A PATH TO PEACE: CLEARING OUR OWN STRESS, ANXIETY,  AND NEGATIVE EMOTIONS

Macroscopic and Microscopic Approaches to Peace

World peace constitutes a sublime goal for humanity. Nations would exist in consonance and cooperation, and as a result individuals would live in harmony with each other. Conflict would be resolved by means of reasoning, mediation, or the application of international law. How can these goals be achieved?  Two approaches have been proposed: (1) the macroscopic, large scale, methods; and (2) the microscopic, individual, means.

The first one, the macroscopic approach, appears to be the widely acceptable way. Visionary leaders encourage and strengthen the application of international law. Institutions that represent order, convention, and social and moral codes constitute the pillars of lasting peace. National and international efforts that promote economic development, social justice, community health, and democratic values fall within the large-scale approach to peace. All diplomatic means to resolve conflict, all efforts to eradicate poverty and social injustice in the world, and to establish the rule of law and reason, are macroscopic forms to establish or preserve peace.

The second approach, the microscopic one, involves individual efforts to support local or large scale efforts for peace. We vote for leaders that support peace; we volunteer or work with organizations that represent peaceful values; we resolve our work or family disputes by means of mediation, dialog, and mutual compromise; we try our best to adopt and follow a code of personal and professional ethics that respects ourselves, others, the environment.

At the macroscopic level, one can reason about the many aspects of a national or an international conflict. Historians and social scientists may offer much insight about the leadership, economic, social, or idiosyncratic reasons why some approaches have failed, and the possible alternative solutions (see the book An Art of Living by André Maurois, 2007). They can do an objective analysis not only because of their knowledge and training, but because they are often personally unaffected about the outcome of the problem. The solution to a large-scale conflict requires that the leaders involved be impartial. Only leaders genuinely unconcerned about personal, political or economic self interests can mediate a lasting peace. This is often difficult.

Similarly, at the microscopic level, one can subjectively analyze a conflict and understand the logic as to why it occurred and how it could be resolved. This requires that the observer be personally uninvolved in the affairs or the outcome of the problem. A conflict of interest arises the moment the observer is personally concerned, directly, or indirectly affected by the problem in question. Why is it that the moment we have a stake in the outcome of a conflict we lose the reasonable and objective means to resolve it? Because once our prejudices, complexes, fixations or negative emotions are triggered by external events, our logical selves begin to lose control of our thoughts and actions.

The Third Path to Peace: The Inner Way

From above we can see that one of the important impediments to peace is the loss of objectivity and reason caused by our own inner conflicts and negative emotions. This also suggests that there is a third path to lasting peace, that resulting from overcoming our own complexes and aggression. The mystical approach to peace encourages the practitioner to get rid of his or her own fears and aggression. By resolving our own inner conflicts emanated from our childhood we can achieve inner peace. When we feel inner peace, we can no longer act in an aggressive or selfish way towards others. Thus, the path to inner individual peace is the safest and shortest one to large-scale peace.

Those readers who practice meditation regularly will also recognize an additional implication to this third path to peace. For centuries mystics have taught that by practicing meditation, and thus accessing our own individual psyche, we unlock the door to enter the macroscopic realm, the universal domain, the cosmic consciousness. That is why the inner microscopic path leads to the macroscopic one.

Understanding the Source of Negative Emotions

Mystics have said, many times, that we should endeavor to resolve our inner conflicts, face and eliminate our fears and phobias, dissolve our anger, overcome our addictions, etc. However, exactly how can we do this? Most of us are unaware of our negative emotions and addictions; they lie hidden in our unconscious and are automatically triggered and replayed by an external event. When this happens, we lose objectivity and our inner peace. These patterns also have a defense mechanism of self denial when we, or someone else, point out about their existence. Even if we are consciously aware of our negative emotions, how can we neutralize their effects and their automatic control over our lives?

