We can have an experience, like when we do something interesting, and then it can have an impression on us, but we move on with life. It doesn't change the way we react. Then there can be experiences that are intense enough. There's a trigger, a survivor response in us—the trigger, a response that activates our autonomic system, our sympathetic system. This response may not resolve as easily. Sometimes it can be a huge insight. Also, something very positive that we keep on thinking about starts affecting the way we behave and the way we make choices. Often, it's a difficult experience. As we notice and look at it, it doesn't resolve fully. It can be a big event or a relatively small event. It repeats itself. For example, we are about to cross the street on the sidewalk, and the car is almost over. We pull back. The car goes by the next time we come to cross the street. Suddenly, we are hesitant for a second. We try to cross the street, and it happens to us one more time, and then suddenly we are afraid to cross the street, even when it's safe and there is a green light on the sidewalk. Why? Because our past events are affecting the way we behave right now. If we look at this as one example, and there are so many of them, we realize that these kinds of experiences shape the way we interact and the way we react to life. Every experience that we don't let go of completely leaves an impression. We leave an imprint. If we leave a scar. These scars and these imprints will affect our present reaction to stimuli. That's where trauma comes into play. Traumas can be traumas of our own. What happened to us in this life can be ancestral traumas that affected us on a genetic level or also affect us on a behavioral level through behavioral traits that affect the way our genes are expressed. The whole field of epigenetics. While genes are very hard to change in epigenetics, the expression of genes is much easier to change. We have this complexity of multi-generational influences and multi-generational epigenetic influences on the influences of the environment. All of them are going to affect how we function and how we react to a stimulus. This goes all the way to our cell membrane. Our cell membrane will respond to stimuli based on this quote-unquote state of mind. They will put different receptors and different doors on the surface of the cell that will decide what comes in and what goes out. What metabolism are they going to have? Metabolism of balance in peace or the metabolism of survival and crisis. This will affect mitochondrial function and our well-being. Similarly, our genes from within our DNA and the epigenetic effect, which opens and closes genes, will also affect cell function. We have our effect on the person, and we have our effects on our cellular level. This process drives every cell of our 50 trillion cells. Each of our cells can have up to 1 million reactions per second. This is how we function—our organs, our tissues, and our cells. It's important to understand this. We are survival-driven. This is our maintenance system. What do you mean when I say maintenance system? We attempt to survive our survival response by managing a reaction that is built into us based on these complex influences. Now, if within it we have very strong trauma from the past, that is how to handle it. We will put it aside by boxing it, by covering it, by shielding it so we can keep on surviving without being run by the trauma. But from time to time, with the right trigger, we may have a memory that goes back to the past, to this trauma or this trauma. Like a container gets shaken and radiates into the present time. Suddenly, out of the blue, we have an unexpected reaction. Something small happens, and we start having palpitations and sweating. This is PTSD, and all of us function within a certain level of PTSD, within a certain level of reactivity. That is based on our survival response. Every organ in the body, every cell in the body. What can we do about it? We can connect with our one organ that functions differently. This is our heart. Our hearts are based on not having an outside survival response but accepting it with open arms. The heart accepts all the dirty blood from everywhere in the body. The heart physiologically has acceptance built into it. Instead of fighting, it connects with the universe through the breath, transforms the quality of the air, detoxifies and gets the air clean, and then gives nourishment without discrimination to everyone. This quality of the heart is physiological. We are not necessarily connected with it on an emotional, psychological, mental, and spiritual basis. But this is why it is the basis for open-heart medicine. In my way of teaching how to heal with meditation and heart-based practices, we are connecting with our transformative quality. This is the benefit of heart-based meditations. Heart-based breathing. When we simply breathe out of the heart and do different heart-based, heart-based practices. This is pretty simple to understand, and the goal is to shift our heads, from stopping to analyze, and from being suspicious to connecting with the ever-flowing love, compassion, and acceptance that are the basis of our hearts. But there is a challenge. Otherwise, it would be easy to hear. The challenge is that the heart can be opened and can continue to open. But when the heart sends its clean blood, when the heart sends its electromagnetic field, which is now opened and in coherence and balanced with the target tissue, the place where the disease is, the place where we are holding, is a trauma. The place where the trauma is stored and hidden can be shielded, hidden, or blocked, and we need to reach this place and allow it to open up to create a transformation. What can we do about it? The healing journey is to allow the target tissue to let go. To allow the target tissue to detoxify the trauma. To let go of the trauma. Now this is a more comprehensive and complex process. It's the inner part of open-heart medicine. When we create this transformative quality of the heart within our cells, it's beyond this minute talk. But what is important for all of us to recognize? Is it because the heart is overflowing and never stops? It always takes dirty blood, which is considered a toxin by the cells, and it always gives clean blood. Because of this, everything is changing all the time. Because our reality is ever-changing, it also means that anything and everything is possible. If we can transmit this quality to our cellular level, we can heal from our trauma, and we can heal other people's trauma. This is why I'm excited and driven to share open-heart medicine with as many people as I can. Thank you for listening.

Self-Care And Thriving

Isaac Eliaz, MD, MS, LAc

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Isaac Eliaz, MD, MS, LAc