Step One

Get in touch with what you want to change including the belief, the physcial sensations and the emotions.  Make a note of the intensity of the sensations on a 0 to 10 scale with 10 being the worst, strongest possible.

Step Two

Identify the beliefs held by the survival brain and those of the rational brain.  When you are able to do so, realize that you are of two minds: the rational mind and the irrational mind.  One part may realize that it makes no sense to be yelling at a driver who is not only out of hearing distance but out of sight as well.  The other part strongly believes it is still in danger and needs to defend itself and fight to the finish even though the enemy is no longer there.

Step Three

Hold out your left hand and imagine the survival brain is located in the palm of that hand.  You might even picture it as an animal or a child depending upon the nature of the issue.  Express the beliefs held in that hand out loud, exaggerating them and using the colorful emotional language of the survival brain animated by all the animal emotionalism.  The wording would be something like this:

                                    Even though this part of me believes that I need to punish that jerk, bring him to his  knees for cutting                                                 in front of  me, bash his car in so he can never drive again and that it  protects me to keep thinking                                                        about him and how  much I hate him, .....

Now hold out the right hand, imaging the calm, rational adult brain sitting in that right palm and express out loud the calm and rational thinking something which might go something like this:

Another part of me realizes that the driver is gone and the only one I am harming with holding onto  this anger is myself,              that my heart can slow down so I can think more clearly and not react out of this  fear but  let it go and enjoy the ride.  I               understand that the other part of me (the left hand) thinks it is trying to protect  me,  but I know I am safer when I can                   think clearly and it is okay to let this go.

Step Four

When you have expressed this as clearly as you feel you want to do, place the palm of your right hand on your forehead and the palm of the left hand at the base of the skull.   Hold them there with the intention of sending energy into the frontal lobe area, activating it and then connecting that part of the brain with the hind brain to calm it down.  Notice the thoughts, emotions and body sensations that you are experiencing as you do this.  It is important that you accept them all and not condemn them.  Remember “What you resist, persists”.

Step Five

If you feel totally calm and at peace with the situation and your reactions you can stop here.  If the issue is a significant one for you, this may not happen that quickly.  If that is the case,  move to one of the Energy Psychology Techniques.  My favorite is a variation on the Touch and Breathe technique.  In this method

• Begin by identifying the thoughts, the emotions and the body sensations you are experiencing. 
  

• Place your fingers in the hollows on the sides of both eyes hold them there as long as you feel anything change.
  

• Once there is no more change, place your fingers in the spot under the collarbone and hold for about 30 seconds.
  

• Then move your fingers to the area under the eye on the cheek bones.  Notice thoughts, emotions and body sensations. Hold and wait for a change again.
  

• When you cannot feel anything moving, go back to the collarbone spots again and hold there for 30 seconds. 
  

• Then move to the spots on the beginning of the eyebrows and repeat the process as you did for the other two spots. 
  

• Additional spots which can be added are
  

under the nose,

the chin,

under the arms,

under the breast

and the finger spots. 

These are points along the meridians and correspond to different emotional states or blockages.  You may find that you feel at peace after holding only a few of these points and if you do, you can stop there.  At various points along the way, check the intensity levels.

THE CMR PROCESS

using an example with "road rage"

If the issue remains alive there are a number of other methods you may use to defuse the current.  Basically, the CYM process entails identifying the two minds, acknowledging both of them without blame and with acceptance. Activating the two parts of the brain so that the rational part can calm down the survival brain, put its fears to rest, much as a mother would comfort a frightened child or a dog owner, calm a scared or angry pet.  Then the remaining disturbances can be released with the pressure on the meridians, the focus on the components of thought, emotions and physical sensations.  And finally when this process is complete, the final step is to feel gratitude for being able to release this disturbance and to function with the higher level of the mind in control.

CYM -- A Daily Practice

The Observer

The examples given are somewhat dramatic just to make the process more clear but our minute to minute reactions are ongoing at a more subtle and unconscious level.  Take an ordinary day. We wake up feeling wonderful right we can hardly wait to get to work or school or to get on with the jobs of the day.  We get dressed and of course we just love the way we lock and we eat just the right food and then get into the car for a peaceful ride to work.  If a car cuts in front of us it doesn’t bother us.  We understand the driver is just having a bad day or is in a hurry or something bad to happened to her.  We feel a little increased heartbeat that only lasts for a second but quickly we calm down and think about all the good things in our lives.  If we listen to the radio and we hear reports in the news of disasters on the other side of the globe,  we  feel compassion but not anxiety because we know we are safe where we are.  We get to our work calmly and happily and go in to our office greeting our coworkers with enthusiasm. 

Is that your typical day?  Or is it more like this.  Liz goes into her office,  sees a pile of work that needs to be done and checks the phone messages realizing there that she many calls that she absolutely has to return this morning but there is no time.  She hears a coworker in the hall talking loudly and her blood pressure goes up.  The voice in her head begins “Why doesn’t’ she ever shut up.  She is such a b......  Someone ought to straighten her out once and for all.”  The internal voice continues as she looks at her mail.  By lunch time she is very tense and eats too fast, giving herself indigestion.  The afternoon continues with one stressor after another and by the time she gets home, she is feeling tired, abused and irritable.  You can imagine how the evening progresses. She rushes through dinner, snaps at her husband and completes the evening watching television, the news and a few violent dramas.

A significant aspect of the CYM process is the recognition that we have also a part of the mind that can observe what we are doing and make the decision to use this process and to empower the rational mind.  This is the “observer”.  There are a number of theories about where the observer resides but for the purpose of this paper, just be aware that it exists and is a very important part of the deliberate evolutionary process.  We are not just helpless reactors, but can determine our own course.

The CYM process can be used to help in life situations like these as well.  The first part is identifying the issues.  I recommend a journaling process be put into effect here if that is helpful for you.  If journaling is not your favorite thing, you might try taking a walk while you think about what is bothering you and then identify the two minds.  When you have a chance and a place to work on this, use the CYM process on whatever comes up. 

The mind and its wiring is resistant to change especially when the rear brain believes your survival is at stake, so sometimes patience is needed.  Someone described the brain patterns as like a path through the field where wild grass and flowers grow.  We become accustomed to walking the same path and the more we go down that path the more the grasses are tramped down and the more easily we walk the path.  If we decide to take a new path, we must recognize that we have to first make a deliberate decision to change the pathway (remember the observer) and the walk that path until it becomes the one that is the easy choice.  One way to work speeding up this process is to deliberately think about something that is upsetting, let yourself feel the chemical shift in the body and then use the Triple Heater and the CYM process to bring it down.  This conditions the brain to calm down when it gets upset.  It establishes a new pathway home.    The goal is to be in the NOW, in the "Joy Body" and not the "Pain Body".  This has an impact on your health, your happiness and even beyond that, on your world:  The Ripple Effect.

Handouts for CYM

Worksheet