Category Archives: Emotions & Behaviour

Facial Expressions Convey Feelings

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We know facial expressions convey feelings. Key facial expressions are universally recognized as expressing specific feelings or emotions, whether you are young or old, from the city or country, from developed nations or the untamed jungle.

We form impressions of the people we encounter. We take in their posture, their gait, their gestures, and we see their facial expressions. All contribute to conveying their energy levels and their feelings.

Every waking minute that we are in the presence of someone, we come up with a constant stream of inferences and insights about what that person is thinking or feeling.

When we meet someone new, we often pick up on subtle signals, so that afterwards, even though they may have spoken in a normal and friendly manner, we may say, “Something’s not right there,” or “I don’t think she’s very happy.”

What is it that we instinctively recognize? What are we reading on an unconscious level that gives us a sense of other emotions underlying the seemingly polite and socially acceptable facial expression? Is it real or is it put on?

When we get it right and read the facial expression accurately it helps us understand where the person is at, be appropriate to build rapport and interact effectively. When we get it wrong and misread the facial expressions, this can easily lead to misunderstandings, hurt feelings, accusations, arguments and disagreements.

Silvan Tomkins worked as a handicapper for a horse racing syndicate during the Depression. He spent hours staring at horses through binoculars. Tomkins believed that faces, even the faces of horses, held valuable clues to inner emotions and motivations, and he learned how to predict behaviour and outcomes from his observations.

He had a system for predicting how a horse would do in a race, based on what horse was on either side of him, and on their emotional relationship. His prediction rates were impressive and lucrative. If a male horse, for instance, had lost to a mare in his first or second year, he would do poorly if he went to the gate with a mare next to him in the line up.

Tomkins was honing his ability to read facial expressions and graduated in Psychology at University of Pennsylvania.

Charles Darwin noted in his book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals: ” ...the young and old people of widely different races, both with man and animals, express the same state of mind by the same movements.”

Silvan Tomkins later did his postdoctoral studies in Philosophy at Harvard and joined the Psychological Clinic staff in 1937. He went on to teach psychology at Princeton University’s Department of Psychology and Rutgers and became a much quoted author.

Over the years his ability to read faces and the emotions that created the facial expressions became renowned. He could say what crimes various fugitives had committed from looking at their police photos, could pick people who were lying on TV shows, watched interviews of political candidates, including Bill Clinton, and could give predictions of the outcomes.

So what was it that Silvan Tomkins could see and read accurately in faces? What does our facial expression relay to others? Why would a past win or lose experience, or which horse is in the next box, make a difference to the performance of a horse at a race? How does all this relate to humans?

These are some of the questions we explore in Dynamic Communications Program to uncover the secrets how facial expressions communicate emotions and how you can benefit by reading faces accurately.

Join the Program now and get access to more insights to increase your awareness . When you join the Program you’ll be excited with the results you’ll achieve because it will benefit you, your business, and your family in ways you can’t imagine – till you attend.

If you missed the start date on 29th April find out how to catch up. Contact me straight away by email: anna@annamcrobert.com.au
Cheers
Anna

Facial Muscles Express Feelings AND Create Feelings

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If facial muscles express feelings AND create feelings, then can we choose how we want to feel and arrange our face muscles so we feel joy instead of sadness, peace instead of anger, confidence instead of fear? Is that possible?

Paul Ekman is a psychologist, researcher and author, and is a pioneer in the study of emotions and their relationship to facial expressions. He showed that facial expressions of emotion are not culturally determined, but universal across human cultures and thus biological in origin. This was contrary to the widely held view in the anthropology world prior to his work.

How did he decide that these facial expressions communicate the same emotion no matter where you were raised?

In early 1960s Paul Ekman was a young psychologist just out of graduate school. He was Silvan Tomkins’ pupil in studying faces and had completed his PhD in Clinical Psychology at the Adelphi University, New York in 1958. Ekman traveled to Japan, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, to remote tribes in jungles in Papua New Guinea, carrying photographs of men and women making a variety of distinctive facial expressions. To his amazement everywhere he went, people agreed on what those expressions meant.

The universal expressions Ekman tested over many cultures are:
fear, anger, disgust, happiness, sadness, surprise.

Ekman proved that Tomkins was right and facial expressions of emotion are not culturally determined, but universal across human cultures and so are biological in origin.

Babies as young as two weeks old smile at the sound of their mother’s voice. Within a few months a baby will pull faces and show disgust in reaction to bitter or sour tastes. Even blind or disabled children smile with happiness, show disgust, cry, glare with anger.

Facial Muscles Express Feelings and Create Feelings
When Paul Ekman and Wallace Friesen were working on expressions of anger and disgust they had an unexpected experience leading to new insights. They were cataloging which muscles were involved in various facial expressions. This meant making those expressions themselves, over and over, while watching in the mirror and watching each other.

“What we discovered is that expression alone is sufficient to create marked changes in the autonomic nervous system. When this first occurred, we were stunned. We weren’t expecting this at all. And it happened to both of us. We felt terrible,” reports Ekman.

They were actually experiencing the emotions as they repeatedly made the facial expressions as they learned to activate one muscle at a time and then groups of muscles for more complex emotions. When generating the facial expression of anger the heartbeat went up by ten to twelve beats, circulation increased in the hands, which become really hot. This was stunning to the scientists.

Pulling Faces Increases Heart Rate
To check their findings, Paul Ekman, Wallace Friesen and Robert Levenson set up an experiment with volunteers hooked up to monitors for measuring their heart rate and body temperature. Half the volunteers were asked to remember and relive a particularly stressful experience. The other half of the volunteers were told which muscles to activate, to pull faces, to create the facial expressions that corresponded to emotions, such as anger, sadness and fear.