To understand the source of negative emotions we look into psychological theory (Hunt, 1993). Sigmund Freud rediscovered the concept of the human unconscious at the end of the 19th century (Freud, 1953-1966). I say "rediscovered" since the concept has been around  in various forms throughout the history of the human civilization.  Freud's contribution was to bring the theory of the unconscious to the light of modern scientific observation and experimentation.  According to psychoanalytic theory, the human personality is composed of three elements: the id or unconscious, the ego or I, and the superego. The unconscious is the component where memories, animal instincts, and impulses are stored. According to Freud, it is governed by the pleasure principle. The ego is the rational impulse which operates according to the reality principle, which controls and modifies our instincts into acceptable social behavior. The superego is the voice of learned moral and social code. The three elements constitute facets of the same human personality, even though much of the documented clinical cases attest to the independence and the sometimes conflicting nature of the various components.

  Freudian theory also brings the concept of the libido, which was originally described as sexual energy, and later modified by Freud himself to include the energy behind unconscious impulses (Freud, 1953-1966). Interestingly, this energy may be "sublimated" or transformed from that supporting lower impulses into forms of energy that would power other presumably more socially acceptable or more elevated human activities. This concept parallels the correspondence and transformation of the various forms of energy in physics. Carl Jung, one of Freud's students, conceived the libido as a general life energy, not just sexual. Jung also subdivided the unconscious into a personal unconscious, which stores the memories accumulated in one's life, and the collective unconscious, which stores racial and cultural elements associated with all humans.  With Jung, psychological theory extended the human mind to the realms of mysticism which establishes a psychic connection between all humans.

The rediscovery of the unconscious by modern psychological theory constitutes a partial ratification of more profound psychological knowledge transmitted by various ancient traditions. One of those traditions, that transmitted by the Hawaiian Kahunas, reveals a profound understanding of human personality dating several centuries. The secret knowledge of the Kahunas was rediscovered by Max Freedom Long (1948) by analyzing and interpreting the esoteric meaning of songs and traditional tales in the Hawaiian language. He called this knowledge “Huna,” which means “secret” in Hawaiian.

  Huna is based on the understanding that humans possess not one, but three spirits or souls. This statement might appear strange to the reader. Most Western religions conceive and accept the existence of the human soul as an immaterial entity. It is widely accepted that life begins when the soul enters and animates the body and ends when it leaves it, even if the body is in perfect health. However, according to the Kahunas, we are endowed with three separate spirits sharing the same body. Each spirit has different abilities, different priorities, and different roles in life. Understanding these three entities, meeting them on their own terms, using their latent abilities, and living  towards a harmonious team work amongst the three selves is the ultimate goal in Huna. Achieving a harmonious cooperation amongst the three selves is the key to inner peace, health, prosperity, and happiness. 

According to Huna, humans are endowed with threes selves or three separate spirits housed in the same body: the middle self or uhane, the lower self or unihipili, and the Higher Self or Aumakua. The middle self is endowed with inductive and deductive reasoning powers, with the gift of speech, and with the power of will. Its mission is to take care of the body, to earn, to make decisions and choices in life, and most importantly to guide and to counsel the low self in its path of evolution. The middle self has very little memory and must rely on the lower self for the storage, management, and recalling of memories. The lower self in its turn is the lesser evolved of the three spirits, it has excellent memory abilities, it is the seat of all of the emotions, but has very little reasoning abilities. For this, the lower self must rely on the thinking abilities of the middle self. The lower self is in charge of managing the autonomic functions of the body and metabolism, to process the information from the sensory organs, and to offer the data to the analysis of the middle self. 

The lower self has the ability to manufacture mana, or life vital force, from the food we ingest and the air we breath. Mana is the subtle energy given different names according to the various traditions: libido, chi, prana, etc. Mana constitutes the power or energy required for the vital functions of the body, but also it is needed by the middle self to exercise its will and to perform its reasoning and thinking tasks. The lower self is also very impressionable and highly susceptible of suggestion. It also has some very interesting latent abilities, such as the ability to sense intuitively by means other than the use of the sensory organs.

