Here at Bright Hope, we pride ourselves on being integrative and not traditional.   Throughout the years, we have explored many different techniques to help people rid themselves of anxiety.  I personally like to see this as an evolution of both myself and this practice.  With advanced training in Chinese medicine, I learned to use the acupuncture meridians to find and locate where the body stores unwanted stress and anxiety. Since my role here at Bright Hope is not that of a licensed acupuncturist,  I use both pain-free and side effect free lasers to stimulate acupuncture points to help restore emotional balance in order to help my patients lead an anxiety free life.  

The reason why I am a fan of this method is that it is even easier and faster than NET.   What is so cool about acupuncture, and the style that I practice is the body responds to anxiety and other emotions as tender spots on ether the lower arms or lower legs.   This tenderness either correlates to actual acupuncture points, or they are along the Meridian as something called ah shi points.  Once these points are located, the laser is placed on these areas, and the emotion is literally melted away.    I have never seen anything like this.   It is definitely something to be experienced.

So, if you ever were thinking about acupuncture,  consider our needle free alternative.


Till Next Time,

Justin

Here at Bright Hope Counseling, we only employ low level light class IIIa lasers.  In other words, a person can experience all the benefits of acupuncture without experiencing any pain or fear of needles.   There is absolutely no risk or negative side effects.   A traditional acupuncture appointment takes anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour depending on the type of treatment.  With our lasers, we can get the same amount of work done in under 15 minutes. 

The following is taking directly from the World Health Organization of what Acupuncture has been studied and able to treat:
1. Diseases, symptoms or conditions for which acupuncture has been proved-through controlled trials-to be an effective treatment:

• Adverse reactions to radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy
• Allergic rhinitis (including hay fever)
• Biliary colic
• Depression (including depressive neurosis and depression following stroke)
• Dysentery, acute bacillary
• Dysmenorrhoea, primary
• Epigastralgia, acute (in peptic ulcer, acute and chronic gastritis, and gastrospasm)
• Facial pain (including craniomandibular disorders)
• Headache
• Hypertension, essential
• Hypotension, primary
• Induction of labour
• Knee pain
• Leukopenia
• Low back pain
• Malposition of fetus, correction of
• Morning sickness
• Nausea and vomiting
• Neck pain
• Pain in dentistry (including dental pain and temporomandibular dysfunction)
• Periarthritis of shoulder
• Postoperative pain
• Renal colic
• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Sciatica
• Sprain
• Stroke
• Tennis elbow

2. Diseases, symptoms or conditions for which the therapeutic effect of acupuncture has been shown but for which further proof is needed: 

• Abdominal pain (in acute gastroenteritis or due to gastrointestinal spasm)
• Acne vulgaris
• Alcohol dependence and detoxification
• Bell’s palsy
• Bronchial asthma
• Cancer pain
• Cardiac neurosis
• Cholecystitis, chronic, with acute exacerbation
• Cholelithiasis
• Competition stress syndrome
• Craniocerebral injury, closed
• Diabetes mellitus, non-insulin-dependent
• Earache
• Epidemic haemorrhagic fever
• Epistaxis, simple (without generalized or local disease)
• Eye pain due to subconjunctival injection
• Female infertility
• Facial spasm
• Female urethral syndrome
• Fibromyalgia and fasciitis
• Gastrokinetic disturbance
• Gouty arthritis
• Hepatitis B virus carrier status
• Herpes zoster (human (alpha) herpesvirus 3)
• Hyperlipaemia
• Hypo-ovarianism
• Insomnia
• Labour pain

So if you or a loved one have been thinking about trying acupuncture, but have been hesitant because of the fear of needles,  come check us out.

Chinese and Eastern Medicine as mentioned before is at least 3,000 to 5,000 years old.   We have written documentation of what works, and what does not work going back at least 2,500 years. What we gather out of this documentation and through the countless practitioners is that there are 12 primary channels within the body and 12 extraordinary channels within  the body.  These can be imagined as very small rivers within the body that form a very complex flow of movement  of something called, Qi.  What is Qi one may ask?   Well, that answer is not easily explained.  Western medical science says it does not exist, but ask any Chinese medicine physician, or someone whose health condition seemingly vanished after having acupuncture if they believe Qi is real.    The easiest way to think of Qi is that it is the life energy that flows through the body. (If my Chinese medicine instructors ever read this, they would have my neck for calling Qi life energy).   This energy is able to be accessed in different ways. It can be accessed directly through both acupuncture and acupressure, and can be felt in the radial pulse of both wrists.   Now, if we circle back to the idea of the channels, we learn that each channel is named after the organ that it passes through in order to come together to form a complete circuit called the Jing Luo.    What this means is that there are different levels of influence each branch or channel does to both the channel and the body.   


 We have the liver channel, spleen channel, stomach channel, and so on.    Also, each channel manifests certain emotions when it is under duress.  For example, the liver channel contains anger and the lung channel contains  the emotions associated with grief.  This is where the Pulse Code,  and other energy psychologies come into play.    More on this later.


On top of the channels, there is another influence that is layered on top of it all.   This next influence is called the Wu Xing of the 5 phases or the 5 elements.  There are many branches of Chinese medicine, and what is going to be presented is part of one branch.   The easiest way to explain the 5 elements is to look at the observable world.   We have elements of the ground or Earth,  Water, Wood, Metal, and Fire.  Each element contains two channels called the Ying/Yang pairs.  Within these elements contain different emotions and patterns  of disharmony that exhibit when one phase or channel needs to be addressed.  These patterns of disharmony are what Chinese medicine physicians address when they use acupuncture or herbs.