The results showed the second group of people, who were pulling faces, arranging their muscles without specific emotional input, registered the same physiological responses, the same heightened heart rate and body temperature, as the first group who were recalling a particularly stressful experience. Voluntarily “putting on” an expression can actually create the associated emotional reaction in the body, and of course, change the biochemistry too.

The findings clearly point to the two-way nature of emotions. We can be chatting easily and with pleasure over a coffee, till someone mentions a specific topic or person or event that is stressful to us, and immediately the emotional reaction kicks in, changes the facial expression and activates the physiology of the body.

We have all experienced that at some time in our life. “Why did you have to bring that up? I was having a pleasant time till then.” The reaction comes unbidden, and totally displaces the pleasure of the chat. No doubt the face muscles say it all, even without the words. But we can also start with a particular facial expression and the physiology of our body will change to match. That’s worth checking out for yourself. It’s actually a powerful self help strategy in times of need.

Which Comes First
You could expect that the experience, feeling let down, rejected or disappointed, tired or exhausted, all associated with a drop of energy, would came first, then the hang-dog facial look to express the emotional feeling follows almost instantaneously. But if you feel fine and spend time with a depressed friend or family member and show your concern and rapport by mirroring their expression you could end up feeling as low as they do. Uugg!

Whichever comes first, if we keep holding the hang-dog look we keep feeling low. The face is communicating the emotional state and it’s also creating and maintaining that low feeling. It becomes self-perpetuating. If we can create the feeling, can we un-create it? Can we put on a smile and change our biochemistry? Is this a case of fake it till you make it?

The Solution
One thing is for sure. In terms of Chinese meridian system, activating and using different muscles in the face and body will help to promote meridian energy flow needed for change. And of course, if you don’t move your face muscles, you are not pumping the circulation to bring oxygen and nutrients to face cells, nor clearing the lymphatic wastes products, so tissues progressively more stagnant.

A Touch For Health Goal Balance can support making the shift from low energy to higher energy and better lymphatic flow. Facial Harmony also is a gentle way to release emotions held in the face muscles. Make an appointment to experience the shift for yourself.
Cheers
Anna

Communication in Challenging Situations

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We are indeed remarkable beings. But that doesn’t mean its plain sailing or easy at times. Each of us is here to learn, earn, grow, achieve, contribute, within our local community, and beyond on a broader basis. And through all life experiences communication in challenging situations can easily create rifts and emotional pain.

No doubt you have discovered that often it is within our family situation that we have our greatest challenges. But as we master relationships and communications at home we often have the template to contribute at school, at work, and with people of varied cultures from round the world.

One of our biggest challenges is to create harmony and mutual growth among family members. Each person will have their own values and priorities at various stages of life. And also, we start with genetically built in preferences and behaviours, which further complicates matters to the n-th degree at times.

We are familiar with opposites:
– introvert versus extravert
– talks constantly versus rarely speaks
– lots of detail versus bottom line
– never gets to the point verses only sees a point in the point.

When there is no one else to consider, we suit ourselves of course. There is no need for conflict and negotiations. However at work we need to consider the team and harness everyone’s effort to pull in the same direction at the same time, at least some of the time.
It’s the same at home. Some tasks or projects will be a group effort and require group co-operation, working as a family team with a reward the whole family appreciates. Some projects will be for self, for self-expression, for self-exploring, for self-development, to then bring what you learn into the team to the benefit of all.

So what do you do when you feel answering questions or including others needs feels like an imposition, a waste of your time, an intrusion, or unproductive?

I guess it depends on the purpose and who is being fulfilled:
– you yourself by getting on with what suits you
– or the person you want to encourage to increase their confidence
– or the person with whom you want to cement your bond.

It takes a conscious choice in the specific situation. You choose whose fulfillment is the priority to you at the time, in that circumstance, the spouse or partner, the child, the friend, or colleague, the boss or yourself. You get to choose, once you are aware there is a choice.
And also, you will be responsible for the consequences of your choice, that is the outcome that follows from the choice you made on which behaviour to adopt. One of the simplest ways to handle this kind of situation is to include the other party in your truth.

“I’m in a conflict here. I can see what you want to have happen and I have a different preference from you. So I’m not sure how to proceed so we can both be OK. Can you see a way to make it work for both of us?”
Or
“As much as I can relate to what you would like to have happen, right now I have a different priority and can’t accommodate your need this time. Can you cope with that for now? We can have another look at options a little down the track.”
Or
“I see what you are wanting. I have a different preference for myself, but to achieve our common goal, I am prepared to go your way. If the circumstances change I may come back to this point again and reconsider options. Is that OK?”

The Dynamic Communication Program specifically tackles those tricky occasions when having a deeper insight and effective strategies engaged from a balanced state can turn potential disaster into a win/win outcome.

Learn the magic of having the right tool for the right moment. Be at The Dynamic Communications Program and discover how communication in challenging situations can flow smoothly and productively.

If you missed the start date on 29th April find out how to catch up. Contact me straight away by email: anna@annamcrobert.com.au
Cheers
Anna

The Face Is A Goldmine Of Communication

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Silvan Tomkins, psychologist, personality theorist, author, with a PhD in Philosophy, believed that faces held valuable clues to inner emotions and motivations and could predict behaviour.

Paul Ekman, a pupil of Tomkins, found the face is an enormously rich source of information about emotion. He claimed the information on our face is not just a signal of what is going on inside our mind, it actually is what is going on in our mind. The facial expression is a goldmine of communication, both conscious and unconscious.

The key universal emotions, validated by Ekman’s research with people from different cultures round the world, are fear, anger, disgust, happiness, sadness, surprise.

So we are likely to recognize each of these facial expressions of feelings, but there are time when the facial expression and what we say do not match, because what we are saying is not what we are feeling.

What Happens When We Lie
Put simply, there are times we lie. Whether it is just wanting to be polite, or to cover up a mistake or to avoid creating a scene, facial expressions can give it all away, without your even knowing it. You might say, “Thank you, that was lovely,” or “Nice meeting you,” when you don’t feel that at all.

