PUSHING YOUR BUTTONS!

Dear Readers:

What Pushes Your Buttons?

Are your aware of what your personal "buttons" are, and how they get pushed? Our buttons can get pushed emotionally, physically and mentally. Each of these influences can be combined into one big button, or separated into a whole keyboard of unique, specific, little (but annoying) buttons. Sometimes these buttons are pressed by other individuals. at other times, these buttons go off like fire alarms because of circumstances.

Emotionally, when I am stressed, the button that clicks on for me is called performance anxiety.

Performance anxiety (or non-generalized anxiety) produces varied reactions, including sweating, throwing up and passing out. My anxiety, if unchecked, causes me to shake. I am mentally aware and emotionally calm, but yet physically, I shake, as if my body had stopped taking instructions from my mind. I shake so badly at times that I cannot breathe properly to play my musical instrument. I have used INTERNAL ENERGY PLUS Modalities to short-circuit this conditioned shaking response.

What is the circumstance that makes me shake? Performing in front of people.

I can perform in a group and have no shaking, but when I am in front of my peers as a soloist, my anxiety flares up. Using the Internal Energy Plus™ problem-solving techniques, my awareness of the button's cause and effect increased and helped me realized that my anxiety would flare up whenever I felt that someone that I cared about was asking me a question, or sitting in a position to judge me or my abilities.

I spent 30 years performing and shaking. I had tried many different medications and have used the "tried and true" methods of practicing each piece of music until it was memorized and perfect, but my shaking continued. Three years ago, I tried Internal Energy Plus™ and my performing improved.

After a year of practicing the Twelve Postural Intentions, I was able to perform in the manner that I had practiced. Internal Energy Plus™ helped me to become aware that performance anxiety was pushing a button to make me shake and also helped me to discover how it was being pushed. Since I became aware of the connection between my anxiety and the button, I have relaxed.

I spent many years causing my own failure, by telling myself how inadequate I was for not being able to stop shaking. It became a deeply conditioned self-fulfilling prophesy.

Each time one of our buttons gets pushed we react emotionally, physically, and or mentally. Practicing the Twelve Postural Intentions helps us to heighten our awareness and convert and re-channel all of our unique personal attributes and characteristics into positive traits, instead of vulnerabilities. If you understand yourself better, you will naturally begin to treat yourself more leniently and lovingly.

In the next post, I will be exploring the effect of words that push our buttons, and how the Modalities of the Internal Energy Plus System™ have helped me and others to find solutions to deactivate those buttons.

--Thomas C. Kern, Jr.

DOUGLAS CASTLE contributed to this article.

A BRIEF PERSONAL STORY.

Dear Readers:

I am qualified as an INTERNAL ENERGY PLUS Consultant not only because of my belief in it conceptually, or in the abstract. My physical and emotional health have improved substantially as a result of my using IEP practices which had been taught to me. And yes...I have a personal testimonial.

I began painting houses in the summer after ninth grade as a means of supporting my family and myself while I pursued a career in music. It has been financially rewarding, but it is physically demanding.

Four years ago, I began teaching band in a middle school. I would conduct music for 4 to 5 hours per day, and would paint at night and on weekends. I had an increasing and persistent pain in my right arm, radiating down from my shoulder. To complicate matters, I tend to carry my stress in my shoulders.

The pain in my arm and shoulder became so excruciating that I was unable to get a decent night's rest. I was not comfortable with the idea of taking any prescription painkillers or getting a cortisone injection. At the time, although I was studying the Twelve Postures, I had not intellectually or emotionally made the association between my overwhelming stress and my physical pain. While the postures served to relax me, and to reduce the general feeling of tension in my body, I had neither fully focused the healing energy on my arm, or on the actual triggering feelings of stress. In fact, the anticipation of pain only served to increase the stress, just as the onset of stress would start the pain radiating down my arm.

When I was able to see that my mind (through stress) was causing the release of pain-inducing chemicals in my arm, and that my worries about the slightest twinges in my arm were "feeding" this neurochemical reaction, and allowing it to spiral out of control, I understood that I had to break the pattern. One particular variation on a Posture was able to alleviate the pain in my arm if I chose to use it at the first sign of pain. The mere knowledge that I could stop the pain with such a simple action gave me a feeling of control -- this, in turn, led to a generalized reduction in stress. I proactively broke the pain/stress cycle.

I painted seven decks in seven hours (like a marathon) last weekend, and, not surprisingly, my shoulder began to ache. Driving home from the finished job, I invested two minutes in doing this potent Posture. I felt immediate relief.

As I continued to relax, the pain subsided completely. That night, I slept comfortably without any pain. I never could have imagined the possibility of such a "miracle cure" even two years ago.

In Truth,

Thomas C. Kern, Jr.

p.s. INTERNAL ENERGY PLUS works.