Alternative Rapid Eye Technology - An Elegant Therapy Model

			HOME 	
			ARTICLES 				
			LIST NOW FOR FREE! 
			ABOUT US 
			CONTACT US 
			LOG IN			
		

Rapid Eye Technology - An Elegant Therapy Model
I realized then as I do now that I do not want to run my life by my fears. Even though fear is an essential part of life and valuable when used properly, I do not want to be run by it. I want to be fr

Go to Web Site

It was 7 am in Oregon - I was just beginning to stir. My wife was already up and busying herself with her day’s activities. As is her custom, she turned on the television to see what was happening in the world. What she saw stunned and shocked her. She ran into our bedroom to turn on our television. “You’ve got to see this!” she shouted as I suddenly came to my senses. There on the television was what looked like two giant smoke stacks in the midst of Manhattan. Something was terribly wrong.

Like millions of Americans, I found myself glued to the television all day, so shocked I could hardly speak. My appetite was gone; I didn’t eat all day. I could see the fate of so many people right before me, and I was unable to escape the horror of running down endless stairs; screaming at the sight of a huge airliner headed straight for my office; unable to get away quickly enough to save my life; jumping to escape the flames because there was nowhere else to go. These images flashed through my mind like wildfire. My emotions careened from deep sadness to anger to fear. A certain melancholy followed; a sense of apathy about my work, my family, my values. A terrible pall had fallen over me – the certainty that I was no longer safe in my own home, America.

For hundreds of millions of Americans and billions of peace-loving people world-wide, the terrible acts of September 11th have demonstrated how vulnerable we all are. Maybe today we’re vulnerable to attack by a terrorist. Tomorrow we may be vulnerable to attack by a street gang; or maybe we’ll be hit by a bus commandeered by an escaped mental patient. We are vulnerable to so many things, from asteroids to car accidents – there’s just no real safety.

What keeps us sane and happy in our lives is the ability to focus on our life rather than on how vulnerable we are to destruction. This feeling of vulnerability has lead to irrational fears of all kinds: fear of flying in airliners, statistically the safest mode of transportation; fear of tall buildings, statistically the safest buildings; fear of traveling and touring, statistically safer than staying at home. New York City is financially reeling from the lack of tourism. Not because New York City is a poor or dangerous place to visit; rather because people are afraid.

Fortunately for the millions affected by the tragedy of the attacks on the US, there is a natural and effective process they can do to return their personal equilibrium. It’s called Rapid Eye Technology and is the inspiration of Ranae Johnson, a healer and author of two books: Winter’s Flower, the story of her journey with her autistic son; and Reclaim Your Light Through the Miracle of Rapid Eye Technology.

As soon as I realized that I was traumatized by the events in New York City and Washington, D.C., I did a series of RET sessions to clear out my related emotional baggage. I was surprised to find so much emotional material linked to events that seemed to have nothing to do with me personally. I know no one who was in or close to the twin towers in NYC or the Pentagon. Yet, I watched it on TV and felt like I was there. The events were just as real to me as if I were actually there experiencing them myself. I was traumatized. In my RET sessions I realized how powerful the images on TV were to me; and how strongly those images related to my own sense of safety and vulnerability, feeding irrational fears from deep within me.

I realized then as I do now that I do not want to run my life by my fears. Even though fear is an essential part of life and valuable when used properly, I do not want to be run by it. I want to be free of irrational fears, making my life’s vulnerabilities a part of a total life experience rather than a horrible monster that is always worse than the reality it masks.

What is Rapid Eye Technology?

Rapid Eye Technology is a collection of inspired techniques, practical life skills, and an underlying philosophy based on the value of the human soul. According to Ranae Johnson, the founder of the Rapid Eye Institute in Salem, Oregon, “Many new forms of energy medicine are beginning to make their way into the mainstream, Rapid Eye Technology (RET) is among them. RET utilizes blinking, eye movements, breathing, imagery, and stress reduction energy work to facilitate release of stressful emotional, mental, and physical patterns. Rapid eye movements and release work facilitate rapid healing. The sense of the sacred, the awareness that each person is in essence a perfect spiritual being, is at the heart of Rapid Eye Technology.”

