[R2B 96] How To Use Muscle Testing In Your Business, with Holly Worton

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Hello, and welcome to the Ready to Bloom Podcast. This is your host, Holly Worton, and this is the first solo show that I have done in a few months. I wanted to talk to you a little bit today about how to use muscle testing in your business. Now some of you may know, because I have been talking about muscle testing a lot lately, that I use it in my business quite a bit. The technique that I use – PSYCH-K®, which changes your beliefs at the subconscious level, uses muscle testing as a very important part of the technique.

What is muscle testing?

I wanted to talk to you today about how you – on your own, without anyone else – can use muscle testing in your business. First of all, let us talk a little bit about what is muscle testing? You may have heard of it, and you may not have of heard it. You may have heard it referred to as kinesiology or applied kinesiology. Muscle testing is a way to communicate directly with your subconscious mind and your superconscious mind, and it can help you accurately identify subconscious truths and information you cannot normally access from your conscious mind.

It is kind of an easy yes/no communication system for testing all kind of things: limiting beliefs, and stuff that you would not normally have access to. Now I am sure you are aware, with business we can often sabotage ourselves. We call it sabotage, but really it is our subconscious mind trying to keep us safe. It does not want you to go out and do public speaking for your business because that is scary and it knows it is going to make you nervous, so it tries to keep you safe by keeping you playing small. It’s always got your best interest in mind, but we often want to get past those things.  The work that I do is helping people change their beliefs at the subconscious level, so they can get past those fears and do the things they want to do to build the business they want.

How does it work?

Going back to muscle testing; how does it work? You may have seen people holding out their arm and someone presses on it and checks yes/no and you get answers that way. That is basically what it is – you, working with someone else or someone else is working with you.

When I am working with clients for example, when we are sitting in the same room together, I will ask them to stretch out their arm and then I will press down on their arm and I’ll do a test to see yes/no responses, to get a really clear idea of what their strong response is, which is the yes and the weak response which is the no. We test for things like “My name is Holly” and that should test strong. “My name is George” should test weak, because it is not my name. I will talk a little bit about how to establish that communication towards the end of this episode.

For now, I just want to let you know the way it works, which is… the theory is when the mind is holding a stressful thought – something you find stressful or difficult, or something that is not true or something that you dislike. I hate to use the word negative, but that might help you to understand what I am talking about, so anything negative or limiting. When your mind is holding this stressful thought, an electrical conflict is created in the brain and the signal strength to your body is reduced, which is what results in that weakened muscle response; which is why your arm goes down when you say “My name is George” – assuming of course that your name is not George – that’s why you get that weak response.

The conflict between the conscious and the subconscious mind results in this weakened response in the muscles of the body. Now we could go really in depth here, but my way of looking at things is I really do not care about the why because I know that it works. If you sit down and you muscle test “My name is [your name]” and then you get a strong response and then you test “My name is [wrong name]” and you get a weak response that is good enough for me. If you need more of the why, look up muscle testing or kinesiology and you’ll find valuable information on how works. For me, the fact that it works is good enough.

About the subconscious

Let’s talk a little bit about the subconscious mind. I am sure every time you hear people giving a presentation about the subconscious mind you see that image of the iceberg. You know: just the tip of the iceberg is above the water and that is what you can see and the rest of the iceberg is submerged. And of course, the visible section is your conscious mind and the submerged section is your subconscious mind because it is operating in the background.

Let’s talk a little bit about the conscious mind. The conscious mind sets goals; it judges results, it thinks abstractly, it is time bound, it has an awareness of the past and the future, and it has a limited processing capacity. It’s responsible for the short term memory (approximately twenty seconds), and the conscious mind can only focus on one to three events at a time.

The conscious mind averages about forty bits of information per second, which isn’t much compared to the subconscious mind, which is more habitual. It is what monitors the operation of your body, it keeps your motor functions operating, it keeps your heart going, it makes your digestion system work, and it carries on all of the functions of your body that you are not consciously thinking about, so you don’t consciously have to. Like breathing: you are not thinking about when to breathe; your subconscious mind is handling that for you.

And the subconscious mind also thinks literally, which is why if you’ve ever worked with affirmations, you know that you always need to be speaking in the present tense. Again, because the subconscious mind is timeless, it only deals in the present time, so if you are working with affirmations they need to be in the present tense, they need to be positive, and they need to be really specific.

Because the subconscious mind thinks literally, when you are speaking to it you need to be really clear of what it is that you want. The same goes for people who are into law of attraction: you need to be really specific about what you want if you are going to communicate the right thing to the subconscious mind. Which is why in PSYCH-K® when we are creating belief statements, which we program into the subconscious mind, they are always in present tense, they are very, very specific, and we have a process that we use if the subconscious mind needs more details; because it again, thinks literally.

