Offering Online Therapy

I offer HIPPA compliant Video Sessions for simple and secure session for for all new and returning clients. No download required. Please contact me for more information or if you would like to schedule an appointment or consultation. Thanks you! Greg Carpenter LMFT

Monday, October 18, 2010

Workshop: "EFT and Weight Loss"


"EFT & Weight Loss" Workshop

I'll show you how to use Meridian Tapping and Energy Psychology to reach your Wellness Weight. Use EFT to stop food cravings, tame your resistance and resolve core emotional issues that contributes to overeating.

Thursday November 11, 2010 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm

LEARN THE Basic EFT Recipe & APPLICATIONS FOR REACHING YOUR WELLNESS WEIGHT
LEARN HOW TO STOP FOOD CRAVINGS
• Identify & Eliminate Emotional Overeating
• Resolve Limiting Beliefs & Release Motivation

6:30 to 8:30 pm @ Postive New Beginnings
873 WATERMAN AVE.
EAST PROVIDENCE, RI 02914

$35 per person

BEGIN YOUR JOURNEY TOWARD PERMANENT WEIGHT LOSS

TO REGISTER FOR THE WORKSHOP, OR TO LEARN MORE ABOUT EFT, PLEASE CONTACT: GREG CARPENTER LMFT @

PH. #401.265.2951 OR GDCCONSULTING@COMCAST.NET

EMOTIONAL FREEDOM TECHNIQUES IS A SIMPLE YET REMARKABLE HEALING SYSTEM THAT REDUCES THE MIND/BODY STRESS THAT CONNECTED TO DISEASE. NEGATIVE EMOTIONS ARE THE ENGINE THAT DRIVES OVEREATING.

BY TAPPING ON CRAVINGS AND CORE ISSUES YOU CAN LEARN HOW TO "EAT TO LIVE INSTEAD OF LIVE TO EAT." I HAVE PERSONALLY EXPERIENCED THAT SHIFT THROUGH EFT.

OVER THE PAST YEAR I HAVE LOST 50 LBS. BY USING EFT TO HANDLE CRAVINGS AND UNDERLYING ISSUES CONNECTED TO OVEREATING. I CAN SPEAK FROM EXPERIENCE ABOUT ISSUES OF RESISTANCE, HITTING PLATEAU AND THE POWER OF SELF SABOTAGE. EFT HAS MADE THE DIFFERENCE AND I AM STILL STILL TAPPING MY WAY TOWARDS REACHING MY WELLNESS WEIGHT.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Nov. 5th. Tibetan Bowl Workshop

Workshop: "Healing Vibrations: Your Soul on Sound"

Friday November 5th 6:30 - 8:30 pm. $35/person
Workshops will be held at:
Linda Hogan’s Healing Sanctuary -  529 Rockland Road N. Scituate, RI
Facilitator: Greg Carpenter LMFT
more info. or to register: gdcconsulting@comcast.net or Ph. #401.265.2951
Surround yourself with the healing sounds of ancient Tibetan Singing Bowls. Try your hand at playing the bowls. Learn about the re-energizing power of sound. Experience deep relaxation, balance your energy system and open up to the flow of your spiritual self.

In this workshop you will experience…
• the healing paths of sounds
• playing different bowls
• experience a meditative "sound bath" from the harmonics of multiple singing bowls
• ways to use sound and singing bowls to nourish personal growth

About the Healing Power of Sound...
In the ancient writings of the Book of I Samuel, King Saul is struggling with “an evil spirit” or what we might refer to in modern times as a troubled soul or depression. In this pre-Prozac era, the servants counseled him to find a harpist to mend his troubled soul. The ancient text states, “David took a harp and played with his hand so Saul was refreshed and was well,…” I Sam. 16:23

David may have been the first recorded instance of music therapy. Modern music therapy has its roots in the outgrowth of a thirty-thousand year old shamanic tradition of sound as healer. All of us can identify with the refreshing and renewing power of sound and music.

