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Popular Topics: Articles: Bilateral Sound, EMDR-Inspired, How to Use
Sounds to Set You Free
Create Success, Emotional Balance and Richer Visualization Experiences
with EMDR-Inspired Sound, Brainwaves Sounds, and Inner Processing
Robert A. Yourell, LMFT
We are born to feel balanced and find solutions.
Resources within us can automatically help us do these
things. Sometimes, we need help to activate these inner
processes to resolve personal problems, to stop anxiety, or
to meet a great personal challenge.
As a therapist, I have seen people make wonderful
changes in their lives and personalities by doing mental
exercises that restore, evoke and orchestrate these inner
resources. I am impressed with the power of sound to make
these exercises more effective.
Mental exercises with Psych Innovations sounds have helped
problems such as these: An upcoming court appearance was
making Mandy very anxious. Paul was sick of the tiresome
arguments at home. Mary's emotional reactions were making her
too inflexible and were threatening her dreams for
success.
Safety
If you become uncomfortable using the exercise or
recording, stop. Some people find that before they can enjoy
processes that can help them relax or increase awareness,
they must get assistance from a therapist. Do not drive or do
any dangerous activity such as using a sharp object or a
machine while listening to recordings that can help you
relax.
No recording here is offered as a treatment of any
medical or psychiatric condition. People use their minds with
the intention of improving their well being. People use
sounds such as music or voice to help in this. But no one
should make claims as to exactly what these things will do
for you. You are unique.
If you have or suspect that you may
have a psychiatric condition, consult an appropriate mental
health professional before listening to recordings that may
cause relaxation or increased awareness, such as Psych
Innovations recordings. Ask them if you are ready for such
experiences. Feel free to contact me if you have any
questions or concerns at any time.
Access Your Inner Resources
Your inner resources normally keep you in balance and
solve problems, but some experiences can leave these
resources unable to fully do their job. This can cause you to
feel stuck, anxious, or out of control. I have been surprised
at how much improvement so many people have gotten from a
relatively small amount of time doing mental exercises.
It
troubles me to think of the millions of people who would be
better off if they knew the right exercise for the problem
that is holding them back. I want our families, schools and
mental health professionals to help people understand and use
these processes. Inner resources include factors such as the
brain's ability to activate all of its areas and to allow its
regions to communicate fully with one another.
Inner
resources include an effective self-image, creative problem
solving, confidence necessary to be assertive, the ability to
regain full functioning after a troubling experience, and
freedom from healthy psychological defenses that can allow us
to learn and interact meaningfully. For example, many people
who have experienced psychological trauma are left with less
activity in some areas of their brains. Without a brain scan,
they would not know that, but they certainly know if they are
dissatisfied with their success and ability to sleep, or are
troubled by panic attacks.
Another good example is that of a
person with attention deficit disorder. While mental
exercises are unlikely ever to cure ADD, the psychological
hardship and negative mental habits that can result from
being a person with ADD can come a long way with the help of
inner processing.
EMDR-Inspired Sound, Bilateral Sound, and Brain
Hemisphere Synchrony
The definition of EMDR, or eye movement desensitization
and reprocessing, explains that EMDR is a method of
psychotherapy that has a number of steps requiring the help
of a therapist. This means that you could say there is no
such thing as self-EMDR. However, many people who have
experienced EMDR come to think of the core experience as
being one they can derive on their own. Because I don't want
to abuse the term EMDR, I call these methods "EMDR-inspired," and
the core experience that people seek "processing" or
"reprocessing."
Reprocessing happens when you
experience a state of mind that allows you to change a
negative reaction or emotional symptom that has been stuck
for some reason. The experience often feels like a deep
mental release or reclaimed freedom. Sometimes people even
describe it as a spiritual experience.
The reprocessing
experience can come from focusing on a disturbing feeling or
memory while doing something to activate both sides of the
brain. One way to activate both brain hemispheres is to
experience a sound that moves repeatedly from ear to ear. I
call this bilateral sound. Musicians or audiophiles might
call it a panning sound.
Therapies and personal development
processes that get the left and right brain hemispheres
working together have been around for some time. As a
therapist who studied and used hypnosis, mental processing,
body psychotherapy, and other methods since the 1970's, I
noticed that dramatic improvements often came when the
therapy method had a way to promote collaboration of the
brain hemispheres.
I believe this is a key ingredient needed
to bring out the potential of many approaches to therapy and
personal development. Many people in the field of biofeedback
or neurofeedback believe it comes from hemispheric synchrony,
where activity and frequency of both brain hemispheres is in
a close relationship.
