Treatment principles

Tapping the head and heart

This procedure is the most important development in the BodyTalk System. The technique has been used by certain indigenous holistic systems, such as yoga, for centuries. It seemed, however, to have limited application, as it was not understood by western cultures. It is still not fully understood, but has been shown clinically to have dramatic widespread application in all health systems.

The process of lightly tapping the skull seems to activate the brain centers in a way that causes the brain to consciously reevaluate the state of health in the bodymind in relation to the linking points that are being isolated. Obviously, when we just tap the head on its own, nothing significant seems to happen. When we tap the head while we are linking parts of the body that the innate wisdom has asked to be linked, a great deal happens. 

The "sick" linkage is immediately corrected. (When we retest and ask "is there a problem" - the answer is NO) The rest of the body then readjusts to that correction and a chain of events is set up to bring about balancing and repair to the whole system. This repair is holistic in that the bodymind seems to correct all the factors associated with that illness. For example, if the problem was a low back pain that had an emotional component (the patient was fearful of some emotional burden), then the emotional component balances (the patient loses the fear) as well as repair to the tissues of the spinal joints.

Essentially, it appears that when we establish points that need linking, and tap the head, we are asking the brain to fix the problem. When the heart is tapped, we ask the heart to store the correction (covered next).
 
 

Tapping the head

The tapping procedure is very light. You barely have to touch the head. It would seem that the impact is not mechanical from the physical tapping. It very much feels like an energy impact - one kinetic energy (the moving fingers) causing an interference node with another energy field (the brain impulses).

The main thing you have to remember is to make sure that the fingers are spread so that some "impact" is being made on both hemispheres of the brain. (At least one finger has to touch either side of the head.) At first, the tapping is done for two full breath cycles - alternating between the head and the heart. (See next section.) Once you have treated a number of patients you will begin to "feel" the changes occurring and the "shift" of energy happen that indicates a correction. One you feel this, then you only need to tap until the correction happens. This could occur in a second or half a minute.

Explaining what the "shift" feels like is hard because it is very subjective. I feel it as a tension build up such as one feels with the barometric build up of pressure before a big thunderstorm. This can be felt locally around the patient"s head and your tapping hand, or sometimes I feel my whole body tense up.

The "shift" is the release of that tension. The feeling of release after the storm.

It takes a while for a BodyTalk practitioner to develop this sensitivity. Fortunately, it is not necessary for good results. You simply need to keep tapping for a couple of breaths and the results will occur.
 
 

Tapping the sternum (heart)

The tapping of the sternum appears to correspond to the energic relationship to the heart and heart complex. This technique relates more specifically to the concept of the heart energies. There is significant evidence to show that the heart, in addition to its role of pumping blood, plays a significant role in the distribution of energy in the body. The heart "pumps" patterns of energy and information to every cell in the body.

It is well known that the electrical potential generated by the heart, identified by an ECG, can be recorded from any site in the body because of volume conduction, a physical mechanism that is not controversial in and of itself.

The heart"s conduction of information throughout the system is also clinically verified by the degree of information ascertained from testing the arterial pulses throughout the body. 

In BodyTalk and Chinese Medicine, the "pulses" are taken (using different methods) to "read" information about the state of the body. The pumping of the heart activates energy wave impulses that have the historic dynamic energy memory of all the bodily systems (see later) superimposed upon them. By placing the fingers on the arterial pulse, the practitioner sets up interference nodes that will contain all this information as long as the practitioner has a system to interpret it. Further, by linking back to the brain or heart (as done in BodyTalk), the memory systems can be altered to correct any anomalies.

In Chinese Medicine and bioenergetic psychology, the heart is seen as the central governor and energy organizer of the body. It constantly and dynamically reflects the "state of affairs" of the body. This is analogous to the concept of collective, dynamic, interactive, historic memory or consciousness. It further transpires that if one can change the memory, the health and dynamic consciousness of the entire bodymind system can be modified

The term "knowing things by heart" shows society"s innate understanding of the dynamics of the bodymind. All cells store information. The heart is intimately and dynamically connected to all the cells and organs because of the centrality of its location and connections. 

Heart transplants can be considered in the light of this information. One could assume from the above discussion that the heart recipient would receive some aspects of the history of the donor as processed and stored by the donor. The body of the recipient has just lost its own central dynamical energy processor and memory. This has been replaced by foreign patterns that will not correspond to the established patterns innate to the recipient"s body. Whether they are sick (the need for a transplant) or reasonably healthy, they are still established memory patterns of that individual ego. Surely, much of the rejection process going on as chemical and immune reactions would make more sense if they were seen as interactive memory battles producing the manifestation of chemical rejection.

There is an increasing amount of evidence which points to the validity of this transferred memory concept. Consider the case of Claire Sylvia:

In her book, A Change of Heart, Sylvia, a former dancer, describes how her life went through strange changes after receiving a heart-lung transplant. For example, six weeks after the operation, she was allowed to drive again, and she drove straight to Kentucky Fried Chicken, a place she had never been before. Then this fit, thin, dancer ordered fried chicken nuggets! Later, she learned that the 18-year-old whose heart and lungs were now living inside her had had a fondness for chicken nuggets. At the time of the man"s death, uneaten chicken nuggets had been found stuffed inside the pocket of his leather jacket.