My Personal Experience with Sound…
We could talk about the amplification of sound while we take up residence in the womb, but let’s jump forward to my teenage years. During High School, I would seek the solitude of our old 68’ Chrysler New Yorker and sing (making up my own lyrics) top 40 hits to sooth my adolescent mind. I worked in a local Nursing Home during my time at Bethany College and learned that singing old hymns calmed the residents when they were in pain or agitated. In graduate school, I discovered that classical music made it easier to focus and stay on task during long hours of writing and research. During my twenty years working as a pastor, I saw the power of music and song refresh minds and spirits during worship, prayer groups and during times of crisis (memory, inspiration and song was a very powerful combination).

My Experience with Sound as Therapist…
It wasn’t until six years ago that I really began to learn about the scientific basis for the healing power of sound. This led to applying clinically sound to help clients and myself in “getting unstuck” and to experiencing inner peace and happiness (for some a first time sensation). I have found vocal toning (singing sustained tones of various vowel sounds) and brainwave music effective in treating stress, anxiety, depression and painful memories. Sound treatment is striving to create a whole energy brain pattern that creates a relaxed physical, emotional and mental state (parasympathetic). Underneath most mental and emotional distress is a brain pattern and energy body that is fractured and failing to fire on all cylinders effectively. Sound therapy is a method that serves to release blocked energy patterns and improve whole brain functioning.

The Healing Power of Tibetan Bowls...
Oncologist Mitchell L. Gaynor in his book “The Healing Power of Sound” writes, “…the singing bowls act as a medium in which our inner chaos and conflict can be reconfigured into harmonious calm centeredness that resonates through every cell of our body and mind. These remarkable vessels, as beautiful to behold as they are to hear, have become an integral and essential part of the sound-based guided imagery and meditation techniques that my patients and I use to resolve negatively charged emotions.”

Two years ago one of the pastors brought her bowl to a church consultation I was facilitating. Even though she couldn’t get it to sing, my curiosity was triggered. Later, I purchased my first bowl in a holistic shop in Kansas City. After purchasing my first bowl, my collection has multiplied to eleven and still growing. The antique bowls produce harmonic and rich tones that pull you into a brain entrainment of deep relaxation.

Clients have reported…
• first time experiences of deep states of relaxation
• pain reduction and release
• the removal of emotional blocks and fears
• discovering or returning to their authentic or spiritual self
• release of negative emotions attached to traumatic memories

When you stop to think about it, sound as a source for healing and calming the human psyche is common sense. At one time or another we have all experienced the shift in mood through exposure to song or sound. The scientific basis and neurology behind sound as therapy only serves to remind me to lay claim to its power daily.  My work with sound and this workshop comes from a deep desire and enthusiasm for sharing this often untapped resource.

Friday, September 24, 2010

"Questions & Possibilities"

What's Great About This?
Recently, I was talking with a pastor who is serving a church that has tremendous debt (to no fault of his own - it was there when he arrived). Every once in awhile the burden of the congregation’s enormous mortgage would rears its ugly head and trigger an overwhelming sense of anxiety and helplessness.

The other day he called and I could hear the emptiness in his voice. Normally, this pastor is an upbeat, optimistic “let’s get it done” leader of vision. On the day of this phone call, his voiced was without hope, filled with burden and stress. During times like these I ask questions like, “do you want empathy, distraction or empowerment?” He said something akin to “whatever” so I decided to go for empowerment.

The questions we ask ourselves leads to an emotional response of possibility or disaster. There had been a significant change in his congregation’s cash flow. The more he asked the “what if” questions connected to the large monthly mortgage payment, the more he started to connect the dots in a fashion that amplified disaster. Our conversations went back in forth, until I was beginning to think that distraction would have been a better plan (“how about the Patriots?”).

What created the empowerment moment was reframing questions from threats to possibilities. My three favorite empowerment questions that are…

1. What is great about this?
2. How can we use this?
3. What is the next step?


(Timing is everything. Ask question number one at the wrong time and someone may throw more than just words at you.)

Notice how these questions frame possibility and point you in the direction of empowerment. When our economy first tanked, I started asking questions about how could this happen? Reading the experts opinions only made me more anxious. Remembering the old stress adage that “the brain wires in the way it fires,” I identified my anxiety as THE problem and begin to create a shift by asking different questions.  Anxiety is contagious and spreads like wildfire.

Here are three steps that can help to make the shift from disaster to possibility.

1. Define and Chunk the problem. This means identifying the problem in a manageable and solvable size. What is the problem I am having right now? How is this problem sticking to me personally? They weren’t going to get rid of the large mortgage overnight, but they could solve the cash flow crisis.

