The Transformational Gate Program™

The Format
Becoming Self Aware
Network Spinal Analysis & The Gate
Emotional Subsystem
Somatopsychic and Respiratory Waves
Healing & Transformation

The Format: 
All Gate participants are assigned to either of two groups (A or B). When group "A" is in the "Network" room, group "B" is participating in a workshop, and vice versa. The workshops coupled with the Network sessions are synergistic, each adding to your Gate progress. 

Dr. Donald M. Epstein, who is the founder and developer of the Network Chiropractic, Network Spinal Analysis™, and Somato Respiratory Integration™ methods, will present lectures at the Friday and Saturday evening programs and at the Sunday commencement program. 

The Friday and Saturday evening programs also include entertainment and participatory programs such as music, songs and dance, or audio visual presentations. For program times and locations , please refer to the Gate schedule. 

Due to the unique nature and needs of each group, the times of the individual sessions and programs may vary slightly from your printed schedule. Please allow yourself to surrender to the flow of the weekend as this too is part of the healing process. 

We have prepared a special "travel card" for each gate member. When you enter the "Network" room for your group session, please pick up your card from the table outside the room, and hand it to the staff doctor assisting you that session. Please place a fresh piece of face paper on the entrainment/adjusting table. At the completion of your session, he or she will initial your card and make notations. Please deposit the card in the box provided outside the room. The travel cards will be alphabetized, and placed outside the room for your next scheduled session. 

You are invited to, but not required to, participate in all of the sessions and programs available for the members of your group at the Gate.

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Becoming Self Aware: 

As children, most people were not taught that paying attention to oneself is vital to a happy and healthy life. Many people were taught that paying attention to their job, their schedule, their accomplishments, their spouse or family, or earning a living was primary. Many were also taught that paying attention to oneself is self indulgent or selfish. Therefore, the natural mechanisms that help you to listen or observe your body mind's subtle cues became inhibited, improperly developed, or blocked. We learned to use our thinking brain to redirect our attention outside of ourselves and began placing our trust where our attention had been . . . also outside of ourselves.

Physical, chemical, and emotional stresses or traumas can often be difficult to deal with. Brilliant unconscious biological mechanisms are established throughout lifetimes to insulate us from our unpleasant experiences. 

It has been shown that in people with severe trauma, the emotional brain (limbic system) places a "marker" on certain experiences. This happens as our cerebral cortex (thinking brain) avoids having to deal with the trauma. The energy of the trauma still circulates throughout the body without our awareness (or perhaps with only partial or distorted awareness) of the experience that had been so difficult. 

In people with severe trauma, it has been reported that posture, body movements, and sensations associated with the situation or event may persist or recur, even though there may be no conscious memory of the event. Dr. Epstein suggests that via the mechanism of the facilitated subluxation, mechanical tension at the spinal level replays the energy that the brain can not fully experience. Therefore, spinal tension and altered spinal postures act as a means of further perpetuating the fragmentation of the nerve system. 

Your body can not remedy something it is not aware of. You can not begin to do things differently until you are aware of what it is that you are actually doing. 

During this weekend you will be learning to pay attention to yourself in a way that may exceed anything you have ever experienced. You will be asked to place your focused attention on you spine, its movements, your breath and your sensations. You will not be asked to do anything with this awareness. By placing your attention on yourself as you participate in the weekend's programs you allow yourself to help those parts that have become separate to come together again. In this process the body will most often disburse the energy once confined to a specific area, as it reintegrates this separated part of you back into the whole.

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Network Spinal Analysis™ 

The benefits reported by those receiving Network Spinal Analysis™ (N.S.A.) include an increased ability to recognize areas of tension and dysfunction within the spinal system, and to employ forces to bring about resolution of the distortion or tension. This process contributes to healing and well being. 

NSA is administered in a series of four Levels of Care TM, each geared at your ability to detect and resolve spinal tension and interference, and to your increased self awareness and ability to respond to yourself. During the Gate we will strive to enhance the development of your spinal and nerve system's capacity to benefit from the various Levels of Care™ . For some, the refinement of one level will be most advantageous with a profound learned effect for your spine and nerve system. For others, especially those in N.S.A. care for longer periods of time, and for those who are "Veteran Gaters", more than one Level of Care TM strategy may be advanced. 

This weekend is geared at assisting you in further developing your nerve and spinal system's self observation capacities, and in dissipating tension you no longer need. We aim to help you to develop an increasing number of coordinated spinal oscillators. These are regions of the spine that gently rock in synch with one another. This will advance your progression through care and your ability to develop mechanisms for spontaneous detection and self correction of spinal tension, interference and subluxations. 

