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Emo-Reviewer
THE EMO-REVIEWER (Written) (Updated)
The Emo-Reviewer utilizes:
This exercise is also available in mp3 format. (Opens in a new window).
*Forehead/eyebrow palming to impede major overwhelm and flight/fight. This manuever changes blood flow in the frontal brain helping with the de-trancing and unfixating of what is viewed. If someone is using both hands to write at a computer they can begin the Emo Reviewer by placing a warm damp compress over the lowerforehead/eyebrow area before starting the Emo Reviewer. This warm damp compress can be placed briefly used every 10 minutes to alter blood flow in the frontal cortex.
* Feelings based event reviewing, a form of memory review exposure and desensitization with a history of clinical research to support its value. Freud was among the earliest to experiment with memory reviews.
*Writing out events in fast uncensored detail speeds desensitization/integration. Writing puts us in connection with unconscious processes and utilizes brain regions helpful in deeper level integration. Further writing emotionally thwarts overwhelming flight/fight and blocks abreactions.
*A "looking back from the future" question to stimulate unconscious acceptance, cut through cognitive dissonance, and advance integration.
*Reviewing future imaginal situations or reviewing present circumstances.
***WARNING: Folks with a history of mental illness, trauma, or panic are urged not to use this process without a counselor or therapist. If you decide to do this process you will agree to absolve the webmasters, their server, Emoclear.com, and Steve Mensing of any responsibility for the application or misapplication of this process. There is always in any emotional process the possibility that someone could experience some discomfort. So proceed with this warning.***
(c) Steve Mensing
THE EMO-REVIEWER (Written)
The steps of the Emo-Reviewer:
(1) FOREHEAD/EYEBROWS PALM HOLD: Lay one palm comfortably over your forehead and eyebrows. The karate chop side of the hand should be touching the bridge of the nose while your lower palm and little finger cover your eyebrows. Your finger tips should be pointing toward the side of your head. Don't press hard, just make comfortable contact. Your eyes should almost be covered by the lower part of your hand. Your fingers are slightly spread. Keep this pose during the duration of the Emo-Reviewer.
Stiff pillows or sofa pillows make excellent arm and elbow supports. [If you should run into any extremely strong flight/fight overwhelm during the process, use the Shrunken Head manuever found on Emoclear.com to close it down. Learn how to do the Shrunken Head prior to learning the Emo Reviewer]
**If you do your writing on a computer you can replace palming your forehead by pressing a warm damp compress over your lower forehead/eyebrows for a 90 seconds every 10 minutes.**
(2) ASK YOUR BODY FOR AN EVENT: Simply ask your body for an event you would want to integrate. Give yourself time. Recall the following and quickly write your responses down with no censoring:
*Where it happened.
*How long it occurred.
*What was happening during that event. Have a rough idea.
(3) FOCUS JUST BEFORE THE START OF THE EVENT: Close your eyes and pay attention to right before the start of the event. Feel what happened. Recall as best you can how you felt just before the start of the event. What did you see and hear? If taste and smell were involved, allow them to enter your view of the start of the event. Write this down.
(4) PAY ATTENTION TO DETAILS JUST BEFORE THE START OF THE EVENT: Notice any details occurring just before the start of the event. Don't go beyond this point until you have a very clear picture and feeling of what happened. Write this down.
(5) VIEW EVENT FROM JUST BEFORE THE START TO CONCLUSION: Allow yourself to fully experience the event scene from just before the start to conclusion. Allow that scene to be there with no intention of getting rid of it or keeping it. Do not talk during the viewing--pay full attention while you feel your feelings and write out the event from start to finish. Do the writing quickly and don't attempt to edit or censor. Let your event unfold in more and more detail.
(6) RECORD AND REVIEW THE EVENT: After each review, until closure/integration, briefly summarize what happened. Write down any intentions, decisions, or beliefs you formed during this event. If these intentions, decisions, or beliefs are distressing you, they may be processed during the run throughs. Then return to the Emo-Reviewer process and review through writing the same event from just before the start to the finish. Keep writing out the event until it has:
*No further emotional charge (Your SUD Scale is all the way down).
