Healing From The Inside Out

August 1, 2009- Issue #10

Welcome to Mind Over Matter -- bringing you inspiration, hope and practical tools for your return to well-being. Whether seeking recovery from depression, anxiety, or stress, or looking for a greater peace, happiness and personal satisfaction with life, we can offer some light in the dark.

More than just ideas to help you during times of crisis and trouble, Mind Over Matter has something for everyone - to help you on your journey towards becoming more conscious, empowered, successful, and joyful.


In Todays Newsletter:

  • EFT and Energy Coaching by Phone.
  • Learn more about Energy Tapping and EFT.
  • Free Guided Meditation download - only available in this newsletter!
  • Custom-made, professional Guided Meditations made to your specifications! Learn more about how to special order your unique guided self-hypnosis CD and open up new possibilities!
  • Yogic Breathing Techniques (Pranayama) for rapid relief of stress, anxiety and depression.
  • Video: EFT for War Veterans with Combat Trauma.
  • Bipolar Tips for wellness.
  • EFT for Abundance - more tapping tips to maximize your results!


"The seeker is he who is in search of himself.

Give up all questions except one: ‘Who am I?’ After all, the only fact you are sure of is that you are. The ‘I am’ is certain. The ‘I am this’ is not. Struggle to find out what you are in reality.

To know what you are, you must first investigate and know what you are not.

Discover all that you are not -- body, feelings thoughts, time, space, this or that -- nothing, concrete or abstract, which you perceive can be you. The very act of perceiving shows that you are not what you perceive. The clearer you understand on the level of mind you can be described in negative terms only, the quicker will you come to the end of your search and realize that you are the limitless Being."

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
--I Am That


"EFT offers great healing benefits."
- Deepak Chopra, MD

"By removing emotional trauma, EFT helps heal physical symptoms too."
- Norm Shealy, MD, PhD, (Author of Soul Medicine).






Energy Psychology and Meridian Tapping (EFT)

Variously called "Energy Tapping," "Meridian Tapping Technique," and Emotional Freedom Techniques® or “EFT” - tapping is an amazing Energy Psychology technique that can be easily learned and self-applied for an enormous array of problems. It is excellent for depression, as well as virtually any emotional disturbance, phobia, fear, traumatic memory, negative thought, and even for many physical problems (including some chronic problems that may have been unsuccessfully treated for years using all sort of conventional and alternative methods). I believe that EFT and the many other Energy Psychology techniques that are rapidly evolving today, will be the first treatment of choice for all healing – even among mainstream doctors – in the next ten to twenty years.

The method involves simple tapping on a sequence of acupressure points on yourself (or someone else can tap on them for you), while keeping the mind focused on the specific symptom or disturbance that you are wishing to eliminate. There is an art to doing this effectively, but even beginners can often achieve incredible results immediately.

The light tapping on the sequence of 8 major meridian points produces a feeling of relaxation, inner calm, and peace for most people. For others the affect is more dramatic and they feel tingly, giddy, very deeply relaxed, or very energized after one or more rounds of tapping (regardless of the issue they are treating).

By tapping on these electrochemical activation points, the nervous system is balanced, and the emotional center of the brain (the amygdala) ceases it's reactivity to the disturbing negative thought, image, memory, or whatever the case may be. Studies now show that tapping quickly reduces levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Saying key words and phrases out loud as you tap on each point, helps to focus in on the core issue, essentially collapsing it. Once resolved, it is usually a permanent change.

It will be some years before most therapists, psychiatrists and doctors accept energy healing modalities such as EFT and see their true potential. But once it catches on, there will be no turning back to the long, painful, arduous process of traditional psychotherapy and ineffective medical treatments.

Learn more about EFT


EFT (Meridian Tapping) Rapidly Helps Traumatized War Veterans

Watch this powerful video demonstrating the incredible benefits of EFT for Iraq war veterans with severe combat trauma:

If you or someone you know is suffering from combat trauma - help is only a phone call away - regardless of ability to pay.


EFT and Energy-Coaching by Phone

Energy Tapping (Meridian Tapping), also commonly called EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) can be done both face to face with a coach or therapist, as well as by phone. Once you learn the 8 major points to tap on yourself, you can follow the coaches verbal cues and get wonderful results. In fact, sometimes it minimizes distractions and facilitates a deeper connection.

