I have heard of kinesiology since many years ago. One of my earliest experiences of it was when I watched Graeme Bradshaw (founder of IMI and naturopath) use it to find out if a certain supplement is good for a person by putting the supplement aginst their stomach while testing their arm’s strength (see below).
The most commonly used muscle response testing which you might have seen is this: I would ask you to hold one of your arms up and hold strong, and I will use my hand to gently push your arm down while you would resist. Normally your arm should hold up and would not be pushed down by my hand. But if I were to ask you hold certain food in your other hand that you are allergic to (whether we know what you are holding or not), your arm would not be able to hold strong.
I have used it to help my clients quit foods they know they want to quit with this simple exercise. They can see that their body REALLY doesn’t want it. For example, putting some coffee powder or sugar in an envelop and putting it against someone’s stomach always make the person weak. (Neither of us needs to know what’s in the envelop. The body “knows” and gives consistent feedback.) Cigarette always gives a weak response. Green tea or herbal tea almost always test strong. Organic food almost always tests strong compared to same food but not organic. Hard to believe? Try it next time you go grocery shopping!
A simple experiment you can do yourself: think of someone you don’t like, have someone test you. Then think of someone you like, have someone test you. You will find you test strong when you are thinking of someone you like and you test weak when you are thinking of someone you don’t like.
The body never lies. This is what I have found from my experience with kinesioogy. Muscle strength is controlled by our subconscious.
On top of just testing if the body likes something or not, even more fascinating is the application of muscle response testing on desensitizing the body to allergens, brain integration and even emotional healing.
Using muscle response testing can help to bring what is subsconsious to the conscious level. Sometimes this is what it takes for change to take place. And often further than simply bringing out what our conscious mind didn’t know or didn’t want to know, kinesiology helps to do adjustment and helps the body to cope better with otherwise harmful substances, or to increase our emotional resilience and removing the cause of unhealthful behavioural patterns.
There are two kinesiologists in town that I have used. One is Brett Scott. Another is Anisa Abdoolcarim. In fact I got so fascinated I later trained with Brett for first level applied kinesiology, and I later took another training with Anisa’s teacher.
Brett has helped me desensitize my body to mercury (which is a neuro-toxin). Most of us living in Hong Kong has high mercury level, because of teeth fillings and the seafood that we eat. It’s not easy to completely avoid heavy metals. (I am not really as careful and “pristine” as many people would assume! And my hair mineral analysis shows this! I do periodic detox…) Before the treatment, my body would test really weak when he put a vial of mercury almost 4 feet away from me. But after a quick adjustment, he could put the vial next to my body and I would test strong. This is just one small example of what kinesiology can do.
Both Brett and Anisa have helped me with deeper issues. I have seen them at times of emotional distress, or a physical sickness that had its root in emotional imbalance. In fact in Chinese Medicine and many forms of healing, it is well recognized that all physical symptom has its root cause from an emotional imbalance. Or in energetic medicine, all emotional imbalance can be traced back to energetic imbalance.
A common thing a kinesiologist can help you do is to identify the time you had an experience of a certain emotion that is still affecting you today. I remember once I told Brett that I had a sense of I could not “have it all” like others do. I felt that committed relationships get in the way of fulfilling my life’s bigger purpose. I felt torn between the two and didn’t believe I could “have it all”. He tested me and asked me to remember if I had a similar sense of being torn between choices around age 15. And I remembered I was indeed very torn because I had to choose my concentration of studies in the secondary school. I was interested in many subjects and I didn’t want to give up one for the other. But the available options were very rigid. At the end I chose English Literature and the arts but I could not take Physics and Economics. I was angry, resentful and resigned about the system that boxes people into narrow categories. I felt it’s unfair. Subconsciously I decided that this was what life is about. You can’t have it all. Or you can’t have it your way. And clearly my body has remembered it. After he helped me to distinguish it, the negative charge about “having it all work” was removed.
Anisa’s specialty is using kinesiology for emotional healing. Once I was scheduled to see her to have a demo from her. I was down with a persistent flu when the scheduled date came, and I asked her if I should reschedule because I was really not feeling good. She told me to just go and she could help me with that too. I thought “Really? But this is to do with a flu bug… And everybody is sick and the schools are shut…” But a part of me agreed with her that it didn’t mean I needed to catch it. So I went. And within 15 minutes into the session, without even touching me (she was doing muscle testing just with her own fingers while talking to me across the table), she helped me uncover some un-supportive emotions and “delete” them. My throat started to hurt much less, my sinus cleared 70%, and my muscle soreness started to subside. By the end of it I was able to walk out feeling overall 70% better and was ready for a dinner party scheduled that night. (I had been feeling bad about going when I was not feeling well. And I felt even worse because I made myself guilty for being “unwell” as a “wellness coach”) Not that my flu was completely gone, but it was clear that stored emotional memory had made my flu much worse. That night at the party I let myself eat spring rolls and chips (!) and my voice didn’t go and I totally enjoyed myself. Normally when I am down with a flu/cold and have a sore throat, eating these foods would have really killed my voice.
A few days later I went to see her to do deeper work. She helped me identify an incident that I had forgotton about which has to do with not getting acknowledgment from my Dad. It was such an insignificant incident and my conscious mind totally can appreciate that my Dad is just not expressive, like most Chinese parents are. And on the conscious level, with all the work I had done with myself, I thought there’s nothing else about him that I needed to clear. But this work helped me to go deeper and do more release. The impact is I see the recurrent patterns in my life related to feeling invalidated or not being acknowledged when she helped me to distinguish it. And of course in some level, one tends to attract similar people and situation when one is still holding on to the unreleased emotions. Once I distinguish that I am not driven by some subconscious urge to compensate an area of perceived lack anymore, and I have much more energy to put to more constructive use.
Anisa said there’s always many levels of onion peeling, and when the right time comes and one is ready there’s always more to clear. I do recognize that old patterns may come back. They often do in fact. But each time the grip they have on you become weaker. For me, after each session I feel lighter and freer.
The healer needs to be healed first. I am ready to do more healing on myself. And I am grateful to be surrounded by people who are conscious about self growth and who remind me that every experience, including unpleasant experiences, like a sickness, is there for a reason. It’s often the resistance that adds to the pain.
anita on wellness 