Laser acupuncture is where modern technology meets ancient medical wisdom.  Laser acupuncture is a needle free approach to receiving all the benefits of traditional acupuncture, but without the fear of needles or any pain. Traditional acupuncture, when done correctly, causes little to no pain, but try telling that to someone who has an aversion to needles.  With laser acupuncture, on the other hand,  a painless low level light laser is placed on the acupuncture points and stimulated with either a red or blue light.  The effects are nearly instantaneous, and treatments can be completed in about 10 minutes.   With traditional acupuncture, the needles are inserted and left in the body for about 20 minutes before being removed.   

What can it help me?

Well...Acupuncture changed my life.   I speak a lot about the emotional effects of Neuro Emotional Technique, and since learning this NET, I started a journey to understand the science behind this method and how exactly it does what it does.  This rabbit hole sent me to acupuncture school where I learned about this whole system of acupuncture and Chinese medicine. What I learned is that the body creates an electrical bio-field, that when needles or in this case, lasers, are placed in specific locations, the body responds in a favorable way.   The results can at times be nothing short of miraculous.   I can go on and on about what I have seen accomplished with the use acupuncture.  Each person has a pattern of energy flow the Chinese have called, Qi.  Qi is the bio energetic field that flows and can be felt when a trained person feels the pulse along the thumb side of the wrist. This pattern that is felt tells the trained person the direction of the flow Qi.   The trained acupuncturist then knows where to place the needles, or lasers, to best benefit their patient.   So instead of seeing people who have anxiety, depression, diabetes, low back pain, etc,   I see patterns that need to be readjusted in order to bring the body back into balance in order for all those symptoms to fall away.  

My encouragement is that everyone give this system of medicine a try, and they too can have their own success story.


Till next time,


​Justin

Neuro Emotional Technique or NET is the life changing protocol designed by Dr. Scott Walker, DC out of Encitas, California.  It is founded on the understanding that the brain creates emotioncentric neuropeptides, hormones, and molecules that permeate through our bodies.  In other words, the brain and body are interconnected when it comes to stress and emotions.  For example, when we become anxious, we have the feeling of butterflies in the stomach or a tightness in the chest, but what is really going on is happening between our two ears inside of our heads. This is what makes NET very unique. What this means is that if we can access where the body stores undesired, stuck emotions, we can effectively eliminate them with unprecedented speed.

NET is comprised of 5 main disciplines:  chiropractic, acupuncture, Jungian psychology, muscle testing, and homeopathy.  The mechanics of NET is quite unique.  The videos on the front page of our website demonstrate and explains NET better than I could here on a blog post.  Just understand that what is going still blows my mind, and I have done NET over 1000 times.

So how can NET help me?

NET's range of helping is incredibly broad.  I have used it on everything from PTSD, trauma, anxiety, panic attacks, couples work, smoking, weight loss, depression, self improvement, job performance, stress, chronic pain, fibromyalgia, and more.  What I mentioned are just symptoms of a greater picture, and that greater picture is unresolved stress. Like I said in the first paragraph, they are nothing more than stuck emotioncentric neuropeptides, hormones, and molecules that permeate through our bodies.  When we release these our lives change almost instantly for the better.  Irregardless of the symptoms, we all have something that is keeping us from living our full potential, and NET can help us attain is.

CBD stands for  Cannabidiol.  It is part of the cannabis or marijuana plant.   The cannabis plant contains over 200 cannabinoids.  THC, the part that actually gets people high is also considered a cannabidoil. However, CBD oil sold in the Carolinas comes from the hemp plant.  What this means is that most brands contain 0% THC, and contain only the CBC cannabinoids.  So, in a nutshell, getting high is absolutely impossible.    Some brands of CBC legally do contain up to .03% of THC, and when taken in high doses can cause a failed drug screen.  The brand we offer has 0% so this is a non issue. 

So what does CBD oil do for me?

You may have heard in the news or on the internet that CBD oil is the cure all for our modern times. As much as I wish it was, this is simply not true.   No, it does not cure cancer, and help with weight loss.  It does in some patients control anxiety and curb the symptoms of PTSD.  I have had few patients tell me that when they take CBD oil that they get high.  What I figure out after assessing them further is that their anxiety has been so high that when they get relief, they feel  almost high because of the absence of anxiety.   This is not true for everyone.  I use CBD oil regularly, and it helps me achieve a level of calm that haven't experienced before, but I am not high.

On the health side, CBD oil has the power to help with chronic inflammation, chronic pain, and seizure disorders in some people.  Chronic inflammation is hard explain because it is body's way of swelling to promote healing. However, when inflammation becomes chronic, it can be harmful and lead to other illnesses.  We all know how to define pain, and when it is chronic, it is significantly worse.  CBD had been shown to be beneficial for some people in reducing pain.  Seizures disorders can be benefit.  Since I am not in the medical side of things, any CBD use should be brought up to a physician as CBD can interact with certain drugs.   One thing I am aware of after speaking with a pro-CBD pharmacist is that the dosages of CBD vary greatly per person, and that the body's CBD receptors need to be flooded before maximum effect can be achieved.  In other words, if the dose does not help the first time, the the amount and frequency may need to be increased before relief can be found. Once the brain's CBD receptors are saturated, then the amount of CBD should lessen.  