Whenever you experience a basic key emotion, that emotion is automatically expressed by the muscles of the face – it’s involuntary so can betray what you want to hide. That expression may be on your face for just a fraction of a second, just a flash. You may immediately use your voluntary muscles to try to suppress the involuntary reaction when you want to hide our true feelings, but the truth is already out.

Ekman reported on facial micro-expressions which could be used to assist in lie detection. Videos slowed down to frame-by-frame viewing clearly capture the fleeting involuntary facial expression that betrays the automatic reaction and the immediate recovery using consciously controlled muscles to hide the existence of the original expression.

That micro expression may be too fast for most viewers to pick out consciously but the amazing thing is that the subconscious can and does register it. That’s why we can get a sense that something is not right, not congruent, even if we can’t put our finger on why we have that feeling. So pay attention to your instincts on this. Your instincts can be spot on.

Dr David Craig wrote Lie Catcher and collated just what to look for to pick when someone is lying to you. Developing your eye to notice key tell tale signs can make all the difference between being taken for a ride or getting someone you can trust in a business deal, between knowing when your kids are going to visit friends versus slipping into town, or hiring the right person for the job who can do what they say they can. David Craig’s book provides clear photos of the facial expressions and body language that are a give away when all is not as open and honest in communications as others would have your believe.

And it may make you more aware of your own facial expressions too. When you are in two minds about something, it can show. When you are holding something back, it can show. When you are covering up, it can show. The face is a goldmine of communication and honesty may well be the best policy.

We are not always aware of our expression, yet others observing us can notice. “You look upset,” may be countered with “I’m not upset, just thinking,” and quickly the topic is changed to distract from further prying. So what we may think was hidden from others may not be so.

An incongruent reply, where the face and body language say one thing and the words another, can throw doubt on your truthfulness, create distrust in communications, and block open and effective communication from there on. Your facial muscles express feelings and create feelings that are real.

How can you avoid creating distrust, and how can you repair the damage and continue to build rapport? These questions can be answered in the Dynamic Communications Program. Attend now and learn more
.
If you missed the start date on 29th April find out how to catch up. Contact me straight away by email: anna@annamcrobert.com.au or phone 07-3378 2050
Cheers
Anna

Eye Language and Body Language Say More Than Words

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I was reading an article (in U on Sunday, January 29, 2012) based on an interview with Dr David Craig about his book Lie Catcher, released late 2011 in Australasia.

David is called in at times to be a human lie detector. He has honed his ability over many years and collated is knowledge and experience in his book. Though both eye language and body language say more than words, David focuses on eyes as one tool particularly useful for lie detection. “It’s as if your brain and eyes are hard-wired together and when the brain is put under pressure, the eyes reveal it,” David Craig writes in his book.

Actually, the Brain and Eyes are One
There’s no “as if” about it. The eyes are a physical extension of the brain itself. In the early stages in the womb when the embryo is progressively forming, the eyes begin as dark spots on the tiny brain in the seventh week of pregnancy. The spots progressively become little buds that grow to balls and are slowly pushed forward on the end of the optic nerve, looking like balls on sticks.

Your eyes are actually an extension of your brain and are created from the same layer of the neural tube that becomes your brain and your nervous system. It is amazing how, with today’s technology, we can track every stage of development in the womb, from conception to birth, learning from nature the miracle occurring at every step.

Every nerve impulse that goes to your brain also registers in the fibres of your iris. This is why iridology can be used to analyze the state of functional health. Your eyes are on the same communication loop between body and brain. The fibres in the iris respond to the every nerve signals that your organs sent to your brain.

Overactive organs send lots of signals to the brain causing the fibres in the iris to be pulsed forward, towards the surface of the iris, which makes that area look white. When an organ is underactive it sends fewer or feeble signals to the brain and the corresponding fibres in the iris don’t get stimulated to move forward, can even drop back deeper than surrounding fibres, so the area looks darker. Your health can be read by looking at your iris and the arrangement and patterns of fibres. And your stress level too can be read in your iris.

Another way to pick up what pleases or displeases, delights or distresses is to watch for changes in the pupil. Your pupil is not static. It will contract when you look at something you don’t like and open wider to let in more light when you see something you do like. Just watch a woman looking at the latest fashions or at jewelry. The items that appeal to her will “light up her eyes” and often her whole face. Your emotions are reflected in your eyes.

Learn more about this in Dynamic Communications Program.

Eyes Reveal Brain At Work
Dr David Craig says that a lie can be revealed by changes in eye contact, in blink rate and eye movement. “Liars may look away briefly as they tell a fib to break eye contact, but may also try to disguise their guilt by looking back quickly, for example. A rule of thumb is that if a right-handed person is recalling something that has already happened, they will look to your right, their left. If they are creating something in their mind, something not seen or heard before, they will look to your left, their right.”

So when you are watching the eyes you are watching the brain working.

Important Insights in Communications
What David Craig is referring to is the way the brain is set up. Most people store their memories in pictures for later retrieval. Complete or whole memories are stored in the right brain as pictures. Eyes that flick up left are referencing a picture in right brain. Just watch the kids in a spelling quiz in TV programs and you will see lots of eye flicks going up left as they confidently spell out a known and visually recalled word.

The left brain is active when we are building up a picture piece by piece so don’t know what the whole looks like as yet. Eyes right activates left brain and step by step thinking, and eyes left activates right brain to flash up a whole picture of an existing representation of an event or reference.

Learn more about this in Three In One Concepts program Basic One Brain.

Experiment
Check out eye/brain connection with this experiment: Ask someone to tell you about an enjoyable occasion, a special dinner, a sports event or a holiday. Watch their eyes and note which direction they look often while telling you about the event. A right-handed person will look up left to access their right brain.

