The Mickel Therapy Clinic, Auckland, Mickel Therapy - contact Kim or book a session
by Dr David Mickel
At least, we feel too little of those creative emotions from which a good life springs"
Bertrand Russell
There are many people who think that the relationship between thinking and feeling is a pretty straightforward one-way affair; we think then we feel, or to put it another way, we have some thoughts and these cause or create feelings. Of course, an entire therapeutic industry is built on the idea that if you simply change how you think you can change how you feel, and ultimately change your whole world. However, our experience in the field of Mickel Therapy, working with chronic debilitating disorders suggests that this is not actually the case.
An example recently given on this idea was that if someone were to call you stupid you only begin to feel anything when you say to yourself, “I’m stupid” (or maybe “I’m stupid and I’ll never amount to anything”). The example goes on to suggest that if you choose to think, “I’m not stupid at all really”, then whatever you feel will be completely different – in fact, you may feel nothing at all. We believe this to be untrue.
While Mickel Therapy recognises that there is a relationship between thinking and feeling, the one-way causal relationship model does not satisfactorily explain many phenomena evident in health today. The Mickel Therapy model of e-motion, however, takes a fresh look at how e-motion is generated and maintained, and effectively explains how ‘dis-ease’ states are created.
Before we look in more detail at this model, let us first define thought as something cognitive; something that takes place in your head and probably manifests itself as words and pictures.
In explaining how e-motion arises, the Mickel Therapy model suggests that, in concurrence with quantum theory, everything is simply energy vibrating, constantly moving, constantly shifting and therefore constantly influencing the energy of everything around it. When a person is in a particular environment, there is an energy that makes up that environment, and that energy will influence the individual at a cellular level without any thought processes.
This influence will be a transfer of energy from the environment into the individual’s physical body. When this happens the cells of the body are affected and this results in the production of a wave of energy – primary e-motion. This is generated independently of thinking or conscious intervention. We’ve all had the experience of being at a party or a sporting event, or contrastingly at a funeral or somewhere where people are arguing or fighting. Even without direct involvement we can recognise that we feel very different in these environments – they all have a very different energy and this energy affects us. Conventional wisdom would say that this was due to the thoughts we had about each situation but the Mickel Therapy model believes this to be secondary and not the cause of the primary e-motions that we experience.
So we could argue that because energy is constantly moving, there is a constant transfer and our bodies are responding by constantly producing primary emotions – all be it they may be very small in many cases. Because everyone is ‘wired’ in a slightly different way, the primary emotions experienced in a given situation will vary slightly from person to person.
In order for us to successfully navigate through life our cells cleverly ‘remember’ energetically those environments and their respective energies. This concept of state dependent memory was discussed in the previous ezine on memories.
If we go back to our example where some rather unkind person calls you stupid, in that moment the transfer of energy will result in the production of some primary e-motions such as hurt and anger in the body before you have time to think.
So the first part of our model states that the energy of a given environment will interact with our own energy and primary e-motion will result in the body and immediately alter the cells’ function at a vibrational level. Prolonged missed primary e-motions as described will then lead over time to the production of symptoms of ‘dis-ease’.
For those of you reading who believe you’ve had thoughts followed by feelings, the second part of our model explains this experience.
Whenever primary e-motion is created within the body it floods through to affect our thinking processes where it is labeled and put into context.
We mentioned earlier that the body remembers things ‘energetically’. Thinking about past contexts has the capability to re-trigger old stored emotions – this explains why you can think of a past memory and recreate some of the associated feelings. These are called secondary e-motions. What frequently happens with the thinking part is that it involves dipping into the past or future, creating scenarios or making judgments. When this happens e-motions are retriggered. Sufferers of energy disorders often experience these as e-motions about symptoms or the ramifications of having symptoms.
So the secondary e-motion is merely a re-triggering of an old emotion that has been usefully ‘remembered’ in our cells. To put it another way, thinking is a result or roll-on effect of primary e-motion – so the more primary e-motions building up inside the body the more you are likely to be churning unhelpful thinking patterns, which in turn can churn up secondary e-motions making the situation worse.
However, any attempt to change thinking patterns or cognitions/perceptions is futile as it works on effects without dealing with the cause – and it’s likely to be a lot of work because as long as the primary e-motions are evident then thinking patterns will remain and the effect of primary e-motions on our cells will be maintained.
This idea could be represented as below:
Put simply primary e-motion comes before thinking. Taking appropriate action on that e-motion avoids the need for any attention to thoughts/cognitions or perceptions. So the key is to keep life simple, reflect your attention to what is going on outside of you, and what primary e-motions are created in response to those situations and environments. Then choose a constructive but authentic action in response to your primary e-motions.
“Trust your feelings. Be loyal to them. Don’t betray them.
Robert C. Pollock