize its symptoms -- the tension, headaches, and other aches and pains. When ignored, stress can lead to high blood pressure, ulcers, heart problems and many other serious health problems. Yet many people do not recognize other common symptoms of stress -- lack of sleep, fatigue, persistent low level anxiety. They will often attribute it to an overactive mind that just won’t shut down at night to let them fall asleep. Click here to read the whole article.
We deal with many thoughts, emotions, and feelings in our daily experiences. But when we don't deal with them effectively an 'overload' begins to develop. We may recognise this as too much stress, tension, worry, sadness or depression, trauma… even pain or disease. Often we look for a 'quick fix' in the form of pills or some treatment to 'take it away'. But this approach often produces hit or miss results because it does not address the real 'issues' behind the problem. Click here to read the whole article.
By Jacob Eapen
In a recent article titled “Stress — Mind, Body or Emotions?” I wrote about the link between our mind, our feelings and emotions, and the physical body; and how stress has a lot to do with how we think and feel. I explained how unresolved feelings and emotions can trigger undesirable emotional responses and interfere with our ability to handle daily life situations in a calm and rational way — leading to more stress. Excess stress affects our ability to sleep, diminishes our capacity to operate at peak efficiency and eventually leads to burnout. Stress can also rob the body’s organs and tissues of much needed nutrients, vitamins and regulatory signals from the brain that keep them functioning at a healthy level. Studies have shown that stress is linked to many disease processes including asthma, allergies, high blood pressure, heart disease, and is also known to weaken the immune system which can leave the body open to all kinds of infections and diseases.
While eating healthy food, drinking plenty of clean water, daily exercise, taking time to rest and relax, getting adequate sleep are all important ways of dealing with stress, it is essential to find ways to diffuse unresolved feelings and emotions. So what exactly are unresolved feelings and emotions, and how do you diffuse them?
Feelings and emotions are as natural as our thoughts, and along with our five senses, they are the means by which we experience life. When we run into unexpected experiences that trigger our feelings and emotions and we don’t know how to deal with them, we end up expressing them inappropriately or suppressing them. Feelings and emotions, like thoughts, are basically energy. Energy cannot be destroyed, and it does not disappear just because you choose to ignore it. When you do not deal with feelings and emotions, they simply go underground and start to fester away. Fortunately, because they are energy we can use one of the laws of physics to rebalance them.
All energy has specific frequency to it. Pure sound, or tone, has a higher frequency than that of unresolved feelings and emotions. By placing the higher frequency sound near the lower frequency energy we can then raise its frequency using the principle of resonance.
After many years of observation and experimenting I discovered that the different parts of the physical body respond to different notes in the musical scale and can span several octaves, and this is universal to all humans as well as animals. Each region of the body along with the organs and tissues connected to it has a natural tone or frequency — refer to the diagram.
For example, playing a pure C note causes the lowest region of your spine, your hips, pelvis, and the legs down to the feet to resonate at that same frequency. The D note affects parts of the sacral and lumbar regions of the spine including the lower abdominal area of the body. Similarly, the A note affects the upper cervical region of the spine and the organs and tissues connected to that region, and the B note affects the upper cranial area or top part of the brain.
Each system in the body has multiple resonant frequencies — or frequencies that they vibrate at most naturally. Stress causes the affected systems to drop to a lower resonant frequency. By introducing a pure higher resonant frequency the affected systems will come into resonance with it. When this happens you experience the shift in frequency in your body as a relaxation.
So will any sound accomplish this? A piece of music may be very melodious and hence great for listening, but if its frequencies do not match the natural frequencies of the body it will not induce relaxation. Even so, what some consider relaxing music may not be relaxing to others. This has to do with the overall frequency you are at relative to the natural frequencies of the body. For example, if you are feeling down and if you fight to keep your body from going into resonance for whatever reason, you will sense the higher frequency as an irritation. On the other hand, noise will induce stress.
The natural frequencies of the body are very complex, and are carefully balanced to work in harmony with each other. By introducing pure tones that are carefully arranged to match the natural frequencies of the body you can induce resonance, and help the body relax and promote healing.
By Jacob Eapen
High levels of stress have become synonymous with our busy, active everyday lifestyles. We recognize its symptoms -- the tension, headaches, and other aches and pains. When ignored, stress can lead to high blood pressure, ulcers, heart problems and many other serious health problems. Yet many people do not recognize other common symptoms of stress -- lack of sleep, fatigue, persistent low level anxiety. They will often attribute it to an overactive mind that just won’t shut down at night to let them fall asleep.
Stress affects each individual in a different way. Some seem to perform best under moderate to high stress levels, while others cannot tolerate much stress at all. Even those who perform well under stress can reach a breaking point. In order to take appropriate measures to counter the effects of stress we need a good understanding of the root cause of stress.