We have CBD oil at our office for a reasonable cost 500mg for $40.00 and 1000mg for $60.00 

September 16, 2018, my life changed.     I received a called from my mother on September 11, who at that point, was in a hospital bed rotting away from mismanaged nursing home care. She told me that she was going to die that weekend, then she went right back into a state of psychosis.  Since I was her healthcare power of attorney, I received another call from her doctor the next day who wanted to discuss her end of life plans.  Per her wishes,  I had to make the decision to end the treatment, and watch my mother waste away in an even faster decline. My anger at the nursing facility raged.  I watched her cry, plead, and scream for physical relief.  The physicians and nurses kept my mother under medical sedation partly because of pain, but also because of fear.  Either her cancer went to her brain, or the lengthy  hospital stays caused a form of psychosis.    

On the early morning hours of September 16th,  I watch my mother take her last breath on Earth. I held her hand until it turned cold. One of her eyes was open, and  I could see her green iris clearly.   She was gone; nothing but a shell.  I have faith that this is not end, and I would not wish her back for anything. How she died was another story.

Neuro Emotional Technique(NET) saved my head.  I went back to work two days later.  It is not impossible to do it to oneself, but it is quite difficult to get everything.   A week later, I still needed help.   I would be OK during the day, but at night, I would sit on edge of my bed and only see the image of her dead body with one eye open staring at the ceiling.  I felt guilt for not doing things differently.   I felt guilt for not getting other opinions.  I even felt guilty by thinking I could have done things better.  None of this was true.  I had my associate, Gillian Squillacioti, LPC do NET on me.   I promise who ever reads this, that those thoughts and images were out of my head in less than 5 minutes.   I, obviously, can still remember what happened, but my feelings of dread are completely gone.  I still miss my mom, and that will never change. However because of NET, I can now look forward to the future, and smile about the memories that I hold dear.

 Rest easy mom -  Beth Ann Asafaylo 7/4/61 - 9/16/18
Till next time,

Justin

I was perusing the internet a little bit ago, and I stumbled upon a website called BeyondOCD.org.   It is a non profit website that attempts to provide a service for people seeking treatment for obsessive compulsive disorder, or OCD.  What irked me the most is that they tout the benefits of CBT, or cognitive behavioral therapy.  They posted an article on how to find a therapist who uses CBT for treatment.   For that, I call total bullsh*t.  CBT is slow at best, and worthless at most.  A research article came out earlier this year that declared CBT is no more effective than reading a self help book.  In other words, it is bullsh*t. The majority of my practice stems from people who have had failed CBT.

I have said in other posts that CBT has its value and it's place, but in the realm of anxiety and anxiety based disorders such as OCD, it significantly over steps its place.  Here is why CBT and any variation is essentially a waste of time and money in treating anxiety disorders.

1. OCD and any other form of anxiety has CAUSE that occurred sometime in the past. 

2. The cause may or may not be known consciously to the person. However, the subconscious mind always knows in the biochemical storage of the body's nerves.

3. Energy Psychology such as Neuro Emotional Technique  accesses the body's subconscious through applied kinesiology and acupuncture points. -  No other technique does this level of detection and elimination.

4.  When a person is suffering from OCD or anxiety, whatever is learned from CBT is quickly thrown out the window because of the body's flight or fight response.

5. CBT is a mind only approach to treatment, and everyone who experiences anxiety feel it in the pit of their stomach or have the tightness in their chest.   This clearly shows that the body stores emotions that CANNOT  be accessed by CBT alone.  

6.Results speak for themselves.  Why waste the money on countless sessions of CBT, when a few session of Neuro Emotional Technique are enough to completely eliminate anxiety, panic attacks, and OCD?

To any therapist, psychologist, or medical doctor who spreads false information due to lack of understanding of Energy Psychology and Neuro Emotional Technique, I personally challenge you to experience Neuro Emotional Technique for yourselves. I promise, your life and the lives of your patients will be forever changed. 

How does Neuro Emotional Technique compare to traditional counseling, or cognitive behavioral therapy(CBT)?  Here is a chart the highlights the difference.

     I know I will catch some serious flack from other therapists with what I am about say, but, I really do not care.  I think anger management therapy is crap compared to working with anger using Neuro Emotional Technique(NET). If I am being totally honest, I think almost any other type of therapy is crap compared to NET. My reasoning behind this is because nothing else has come close to seeking and destroying root causes of emotional struggles in both myself and in the lives of my patients.  Now, getting back to why I use and believe that NET is best suited for helping those working through anger.
     Anger's root cause in any situation is pain.  Whether that pain stems from physical  or emotional causes makes no difference.  Pain always has a cause. Since pain has a cause, then obviously, so does anger.  Most people realize that having angry outbursts and hitting objects is not good.  We all know right from wrong, so I fail to reason why anger management classes still attempt to teach this way.   What I propose is that we treat the initial root cause of the anger that usually began many years prior.   For instance, I had a person I treating for uncontrolled anger outbursts.  We did NET, and uncovered the anger stemmed from not being accepted at home, and this individual was competing with siblings for the father's attention and love.  We eliminated the source of pain, and instantly this individual's anger fuse lengthened by miles.  Anger is a conditioned response to an uncomfortable stimulus.  Remove the initial source, and boom... problem is almost always solved.


