As a young faculty member, I was trying to find my way. EBT was housed in the Department of Pediatrics, specifically in the Behavioral and Developmental Pediatrics division. The method was young, and it was long before the decade of the brain and even longer before we would understand why the tools were having their effects.
At the time, a cluster of clinicians from the department had “side jobs” in private practices, and I joined one of them for my Friday afternoon getaway from academia. I learned a lot from the consultation sessions.
One therapist was particularly relaxed, happy, and almost buoyant.
He not only realized that he presented that way, but he was celebratory about his admitted ultra-healthiness. So, I asked him how he got that way.
He said, “I did the work on myself.”
At the time, that sounded rather dreary, if not frightening, and images of him drilling down into the forbidden territories of the psyche, the mean and nasty stuff, appeared in my mind.
Yet some 40 years later, I find myself redefining what he was describing. In the EBT paradigm, it’s more like: “I rewired.”
What is Wired for Joy, specifically?
At least with rewiring, you do it to yourself and are not having something “done” to you. Yet, as the goal of EBT is to be Wired for Joy, what is that really?
Scientifically, it’s establishing a brain that is so happy-go-lucky and so grounded in freedom from suffering that you are rather… well… buoyant! Specifically, it is:
1) Peace about the Past
This is when you look back over your life and feel a sense of peace within. You’ve worked through all those occasions when you made mistakes or were even intentionally harmful to yourself and others, and can now only feel love for yourself. At the time, you had a lot of wires that influenced your actions.
2) Spectacular Resilience
You’ve strengthened the resilience pathways in your brain to the point that it’s really challenging to do Cycles. Sure, you can complain and manage a pretty fierce anger, but then you pop to feeling gratitude, happiness, security, and pride. You are in joy. You could do a Cycle about situational stress, but you don’t have much of it. Self-compassion and acceptance are that strong. Basically, you’re chill.
3) The Glow of Purpose
The neocortex and the emotional brain have a bi-directional relationship. Every Cycle we do is launched by the prefrontal cortex, yet steps over that thinking brain barrier into the “no person’s land” of the unconscious mind. It’s always a trip in that there is a moment when we think: what am I getting myself into?
However, after persevering for how many times (maybe hundreds, perhaps thousands) and with a strong penchant for using Precision EBT with its special powers, the emotional brain becomes very generous. All those circuits you have encoded that always find a purpose in everything you do start “bubbling up to the unconscious mind.” With both in harmony, you do not do anything without a higher purpose, and you can relax. You have conditioned your brain to be a “good person,” a lover of life, not just for yourself, but for all living beings.
All three fit together, yet for me, the first one is the most important. Having tools to unearth the judgments and confusion packed into our unconscious mind, and using them, feels a bit like heaven on earth to me. The others keep that one company, but being able to find peace inside is the true joy for me.
