Mind Over Matter, Space & Time with Herb Cohen
photo via Milan Popovic
When talk is cheap and talk therapy is anything but cheap, where does one turn to to get their mental health in check? Enter psychotherapist, Herb Cohen. By combining neuroscience, spirituality, hypnotherapy and tapping techniques like EMDR and Brain Spotting—effective long term healing begins immediately. While modern medicine has its perks it also has its pitfalls as they are often marketed as magic bullets that only blanket the symptoms, phobias or addictions rather than removing the initial cause of the wound whether it be physical or emotional. Herb suggests that the solution is found within us, deep inside the recesses of our brain, our body and our soul - if we are open to exploring it. To quote Herb in the first session had with him, “What does life look like if you were free of fear?”
Tell me a little bit about your background.
I always wanted to study medicine, but could not deny my heart and went to Philadelphia College of Art (now a university). I came back to medicine, with my Master’s in Creative Arts Therapy. I was working in mental health and developed a specialization in Addiction, which led me to trauma as they are linked. That brought me to post graduate training in EMDR, Brain Spotting and Hypnotherapy. I have always been studying energy, meditation, and spiritual practices.
How does EMDR work?
EMDR is a psychotherapy that engages implicitly stored memory with bilateral stimulation (eye movements, tappers or sound). That puts the amygdala (our emotional alarm) asleep, which usually is guarding the memories that contain people’s traumas, as well as associated negative beliefs and emotions. When exposed to bilateral stimulation, and / or Hypnotherapy, emotions and thoughts can then separate from memory. The emotions are released via Hypnotherapy or desensitized via EMDR. The brain responds by releasing all memories that have the same or similar association. When the limbic library holding all these implicit memories is emptied by the process, the adapted changes the brain has made, change back. This results in emotional regulation and deletion of triggers.
How do you feel spirituality and science work together?
Spirituality is our individual connection with the Divine. When I remove traumas that have people believing they are less than or broken, they release these lies and realize truths, such as I matter, and I am worthy. I help people see that they were always worthy, they always mattered. We are separating these new/ old ideas from time, and they become eternal. Our Soul is spirit that is eternal, so now we are connecting with who we really are on a Soul level and that is a step in a spiritual direction, towards Self-Realization. When I use Hypnotherapy to connect to dissociated memory or states holding those memories (such as disease states, past lifetimes), I first connect with Soul. The Souls is invited to be the gateway, as it holds all memory and very much wants to heal and evolve. Hypnotherapy and EMDR are evidence -based science, applied to spiritually informed healing.
photo via Zac Durant
Explain to us in simple terms the 5D ascension.
There are belts of energy bombarding Earth currently and it's pushing people’s trauma to the surface. I and my peers are overwhelmed with demand, as people urgently want to stop suffering. This is happening because now is the time at which Earth’s Soul has chosen to evolve. Earth will be moving from 3D to 5D. This is like moving to a different station on the radio. We are all tuned in at the 3rd Dimension and we experience separateness and hate. We seek power and control, money is worshiped over God, the environment, our health, or the well-being of the planet. War, unaffordable healthcare, segregation, racism, and climate change are the result. It does not feel good because we have entered the first two phases of shift. Exposure and Purge, similar to what I do as a trauma therapist. We are still at the 3D station but some of us are at 4D, now and many are starting to hold higher states of energy while still working and living in 3D. This is call being multidimensional. I was multidimensional until recently, now all the dimensions I used to experience have collapsed together and I hold omni-dimensionality. This is a very expansive state and within it I have access to many spiritually important places and beings.
Talk to us about the new book you’re writing.
Two books, The Divinity of Atrocity: Unmasking the Sacred Self is my first book, and I still work on it. The sequel is Unveiled. Divinity of Atrocity is what I described happens when a person releases their negative energy. They begin a spiritual journey, as Divinity is intrinsically embedded within Atrocity. As we release Atrocity, we ascend into Divinity. This is a roadmap and tool filled experiential manual on moving from personal trauma to self-realization and beyond. Unveiled is beyond, but deeper.
What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?
I think this was such a challenging question as so much that has been life changing has occurred in a very brief period of time. I am not separate, as applied to my higher self, spirit team or from anything that exists. I am not separate from my soul, and now I am viscerally living that. It took a while to get there, but it has so many levels of application and realization.
If you can, tell us one of your most profound experiences
Another really difficult question as there were so many and these profound experiences, are still happening. In 2015, I walked across the street from my office, then on Woodbury road, to grab an iced coffee. It was a hot July day at 3pm. As I crossed the parking lot, a white SUV came flying at me, hitting me in the thigh, and pinning my legs so I could not move. When we are about to die, which I did think, time stretches, -it slows down. I could see the driver's face as I had a “this is it moment” and just then a strange vacuum manifested above me, distracted, I looked up and ..Whoosh! up I went back flipping into the air and landing safely and gently out of the way. People rushed over and I commanded them to stay away so I could assess the damage. I pulled myself up, called for help and was taken to the hospital. An hour later released without a scratch. I felt a massive bruise where the vehicle hit and it never turned black and blue, just left in a day. From that point on my life was never the same. There were news banners on my phone after: Pedestrian hit by car and killed; Man killed by motorist and so forth nonstop for days that followed. I was to not forget this event, and as I followed prompts to learn more, I was taken on a spiritual journey with rapid ascension. I have not looked back. It is all still going and changes used to be monthly, but are every few days now.