The Higher Self is the third and most evolved human spirit. Throughout the history of religions and cultures, this entity has received many names, such as the Guardian Angel, the Superconscious, the Master Within. The Kahunas called it the Aumakua, which means "the utterly trustworthy parental spirit." Many religions in the past have identified the Higher Self with God. However, this association is only partially correct. The Higher Self is indeed part of God, but it is also an integral part of us. It gives us direct connection with God, but it is not the Ultimate God. The Higher Self is the most evolved of the three human spirits. The Kahunas believed it was a much older uhane, or middle self, who had graduated to become an Aumakua and received a new mission. Its mission is to counsel and to guide both the middle and lower selves of the individual entrusted to its care. The Kahunas believed  that knowing the Higher Self provides an individual with the closest possible knowledge of God, but it was not possible for the middle and lower selves to understand the Ultimate God itself, just as it is not possible for a fish or an insect to know and understand humans. 

Huna provides a profound vision of the cause of emotional pain (see the book The Three Spirits by Serrano, 2011). Fixations and complexes are non-rationalized ideas and feelings improperly stored in the psychic body of the lower self. These are painful and highly emotional impressions we experienced in the past, many of them during childhood, which were not properly thought over and analyzed by the middle self. Thus, they were incorrectly stored in the unconscious or lower self. Normally, experiences are perceived by the senses, offered to the middle self for analysis, and then stored in the lower self along with linkages with other similar events. Traumatic events, on the other hand, are perceived under much stress, fear, and anger. They are not analyzed in the proper context of rational thinking, and are isolated in the lower self memory banks. With time the lower self tends to link these "outlawed" memories with unrelated events thus causing an irrational and emotional reaction each time the unrelated event is recalled. This phenomenon is exacerbated by the unusually high amounts of mana attached to the event. Emotions tend to draw large amounts of energy. Mana is tied up with the outlawed event and it is replayed and triggered with a similar intensity each time it is recalled.

How to Clear Negative Emotions

The only way to break this cycle of irrational response, with strong emotional outbreaks, is by clearing the fixation. Modern psychology postulates that this can only be done with "talk therapy," that is by finding the outlawed memory, digging it out and rationalizing it properly. This is done after much suffering on the part of the patient recalling the painful original events, and usually after many sessions. This is the long, expensive, and sometimes a fruitless path to clear negative emotions. New energy therapy techniques offer an inexpensive and effective means to clear negative emotions, as we describe below.

First, one needs to recognize that our emotional problems and emotional suffering are not done to us by others, or caused by external events. Of course, when we were children and defenseless, or when during adult life we are subject to the tyranny of others, we are not responsible for the harm and suffering inflicted upon us. If you work in an oppressive institution where the rule of iron or the exploitation of people is the name of the game, then the suffering is clearly caused by an external agent. Similarly, if you live under a dictatorship or in an unlawful country, the persecution of people is clearly caused by the few families in power. For the vast majority of painful and unpleasant events in our lives, we are the cause of the suffering. In other words, our reaction to an external event may be peaceful and pleasant, or stressful and painful. Given the same external stimuli, one person may react with calmness or indifference, while another with anger or sadness. The difference lies in the fact that the former does not have any preconceived notions, negative feelings, or fixations attached to a related memory, or link to another memory in the unconscious, with its corresponding unusual release of blocked mana. For the latter person, the external event reminds him or her of a related  distressful event in the past, or the external issue triggers a response from another memory improperly linked to the event by the irrational lower self. The anger, the rage, or the sadness is again enacted with more or less emotional intensity. This explains why some people remain calm under apparently very stressful situations, while others explode under the same conditions. Sometimes the external event is not perceived as stressful by several other witnesses, yet one person reacts mechanically with rage, abnormal thinking, strange speech, imagining things, jerking, trembling, or ultimately with a mental or organic disease. By modifying our reaction to the external event, whatever it may be, we avoid any suffering. This emphasizes the philosophical principle that by controlling our internal environment, we control and modify the external environment. This is done by clearing our fixations and complexes. This is the simple theory behind happiness. The application is not as straight forward. 

