Healing Technique: Peace Theory

Peace Theory is a theory of my own creation that expands upon the Mental and Emotional Release (MER) theory as described in a separate post. The general structure of the theory is the same but I've theoretically expanded upon it to go further than MER. See that post here.

The first difference is in the theoretical underpinnings. The first theoretical assumption that's important is that emotions create our distress. If you think about a four year old child that is yelled at by their parents, the four year old doesn't have the capacity to understand the full extent of why they are being yelled at. What they know is that whatever emotion they are experiencing is distressing. This emotion is subconsciously stored to mean something undefined until the brain develops the capacity to make additional meaning. The prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for such determinations, fully develops at age 25. This means that until age 25 we are essentially at the mercy of the emotional center of our brain to create meaning. Moreover, the brain is set up so that our instinct for survival is almost entirely a function of emotion, not logic, so emotion will always prevail over logic at a subconscious level. All of this to say that the first theoretical assumption is that emotions dictate what we think and do, and those impressions start far before our brain is capable of fully handling it.

MER assumes that the core five negative emotions that humanity experiences (anger, sadness, fear, guilt, and hurt) will be sufficient to release all negative influences on a person. In my own research I've come up with a list of nearly 250 distinct emotions. It would be naive to assume that working through five emotions would account for the other 245 (or more) possible emotions. The second theoretical assumption of this theory is that any negative emotion that we are holding on to at a subconscious level is impacting our ability to function as an emotionally mature adult, keeping us stuck subconsciously at a child-like level which can only be released by consciously releasing said emotions. Once we release a stuck emotion, we are able to move forward.

The third theoretical assumption is about what emotion is a preferential replacement to any given emotion, regardless of what it was. My conclusion is that peace is the ultimate and most far-reaching emotion, a possible and desirable outcome for any negative emotion or experience in life. In healing something traumatic for example, replacing whatever emotion stemmed from that experience is tricky but the ideal outcome is to come to peace with the fact that it happened so that you are able to move on. Peace is not excusing or condoning an experience or trying to be happy about an experience that is objectively not a pleasant one, it is accepting it as a part of your history, one that is unchangeable, and one that is now in the past. Peace is universally foundational to every other positive emotion. This idea is also derived from the extensive reading of sacred texts throughout the world from every major religion as well as the study of famous secular philosophers and what they deemed as desirable. Peace and love were universally concluded as the most desirable outcomes from both religion and philosophy but as loving truly horrible experiences seems extremely counterintuitive, peace prevailed as the dominant contestant.

Taking all of this and synthesizing it resulted in peace theory, the idea that releasing negative emotions and replacing them with peace could result in long-term and permanent healing.

There are a couple additions I made to the MER meditation that I believe are beneficial:

1. Something I've been experimenting with recently is using light as a means of healing. When the client is placed on their timeline, previous to their initial experience with the chosen negative emotion, I may have them color the experience with a color of light, whatever color of light speaks to them, to help them release what they are holding on to (kind of like putting on colored sunglasses). This has helped some client release the emotions, but not all clients.

2. After the negative emotion is released from the first experience, I have clients imagine a color of light representing peace, whatever color of light they want, to materialize above their head and pierce through their body filling their body with the light, and consequent peace, and the more light fills their body, the more peace they feel. This light also exits through their body into the event itself and fills the event with feelings of peace. The client is ready to move on once they feel at complete peace with the first experience of the given emotion being worked on.

3. Once a client moves through their entire past timeline replacing all negative emotions of the chosen emotion and replacing it with peace, I ask the client if they can consciously think of any experience in their past that elicits the chosen negative emotion. This is done to check if there are conscious stuck points. If a client is able to identify something in their past that elicits the chosen negative emotion, they are instructed to release the emotion from the event and replace it with peace. This is repeated until the client cannot consciously bring up any events that elicit the chosen negative emotion.

4. After step 2 is done, I ask the client to look towards their past from the present and rate themselves on how strongly they feel the chosen negative emotion towards their past on a scale of 0-10 with 10 being the strongest they can feel the chosen negative emotion. This is done to check if they are subconsciously holding on to anything. If they rate themselves as anything other than 0, I ask them to subconsciously release the held emotion until they are able to rate themselves at a 0.

5. Once step 3 is done I ask them to rate themselves on a scale of peace 0-10 that they feel towards their past with 10 being complete peace. If they are at anything other than a 10, I ask them to use the light representing peace to flow through them, then into their past timeline, until they feel at a 10 in replacement of the chosen negative emotion.

6. Once the past is complete I ask them to turn towards the future and rate themselves on a scale 0-10 on how strongly they feel the chosen negative emotion towards their future. If it's anything other than 0 I ask them to release it as explained in the REM meditation. Once done, I do the same with the amount of peace they feel towards their future. If they are not at a 10 on a scale of 0-10 then I ask them to use the light representing peace to flow through them into their future timeline until they feel at complete peace towards their future for the chosen negative emotion.

Theoretically, once all negative emotions are released from your being, you should be psychologically healthy. Here is the list I've compiled of all negative emotions as well as broad categories to start with (which are bolded). I always start with the bolded emotions in an effort to take out as many of the subcategory emotions as possible, then I ask the client to look at the list and see what emotions are residual and have them work on those until all emotions from the category have been taken care of.

This method of healing is super simple and easy to do on your own. I recommend coupling this method with bilateral stimulation to further enhance and speed up emotional processing.