CreativeEFT

On our recent trip to Tucson, Arizona to visit our daughter, my husband bought me a beautiful little wall hanging. It has a picture of the extraordinary Mexican artist Frida Kahlo and the words, “The soul thinks in images.”

I love this idea. It has been my experience that whenever we can allow ourselves to think in images, we are indeed closer to the soul level, or the deeper wise mind. One image can embody so much, and when our own images transform and change, things really shift within us.

The Inner Theater work with EFT that I’ve been developing with my friend and colleague Jade Barbee is exciting precisely because it brings EFT into that realm of imagery and inner life. I’ve been amazed at how easy it actually is to go there in an EFT session. And once you’re there, things unfold.

I was working with a woman who is seeking to follow her dreams, make some changes and move in a new direction that would be more authentic for her. But she has felt very blocked. We had talked about the situation and had done a little tapping when she suddenly told me that she was going to have to leave the session much earlier than planned. We only had 18 minutes left! I asked her if she would be willing to close her eyes and do some work through the imagination so that we could get the most out of the little time we had. I guided her into an inner healing room, a “room of possibilities,” we called it. Just being there brought tears.

Tapping: Even though there’s a lot of emotion about this, I can be with my feelings and just let them flow… even though this brings up deep emotion… it’s okay to feel this…

She didn’t know what the emotion was about. She said the room was still empty. I suggested that something might appear in the room, images, an object or symbol, something that was connected with those feelings.

Tapping: Even though nothing’s here yet, I’m open to seeing whatever I need to see…

Confused images came… .. then there was a tree… then her grandfather’s face… “Any feelings?”….. “Yes… missing them.” So we tapped for “this tree… my grandfather’s face… missing them” and as we tapped, other images from childhood arose, the places, the people… and feelings. I tapped to acknowledge the importance of what was arising, based on what I knew about her. This is someone who grew up in another country, a different culture and language, but had left that behind. “Even though I’ve moved on… my past is deep within me… these places, these people… my roots… missing them…”

I wondered out loud if this was connected with her desired new direction. I wondered if the child that she had been might hold the keys to her authenticity. She liked those thoughts, so I just tapped the points, “This deeper level of who I am … rooted in the past… who I was… that girl in that country… that culture… connecting with this part of me… ” This brought a wave of deep emotion and tears, which we tapped for.

Even though there’s so much deep feeling here, that’s okay… I can feel this now…

We had to end, but something so significant had happened. She felt like a channel into her deeper self had opened. She acknowledged that she had walked away from that past and had left it behind. But to be whole and authentic and move forward into more wholeness, she needed to reclaim that part of herself. Whatever that would mean. And she was open to that possibiiity.

Wow. I’d begun recording only when she’d found her healing room and gotten established there. I noticed that the actual work in the healing room had only been 12 minutes! And yet she had had a profound healing breakthrough.

I keep thinking about the tree and wondering if it was symbolic of those deep roots in her, as well as being a real tree. This is the power of imagery. An image can have many layers of meaning. I also think this story illustrates the new language that is emerging. It’s a language of allowing. “Even though….. I can be with this… that’s how I feel… I can let these feelings flow, etc.” This is now coming into all my sessions, language which helps us stay right in the moment, acknowledging and supporting in such a gentle way whatever is unfolding.
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For a free teleclass about Inner Theater and EFT and more resources, visit
www.creativeeft.com/Inner_Theater_Resource_Page.php

originally published in the Rising Sun EFT Group Newsletter

This article is the final installment of my report of using EFT very successfully for a broken wrist, the subsequent surgery and my healing.

A friend mentioned to me that the body registers an accident or other trauma in slow motion. What a profound thought. Of course, our conscious experience of any sudden accident is that it happened so quickly. There’s no time to stop it or change the course of things — in a flash, it’s all over.

I started wondering what would happen if I replayed the event in slow motion while tapping. If my body had registered various emotions and thoughts that I wasn’t even conscious of, maybe this would be a way to clear even more of the trauma.

I tried it and was truly amazed at what happened. When I put the event in slow motion, it went something like this:

(Here’s the background story: when the accident happened, I was carrying a huge load of wood from our garage and trying to maneuver my way between some bicycles. I lost my balance and went down, too top-heavy to right myself. I fell with all my weight on my left wrist and heard the bone snap.)

I started with the moment when I was first aware that something had gone wrong. Strangely I remember the words in my mind — I thought “I’m destabilized!”

“Even though I’m destabilized, losing my balance…. oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no!”

I paused the inner slow-motion movie at that moment and just tapped all the points for the “oh no’s.” This brought up a huge wave of fear and it cleared as I tapped. That’s the same thing I did with each of the following.

“Even though I’m going down, oh my god, oh my god!”