Till next time,

Justin

     I have said in other blog posts that depression and be categorized as two types:  Organic and Situational.  Organic depression almost always requires medication because there is a lack of serotonin being created in the brain.  Situational depression is the nasty result of some sort of past event that we can not for whatever reason get over.  Both types of depression are treatable.   The fastest method, bar none, that I have come across over the years is Neuro Emotional Technique.
     Neuro Emotional Technique is a mind/body approach to eliminating stuck feelings in the body.   It is so different from traditional talk therapy because it uses the scientifically validated energy systems of the body to locate specific feelings associated with the negative event.  This is done through a two step process of using a technique called manual muscle testing and touching on meridian pulse points on the wrist.  This process takes literally just a few minutes.   When I had this done to me, I literally felt a surge of emotions that felt like an electrical charge leave my body. The feelings are still gone, and chatter in my brain from before is not there. Most people who I do this technique with experience the same thing. It is strange, yet amazing.  
     Getting back to how Neuro Emotional Technique can treat depression.  Depression can rear its ugly head in so many ways, and sometimes the feelings of why we feel depressed are just masked by a feeling of dread and sadness. In traditional talk therapy, we would run around in circles trying to figure out some rhyme and reason to the depression, but with Neuro Emotional Technique, the research shows that the subconscious mind already knows, and is willing to let go with some simple investigative work.  Literally, by pressing the meridian pulse points in the wrist we know almost immediately the underlying feeling, and then, we generally know the cause. From there, we add a few more steps, and the feelings are released. As I have said in other posts, with Neuro Emotional Technique, I can quite literally get  a year's worth of traditional therapy done in under an hour.   Just the other day, I got a person to smile and joke for the first time in two years after they experienced what they experienced.  We did that in under 20 minutes. I can not begin to express how this has changed my practice, my life, and my view of the world.  I am going to keep doing these blogs and  tell as  many people as I can until everyone who needs it gets to experience the release that I felt and now many of my patients.

Till next time,


Justin
       

Plain in simple,  Neuro Emotional Technique(NET) is quite possibly the fastest way to permanently end panic attacks.  Even the panic attacks that seem to have no initial cause are simply no match for NET.   In the framework of NET, panic attacks are nothing more than an emotional stuck point somewhere in the body. For instance, why is that that when we feel anxious or nervous, we have butterflies of in our stomach or a tightness in our chest?   If it is supposedly all in our heads, then why do other parts of our body feel it?  This proves that our body and mind are interconnected, and the body stores negative feelings in different places.   This is where NET comes into play.   NET uses something called manual muscle testing, and touching emotional points in the wrist to quickly find the physical source of the panic attacks.  Once this is complete, we will have the patient think about and feel those feelings, and BOOM, feelings and panic attacks are gone.  I am not going to lie, I thought this was total crap(yep, I said that word) before I personally experienced it, and did it with others.  Nothing I have seen is faster.  Check out the research at http://www.onefoundation.org/

NET is so fast and all encompassing, I have personally given up on traditional talk therapy as a main method for treatment.  Do not get me wrong, talk therapy has it's place, but it is not the catch all be all for getting people better.  At the time of this writing, I have been doing therapy in one form of another for 17 years.  Up until, I feel that I owe every past patient an apology for not learning NET and not doing NET for them sooner.


Till next time,


Justin

       If anyone has read my  older blog posts, I have in the past, touted the use EMDR to help people heal from sexual abuse.  EMDR is considered a power therapy in the field of trauma, but it does not hold a candle to curative abilities of Neuro Emotional Technique(NET).  As I have posted a few posts back, patients suffering from complex PTSD underwent two functional MRIs pre and post NET treatment.  In less than 5 treatments, they were scanned again, and the results showed there was no evidence of PTSD in the brain.  So, what does this mean for people who have suffered sexual abuse?  It means that it is quite possible to have a person cured within 5 sessions or less.  Personally,  I have seen a one time sexual trauma eliminated in 20 minutes.  At first, I honestly did not believe it, so I scheduled a follow up session the following week.  To my amazement, there were no occurrences of flashbacks, nightmares, or any lingering anxiety.  Since then, stories like this have been the norm.
         Before I proceed further and explain the process of treatment, I must add my disclosure.  I am not allowed to say that I can cure anything, or that your results will be the same as other patients.  I will say that this is worth a person's time.  NET is an advanced form of Energy Psychology where we use Eastern Chinese Acupuncture points and applied kinesiology  to find where the body stores the emotional stuck points.  Or in the case of sexual trauma, where the body chose to store the memories and pain.   Once we find the right spot,  which literally takes a minute, we release the emotion by connecting the acupuncture point where the feeling is stored to the emotional acupuncture point, and the feeling is quickly released. As long as you can feel the feeling, we can release it.  It is literally that simple. 
        I have been asked so many times why NET is not in every therapist's set of skills, and why CBT is said to be the cure all of every mental illness.  The answer is quite complex.  For starters,  NET was developed by a skilled chiropractor by the name of Dr. Scott Walker.   He was more interested in healing patients than being a research junkie in academia somewhere.  It was not until the early 90's that the One Foundation was founded to create peer reviewed research proving  what Dr. Walker and many others had already known.  Second, CBT and these other talk therapies have more research behind them because it makes sense to them to just talk and use logic  to fix whatever ails ya;  it is clean, it stays in the head.    Third, let's face it, psychologists are nerds.  Their degree is based in conducting research upon research upon research.    Just for my masters degree alone, I had to write 63 research papers in order to graduate.  Finally, eastern oriental medicine is still seen by western eyes as a form of snake oil and weird voodoo. News flash, there is something to this stuff. Otherwise it would not have lasted 5000 years.   So that my friends is the basic reason why NET is not in the forefront of therapy.  

