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Mind/Body Healing of a Long-Standing Asthma Condition with the Force of Habit "Buddy System": A Case History and Example-PART TWO

       

Treatment Session


That brings us full circle (from Part One of this article) to Saturday, August 22, 2009. That was the date of my Force of Habit buddy system treatment session, which occurred during a lunch meeting with an esteemed colleague.


Publishing, Website, Suffocation, Stress and Asthma

At that time I had been reading everything I could about having my book, Force of Habit, published, and I was giving the manuscript a final edit in preparation for submitting it to publishers. I was writing professional articles for publication and I was completely overhauling my website around the book and around my new professional identity as an Institute. I was repositioning myself for a life of doing Force of Habit-oriented mind/body healing work, public speaking, education and training, and professional writing. It was at once a very exciting and exhilarating and a very intimidating and anxiety provoking prospect. I sometimes didn't feel ready for the pressure and the increased exposure that I was moving toward; it felt overwhelming to be utterly on my own, teaching and writing from my own school of thought and treatment, and flying in the face of non-holistic medical and healing practices.


I also felt suffocated by the pressures and stresses of family life, stifled by the power of prevailing medical thinking and daunted by the competition in the holistic healing field. There are so many notables! If all my projects were to reach fruition I needed to be free of this bothersome and nagging health issue. Metaphorically, the asthma seemed to symbolize some kind of reluctance and fear about the next step in my career. It was holding me back and draining my energy.


I shared all of this with my lunch companion. She still wanted to help me, so we proceeded.


Force of Habit Buddy System, Tranceformation, Bad Habits and Two Dots

The Force of Habit (FOH) buddy system is a method of employing the help of a partner to perform Tranceformational healing work, as described in my book Force of Habit. To strip it to its bare essentials, it is a matter of pinpointing the current issue-or "bad habit"-that is troublesome and that you wish to clear up, and then similarly pinpointing your target or goal state, condition, or experience. You can do it in either order. The bad habit to be cleared can be emotional, mental or physical/medical. (See Force of Habit in the IHRI newsletter, 2009) (2) [Institute Journal Articles one and two]. At its simplest it's about connecting two dots, and it is sometimes about clearing obstacles out of the pathway between those two dots. Both dots need to be defined and described in experiential terms such that the subconscious mind, which directs all habits, knows exactly what you're talking about. Fortunately for me I know how to do all of that, so I was able to lay my cards on the table in short order. Also fortunately for me, my lunch partner is experienced in the buddy system; she was fully prepared to do her part-and she did an extraordinary job.


For my goal statement (in this case the first dot) I painted a picture of my excitement about the next step in my career. A lot of big things are happening. I'm expecting my first book to be endorsed by luminaries in the mind/body healing field and published by a major publisher; I expect to go out on speaking tours; I am overhauling and redefining my website around mind/body healing, the Institute and the book; I am writing articles for publication in professional journals; I expect to attract more professional healing work and to add "professional writer" to my resume. I was poised to join many people I respect on the national stage. I felt very enthusiastic and energized about it all. I was jazzed!


Then I reiterated my present state (the second dot), namely my fears and anxieties. Joining people I respect on the national stage is intimidating. Did I really think I was up to it? Did I think FOH was up to it? When I'm talking or writing about it, teaching it, or doing healing work I am filled with confidence; there is no doubt; I am fully connected with the power and clarity of knowing how universal principles bring about healing and wholeness. But in between those times when I was thinking about it-and pondering the ultimately inexplicable immensity of the universe and its ways-there was doubt and hesitancy. The way I wanted to feel was excited, energized and confident, but now I felt repressed, suffocated, stuck and afraid; asthma seemed to be the result. Asthma was holding me back from feeling 100% confident, excited and fully connected with my path as a healer. And since asthma was a metaphor or physical manifestation for what was going on in my mind I believed I could heal my body by healing my mind.


Two Dots and Subconscious Mind: I Felt the Asthma Leave Me

I had identified the necessary two dots-a starting point that is a problem statement, and a destination that is the desired state where asthma is gone. The stage was fully set and ready for the drama.


Onto that stage, in between those two dots, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, both my buddy and I could palpably feel my father, looming over me and criticizing everything I did on my own initiative, everything that was an authentic expression of who I genuinely am and everything I love with a passion. He had taught me that I was never good enough and that whatever I did would never be good enough. It felt as if anything I loved and celebrated would be taken away from me if I enjoyed it too much. Intellectually I knew better than all this, but I felt stifled, suffocated, judged and afraid all the same.