*You accept what happened.
*You feel better about it.
*You can take action if required.
*Any distressing and distorted intentions, decisions, or beliefs, formed during the event's actual occurance, lose their emotional charge and believeabiltiy. Notice if there are any similar events or previous events that now come into your awareness. Allow your body to choose one of these events and run it through the Emo-Reviewer.
***OPTIONAL STEP (7). BACK FROM THE FUTURE QUESTION: To stimulate unconscious processes and move the process along toward closure and integration the following "Back from the future" question may be asked:
A month from now, when your event is throughly accepted and integrated, what will you feel about it? What will you notice has changed either in how you view yourself, others, or your circumstances? How will your reviewed event appear after you've accepted it and integrated it? What might you hear when the event is accepted and integrated? What will others say? What valuable things might you have learned from the experience? Write your answers out and feel them as you write.
TIPS ON THE EMO-VIEWER.
*Keep yourself well-hydrated. Drink several glasses of water per day.
*Breathe normally during the process. Do not attempt to manipulate your breath. Do not hold your breath or try to breathe from your belly. This will impede progress and block feeling. Your breath may naturally speed up during integrating.
*It's best to learn each individual step prior to putting all the steps together and working with the process as a whole.
*Use a comfortable pen that writes with ease or find a computer where your seat is comfortable and your keyboard and mouse are comfortable.
*You can use the Emo-Reviewer to work on future experiences by imagining future situations with all 5 of your senses. Review the future.
*You can take a present situation and experience it, reviewing it until it's fully integrated and has no more emotional charge.
*If you question your ability to do the Emo-Reviewer remember you've naturally done each one of the segments. Those segments are part of your innate human process. You've no doubt recalled and felt events repeatedly until they no longer had any emotional charge on them.
*Do a SUD Scale of your event. Bring your attention to your event and feel any distress there. When you have a good handle on the event's distress level, rate the distress with a SUD scale (Statistical Units of Distress). Rate your distress from 1 to 10 with 1 being nothing happening and 10 being overwhelming. You don't have to be very accurate--you just want to have rough idea about how your event reviewing is progressing. You will perform another SUD Scale at the completion of each event review to see your progress or note if your have integrated your target.**
*If you're ill, you can use the Emo-Reviewer to support your work with a physician. Focus on any ill sensations/pain/fever and allow yourself to really feel them. Label them "healing energy". Then review.
*Before you start Emo Reviewing make sure you have enough paper and pens and are in a quiet room where you will go undisturbed. If you enjoy writing on a computer that will work too. Whatever way is most comfortable for you. The approximate time for this process is around 30 minutes per session or more. When no more emotional charge exists on the event being described in written detail (Event SUD SCALE is down to 1) and you experience acceptance toward the event, then there's no need for further sessions on that event.
*Begin to write out the details of an emotionally charged event. Keep your sentences brief and focused and write from how you feel and think about the crisis or event.
*Write non-stop and do not attempt to edit your writing. Allow your emotions, beliefs, and memories of the event to be commited to paper as they occured. Write them out in detail.
*Write out any intentions, decisions, emotions, behaviors, sensations, urges, and beliefs you had at the time. If you need a reminder card to refer to during the process, have these reminder questions available:
-What did I emotionally feel?
-What did I believe about the event, myself, others, and the world at the time?
-Did I experience any physical sensations?
-What were my intentions?
-Was there anything I hid from myself or denied at the time or later?
-What decisions and choices did I make at the time?
-What was I doing? How did I feel about that?
-Was there anything I felt guilty about, ashamed of, or embarrased over?
-Was there something I learned from this experience?
-Did I have any emotional or intuitive insights about the event? What did I realize or come to understand?
-What was meaningful or important?
*Let your writing do the writing. Write out everything uncensored. (No attempts to do this writing perfectly). Short detailed descriptions work well. If you get stuck on what to write next, you can repeat your descriptions of what you've written to get going again. Repetition is fine here.
