Postgraduate Certificate
in Brain Body Medicine
(Psychophysiology)
Module Two
Submission Form
Your name
Teacher’s name
Submission date
Please answer all the questions on this Module Submission Form.
Assignment 1. Please
iefly explain how beliefs influence the way we view the world (in under 500 words).
ACTIVITY 1: Briefly list some of the beliefs you, or some of the people you know well, hold (or have held in the past) that you realize are the result of programming or a traumatic experience and are not necessarily true.
Assignment 2. Please explain the clinical differences between Stress and Trauma.
ACTIVITY 2: Please attach your short (under 500 word) article explaining in common language how beliefs are formed through traumatic experiences that would be suitable to print on handout for your clients, to your submission.
ACTIVITY 3: Please write a 100 word summary on each of the four stories you found that would help to provide evidence for your clients of why Brain Body Medicine is effective.
ACTIVITY 4: Please report on how the exercise “belief changing formula” felt for you and what you feel learned from doing it.
Did you dislike anything about this module?
Is there any aspect of this module you did not understand or had issues with?
Do you feel you have grown or developed professionally through this module?
Do you feel you have grown or developed on a personal level through this module?
Is there anything you require assistance with or need to discuss?
Foundation Studies in meditation
Module 2 The IMTTA Postgraduate Certificate in Brain Body Medicine
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The International Meditation Teacher Trainers Association
Postgraduate Certificate
in Brain Body Medicine
(Psychophysiology)
Practitioner Training Course
© Isabelle Cunningham, 2015
All rights reserved. No part of the material protected by this copyright may be reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any
information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
Module 2 The IMTTA Postgraduate Certificate in Brain Body Medicine
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The International Meditation Teacher Trainers Association
Postgraduate Certificate in Brain Body Medicine
(Psychophysiology)
CONTENTS
Module Two – The Role of Heale
• The Physiology of Belief
• Traumatic Beliefs
• The Power to Heal
• The Faith Factor and How to Provide it
• Providing Evidence for Your Clients
Instructions
Please work through your lesson pack in the required sequence. While it may be tempting to
ush ahead, it is important that you receive information in the integrated way it is intended.
1. As you read through this module, make notes of any points you find particularly
interesting, do not understand, wish to discuss with your teacher or that you would like
to research further.
2. Complete all the exercises and assignments as you come to them in the module. Activity
oxes refer to tasks such as watching videos, listening to audio files, or writing exercises.
3. When you have finished reading this module, completed all the activities and
assignments and watched the PowerPoint presentations, you will be ready to submit
your assessments.
4. Complete the Module Submission Form.
The Physiology of Belief
In your capacity as a Brain Body Therapist (or Psychophysiology Practitioner), you will be
assisting your clients to recognised how the way they think and in particular how their often
unconscious beliefs are effecting their physical, mental and emotional health. You will be
providing information, evidence and the tools required to implement change. You will be
educating and enabling self-empowerment for your clients to gain better health by
understanding how the activity of the
ain influences the rest of the body.
In order to fill this role successfully, you will first need to have a very good understanding of
the following subjects:
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What beliefs are
How beliefs are formed
How to choose which beliefs and helpful and which are unhelpful
You will need to be able to explain this information to your clients in many different
“languages”. By this we mean that each person will have a particular learning style and each
person will have their own unique history and experience, including belief systems that filter
the way they are able to receive and assimilate information.
Some of your clients will need diagrams and stories they can relate to others will be able to
digest vast amounts of spoken information. You will need to listen to your clients and get to
them, gauging the best ways to help them develop an understanding of how their own
ains work to affect their entire bodies.
To do this, you will need a good understanding yourself and so we will begin to develop (or
deepen) your understanding by exploring the phycology of belief and delving into what
eliefs actually are.
The phycology of belief has become the subject of a great deal of scientific research in
ecent years and as we discussed in module one, the evidence to support the idea that our
eliefs do have a very real impact on our physical health is provided primarily and most
effectively through research onto the placebo effect.
Our bodies hold the memory of every thought we have ever had, every word ever spoken to
us, every word we have ever spoken and every experience we have encountered
throughout every single moment of our lives. This includes memories of every emotion,
including fear, humiliation, guilt, abandonment, shame, betrayal and rejection.
It is commonly thought that memories are stored in the
ain that is located in the scull,
however they are actually stored throughout the body at a cellular level, in a code known as
cellular memory.
Each of these memory codes have a belief attached to it. When a belief becomes encoded
as a result of either one very traumatic episode or repeated upsets to our emotional
wellbeing, similar events then trigger that emotional code and cause us to experience the
same types of emotions and physical responses to that emotion (fight-or-flight) that we
experienced through the original trauma.
Beliefs are like directorial signals, or a compass, that provide guidance and meaning in life.
Beliefs are the filters for our perceptions of the external and internal world. They define the
concepts we form in relation to our own existence and the existence of everything around
us.
Beliefs are the command system for the
ain that direct us in how to embody, perceive
and respond to what is happening in and around us.
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When we congruently believe something to be true we feel safe, confident and empowered
ecause we feel we know how to respond to the situation. The absence of beliefs or the
inability to connect with or feel aligned with them, makes us feel disempowered.
Beliefs originate from what we hear, see and experience. Particularly when we continue
hearing, seeing or experiencing the same things from others, particular as children.
Research findings have repeatedly pointed out that the emotional
ain is no longer
confined to the traditionally accepted areas of the hippocampus, amygdala and
hypothalamus. The sensory inputs we receive from the environment undergo a filtering
process as they travel across one or more synapses (junctions between two nerve cells,
consisting of a minute gap across which impulses pass by diffusion of a neurotransmitter),
ultimately reaching the areas of higher processing, like the frontal lobes, where, the sensory
information enters our conscious awareness (our intelligent mind).
What percentage of the sensory information that enters, is determined by our beliefs. So,
put simply, the actual amount of information about what we are seeing, hearing, feeling,
etc, that will enter our intelligent, analytic
ain is measured by our beliefs.
If the information does not match up with our beliefs it will not be permitted to enter. It will
not get through the filter.
As an example; if your belief is ‘dogs are dangerous’ because your parent had a fear of dogs
and instilled this belief in you during your childhood or if you were once attacked by a dog
and therefore had a traumatic experience, when you meet a dog this belief will determine
how you perceive the dog. Though the dog may be projecting signs of not being dangerous
(like tail wagging and submissive approach) these sensory signs will be filtered out because
they do not co
espond with your belief that ‘dogs are dangerous’. Instead of being able to
draw the logical conclusion that THIS dog is safe, the information that signifies this
conclusion have been filtered out because of your belief and all you will see is dog=danger.
Now, in this same example, let’s imagine you have gone into the fight-or-flight response,
upon meeting the dog and all your
ain is processing is that you are in danger, because
‘dogs are dangerous’, but, someone you trust is with you and they do not hold the belief
that dogs are dangerous. They start to point out the sensory information that shows the dog
is no danger to you. They gently point out the dogs’ body language; they tell you they know
this dog very well and he is very friendly; they start to pet the dog and show you how
friendly and kind the dog is. You would then be having a new experience and the receptors
in your
ain would be starting to change. Your belief (at least about this dog) would be
changing. This is an example of how our beliefs can limit the way we perceive situations
(filter out sensory information) and how we can change those beliefs.
You may even pet the dog yourself and start to enjoy being with the dog. The next time you
met a dog, the amount of sensory information about the experience that was able to enter
your conscious and intelligent mind would be different. The filter would have changed
ecause your belief has changed. You may now have a belief that not all dogs are
dangerous.
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