It also has an expanded processing capacity, so it has got your long term memory; it holds your past experiences, your attitudes, your beliefs, your values. It can function by thinking about thousands of events at a time and it averages forty million bits of information per second. Now that is forty million bits of information compared to forty bits of information that the conscious mind can handle.

The subconscious mind is a power house: it is doing so much and it is doing it on its own. It is not something that you can control, and not something that most people can control in the sense that they control the subconscious. Now there are ways of programming new beliefs into the subconscious, which is how I work, but it is not something that you are normally working with on a day to day basis. We mostly function in the automatic, in the background using the subconscious, but our conscious mind is what is handling day to day decisions, actions, and the things that we do.

About the superconscious

Muscle testing also works with the superconscious mind, and you may not have heard this term before, and you may even call it something else. You may call it your higher self, your gut feeling, your intuition your spirit, your soul. What is the superconscious mind? It sees the big picture of your life and in PSYCH-K®, the way we work with the superconscious is that we ask it questions to help ensure that your goals and the beliefs that you are programming are safe and appropriate in the context of your life purpose, because your superconscious is what is on track with your life purpose. It sees the big picture of your life and it wants to keep you working towards what your life purpose is.

Why is muscle testing useful?

Because it taps into that subconscious mind and that superconscious mind that we are not normally working with. It helps us access information that is unavailable to our conscious mind because it is very difficult to normally tap into that subconscious and superconscious mind. And it can help us to stop playing small, so it gives you some very specific ways of working with the muscle testing. It helps us to tap into that superconscious mind or higher self and get a clearer idea of what our intuition, what our soul, what our spirit, what our gut wants for us and what is in our best interest and our greater good.

Because sometimes – and you see this if you work with law of attraction or affirmations, that sometimes, you have a clear image of what you really, really want and you do not get it, and you just keep trying and focusing and writing in your journal and visualizing and you do not get it… you get something else instead, and you think wow this is amazing this is so much better than I thought I wanted. And it is because our superconscious mind is always keeping us on track for things that are in our best interest and are for our greater good and if we really, really want something and it is not in our best interest, it likely won’t happen or it will happen to teach us something.

Ways you can use muscle testing

Pricing

Today I am going to talk to you a little bit about five ways that you can use muscle testing. One of them is pricing, and this is something that I talked about in a recent video. Another is naming things in your business. Getting clear on the priorities of your business, and as I said earlier getting clear on what is in your best interest or for your greater good. And it is also good for testing limiting beliefs and that is mostly how I use it when I am working with other people. With muscle testing for pricing, you test the price you have in mind.

Say you are creating a new program or package and you want to price it at $500, test that 500, muscle test what you know is the best price for this new package, and if it is strong, good. If it is weak, then go higher or lower; in testing to see which is the best price, if it is say more than $500, then you test 600, 700, 800, and often times, that is the best way to test because so many times, we will have this image in our minds of what we really, really want deep down, but we are too afraid to say it. And then we have got the other amount; the amount that we think people will actually pay.

By tapping into your superconscious mind by using muscle testing it will tell you what is in your best interest or in your greater good for the price for this new program, product, service, book, whatever it is that you are offering or creating to be. Also be sure to test to see if the final price that you get includes tax or VAT which is value added tax. One time I was muscle testing with someone, we got this price and she was not quite sure about it and she asked about testing to see if it includes VAT, and we did and it did not. So the price ended up being taxed; the price that we had arrived at was $5000 plus VAT, rather than including VAT or tax.

Payment plan

Also ask about a payment plan; is it in your best interest or greater good to include a payment plan for this program, and if so, how many payments? One, two, three, four or five, and how much should the payments be? And this again helps you to stop playing small and pricing small because so many women entrepreneurs have issues with playing small and pricing what they think people will pay because they assume that people will not be able to pay what they really want, or they just assume that people won’t. They will think it is too expensive or they won’t have enough money and this helps you set the prices that really reflect what is in your best interest and greater good for your business; I hope that you found that useful.

Names

I have used this with people to test what is the best name for their course or their program or their book or product should be. You can use it to test what is the best wording to speak to your ideal clients. What is the best wording for this thing that will help them really understand that is right for them and it is something that they really need. Again, you are always going to make the decision with your conscious mind. You are tapping into your superconscious to get this information as to what is the best name for your course or your program. But ultimately, you are going to make that decision with your conscious mind; what is it that you are going to call this new thing?

