OUTSIDE OF THE [BOX] #2

Dear Group:

I am back to tell you a bit more about my experience in the hospital during the birth of my daughter.

Internal Energy Plus has increased my awareness of how I respond to people and how they respond to me. It has given me the ability to remove myself from my actions and emotions of the moment, and to view the situational dynamics as if I were a dispassionate outside observer. It's an amazingly powerful and telling perspective.

This could not have been more evident than at the hospital. As I had mentioned in my last post, my wife and I had to adapt to a continually changing situation. The doctors were surprised that we made decisions rationally: based upon what they were saying, by looking up terms, and by asking them candid questions. When we had determined, as partners, what action to take, we held firm.

We did not raise our voices, become negative or get angry when something changed. We dealt civilly and sensibly with a dynamic process. From what we were given to understand, the typical patients and their relatives would swear and throw things out of frustration, anger and fear. This type of tantrum is not only an unhealthy discharge of energy that tends to spiral out of control, but it adversely affects the physicians, nurses and other professional staff members in their ability (and perhaps their willingness) to perform to their highest standards.

Our consistent decisions and calm manner turned out to be highly beneficial. The results were that the doctors developed the understanding, and the positive attitude that, " these people are calm, collected and intelligent." Furthermore, the most experienced nurses on the floor were requesting to take care of my wife and child. We had made ourselves into excellent patients, and the staff was responding with their best and most attentive care.

My awareness of how people feel, react and express themselves has become heightened by my training in Internal Energy Plus. When we told them our story and that the hospital was our second choice for the birth of our child (midwifery at home was what we had wanted prior to my wife's pregnancy becoming complicated) . Every staff member kept apologizing. I was astonished that they kept doing this for our entire visit.

My Astonishment comes from my Internal Energy Plus training. I have learned that each choice I make has a causative link to other events that will happen from that choice. We chose to have a baby, and that means:


1) We are responsible for her life;
2) Anything that occurs during the pregnancy will need to be addressed immediately;
3) As the Father I am just as responsible each day for :
---a) washing the diapers..
---b) preparing organic food for my wife for each day...
---c) feeding the baby in the middle of the night (every night)...
4) Being constantly prepared for unforeseen things -- maintaining my vigilance, adaptivity and creativity;
5)Being both a teacher and a student through the experiences and interactions with both our new daughter and my wife.

In terms of utilizing my IEP training Toolkit, I use my heightened awareness to make choices that I know will keep me confident in my decisions and responsible for taking the best possible actions every single day .

In Kindness,
Thomas

OUTSIDE OF THE [BOX] #1

Dear Friends:

I have been extraordinarily busy during these past six weeks. My wife and I participated in the birth of our daughter. Our daughter came along early, but I am happy to report that both mother and daughter are in great shape.

We had planned on having our child at home, but because of complications, we needed to go to the hospital. Both my wife and I have had very negative experiences in the past with doctors and hospitals, but that was before we had acquired the benefit of INTERNAL ENERGY PLUS training. We had previously been manipulated by fear, instead of being guided by reason. As you would intuitively suspect, decisions made out of fear or desperation tend to yield poor consequences.

IEP thinking helped me... It helped me to be aware of the mindset of the doctors and nurses, and the purpose of the hospital. It took me awhile to realize that the doctors were invested in purposefully telling me the worst case senario. They were telling me the most undesirable end point. Worst of all, they were telling us this within the first hour of our checking in and we were not even assigned to a bed! Every time a new doctor, intern or nurse came into see us, they would repeat the same morbid mantra...."we hope this doesn't happen, but it usually does."

This air of "preparatory negativity" caused us more stress than was needed, especially since one of our goals was to keep my wife's blood pressure down.

We used the Twelve Postural Intentions to work on our own goals. The hospital, to its credit, was concerned with healthy mom and healthy baby, but our partnership goals as a couple were to have the most relaxed, noninvasive, brief experience possible, leading to the most positive outcome possible...having a healthy child.

How were we able to achieve this? We would attach a goal to each posture and then perform that posture with the our positive intentions. We did not merely practice the postures! Each posture had our full intention and purpose each time. The results were that my wife's blood pressure actually went down and it worked to keep me calm, rational, and helpful.

It was crucial to preserve that calmness when even during every shift change a new doctor, intern, nurse, or nurse practitioner would come in with his or her version of what was causing my wife's high blood pressure and that it would continue to increase her blood pressure. These well-intended people were actually feeding a negative self-fulfilling prophesy! With the benefit of IEP discipline, we did not yield to this intense negativity. The outcome was that our daughter was born, we are back at home and our daughter is growing every day.

I learned so much from this experience, and I have so much more to share with you.

OUTSIDE OF THE [BOX]# 2 will follow next week. Please stay tuned!

In Kindness,
Tom

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.

Performance Anxiety Linked with Obesity

Dear Readers:

I have been contemplating the link between performance anxiety and obesity. One example of my own personal experience with this issue was my orchestra audition at a prestigious private college in North Western Minnesota. It was my freshman year and I had played poorly, because I was shaking so much with anxiety that I could not perform. I went back to my dorm ordered two large pizzas and ate both of them (they were pepperoni).

At the time I did not realize that I was eating to curb my anxiety.

Performance anxiety occurs in music, sports, theater, presentations, and every other performance medium.

Internal Energy Plus™ and its 12 postural intentions is the best system that I have found in my 30 years of performing to help me become aware of how much and when I was eating to drown my anxiety.

A great side effect I did not anticipate of training in Internal Energy Plus™ was that within 6 months of practice, I had decided to take action to stop drinking alcohol. I realized that I did not need alcohol to treat my anxiety. I could see I had other options.

These options are

1) To eat at the table instead of the TV.

2) To measure out the serving size indicated and only eat that much.

3) To eat one plate of food and wait about 5 minutes usually I would not have a second plate!!

I use these new patterns to stop overeating because of my anxiety.

Performance anxiety gave me a reason to overeat, but Internal Energy Plus gave me choices and the ability to take action instead.

In Consistency,

Thomas

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.

INTRODUCTION: THERE IS NO BARRIER WHICH CANNOT BE OVERCOME.

Dear Readers:

I am Thomas C. Kern. Jr., INTERNAL ENERGY PLUS Consultant Group Moderator, musician, artist, and soon-to-be father. Welcome to my blog.

I will be posting on a variety of subjects that have to do with PUSHING THE ENVELOPE -- achieving more than you had ever thought possible. You have virtually unlimited capacity to accomplish any important object which you can envision.

Join me as I discuss ways in which we can realize and enjoy our amazing inherent potential.

In Truth,

Thomas C. Kern, Jr.