Now ask them to tell you 3 things they did last week and to make one of them a lie. Note eye movements and look for the event where the eye movements are different from those when telling you about the past recalled events.
Some people look straight ahead and defocus when they access pictures from the past. That makes it a bit harder to pick the lie from the truth.

But you might notice a different blink rate or their voice tone may change or the rate at which they speak may speed up or slow down. An answer given more slowly is being considered more carefully. More on this is covered in Dynamic Communications Program too.
Lie detection is far from a precise science says David Craig. “Even with MRIs (magnetic resonance imaging) and sophisticated machinery, you cannot tell. The polygraph has been disproved many times. Its accuracy depends heavily on how questions are framed.” It seems people are still better than machines at picking a lie.

Learn More About Dynamic Communication
Lie detection is not on my agenda to teach, but Dynamic Communications is on my teaching agenda and is coming up next month. Language of the eye movements, the way body “speaks” through gesture and other movement is the language we all learned first, before we learned to understand and use words. It’s in your subconscious to a greater or lesser degree. You can learn how to bring it up into conscious awareness and gain an enormous advantage in all communications is what you learn in Dynamic Communications program.

How to read “between the lines” or hear more than the words is invaluable in all human communications and is another part of the course.
In day-to-day communications we often get clues that “something doesn’t add up.” We may be getting mixed messages, several agendas at play, with the eyes and body saying one thing the words another. You will learn how to decipher that.

There’s more. Have you ever felt uneasy when listening to someone, not sure you can trust what they say yet you can’t put your finger on why something doesn’t sit right for you? Can you recall a time when you were aware of tension between people even though nothing was being acknowledged as a problem or issue? Did you ever see a person smiling but you knew it wasn’t real? How did you pick that? And how did others miss it?

Stress Communicates Itself
Communication is both verbal and non-verbal. Words are only about 7% of any communication. Your body language and voice tone and tempo are the other 93% and often speak much more loudly than the words. When words are not congruent with what you see and hear beyond the words, that incongruence will need some exploring to get the whole truth behind the words.

Secrets You Can Learn
Through Dynamic Communications Program you can learn many secrets that help you decipher the different layers in a communication. One challenge in communication with others is associated with making sure that what you thought you said is the same as what they think they heard.

Communication occurs on multiple layers simultaneously, on conscious and subconscious levels. The Dynamic Communications Program reveals the layers, shows you what to look for, how to read and interpret what you see and hear, and become aware of what you may have missed in the past. Take advantage of attending this course to have a big advantage “up your sleeve” when communicating daily and especially in sticky situations. (see notice attached to February News)

Eye language and body language say more than words. Learn what they are saying.
Cheers
Anna

Why Do We Lie?

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I was amazed to read that statistical research shows that the average person will tell a lie every 10 minutes!!! What? That can’t be true, can it? If it is, how can we ever trust anyone, even our self?

So, why would we lie? Why do we lie? What’s the purpose of a lie? Do we even recognize we are lying?

Hmmm! It seems lying is a “normal” part of human communication. That means it’s so prevalent that we consider it the norm in our society and don’t even notice it or question it. Actually, there are times we believe we have to, must, are required to … lie.

“Do you like my new dress/hair cut/ lipstick?” Now how would you answer that one? “Does my butt look big in this?” “I don’t want to talk with her/him right now so just tell them I’m with a client/unavailable/at a meeting.”

I guess your answer will depend … on your relationship with me and whether you want to bolster my confidence in the choices I make and avert a meltdown, or want to avoid a hostile or defensive reaction, or are choosing to continue building rapport with me, or want to continue the business relationship we have currently.

We lie. We might not call it a lie. Well, maybe just a white lie. We will lie for a whole heap of reasons we consider acceptable. Some of these might be to justify and explain our choices, to avoid embarrassment, to reinforce, to impress, to expand and embellish, to sound interesting, to appear knowledgeable, to gain an advantage, to avoid punishment, to protect privacy, to engage our creativity, to sweeten someone’s mood, to distract a fractious child, to redirect, to sidestep a discussion, to shift focus … and on and on it goes.

Not All Lies Are “Bad”
So not all lies are bad. Much of “getting along” with members of our society involves telling lies of some kind. Otherwise we could never celebrate Santa Clause at Christmas. I have to say I really thought about not starting the Santa annual visit lie with my first-born. However, we were staying with my in-laws that first Christmas and my mum-in-law simply introduced him to their family traditions – and my son got to believed in Santa – as least for a few years. I still don’t know when he twigged getting presents from Santa was a lie.

So some lies are condoned and even encouraged as being traditional. If we don’t go along with it we could easily be considered to be un-imaginative, too real, too literal, too practical, too one dimensional, too direct, too blunt, too inconsiderate, too difficult, too something.
Do we need more than a “grain of salt” when listening to, or telling lies? Should we take this “convention of lying” into account? Maybe some lies can also be called myths, fairytales, make-believe, pretending, or delusions.

“Lies” are often part of a ritual, an accepted convention. “How are you?” “I’m fine thanks.” It’s only a greeting not a real enquiry into your health state and the reply to that may be far from the truth. Each culture will have some of these conventions. Some of these overlap many cultures and people can feel insulted or put out when convention is not followed.

Intended Benefits
The question remains “acceptable to whom” and “for the purpose of what?” Many of these lies would be considered as told “with good intention, for the benefit of the recipient, the relationship, or even for self.”
An example might be, “I give others a compliment because it makes me feel good.” Whether they choose to respond by feeling good too is beside the point. They can enjoy the compliment or deny or ignore it, but I still feel good.
But I can also give a compliment so that the other person feels good, even when it makes no difference to how I feel as a result of extending the compliment. I might simple see it as a fact, an acknowledgement of their ability or their achieved outcomes.