The RET philosophy was what attracted me to RET in the first place. I’ve always felt that there was more to me than just my body. Whatever that spiritual, non-corporeal element is, I want to work with someone who acknowledges it in me. That’s how I came to RET. I was amazed later to find that the mechanical part of Rapid Eye Technology – the blinking and moving of the eyes; the vibrating and moving of an eye-directing device called a wand; and the rapid verbal cues – created an environment of discharge and gentle catharsis in my body.

For many, the idea of eye movement and blinking to relieve emotional anxiety is foreign. Like so many breakthroughs in the history of mankind, Rapid Eye Technology is a departure from traditional, non-instrumentation based therapies. Rapid Eye acknowledges that we are whole already and have simply temporarily forgotten our wholeness. The mechanical instrumentation of RET is basically a therapeutic procedure designed specifically to mimic and take advantage of natural processes we already employ.

The therapeutic goal of Rapid Eye is to reacquaint clients with their own innate wholeness. Many clients feel marked relief right in their first session reporting a variety of psychophysical sensations, such as “I feel a weight off my heart,” or “I feel as if the dark cloud has lifted,” or “my body feels very relaxed.” Most will feel a sense of resolution in each session even when no distinct problem can be identified.

The Rapid Eye model includes a course in life skills designed to offer clients an alternative to their old ways of thinking. This course includes effective life strategy building philosophies and exercises. Freed from the effects of old emotional baggage, clients can implement new feeling-states and behaviors based upon physical exercises, visualizations, and other tools provided during sessions. Personal philosophies are re-evaluated and new life philosophies can now take hold in the fertile ground provided by the RET process. Each client will choose their own personal life philosophy in light of their newfound freedom. In this way, each person completing a series of RET sessions comes away with a sense of newness and hope for a lighter, brighter future.

How does RET work?

In a very broad sense, Rapid Eye is based on a reverse engineering of a natural process we all do all the time. That is the relationship between eye blinking and emotions. Niko Tinbergen, Nobel laureate and past director of the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Great Britain, said in a 1974 Psychology Today interview, “Eye-blinking is another well-known primate movement. The moment you have the least little bit of stress, the eyelids blink, bang! bang! bang!”

As Tinbergen and others have suggested, the human blinking response provides a natural way to release stress. In RET, intentionally accelerated eye blinking is used to help clients release traumatic material. During RET sessions, blinking is accompanied by eye movement, subtle directional cues during blinking, suggestions to release the emotional material, and deep diaphragmatic breathing. The RET process is replete with safety protocols so it may be safely and effectively applied by licensed and non-licensed healers.

Because Rapid Eye is so new, no one has explained its process scientifically as yet. Founder Ranae Johnson believes that one reason why RET works is that it replicates the natural process of review, integration and release that occurs each night during the REM stage of sleep. It is thought that RET somehow activates the energy field around the body in ways that create pathways for discharge, which is then directed to gently and quickly release the emotional material.

Whatever the reason, RET does seem to work fast and work well. It can be used as a tool with other tools or as a stand-alone therapy.

Returning to the September 11th events, I still feel the loss and fear, yet thanks to processing my traumatic stress with RET, I can much more easily let those feelings pass – literally in the blink of an eye. Although I feel intensely the sense of loss and fear in my fellow Americans, I can much more easily let those feelings pass through me, leaving me feeling compassionate rather than drawn down into anxiety, depression, and fearful hypersensitivity. I’m much more able now to assist others who may be feeling hurt or fearful.

Managing traumatic stress, anxiety, grief, and other difficult emotional states becomes much easier with RET as a tool for healing. Occasional RET sessions help me keep my equilibrium in a world that can suddenly change. In a matter of seconds I can now clear my emotional states and regain my mental and emotional balance.