Not everyone can say their career was divinely guided, but Dawn Bennett is confident that’s exactly what happened to her.
“I was going to school for international business,” Bennett said. “Then when I was at college, I got brought to the nursing program to learn about energy work.”
The nurses were doing something called therapeutic touch, a hands-off healing modality, and Bennett was so inspired by the experience that she ended up changing up her career path and attending massage school in Salt Lake City. From there, she began working as a deep tissue and injury massage therapist and before long, she had another epiphany.
“I was working with chiropractors once I’d graduated and I was treating a lot of car accident patients,” she said. “What I was noticing was that I’d rub their hands and they’d be like ‘oh, this is how my grandma used to touch me,’ or ‘oh, there’s that old football injury’ when I’d touch their shoulder. Sometimes, it would end up triggering the trauma of the car accident when we were working on these areas and I found that really interesting.”
Bennett started doing some research and found a treasure trove of information about how our bodies store our emotions and our history. Fascinated by the concept, she went back to school, became a classical homeopath and worked in that field for about 10 years.
“I did a lot of work with releasing emotions out of the body with hands-on body work,” Bennett said. “But I also wanted for people to be able to do some of the work themselves instead of being completely reliant on me.”
At this point, another door opened for Bennett. She discovered Emotional Freedom Techniques, also known as EFT tapping, which is used in a variety of fields including counseling, psychology and social work and helps people change the way their brain is experiencing emotions from past, present and future situations. [To learn more about it, visit Bennett’s YouTube channel.]
“If you can think of a situation in the past that was stressful, you can conjure up an emotion around it,” Bennett explained. “You can feel it somewhere in your body. This is where emotions and physicality really come together. This is where our emotions from the past or our worries about the future can actually make us physically ill right now.”
Now Bennett, the owner of Minnesota-based Unified Mind, uses a unique blend of mind, body and emotional clearing modalities to support her clients on their journey to greater wellness and happiness.
People come to Bennett for a variety of reasons. They’re feeling frustrated. Alone. Stressed out by their jobs. Stuck in their relationship with their spouse. And oftentimes, they have no idea why they feel the way they do, which makes a lot of sense when you think about it.
“Our unconscious mind – the part that does things automatically when our thoughts are elsewhere – is being driven by things we learned usually by age 7 or before,” said Bennett, who is also a hypnotherapy trainer. “If we heard our parents talk about their rich bosses and how awful they were – or how great they were – this will influence what we believe about money and what we believe about ourselves in relation to money. Then when we grow up, these memories that we don’t even recall having end up having a significant impact on the way we view the world.”
Through a series of one-on-one sessions, Bennett helps her clients discover the root cause of their issues and then uses neurological and mind-shifting techniques to change the patterns and habits created by those roots.
“We actually change the belief system that’s creating the reaction for them,” Bennett said. “And when we can make that mind shift, a lot of other things start changing, too.”
Unfortunately, in today’s fast-paced society, many of us have become conditioned to feeling overwhelmed, exhausted and overworked. However, Bennett said, we don’t simply have to accept these things as the norm. By learning how to step back, reframe our thoughts and shift our mindset, we can begin to find balance and enjoyment in our lives. If you’re looking to develop a more positive outlook, here are a few of Bennett’s tips and suggestions:
- Just breathe: “Our emotional state and our logical state cannot work together at the same time,” Bennett said. “If we’re in a high emotional state, our logical brain is not working.” By closing your eyes and taking a few deep breaths down into your belly, you can start putting things into perspective and seeing them in a different light. Does it matter if you don’t mop the floor today? Is that really going to change your life in any significant way? Probably not!
- Find ways to release emotions: Whether it’s hitting the gym, writing in a journal or even just going into your bedroom and screaming, having an outlet to release your emotions in a safe way can make a huge difference in your mental state. Plus, it will prevent you from taking out those emotions on other people. “Sometimes just the movement and the actual act of speaking releases energy from the nervous system,” Bennett said. “That’s what we want because if we suppress it, we end up hanging onto it and our mind will continue to make up stories and then we attach emotions to the stories.” We are creating our own reality at every moment, Bennett noted, and by noticing the stories that are in your head, you can work on reframing them and turning negative thoughts into positive ones.
- Don’t let social media get you down: It can be easy to go onto Facebook, see photos of a friend’s fabulous vacation and start to feel jealous or resentful. However, those carefully curated posts don’t necessarily represent reality. “If you’re running a business and you’re struggling, you’re probably not going to write ‘hey I have zero clients and I don’t know if I’m going to pay my rent,’” Bennett said. “You’re going to be like ‘business is great’ because we’re taught as a society that we’re supposed to be perfect and we’re supposed to have it all together.” The next time you start scrolling through social media, remember that everyone is just putting out an image. Then, practice compersion, which is the act of being happy for others when they’re succeeding. When you can let go of the judgment that comes with comparing yourself to others and shift your mindset to a place where you can truly be excited for their achievements, great things can happen. “It just changes our whole energy,” Bennett said.
To schedule a free 20-minute introductory session with Bennett, click here.
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