Mental Housecleaning: Brain Integration and the Amazing Results
Physicians are now writing scientific articles and books about their experiences using long-distance healing to help people's ailing bodies. For example, The Western Journal of Medicine and Intuition magazine both contain accounts of Dr. Elisabeth Targ's triple-blind experiment with 40 experienced healers who used a variety of techniques to help heal AIDS patients, whom they had never met. This beautifully designed and rigorously controlled study showed that the long-distance healing clearly helped the AIDS patients improve.
We have also realized that the mind and body are one. Therefore, it makes sense that healing from a distance can be used to help heal what we think of as "mental" problems.
The following is about Chris Treml and how she helps heal the minds and bodies of horses and their people.
Before and After Examples of Results
"Easter" no longer suddenly switches "in milliseconds" from calm and quiet to dangerously aggressive for no apparent reason. "Roger" no longer needs to be led with a chain through his mouth, and his physical coordination improved. "Nikko" is better able to think before reacting. "Jack" is still a clown but is no longer hyperactive. And "Gomer" is now back on "the same wave length" as his rider.
What transformed these horses?
These horses all had appointments with Chris Treml who uses a technique called "brain integration" followed by "results system counseling." The brain integration is also called "re-patterning." It helps an individual to more easily process and retrieve knowledge and to react with appropriate emotions.
We interviewed Chris and several of her clients to learn more about what this is and whom it can help. Not only did everyone we interviewed observe improvements in their horses, but several people had these appointments for themselves too.
Brain Integration
This technique integrates and balances the left and right hemispheres of the brain. It's a bit like making sure each side is doing the jobs it is supposed to do and that there are no "cobwebs" in the way. Chris reassures people that she does not "read their minds" to find out WHAT they are thinking; she only addresses HOW they think. An analogy is having a friend help to clear out a home's hallways by re-arranging boxes without peering at their contents.
Chris also demonstrates for the brain how it SHOULD work. She identifies the ideal state - and the brain figures out how to achieve it. To continue the house analogy, it is as if someone helped you find your way out of the house by standing outside calling to you. You can then find the right path from where you are.
Once the brain is integrated, improvements include increased self-esteem, better skills for coping with stress, better coordination, and greater mental clarity. For example, a study by M. J. Clement, J.D./M.S.W., Ph.D., of the Virginia Commonwealth University showed that brain integration with results counseling was more successful than traditional methods for helping women offenders who had a history of alcohol and drug addictions.
Indications of a brain that is not functioning properly include sudden attacks of rage, confused thinking, poor problem-solving skills, trouble feeling positive emotions, logic clouded by emotions, hyperactivity, and lack of coordination.
Results System Counseling
Chris uses kinesiology to access information from the mind and body; she gets answers to a wide variety of questions. This helps identify the roots of old problems, and Chris uses it to replace negative feelings with positive affirmations.
For example, at the beginning of the results counseling, she determines whether the individual unconsciously wishes to succeed or fail. As a person repeats the statements "I want to succeed" and "I want to fail," he or she subtly emphasizes the one they may not even realize they believe, which is often "fail." By the end of the session, the emphasis in the voice shifts to "succeed."
People also tell of Chris describing emotional or physical traumas and identifying when they happened. Even though it was years ago, and she could not have known about them.
Her Training
After college Chris attended a one-week TTEAM (Tellington-Jones Equine Awareness Method) workshop taught by Linda-Tellington-Jones. Chris says, "Linda broadened my horizons and made me look at life differently." Linda recommended to Chris many books about getting closer to nature by authors including Richard Bach, Rachel Carlson, Michael J.Roads, and Machaelle Small Wright.
Chris also read The Tangled Wing by Melvin Konner. Although she was a gifted student, Chris recognized in herself a type of learning disability that Konner described. When someone told her about brain integration, she tried it. Impressed by its effectiveness, she decided to learn how to use it to help others.
In 1994, Chris attended an intensive course in brain integration and results counseling. Then she had additional training in applying these techniques to animals. Based on her experience over the years and her training in other methods of healing, she has developed her own techniques that include long-distance healing.
Unscrambling "Easter Egg"
Lucky for Smokey's Easter Charm she has lived with Gwen Ajar her whole eight years. Many people would probably have given up on this 16.1 hand Quarter Horse mare, despite her beauty.
Since she was born on Easter Sunday, her nickname was "Egg" (for Easter Egg). But sometimes she was called "Scrambled Eggs" because her personality changes would "come and go in a flash." When she was good, she was "perfect, an angel." Gwen, who competes Easter in Hunter Under Saddle, said that she tries hard, stands quietly, and ships well.
But, without any warning or identifiable cause, Easter used to suddenly become very aggressive, like Dr.Jekyll becoming Mr.Hyde. And then, just as quickly, she would return to being quiet with a soft eye. Even Easter seemed a bit surprised as if she didn't quite know how she got where she found herself.
When she was being Mr. Hyde she would pin her ears, show the whites of her eyes, and lunge at Gwen with her teeth snapping. Sometimes Easter seemed to purposely miss her victims; other times she would bite them.