This one brought up shock, disbelief and terror. Tapping for “I’m going down, oh my god oh my god.” Huge emotion came up and was released.

“Even though I can’t stop, I can’t stop, I can’t stop!”

A huge sense of powerlessness. There was nothing I could do. More tapping.

“Even though I’m going to get hurt… oh no, oh no, oh no!”

With each little piece more emotion came up, along with tears. Finally I reached the point of impact.

“Even though I just hit the concrete, oh my god, oh my god.”

“Even though I heard the bone snap, oh no, oh no, oh no! ”

“Even though I’m hurt, I’m hurt, I’m hurt”

“Even though it looks really bad, really bad, really bad.” (my wrist was at a strange angle).

For anyone who is cringing, I will tell you that I was never in terrible physical pain. Maybe endorphins kick in, I don’t know. My main experience was absolute terror that I had hurt myself pretty badly.

Strangely, I couldn’t finish any of the above set-ups with “deeply accept myself” or anything similar. In the slow-motion process, it seemed that I just had to stop and tap with the exclamations and get the emotion out of my body. Then after all that emotion was released, I came back and tapped through all the points with the positive reassurance:

“But it’s okay now, it’s okay now, I’m okay, my wrist is okay… I want my body to know that everything is okay. I love and accept my body, you went through so much, but you’re okay now.”

After that process, which took less than 10 minutes, I felt like a million dollars. I’d done a lot of tapping previously and didn’t expect that there would be so much emotion left. But there it was, right on the body-level. The slow-motion replay brought it out. And once it was released, I felt great.

Some weeks later, I had the opportunity to present to a group of psychotherapists and the topic was EFT for Trauma. I told my wrist story, including the part about going through the event in slow motion. These professionals were especially impressed by the slow-motion tapping and said that it made perfect sense. As they explained it, the brain cannot process everything that is happening so fast, and our system is overwhelmed. The details and the horror are registering but not on a conscious level — they remain as if frozen in the body. This is a major component of Post Traumatic Stress. They saw great value in this process of unpacking the trauma little by little, tapping for every possible piece of the slow-motion replay. Of course we talked also about the Tearless Trauma Technique and how in many cases, you would not address the details until you had tapped for the fear and dread of even going there.

So I’ll add Slow-Motion EFT to my toolbox now. I never would have chosen to break a bone. But the experience of healing my wrist using EFT and the Creative Language approach has taught me so much that I can be grateful for the experience now. Isn’t that one of the great things about knowing EFT? Almost any life experience is an opportunity to help yourself and to learn more about helping others with this wonderful tool.

(originally posted in the Rising Sun EFT Group Newsletter)

I met with my surgeon, Dr. Benoit, at six weeks after surgery. I’d been in once post-op to get stitches out, but that didn’t involve a meeting with the doctor. So this was the first time he had seen me since performing surgery on my wrist.

When I told Dr. Benoit that the surgery had been a very good experience, he was surprised. He said he doesn’t hear that a lot! When I showed him the condition of my scar and the full range of motion that I have, almost 100%, he had to check his records. He said I was showing astounding progress for only 6 weeks past surgery. Of course I told him about what I do and how I’d used the body-mind connection, talked to my body, prepared mentally and emotionally, etc. He called in another doctor who was out in the hallway. Dr. Benoit showed him my x-rays, my scar and had me demonstrate range of motion. He asked the doctor — “So how long past surgery do you think she is?” The doctor said, “12 weeks?” Dr. Benoit seemed rather proud to say, “No — she’s only 6 weeks. Isn’t this amazing?”  Of course I briefly mentioned what I had done, and that doctor said, “Do we have a body-mind person in the physical therapy department?” Everybody laughed but you never know — maybe this will be a
n opportunity.

Dr. Benoit says he does at least 100 of these surgeries a year and has only seen this kind of healing a few times. “It’s major surgery. Most people drag along on pain meds for weeks. It’s amazing that you say you had so little pain and swelling.” I told him — and I’m sure this was a stretch for a surgeon — that I thought it was because I had informed my body and gotten rid of all fear. The day of the surgery, my blood pressure was normal. So my body didn’t have to panic with swelling and pain, perceiving the surgery as another injury. It was reassured and ready to cooperate.

My work with EFT has evolved more and more into a form that I’m calling Creative EFT. It’s a combination of hypnotherapy concepts and language with EFT processes. The work I did for myself during the entire experience of breaking my wrist, having surgery and working towards healing was of this nature. That it worked so well is great confirmation for me. Of course I’m really appreciating my body right now and telling it — “great job!” And I know it is the power of EFT and hypnotherapy concepts & understandings that really made this possible. I think some powerful body-mind communication took place, and that made all the difference. We are so lucky to have these powerful and effective tools.