Priorities

You can also use it for testing priorities, as to what is in your best interest or greater good to be focusing on. Sometimes we have so many options or so many projects or so many other things that we want to do and we just don’t know where to start. Because you are interested in all of them and they all sound like good ideas, you think you cannot do them all because you have got just too many things going on, so you have got to pick one and focus on it. We are going to help you to determine what your highest priority is, and you can test a number of these priorities. If you have got five things you consider high priority, you just go down the list and select the highest of all. Say the highest priority activity on this list, is number one; muscle test strong or weak. If it is strong then yes it is number one, if it is weak then you just go down the list number two, number three, number four, number five and you just keep going until you get the highest priority. Then you test the second highest priority activity or action is number two, three, four, five and you just keep testing that way to see what your list of priorities are.

Often times, and this goes the same for pricing, for names you know deep down, you already knew this stuff because it is in there, it is in your mind. But sometimes getting this physical confirmation can be so useful. It can be very empowering because it helps you to relax and helps release the stress of making these decisions, because you have this information that you did not have before, because you’re conscious mind can just get muddled around, running in circles and second guessing itself. And of course you could have your subconscious mind playing its own routine trying to keep you thinking small. This can be really, really useful in helping you just be at peace with the decisions that you make and giving you so much more confidence in these decisions. Again, you can test for what is in your best interest, and your greater good, and your next course of action, deciding which project you should be focusing on can help you make the final decisions. But again, you are always going to make that decision with your conscious mind.

Limiting beliefs

You can also use it for testing limiting beliefs, which is how I use it most often in my business. You are testing to see whether your subconscious mind is sabotaging you by trying to keep you safe. And it can help you identify beliefs that you can benefit from changing. So again, you are accessing information your conscious mind does not have, and you are seeing what is the program that your subconscious mind is running, and this is so, so very useful. Because so many times we think we believe something but then we get the muscle testing response that we do not at the subconscious level.

I see this all the time with clients who work with affirmations. Because affirmations work at the conscious level, you are repeating the statement just in the present tense, it is positive, it is forward focused or stated in the present about what you want to achieve in the future. But it is all working at the conscious level and so many times I work with clients who are used to using affirmations and they will say, well can we muscle test these affirmations that I have been saying? And of course they know them by heart because they have been saying them thirty times a day for thirty days or whatever.

And 99% of the time, their subconscious mind does not believe that affirmation. They have not been getting the results that they wanted because their conscious mind believes it but the subconscious mind is not on-board, it believes something else. And that is when you need to do some kind of work to make those changes at the subconscious level. This is really, really useful to identify those beliefs that you could benefit from changing because you are seeing what your subconscious mind believes. This is so powerful; this was totally life changing for me because again, this is information that your conscious mind does not have.

Techniques

Now this sounds a little hard to do because this is a podcast and you cannot see me and I cannot show you videos; I cannot show you pictures of how to do it. You can go online and research self-muscle testing yourself, but there are so many different ways that you can use muscle testing by yourself. I am going to talk to you a little bit now about some of the really popular ways that people use it, and some guidelines for self-testing.

[NOTE: since recording this episode, I’ve created a video for you where I demonstrate each method of self-muscle testing. You can access it here: http://youtu.be/c9ikRMlI-jY]

Now first of all it is best to sit down in a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed. Someplace where you can get centered, maybe breathe deeply a couple of times, and just really calm down and disengage from any distractions. Turn off your phones, put your computer laptop lid down and detach yourself from the outcome. You cannot be fixed on what you want the answer to be and this is really important because when people struggle with self-muscle testing, usually it is because their heads are so into what is going on. Just relax and become detached from the outcome and just go into the muscle testing.

This is really important as you want to keep your eyes open and focus down, so instead of looking straight down you want to keep your chin parallel to the floor and your eyes looking down; what this does is it accesses that part of your mind. You also want to pay attention to what part of your mind you want to access, whether it is your subconscious mind or your superconscious mind. And what you are going to address is going to depend on what type of information you are looking for. If you are looking for limiting beliefs, you are going to be one to ask your subconscious. If you are looking for pricing, names, priorities, and things like that you are going to be asking your superconscious. There are so many different techniques.

Finger circle

Let’s start with circles and straight fingers, with one hand you make a circle with your fingers and with the other hand you insert the finger one finger from the other hand into the circle and just push the inside finger against the circle. And just see how much pressure it takes to force that circle to break or to hold and then test that with the true and false questions. Test “My name is Holly,” “My name is George.” I was recording this and it came up strong and then weak. Play around with that and when you do this, and it is also important to figure out which finger is best for you to use during testing. When you are making the circle, try your index finger, your middle finger, your ring finger, your pinkie; try all of your different fingers. I use my middle finger for example and this is one of the most common ways that I do muscle testing on my own; I find it really, really easy.