Convention Can Be A Trap Or A Barrier
Problems occur when I feel I have no choice but to lie as expected by convention or other people’s personal rules or beliefs. Now I might ruffle some feathers if I am truthful or I might feel trapped if I don’t tell the truth. How many of us were told as children, “don’t be rude,” when we said, “that person is fat.” Did we learn to lie too well? Are we still obeying our parents’ rules even as we become grandparents our selves? Is that a good thing? Does the younger generation respect us for continuing to lie? Or do they accept convention as a good thing?

There is much to ponder.

Male/Female Lies
Some are “between gender” lies. An example is when a female asks her special male, “Does my butt look good in these?” Now, every male will know that you are dammed if you say “yes” and “dammed” if you say “no.” Savvy men will know the safest thing is to say, “Darling, your butt always looks good to me,” whether it’s the truth or not.

Some Lies Are Harmful And Criminal
Of course, some lies are not benign. They are told with negative intent aimed at the receiver. They are intended to hurt, to damage, to mislead, to trick, to embezzle, to hide, to sensationalize, to undermine, to out-compete, to destroy, to shame, to get back at, and a whole lot more. Newspapers and magazines fill their pages with these, and courtrooms are full of the fall out of these intentional lies, twisted truths, and omissions, in business dealings and in personal relationships.

I can’t even begin to talk about right or wrong. Because the next question is “Right for whom?” “Wrong for whom?” “According to whom?” “In what circumstances”? That’s what the lawyers make their money from and what court judges have to preside over and decide – according to an interpretation of a specific law.

It can be tricky and the results may not be seen by all as being “fair” or “just.”
In our personal life we must decide our own values, including when to “lie”, if to “lie”, when to use convention, when to go against it, when to be direct, when to be discrete, when to withdraw, when to speak up. Our values and decisions may not suit everyone in our circle and we will have to deal with any repercussions.

So we need to look at the guidelines and rules passed down to us, check which are still valid, which need upgrading, and add any new ones that relate to our much-changed society. Often a kinesiology energy balance to release the stress and have clarity for self can be helpful.

Obviously what we communicate and how we communicate it takes insight, skill and understanding. Dynamic Communication is the program set up specifically to meet this need and to help you do that with grace and power.

In Health Care
It’s not just in our personal and work life that we need guidelines and rules.
So is it any wonder that every health care modality must have their “rules” well defined as to what constitutes “ethical behaviour” and for the registration of suitably “qualified” members.

This is usually concluded in consultation with the legal representatives and association members of a modality. Australian Kinesiology Association And Australian Institute of Kinesiology are in the throes of this process right now. It is essential that our clients feel well cared for by people who have been trained for this purpose and can apply their training competently.

Also at this time, natural therapy modalities are aiming to come together under an umbrella to become a united voice in lobbying government and other bodies regarding the acceptance of natural therapies as being a valid choice for people in terms of their health. This is the task of the newly formed The Natural Medicine and Therapies Registration Board, the NM&TRB.

I take my hat off to everyone involved. Both individual association tasks and the umbrella body tasks are daunting yet necessary for our natural health care industry to move forward and continue to provide the choice more and more people are looking for today.
Cheers
Anna

PS. Dynamic Communication is essential for healthy, strong, and balanced relationships with your self, your family and in your work place. Communication training is a requirement for Advanced Registered Kinesiologists with AKA and for Diploma in Kinesiology at various registered colleges.

Dynamic Communication Program will be available in Brisbane Tuesday nights, 6.30pm to 9.30pm over ten weeks scheduled to begin 6th March. (See February Newsletter to register)

Low Back Pain – the Emotional Cause

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You’ve done your best to sort out the physical side of your low back pain, yet the pain persists. Now what? As with all pain, low back pain can have an emotional cause. A persistent stressful thought or attitude can keep the pain active.

The word “emotion” explains what is actually happening. E-motion is energy in motion. Your painful emotions create energy movement resulting in physical changes in your body that can create physical pain. These changes can range from barely discernable to obvious and extreme, from tension as muscles tighten up, to going “weak in the knees” as muscles just collapse, from posture a little off centre to totally displaced, from a slight discomfort to severe pain.

Pain is a warning. Something is not right. Low back pain can be the result of cumulative influences that have put strain or demand on the low back muscles. What you do to correct that and be pain free depends on what caused the pain in the first place. Previously we considered some physical causes of low back pain and what to do to resolve that. So now lets look at low back pain and the emotional cause.

We talk of a broken heart, having a gut full, of being torn apart, feeling unsupported or let down. Our language is full of sayings of emotions being powerfully experienced in specific parts of the body causing physical distress and pain. We commonly acknowledge that emotional pain goes with physical pain, and that psychosomatic refers to the psyche, the mind, and soma, the body, so we know through our own experiences that the two are linked.

Yet in the medical world solutions are primarily aimed at treating all pain as if from a physical cause, using medication or surgery.

Scientific Breakthrough
Candace Pert, world famous scientist and author of Molecules of Emotion, has done the groundbreaking research to show how our emotions and body interact. She shattered some cherished medical beliefs about emotions being experienced only in the brain, and went on to discover the scientific breakthrough that shows molecules set into motion by emotion have specific receptor sites throughout the body, not just in the brain. These emotion molecules dock in at cellular receptor sites and change the activity in the body organs, in the muscles and other structures, giving scientific credence to the truth that emotion can be experienced, as the saying goes, as “a pain in the neck,” among other places.

Her conclusion was that the body and mind are one, what happens in the brain is happening in the body too, something natural therapies practitioners have known and addressed in their practices for centuries.

Ancient Knowledge
Centuries before our Western scientists worked out that emotions can create physical pain the Chinese had already worked out a co-relation of which emotion effects which organ function and the influence on the meridian energy system. Traditional Chinese Medicine and acupuncture work with a system of energy pathways, meridians, that support all body functions, and with Five Element energy flow patterns of these meridians to understand where energy gets blocked when there is dis-ease or pain. They teach that pain is blocked energy and that releasing the energy block and reinstating flow will reduce the pain.

