“….the amount of electricity going on within your cells is a thousand times greater than the electricity within your house. You are, in a very small way, exceedingly energetic.” (Bryson, 2019. Pg 190) Reading about the chemical called adenosine triphosphate (ATP) made me think of Charles Lev’s concept of the electromagnetic field surrounding our bodies. When thinking of energy, I think of vibration, and when I visualize vibration, I see waves. Each wave starts strong and vivid, but increasingly gets weaker as it expands. If our bodies follow that same wave concept, we would create a field of energy, and if we also absorb energy, we would inevitably suck the energy back into us. This would look a lot like the pictures Charles showed us. “People experience the healer within in a variety of ways: ‘tingling’, ‘warmth’, ‘flowing’, ‘humming’, ‘fluffy’, ‘light’.” (Jahnke, 1997. Pg 28) Energy is moving, warm, and is known to have humming sounds. If it is always surrounding us, when we tap into ourselves and unlock the healer within, experiencing these sensations would be sensing that electromagnetic field around us. “The third stream of awareness, listening between, is the way your nervous system communicates with other systems one-on-one or with a group of people.” (Dana, 2021. Pg 9) This is our minds picking up and interpreting the energy flows of the people around us. Getting a bad feeling about someone or feeling like you are being watched and turning around to see someone looking at you. These are unexplainable in modern medicine, but clearly explained in our reading. Most people do not pick up on these feelings but in the book “Anchored” by Deb Dana, we are able to learn how be consciously be aware of our neuroceptionand use it. “When we bring perception to neuroception, we bring an otherwise nonconscious experience into awareness.” (Dana, 2021. Pg 9)
To me, the Shake It Off Therapy was by far the coolest concept that Charles Lev talked about. He talked about therapists going to other countries where the people have suffered great traumas, and teaching them this fun, involved therapy of shaking your entire body. As a woman married to a man in the Army experiencing PTSD, this stood out to me, and I was able to share this with him. It is known that people suffering from PTSD can have neurological shutdowns in situations that may remind them of past traumas; or even when the situations are not fully taken in. “We get cues of safety from explicit communication of details surrounding an interaction. When contextual information is sent through implicit pathways and not explicitly shared, we often respond in the present moment based on our past experiences.” (Dana, 2021. Pg 11) When someone with PTSD that is triggered by loud sounds, they hear the loud sound and without the context of what it was or where it came from, they may have an PTSD attack. In theory, the shake it out method used regularly, will help a person pick up on context and have a more positive outlook on their situations. The shake it out method is similar to why mammals shake in uncomfortable situations. It mitigates excess stress. “The increase of movement in a positive direction suggests that these uncharacterized tremors might be a natural neurophysiological response to mitigate excess stress…As participants incorporated SUTT [self-induced therapeutic tremors] into their routines on a regular basis, they reported more frequent positive emotions toward themselves and greater confidence in their ability to deal with adversity.” (Glob Adv Health Med, 2014.) This study was a very interesting read. It talks about how beneficial regular self-induced tremors can be for those who struggle with stress and/or anxiety.
References
Bryson, B. (2019) The Body: A guide for Occupants. Anchor Books.
Dana, D. (2021) Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory. Sounds True.
Glob Adv Health Med. (September 3, 2014) Effects of Self-induced Unclassified Therapeutic Tremors on Quality of Life Among Non-professional Caregivers: A Pilot Study. Global Advances in Health and Medicine. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4268601/
Jahnke, R. (1997) The Healer Within: Using Traditional Chinese Techniques to Release Your Body’s Own Medicine. HarperCollins Publishers.