Till next time my friends,


​Justin

While I am in between patients, I decided to write a quick post about how Neuro Emotional Technique has helped my patients to move past and heal from marital affairs, cheating, and adultery.   Often times in couple’s therapy, one spouse remains emotionally stuck on a particular event or events of the past. This makes the healing process very difficult. I have heard it many times before.   One spouse has the affair, and the other one is left trying to cope and pick up the pieces. They often stay to me, “How can I ever move past and trust my spouse again?” The answer is simple. If a couple is determined to work through whatever occurred trust can be rebuilt. First, the offending spouse need to “eat some crow” as I call it by being completely and utterly transparent. No secrecy whatsoever.  Second, they MUST     handle any emotional upsets from the other spouse with total mercy and grace.   Here is what I mean by mercy and grace. Instead of getting frustrated and say things such as, “When are you ever gonna get over this?”  The offending spouse must say something along the lines of, “You are right, I was wrong, and I will do whatever it takes to make it right so you no longer feel this way.”  Anything less starts the healing all over. It opens the wounds back up. Now, this is where Neuro Emotional Technique comes into play.

     The reason I love Neuro Emotional Technique so much is that we can get a year’s worth of talk therapy completed in under an hour.   In the case in infidelity, the person who was offended, or the one left to pick up the pieces, will benefit the most from this technique.  We focus on the emotional blockages that keep us from moving forward such as feelings of fear, anger, resentment, etc. Once these feelings are released, healing takes place rather quickly. I do not know how to describe how it feels for my patients when they go through this technique.  There is almost a universal feelings of calm and peace about the whole situation. The mind slows WAY down, and the patient can think calmly for the first time in a long time. Basically, I am told that they have their life back.

So, if this is something you are someone you know may benefit from, please feel free to give us a call.   

Till next time,


Justin

​

             In the past few weeks, I have been touting the benefits of Neuro Emotional Technique or NET for short. Reality is that I am so excited to share this with as many people who will read these posts and listen to me babble on and on about its benefits.   My goal is to spread the word about NET to as many people so they can actually find relief. So, in today's post, I am going to discuss how chronic pain may be helped with Neuro Emotional Technique. 

           Everyone has experienced pain before.  Not everyone, however has experienced debilitating chronic pain. President Trump recently declared a war on opioid addiction.  That is great and all, but where does this fit in with those who suffer from chronic pain?  Pain is horrible.  It is designed to tell us that something is wrong, but when it becomes chronic, our quality of life greatly suffers. If doctors are scrutinized for prescribing pain medicine to people who need it, the patient with chronic pain are the one's that needlessly suffer.   This is where Neuro Emotional Technique may come to the rescue.

          We know than pain obviously has a physical component to it, but did you know that there is often times an emotional component that when released can either eliminate or greatly reduce pain? When I went through NET training,  I saw people with chronic knee pain, stomach pain, back pain, and even ear pain alleviated through NET.  Personally, I blew out my elbows about 7 months ago from lifting too much weight at the gym.  My elbows became so bad that I had to have my intern open a bottle of water for me because I could no longer twist the cap.  What I found out when I had NET done on me is that I was having a difficult time with a close family member that has unfortunately been ongoing, and for whatever reason, my mind wanted to focus that emotional energy in my elbows.  I was able to release the negative feelings, and I kid you not,  I can move elbows, and I can even do push ups again without pain.  The release was almost instantaneous.  I have done it on so many people with similar results. Not long ago, I had an individual with ear pain that was having difficulty healing from surgery.   We did NET for about 10 minutes, and the pain subsided.  Even after followup, the pain was still gone.  If for whatever reason, you can not come to us for NET or find a practitioner near, please check out our Facebook page where you can listen to my pain hypnosis mp3 free of charge.  It is not as powerful as NET, nor is it as long lasting, but I hope you find relief when you listen.


Till Next Time,


Justin

      Over the past few weeks, I have written quite a bit about Neuro Emotional Technique.  In this post, I want to discuss how using this technique can help those suffering  from substance abuse addictions and disorders.
  
       I have said for more than a decade that there are two types of drug users.  1.  The true addict you just enjoys getting high.   2.  The person who chases the high in order to temporarily forget the struggles and pain of life.  In almost 17 years of practice, I can honestly say that I can count on one hand how  many people are true addicts and just like to get high.    Everyone else is the second person.   If that is you, I encourage you to continue  reading.
 
          Traditional substance abuse or drug counseling works on the idea that addiction is a disease and the person needs a combination of education, cognitive behavioral therapy, and a relatively new technique called Motivational Interviewing.  Reality is that the average person will enter rehab up to 10 times before they quit for good.  When we incorporate Neuro Emotional Technique into treatment, we first start with what stressors and trauma contributed to current drug addiction.  We will focus childhood traumas and stressors, current life situations, and finally the overall desire to quit and stay quit for good.  Once the stressors or in Neuro Emotional Technique lingo, Neuro Emotional Complexes are out of the way, we can then begin  traditional and standard treatment.  My belief is simple.  First we must remove the initial cause as to why a person is stuck in a particular thinking and/or behavior pattern. Then, and only then, do we begin to educate and help the person find ways to stay clean and sober.    Otherwise, it is kind of like brushing your teeth with a mouth full of Oreos.