When I tap with my clients, I often close my eyes and get into a sort of altered state of consciousness, speaking the words intuitively without getting analytical about it.

Clients often tell me that they feel deeply supported, understood, and "seen" when I do this. I tap along on my own points (surrogate tapping) while they tap on their own points - mirroring where I tap and repeating the words and phrases that I say.

In next week's newsletter I will post an audio demo of EFT to follow along with for your own practice!

Call today for a Free Phone Consultation. Results Guaranteed.

707/326-5566 or Email: BSchwarcz@sbcglobal.net

EFT-by-Phone: Energy Coaching Sessions


Learn to Meditate Here and Now

"When the mind is kept away from its preoccupations, it becomes quiet. If you do not disturb this quiet and stay in it, you find that it is permeated with a light and a love you have never known; and yet you recognise it at once as your own nature. Once you have passed through this experience, you will never be the same man again; the unruly mind may break its peace and obliterate its vision; but it is bound to return, provided the effort is sustained; until the day when all bonds are broken, delusions and attachments end and life becomes supremely concentrated in the present...

The mind is no more. There is only love in action."

- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj - Indian Saint

Try my free guided meditation here and now. Just make yourself comfortable, stop what you're doing and take a 15 minute break to feed your mind:

This guided meditation audio, along with an additional segment is now available for sale on my website. You can listen to part one (the first 15 minute meditation) for free directly on the site, or by clicking the player below. The second link below will allow you to download the 15 minute meditation - yours to keep - only available for free through this newsletter.




Personalized Guided Meditation/ Self-Hypnosis CD's Available by Special Order Now!

Special Half-Off CD offer this month ONLY. For the month of August, I will be accepting orders for my custom-made meditations at 50% of the usual price, (normally $108 - now $54). As a bonus, I am also including my basic 30-Minute Guided Meditation for Depression (normally $15).

This is only on a first-come, first-serve basis, as it requires time and effort for me to create your individualized recording and I have limited time.

What is it?:

This new service offers you a highly personalized, made-to-order, professional Guided Meditation/Self-Hypnosis CD, with soothing background music and voice recording. Based on your answers to an extensive (confidential) list of questions, I will customize your own unique guided meditation for your personal use. Like having your own coach or therapist with you where ever you go!

This is a powerful tool for changing your sub-conscious tapes - and replacing your negative, self-limiting, self-defeating thoughts and beliefs with positive, life-affirming, optimistic thoughts and beliefs.

By listening to your personalized guided meditation on a regular basis - preferably just before you go to sleep - every night, or at least several times a week - you will begin to see deep and lasting changes in your life.

(The music and voice are similar to the meditation audio above, except I will be talking directly to you and addressing your specific needs, issues, and goals).

Complete your confidential personal profile/qustionnaire, and order your Customized Meditation.


More Yogic Breathing Techniques to Supercharge and Balance You

Pranayama: Shifting Consciousness through Breath

Pranayama – literally “life-force control” – are powerful techniques for shifting your consciousness, purifying mind and body, and raising your energy. Pranayama is a core part of traditional Yoga practices. Advanced practices should only be done with a qualified teacher. Some Pranayama techniques are fairly simple to learn, and the following technique can be done as part of your daily routine, when stressed, or before sitting to meditate.

Caution: If you are diagnosed (or suspect) Bipolar Disorder, avoid intensive pranayama, and do so only with mindfulness and moderation, or with a teacher’s guidance. Do not retain (hold in) the breath for long periods of time. If you feel your energy rising too much, or your mind becomes too active, stop immediately and seek consultation. Forceful abdominal breathing should also not be done if you have high blood pressure, heart disease, hernia or gastric ulcers, without expert guidance.

Kapalabhati ("skull-shining breath") - This is a powerful technique involving deep, forceful, abdominal breathing. It is especially good for alleviating depression, anxiety, stress, and fatigue. Don't over-do it in the beginning.

