If you are looking for a new approach to take on the challenges in your life, you may be encouraged by Albert Einstein; and Marina da Gama resident Elma Rivera.
Einstein said we cannot solve a problem from the level of thinking that created it. And new approaches, along with unravelling our outdated thinking, are what Elma Rivera, is best at.
Elma says there is copious scientific evidence to show that we have the capacity to create entirely new life experiences and choices for ourselves. She hopes to start a thinking revolution: from within Marina da Gama.
“I am immensely humbled and grateful to have this wonderful opportunity,” she says.
“The possibility of helping disadvantaged people in South Africa to change their non-serving beliefs about themselves, catapulted me into study. I travelled to Denver, Colorado and I am now a PSYCH-K facilitator – and the first instructor in Africa.”
Elma says that using the training on a personal level, she has witnessed profound changes happening in her own life. She also speaks from experience; from the toll that an 18-year history in journalism took on her, and from overcoming a grave illness which took a decade of her life and vitality.
“PSYCH-K is real. It’s scientific. It’s researched. It simply works within a very short time,” she says.
What this life coach practice offers, Elma says, is the missing step after Louise Hay’s popular introduction of positive affirmations. She said that while some progress was made with the positive affirmations, ultimately many people fell back into old habits, because the underlying belief systems they cultivated hadn’t actually been changed.
Elma has an infectious laugh, and a refreshing world perspective of hope, based in a scientific technique. Her world perspective is also linked to the greater goal held by Rob Williams, the man who originated the system. He says that a higher state of consciousness is what is needed in order to help solve the problems we face, both personally and globally.
Mr Williams said: “Research shows that PSYCH-K creates a whole-brain state, which in turn acts as a kind of gateway to higher consciousness, elevating thinking capacity to new levels of functionality and creativity.”
In layman’s terms, what this process does is align the two spheres of the brain, allowing them to become synchronised, so that subconscious belief patterns can be changed, effortlessly.
Elma points out that neuro-pathways hardwired into our minds constitute millions of beliefs that sit in our subconscious. Not all of them are positive.
Dr Bruce Lipton, author of The Biology of Belief, changed much in the understanding of the reputed body-mind links, with his recognition of – and coining of the term -Epigenetics. He also changed Elma’s world entirely.
“My world of science as I knew it changed. Bruce said ‘our positive and negative beliefs not only impact our health, but also every aspect of our life’ and, ‘Your beliefs act like filters on a camera, changing how you see the world. And your biology adapts to those beliefs’.”
Neuroscientists Dr Christine Northrup and Dr Joe Dispenza among others confirmed this: “Here is biological proof that what we think, say and do have a direct effect on our bodies and our environment that we live in.”
In his book, Dr Lipton speaks of the PSYCH-K techniques developed by Rob Williams that can rewire the brain, make new neuro-pathways and change people’s lives through creating a whole brain state, which is a bilateral, symmetrical brain wave pattern.
And this, Elma says, is what the technique she uses, does. “It creates a whole brain state where life-long programming can be accessed and changed, with this protocol, within a very short time.”
Elma says: “We all know that our financial future lies in the grassroots and micro entrepreneurs of South Africa. We need many hands on deck to help facilitate this change. How do I propose to do it? By training the trainers who are in contact with people every day. And those trainers, coaches, teachers, managers and human resource departments can all help shape and shift our country into first gear and move forward,” she says.
“When we train every person that is willing and able to do the work, either at home or at places of business, we can change the face of our society. What is interesting is once the brain is in the whole brain state, it influences the individual’s mind and consciousness; and therefore their performance as well.”
Science, Elma says, has found that the state of our mind has a direct influence on the minds of others.
“In fact, the more whole-brained we become, the more we influence others toward that state of being as well.”
Elma says change of this nature works on five levels: first you must shift your focus, then your perception changes; then your chemistry changes, following which your reaction changes and this is how you create a new reality.
She says being in the whole brain state allows our brains to move out of a negative default mode, and allows us access to more resourceful thinking processes and creative solutions to situations.
Worry is the brain’s response to fear, she says.
“Worry is thought of as a response of the brain to block out negative emotions in the subconscious. Some neuroscientists have suggested that worry is a strategy of cognitive avoidance, in which internal verbalisation acts to suppress threatening emotional imagery,” she says.
She adds that worry disrupts the “brain-bridge” and slows the transfer time from the left to the right hemisphere, taking additional time for processing without creating a solution to the problem.
“As a coach, mentor and person deeply interested in self-development, I realised that changing our beliefs has most probably been the greatest obstacle in our growing as human beings. Now we have a key,” she says.