Professional Counseling, Therapy and
Psychiatry
I don't mean to say self-use of inner processing is a
magic wand for every problem. Most people would benefit from
time with the right psychotherapist, even if they don't have
a psychiatric disorder. Even problems that make a jump in
progress through a mental process often have other aspects
that take much more work to resolve.
Consider these reasons for a good assessment and sessions
with the right mental health professional:
1) The person and those around them may not understand
the problem or the available resources well enough.
2) The problems may be the kind that can't be untangled
from inside, and require a dedicated person as a guide.
3) The problems may be too serious or immediate.
4) The problems may require referral for medical
treatment because of a physical problem such as a metabolic
disorder that a medical person would know to investigate.
For example, some depressed people have thyroid trouble,
but don't know it.
5) Progress will be faster and have more scope with
specialized professional guidance.
Nonetheless, self-applied methods have proven valuable
for so many people that I encourage people to learn and use
them. I also use them as part of my work as a therapist.
This helps people progress more quickly in counseling, and
gives them tools for future challenges.
A Key Ingredient in Reprocessing:
State Shifting
There is another important missing ingredient that can
make personal development or therapy more effective. It has
to do with the person's state of mind. In psychological
methods that tend to gain a rapid improvement in symptoms,
and that tend to cause a long-lasting improvement, I saw
another pattern. They begin by having the client tune into
the problem, and then shift to a more balanced or positive
state of mind and body within a fairly short period of time.
TFT (Thought Field Therapy), EFT (Emotional Freedom
Technique) and EMDR are examples of therapy methods that
bring hemispheric synchrony and state shifting together.
Previous therapies that began getting results that appeared
to resemble those of methods such as EMDR, TFT, and EFT did
not appear to be as consistent in doing so. I came to believe
that the difference was they had not systematically applied
the two ingredients of brain hemisphere activation and state
shifting.
Brainwave Entrainment:
Binaural Beat and Pulsing Sound
Your brainwave frequencies help produce your state of
mind. A visual or sound pulse that matches a brainwave
frequency encourages your brain to produce more of that
frequency. This is called entrainment. Entrainment of
brainwave frequencies is used for meditation, relaxation, and
even alertness.
The Personal Journey recording includes a
brainwave frequency that fosters a meditative state of mind.
It is a low frequency that is good for (among other things)
creative problem solving while on the border between
consciousness and sleep. Some people feel that reprocessing a
painful issue is easier with a low entrainment frequency such
as the one in Personal Journey.
The Recordings
I have much experience using recordings for EMDR-inspired
sound processes, and was the first to develop a sound for
this purpose. That sound, UpLevel,
is used around the world. The Sounds
for Inner Space™ bilateral recordings (free sample audio available
at this link)
are UpLevel, Personal Journey and EvoLucid.
These recordings
provide a stable sound environment that allows the listener
to use them for the length of time they prefer. They do not
have a melody, so the listener will not tire of them after
repeated listening. Each recording has different qualities
discussed at PsychInnovations.com.
To Use Bilateral Sound
First step: Focus on the first step of the exercise
before actually listening to the recording. This can make a
real difference, probably because it helps you get your
initial mental focus, and thus increases the desirable
state shift.
Stereo: For best results, use stereo headphones on a
stereo unit. External stereo speakers will work almost as
well, but the stereo separation is not as compelling.
Volume: Play the recording at a low volume, a good bit
less than you might use for music listening. This prevents
the sound from being too dominant, and distracting, and
makes your mental processing more effective. As your senses
open, the recording may seem to increase in volume. Adjust
the volume for comfort.
Attention: Sometimes it can be helpful to follow the
sound from side to side with attention.
Non-Effort: When a mental exercise tells you to just pay
attention to something, practice doing this without trying
to control anything. This helps you activate inner
resources that are at their best when you are not trying to
do anything.
One of the most helpful parts of the mental exercises is
when you focus your awareness on a feeling. With bilateral
sound, as the feeling eases, it may give way to other
feelings that are very valuable to target with your
awareness. It is easier to sense those feelings when you
are not mentally busy. That is why the exercises shift from
an activity such as mental rehearsal, to periods of simply
paying attention. Because inner resources are mostly
automatic, these awareness periods are very important for
the inner processing.
Safety: If you become uncomfortable using the
exercise or recording, stop. Some people may not
be able to enjoy processes that can help them relax or
increase awareness until they get assistance from a
therapist. If you have or suspect that you may have a
psychiatric condition, consult an appropriate mental health
professional before listening to Psych Innovations
recordings or any other recordings that may cause
relaxation or increased awareness. We do
not any medical or psychiatric conditions are treated or cured by any sound
or process that we offer.