2. Brainstorm possible solutions to newly “chunked problem definition” and think wildly outside the box!

3. Pick a path and follow it to a conclusion with necessary adjustments along the way.

Often the help of a friend, mentor or therapist is needed to deal with internal fears, objections and resistance to redefining the problem or following a path of possibility. Sometimes the just feeling understood frees us up to to consider possibilities and solutions.  Often I find mental rebooting methods like tapping (EFT) or brainwave music very effective in shifting from ruminations to brainstorming.

The pastor and church debt?

At the next leadership meeting folk began to moan and groan about the finances and debt. When the pastor shifted the group to empowerment questions, they begin brainstorm and think wildly outside the box. The result was an upbeat meeting that led to exploring some exciting new ministry opportunities that would not have been dreamed of without asking the question "What is great about this?."

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Motivation and Focus


How did my friend Stan put it? "You rebel at all things that have to do with structure!" I could protest a little and replace "slightly resistant" for "rebel" but he is closer to the truth. I recently read a blog by one of my favorite therapist/ authors - Bellaruth Naparastek. She talked about being internally motivated instead of being rebellious to structure. So I will go with her positive reframe.

Being a person who prefers to be internally motivated as opposed to driven by external goals and structure, I must confess that there are times that this works against me. Instead of entering a blog post at a set time each month, I wait until the spirit moves me. When my mind, body & spirit are hitting on all cylinders - this works effortlessly.  During those times when I am out of sync, it means no new blog posts.

So I decided today to complete Daniel Amen's One Page "Becoming Focused" exercise for folk with Prefrontal cortex issues (struggle with focus, routine and non engaging environments).

My resistance to typing out this page was significant, letting alone filling it out. But I pushed through the resistance and noted that this might be a good issue for Emotional Freedom Technique (tapping).

So my one page "Becoming Focused Road Map" is now complete. We will have to wait to see if it bears fruit or gathers dust under a pile of papers. Here it is for those of you who resist thinking and planning ahead.

What Do I want for My Life?
Becoming Focused – One Page Road Map

Name:

For...

Relationships
-Spouse/Partner:
-Children:
-Extended Family:

Work

Money
-Short Term
-Long Term

Myself
-Body:
-Mind:
-Spirit:


This tool is designed for focusing on what’s personally important.  This "back up brain" page will help you keep you on track and serve as a road map. It is meant to be “bumper sticker” brief in style.
...adapted from Daniel Amen’s “Change Your Brain – Change Your Life”

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Finding Your Zone

Remember a time when you were firing on all cylinders? 

These snapshots from our memory can be described as a moment when time stood still and you experienced mental clarity, a calm energy and inner peace.  These emotional experiences can be described as ecstatic, blissful, passionate, elation, euphoric and joyful.  These brief peak experiences nurture our lives and carry us forward with hope and expectation.

I used to think that they were random moments that occurred when I just happened to be at the right place - at the right time.  There is a unexpected quality to peak experiences, but we can live our lives in ways that prepare us for their appearance without chasing or trying to control them.

These moments have increased once I discovered that my attitude, expectations and use of mind management methods (like Emotional Freedom Technique) are equal if not more important than time and space.  Experiencing "the flow" is part gift and part spiritual posture.

TRY THIS...
The following exercise is adapted from the book "Mystic Cool." Use it for sinking into the memory and experiences of being in the flow.

If you struggle to think of any "flow" moments you may be reaching to high. Some of those our peak moments can be quite brief but often are located along the paths of nature, friendship, intimacy, creating, sports, contemplation, travel, celebration and work as a labor of love.  For many, spiritual practices like worship, service, prayer, fasting, meditation and study/contemplation provide moments of grace/flow.

1. Identify just one peak experience or moment of flow.  Then make a list of how that moment felt in your mind and body.

2. List out ten bumper sticker phrases that capture your "Zone" experience as a way to create a mental anchor for this memory.

3.  Tap on the EFT points while recalling your Zone memory for three rounds (you can say out loud your bumper sticker phrases from above - changing phrases with each point - this can make the memory more vivid)....

Follow link for instructions on tapping points.