More recently, in the 60s George Goodheart, a curious and motivated chiropractor, looking for more ways to relieve pain, matched body muscles to meridian energy flow to organs, adding a further dimension to the Chinese traditional insights of organs and emotions. And so Applied Kinesiology was born and has spawned many expressions of kinesiology to give relief to human pain on all levels, physical, mental, emotional, and biochemical.

John Thie, a student and colleague of George Goodheart, created Touch For Health kinesiology to give every day people a way to work with and maintain their health and physical structure. He recognized we all need tools at our fingertips to deal with the day-to-day stresses of life. TFH has been taught round the world, and brought empower and relief to thousands of people.

Kinesiology works to reduce pain and aid healing because it taps into the body’s own resources, the meridian energy flow, the communication between body and brain through the nervous system and, as Candace Pert clearly identified and tracked, through the body’s biochemical messengers.
The word “tap” is very appropriate for Meridian energy balancing.

The dictionary states: tap – any device for controlling the flow of liquid from a pipe or the like by opening or closing an orifice. Acupuncture points are the entry to the energy flow lines, and acupuncture, acupressure, kinesiology neurolymphatic points, neurovascular points among other correction points can control the flow of energy through meridians, opening or closing special connections, increasing or reducing the energy flow, there by reducing pain effectively.

Fight or Flight Muscle Pattern
We are all familiar with fight or flight reaction to a life threat. Emotionally that is anger or fear. With anger the muscles of the upper body power up with extra energy and blood to physically fight, to defend or attack an enemy or opponent. With fear triggered the blood is primarily shunted to lower body so your legs can take off in flight, run from the enemy. Prolonged state of anger or fear will lead to muscle pain and internal organ disruption. But these are not the only emotions that are triggered up when pain is on line.

Each different emotion will produce its own pattern of energy use and muscle reactivity, redirecting energy from less needed muscles and focusing a concentration of energy in the muscles required for action.

Specific Emotions
Pain will trigger emotion in each of us. Unfamiliar pain may trigger fear or concern. A recurrence of an old pain may trigger dread of going through it all again. Long standing chronic pain can trigger frustration or anger that no solution has been found. Or it could trigger feeling sorry for self, that pain is an unfair burden. Or there may be guilt or regret over a lack of implementing lifestyle changes required to help sort out the pain. Certainly, pain can block joy.

The pain may be in the same area in different people yet be caused or exacerbated by different emotions. Each emotion will have its own pattern of under working muscles and over working muscles that shows in our posture and gait. This is the body language that we read to get a sense of how a person is feeling. The energy change occurs first, then the muscles show the distribution of energy with some muscles tensing up and others releasing.

Low Back Muscles
Muscles associated with low back pain, when related to Chinese Five Element meridians and emotions, tell their own story. The multilayered muscles each side of the spine are activated by Bladder Meridian and are affected by fear and anxiety. That’s your major back support and is often too tight and inflexible or not evenly balanced.

The psoas muscle, attached at the inner low spine and to the inner leg, is supported by kidney energy flow, and is also related to fear and anxiety. Another low back muscle, quadratus lumborum, allows you to bend sideways and is an indicator of large intestine energy flow, and goes with grief, guilt, regret.

These three muscles are all linked to elimination of body waste and toxic material. If we do not clear out the bladder and bowel regularly the concentrated toxic contents will create havoc producing health symptoms and pain in the low back. The corresponding emotions, fear, anxiety, dread, and grief, guilt, regret, can disturb the efficient elimination of the body, and conversely, poor elimination can predispose emotional sensitivity to fears and regrets.

And same as for when you do not eliminate toxic body matter, fear, anxiety, dread, grief, guilt, regret, elimination related emotions, can play havoc in your emotional wellbeing, affecting personal and work life. The emotion, the organ disruption, the stagnant meridian and the painful muscle are interconnected expressions of the same experience.

Other low back muscles relate to reproductive system, to blood sugar balance and their emotions and can also contribute to low back pain.

If the organ function is stagnant, the energy is stagnant and the emotions can be stagnant too. Stagnant means not enough movement, motionless, stale, sluggish, torpid, foul. When you face up to the emotion and move through it the meridian energy too moves freely again, supplying the elimination organs and clearing out physical waste, taking pressure of the organs and relieving the stress and pain in the low back.

There is no point in ignoring the wholistic nature of human beings. The best results are achieved when we address all three aspects, the physical, the mental/emotional, and the nutritional/biochemical. Addressing low back pain and the emotional cause is part of recovery.

“I’ve come to believe that virtually all illness, if not psychosomatic in foundation, has a definite psychosomatic component,” writes Candace Pert. And so does pain.

How do we address the emotional side of pain? This will be covered in a separate article.
Cheers
Anna

Are You Easily Offended?

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What gets under your skin? Are you easily offended?

We are interesting beings, each of us with our past individual experiences and family heritage as reference points of how to live this life. Often we don’t make sense to each other at all and are a complete mystery to ourselves. There are many clues to help unravel the mystery.

Lets look at the experience of being touchy, very sensitive, easily upset, often feeling offended. According to Bob Proctor, it is linked to humility. So what’s your definition of humility?

“True humility is believing the truth about who you are,” writes Bob Proctor. He says, “If you are easily offended you have a humility problem.”

I looked up the meaning of humility: deference, lowliness, meekness, modesty, obedience, self-abasement, servility, submissiveness, unpretentiousness. (Opposite was listed as: arrogance, assertiveness, pride)

I looked up the meaning of offend: hurt, annoy, displease, fret, insult, irritate, miff, outrage, pain, provoke, rile, snub, upset, wound, wrong. (the opposite was listed as: please)

If you are easily offended or even occasionally offended, it is worth exploring what that is about for you. Being offended leads to either getting angry at, or withdrawing and hiding from the “offender”.

