By Jenny Peterson
Today I’m covering the top 10 questions that I have heard from you, my listeners. Some of them include:
I’m told that I have a limbic system dysfunction, or a dysregulated nervous system, can this work help with that?
Do you teach brain training?
Are there certain symptoms that mind body work can be applied to and others that can’t?
If the information that I have shared up until this point leaves you intrigued or curious, most likely one or more of your questions will be answered in this blog.
So with that, lets get to the questions.
1 - I can’t identify anything that happened before my symptoms started so does this work still apply to me?
If you’ve been listening to my podcast or following me, you will know the work that I do often ties an event or situation that happened to your symptoms. Within that situation are subconscious patterns.
Now for some this can make complete sense because they may have experienced something stressful or traumatic before their symptoms showed up.
For others, this may not feel true. They may feel as if their symptoms came out of the blue, that nothing happened that was stressful or traumatic before their symptoms showed up.
This thinking that it came “out of the blue” is back to thinking from the logical part of your brain. And thinking from the logical part of your brain may cause you to dismiss this work.
You have to remember that the subconscious isn’t logical. Your body and brain operate based on survival, not logic.
We can’t use logic to try and find connections to your symptoms. We have to think like the subconscious. Your symptoms are a major clue to finding the subconscious connections.
The subconscious is a protector. It links by association. And those associations are often metaphorically represented with symptoms.
I want to be clear here…. It's not the event that's the “problem” it's your perception of the event. Your perception is based on what lies within your subconscious.
So let's say someone says they got a bladder infection “out of the blue”. Let’s say this person had their friend recently move in with them and felt like their space was being taken over by their friend.
Now most people are not aware of their thoughts and perceptions about situations. This lack of awareness is also the reason it feels like symptoms come out of the blue.
The bladder is all about territory. In this person's case, their territory (their space) feels like it's being taken over. In the world of survival, having your territory being taken over is a big deal. This is a situation that feels threating. Consciously to this person, this situation may not feel “big” to them, so it feels out of the blue that they got these symptoms.
But this one situation isn’t all that triggered this symptom. Most likely there are other associations within the subconscious. Maybe this person had a mother that always barged into their room as a kid, making them feel like their territory was invaded.
Subconscious patterns are in everything we do. This situation with the friend moving in, was part of that pattern. If this person is still having bladder issues after their friend has moved out, then there are triggers within that person's life that are connected (around boundaries) that need to be addressed.
To the trained eye and strong awareness muscle, nothing comes out of the blue. There are always connections that can be found. So if you don’t consciously see those connections, it doesn’t mean that this work isn’t for you.
I have worked with over 200 students in the last 3 years, and I have never not found the subconscious patterns connected to their symptoms. It is always very clear to me and once the student sees them, very clear to them as well.
This is why it's important to work with someone that can help you identify those patterns, because you don’t see your own poo.
2 - I’m told that I have a limbic system dysfunction, or a dysregulated nervous system, can this work help with that?
This is one of my biggest pet peeves. Getting another label, which you don’t need when you already have chronic health conditions and most likely many labels already.
Look, there is nothing wrong with your nervous system or limbic system, its working exactly how it's designed.
Your sympathetic nervous system is designed to be activated when it feels like there is a threat. There is nothing dysfunctional about that.
It's also NOT designed to stay on all the time, so the problem isn’t the nervous system, its the message that the nervous system is getting that is causing it to stay on.
So can the work that I teach help you if you have been labeled with these?
Absolutely yes!
Mind Body Rewire is all about rewiring your mind with safety and trust so that your body no longer needs to respond to what feels like threats and gives your body permission to heal. If you want your nervous system to be “regulated” you need to “regulate” the messages that are being sent to it.
Your nervous system acting this way is a symptom, not the problem. It’s a symptom based on the messages it’s getting.
The messages that its getting are coming from the subconscious, that is where to focus the work.
You have years of survival patterns that are keeping your nervous system in a conflict state. You can’t blame your nervous system for responding the way it's designed to respond. It's the survival patterns, which you didn’t consciously wire in, but you can consciously do something about. They are your responsibility to change if you want your life and health to change.
3 - Do you teach brain training?
The word “brain retaining” has become popular in the last couple years. But really its nothing new. Anytime you do something different, for example like trying to break a habit or try something new, you are training your brain. Our brains are designed to be programmed and then operate automatically from those programs. Its efficient and easy so we don’t have to relearn all the time.
