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Energy Medicine
by Donna Eden.
What Donna Sees:
The Energy of Psychological Reversals
“Psychological reversal” is a way to describe what occurs when you are trying to reach a goal but another part of you has an objection to reaching it. All successful therapies have their own terms and ways of dealing with this dynamic, some more effective than others. Energy Psychology protocols have been particularly powerful in helping people navigate this tricky obstacle to attaining their goals. Failure to handle psychological reversals effectively undermines all other efforts. Psychological reversals are, in fact, an underlying reason that the “Law of Attraction,” will power, and “New Year’s Resolution” approaches to personal evolution don’t always work so well.
Examples of psychological reversals: A man whose job required him to overcome his fear of public speaking held a deep belief that he was not worthy of positive attention. A woman who was asking for help in losing weight realized she had an underlying fear that if she succeeded she would have to deal with unwanted overtures from men. A man who was immobilized by depression knew that if he overcame it, he would no longer qualify for disability and would have to return to a job he hated. A woman whose desire to get over her fear of flying ran smack against knowing that if she no longer had that fear, she would “have to attend those dreadful business meetings” with her husband. A man who was working hard to reach a sales quota was wrestling with the deceptions that were in the sales pitch he was expected to deliver.
In an e-discussion group for Energy Psychology practitioners, we were asked the following question by someone wondering what Donna sees energetically: “Some say that psychological reversal is meridian energy flowing backwards. Others think it is more a reversal of polarity. Can you comment on that?”
Our reply:
While it would be intellectually satisfying to find that a psychological reversal means there is a reversal in the flow of the meridian energies or a reversal in the polarities, such wordplay rarely captures the complexity of how energies actually operate. Here is how we think it works:
When you:
1) focus on a goal that
2) opposes your unconscious motivations
3) an assortment of events may occur in the body’s energy systems (meridians, chakras, aura, radiant circuits, et cetera).
That is: at the moment an activity intended to bring about a desired goal evokes unconscious resistance to that goal (or conscious resistance, for that matter):
The aura will typically collapse inward. Its energies, which extend out beyond the body, will move inward toward the body.
The spin of specific chakras related to the issue being addressed (each chakra has a specific theme – survival, power, connection, expression, spiritual opening, et cetera) may slow down.
Some of the body’s energies may temporarily go into a homolateral state, interfering with the natural cross-over patterns that are necessary for clarity of mind.
The rhythm of energies coming into the body and leaving the body (you can think them as your “energetic breath”) is thrown off.
The meridians may slow down and can indeed start to run backwards (each meridian’s natural flow runs in a specific direction, but that flow can reverse itself in response to a variety of physiological or psychological conditions).
The polarities can also become reversed (each of us is an electrical system whose polarities interact with the magnetic polarities of the Earth).
The relationship among the energy systems may go askew, into what Donna calls a scrambled state.
Everyone is different and every situation involving a “psychological reversal” is different, so a particular instance might bring about any or all of these at the moment a psychological reversal has been activated.
Why does the protocol for dealing with psychological reversals typically used in Energy Psychology seem to be so effective? Let’s take, for example, a woman who is phobic around spiders. When asked how her life would be different if she weren’t terrified of spiders, she said while she would love to not have this phobia, she has to stay afraid of spiders because it isn’t safe to get over that fear. This is a dynamic in many phobias, a deep belief that it is not safe to not have the phobia. Here is how an Energy Psychology approach would address this. Once the psychological reversal has been identified, the client then:
makes a statement that acknowledges the unconscious concerns (e.g., “Even though it is not safe to get over my fear of spiders”) . . .
. . . followed by an affirmation of self-acceptance or of accepting the issue being addressed (e.g., “I fully and deeply accept my fear of spiders”) . . .
. . . and energetically connects those two statements (e.g., by rubbing a sore – and therefore energetically clogged – neurolymphatic point on the chest, which releases energy) while saying the two statements out loud.
This simple action relaxes the energy system so the aura no longer collapses inward, the chakra spin is restored, et cetera (see list above). As the automatic physical responses to the inner conflict are interrupted, and the body’s energies re-balance, it becomes possible to address the original issue.
This doesn’t necessarily change the person’s opinion about the issue (e.g., spiders are dangerous and icky), but it prepares the energy system to be able to move forward with the next part of the tapping protocol. Most therapies do not have such a straightforward work-around for these obstacles to attaining a goal.