Bob Proctor says, ”Being easily offended comes from comparing self with others.” Offended can mean feeling humiliated.

So I looked up humiliate: bring low, chasten, confound, crush, debase, deflate, discredit, disgrace, embarrass, humble, mortify, shame, subdue. (the opposite was listed as dignify, exalt, vindicate)

To take offense we feel, either inferior or superior, otherwise there would be no reaction just interaction. Reaction means re-enactment of a past feeling and its behaviour. It’s not new, has happened before, is an instantaneous replay, before any thought can occur. And the reaction can take us by surprise or be a regular and familiar occurrence.

So if you feel superior, above others, you may take offense if someone believes they are your equal, or actually value themselves or their ability more than yours, or whatever. If you feel inferior, below others, you can feel offended by everything you relate to as a criticism or put down of any kind. Feeling offended is always about relationship within self, it’s a feeling already in you waiting to be triggered.

Once triggered it’s the perfect opportunity to deal with feeling offended in a way that sets you free, so it no longer lives in you in an active form. It becomes part of your history, something you know about and lived in the past, a reference for compassion as others struggle with it, but it no longer carries charge, does not get under your skin.

Feeling offended for various reasons can be acknowledged, sorted, balanced, defused, dissolved, so it doesn’t control your behaviour. Kinesiology is a valuable tool to help you take charge, be proactive, create change, so you can choose how you want to be, how you want to behave and feel, instead of offended.

Feeling offended will always go with beliefs about self. Inferior and superior are flip sides of the same cause, the same issue. It’s all about measuring up against other people. Often we measure our self against others achievements, skills, abilities, talents or appearance. Measuring against others is about not believing that you have value and can bring value, not believing the truth of who you are. Its about believing you are more than or less than others, either superior or inferior compared with others.

Now we don’t all have the long legs of a long distance runner or a fashion model, or the voice of a famous singer, or the grace of a dancer, or the mind of an Einstein. So we are not all equal in those terms. But we’re not supposed to be. We are not supposed to be anyone else, only our unique self. And we have this lifetime to develop the uniqueness we are, to recognize our inbuilt strengths, to develop them into our personal power, choose which of our talents we can hone, and decide what we can practise until we achieve mastery in that area.

To be able to admire and enjoy the contribution of others while also acknowledging you yourself are growing and flowering and expanding the expressions of who you are and what you can contribute, is the life journey you, and all of us, take. It’s not about being like others. It’s about being your real, whole self.

Key belief to consider and embrace: we are each magnificent and life events give us endless opportunity to unravel the mystery of who we are, to discover and grow into that magnificence.

Have fun and enjoy being you.
Cheers
Anna

Friends Can Make You Fat

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What are friends for? And what are they not for? Do friends help you to be healthy? Or are your friends making you fat? This is a question science is researching and it pays to know the answers they are coming up with.

Back in 2007 social scientist Nicholas Christakis of Harvard University and Professor James Fowler of University of California San Diego, revealed that being fat is contagious, meaning you catch it through contact. Now that’s a bit astounding don’t you think?

And it’s not just your friends that can make you fat – their friends’ friends can too. So even three times removed from your immediate circle you can react by becoming fatter yourself. Really? That seems far fetched. How is this supposed to happen?

Well, these findings have been confirmed in multiple populations.

In 2009 Christakis and Fowler published their book Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives. They were following up with members of the famous Framingham Heart Study, begun in 1948, and that now includes the children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren of the original participants. Their study showed that obesity was socially transmissible. Research shows we do what our social group does.

But hang on, surely free will and self direction come into play too? Aren’t I responsible for what I put in my mouth, not to mention how much exercise I get and what I think and believe? Well, yes, of course I am. But the company I keep will make it harder or easier to stay on my path to health and fitness, according to research. Hmm, I can’t argue with that statement.

So how do people “infect” each other with fatness? One way is by imitation, or more accurately mirroring. Research on mirror neurons includes brain scans that show when you watch someone else doing an activity your brain activity mirrors theirs. You are firing up the same areas in your brain as they are, so when they are chewing, your own muscles for chewing are firing up too. So the more you hang around people who eat a lot the more your brain is firing up and priming you to do the same.

Your Eating Companions – In the experiments conducted during the research, it was found that people who sat next to big eaters would eat more than when sitting next to light eaters. And you may have noticed meeting friends over a smorgasbord lunch or dinner almost guarantees everyone will eat more than they need in terms of replenishing energy expended.

My mother was good at making sure you ate more than you needed for health. I clearly remember visiting as an adult with my own family and having meals at Mum’s. She would constantly urge us to “eat, eat” as if we had been starved since the last time we had visited. This urging was considered being a good hostess in my Mum’s European culture. And yes, her friends were short and round, just like her.

What’s Normal – It seems social norms play a part too. Over 60 per cent of Australians are overweight or obese, so that has become our norm. It is no longer unusual to see heavy people all around us in our daily life and to be eating with them. The more often we eat with them the more likely we will be influenced by their behaviour and their choices. The number of “healthy eaters” have been surpassed by “unhealthy eaters”, so those trying to stay healthy are now a minority.

Trying to lose weight while spending time and socializing with overweight people is like a smoker trying to give up smoking while amongst smokers – almost impossible.

So do we have to drop our friends to become healthy? Maybe! We may have to choose to meet them over a cup of tea and not at mealtime, or meet them for a tea or coffee straight after lunch so they are too full to eat in our presence.

We know it can be impossible for an alcoholic to have one drink and stop at that, just as it can be difficult for a choc-aholic to stop at one chocolate. Some people are junk-aholics, or carb-aholics, or sugar-holics, or just food-aholics, and if you hang around with them you can succumb to their influence.

