Archive for the ‘Psychoneuroimmunology’ Category

Many people have gone through numerous trendy diets and exercise regularly, yet still have pounds to release! What is not working then? There are many reasons why diets and physical exercise alone don’t work. First plain and simple “Diets to lose weight” don’t work period!

Second is the age factor – OK I know no one wants to hear that they are getting older, it is not about the number of years, more about the aging process itself and how it affects the hormones responsible to maintaining the homeostasis or health of your body. The homeostasis can be compromised by many external factors such as the environment, the water we drink, the air we breathe, the eating habits and most importantly the level of stress in your life.

Let’s identify some factors:

Hormonal imbalance: such as Adrenal Exhaustion due to STRESS, Thyroid, SAD (Seasonal affective disorder) is a type of depression that occurs at the same time every year.

Food sensitivities : You have a physiologic sensitivity to sugar or gluten (or both!) or other foods that is driving you to want those foods. We crave the very foods we are sensitive to because we’ve grown used the abnormal biochemical state those foods produce.

Neurotransmitter imbalance: Again Stress, Depression, and Chronic Fatigue – If we look first at biochemistry, it helps to understand the role of serotonin, one of the neurotransmitters most relevant to weight gain and loss. Serotonin is responsible for regulating mood, sleep, and body temperature, among other functions. What makes the cravings even more troublesome is that people with a serotonin deficiency often have a heightened pleasure response to carbohydrates.

Stress Old and New: It won’t surprise you to know that stress, and how you react to it, can be tangled up in your eating patterns. Stress activates your fight-or-flight response with the release of adrenaline and cortisol. This process can alter your digestion and your relationship with food. If you stay stressed for long periods, your body’s daily cortisol cycle will spiral out of whack, upsetting the normal internal conversation. Chronic stress allows these effects to continue indefinitely and you risk Adrenal Exhaustion, Hyper/hypothyroidism, Depression, Candida, SAD (Seasonal affective disorder) and other health issues like Insulin Resistance, Diabetes and Hypoglycemia.

While we all have stress in our lives, each of us will respond to it differently and that includes how, when, and what we choose to eat. If a person believes that showing his/her feelings and emotions is a sign of weakness, he/she might use food to hide that fear. Some people become obsessive-compulsive, and use strict food management to gain a sense of control over a stressful situation, especially one which is ongoing. Others retreat from stress, taking comfort in their favorite foods.

THINK ABOUT THAT! When we revisit in our mind old stressful events we set the cascade of chemicals reactions in motion once again! I call this “Living in the Past” or Negative “self-talk” – “Why did I do this?” “Why did he said/do that to me? “I can’t believe he/she….to ME!” worries do the same, you are in the future thinking of what worst can happened to you!

Stress is not a disease or a symptom- it is a learned behavior established early in childhood from our family programs. To change our response to stress is to let go of our old re-action to OLD and PAINFUL triggers. In NLP it is called an Imprint – in psychology an Engram – When you are able to accept all circumstances in your life as a RESPONSIBLE individual fully knowing that you have created then with your thoughts, you let go of VICTIMIZATION – you accept WHAT IT IS and start living in the NOW!

Emotional eating – healing starts with awareness! Whether we are using well-loved foods to calm ourselves, or depriving ourselves of them as punishment, we are preoccupying ourselves with food to prevent unwanted feelings, including — but not limited to — the big ones: anger, fear, despair, and shame…Emotional eating has its roots in actual emotions. No matter why you have these cravings or binging you need professional help!

Why Education as Prevention is The Solution to people’s Health!

I have the privilege to work with few Naturopathic Doctors, chiropractors and others health practitioners – we often mastermind about many topics that would benefits our clients – the exciting part is that we all see solutions to this health care crisis – Because we care, we often write article about this topic or share it during our lectures. Bottom line, Education is an important part of the solution for both side of equation, doctors and patients. Does anyone listen to us?

Education gives CHOICES to individuals, about healthy life-style, exercise, appropriate nutrition; clean environment etc… that support the preventive care so missing. Yet little is done to educate people to be responsible not victim of their health, and how their choices have affected their health and the world at large. This is one of my preferred piece in educating people, teaching them to become Responsible by shifting their mindsets and beliefs systems about Health!

When it comes to understand and treat diseases, doctors are trained to only see what is occurring from the biochemical reaction in the physical. The concept of a “Whole organic human life” with a mind-body-beliefs-environment is often ignored or dismissed because too often misunderstood. Chinese medicine is the closer to grasp that concept, and yet it is often reduced to acupuncture and herbs in the western medical sphere. The idea of “medical specialization” or compartmented approach to healing people by the medical field is not working anymore, let face it! Patients are not seeing as human but as their illness. It will be interesting to re-introduce the idea of a human being as a “whole unique system in relation with the world”.