My partner knew what I wanted to feel like; she knew what my goal experience was. She also knows that I am a performing musician; she has seen me perform. She observed that when I am performing I am consumed with the music and the performance and that I perform with joy and authority; there is no doubt about the music or the performance. She knows that is also how I feel doing healing work, which is exactly the way I want to be feeling right now about everything else at this juncture in my professional career. As soon as I felt this connection-that in every piece of my growing professional self-expression I want to feel exactly the same way I do when I'm singing and playing guitar-I knew absolutely that my father's attitudes and opinions don't matter in a world where I'm given just one chance to do it my way. My senses were immediately saturated with the goal feelings, washing away everything in their path. I knew that my father's world and opinions had nothing to do with me; I was able in that instant to disidentify from his attitude toward me and at the same time to strongly identify with the feeling of joy, energy and authority about what I am doing and where I am going professionally. I felt authoritatively that I can do it all joyfully and in a way that makes complete sense to me even if no one else ever gets it.


The energy work had covered this same ground but we never got the issue cleared at its source in the mind, so the negative thought forms continued to accumulate.


My subconscious mind knew that by clearing out the obstacles to joy and authority we were clearing asthma because I had told it so at the start of the session. The subconscious mind knows how to clean out health issues because it knows how to install them: heal the mind, heal the body. In that moment of illumination I felt the asthma leave me. I knew right away that it was gone. In the three months since then I haven't had a single symptom and I haven't taken a single dose of medication. I exercise regularly and vigorously. No asthma symptoms. When out of breath I quickly regain my breath, just like with healthy breathing. I'm learning what normal, healthy breathing is.


When the asthma habit was cleared out of my mind it cleared out of my body.


Regenerating the Lung Tissue

A remarkable thing is happening. I'm convinced that I am regenerating the lung tissue (that 20% I mentioned in PART ONE) that I apparently lost over the years of believing in asthma. I've experienced some results already. I notice that I am regaining my breath more quickly during bicycle rides and walks uphill, and I am noticing an increase in the power and control of my singing. I have been singing for many years (I was in the choirs in grade school), but not with much power. That is changing.


Mind's Capacity for Self-Healing

There is no reason for us to be surprised by these kinds of healing and regenerative results. They are being documented in books like The Biology of Belief (3), in cutting edge articles written by Tim Brunson (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) and Ernest Rossi (9) (10) and in books on the research and clinical outcomes in brain plasticity studies (11) (12). When we learn to awaken our mind's capacity for self-healing I believe it will be possible to heal any acquired physical condition. Just as all hypnosis is self-hypnosis, all healing is self-healing.


References:

(1) Louise Hay (1987). You Can Heal Your Life. Santa Monica, CA : Hay House. 154, 158.


(2) David Kohlhagen, LPC, NBCCH (2009). Hypnosis and Force of Habit. In the International Hypnosis Research Institute newsletter, 8-3-09: http://www.hypnosisresearchInstitute.org/index.cfm/2009/8/3/Hypnosis-and-Force-of-Habit#more. and David Kohlhagen, LPC, NBCCH (2009). Defining Terms: The Theory of Force of Habit. In the International Hypnosis Research Institute newsletter, 8-31-09: http://www.hypnosisresearchInstitute.org/index.cfm/2009/8/26/Defining-Terms-The-Theory-of-Force-of-Habit#more.


(3) Bruce Lipton, Ph. D. (2009). The Biology of Belief. New York: Hay House.


(4) Tim Brunson, Ph. D. (2009). Mind/Body and Entrainment. In the International Hypnosis Research Institute newsletter, 11-6-09.


(5) Tim Brunson, Ph. D. (2009). Use of Imagination and Suggestion. In the International Hypnosis Research Institute newsletter, 10-30-09.


(6) Tim Brunson, Ph. D. (2009). Sensory-Based Plasticity. In the International Hypnosis Research Institute newsletter, 9-28-09.


(7) Tim Brunson, Ph.D. (2009). Healing Beyond the Placebo Effect. In the International Hypnosis Research Institute newsletter, 10-26-09.


(8) Tim Brunson, Ph.D. (2009). Tibetan Buddhist Meditation System. In the International Hypnosis Research Institute newsletter, 8-28-09.


(9) Ernest Rossi, Ph.D., Salvatore Iannotti, Mauro Cozzolino, Stefano Castiglione, Angela Cicatelli, Kathryn Rossi (2008). A Pilot Study of Positive Expectations and Focused Attention via a New Protocol for Optimizing Therapeutic Hypnosis and Psychotherapy Assessed with DNA Microarrays: The Creative Psychosocial Genomic Healing Experience. Sleep and Hypnosis, 10:2.


(10) Ernest Lawrence Rossi, Ph. D. and Kathryn Lane Rossi (year unavailable). How the Mind and the Brain Co-Create Each Other Daily: Mind-Brain-Gene Research on the Foundations of Consciousness, Creativity, Imagination, and Psychotherapy. Book chapter (Chapter 7) sent to me personally by Dr. Rossi; book source, publisher and year of publication unknown.


(11) Norman Doidge, M. D. (2007). The Brain the Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science. New York: Penguin Books.


(12) Sharon Begley (2007). Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain. New York: Ballantine Books.


Published by the International Hypnosis Research Institute 1-11-10

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