By tapping the heart we seem to be helping the bodymind superimpose "what should be" in place of "what has been going on," thereby ensuring that the procedure will last. It appears that the tapping inputs dynamic kinetic energy into the static memory contained in the heart complex (which includes the heart chakra) and causes the bodymind to reestablish a new memory under the newly corrected system. Remember that we have just corrected the system by tapping the head while we held the linking points. 

Again the tapping is light and can be done over the sternum. Lately I have found that it is preferable to tap more to the left of the sternum over the heart. This is not always possible in some cultures because of possible contact with the breast.
 
 

In summary:

Tapping the head repairs the linkage.
Tapping the heart stores the changes to make them permanent.

Exaggerated breathing

Hatha yoga says that if a person has a perfect breath, they will have perfect health. The BodyTalk System agrees with this statement and utilizes the immense importance of the full breath cycle in treatments and, more importantly, to ensure the treatment lasts.

The breath cycle can be divided into many functions. Most of these are well known in human physiology and will not be covered here. I am more interested in discussing some of the little known, but vitally important, functions of the breath cycle.
 
 

The breath cycle is one of our main energy pumps

Energy accumulates in the lungs from the air we breathe and the food energy sent up to the lungs from the digestive system (a principle of Chinese Medicine). This energy is then pumped through the meridian system via the lung meridian that starts in the lungs. The more powerful our breath cycle, the more powerful the flow of energy through the meridians.
 
 

The whole body rocks with our breath cycle

As we breathe in and out, our whole body moves in synchronicity with that movement. The muscles expand and contract to pump the blood returning to the heart and pump the lymph (our sewerage system) around the body. 

Our cranial bones make very small movements that change the pressure inside the cranial vault and cause the cerebrospinal fluid to circulate. This keeps the nervous system bathed in the fluids vital to its function. 

Each vertebrae in the spine rocks in synchronicity with the breathing cycle to maintain healthy functioning and integrity of the spine and spinal cord.

The skin breathes air in and out as our lungs breathe. A large amount of the air we take into the body is through the skin, not the lungs!
 
 

The breath cycle influences the heartbeat

The yogis have long demonstrated that, by controlling their breath, they can control the beating of their heart. This is very important in BodyTalk because we utilize this relationship to bring about lasting changes in the treatment, by imprinting the changes we make onto the heart energy system. 
 
 

The brain uses the breath cycle to scan the body

This is another yoga principle that has immense relevance to BodyTalk. Each time we breathe in and out, the brain scans of all the frequencies of the body.

As we breathe out, the scanning goes down the frequencies from highest to lowest. As we breathe in, the reverse happens. 

We know from science that our body is ultimately just a bundle of energy made up of different frequencies. The slower the frequencies, the denser the parts. Bones, for example, represent the slower frequencies of the body. Blood is a higher frequency. Meridian energy is higher still. The emotions and thoughts represent some of the highest found in the bodymind complex.

Each of these frequencies are contained within systems of energy that "hold" the bodymind together. There are systems within systems within systems. Each of these has dynamic relationships with all the other systems within the bodymind and outside of it as well. Whenever any of these systems fail, disharmony occurs. This then becomes evident in the specific frequencies associated with that system.

During each breath cycle, the brain scans these systems to establish if any are malfunctioning. How well it can do this, depends upon how healthy our breathing cycle is.

If our breathing cycle is restricted, our brain and heart energy will not be able to correctly ascertain the state of our health and will make mistakes. When the brain doesn"t know what is wrong — it can"t fix it!

EXAMPLES

Breathing out — the act of "letting go"

Low frequency diseases are usually chronic bone or muscle diseases such as arthritis, or chronic muscular degenerative diseases. In clinical observations, patients in chronic pain with arthritis rarely ever fully breathe out. If they try to, they suddenly experience pain. They breathe shallowly to stop themselves from getting in touch with that discomfort. 

Psychologically, arthritis sufferers tend to be people who spent their lives driving themselves and/or remaining fixed in rigid belief systems about life and how it should be lived. A rigid mind leads to a rigid body. 'Driven" people will rarely allow themselves to fully let go. The act of breathing all the way out is a characteristic of being able to fully let go to life. If you spend your life living in stress, the body stops breathing out fully and the brain stops scanning those lower frequencies. This means that if we are developing arthritis, for whatever cause, the brain will not fully recognize the problem. Instead, it will allow the degenerative process to continue without significant intervention. 
 
 

Breathing in — getting in touch with life

When we breathe in, we are entering the higher frequencies of thought and emotion. People who don"t breathe in fully do not allow full interaction with their emotional and mental processes. An emotionally disturbed person will not breathe all the way in because they inwardly know that it will cause them to suddenly get in touch with deep feelings. This will eventually lead to the brain not recognizing the emotional or mental state and result in disease processes establishing themselves without intervention and correction by the brain"s healing processes.

When we treat someone with BodyTalk, we often ask the patient to take a deep breath in and out, to ensure that the brain is getting fully in touch with the problem we are highlighting with our techniques. 

The first treatment technique in BodyTalk is designed to improve the breathing cycle. It will be taught in this book.
 
 
 

To Chapter 8

Reproduced with permission from John Veltheim, www.parama.com