Emotional Freedom Technique Demo

EFT Demo

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.

"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?."