But birds of a feather flock together as the saying goes, and we humans also tend to congregate with people like ourselves. So if you are health conscious among people health unaware or not interested in health issues, and find your values not supported, dismissed or undermined, then you will make a choice – to stay or go.

It wont be long before you find you don’t have enough in common to stay, and you’ll move on to another group, or you’ll consciously or unconsciously change your values to be like the others, to fit in and belong.

I’ve noticed that bike riders all congregate at favourite breakfast locations, especially on weekend mornings. They are all slim and healthy looking. They all eat a hearty breakfast. So I have no doubt that exercising as they do allows them to eat as they do, without gaining weight. But not so for other patrons, who indulge the eating side without the burning up energy by exercising side, with the obvious long-term results of getting bigger.

Who we choose to eat with regularly can have as big an influence as who we choose to exercise with. So your friends can make you fat, at least they can model the habits and behaviours and you get to choose to succumb or not.

And there is still the concept that the friends of our friends friends can influence us, even if we never meet them. I’ll cover that part of the research another time.
Cheers
Anna McRobert
(also see Nov 2010 Newsletter & article Who You Hang Out With Counts)

Play Secret Revealed

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There are some secrets that can make all the difference in your life. And when you find a key secret it’s worth cultivating it to ease and abundantly enhance your life experiences. I recently found someone on a mission, devoted to revealing a key secret. Let me include you in what he found.

What is it that enables us to innovate, problem-solve, and be happy, smart, resilient human beings? What allows us to cultivate the skills necessary to handle changing times? Like many secrets, it’s often right before our eyes. But to see it you need to “see it” with “new eyes”.

Now, make sure you’re not looking with “old eyes” or you’ll miss it. And stop long enough to register and experience this amazing influence. Just watch young children and happy puppies and baby animals play with total enthusiasm. They have fun. They play. And in the process they prepare for life.

Dr Stuart Brown, the leading expert in his field in US explains, “play is anything but trivial.” It is a basic biological drive as integral to our health and functioning as sleep and nutrition. That means it is essential to our physical, mental and emotional wellbeing.

Through play we spark new insight, open new thinking and possibilities. Play joyfully weaves us together with family and friends, and without bonding through playing together we drift apart and lose connectedness. Play allows us to foster relationships that engage individual strengths and strategies into group outcomes, to form communities where all can contribute and thrive.

Play, How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul is a book by Stuart Brown, MD, founder to the National Institute for Play, with science and medicine writer Christopher Vaughan.

Stuart Brown, as well as being a medical doctor, is also a psychiatrist, clinical researcher, founder of the National Institute for Play, former clinical director at Mercy Hospital and Medical Center in San Diego, and Associate professor at University of California, Dan Diego. “... The latest advances in neuroscience, biology, psychology, and social science illuminates the role of play as nature’s most advanced process for promoting brain development and social integration across species. … Even the lowest creatures on the evolutionary spectrum have a play mechanism. But humans are the biggest players of all – we are meant to play though out life.”

“Play is the single most significant factor in determining our success and happiness.” Dr Stuart Brown’s research proved that when we play we release dopamine, oxytocin and other reward neurochemicals, and those crucial for regrowth of brain cells.

Norman Doidge in his book The Brain That Changes Itself highlighted the plasticity of our brain. The more we use it the more connections we build in the brain, at any age. The more varied and unusual ways we use the brain the more connections are created. Stuart Brown’s research shows joyful experiences are crucial to the creation of synaptic connections.

Play is as integral to our health as is sleep. Play is a biological drive, opens to possibility and sparks off new insight and lines of thought. Play is the glue for relationships and releases creativity. We are designed by nature to play and flourish. Play is nature’s most advanced process for promoting brain development and social integration in all species. Humans are the biggest players of all and we are designed to play all through our lives. Play is hardwired into our brains.

Notice what happens when you take your dog to the park and let it off the leash. The exhibition of pure exuberance, speed and athleticism of a dog at play, when released from hours in confined space, be it the back yard or the back seat of the car, is a joy to see. The moment is captivating and gleeful. We laugh, our spirit lifts, tension and fatigue drop away, we breathe deeply.

Play is intensely pleasurable, energizes us and enlivens. It eases our burdens, renews our natural sense of optimism, releases stress, and opens new curiosity and interest. It shapes the brain, fosters empathy and encourages socialization. Creativity and innovation often comes out of play.

Play weaves memories and binds us together emotionally. Fulfillment is linked to our ability to enjoy and play, feel a sense of happiness, release creativity and spark solutions. Comedy, irony, daydreaming, imagination, art, music, books jokes, drama played to the max lift us out of the mundane.

Where Did Play Go?
How did we lose our sense of play over the years? When does play become unproductive? When is play relegated to unimportant? When do we consider play as a poor use of our time? When does daily life and responsibility crowd out the spontaneous outburst of pleasure through unexpected happenings? When does the fear of not enough time to do all the necessary and important things consume every thought and plan and action, till exhaustion overtakes us? Where do we find joy if we don’t play?

When your life feels hollow, routine, demanding, pressured, predictable, full of chores, or without value or meaning – add some play, fun, laughter, frivolity, joyousness, exuberance to lighten the load of responsibility, commitment or emotional darkness, to create space for creativity and insight.

The Essence of This Secret
The key secret revealed is that play makes us better people, brings us together in exuberant co-operation, and makes the world a better place for all. It’s there right before your eyes. Adjust the meaning of “play” in your life, re-tune your eyes and ears, and reconsider your beliefs and priorities.
And if you can’t update play on your own, see a Kinesiologist.
Cheers
Anna
anna@annamcrobert.com.au
PS. Science is also exploring the outcome of being “play deprived.” These are the youngsters at risk of isolation, not fitting anywhere, and violence. More on that another time.