If any internal objections rise to the surface when tapping in the mental anchors and sensations of the peak experience - talk back to them and apply the EFT recipe for clearing out your negative beliefs and thoughts.

For Example:

"Even though part of me doesn't deserve inner peace - I accept this part and embrace a calm and peaceful mind anyway."

"Even though the flow can't happen to me - I choose to be calm, connected and curious in this moment."

"Even though my life is to ________ (insert busy, stressful, hard, impossible etc.) - I am thankful for this moment and opportunity to discovery my resiliency and strength."
Enjoy the exercise and let me know what you notice!

Thursday, June 10, 2010

The Importance of Time and Personality

A while back I wrote a blog about "Time Types & Attitude."

http://www.gcarpenter.net/2009/10/present-hedonist-or-past-negative.html

My father sent me an email with following video narrated by Professor Philip G. Zimbardo. I highly recommend it. It is worth the ten minutes of your time. You might want to read my article linked above before watching the video.



Enjoy!

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Helen Fisher studies the brain in love | Video on TED.com

Does you biology pull your towards one person over another? Great talk about what is going in on the brain when in love. She has conducted some interesting studies by putting folk who are "in love" in functional MRI's to study what is happening in the brain when you fall in love. It is about 15 min. long.

Helen Fisher studies the brain in love Video on TED.com

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Healing Sounds & Singing Bowl Sampler

Here is the link to the Healing Sound workshop being held on April 22nd. Healing Vibrations: Your Soul on Sound

On Good Friday I attended a different spiritual venue. At Beneficient Congregational Church in Providence RI, a Gong Bath was being performed. I have been a big advocate for the clinical application of sounds as a healing tool for many years. But this modality was absolutely unlike anything I had ever experienced. The Gong Bath surpassed even my highest expectations. The sound was truly transcendant. Competely "chill" parasympathetic and then a calm high energy combined all into one. At the end it really did feel like an energetic bath. My mind, body and spirit felt as if it had been cleansed of toxic thought, feelings and sensations.

I am not sure if it was the hemispheric syncronicity, primordial sounds or brain entrainment that created this feeling of deep calm and energy. But the sympathetic resonance of the combination of sounds transported me in spite of myself. With my own sound workshop coming up in a few weeks, I couln't help but keep one eye open as an observer. In spite of keeping my left brain turned on by making mental notes, I still felt a deep penetrating state of relaxation and altered state of consciousness. My experience was from head to toe a state of "grace." Without any symbols or liturgy, the sounds communicated volumes regarding the message of the Christian celebration Easter.
-----------------------------------
This video contain my introduction and a sampling of the Tibetan Sing Bowls sounds. The sound quality here is not nearly as dynamic and energetic as in person. But it does give you a general ideas. Using stereo headphones will provide a more effective relaxation response.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Mystic Cool

Author Don Joseph Goewey is the author of the latest book I am reading, "Mystic Cool"  Daniel Siegel MD states, "In Mystic Cool, neuroscience, psychology, and spirituality find a common home, offering a place to come in from a hectic life.  Mystic Cool presents an intriguing approach to transforming a disconnected way of living with stress into a richer, more integrated way of being.

He has been a past director of psycho-social-spiritual agency that developed a mainstream approach to helping people face and shift catastrophic situations and was a lead executive at Stanford University's Department of Psychiatry.  He has worked as Bosnian refuge camps, AIDS wards and prisons.  Although he has "delivered workshops and keynotes throughout the world" he isn't a psychotherapist and thus brings a lay practicality to the new discoveries of neuroscience and neuroplasticity.

Check out his website at www.mysticcool.com
Look for his 6 week telelass on learning how to rewire your brain for peace of mind.

Old View
Old brain science stated that the brain was immutable and set by adulthood.  "If nature, social conditioning, an poor quality of nurturing during childhood wire a person's brain for fear, then flight or fight and the stress it causes are likely to dominate a person's life."

New View 
He states that by the mid 90's research had already demonstrated that the brain responds to the mind when given directions.  What many of us learned in school was incorrect.  Today compelling evidence has been gathered that reveals that the brain is "dynamic; remodeling itself continually in response to experience."  Another way to state this is that the way our brain fires is the way it wires.

We can rewire our brain through persistent interventions and practice.  He states that this can begin to take hold in as little as eight weeks.