Deep fixations are associated with much suffering in our lives, but they also constitute the cause of physical ills and various mental problems. These complexes were probably caused by severe distress, shock, or panic when originally formed. The conventional wisdom is to ask for professional help to clear these. Even as modern psychology has claimed many scientific gains and insight, most therapeutic techniques available reduce to various forms of "talk therapy," which requires many sessions with a professional therapist. These sessions are expensive, they are often not covered by insurance programs, they are painful to the patient, but most importantly they are sometimes ineffective. They rely on an incorrect model about the causes of negative emotions. This model assumes that negative emotions are caused by the memory of a traumatic experience. Most talk therapies available last for months or even years. The patient is forced to relive the painful experience again. This causes much suffering to the patient and in cases of severe phobias this may cause post traumatic stress disorder. Some may feel shell-shocked as if they had been through a war. At the end of the treatment, few are cured from their disorder. For most patients, conventional psychologic therapies can only hope for the patient learning to manage the distress.

  As we learned from the Kahunas, the cause of negative emotions is the improper rationalization of past negative experiences attached to unusually large amounts of mana. It is not the memory of a traumatic event itself what causes the negative emotion, but the large amounts of distressful energy stored in the psychic body of the lower self. This distressful energy perturbs the normal flow of energy in the body and triggers itself each time a related event is recalled. Modern psychology relies on an archaic model of the patient being healed by the doctor, it does not recognize the existence of the three selves in humans (even though the unconscious is accepted as part of the person), or the role of mana energy in life, death, and disease. Psychology is only reluctantly beginning to accept the relationship between mental and organic diseases.

New Energy Therapy Techniques to Clear Stress, Anxiety, and Negative Emotions

We now call the attention of the reader to the new Thought Field Therapy (TFT) and Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), which are reporting much success in the treatment of deep fixations. TFT and EFT take indirect advantage of ancient knowledge in acupuncture and the flow of vital life energy (chi, ki, prana, or mana, depending on the tradition) through special pathways called meridians in the human body. These methods produce a cure and do not require needles. They combine the use of energy, positive suggestion, and physical stimulation. They put the patient in control of his/her own healing, they seem to take effect instantly and permanently, and most importantly they are free. For the clearing of your own fears and fixations, the improvement of your prayers and meditations with your Higher Self, and a more effective contribution to Peace, the clearing of your own negative emotions is an achievable goal.

TFT was born in 1980 during an extraordinary scientific discovery that completely revolutionized the treatment of psychological disturbances. Like most scientific discoveries throughout the history of humanity, it was done by a scientist who had exhausted all  of the available techniques to solve a problem and was experimenting with new techniques with an open mind.

  It was Dr. Roger Callahan who discovered by accident that by stimulating an energy meridian associated with a particular psychological disturbance, the mana attached to the disturbance was released and an instant cure was obtained (Callahan, 2001).  Dr. Callahan is a former professor of psychology, who had grown frustrated with the ineffectiveness of most psycho therapies. He was treating a patient with a severe water phobia, Mary, for over a year. He tried all conventional psychotherapeutic techniques he knew: Rational-emotive therapy, client-centered therapy, cognitive therapy, behavior therapy, hypnosis, relaxation training, biofeedback, systematic desensitization. Everything failed. During one session one day, Mary told him of the intense stomach pain she felt when in proximity of the swimming pool. Dr. Callahan had been reading much about the energy meridians as described in ancient acupuncture treatises, and  remembered that under the eye is located the end point of a  meridian that connects with the stomach. It occurred to him to ask Mary to tap with her fingers under the eye. After two minutes the patient was cured. This was a permanent cure. In other words, Mary's fears were instantly and forever gone. This was a patient for whom even the thought of water made her sick. Within minutes of treatment she was by the swimming pool splashing water on her face.

This was the beginning of a completely new way to treat negative emotions. Over the years, Dr. Callahan's research evolved into the development of a series of treatment procedures he calls algorithms or recipes for a wide variety of negative emotions, complexes, and fixations (Callahan, 2001).  These include methods to cure self doubt, grief over a loss of a loved one, negative memories involving rape or other forms of abuse, fears of public speaking, heights, open spaces, insects, or water, anxiety and stress, panic attacks, post traumatic stress disorder, addictive cravings to food, alcohol, or drugs, depression, guilt, etc. The list of problems addressed by TFT and its modalities keeps growing. The treatment involves a few minutes of tapping with your fingers on a set of  end points of energy meridians in the body, while mentally focusing on a very specific negative emotion or event.