Till next time,


​Justin

            Outside of Neuro Emotional Technique(NET), OCD or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is incredibly difficult to treat.  For those that do not suffer from it, OCD is mostly joked about in a haphazard sort of way, but to those who suffer from it, it is debilitating.  Reality is that standard talk therapy does little to address the root cause.  OCD is a form of anxiety, but unlike other anxiety disorder, there seems to have absolutely no initial cause of it.  This is where Neuro Emotional Technique comes to the rescue.  
                Unlike talk therapy, NET finds the cause by using manual muscle testing to find the physiological spot in the body where the anxiety or OCD has it origin.  I know this sounds pretty funky and completely WOO WOO, but it actually has scientific validation.  For instance, it is a known scientific fact that the mind and body are interconnected, and when emotional stressors occur, the brain records those moments any where in body.  That is why there are documented cases of people remembering traumatic experiences after receiving deep tissue massages.  So, now let's get back to NET and how we address and treat OCD.    Once we find this sweet spot, so to speak,  we use Meridian Access Points(acupuncture points for the mind).  Each point is associated with a feeling, and once the feeling is identified, we do what we call an age test.  Since the subconscious mind records everything from conception to present, we can literally go back and find the emotional reality or perceived start of the event.  Now, we have the cause.  Once this happens, we just eliminate through pressing the meridian points, breathing deeply, and feeling the initial feeling or memory.  This process literally takes 10-15  minutes from start to finish.  
                 I know what I propose sounds like some snake oil being sold by a  traveling salesperson, but I have  seen too much to know that this works, and works astonishingly well. If confidentiality was not important, I would tell everyone what I have seen. Unfortunately, people have to take my word for it, and see for themselves.    Because of this technique alone, I can honestly say that I am done with talk therapy, and have devoted my time to promote NET by showing as many people how fast and well this helps.

Till next time,


Justin

            In almost 17 years in practice, I have never seen anything quite like the Neuro Emotional Technique(NET).  It consists of 25% Neuro Psychology
                                                                25%  Chinese Acupuncture(No needles required)
                                                                25%  Chiropractic
                                                                25%  Applied Kinesiology 
  Actually, the percentages are not a hundred percent accurate, but they do consist of 4 fields of study to create one amazing method to treat underlying emotional stuck points faster than anything that I have seen before.

In the past,  I would have treated people with four different approaches that depend upon each person's personality.  A few years ago, I gave up doing talk therapy for EMDR and hypnosis. Now, I have almost completely abandoned them for NET.   What happens is this.   First we find where the emotions reside through accessing Meridian points in wrist.  For the non acupuncture type, Meridian parts are scientifically validated points in the body and wrist that store emotional energy.  Think of it as the remote control to our feelings. Different points equate to different emotions.  Then, we find the initial cause of the feeling/s.  What gets really weird is that that we may go back many many decades, but once we find the initial cause, we go back to the moment and start thinking forward.  What happens next is mind boggling because nearly every person I have done this with reports that they feel different and the anxious feelings are gone.   I must be completely honest here when I say the feelings are gone.  The feelings that we worked on specifically are gone, but there may be other feelings that we are not yet ready to release.  Usually when this happens, the other hidden feelings reveal themselves, and we can release them by next session.  This generally happens when a person has several anxieties for a particular subject.  Most of the time, we can treat in 1 session.   We will repeat the pattern until all the feelings are gone.  In average, I can do work on 10 feelings per hour.  That is why I said that we can get about a year's worth of therapy in less than hour.  Check out netmindbody.com for more info.


Till next time,


Justin

               The One Research foundation is the non-profit research arm of Neuro Emotional Technique.  They recently published two peer reviewed journals this past year regarding both Cancer and Trauma, and straight up Post Traumatic Stress Disoder(PTSD).   What the research team did what perform pre and post tests with people suffering from PTSD.  They had the participants undergo a functional MRI of the brain before and after.  The brain before undergoing Neuro Emotional Technique(NET), lit up like a Christmas tree when the traumatic memories were accessed.  In other words, all the typical symptoms of PTSD, such as anxiety, fear, flashbacks, depression, etc, were all present.  Just after only 5 sessions of NET, the participant's brain were scanned by the functional MRI machine again, and the results were astonishing.  No evidence of PTSD existed in the brain.   In other words, they were cured. Check out the image of the brain scan below.  For more research information, check out www.onefoundation.org.  It is pretty amazing stuff.   I must add my 2 cents about this study.  From my personal  experience EMDR is an amazing tool for trauma.  This too can work very quickly.  The difference is that with EMDR, we must relive the trauma, but with NET, there is little to no reliving the flashbacks.

        As  both a therapist and a student of life, I am constantly searching for ways to help both myself and the lives of my patients.  I feel that any provider, whether they are a medical doctor, nurse, psychologist, or therapist, should be open to possibilities that what they currently know to be true could one day be turned upside down.  This is what happened to me this past March.  
           I have a colleague friend of mine that I have known since my early days of counseling.  She practices in my hometown in Florida, while I practice here in Gastonia.  Ironically, we each recieved training in the exact same forms of treatment that the average therapist never takes the time to learn. It was not until last year, I saw her post on Facebook about the Neuro Emotional Technique or NET for short.  I asked her how much better is it at helping people with trauma, anxiety, phobias, etc compared to traditional talk therapy, EMDR, and hypnosis.  What she said made my skeptical.  She said NET blew those treatments out of the water.   It was not until six months later when I was talking to an old friend from the church I attended as a child that NET became a reality.  She said that she went to my therapist friend for help, and was helped immensely in just a couple of sessions.  It was my friend's testimony that prompted me to sign up for the next training.   What happened at the training completely took my previous 16 years of practice and stood it on its head.
           I attended this training in Orlando.   I am not going to lie,  I was planning on going to the training, and if it was total garbage compared to what I had already known, I was going to leave and go on a mini vacation for myself, and spend the next few days lying on the beach with a cold one in my hand.   Well, within the first hour, I was mesmerized.  What I learned blew my mind.   NET is a technique and a treatment method that helps people uncover and understand how life events in the past contribute to how we feel today. Often times, the events appear to be seemingly unrelated.  We call these Neuro Emotional Complexes or just stuck points.   It also uncovers emotional setbacks that keep us from healing physically.  I literally watched people and now have treated people for chronic pain such as ear, leg, and stomach pain literally go away after uncovering and releasing past emotional stuck points. On a personal note, the physician who was teaching me asked me what I want to be different in my life, I said I want to be free of my addiction to sugar.  What was uncovered was that my sugar addiction became out of control when my parents divorced when I was 17.  To be perfectly clear, I am happy my parents are divorced and happily  remarried, but at that time, but it was traumatic for me to go through.  It was emotional residue, so to speak, that I was unaware that I still had in me.   Since March 22(as of this writing on 5/5/18), I have lost over 30lbs without even trying.  Another personal testimony is my elbow pain.  I injured my elbows lifting weights. My elbows hurt so bad that I could barely lift myself up from the chair without help.  I even had to have my intern open a bottle of water for me.  To doctor helped me find the stuck point to that as well.  My elbows have been bothering mefor about 5 months, and it was at that time, I remember making an off handed comment to my wife about a family member causing me a great deal of stress. That stressor was related to my elbow.  Immediately after NET, I was to lift myself up, open my own bottle with out pain, and do unassisted push ups.  My elbows now can finally heal.  Needless to say, I am a believer.
          So what does all this mean to the people that I serve and treat.  It means that I am one of only 8000 practitioners in the world that are trained to provide this service.  There are over 600000 therapists in the US alone.  So, NET is pretty darn unique.  What I have literally seen happen is that we can get through a year of traditional talk therapy in less than one hour.  The results speak for themselves.  I do not have to know deep, dark, family secrets. Nor do we have to rehash the painful past.  Check my link for NET on our website for a video demonstration.  It is really that simple.  To be fair, this is not a cure all.  The individuals who are not well suited for this technique are people who suffer from active psychosis, and people with severe mental illness that need immediate long term hospitalization.  Almost everyone else achieves success. So if you are someone else you love could benefit, give us a call. 