Stress is the body’s response to experiences that do not match our expectations. Basically we have run into something unfamiliar… something other than what we expected. So what are expectations? Expectations are based on how we think and feel. Our feelings and emotions are very much tied to memory and learning, which then influence the expectations we place on all our experiences. Stress then has very much to do with how we think and feel.
There are many facets to our life -- work, family, personal relationships, money, health, social, sexuality, spirituality and so on. Early in life we are taught the “rules”… what is expected of us, and what we can expect of life. Rightly or wrongly, for the most part many of us accept these rules without giving them a whole lot of thought. Many of these rules were “drilled” into us and became part of our memories. We also have our own memories from what we have learned from past experiences. All of these influence how we think -- both consciously and unconsciously.
To understand how we feel, we need to look at the body and how it is hardwired to respond to our feelings and emotions. Feelings and emotions basically give us the ability to feel, which is another way to determine what is going on in our environment. For example, the uneasy sensation we experience in the gut when walking down the street and being confronted by a large dog, whether the danger is real or imagined. Feelings and emotions are also the types of sensations we experience when we are angry, or sad, or when we feel happy or appreciated. Scientists have discovered that the brain produces a certain type of hormone called neuropeptides, and there is a different neuropeptide for each type of feeling or emotion we experience. They also found that there are receptor sites at the cell level throughout the body and the brain that respond to specific neuropeptides, and these responses are what we experience as feelings and emotions. Because of this hardwiring, our first response to any experience is almost always emotional.
So how do our thoughts, feelings, emotions and body work together to respond to what we encounter daily? Our five senses -- sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch provide sensory inputs to the brain so it can determine what’s going on in the physical surroundings -- how pleasant, or how hostile it is. There is a part of the brain that processes feelings and emotions, and when the sensory inputs reach it, it accesses memories and evaluates the experience -- all in a split second.
When an experience matches the parameters of our expectations or falls outside those parameters, the brain releases appropriate neuropeptides through the blood stream to the various parts of the body. The receptors at each cell in the body detect the appropriate neuropeptide and respond by either stimulating or inhibiting cell function. So for example, if two people walked down the street and were confronted by a large dog, each person may experience two completely different neuropeptides at the cell level. One person’s response may be tempered by memories of past experiences with large dogs that were benign, whereas the other person may be completely unfamiliar with large dogs or has had some unpleasant past experiences which may trigger a different neuropeptide that creates a fight-or-flight response. The fight-or-flight response increases heart rate and blood pressure and redirects more oxygen and blood sugar to the muscles so they can prepare to run faster or fight harder, while reducing the activity of other organs that are not critical to this function -- such as digestive organs.
Many of our daily life experiences do not elicit dramatic responses of fight-or-flight, but do vary depending on the expectations we place on our experiences. It seems that life today is so much more hectic than it was even two or three decades ago, and there is tremendous change all around us. In any kind of human interaction whether it is in the workplace, at home, in personal relationships or elsewhere, we are always encountering new or different points of view -- much different from our own. In a split second we are consciously or unconsciously comparing what we are experiencing to what we consider “familiar” or even “desirable”. If the results are different, it triggers an instant emotional response and the muscles in the body respond by tensing up. The mind, the part of the brain that thinks, reasons and creates strategies to deal with the world around us, often does not have a chance to intervene and assess the situation rationally before the emotional response occurs. If we can train ourselves to take a deep breath before responding to any new situation it allows enough time for the mind to intervene and resolve the situation in a rational manner, and we are then able to relax the tense muscles. But how often does this happen with each experience we have daily?
As mentioned previously all our feelings and emotions are tied to memory and learning -- so we learn to avoid repeating undesirable or even potentially dangerous experiences. And, we learn to seek out those that are pleasant and enjoyable. Any memories with unresolved feelings and emotions attached to them will unduly influence how we think; and therefore affect all subsequent experiences. Unfortunately, many of us do not fully understand this link between our mind, feelings and emotions, and the physical body; and how they are all connected in a “feedback loop” of information. Least of all we really do not understand the effect of feelings and emotions on the physical body. All too often we are so uncomfortable with our own feelings and emotions that we do not know what to do with them; instead we choose to bury them.
When we have difficulty releasing the bodily tension, and the body and mind are caught in a constant state of alert, it affects our ability to sleep, diminishes our ability to operate at peak efficiency and eventually leads to burnout. The organs and tissues of the body are also robbed of much needed nutrients, vitamins and regulatory signals from the brain to keep them functioning at a healthy level.
Recent medical studies have shown that excess stress is very toxic to the body, and is linked to many of our current chronic disease processes: asthma, allergies, headaches, high blood pressure, heart disease, and is also known to weaken the immune system. A weakened immune system leaves us open to all kinds of infections and diseases.
A holistic approach to dealing with stress has to include not only our physical body, but also our feelings and emotions and our mind. Eating healthy food, drinking clean water, daily exercise, taking time to rest and relax, getting adequate sleep are all important. But it is also essential to find ways to diffuse unresolved feelings and emotions, and develop flexibility in our thinking so we can deal with the unfamiliar and the unexpected that we encounter in our daily life.
