RPT and the Stressors of Life

Finding Peace on the Sometimes Rocky Boat of Life
To find RPT classes, scroll to the bottom.

I just read an amazing book -- Power Up Your Brain, The Neuroscience of Enlightenment.  Much of the science discussed in the book is about the ways that our instinctual drives and desires get wired in and dictate our responses/reactions to the events of life.  In it the authors define stress in general as the amount of resistance a material offers to being reshaped and reformed.  They divide stress into acute and chronic, with acute being those short-lived situations that involve responding in a new and creative way.  These are the situations that lead us into growth and learning. 

Chronic stress is both physically, mentally and emotionally debilitating - the kind of stress where difficult situations occur over and over.  A few situaitons might be financial stress, relationship difficulties or physical stressors (when your cells are continuously burdened with eliminating toxic wastes and heavy metals acquired form a polluted environment and now stored within the cell wall).  Reactions to this kind of stress become wired into our neural pathways.  These associations can be wired in before birth or all the years after. 

Two quotes about this seemed vitally important to me.

Chronic stress can lead to a rut in which the wiring of our neural networks keeps us repeating the same dysfunctional behavior and hoping for a different outcome. ... Because of the way our brains have been wired by stress and trauma, we're unable to think or feel our way out of personal crisis.  (Power up Your Brain, pp.61)

As I thought about this, I realized that there are few of us in today's modern world that do not often experience situations that could cause chronic stress. For example if I look at my own life -- I have a wonderful house I love, in a very noisy area with construction going on about a quarter of a block behind me and a ceramic tile retail outlet that is often cutting time (terrible grinding noise) on the northern side of me.  I know that there are toxins in the air from the construction and from the tile cutting.  And, the noise level during the day is high.  So it would stand to reason that from this situation alone I am in a position to experience chronic stress.  So too is someone who commutes in traffic, or is in chronic stress from their business or the health of a loved one.  What are the chronic stressors in your life?

Why am I taking the time to write about all this? 

Well, stress causes the body to go into "fight or flight" and when that happens it releases cortisol and adrenaline - steroids which on a limited basis allow us to respond successfully to the immediate stressors.  Chronic stress means that we get stuck in the fight or flight position and thus the body is releasing these hormones all the time.  Constant release of adrenaline depeletes our energy reserves leading to extreme exhaustion and cortisol over time destorys the hippocampus defined by Wikipedia as A peninsula-shaped structure in the middle of the brain that is crucial for learning as well as for consolidating long-term explicit memories.

So if our learning from past experience is limited, what happens.  We repeat the same behaviors over and over again and each time it becomes more difficult to break out of this "behavioral rut."  And, often each time we repeat that behavior it gets wired or connected with our continued survival or safety and sometimes even more positive feelings like happiness, joy, aliveness, peace, etc. 

Of course, the authors have their own way of dealing with this potential continuing damage to our brains involving nutrition and daily meditaiton, both of which are very important.

What if there's a way to quickly release both the reaction and the original trauma that is triggering the reaction? 
By releasing the orignal trauma and the associations that have accumulated over time, we can much more easily find a neutral and peaceful place in the face of chronic stressors. 

Just becaue the stessors are there doesn't mean we have to stay in chronic stress. 

I just had a very stressful occurance just last night.  It is one that would have debilitated me in the past.  One where I might have gone over and over the situation thinking about what I could have done differently -- fretting and worrying.  This time I used RPT to locate where this situation was triggering my deep instinctual tones or vibrations of survival and safety -- fight or flight.  It took an hour or so, and I was able to find a more balanced peaceful place inside myself.  The situation is still out there in my world -- how I'm reacting to it is totally different.  I credit Reference Point Therapy with this ability to allow my reactions to be rapidly neutralized.  Without the calming from the RPT work, writing this article would have been difficult, if not impossible.  Learning RPT is one of the best things I've ever done, and teaching it is the next best. 

RPT classes coming up. 

The level one RPT class teaches you everything you need to know in order to practice bringing balance to incidents like the one I describe above.  You get to practice the RPT 3.0 Head, Heart, Gut technique, ask questions, see demonstrations and learn other uses.  As a graduate of LEVEL1 (2-day course) you will be able to work on yourself and friends and family.  Learn more about LEVEL 1 here.

LEVEL 2 (3-day course) is currently the Practitioner level.  Learn more about it here.

LEVEL 3 (a 12 day course) puts you on the road to becoming an instructor.  By the way, Level 3 is going to be in Los Angeles in late August.  (Levels 1 and 2 are required for Level 3.)

Level 1 Reference Point Therapy in Los Angeles -- June 4, 5.  The early bird is alread passed for this workshop, but if you respond to this email by Thursday, May 26, you can still get the $350.00 price. This is available only on my web site.  Go here to get this now.  There will be another Level 1 class on June 11. 12.  Go here to register for that one.

There'll be a Level 2 on June 24, 25, 26 in case you want to be on the fast track to becoming a practitioner. Go here to register.

With love and blessings,
Suzanne Peters
818-590-0062

Interested in a private appointment, call me to get a special rate.