Five years ago my own approach to my thoughts and feelings shifted with the discovery of the neuroplasticity of the brain and two tools, "brain music" Stress and Brain Music and Emotional Freedom Technique EFT Instructions.  Persistent use of these techniques does feel like my brain has been rewired for the better.
When it comes to anxiety, you will discover that the problem isn't the problem.  Rather, the fact we are worrying is "the problem."  When we stress, ruminate and obsess we are conditioning our brain to be quicker to respond with stress and worry with lesser thresholds.  When we stop worrying we can start problem solving (which is different).  When we are problem solving we define the issue, brainstorm solutions and then take actions steps to engage the problem.  Worry and ruminating fools us into thinking we problem solving.  

For more information check out this interview with Don Goewey at Podcast "Rewiring Your Brain"

I think his work gets an A+ for practical application.   Let me know what your think.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Tibetan Singing Bowls

"Healing Vibrations: Your Soul on Sound" - Thursday April 22nd 6:30 - 8:30 pm.  $35/person
Leader:  Greg Carpenter
more info: contact gdcconsulting@comcast.net
Surround yourself with the healing sounds of ancient Tibetan Singing Bowls. Experience deep relaxation, balance your energy system and open up to the flow of your spiritual self.

Experience…
         • Tibetan Bowl Sound Bath
         • Sound as a Path to Inner Peace
         • Deep States of Relaxation
         • Pain Release

Rediscovering sound as a healing technique five years ago has clearly expanded my mental renewal tool box.  Currently, I am listening to hemi-sync music while I create this post.  Brain sync music and sounds are an excellent way to acknowledge negative emotional states and gently shift to a balanced whole brain pattern.

Within the last year, I have discovered the sounds produced by Tibetan Singing Bowls.  The transcendant sounds they produce have been astounding.  My collection has multiplied from one bowl purchased over one year ago to seven and still growing.  The antique bowls produce harmonic and rich tones that pull you into a brain entrainment of deep relaxation.

Clients have experienced deep states of relaxation, the removal of emotional blocks and a return to a less stressed - more authentic self following both short and longer durations of sound exposure. 

In this workshop we will learn about the healing paths of sounds and experience a meditative "sound bath" from playing multiple singing bowls.  If you haven't experienced the healing sounds of the singing bowls you are in for a physical and mental treat.


Sunday, January 10, 2010

Tapping Tips

"Traditional Talk Therapy" can provide relief. But I have found that deeper issues need processing through right brain techniques like EFT (I have had success with healing sounds, EMDR, EFT and a newer technique called Brainspotting).

Currently, I am getting some interesting and positive results with clients who have chronic issues. Sometimes the energy reversal run so deep that persistent tapping is required to develop new thought and feeling patterns. Clients with chronic depression or anxiety have turned things around by tapping on just two points on the hour throughout the day. You can try this for one day or two consecutive days. Of course this has taken place in the context of therapy pinpointing where clients feel stuck (this isn't "official EFT" but my own adaptati0n).

This tapping homework provided the break through we weren't able to get through regular tapping during sessions. Some folk have taken the homework to the next level and have tapped on all the EFT points. Repeating the entire EFT script on the hour is even better. But I have found better homework compliance with folk who choose to tap on just two points on the hour.

The Two Points
The two points are the Karate Chop point located on the side of your hand and the point located Under you Nose. Tap five times on each point on the hour from morning to bed time. As with all suggestions if symptoms get worse stop what your are doing and seek professional assistance.

For Tapping Newbies
Often "newbies" to tapping get hung up on doing it "right" or using the correct words. Even seasoned veterans sometimes get reversed on an issue and don't feel like tapping or can't find the right words (a clear sign of being reversed). Tonight I discovered a web site that should benefit to those who like more concrete instructions tailored to their specific feeling or issue.

This web site is free and allows you to enter your feeling or thing that happened (what I call the "itch") and automatically creates a script for you to use inserting your feeling or issue. It is located at http://www.howtotap.com/EFT_words.html

Surf over to the website and give it a try.

Looking forward to your feedback on either tapping tips.

If you are reading this post and saying to yourself "huh?" Then jump to an earlier article and read "The Basic Emotional Freedom Technique Recipe" listed under Labels as "EFT Instructions."