Anytime you try to change those old programs, your brain will try really hard to stay in them because its uncomfortable and requires effort getting outside the automatic program. But the more you repeat your new thing, the more it shifts that old pattern and the new one becomes the norm.
The work I teach is about shifting old subconscious patterns, so yes its brain retraining. You're identifying the old “programs” and then reprogramming new ones.
The difference between what I do and other brain retraining programs is that we do deep level brain retraining instead of surface level retraining.
Surface level is where you may have a saying that you say whenever an old thinking pattern shows up and you work on shifting where you focus your thoughts. While that is all good and is necessary to get the ball rolling, it doesn’t go deep enough into the subconscious. It's a general protocol and doesn’t get specific to your patterns.
Deep level brain retraining is where we identify your specific subconscious patterns connected to your symptoms. You are unique and no general protocol can take brain retraining to a deep enough level for long lasting change.
The patterns that are showing up in your life today, started many years ago. The subconscious has lots of proof to keep those old patterns. Deep level retraining gets to the root of those subconscious patterns, weakens them, which in turn provides long lasting results.
So to answer that question simply, yes I teach brain retraining but most likely not how you have done or seen it before.
4- Are there certain symptoms that mind body work can be applied to and others that can’t?
There is a location in the brain for every body system. For every label you have, there is a body system connected to that. Don’t let labels like Lyme disease or autoimmune fool you. Those are blanket labels. What is the most important is the symptoms you are experiencing. The symptoms tell us the body system and we can take it from there. That is why I love using GHK to unravel it all, it keeps things simple.
There is nothing (outside of poisoning) that mind body work can’t help with. This again is because all symptoms are messages from the subconscious. Sometimes the body needs extra support to assist in the healing phase depending on the situation, but most times not.
We are led to believe that the mind is separate, you have to do certain protocols for things like autoimmune, etc. So much confusion is connected to this way of thinking. Nothing that is happening in the body is separate from the mind. When there is conflict within the pysche it always shows up in both the brain and body.
Biological law #1 of GHK states that every “disease” originates from an unexpected, highly acute, and isolating conflict that occurs simultaneously in the psyche, the brain, and on the corresponding organ.
The content (perception) of the conflict determines which organ will be affected and from which area of the brain the symptom will be controlled.
Every program runs together on the level of the psyche, the brain, and the organ.
All your symptoms/labels can be traced back to a body system. That body system has a location in your brain that gives us a clue to what kind of perception is connected to your symptoms. So there is nothing that mind body work can’t be applied to.
Thinking that you are special, and that this work can’t be applied to your situation only limits your healing.
5- I have done years of therapy. if addressing my past will help me with my chronic conditions, why haven’t they gone away?
While there is a time and place for therapy, its not going to necessary resolve conflicts on the level that is necessary to bring resolution to it.
Often times in therapy, a person is talking about a certain event all the time or for a length of time. This keeps the conflict open and alive. Which means it can keep triggering a person which causes an interruption in their healing.
Subconscious programs are often not discussed in therapy as well. Being able to make the connections to why you have the perceptions that you do about situations as well as the limitations of others around you, are all essential pieces to bringing resolution.
Co-dependency on having someone “fix your problems” can also happen with therapy. It can sometimes leave a person still stuck in their old patterns because personal responsibility in changing their old patterns may not be discussed.
I’m not saying these happen with all therapy. Its just something to look out for when considering it as an option in your healing. A majority of students that join MBR have been in therapy for years and haven’t resolved their symptoms because it hasn’t been done on a biological level.
6- You say this starts in childhood, but I had a really good childhood, so how can this help me?
While it may make sense logically that someone that had alot of trauma as a kid would be ideal for this work, its not just for those people. Everyone has had trauma on some level. Big or small.
But its not the trauma that is the most important, it's the perceptions that each person has about these big or small situations that is the most important.
So lets say you had really great parents. Always felt safe and loved. But when you went to school there were kids at school that bullied you. Your perception from those kids bullying you is that you're not good enough. That pattern is going to be influencing you even up until today. There will be plenty of proof within your subconscious to back up the feeling that you have about yourself that you're not good enough.