As Hippocrates once wrote, “The natural healing force within each one of us is the greatest force in getting well.” This is the essence of mind-body medicine. These techniques strive to create awareness of the connection between our conscious and unconscious mind, as well as our emotions, outlook and physical state. They are often used in combination with body-based therapies and address a much-overlooked aspect of healing and prevention.

Mind/body medicine integrates modern scientific medicine, psychology, nutrition, exercise physiology and belief to enhance the natural healing capacities of body and mind. Psycho-immunology is the field of research that studies how thoughts, emotions and beliefs affect human health. What we think and believe the most of create feelings, positive and/or negative, which in turn manifest into actions/behaviors, either reinforcing or not these same beliefs. Adding the food’s choices and we have the recipe for a healthy or a sick physical body. Doctors have lots of examples of placebo and nocebo stories to share – If only they were allowed to speak publicly.

As for me I chose to be part of the Solution ~

Is your life a roller coaster? One moment you are happy the next you are angry and overwhelmed by all sort of negatives thoughts and emotions. You practically have little control and you feel it is dictated by the experiences that life throws at you.

If anything, anger at self or others is the negative emotion that you often find yourself with. Although you stuff the anger inside, you are stacking up in negative energy, ready to burst. And, of course the domino effect of biochemical-physiological responses takes place and various illnesses appear out of nowhere….flu, colds, sore-throat, IBS, Sinusitis etc…..! The more you connected with the inner feelings of hurt and frustration associated with the memory of what triggered anger, the higher the intensity of emotions.

You have no awareness that you could think of anger as a state; a state that you could dis-associate (NLP language) from.

If you have been experiencing much conflict in your relationships with others, then it is that while you may value peace, your actions may well be demonstrating otherwise. Anger can cause you to make unwise decisions, say hurtful remarks, destroy relationships and take drastic actions that you may regret later. It is an emotion that blocks your way to abundance.

Your actions are the doing of the ego. Your ego is addicted to drama. There is a surge of negative energy that feeds your anger, frustration and hostility. Once started, it is difficult to stop the gathering momentum of this energy and this is why you need to seek professional help.

Your survival is at stake, when your ego feels threatened. You need to move into the position of defense if an attack is no longer possible. You feel justified in your actions. You need to be right!
Being right strengthens the ego. You experience a sense of superiority. It can be subtle at times. It happens when you believe that you are fighting for a just cause. But being right is about identifying with a mental state – an opinion, a judgment, a story, a perspective. When you are right, it also means that someone else is wrong. If the other person feels challenged by your insistence of being right, it becomes the fight of the egos.

You may again insist that you are right because of the facts. But facts can also be a matter of perception. They can also get clouded with other considerations. Egos are great at distorting information to satisfy the selfish needs of one-self. What you perceive as facts may well be an illusion. What you see in others is a reflection of you. According to the Law of Attraction, you have also attracted what lie within your thoughts.

“I am right; you are wrong” is a common belief that causes separation and deep anger. It is the thought that causes the divide among nations, religions and cultures. No good has ever come from the adoption of this belief. Over time, resentment becomes grievance. It is a strong negative emotion connected to an event kept alive by the retelling of the story in your head. The grievance is invariably about what “someone did to me”. You cannot let go of its grip over you.

You also look for instances that strengthen the same story. Each instance is a validation of “I am right” thought pattern. Your grievance is long-suffering. You now play the victim role. The heavier the baggage of past hurts, the more dramatic your role is. What you get out of life pretty much mirrors your thoughts. In a way, your conflicts with others are not really about others.

It is about your relationship with the Now! When you are in resistance with the Now, you will find yourself experiencing conflict in everything (be it an event or relationship with others) that you encounter. You are basically not at peace in the moment. Nothing goes right! Ignoring a problem is never the solution. Anger unresolved is often a sign of an overload. It happens when you unconsciously accumulate an internal storehouse with anger. You collect all negative energy with the common theme of unmet expectations.
The questions to ask yourself when you are experiencing dysfunctional relationships: What is my relationship with the Now? Fighting? In resistance? What am I aligned to? Oneness? Or Separation? What am I choosing in my present experience: Peace or Drama?

In NLP, we learn that it is very possible to change our internal state. The first step, obviously, comes with awareness. The more aware you are about your emotions, the more you can stop anger at its track should it arise. Upon awareness, you realize that you have a choice. You can end the conflict that you are in. You decide if you want to make peace or war right this instant. You move in alignment with whatever comes up in the Now. Your state of Being changes. You experience a change in paradigm. A sense of calmness follows. A letting go. Others respond more positively. Your relationships improve, most importantly your Health improves and your abundance in life manifests – Now.

