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It is now fairly generally accepted, even in conventional medical
circles, that traumatic events or experiences are ‘remembered’ by
our subconscious minds while being dismissed or ‘forgotten’ by
our conscious minds.Yet that subconscious memory can, without us being
aware of it, affect not only the way that we think but the way that
our bodies behave.
The logical progression from this assumption is that if you can ‘change’ that
subconscious memory (from a negative experience to a positive one,
for example) you may also be able to change the way that you think
and that your body behaves.
Imagine if food allergies and intolerances were curable.
Wouldn't it be great? You could greet the spring without sneezing, go to a restaurant
of your choice, buy what you wanted at the supermarket without studying
the ingredients… It seems impossible - we have been told that
allergies can't be cured.
But what if it is only that we have not discovered how to cure allergies
- not that they cannot be cured? It was always possible to fly to the
moon, but until 50 years ago we didn't know how to. Maybe it is possible
to cure an allergy but we haven't yet discovered how to do it.
Let me describe how an allergy appears to a NLP practitioner.
Imagine
your immune system is a part of a sophisticated army protecting your
land against enemy invaders. You have your radar in place to detect
any foreigners and several battalions of troops are on stand by. Suppose
the guy watching the radar screen mistakes an innocent ice cream van
(your allergen) for an enemy tank (bacteria or a virus). Thinking he
is under attack, he issues an order to destroy the ice cream van. Heavily
armed troops attack and within moments the van and any civilians in
the vicinity have been destroyed (any wonder why you go red or swell
up?).
In our analogy, the innocent ice cream van is that allergen that so
affects your life. Doctors agree that an allergy is a mistake - allergens
in themselves have no ability to harm the body - it is only the body's
response to that substance which is dangerous. The ice cream van has
no weapons, just as a peanut doesn't have any ability to attack other
cells in the body.
So what options do we have? One would be to banish all ice cream vans
from the area (avoid your allergen). Another would be to drug our troops
so they don't fight very effectively (antihistamines). But the best
way by far would be to teach the radar man the difference between an
ice cream van and a tank (education).
The field of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) provides practical
methods to help us to try to re-educate our immune system. It teaches
us to use safe tools like our imagination. Each of us experiences NLP
processes in everyday life.
For example, have you ever watched a sad film and your eyes have watered?
Or a comedy and you have laughed out loud? Of course we know that the
film isn't real, and yet our body's chemistry changes as if it were.
Imagining a movie is one of the ways NLP can help change the body's
chemistry and teach the immune system to behave more appropriately.
We imagine our body's current response and replace that with a picture
of how we want our response to be. Whilst this is obviously not all
there is to it, it is a very important and powerful part of the process.
It may also help to examine how and when your food allergies and intolerances
developed. We often find that allergies begin at transition times in
our lives. We all go through huge changes such as puberty, leaving
home, getting married or becoming a parent. Or more subtle ones such
as gaining a younger sibling, learning to walk or moving school. These
changes affect how we see ourselves and the world around us and they
can also affect how we see things on the inside - on a cellular level.
In our army analogy, it's as if the radar machine has been replaced
with a different model. Things look different. The radar man no longer
recognises egg (for example) as being harmless, so he has to re-learn
whether it is friend or foe. Suppose you happen to catch the flu as
you're eating egg. To the radar man, he's not sure which one is making
you ill - so just to be safe he labels them both as viruses. There's
the mistake.
The next time you come into contact with that same flu virus, the radar
man doesn't wait for you to be ill again. He recognises and attacks
it straight away. That's why you don't catch the same flu twice. The
trouble is that egg is in the same category - labelled as an enemy.
So the next time the radar man detects egg, he sends the troops out
automatically. That's an allergy.
Part of the NLP re-education process involves figuring out how your
allergy might have developed. With the benefit of hindsight, your body
might have acted differently. Using your imagination, you can give
your body the correct information that it had failed to grasp at that
critical time.
These techniques have been used successfully for over 15 years to help
sufferers from allergy and food intolerance to re-educate their bodies.
Obviously, they do not work for everyone or for every allergy but they
are drug free, non invasive and involve no contact with your allergen.
Our work lies entirely in ‘reprogramming’ the way your
immune system sees, and therefore reacts to, your allergen. Treatment
consists of a maximum of three two hour sessions and although you don't
have to believe in the process for it to work, you do have to desire
the outcome.
But no matter how successful you feel the sessions may have been, if
you suffer from an IgE mediated classical allergy we are very insistent
that you should return to your doctor or your allergist and be retested
for your allergy before assuming that it has disappeared.
If you want to investigate the NLP approach further please check out www.allergy-alternatives.com or
call 0845 123 2811
Rob Mesrie is a certified NLP Health and Master Practitioner.
He has trained extensively in London and California directly with each
of the originators of the Allergy Elimination Process. As allergies
may be dangerous, we recommend that you seek the advice of your GP
or allergy clinic and only work with a qualified NLP Health Practitioner.
Allergy Alternatives is a trading name of NLP Health Ltd.
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