Till next time my friends,


​Justin

Survivors of sexual abuse, often times, hide in darkness.  For years, survivors suffer afraid that if they tell, they will be accused of lying, face rejection, and worse, judgment. 
​
We at Bright Hope want survivors to know that there is hope, and just by reading this post, salute and applaud the courage that is being taken to just read this blog.   For starters, I am going to give a synopsis of treatment options available to treat and help survivors heal. 

1. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy - Trauma Focused - (CBT-TF)
           This form of therapy is designed to confront irrational thinking about what happened, and to provide education so the survivor knows how to better cope with the negative feelings.  I am not going to lie, this technique is my least favorite by far.   Research shows that it works just as well as the other two methods that Ia m going to describe.  However, in my almost 17 years of experience, I am not a believer. 

2.  Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing - (EMDR)
               EMDR is the treatment of choice for veterans coming home from conflict.  It's premise is that the brain is set up in two parts - Emotional and Logical.   When trauma occurs, the emotional side of the brain basically freaks out and cause a freezing effect very similar to when a computer freezes up.  The result of this is the all too familiar feelings of panic, fear, nightmares, etc.  What EMDR does is connect both sides of the brain by either tapping back and forth on both sides of the body, holding vibrating paddles, and using the eyes to look right and left.  When this is happening, the survivor starts to discuss or think about what happened.  The result is that the trauma starts to be processed by the logical side of the brain.   The results are usually nothing short of astonishing.  Now, I must warn of the downside to this technique.  It is exceptionally difficult for the survivor to go through. It is a controlled flashback, and for healing to occur, the trauma will have to be relived.

3. Hypnosis 
        No, I will not make anyone bark like a dog.  Clinical hypnosis uses the subconscious mind to work through the sexual abuse with little emotional pain.  It is slower than EMDR, but is still significantly faster than CBT-TF. To fully explain what hypnosis is and does would require several more blog posts. Fortunately,  I already discussed this great detail in earlier posts.  In the beginning, until the brain takes hold and eliminates the trauma completely, relapses may occur.  They are not, however, as strong or as bad as before.  This is my personal favorite all around because it is holistic and can be applied to almost any situation in life.  Plus, it is not as painful as EMDR.  Rule of thumb that I tell my patients is that however long EMDR takes to provide relief, it will usually double that with hypnosis.  

4.  Exposure Therapy
       It is EMDR with out the paddles, eye movement, and tapping. Faster than CBT-TF, and more painful than EMDR because it is longer.   Basically, the survivor recounts their story until they no longer have anxiety about it. 

All in all, please know that help is available. Reality is that different people prefer different things.   My usual course of treatment is a 1, 2, punch with both hypnosis and EMDR because hypnosis strengthens the person before undergoing the difficult task of EMDR.  Again, whatever method is used, please do not give up,  and seek help.

Best Wishes,

Justin

Let's face it,  no one wants to need the services of a therapist.  Talking to a complete stranger about intimate details of our lives is anything but enjoyable.  Sometimes therapy works, and most of the time it does not.   Most of us therapists never persue training outside of continuing education and graduate school.  We are content just practicing and using boring talk therapy.    Don't get me wrong, talk therapy has it's place, but consider the alternatives.   

What I want to particularly talk about is how alternatives to talk therapy can put lives back together without spending thousands of dollars on copayments and fees to have someone just stare at a clock waiting for your time to be up.

I have said this before, and I will continue to say it. Almost every person I see falls into two categories.  Depression or Trauma(Anxiety).   Depression can easily be treated with standard talk therapy, and benefits from what about to say. Trauma, on the other hand, does not seem to respond well to traditional counseling, and needs other solutions.   