Fingers as arms

You can also use what is called fingers as arms, so you place your hand flat on your leg, your thigh or a table that you are sitting at and let one finger be the arm that you are pressing on and just press on it. You would raise one finger and then push down on that finger with a finger from your other hand. And again, testing your name, true or false, which I find a bit difficult but it works for some people.

Double circles

This is very similar to the first one that I mentioned, where you make a circle with one hand and straight finger with another. In this you make two circles with your fingers, one in each hand inter-lock them and then test like that strong-weak.

Sticky/smooth

You take say your index finger and your thumb and you kind of rub them together and you say “My name is Holly”, “My name is George”; this one is amazing. When you get the strong response it is very, very smooth when you are rubbing your fingers together and when you get the weak response it sticks, so that is how to test using the sticky smooth approach.

Scissors

Also seeing kind of a scissors method where you put two fingers out kind of like a scissors and then you press on them with the other hand.

Stand and sway

This is another really, really common one; where you stand up and you might want to try this while you are listening to it. You stand up, relax your knees close your eyes and do the true and false. Say “My name is Holly” and allow your body to be pulled either forward, backward, left, right, counter clockwise, clockwise or not at all. And then give the weak or the false response, my name is George and then see how your body moves. And then usually for me for example my strong is forward my weak is backward. But it could be your strong is left, your weak is right. Your strong could be clockwise, your weak could be counter clockwise or anticlockwise; it is different for every person and that is why it is also so important to find the best technique that works for you.

Pendulum

Another technique that I use is a pendulum and I find that a lot of people find the pendulum to be really, really easy; so by doing this one, you just hold it and ask it to show you a yes response and a no response. And it might sway back and forth or side to side or clockwise or counter clockwise. The response is different for every person, so for me using the pendulum the strong response is forward and backward and the weak is from side to side, but it may be very different for you.

Again, always test it with the true-false and the yes-no and see what works for you as this is really, really important because a lot of people struggle with self-muscle testing precisely because they have not taken the time to find the best method that works for them. If you have any questions or you did not quite get my descriptions all you have to do is just go online and do a search for self-muscle testing. This is something I will probably do a video about as well; just so I can show you the different methods.

Top mistakes

Improper position

I wanted to go through the top mistakes people make. One of them is improper positions so no matter what technique you are using you want to be sitting again with your chin parallel to the floor with your eyes looking down. Another top mistake that people make is not establishing communication or getting clear, which is why you are not getting that yes-no or true and false.  Whenever you start muscle testing, self-muscle testing or working with someone else, you always want to do the true, the false, “My name is Holly”, “My name is George”, which is also going to be a yes-no response.

In PSYCH-K®, we do three ways of establishing communication. We start out with a like-dislike, you think about something that you really, really like and when you are feeling it you test, and then do the same for something that you really, really dislike with the true-false, which is my name is this, my name is that and then the yes-no and that is where you just repeat the word yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, over and over in your mind and then no, no, no, no, no. And these are the three ways to really get clear on what your strong response and what your weak response is.

Not finding the right method

Another mistake that people make is not finding the best method for them. I know I said this just a minute ago, but it is really, really important. For me what works is the circle and the straight finger and the pendulum, I really like those two methods. A lot of people like stand and sway, and a lot of people like the two circles. There are so many other methods out there, so just find what works for you.

Weak/weak response

Now something that people get tripped up on is they get say a weak/weak response. They get a weak to their name and a weak to the name that is not theirs, which means that you might be dehydrated or you might need a snack. Grab a glass of water, drink some water have a bite of food if you think you might need food and test again. Test your name, test the other name and that should go back to giving you the strong response to your name and the weak response to the one that is not.

Strong/strong response

Sometimes you get a strong/strong response, so you get a strong to your name and then a strong to someone else’s name, and that means that you might just need to calm down and really get centered. You might be feeling some stress and if you are what you can do is go and sit in what is called the whole brain posture and this something that we use in PSYCH-K® and I believe it originated in Brain Gym.

The whole brain posture is where you just sit where ever you are, cross one ankle over the other, and it does not matter if it is left on top of right or right on top of left. Next, put your arms straight out in front of you like you are going to dive into a pool. Then put one wrist on top of the other; again, it does not matter which. Next, turn your palms so that your palms are facing and then make a fist. Lock those fingers together and then you can either sit with your arms in your lap or you can bend your arms up and kind of hold your arms against your chest, whichever way is more comfortable.

And just sit like that for between two and five minutes and that can just help you relax and release that stress and then go back to testing “My name is this”, “my name is that” and you should get that strong response, weak response that you want.