Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Repeating the Silva Method


Repeating Silva.

I’ve repeated the Silva Method self mind control several times in my life. The materials are the same. What’s new for me each time is what I learn about myself, and what the human mind is capable of doing.
Each passing decade has left me with a handful of memories, when normal life events triggered a Silva training response.
Recently I used the Three Finger technique to turn a bad mood into a better one. I was rushing around the house getting ready for work, when a series of events set off a flood of rage that seemed to envelope me. I got into my car to drive to school where I supervise students at lunch for one hour. I did not want to come to work with a bad attitude.
Being in charge of a roomful of 11-year-old children has enough challenges. I need a good mood, and I needed it now. So with my hands clutching the steering wheel, I put the thumb, index and middle finger of both hands together, and went to level with my eyes opened.
I came to the first stop sign on Spring Garden and counted down, using the three to one method. “ I’m in a bad mood,” I said aloud in the car. “ I don’t want to be in a bad mood. I want to be in a good mood. In a few moments, I will be in a good mood.” I felt tiny tremors in my body as if I was picking up the vibrations from the car engine followed by a lifting sensation. My mood had altered to my chosen state before I finished saying the last sentence.
In another work related area I was on the receiving end of an unfair decision that resulted in lost wages. During the discussion with my boss I grew agitated. I put together my three fingers. While maintaining a calm firm voice, outwardly, as we discussed the issue, I heard a voice in head saying ‘time to move on’ followed by a sensation of not really being there but in some other alternate present.
I left the office feeling the outcome of the moment seemed unfair, but sensed new freedom to move on both in my work life, and from an uncomfortable state of mind.
I’d like to reiterate here, the need to acknowledge the reality of the situation and the negative thoughts and feelings. As a popular television psychologist says: “You cannot change what you don’t acknowledge.
When I first took the course in 1973, I had an opportunity to use Glove anesthesia just days after learning how. One afternoon while washing dishes at the sink I cut my right hand on a broken glass. The blood shot straight into the air while my training took over. I covered that cut with my left hand and said aloud: “No pain, No blood,” I remember waiting for a few minutes before looking at the damage. In those minutes, it felt as if I were in an elevator going down, pausing between floors.
When I gingerly lifted my left hand to inspect the injury on the top of my right, below the knuckle of my thumb, I was astonished. I could see the layers of skin right down to the soft pink flesh of muscle. I kept mentally repeating like a mantra, no pain, and no blood and watched as a tiny bright red drop pooled to form a scab.
I knew I needed stitches. No one was home. I had a license, but no car available, so I walked out the front door to the neighbor’s houses and began knocking on doors, looking for someone to take me to a doctor.
Since no one was available, I remember going home. Later that evening, I showed my cut hand to my parents but because there was now a scab, with a bandage over it; the injury was dismissed. It healed on it’s own and I have a lovely scar to remind me to this day, of how powerful my mind can be.
Now, fast forward from this scene into the future. The year is 1994. I’m a young mother of two attending a playgroup with other mothers and their pre-school children and babies. I’m serving myself an instant coffee while talking to the other mums. I take a Styrofoam cup, put some instant coffee in it, and pick up the kettle of boiling water. It’s still plugged in when I pour boiling water into my cup and over my left hand.
I freeze and my first thoughts are no pain, no burn. Again, the glove anesthesia technique I learned 22 years ago surged to the forefront of my brain and took over the body’s autonomic nervous system to produce the following results. As I walked around the counter to the kitchen sink, one of mother’s was screaming “Trudy, my God, you’re burned.” I replied, “No, I’m not,” She continued “how can you be so calm!” I turned the cold water tap on and let the water run over my injured left hand and felt the familiar sensation of going down, down, down, in an elevator. When I finally looked I had a red mark, the size of a quarter. Another spot the size of my pinky nail. No blister, and no pain. I showed the friend who was still quite upset on my behalf, reassuring her that there was no cause for worry.
These are just the dramatic stories that bear retelling again and again to demonstrate how powerful the mind really is when trained.
I ask myself sometimes why I need to keep repeating this course. It came to me today as I recalled that Jose Silva studied electronics. In electricity there is built in resistance. Copper is a pretty good conductor of electricity but there is still resistance. Perhaps, as we chase these formulas for successful lives we are pulling against our own, innate resistance to change.
So rather than feeling disappointed that I need to repeat the course, I’m grateful that I can and do. Each time I’ve gained new insight into myself, family and work situation. Like the fat person I once was on the road to fitness, I keep applying, and modifying the techniques I learned all those years ago, to correct my brain, direct my thoughts transform physically, and spiritually. With time and application, practice makes improvement.
Like anyone still lucky enough to still be drawing a breath I’ve experienced many of the riches and heartaches life has to offer. I’ve come to accept, deep in my bones that we attract in our life all the experiences needed to learn, grow and fulfill our destiny.
Whether it’s physical injury or an emotional one, practicing Silva has helped me get through difficulties and turn these lumps of lead into lessons of gold.
What simple steps can I take now that will make 2010 a great decade for me? That was easy. A quick review of the basic lecture series, with the remarkable Louise Blouin, on two subsequent Saturdays gave me a chance to practice problem solving techniques I’d discarded.
This time, I focused on a few specifics like goal setting and regaining my balance. I’d been battling bouts of vertigo; have trouble falling asleep, and migraine headaches were putting in an appearance. Lately, my daily habits are more reactive to my life and the issues and people in it. Just a dip into the waters of the basic lecture, in a group with like-minded people has helped me hit the reset button so that I’m experiencing life and leading the experience.
I’ve had perhaps a couple of bouts of vertigo since. Each time, I breathe deeply and count my self down into level. A quick trip to my laboratory for a tune up with my councilors has me feeling right side up in a few short minutes.
I recognize the migraine symptoms from the moment my neck is tense or a pulse is felt in my right eye, and again focus on the pain, turn it into discomfort and breath it right out, without grabbing for my bottle of headache pills. As for sleep disorders, well there’s nothing like going to level in the comfort of my own bed and playing in my laboratory or chatting with my councilors or working cases to put me on the road to dreamland.
When I tell people I’m reviewing the basic course it may look like I’m just a slow learner. Perhaps I am. However, on closer examination I can tell them that while I still experience the bumps, grinds of life that when the blood starts flowing, literally or figuratively, my first thoughts are to grab from my Silva Method brain wave training and ride the experience out.