A big one that I see often is the fear of failing. Despite having a great childhood, maybe your parents were high achievers and whenever you did something you feared not living up to their expectations. This can create a state of anxiety alone that people carry with them through adulthood.
There are thousands of examples, and the truth is that it doesn’t matter what kind of childhood you had, there are going to be subconscious programs that started back then that are with you today that are connected to your symptoms. Whether you had a good childhood, you're not any different. Everyone has them.
7- Why can’t you tell me the subconscious connection to my symptoms, and we just have a few sessions to work on them and then I’ll be good?
While I get that this may sound like an easier way to heal yourself than to do a 6-month program, it's not going to provide long lasting results.
Those with chronic illness have wired themselves to think day and night about their symptoms. They are worried about their future.
They are talking to themselves and others negatively all day long. They are immersed in their symptoms. They don’t trust themselves. They are in a state of fear all the time.
This is just one piece of the puzzle that needs to be addressed. I haven’t even mentioned the subconscious connections to the symptoms yet.
Those with chronic illness have many thought patterns, limited beliefs and fears all wrapped up in a ball. They all need to be addressed.
Making changes in the subconscious requires daily, repetitive work. Not just a few sessions. Actually it's the work between the sessions with a coach that is the most important.
You have to shift who you are to heal. You will not heal using the same subconscious patterns that got you here. New patterns need to be made and that requires daily work.
Sure there are some coaches/practitioners that only do one on one sessions, but I’m not one of them. I’ve been working with people with their health for many years. I have seen what works and what doesn’t. I want to provide a long lasting transformation, not a short term solution.
I’m not someone to fix you, I’m someone to guide you to do the work that is necessary to heal. Yes, we have one on one sessions with our students but that is only a piece of the healing puzzle.
If I would tell you the subconscious connections to your symptoms, it would be a disservice to you. Sure you maybe could shift the way you think about a situation that happened before you got your symptoms. But because you didn’t do the deep work of making the connections to where that pattern came from and haven’t created an action plan moving forward so that when situations like that happen again, you respond differently, you will be right back to having your symptoms.
Identifying subconscious connections is very individualized work. No two people are the same. It does require one on one work to help figure out each person's subconscious patterns, but once that is determined there is daily work that is necessary to change them.
Having a few one-on-one sessions is not going to address all the work that is necessary to get you long last results. Your brain wasn’t wired this way overnight. Your current patterns have been with you your entire life. They are strong because you unconsciously strengthened them on a regular basis. To rewire new patterns, daily work to unlearn those old patterns and rewire new ones has to be done.
8- Is there anything that interferes with mind body work?
Keep in mind that most of us have been doing things that have been interrupting our healing for years. Which is why we didn’t get better.
When you make a commitment to doing mind-body work, its my recommendation to take everything else away as much as possible. Doing many things isn’t the answer. Just keep it simple. How do you really know if something is working if you're doing many things at once anyway?
The goal with mind body work is to allow the body to move into and through the healing phase to completion. Anything that interrupts that process is what you want to eliminate.
Your triggers, fears and negative thought patterns will interrupt this.
Things like certain medications, supplements, detoxing, and certain therapy may also interrupt this.
It would be impossible for me to go through all the supplements and medications that interrupt the healing phase. All medications interrupt the healing phase on some level but that doesn’t mean to just stop them either. In some cases, they are needed temporarily or have to be safely stopped with the help of your doctor.
Remember that we have complicated healing. It's really not that hard. We’ve been led to believe that we have to eat a certain way, take certain supplements or pills, do a particular cleanse, etc. to heal. So many things but yet everyone still has symptoms. Why not simplify it?
This need to have all this stuff is really about the lack of trust in our own bodies ability to heal. When you understand that your body has full intentions and ability to heal and you let it do its thing, you won’t feel the need to add in all the other things.
That being said, it's helpful to know what interrupts the healing phase so you can avoid those as well. Like I said those include: Your triggers fear, negative thought patterns, certain medications, some supplements, detoxing, and certain therapy.
9- How come other people around me don’t have chronic conditions when I know they experienced trauma in their life?
As much as this work feels like its about trauma, remember its about perception.
Trauma often is linked to chronic conditions because most people don’t have the tools to move through it without having a perception that doesn’t affect them on a health level.
So if someone experienced trauma and doesn’t have health conditions, then their perception of it isn’t causing a biological response and they have most likely resolved it.
