Recently, Yoga Lizard had the opportunity to interview Certified Body Talk Practitioner Emily Trinkaus to get her view on the Body Talk system…

Y.L.  What brought you to BT?

E.T.  About 5 years ago I had two acquaintances who had just finished the BT training and needed guinea pigs. So I volunteered. I didn’t really notice any results, which is not to say that nothing happened, but I wasn’t aware of it. A few years later I did an exchange with one of these friends – I gave her an astrology reading and she gave me a BT session. First, I was amazed by how much she had changed in the past few years – I was impressed to see the influence of BT in her own life – she had lost weight and seemed much healthier and happier. I went into the session with a specific thing I wanted to work on, and after the session, I felt that things had completely shifted for me – my “issue” was no longer an issue. So I was impressed. A few years after that, a friend told me about another practitioner, Gilly Adkins. She said that having sessions with Gilly would make me want to become a practitioner, and she was right – that’s exactly what happened. I had a background in other energy healing modalities (Polarity Therapy, Reiki, Reflexology), but BT seemed much more powerful.

Y.L.  What was the length of the course?

E.T.  To become certified, you complete a four-day training – BodyTalk Modules 1 & 2 – and then you repeat the training a second time. Once you have memorized the protocol and techniques, you can start counting your practice sessions toward the 50 documented sessions required for certification. Once you do the 50 sessions, you take a written and practical exam.

Y.L.  What has BT taught you?

E.T.  Learning BT has resulted in a complete shift in how I see health and healing. I have much more respect for how amazing our bodies truly are – I see how we are miraculous self-healing mechanisms, and how true health is inside of us – not dependent on supplements or drugs or even having the “perfect” diet. Learning BT has also helped me see just how important emotions and beliefs are to our health, and that if these levels are not addressed, any success with treatment is likely to be temporary.

Y.L.  What do you experience during a session?

E.T.  One of the big themes in BT is balancing the left and right sides of the brain – the rational and the intuitive. The ideal place to be while I’m giving a session is in that state of balance – my job is to be neutral, grounded, present and free of any agenda (i.e., any idea of what’s “wrong” with the client and what kind of treatment will heal them). When I’m in that space, my left-brain, logical side can access the entire protocol and the techniques, while my right brain gets intuitive “hits” that give me the feeling of being in the flow or in tune with the client. A session feels to me like a process of discovery, an adventure, because I have no idea what’s going to come up. I’m always curious to see how the body wants to balance itself in relation to whatever’s going on, and I’m always surprised by what does come up. This is why I have a lot of fun during sessions.

Y.L.  Do you think BT will become an accepted science?

E.T.  I do think it will become more accepted, mostly because it works. So many people are becoming disillusioned with conventional medicine for the simple reason that it often doesn’t work – especially in the long term. Most of conventional medicine these days is about prescribing pharmaceuticals to give temporary relief for a symptom, but the underlying cause goes unaddressed. Often, the prescribed drugs end up having harmful side effects, which create even more health problems. BT is incredibly cost-effective because it works so quickly and efficiently.

Y.L.  Can BT help with emotional problems as well as physical?

E.T.  Yes – and the emotional and physical issues are invariably connected. Often people aren’t aware of the emotions, thoughts, beliefs that are hanging out in their bodies and in their subconscious mind. In a BT session, you can reach these levels of awareness – for example, you might have anger stored in your liver – it could be from a past experience that, in your mind, you think you’ve totally dealt with, but it’s still there on an energetic level and therefore affecting your health. BT can clear these old emotions that are keeping you stuck in old patterns and problems. BT also has a technique for clearing beliefs and memories of past events that may be negatively affecting your health. For example, allergies can be tied up with the belief that “the world isn’t a safe place” – once the belief is cleared, the allergy also goes away.