The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the view of the American Council of Hypnotist Examiners.

By Linda Bennett, CHT

Connecting our head and our heart is critical to our survival. Our head, the thinking part of us, represents our conscious mind that accounts for only about 10-15% of who we are. It’s the part of us that analyzes, criticizes, judges and creates limitations. This is where the “committee” resides. The “committee” is the voices from the past and the ones that love to tell us what we can’t do and what’s wrong with us.

Our heart, the feeling part, represents our sub-conscious mind. Here is where we store every experience, every memory we’ve ever had. The heart accounts for about 80-90% of who we are. Many of us hide in our heads afraid to feel, afraid to experience the world of emotions. We are afraid that our heart is either too wounded already and can’t take another “hit”, or, we don’t trust our heart to make a good choice.

The difference between thoughts and feelings is that thoughts, the mind,  are  the surface of the heart, and the heart the depth of the mind. They are two different aspects of one and the same thing. The mind thinks, the heart feels. What the heart feels the mind wants to interpret in thought; what the mind thinks, the heart assimilates expressing it in feeling.

It is my theory that until we connect these two parts of ourselves we will continue to struggle. Instead of warring with each other it is time to make friends with these two aspects and work together. It is essential to learn to understand each aspect. It is time to learn about each aspect and their given strengths and create healing at both levels. This is a ‘calling’ and opportunity for tremendous growth and transformation.

One of the greatest ways to understand which part, the head or the heart, is running the show is to use muscle testing to identify what is happening.

Dr. George Goodheart was a pioneer in the field of kinesiology and the use of muscle testing. He, along with many others, came to the conclusion the body won’t lie and through muscle testing we can identify if it’s our head or our heart that is creating our problems. Once we identify which it is, we can proceed to address the problem.

It’s kind of like going on a trip. You basically know where you want to go but you haven’t decided if you are going to fly or drive. Until you identify the means of getting there you are limited in getting where you want to go. There is a big difference between flying and driving. One can be a lot faster, but the other is much more scenic.

So often we are perplexed with understanding why we aren’t accomplishing something. Often we’ll assign blame outside of ourselves for our failure or assume that there is something wrong with us. When in actuality what is really going on is that our head is going one direction while our heart is going another. Getting both parts on the same page and working together will allow for greater success.

During this process we can also identify the age of decision when the “problem” began. We know that identifying the initial sensitizing event is critical in releasing negative behaviors.  Through the process of muscle testing and emotion kinesiology we can pin point the age and moment of the initial sensitizing event. We identify a defining moment and then we create the opportunity to re-define those moments and pave the way to freedom and forward movement.

One example of this work is recently I was working with a client who was struggling to trust her ability to make decisions. This was holding her back from building her business and believing she could be successful. I initially assessed the client through muscle testing that she was indeed double minded about her intention. She was blocked in thinking she could trust her decisions and thinking she wanted to trust her decisions. I then was able to identify when the client first acquired this problem. We were able to identify that the initial sensitizing event was 10 years of age. The client is currently 50. When we identified the age and asked the subconscious to clarify the event. The client immediately connected with the experience at 10 years of age. Her family had moved and she went from a very small school where she knew everyone to a large school where she didn’t know anyone. Throughout the process we continued the muscle testing, confirming the discoveries that were made.

We continued the process guiding the client to recall a time before the age of ten when she had been able to trust her decisions in an unfamiliar situation and how much confidence she obtained from that experience. We then brought that confidence forward to current time and the client felt greatly relieved and empowered. We completed the muscle testing and the client was strong on all counts.

Linda Bennett, CHT, is the Hypnotherapy /Guided Imagery Program Director at Southwest Institute of Healing Arts. Linda is the esteemed 2014 International Medical & Dental Hypnosis Association Educator of the Year, She was also awarded the 2017IMDHA Chapter of the Year. https://swiha.edu/