The Energetic Repatterning Technique (ERT) is my adaptation of Sandi Radomski’s Spinal Release Technique, which in turn was an adaptation of an allergy-elimination technique called NAET, or Nambudripad Allergy Elimination Technique, which is traditionally done with acupuncture needles. I’ve used SRT for so long now, and evolved how I’ve used it so much that I wanted to give it its own name. The basic principles, though, are the same.

If an allergy is a disharmony between the energy of a substance and the energy of your body (causing a reaction), then it’s also possible that there could be a disharmony between the energy of another person (or memory, or place, or even feeling) and your energy, causing a reaction or symptom. The disharmony is often created at a moment of “trauma,” big or little. Sometimes it’s an obviously painful experience, sometimes it’s another in a long line of similar traumas your psyche has catalogued, reinforcing the original.

Using ERT can re-harmonize the conflicting energies, eliminating the resulting physical or emotional symptom.

Many of my clients now prefer ERT to EFT during sessions, because they feel it works faster and more deeply than EFT on some issues. One client said that “EFT is like an old Chevy, but ERT is like a Ferrari.”

ERT is done by the person focusing on whatever the “allergic” issue is, whether it’s the memory of an experience, the thought of a stressful interaction with someone, a negative thought, or a specific substance. Sometimes I write down a thought or a reminder phrase on a piece of paper and have them look at it. The client sits with their back to me, and I thump up and down their back (with their permission of course).

As they focus on the issue, I gently thump up and down their back on either side of their spine, while they do a sequence of breath and eye movements. The breath and eye movements recreate the neurological encoding that happened at the time the trauma was experienced. By recreating the moment the trauma was encoded by the nervous system, while simultaneously re-balancing the energy systems, the trauma is released and the body is able to metabolize the experience in a normal and organic way.

For a specific target experience we use this protocol with the breath and eye movements:

1. Deep breath in and hold it in

2. Exhale out and hold it out

3. “Huff and puff” — hyperventilated breathing

4. Slow deep breath in

5. Slow breath out

6. With eyes open, roll around in a big circle in one direction

7. Roll around in the other direction

8. Close eyes

9. With eyes closed, roll around in a big circle

10. Roll around in the other direction

Take a deep breath.

With each of the movements, I go up or down the back once.

Once the trauma has been sufficiently released, it’s possible to “install” or strengthen a preferred response to whatever the issue had been. For example, after releasing the emotional trauma from the memory of abuse, you might want to think (and actually feel), “I’m safe now.” Or, after calming jangled nerves before a big athletic competition, you might think, “I’m ready to let my body do what it knows how to do.”

To do it yourself, focus on a specific issue, and just wrap your arms around yourself as much as possible, and tap down your sides, from armpit to hips, while doing each of those breath and eye movements. Always take a deep breath in between rounds of any of these techniques. Your breath helps your body to process and integrate the shifts that happen.

Oftentimes it takes some processing to figure out what the target issue might be. In that case, we’ll do what I call the “streaming” version of ERT, where we do the gentle thumping up and down the back while the client talks about whatever the experience has been. Doing this seems to bring it down from the mind into the body, moving the energy of it in a clarifying way.

Once a specific experience emerges with an obvious emotional charge to it, then we can move to the “Specific Target” version to clear it.

Thanks to Sandi Radomski, ND, LCSW, for her training in the Spinal Release Technique. See Sandi’s website at http://www.allergyantidotes.com.