NET Explained – What are Emotions and What is NET?
Basic emotions such as fear, anger, grief, and sadness are part of the normal response to everyday experiences. Typically these emotional responses dissipate as the situation that triggers them resolves.
However, sometimes there are factors that prevent the body from recovering from what was originally a healthy response. The result is a “glitch” in the nervous system, which can affect physical and mental well-being.
Meet Pavlov…
You may have heard of the famous experiment that Pavlov conducted with dogs, food and a bell. He rang a bell each time the dogs were fed. Quickly the dogs linked the sound of the bell with eating and would salivate simply at its ring, even when no food was present. This is called a conditioned response. Emotional reactions to situations can also be conditioned. Sometimes after just one life experience, especially if it is traumatic we can be conditioned to a response.
What else did Pavlov find out?
Pavlov discovered another very interesting tidbit. If a dog is conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell, that bell can be changed to different pitched bell and the dog will still salivate. The same thing can happen to people with a conditioned emotional responses.
For example, let’s consider the case of a young girl who was severely scolded by her teacher for making a simple mistake to a math problem on the blackboard. This incident caused her great anxiety and an upset stomach. As an adult, she finds herself becoming overly tense and gets an upset stomach whenever she is asked to speak at work. She does not consciously connect the two incidents, and can’t figure out why she feels ill and panicked at the thought of Monday meetings. Another example of a conditioned response is that of a man who watched himself get rear ended in a recent accident. He now catches himself with a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel and more agitated while in rush hour traffic. NET can help make that connection and efficiently resolve the problem.
Where do you keep your emotions?
We now recognize the connection between the nervous system, emotions, and our health. Emotions were thought to reside entirely in the brain, but now we know that emotions chemically affect the body on almost every level. If you’ve ever felt butterflies in your stomach when you were anxious or a warmth on your face when you were mad, then you know first-hand how emotions can affect the body.
Studies have shown that stress and emotional distress can make us more vulnerable to illness.
What is Emotional Reality?
Imagined events that are perceived to be real and feel very real to your body. These events can stimulate a dramatic response in your body and how it works.
Have you ever awoken in a pool of sweat with your heart racing after a disturbing dream? Fortunately, the attacker wasn’t real, but your body sure thought it was! Most often we are more conscious of these effects when we have to give a speech, ask the boss for a raise, encounter a near car accident, suffer the loss of a loved one, or experience other negatively-charged emotional events.
How do we find the “Glitch”?
The “emotional baggage” associated with past events in our lives (remember Pavlov’s dog?) can sometimes haunt us for years. Like a computer “glitch”, unresolved negative associations are stored in our bodies, often short-circuiting our true desires; even our health. NET practitioners can help you identify and resolve stuck events (real or imagined) that are affecting your ability to have optimal health and well-being.
The process is elegant, yet simple
Thoughts and emotions can cause measurable changes in the body. This is the basis of biofeedback and polygraph testing. For example, things that create internal distress, such as conflicting thoughts, unresolved feelings, anxiety, etc., can result in measurable changes in heart rate, breathing, muscle tension, and many other physical measures. The NET procedure assesses for the presence of such distress as it relates to your presenting problem and provides a means of resolution to the stress and often pain.
Relief
After NET treatment many patients report feeling that a burden has been lifted and that they feel an internal shift. NET provides a sophisticated health intervention in an environment that is comfortable and relaxed. The overall goal of the process is to restore mind-body balance and overall health.