Sit in a relaxed, upright position. With mouth closed, exhale quickly and forcefully out the nose - with a snort (like a bull... or a dragon - not that I've ever seen either one do this). Think about the way your belly quickly tightens inward when you sneeze. The abdominal muscle contracts inward and toward the spine as you exhale, and then relax the belly and let the inhale come passively, with no effort. Expanding the belly for a full inhalation -- then pump it out forcefully again through the nose. After about 20 seconds of rapid breaths, take a slow deep inhalation through the nose, and let it out slowly, through the nose.

Nadi Shodhana – Alternate nostril breathing:
(Balances the subtle life energy of the body and the two sides of the brain, calms the mind and increases vitality).

Sit comfortably with head and spine straight, close your eyes and relax.

Close one nostril with the thumb, breathe a long slow breath (always from the belly) through the open nostril. Then, pausing for a moment, remove the thumb and cover the other nostril with the ring and pinky fingers, and slowly exhale through the open nostril. Next, inhale back into that same open nostril, cover it with the thumb again, and exhale through the other side. And so on for several rounds. (Rest the middle and index fingers between the brows).

Keep the length of breath even. Try counting to 4 in, and 4 out. To alleviate anxiety and nervousness, inhale to a count of 4, and exhale for a count of 8.

More Pranayama techniques to come!

Each weekly newsletter will provide a new Pranayama or other Yogic technique to relieve stress, anxiety and depression, and transform your consciousness from darkness and heaviness, to light, peace and your natural state of joy.

Learn more about yoga and meditation for health, happiness and vitality.




Bipolar Disorder: Tip for the Day

Staying well with Bipolar Disorder requires an unwavering commitment to your own peace of mind and balance. Above all else, you must be kind to yourself. Self acceptance and gentleness are powerful qualities that can get you through the hardest of times.

You must also do your utmost to be self-aware. The most dangerous state to enter is one of denial and unconcsciousness, or false grandiosity. These qualities can lead to mania. Mania is a biochemical state that can lead to poor judgment and impulsive, unusual or out-of-character behavior. But on a psychological level, a manic episode may begin as a reaction or defense against feeling attacked, vulnerable, worthless or insignificant. Unfortunately, people often don't realize what's happening until they're in a full blown mania, and at that point they have neither the self-awareness, the patience, or the ability to quiet their mind. The chemistry has taken over and it has to run its course, or you need a biochemical (medical/nutritional) intervention to bring the brain back to a normal state.

Do not seek your self-worth from others or the world. Psychologically, mania is the false self deluding itself into greater and greater levels of ego-inflation. Your own personal experience may have already shown you the mess that this can create! And that can be very depressing.

Know your danger signs. Know your triggers. Write them down. Study them. Share them with your loved ones. This is the basis of a safety plan - and it can save your life.

Things such as Insomnia/Sleeping less that 5 hours a night - or not at all, racing thoughts, talking fast, driving fast, buying things you don't need - these are common signs of mania.

Know your triggers - staying up too late, getting into senseless arguments with family or loved ones, feeling guilty, working too late into the night - too much coffee - etc.

Know yourself. Be self-aware, and don't delude yourself. This is the best prevention.


Get your vitamin D!

Vitamin D is one of the most all-round important vitamins for physical and mental health.

Vitamin D:

  • Boosts the immune system, protects you against colds and flu
  • Protects against cancer
  • Prevents depression.
  • Reverses inflammatory changes associated with age-related memory impairment.
  • Lowers blood sugar and prevents diabetes.
  • Prevents osteoporosis
  • May protect against Parkinson's, Tuberculosis, and chronic pain syndrome.

    The body produces its own perfect supply of vitamin D when the skin is exposed to the ultraviolet rays in natural sunlight. In the summer months we have an ample supply of ultraviolet. The phobia we've developed about sun exposure and skin cancer risk, have actually caused us to avoid the most essential element in our natural environment. In fact, one study shows that avoiding the sun actually doubles the risk of prostate cancer. It is important to get the sunlight directly on your skin (in moderation) - not through a glass window. (See study at www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)




    EFT for Manifesting Success and Abundance

    "People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that they can do things. When they believe in themselves, they have the first secret of success."