You can then choose to use NLP techniques or EFT to address your negative emotions. As you gain in awareness and understanding, anger dissipates. Few things rail you as much, going forward. Peace and calm is the order of the day! Your thoughts become charged up with positive energy; there is also more love and abundance in your life!

And since life is made up of moments, by making peace with each successive moment, you are also making Peace with Life.

Be well, Be inspired
Chantal

Letting Go of your Limiting Beliefs

Beliefs are essentially made up of thoughts. When you habitually think of the same thoughts and when they become “real” in your mind, they form your beliefs. Beliefs can be positive and empowering; or negative and limiting. Positive beliefs can propel you to greater heights, while negative ones can send you spiraling downwards! Remember all your New Year resolutions and goals from years ago?

Many times, you probably feel as if your beliefs are fixed. You are dead sure that you are right and would stubbornly hold on to them. You feel outraged when someone dares challenge your “truths” and distort your reality. However, what you fail to see is the possibility that your beliefs may be flawed; giving you a false representation than what is truly the case.

You are a victim in life, when you refused to let go of your negative thoughts. In the face of a financial disaster, you believe that you are not worthy of having money. When you find yourself with no friends, your perception is that “no one loves me” or that “it is hard to make friends”. When you encounter problems at work, you say that “I am not good enough”. On a more horrifying scale, terrorists were motivated by their beliefs, to kill and die with others, by hijacking and crashing two American airplanes into the Twin Towers on 11 September 2001. And it was the belief that terrorism must be defeated at all costs that prompted President Bush to respond by attacking Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sadly, all of us, including myself, grew up with several limiting beliefs. Perhaps it was that when you were young, you were told that you were lousy at art, music or dance. The beliefs became self fulfilling in a way, because you gave up your dream in pursuing any one of these interests. If anything, when you were 6 years old, it was easy to accept what an adult or an authoritative figure tells you. Let me explain further –

What Are Limiting Beliefs?

According to a research into beliefs done by Dilts and DeLozier (both NLP innovators and authors), there are 3 main ways that people limit themselves.

They are:

Hopelessness. You feel as if there is no hope because you do believe it is possible to achieve anything.

Helplessness. You believe that something is possible but you are not personally capable of achieving it.

Worthlessness. You do not believe that you deserve to attain success whatsoever.

Ask yourself if you have any of these limiting thoughts:

“I really have to work hard at…”
“It is too hard to reach the top”
“Other people can be rich not me”
“Money don’t grow on tree”
“Rich people are greedy and obnoxious”
“Others can do it better than me.”
“It is difficult to be successful.”
“Trying something new is too scary.”
“It’s impossible for me to lose weight.”
“I am just not genetically wired to be creative.”
“I am not attractive and cannot attract a good man (or woman) into my life.”
“I am not good at selling things”
“It runs in my family genes”
“My DNA is what it is and I can’t change it”

How Are Beliefs Formed?

The terminology “Childhood Imprints” in Neurolinguistic or “Engrams” in Psychology refers to the time of life starting from conception of a child until the developmental stage of 7 years of age. Major events can affect your view of the world and of yourself. These imprints come from all the experiences you have been exposed to unconsciously and consciously from:

- The environment in which you grew up. Your parents, your school and the community that you are exposed to play a part in shaping your belief system. How you encounter difficulties now is largely determined by the stories that you have been told as a child.

- Modeling. You may unconsciously take on the beliefs of someone you deeply admire. If the model in your life says so, then it must be so. Again parents are the most predominant model shaping our beliefs system about who we think we are and what we are expected to do.

- Significant Experiences. You may go through certain life-altering experiences that shape your beliefs. If the experiences turn out to be triumphs, you are likely to believe that anything is possible. If the experiences are horrid ones and your attitude is negative, you are likely to adopt a lot of disempowering thoughts and fears.

The life that you create is largely determined by your beliefs. Take a minute to assess where you are in life – are you fulfilled and satisfied by your life, relationships, and career? Are you achieving your goals? Are you getting the results? When you hold on to your beliefs that you are not capable of achieving something, you don’t have the desire to work at it enough, lose interest and sabotage your efforts in some way. Ring some bell here? You also prevent yourself from finding evidence to disprove them.

Change your Limited Beliefs – Change your Life

Using NLP terms, beliefs are perceptual filters. They determine how you view the world. They also act as confirmations in your reality of the environment. However, problems arise when they are flawed, distorted or steeped in unhelpful ways. Only when you become consciously aware about your assumptions, can there be the possibility of you breaking free.