Time: Allow yourself time for your mind to wander or
provide images, ideas or new awareness during the exercise.
Inner resources of yours that are blocked or dormant can
need some time for you to foster them. The creative problem
solving intelligence of your subconscious mind can become
more useful to you as you come to recognize it and practice
eliciting it.
Users find that at a certain point they may simply feel
finished. That's a fine time to stop. It's as if the mind
says, "That's it for now, time to stop."
Otherwise, you may stop the recording when you complete
an exercise, or continue for a while because you are
enjoying a state of mind that feels productive or restful.
For free-form processes, you may want to set a timer.
Simply Relaxing: With the exception of Personal Journey
(which includes a relaxing brainwave sound), it usually
isn't helpful to use bilateral sound just to relax without
any guidelines. Use bilateral sound recordings with
exercises such as those described in this article.
Other Processes: You can use alternating bilateral sound
to enhance processes or mental exercises from sources other
than this article or PsychInnovations.com. Bilateral sound
helps with exercises for reprocessing, deep relaxation,
visualization, mental rehearsal, and body awareness. You
can even use it along with recorded guided processes.
(However if the recording has music, it may be out of tune
with the bilateral sound recording.)
You can use two players both connected to one set of
headphones with a "Y" adapter. Staff at any
electronics store can assist you with this simple
connection.
"Self-EMDR" Sound: If you know
EMDR, you will find that the bilateral sound recordings are
perfect for EMDR-inspired processes, or for guiding others
in such processes. See the "EMDR-Inspired Self
Reprocessing" exercise.
Regular use has helped many people continue or enhance
their own personal growth. Some EMDR therapists recommend
that their clients do this in some cases to become less
vulnerable to emotional triggers, or for other personal
growth work between or after the therapy sessions.
Some therapists listen to alternating bilateral sounds
such as UpLevel before sessions, or even during sessions
along with clients. They tell me it helps them stay tuned
in to the client and be more creative. When I do not quite
feel that I am in the right state of mind to conduct EMDR,
hypnosis or to work with an especially sensitive person, I
do this for one to five minutes just before the session. It
makes a dramatic difference for me.
Claims: therapists and other clinicians should note they cannot legally
or ethically make any claims for a sound or other product that it can
cure or treat a medical or psychiatric condition without adequate research
and applicable governmental approvals, and even then cannot engage in
such treatment without adequate training and supervised experience.
The Processes
Unless you have
experience with deep relaxation, visualization or awareness
processes, do these exercises in the order suggested, and no
more than one a day until you have completed the series. Set
an alarm or timer so you can adhere to the time limits. There
are more exercises and ideas at our Guide to Visualization
and Awareness Processes.
Theta Flow
The first time you do this process, limit yourself
to five minutes. Personal Journey is especially good with
this exercise, because it includes a theta brainwave binaural
entrainment frequency, and a very light bilateral sound. You
can use this exercise to make sure you are comfortable with
your recording and bilateral sound, and as a relaxation
exercise. People typically do a relaxation exercise for five
to twenty minutes. This is not a reprocessing
exercise.
If you become uncomfortable, stop and re-read the
cautions on page one.
1. For two minutes, pay attention to the sounds.
(If you are using Personal Journey, attend to the warbling
sound that resembles ringing crystal goblets. Notice how it
gradually speeds and slows.)
2. For another three minutes, let your mind
drift freely without focusing on anything.
3. Remove the headphones and relax for a
while.
Energy Balance: Body
Awakening
For this process, the term "energy" actually
means anything you feel in your body. This includes any sense
of warmth, tingling, vibration, flow, aliveness or
emotion.
1. Scan your body with your mind. Notice where you feel
the most and least energy in your body. If you draw a
blank, notice obvious feelings such as the air moving
through your nose, the feeling of sitting or lying on the
surface you are on, etc.
2. Notice the area in your body where you are the least
aware of anything. If it's hard to choose, select any
area in your back.
3. Notice where your not-very-feeling area meets an area
in your body where you feel something (energy, or something
obvious.) In other words, just like you can visit the
boundary between two countries, focus your mind on the
boundary between the more energized or feeling area, and
the less energized or less feeling area.
4. Notice another area of feeling or energy that meets
the not-so-feeling area. Focus on where these areas meet,
just like you did for the first meeting or boundary
area.
5. Imagine that you can place your awareness on both of
those meeting places. This is like focusing on the
boundaries on two sides of a country that has a country on
each side of it, when the country in the middle has it's
lights turned off.
