Testing Your Mind/Body Response.
At this point, I would like to suggest that you learn to apply a simple muscle test derived from the healing method of Behavioral Kinesiology. This test will demonstrate to you that at each moment your thoughts, intentions, desires, etc. exert total control over your body. I will refer to this test throughout the book whenever it may be necessary to find out whether a particular food, medicine, beauty product, situation, environment, or even a particular desire is conducive to your health or not.
Everyone practices “mind over body” at all times. However, most of us do it unconsciously. The main purpose of this test is to bring this intimate relationship of the mind and body to the surface of your awareness and truly experience it in a very concrete and conscious way. Whenever you apply the muscle test, you will instantaneously reawaken the inner wisdom of your body and strengthen your natural instincts, trust and intuition. To conduct the test, find yourself a partner. Follow these simple steps for muscle testing:
Both of you need to stand. Your left arm should hang down relaxed by your side, while your right arm is extended in a horizontal position, with your elbow stretched. (If you are left-handed, use your left arm for testing.)
Next, ask your partner to stand in front of you. Look at a neutral place, such as a door or a wall, and try not to think of anything or anyone. Ask your partner to place his/her right hand on your left shoulder to keep your body posture in a stable position, and his/her left hand on top of your right arm, just over your wrist.
Now, ask your partner to press down on your arm, while you try to resist the pressure. Ask your partner to press down on your arm quickly and firmly, but not in a jerky manner, and not longer than about three seconds. The idea is to maintain the pressure only as long as it takes him/her to notice your arm’s strength of resistance. Pressing longer will make the muscle weak and produce a faulty test result.
Your arm muscle should be testing strong in this neutral state. (Please note that a particularly negative thought, an expectation, physical illness, or being under the influence of shock, alcohol, or drugs may substantially influence the outcome of this muscle test.)
Next, keep your right arm outstretched, while you try to think of a situation, person, past experience, etc., that would make you feel angry, nervous, or uncomfortable in any way. At the same time repeat Step 3. You will notice you will not be able to resist the pressure applied to your arm, and your arm muscle will immediately give in and become weak. Then try to think of someone you love or care about and ask your partner to test your arm muscle once more. Your arm muscle will be strong again.
You may repeat Step 5 of the test while listening to hard rock music, watching a violent movie, or looking at fluorescent light. To test whether a particular shampoo, toothpaste, medical drug or food item is suitable for you, place any of these items into one of your hands while you ask your partner to test the muscle of your other arm. Note: If you are left-handed, it is better to test your left arm and place the tested item in your right hand. If these items are not available, merely think of them as he tests you on these products, one at a time.
It may be necessary for you to experiment with this technique on each other for a while before it becomes second nature to you. It is necessary to have an open and innocent mind when you conduct the test. Don’t try to influence or manipulate the outcome in any way, for this may lead to false results. Remember that every thought influences the body in a specific way. Ask any questions you may have that can be answered with a “yes” or with a “no.” This may even concern important decisions you need to make, journeys to take, or foods to eat, etc. Once again: to test food items, it may be enough to just look at or think of the food while applying the test.
The body's own biofeedback system always works – it never lies. The muscles will respond to a particular stimulation either with weakness or with strength, so long as the test is conducted properly. Even if a so-called “health food” contains something that your body cannot process or digest properly, the feedback system will immediately inform you about it by sending your body cells the appropriate messages. A fearful thought, disruptive noise from the street, or the picture on the television news of a killed person is transmitted to your body cells, too. Your body's response is completely accurate and reflects the exact quality of the information passed on to you. Be aware that subconscious desires or aversions can change testing results.
The cells in your body can detect the frequencies of incoming substances and check whether they are useful or harmful for you. A cola soft drink gives off different frequencies than an apple. The concentrated phosphoric acid, artificial flavors and sweeteners, large quantities of refined sugar and other chemicals contained in cola soft drinks are very destructive for biological life forms. So the body’s cells will consider them to be poisonous and go into a stress response. Their energy production, measured by the amount of ATP molecules, begins to drop abruptly as a result of this response. This practically means that the tissues in the body are increasingly cut off from the routes of energy supply and, hence, become weakened. In practical terms, this situation forces all the organs, glands, blood vessels, nerves and muscles to subsist on minimal energy, which jeopardizes the normal functioning of the body.
Note: you can obtain more detailed information on the procedure from a good book on “Applied Kinesiology.” There is the opinion among some circles of Kinesiology practitioners that the arm-muscletest is not accurate and cannot be used as a tool of measuring the mind-body response. This would, however, imply that the arm muscles are not directly influenced by the frequencies of information we generate or are exposed to. In other words, the arms muscles would not be included in the internal network of communication. This defies the very principles of mind/body medicine. Inaccuracies occur only when the rules of the test are not followed exactly and when hidden desires manipulate the results. Eventually, you would want to rely only on what your heart tells you. By putting your attention on your heart while asking it a question will usually give you a feeling, knowingness, or even a verbal answer. The first response or impulse is the one to go by.
