Gill South: Bugs in the system

BodyTalk restores communication between the brain and body which allows for the body to heal itself. Photo / Thinkstock

Gill South takes part in a BodyTalk therapy session, heralded as the acupuncture of the future.

It's the little things. I like the fact that BodyTalk practitioner Duncan Campbell has a little pink balloon on his letterbox so I know where to come to.

Duncan has been recommended by a good contact of mine who is a highly sensible ex-lawyer. According to a definition I like, BodyTalk, is an alternative holistic therapy that allows the body to "speak for itself" in order to release and resolve emotional, spiritual, and physical issues/events which reside in the body's cellular tissue memories in order to promote healing.

The therapy, founded by Australian John Veltheim, a chiropractor, naturopath and acupuncturist, is about reconnecting these lines of communication enabling the body's internal mechanisms to function at optimal levels, repairing and preventing disease while rapidly accelerating the healing process.

Duncan, who comes from a background of osteopathy and acupuncture (although is no longer practising either), predicts that BodyTalk is going to be the next acupuncture, accepted by medics the world over. There are 2000 BodyTalk practitioners worldwide.

I lie down on the therapy table, just glad to be putting my feet up during the school holidays. I could so easily just nod off. But no, I can't just lie there, my brain and body are to be highly involved in this session. Think of myself as being de-bugged like a computer, Duncan tells me.

Some people will come to Duncan with a particular problem but I've elected to go in "blind" today, just to see whether the therapist can find out my malfunctions. BodyTalk is not necessarily about treating an illness, it's about allowing the system to identify patterns in the bodymind, he says.

My favourite bit of the session is the active memory part. He taps my forehead and my chest to alert the brain and the heart which stores the information and subsequent broadcast of it.

Duncan talks about de-bugging me in my session - he asks me to think about certain years in my life when I was feeling certain emotions - these are called Active Memories. In BodyTalk speak, these events might have been misfiled and need refiling, he says. Active Memories, are stored by neuropeptides in the connective tissue and cause a painful, angry, fearful, or teary-eyed response, even many years later. These strong emotional responses stress the body.

I've no idea how he hits on the years he names. One of them takes me back to when I was three, another when I was nine and another seven years ago. Some of it is about personal and work relationships. Duncan asks me to remember what was happening at that time and checks my muscle response on my arm for a yes/no answer. As it happens some of the dates he hits on were pretty key times in my life.

Duncan identifies feelings of irritation, frustration and in one spot, sadness, and some of these feelings he believes I am feeling now. He also mentions the word drive a lot when it comes to me - think he's hit on my rather impatient attitude to life which has stood me in good stead as a journalist anyway.

I tell him I feel a bit like he is a clairvoyant in focusing on these important years of my life and he says BodyTalk is not about being psychic and wants me to emphasis this. No idea how he alights on those years though - it's a BodyTalk mystery.

Duncan gives me 10 days for the debugging process to be over. I will feel more relaxed, he says. Hopefully less of that damn drive.

Next week:

The Musetude Trust is showing corporates and individuals how to unlock their creative genius through music. They are coming to see me and the plan is to tap into the higher cognitive area of the brain which is intuitive and insightful.