*Always use your own voice to write. Don't take on anyone else's style.
*Allow your event to unfold in the order it happened.
*If you experience the intuitive prompting to doodle out some aspect of the event, feel free to do so. The doodles may provide some emotional insight.
*Use "I feel" statements in your descriptions. I feel___________________.
*Use "I believe" statements in your descriptions. I believe ________________________.
*If you feel strongly overwhelmed during the process, then rub your palms and fingers briskly together for 30 seconds before placing a warm palm over your lower forehead and eyebrows. Suck in your lips hard. This will cool your flight/fight overwhelm down. Do this only for a short time, then return to the written process.
*After the Emo Reviewer is concluded, are there actions you need to take? Are there things that need to be said to others? Is there any forgiveness required? See the Forgiveness Exercise.
*At the conclusion of the writing session you may have some remaining emotional charge. Allow yourself to fully feel it and allow it to be there without attempting to get rid of it or keep it. Observe it with acceptance or love.
If you know how to use an integrator you may use it to accept and integrate whatever emotional charge remains.
*Don't use it on a recent trauma where you are still disoriented. Let at least 5 weeks go by before you start writing about a trauma. Know how to use the "Shrunken Head" for emerging overwhelm or "abreactions". Have someone you trust nearby or a therapist when you work with very overwhelming experiences. This lends a sense of safety.
*If you're getting tired, feel free to halt. Seal yourself back up by writing down 10 or so enjoyable and pleasant memories.
*Sometimes there's extremely overwhelming areas in our life which we are not yet ready to face. Choose a less charged areas to deal with. These can be a buildup to facing the more difficult when you're ready. If you believe facing something is going to be too overwhelming, step away from it for awhile. Come to it when you're ready or with a trusted therapist.
*Are there disturbing events, related to what you're presently writing about, which happened earlier in your life? Write about them too after you finish with your current event.
*When you reflect on your writing session, what did you find important and meaningful?
*How did the event effect your life in the past and in the present? Might it have any effect on the future?
*Were there secrets or vulnerabilities that you missed which you might like to describe?
*Notice what's different about your life after you complete a series of Emo Reviewer reviews. How is your mood? Your activity level? Your general well-being? Better sleep?
Your social interaction. Are you thinking less about what disturbed you previously?
*When strong emotions show up, feel them as you write. You will naturally acknowledge and accept them as you write through them.
*Pick a good time to do your writing. Also choose a place where you will not be disturbed by phone calls and folks dropping by.
*You might want to make a hierachy of distressing events and start with the less emotionally charged.
*Recall objects, clothing, rooms, outdoor objects, people involved, bodily reactions, weather.
*If there are hotspots or very powerfully emotionally charged areas you can write about them repeatedly until the charge goes down.
*Recall feared consequences that may have resulted from the event.
*Keep doing a SUD Scale every 5 to 10 minutes.
*If there are any thought distortions write them down and circle them for later disputing or Belief Repeater work. Don't do this work until after you've gone repeated cycles and written down much detail about your event.
*You may want to make an audio tape of your review as you get toward the end of your retelling. You can listen to this tape and feel any feelings that come up. This can increase desensitization if it's called for.
*Always confront any real life situations you've avoided as a result of the event (Unless it's truly dangerous).
*Avoid event reviews if you're using drugs or alcohol, have suicidal thoughts, are very depressed, are going though a major crisis, are psychotic, can not tolerate intense arousal, are currently dissociated, or have problems with impulse control.
*When very overwhelmed or at the top of the SUD Scale you can:
-Use the Shrunken Head to lower the overwhelm.
-Use a relaxation exercise.
-Slow down the retelling.
-Recall some of the positive aspects of the trauma: surviving, learning something useful, building your inner strength.
*Work on anger, guilt, sadness, and shame separately by challenging your beliefs or Belief Repeating them.
*Always be composed, grounded, and secure when leaving a session. Recall 10 to 12 positive memories to seal yourself back up.
*If an intuition or sudden solution comes to you write it down and give it some thought later.
Take care, Steve