90% of people are walking around with some type of chronic issue. So let's keep that in mind. Just like you hide your symptoms from others, people are doing the same. So to say that other people are not experiencing chronic conditions is not necessarily true.
Sadly, its normal for many to have chronic conditions and just live with them thinking that its normal for their age or whatever.
The most important thing I want to say is that comparing yourself to others isn’t going to make things better. We all have our own journey. Your symptoms are part of that journey because they are going to teach you so many things, mostly about yourself.
Honestly, I’m grateful for what my symptoms did for me and so glad I had to go through what I did in order to experience my life as it is now. Seeing your symptoms as teachers is a major piece to your healing journey.
We can’t see into other people's minds. If they do or don’t have a symptom it's all back to their own stuff. Its best to keep focus on ourselves and stay away from comparison.
10- You say that symptoms mean healing, so does that mean that I should just ignore them and be happy that I’m experiencing them? How come they won’t go away if they mean that I’m healing?
To be clear, most of the time symptoms mean healing. There are some symptoms that appear in the conflict phase.
This work isn’t about irresponsibility, ignoring symptoms and doing nothing about them. Its about understanding your body.
When you learn why your body is doing what its doing, you no longer fear it.
If you haven’t worked with a practitioner to learn what phase you are in, the subconscious connections to your symptoms, or created a plan of how to move forward, then doing nothing probably isn’t going to make your symptoms go away. Sometimes doing nothing and just getting your mind off of it does work, like in the case of an acute symptom like a cold.
But with a chronic condition, finding all those pieces is necessary for resolution.
When students experience symptoms while in MBR, yes, we celebrate because it means they are healing. But that is because we have done the work to resolve the subconscious patterns and the body is telling us that by moving into the healing phase.
Now to the second part of that question. If symptoms mean healing then why are my symptoms not going away?
They are not going away because you are in a hanging healing. This means that your body is trying to heal but your psyche is still in conflict. This could mean that you haven’t fully resolved the original event that started this subconscious pattern and/or that you are being triggered.
Everyone that has a chronic condition is in a hanging healing. Its not that your body doesn’t know how to heal, its that the healing process is getting interrupted. I use a cut for an example with this to make it make sense.
If you have a cut and you keep hitting it everyday causing it to reopen, it will delay or stop the healing process.
The problem is that most people are scared of their symptoms because we have been programmed that symptoms are scary. So this in itself causes an interruption of the healing phase. A person gets a cough, they get scared based on all the things they hear from others or tell themselves and this fear puts them into the conflict phase. Again, its all about survival. To the brain and body, this kind of thinking feels like a threat, so all the attention is going to go to the threat rather than healing.
When we have chronic symptoms, this is the cycle we are on. Symptoms show up, we get scared, we take something, they go away or lessen, and we feel mentally a little better, the body gets a message its safe now, so it goes into healing, which means we get symptoms again and the cycle keeps going on from there.
So no, this work is not about ignoring. It's about understanding our bodies and ultimately trusting them to do what they are designed to do. If you don’t do the work that is necessary to resolve your symptoms, doing nothing is probably not going to move the needle in the case of chronic symptoms. But having less fear about your symptoms is a place to start.
That's a Wrap!
I hope I have answered your questions and you have a clearer picture about the work that I do. I understand that there is a lot of information out there, which in itself causes a lot of confusion. I’m hoping that I have brought some simplicity to this confusion in some way.
We get it, you're desperate to have your illness be a thing of the past, not something that defines your days. But trying to heal WITHOUT a custom plan is costing you precious time, money and energy!
You are unique, your symptoms are connected to very specific patterns within your subconscious.
Without a plan unique to you, you will continue struggling and miss out on the life you deserve to be living! To help you get started on your long-lasting healing journey, we would love to provide you with a healing plan that is unique to you. Get your custom healing plan today!
You can also Download my free healing guide, “Why Can’t I Heal” where you will learn the 5 reasons that you haven't healed despite everything you've tried. These are the missing pieces to your healing and the key to resolving your symptoms for good.
Jenny Peterson is the founder and CEO of Mind Body Rewire (MBR). She teaches those that are overwhelmed with trying to heal chronic symptoms how to simplify their healing by focusing on just one place, the subconscious mind. Learn more about MBR here.