For those inidividuals suffering from trauma help arrives in the treatment of either or both EMDR and clinical hypnosis.  For those interested in how either of these treatments work, check out the other pages on this site.  What's cool, if anything can be cool about trauma, is that once we identify a cause of the truama, and treat it, everything else seems to fall back in line.  Literally what this means is that once the initial trauma is desensitized, anything else that was problematic returns the the pretraumatic state.  I have actually seen victims of rape and other heinous acts return to their lives in a little as 30 minutes.  Even after a follow up the next week, there are still no signs of anxiety, stress, nightmares, and flashbacks.  For those suffering from multiple traumas, we have to tackle each trauma inidvidually from smallest to largest. The results are the same. 

I know this sounds too good to be true. Let me tell you, that I have done of 2800 sessions using EMDR and probably close to 1000 using hypnosis(I learned hypnosis later in my career), and I can not begin to describe th joy I get when I see someone who has suffered for years finally recieve freedom from the chains of mental oppression.

Till next time friends,

Justin

1558-G Union Road
​Gastonia, NC 28054

As a practitioner of hypnosis, I am never shocked to see the positive applications that hypnosis has on my patients.   I have watched countless times as people come into my office riddled in pain, and leave completely pain free.  The mind is incredibly powerful. I have seen hypnosis turn addicts sober.  As long as the mind is willing, anything can happen.  This is why I want to talk about alcohol abuse and how hypnosis may be able to help.

The current course of treatment is a person addicted to alcohol will go into a  multi day detox center and then enter some form of outpatient treatment.    I read somewhere that an alcoholic trying to quit will quit a total of 10 times before finally quitting for good.  I think the same holds true for most addictions.

This is where hypnosis comes into play.   When a  person is truly ready to quit drinking,  hypnosis is able to address underlying traumas that lead a person to tip back the bottle.  I have always said that there are two types of alcoholics.  The 1st being someone who just likes to be drunk, and the 2nd is someone who is struggling with unresolved pain and trauma.   I find 2nd to be significantly more prevalent.    With hypnosis, we can finally put to rest the desire to drink by giving the subconscious mind another avenue to release stress and pain.  Depending on the mind's readiness to change, true and lasting change can be seen between 1-3 sessions.

As always, hypnosis is not a magic pill.  It requires a true desire on the individual's part.  If you or someone you love is ready to make a lasting change, please give us a call.  

Best Wishes.


Bright Hope Counseling Center

For the past few weeks, I have been reading a book written by a hospice nurse, who wrote about her experiences being with people in their final moments.  She described people going through the famous 5 stages of grief. In case you did not know, they are Denial, Anger, Fear, Bargaining, and finally, Acceptance.  In my office, it is a humbling experience to assist someone in going through these stages, but what I blew my mind away was the hope this nurse described in the people going through their most difficult moments. 

As I write this, my thoughts immediately go to a dear mentor and friend of mine who is dealing with terminal cancer.    Let's face it, death and loss suck. It is something that if we live long enough, we will experience it, and we too must personally go through it.  Regardless of the circumstances, in order for us to be truly free, we must be at peace.  My friend is at peace. 

The word peace means so much to different people, and that is OK.  What is not good is how we struggle to find it. I am a trained trauma therapist. I have always said that in terms of trauma, there is not much that I can not fix.  The only thing that I have not been able to help is death without peace and hope. Particularly  dealing with death, if there is no peace and hope, there is no resolution in the circumstance.   As much as I want to help, I can not help a true Atheist comes to terms with a painful death because death is the final end.    It does not matter to me what a person believes as long as they can find peace and hope that their loved one or themselves will one day find freedom and comfort.  That element of belief is critical to finding the help we so desperately crave.

If you are in the position of trying to find hope and peace, read as much as you can about other's experiences.  Read book about people who have had near death experiences.  I even encourage to read about those experiences with people who do not share your beliefs. Connect with hospice groups.  As always, we are here to help, and are just a phone call away.

Peace and Blessings.

​Bright Hope Counseling Center

The answer is "Maybe, Yes, and NO."  If I had a nickel for every person that told me that counseling did not help to resolve their traumatic past and memories, I would be able to retire to the beach yesterday.  I always ask the person why they decided to give me a try.  The answer is almost universal,  "You helped my brother, friend, cousin, neighbor, etc."  It is not that I am any better than the other therapists around;  it is because I do not believe that one size fits all.    

Quite frankly, talking about a traumatic past sucks.  It often times will retraumatize the person telling the story.  What good does that do?  Absolutely nothing.  That it why I answered, "no"  when addressing the title to this post.  Most therapist think talk therapy or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy(CBT) works for almost everything. This is what I call the one size fits all approach to therapy.  As we have seen, this is not the approach to use.

The "maybe" answer comes from therapists who have experience with trauma, and have had some success treating it.  This usually happens from therapists who are trained in different techniques besides CBT.   They are what I call the eclectics.    Generally, these therapists are fantastic in what they do.  They assume their approaches can handle most anything.  They use a wide net of counseling techniques to see what actually catches and works.  Help normally comes with these therapists, but it may be slow because trauma is not their passion. 

In our practice, we specialize in trauma. For myself, I live and breathe this type of work.  I get the greatest joy in seeing someone smile for the first time in years.  Little makes me happier than here someone who has a night's sleep free of nightmares.  We use non-traditional techniques such as EMDR, hynpnosis, Visual Coding Displacement Therapy, and EFT to rapidly reduce symptoms.  I have addressed these approaches in other posts.  I know, it sounds like hocus pocus, but trust us, it works. Most of the therapists in our practice know how to use these techniques and you will be referred to a therapist that does.   What we usually see is relief in one session, and full resolution in under five.   Every situation is different,  give us a call, and talk to us.  We are not about wasting your time or money.