We deal with many thoughts, emotions, and feelings in our daily experiences. But when we don't deal with them effectively an 'overload' begins to develop. We may recognise this as too much stress, tension, worry, sadness or depression, trauma… even pain or disease. Often we look for a 'quick fix' in the form of pills or some treatment to 'take it away'. But this approach often produces hit or miss results because it does not address the real 'issues' behind the problem.
To understand what is really going on in the body and how healing really works, we have to look at it from a holistic perspective. Exercise, diet, rest etc. are all very obvious things we can do to keep the physical body balanced. Beyond how we take care of the physical body, the way we feel and the way we think has a far greater impact on it. Trying to understand how feelings, emotions, thoughts and beliefs impact the physical body requires us to look at it from a different perspective.
Each one of us has three distinct parts or aspects - a physical body, a feeling aspect, and a mental aspect. Refer to the diagram of the Model of Self below. In some cultures the feeling aspect has been minimized as it is considered less desirable, but never-the-less it is a very real and vital part of our capacity to experience life. Imagine these three aspects as three layers or spheres nested one inside the other. The physical body is the innermost layer, and the mental the outermost. There is actually another aspect outside the mental aspect, but we don't need to dwell on that for now except to say that it is hidden. It is important to recognise that each aspect has a trickle-down influence on the one below it, therefore the physical body is influenced by all the aspects above it.
There is an inward and outward flow through these aspects. The inward flow contains an impulse, and the outward flow contains the feedback. The impulse is the desire to simply experience life, and the feedback is the experience itself. Ultimately, this is the grand purpose of life - to just experience!
So how does all of this really work? At the mental aspect we use base concepts, which are generally derived from existing beliefs, to seed our experiences. Examples of base concepts are notions we have of 'Freedom', 'Love', 'Relationships', 'Personal Power', 'Health', 'Wealth', 'Family', 'Co-operation', 'Work' and so on. Each base concept represents a different facet of our life. We use these to construct our view of reality and the strategies to interact with the world around us. The plan of action starts off as thoughts, and flows into the feeling aspect where our feelings solidify them into a reality which we experience with our physical body and its five senses.
The feedback then returns back through the outer aspects where the following happens. At the feeling aspect, the feelings and emotions associated with the particular experience are evaluated to determine what the experience actually 'feels' like. Then the energy behind the emotions and feelings is dissipated, and the entire experience along with the sensory feedback from the physical body is stored as a memory.
At the mental aspect the experience is re-evaluated. The validity of beliefs supporting each base concept is checked, and the existing beliefs are reinforced, or modified, or an entirely new set of beliefs is created. Any necessary corrective actions are then devised, and an updated plan of action then flows back down through the feeling aspect and into the physical body as a new experience.
This process repeats until each base concept is fully expanded and refined, every possible subtlety is gleaned from the resulting experiences, and all experiences are fully balanced. When this is complete, new impulses flow into all aspects to explore new concepts...to continue the exploration of life. This is the overall scheme we use to create our experiences.
However, if we misinterpret our experiences somewhere along the way, this is where difficulties begin. When experiences are perceived as 'negative', the energy behind emotions and feelings is not properly dissipated for fear of further hurt or fear of loss causing them to become stuck. At the same time, the misinterpretations also negatively reinforce existing beliefs and create negativity in our thinking. The mind also becomes preoccupied with processing endless loops of 'What-if' scenarios, creating unconscious 'negative' thoughts. When these merge with unresolved feelings and emotions they create more 'negative' experiences, which leave us feeling even more stuck.
When all of this happens, we become very rigid in our way of thinking and unwilling to experience anything new, or look at life from a different perspective. As the hesitation to experience continues, the trickle-down effect of energy-flow into the physical body is also restricted. This limits the ability of the body's systems and organs to function normally - creating imbalances, and eventually disease.
From the Model of Self we can thus see that our experiences are influenced by how we think and feel. To resolve most problems at the level of the physical body, we need to deal with the outdated beliefs and the rigidity at the mental aspect, as well as any unresolved feelings and emotions.
So what does the Diffusion CD actually do? The specific combination of pure crystal bowl tones on the Diffusion CD gently diffuse the charge around unresolved feelings and emotions to prevent them from overriding the mind. It also stops the mental chatter and endless 'What-If' processing that goes on in the mind. This allows clarity on what is truly going on behind the scenes, so that the individual can make the necessary choices to resolve any difficulties. When these blockages have been cleared, the pure tones can then assist in the regeneration of the physical body.
This then allows new impulses to flow into all layers to explore new possibilities…to continue the exploration and experiencing of life in a more balanced way.
(Portions of this article were extracted from the book Mirror Mirror: Tell Me Who I Am by Jacob Eapen).
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