    — Norman Vincent Peale: Author, The Power of Positive Thinking

    Besides the daily practice of meditation, EFT is one of the most effective and powerful ways to shift your energy quickly, so that you can begin to naturally and easily attract a different set of circumstances into your life. EFT also almost magical in it's ability to quickly and gracefully remove subconscious emotional blocks and negative, limiting beliefs that cause us to sabotage our own efforts towards success and abundance.

    If you haven't already, please read about EFT on my website by clicking the link above, and learn the basic technique, which is really quite simple.

    Once you understand the basic method of tapping on pressure points, the next task is to identify "issues" to focus on. It is important to be specific.

    Focus on the felt emotional experience, the negative thought, worry, or dysfunctional belief that is causing your problems.

    One of the most common misunderstandings in learning to apply EFT to your own life issues, is that it is designed to erase the negative programming in your psyche. It gradually removes (sometimes quickly - sometimes only with repeated practice), the emotional "charge" that is felt when you think a habitually negative thought. These negative, distorted thoughts and beliefs can be very deeply "rooted" - going back to early childhood. They become assumptions, and may be quite un-conscious - and yet they are ever-present and have a powerful effect on our emotional state and our outlook and self-esteem.

    Energy tapping is not the same as doing "affirmations." Your mind knows when it is being manipulated! If you feel negative, pessimistic and depressed - just repeating "I'm grateful, life is beautiful, and I love myself," might not penetrate very deeply and is unlikely to bring about a lasting shift in your outlook.

    With tapping - we just focus on what's already there - consciously or subconsciously (we can usually "guess" at the real negative core beliefs at work in us). By not hiding, sugar-coating it, or avoiding our nasty inner truth - we liberate ourselves. The tapping re-sets our nervous system, allows the brain to relax, reduces cortisol levels and produces a state of calmness - all WHILE focusing on the most upsetting, triggering junk in our mind - thus neutralizing it. What once evoked terrible, uncomfortable, pessimistic, overwhelming emotions - now becomes harmless - even meaningless. You might even find yourself laughing about it by the end of several rounds of tapping.

    How long should I tap? A common question.

    As long as you feel like it. Five minutes. An hour. Two hours! Even veteran tappers often do long sessions of clearing out old tapes. Do what feels right. Generally I suggest tapping at least twice a day - perhaps morning and evening - about 20 minutes. But this is completely up to your individual preference.

    If tapping becomes a chore, or a way to try to "get rid of" the parts of your self, or your mind that you don't like - it can become too heavy an exercise and leave you discouraged and frustrated if it doesn't work as well as you wanted.

    Don't take it so seriously. Taking anything in life too seriously will always be a downer!

    This technique is deceptively simple, but it's results can be profound. Try this technique at least daily -- preferably several times a day, and you will start to experience a shift in consciousness, and a change in "luck."

    Note: The original format of the EFT technique usually only focuses on the negative thoughts, beliefs and feelings that stand in your way. The tapping takes care of the rest. Some practitioners add extra rounds of tapping (as above) using positive affirmations, and some find that this has an added benefit. Try it both ways and see what feels right to you.

    Stay tuned for more EFT tips in future issues!




    Don't Give Up

    Every life challenge is an opportunity to awaken. There is no situation that is hopeless. Something positive, healing and transformative is possible in all circumstances, even when we can't recognize it at the time. Sometimes we forge ourselves out of the fire of suffering and loss, and it isn't until the end that we realize what a beautiful work of art has emerged within.


    May we all find peace. May we all know joy. May we all be liberated from fear, and released from illusions. May we all return to the Truth of our inner Light.




    I value your opinions and your feedback. Please let me know if this newsletter was helpful and feel free to ask questions. I update my website regularly, so check the site for new information, and if you like what you see, let others know about it.

    Wishing you health and great joy!

    Ben Schwarcz


    Benjamin Schwarcz, MFT is licensed psychotherapist (#mfc35606), meditation teacher, and energy coach with a private practice at 509 7th Street, Santa Rosa, CA, 95401. He can be reached at 707-326-5566.





    Disclaimer:

    This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. As with any drug, not all supplements are safe for all individuals and there may be risks and contraindications for people with certain conditions. Always consult a professional health care provider before before trying to treat a serious condition on your own.







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