6. Invite those meeting places to soften up, invite them
to allow the energy or feeling from the feeling areas to
flow across the not-so-feeling areas. Keep inviting this
and watch what happens.
7. If nothing happens after three minutes, end the
exercise or simply relax for three minutes before ending
the exercise. (And try it again another day.)
8. If you begin to get energy or feeling into the area,
continue as long as you like. When you feel ready, invite
the energy to circulate through your body. Invite it to
give you a feeling of balance throughout your body.
9. Imagine that some of this energy expands from your
body to form a well-knit wetsuit (like surfers wear.)
Imagine that it can hold your energy in just the right
shape to help you feel balanced. Imagine it sends energy
into all your organs and bones, which focus and circulate
it through your body.
10. Enjoy this (for three minutes the first time you do
it) until you feel finished. Then remove the headphones and
relax for a while.
Solution Seeding: Unconscious
Resources
This exercise is intended to help you program your
subconscious mind to work on a problem in the background
while you do other activities. It elicits the resources of
both brain hemispheres to generate intuitive, creative ideas
and insights.
1. Before listening to the recording, select a problem
to work on. Review the details: your desires, discomforts,
and resources that may pertain to the problem.
2. Listen to the recording for one minute while you
focus on the problem, and the side to side movement of the
sounds. Don't engage in any willful mental activity or
problem solving. Let any thoughts, feelings or images
simply flow through your mind without engaging them.
3. Notice how you can shift you awareness from thoughts
you have about the problem, to feelings you have about it.
Shift back and forth for one minute.
4. (Skip this step the first time through this
exercise.) Ask yourself, "What would be the best way I
could feel, that would being out the best in me for this
problem, whatever the answer may be." Search for any
hint of that feeling and invite it to come to the
foreground and amplify. Focus on that feeling for one
minute.
5. Ask your mind to give you an image that somehow comes
from the problem. Don't push it, just invite it and
wait.
6. If one comes, notice everything you can about it. If
no image comes, relax and end the exercise when you
wish.
7. Invite the image to gradually change into an image
that will somehow be more useful to you. Don't push it,
just invite it and wait.
8. If it shifts, notice the details. If it doesn't
shift, ask your subconscious to create a good shift in how
you understand the problem, and to do this in the
background as you go about your day. Do the exercise again
and you are likely to see progress.
9. Allow your mind to drift in the background tones for
a little while.
10. Remove the headphones and trust that your
subconscious mind will continue to work on the problem in
the background.
EMDR-Inspired Self-Reprocessing
This is a basic reprocessing exercise. Done regularly,
however, it may provide more progress than you would expect.
Read it through a couple of times before doing it.
1. Do not start listening to the recording until are
instructed to (in step four). However, you should listen to
make sure in advance that the headphones are playing, that
the volume is low, and that both sides are alternating. The
player must be able to play in stereo (allowing the sound
to pan from side to side). This way, you will be prepared
to put the headphones on and begin listening.
2. Select a "target" for your awareness. It
can be a mildly troubling memory such as a minor
embarrassment or irritation, it can be a physical tension
from stress, or a feeling of being stressed, impatient or
ashamed. Do not select anything too serious or disturbing,
or anything connected with experiences that were traumatic
or were very hard on your self esteem.
3. Focus your awareness on the target with no
expectation or purpose in mind. If you find yourself doing
more than that, simply stop and pay attention to the
target.
4. Begin listening to the recording. Spend about thirty
seconds following the sound with your awareness while, as
best you can, keeping the target in your awareness as
well.
5. Mentally scan your body and notice any changes. If
the first target has come to feel more intense, go back and
repeat the two-steps of following the sound while paying
attention to the target as in the last step, and then
scanning your body, until the sensation is less
intense.
However, if you think you may become too uncomfortable,
or you don't sense that the target will become less
intense, then end the exercise and take some time to relax.
In the future, select a less disturbing target.
6. Once the target feels less intense, or you simply
feel finished, end the exercise and give yourself some time
to contemplate the experience.
7. After you have done this exercise twice, add these
steps before ending the exercise: See if there is another
target (thought, memory or sensation) that has come forward
and seems to be related to the first target. Make this your
new target and focus on the sound as in steps four and
five.
8. Spend a minute imagining what it might be like if you
were in the perfect state of mind to cope most effectively
with the issue according to the highest values and
compassion.
9. Process any targets that arise from the previous step
just as you have the other targets as in steps four and
five.
10. If you wish, allow your mind to relax and flow. When
you are ready, end the exercise and give yourself some time
to contemplate the experience.
You can learn more about, and hear free samples of the Sounds for Inner Space™ bilateral recordings here
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© Robert Yourell, 2004
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