Subsequent to Callahan's development of TFT, a number of variants have been proposed in what have been called Meridian Energy Therapies (MET). One of the most successful improvements of the original TFT has been proposed by Gary Craig (2008), who developed a single generalized treatment technique for all psychological disturbances. Craig called this improvement Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT).

EFT techniques are beginning to be verified in controlled scientific experiments with promising results. A ground-breaking publication (Wells et al., 2003) demonstrated the effectiveness of EFT in treating animal phobias. Swingle et al. (2004) showed that there are measurable physiological effects resulting from the successful application of EFT treatments. The research subjects received a pretreatment  and post treatment assessment of 19 brain locations (i.e., a "brain map") that used the QEEG (Quantitative Electroencephalograph) to convert brain waves to quantitative values that reflect the frequency and amplitude of brain wave activity at various brain locations. The results indicated that neuropsychology may be used to measure the effects of EFT treatments, but more importantly that the effects of a successful treatment correspond to true physiological responses and not just self suggestion. Another important point, is that this study corroborated the physical responses parallel to EFT psychological treatments. Many users of EFT have reported success in the treatment of physical ailments.

The application of EFT is simple, but it requires a very precise set of steps. For more detailed description see The Three Spirits (Serrano, 2011). For a concise illustrated introduction to EFT see the book It is in Your Hands: Emotional Freedom Technique (Salomon, 2011). The steps for a treatment are:

(1) Decide on a Negative Emotion to Clear. Retire to a private place for a few minutes. Choose a negative emotion to work and select a mental picture or memory to be mentally played during treatment. Decide on an affirmation to repeat during the treatment. The affirmation describes the feeling.

(2) Tune into the Specific Emotion. Close your eyes, remember the distressful event and play it in your imagination all during the entire treatment. Feel the negative emotion.

(3) Repeat the Affirmation. While tuning into your emotion, verbally repeat the affirmation over and over during the entire treatment.

(4) Tap the Meridians End Points. While tunning into your emotion, and while repeating the affirmation,  tap with your fingers about 10 times each point in a specific order. For illustrations and details see It is in Your Hands (Salomon, 2011) and The Three Spirits (Serrano, 2011). These points have a specific location on the face, neck, chest, and hands. They need to be memorized prior to the treatment.

The effect of a treatment is to release mana tied up in the negative emotion. The user will still remember the past event, but it will no longer has any negative emotion attached to it.

Controlling your negative emotions is the first step to inner peace and the key to outer peace. It is your responsibility as a citizen of the world to become a better individual by clearing your stress, anxiety, fears, and addictions. The tools are in your hands.

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 Translator of

AN ART OF LIVING
by Andre Maurois

References

Callahan, R.J., 2001. Tapping the Healer Within. Contemporary Books, Chicago, IL.

Craig, G., 2008. Emotional Freedom Techniques resource center. EFT, PO Box 269, Coulterville, CA 95311, http://www.emofree.com

Hunt, N., 1993. The Story of Psychology. Anchor Books, New York, NY.

Freud, S., 1953-1966. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, ed. By James Strachey. 23 vols. Hogarth Press, London, U.K.

Long, M.F., 1948. The Secret Science Behind Miracles. Devorss Publications, Marina del Rey, CA.

Maurois, André., 2007. An Art of Living. SpiralPress, Ambler, PA

Salomon, Sobeida, 2011. It Is in Your Hands: Emotional Freedom Technique. The Power to Eliminate Stress, Anxiety, and All Negative Emotions. SpiralPress, Ambler, PA.

Serrano, S.E., 2011. The Three Spirits. Applications of Huna to Health, Prosperity, and Personal Growth. SpiralPress, Ambler, PA

Swingle, P.G.., Pulos, L., and Swingle, M.K. 2004. Neurophysiological indicators of EFT treatment of post-traumatic stress.  Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine, 15, l, 75-86.

Wells, S, Polglase, K., Andrews, H. B., Carrington, P., and Baker, A. H. 2003. Evaluation of a Meridian-Based Intervention Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), for Reducing Specific Phobias of Small Animals.  Journal of Clinical Psychology, 59 (9), 943-966.