Gwen tried a variety of approaches, none of which helped for long, if at all. Easter's saddle and bit were eliminated as problem sources. In fact she was better behaved ridden than on the ground. Acupuncture stabilized her behavior only temporarily. Calming agents were no help. Therefore, Gwen figured that Easter's behavior problem was mental, not physical.
Then Gwen met Sue Ludovici, an R.N. who began doing equine massage therapy for Easter. Sue's massages would help improve Easter's behavior, but only temporarily. However, Sue made it her personal goal to find a cure for Easter.
Sue studied animal communication with Anita Curtis and discussed Easter's problem with her. They discovered that Easter was not aware of her aggressive behavior. So, Anita recommended Chris Treml and her brain integration therapy. Gwen admits that this concept sounded "a bit outlandish" and that she was not too enthused, but she did have Chris work on Easter. Gwen told us, "Changes I immediately saw were a softer, more attentive eye. Her overall disposition seemed calm and attentive instead of the previous darting mentally back and forth. There has been a general softening of Easter's personality. I have also seen a definite improvement in her work ethic. She can now work hard and apply herself without tiring."
In addition, her outbursts of temper from time to time, over nothing apparent, diminished greatly. Gwen rarely sees Easter get upset now. And if she does, not only is her reason obvious, but her behavior is normal. There are no more snapping teeth with an "I'll kill you" look.
These changes were after a single one-hour appointment with Chris. In describing it, Gwen said, "Throughout the brain integration Chris, who had never met me or my horse, asked questions about events in the mare's life that she would have no way of knowing about. She zeroed in on her sickness as a foal and an operation she had as a yearling. She even asked about an injury that I had forgotten about! It was quite evident that there was some connection between her and the mare during this. She described her personality to a tee which surprised me as I admit she does have certain personality traits that I think might be rather unique."
Reforming "Roger"
Roger was registered as "PJ's Persistence" in honor of his surviving a premature birth followed by a month in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit with septicemia and pneumonia. Susan Neilson-Smith's three year-old Oldenburg gelding is now 17 hands high. Unfortunately he was also an aggressive bully to lead and lunge and uncoordinated to ride.
When Roger had his 1-1/2 hour appointment with Chris, Susan was in the barn while she and Chris talked to each other and communicated telepathically with him. Roger watched her intently the entire time.
Susan thought the differences in Roger were "amazing." She said it was "as if Chris re-wired his hard drive." Susan said Roger never used to feel as if he were symmetrically connected. She had to work REALLY hard and concentrate to steer him, because she had to think about where each of his feet was going. She thinks he improved dramatically and feels much more grounded. In addition to Chris's work, Susan also credits Roger's constitutional homeopathic remedy and his training.
Susan and her boarder, professional animal communicator Donna Lozito, noticed that Roger's eyes changed. Donna was thrilled with the improvement in his behavior. He used to bite at her head when she led him, even with a chain in his mouth. She said now he is "good as gold" and does everything she asks him to. Also his manners while being lunged improved; he isn't cranky about his sides, and he finally has started to understand the concept of "give-and-take" with the reins.
His exercise rider says Roger is smarter about everything. He responds to leg aids better. It no longer feels as if he's "kicking a dead horse."
Since she was impressed with Chris's success with Roger, Susan also called for help with her eight year-old Trakehner gelding, Neodynamic. "Nikko," who had problems with fear and anxiety, is now better able to think, "What should I do about this?" when he is scared, instead of just turning and running the way he used to.
"Jack" Be Calm
As a psychotherapist, Judy Szela knows what she is talking about when she describes her eight year-old Appendix Quarter Horse gelding Panama Jack as "hyperactive; if he had been a student he would have been in the principal's office all the time." She also thinks his behavior problems led to his being starved and injured before she got him.
After one brain integration appointment with Chris, Jack stands quietly in the crossties instead of being in constant motion. He is more contained, calmer, and easier to be around. But the brain integration did not change his true personality; he still is a clown with an active mind. But he now has "peace within his mind."
Jack, who also received results counseling and body alignment work from Chris, when asked what he thought of her said, "Who? The Miracle Worker?" Judy's dog Scout and the rest of her family concur with this assessment of Chris.
Back on Track
Carrie Christiansen said the results counseling showed that both she and her 17- hand Thoroughbred dressage horse Saint Gomer feared success.
Gomer alternated between "brilliance" and "throwing himself around." Carrie and Gomer were angry with each other instead of being a team. So she consulted several experts. Animal communicator Beth Ross said, "You aren't finished working with each other" and recommended contacting Chris.
Carrie had appointments for both Gomer and herself. She believes "you can't just fix the horse, it's really the person's problem." Carrie, a combined training and dressage competitor and trainer, named her business HorsePath "because horses provide us with amazing opportunities for self-awareness and growth."
Chris helped show that they shared "a profound sense of self-doubt." She identified that their problems were with fear of success, not with their showring partnership. Carrie thinks this explains their history of successes followed by illness and injury. Chris also gave them both positive affirmations. Carrie was able to concentrate on addressing their real issues instead of questioning whether she had to lease Gomer to someone else for a different career. Carrie described the results of Chris's work with them as "subtle yet profound" and recommends working with Chris because "she helps you see what is really there instead of boxing at shadows."
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