Whatever makes up your beliefs becomes true for you. Thoughts that are disempowering wear you down and put you in a constant struggle. Instead of a smooth balance path, you find yourself facing more difficulties than others. With limiting beliefs, you are thwarting the process of personal growth for yourself. According to the Law of Attraction, it will also be difficult for you to attract the outcomes that you desire, since you are not in alignment with your inner Being and the Universe.

It is crucial that you deal with these self sabotaging thoughts. When the beliefs are deep rooted, they are usually in the form of black or white thinking. This simply means that you think in terms of extreme pole ends such as “should” and “should never”, “can” and “cannot”; and “a piece of cake” and “way impossible”. For myself, my pet words used to be “don’t know how” and “no I can’t”, which created many missed opportunities in the past.

What you don’t often realize is that when you learn “how to do the new things” that you initially have no faith over; your beliefs start to change. Suddenly, from a feeling of failure and hopelessness, you feel more positive and empowered!

The paradigm shift that you experience can be a very liberating experience! And when you do have this shift, you experience Oneness with your inner Being. You are in alignment with who you really are, doing your PURPOSE. The Law of Attraction works in your favor and best at this stage and you create more opportunities to confirm your new belief system!

Take a minute to assess where you are in life – are you fulfilled and satisfied with your life, relationships, and career? Are you achieving your goals? Reaching your dreams? Are you getting results?

If you don’t say yes to all of these questions then it is time to consider taking my New group class called “THE POWER OF BELIEFS” starting in May – Space is limited so act quickly – for more information just give me a call!

The difference between great people and everyone else is that great people create their lives actively, while everyone else is created by their lives, passively waiting to see where life takes them next. The
difference between the two is the difference between living fully and just existing.”

– Michael E. Gerber, Author of The E-Myth Revisited

Mind-body & Energy Medicine

Clearing the past for a brighter healthier future!

Healing is about treating the person who has the disease, not merely about addressing the disease the person has. Spiritual healing brings about the easing of symptoms, the removal of blocks in energetic flows, the retrieval of repressed memories of emotional hurts, improvements in many illnesses, improvements in relationships, success, joy, and an opening into spiritual awareness. All of these may be achieved with no more than the laying-on of hands, with meridian tapping, Neurolinguistic, Hypnosis, Nutrition and mentoring.

Neurologist, Dr. Sigmund Freud, later father of Psychology and his medical colleagues knew very well as they wrote clearly in their practical medical books, that the source of every symptom in the body has a Subconscious Emotional pattern associated with. When that emotional pattern is triggered the body responded with a biochemical chain reaction – sending red flags to pay attention – yet this knowledge was disregarded by later medical schools and with the frenzy of developing drugs. It became in the habits to suppress symptoms with medications, therefore people lost the connection with their own internal communication.

Today we have so many people completely numbed physically and emotionally by psychotic drugs such as anti-depressants (Zoloft) and most suffered childhood traumas- http://bit.ly/7oC4aY. Unfortunately, there are now cases of them developing severe anxiety and panic attack after many years of using these drugs.

My experience grew as I worked with many people, mostly women who came to me for various reasons/symptoms/conditions, such as self-sabotaging habits, fear of success/failure, overweight, eating disorders, anxiety, depression, stress, addictions, insomnia, physical pain, anger, allergies, bad relationships, poor success etc…

These clients were victims of some form of abuse in the first 8 years of their life, or later traumas and most had years of “talk therapy”. Yet, they were unable to process the feelings/emotions associated with these memories. Suppressed memories manifested in their body as physical illnesses on top of a lack of confidence and self-love, unworthiness, fears, sense of failure, or angry behavior… Someone had to make the connection and this is why I excel in psycho-neuro-immunology.

In essence, spiritual healing is a holistic/whole-istic therapy. In my own practice of Neuro-linguistic–hypnosis-Energy therapy, nutrition, coaching combined with spiritual healing I find that the healing facilitates the retrieval of emotional traumas underlying physical and emotional problems, and limited beliefs. I help people to process the emotional traumas uncovered and released through healing by providing a new vibrational level of Energy. Often, and after completion of the healing process, my clients undergo coaching to support them rediscovering a sense of purpose or a passion in life. My personal belief is that this combination of cognitive, energetic, mentorship and spiritual elements offers a new paradigm for healing in this 21st century.

Bottom line, I help create a New healthier and happier person – if you are stuck, have poor relationships, unfulfilling or unsuccessful businesses, not reaching goals, consider giving me a call! You have not tried everything until you try everything ~

Moving you Far and Beyond!