The Gate will help you to be in better touch with your body; knowing its own story and needs, and integrating your movement, breathing and the way you touch and hold yourself. This will help you to know that you truly can heal yourself. 

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Emotional Subsystem

The Network Spinal Analysis™ model of spinal and neural integrity considers several "subsystems" which are responsible for creating and maintaining nerve system and spinal integrity. The cardiovascular, respiratory, and digestive are some of the subsystems which maintain your body

The subsystems of the spine and nerve system are: 

Passive: vertebra, ligaments and spinal discs
Active: spinal muscles and their tendons 
Control: brain, spinal cord, nerves, and an extensive membrane network known as the meninges. 
Emotional: composed of the tension, movement and vibration of the body's tissues.

Each of these systems must coordinate function and be able to respond immediately to changing demands placed upon them. If any subsystem is compromised, another will have to take over the slack. For example if a vertebra is injured in an automobile accident, the messages sent to the control subsystem (nerve system) will tell the active subsystem (muscles) to contract to protect the area. If the control subsystem (nerve system) is under mechanical tension (stretched or squeezed) the passive subsystem (vertebra) and the active subsystem (muscles) will orchestrate movement of the spinal bones into a protective posture.

The emotional subsystem is associated with the motion of body tissues and their baseline degree of tension. If there is emotional tension in the body this would be in association with tissue tension (nerve system, connective tissue, muscle, or joint). Dr. Epstein suggests that when there is a change in the motion or tension of any tissue of the body, especially at the spinal level (the switchboard for the bodymind), we experience this as emotion. As your vertebrae begin to move more freely, as your connective tissue releases its tension, and as the mechanical tension is released from the spinal cord and nerves, your body will have the opportunity to release energy which has been stored. 

Some of the ways in which this emotional subsystem releases stored tension is through muscle movement which may also move the spine through a greater range of its motion. It may release emotion through crying, laughing or toning, all natural expressions of sound. We often will make a sound which is similar to the vibration stored within our body as tension. This sound massages the tissues from the inside and appears to facilitate the release of tension. Much of this tension may have been stored as a result of your body mind's reaction to various traumatic situations in your life. A release of emotions is common as tension is resolved. Although the release of emotions may at times be very apparent in this process, it is not specifically what benefits you, but simply a by-product of your increasing wholeness. The Network sessions are aimed at advancing your ability to coordinate your body's spinal integrity subsystems. We help you to reintegrate the out of phase systems, enhancing your brain's ability to recognize and utilize meaningful energetic information for self healing. 

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Somatopsychic and Respiratory Waves

Through Network Care the brain may generate two waves which are associated with dissipation of energy, enhanced vertebral motion, coordination of the spinal subsystems and enhanced well being. These are known as the Respiratory and Somatopsychic waves™. 

The Respiratory wave is characterized by a full and profound natural rhythmic breathing which begins at the base of the spine, progresses upward between the shoulder blades, around the shoulders, and into the neck. It naturally gently rocks the vertebra "melting" tension and enhancing correction of vertebral subluxations. 

The Somatopsychic Wave™ (soma for body, psyche for mind or spirit) is associated with muscular contraction which pulsates and organizes various spinal segments into a fluid wave like coordinated motion. 

These wave mechanisms are currently being studied at the University of Southern California to better characterize them, and to evaluate their potential role in the body's reorganization to a higher level. 

During the Network sessions your facilitator may position your spine to allow for a more effective redistribution of energy, improved coordination of the spinal integrity subsystems, and an enhancement of full spinal involvement in these "healing waves".

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Healing and Transformation

Healing and transformation are personal, and therefore not competitive. Outward manifestations such as emoting, or large body movements are not indicative of the degree of spinal and nerve system progress or of an individual's enhanced ability to self correct. 

We will assist your appreciation of your healing process, and of your self regulatory and self healing mechanisms. Varied workshops at the Gate coupled with the Network sessions are designed to increase the forces of healing available to each of us, both individually, and as a community. 

Please schedule your next visit with your chiropractor as soon as you return home from The Transformational Gate™. If you currently consult with any other health or healing facilitators please seek their attention shortly after the program as much physiologic change will have occurred and reevaluation may be appropriate. 

The power which animates this living world is being expressed though you and others during this weekend. It deserves respect and reverence. During this program it is suggested that you give thanks to your spiritual source in your own personal way.

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In addition to the information above you may contact the Wise World Seminars office to learn more about the Transformational Gate Program:

Wise World Seminars
444 North Main Street
Longmont, Colorado 80501
[Tel] 303 678-8086 [Fax] 678 8089
www.wiseworldseminars.com