Why Nothing is so important.
When it comes to healing – the less you do, the more you get.
As I dove into reading to understand how the healing process works, I became more and more aware of a critical distinction. The less you actively do, the more you get out of the way of the healing process, the more effective it becomes. Our cells naturally turn to healing when they get a break from responding to external demands. It turns out that habits have a downside. Habits make demands on our cellular energy, thus restricting the cellular activities of health.
New Habits are a REACTION to old habits.
- New habits build new brain neuron pathways
- Old habit pathways remain.
- New habits are reactions to old habits
- New habits take constant attention and energy
On a neurobiological level, I believe that active solutions of creating new habits of health are literally creating new neuron networks in your brain. We literally wire in our new habits. As the promoters of these methods tell you, creating these new habits takes consistent hard work. Joseph Dispenza (Evolve Your Brain) has created powerful methods for rewiring your brain, and I’d recommend his books highly for getting a neurological sense of what goes on in your brain when you’re creating habits for your life.
Side effect: new habits cause cellular tension.
Along with the power of forming new habits, I believe there is a negative health consequence to this active habit-forming approach. These new neuron pathways are built on top of old patterns and subconscious reactivity habits. But the old memories and patterns and reactions are still in your mind, just covered over by new habits. Since the old patterns are still in your brain, I believe that there is a tension that remains in the brain and in the body, a constant energy that is required to keep choosing the new habit and keep suppressing the old way of being. This energy requirement keeps the body at a certain constant level of alertness and tension, making it harder for the body to enter the healing mode of complete cellular relaxation.
* Benefit: A calm state does not add cellular tensions
A central part of The ICE Method involves helping a person enter a calm state. As described by cell biologist Bruce Lipton (The Biology of Belief) a cell at rest is in growth mode, and able to naturally focus, without interference from external reactivity, to the needs of cellular repair and cellular health. Frank Kinslow describes this state in terms of quantum energy – the health result seems to be the same, no matter what frame we use for describing a cell at rest. Cells at rest focus naturally on healing the body.
ICE Method relies on the calm state and the natural healing of the body.
The ICE Method makes heavy use of the Nothing state. Almost everyone spends almost all of our time in some state other than the calm state. And when we seek self-improvement, we often add even more activity and cellular stress. Sometimes our good intentions even get in the way of healing. The Nothing state relies on the natural healing activity of the body at rest. It’s an easily accessible state, and The ICE Method is a direct process for entering the calm state or chill state.