"... sharing tools for the healing journey... "
My Daily PTSD Experience
Behind every PTSD experience is not just a mountain of overwhelming pain and overwhelm – there is a mountain range of emotional agony that cannot ever be fully put into words, replete with impasses, dead ends, unsuspected micro climates, inhospitable weather, predators, and not enough air at the top. On Mt Everest and its Himalayas, one may die only once. With PTSD, it is a daily struggle that is daily lost; one is, more or less, the walking dead.
It has taken me decades of work to put behind me the trauma of, amongst other abuses, being rented from age 4 to savage pedophiles. I could have been diagnosed with almost all of the shortlist of ‘comorbid’ diagnoses listed in the first paragraph of this section. I had several addictions, I was suicidal, I had complex visual hallucinations and heard voices. I had bouts of catatonia – it was all very severe PTSD. Almost 25 years of traditional psychotherapy had left me free of all hallucinations but still, for instance, having dysfunctional, abusive relationships and PTSD symptoms just under diagnosable levels.
Learning and practicing energy techniques (EP) helped me - not get my life back – I had never had one before. They helped me truly have a life, and one that is deeply fulfilling, with the reliable experience of daily joy instead of brutal flashbacks. It was only by using these energy tools that I was able to come alive. Let me be clear: there is no dosage or intensity or type of traditional, conventional interventions that would have brought me so fully out of the mountains. Not ten years more, not twenty, not the rest of my life.
AG.
Effects of Gang Rape Cleared by Tapping
Robin Trainor, MA
I was attending a workshop in Mexico. A woman sitting next to me shared with the group that she had been gang-raped 13 years previously. She still felt very upset about the incident, and said that she was unable to forgive or let it go. She said that she was growing in bitterness, to where it was affecting her family, her work and her life. The group sent her loving energy, but she still felt very distressed.
At one of the breaks I asked her, “Do you want to clear this??” She said she had “tried everything,” including reiki, counseling and massage; but was willing to try.
I had her imagine the incident, it was a ‘10’ on a 0 – 10 intensity scale. Then we did some simple tapping, and the intensity dropped down to ‘0’ after four rounds of tapping. I said to her, “Let’s get into this deeper: please tell me the story from beginning to end.” She started telling me her story, and whenever she came back to a difficult part, it shot back up to a ’10.’ Each time we then tapped on that particular aspect. After 45 minutes of telling her story and tapping, she was able to tell her story without any fear or crying or emotional charge. She went back to the workshop room, and told the group: “IT’S GONE!!!”
I followed up with her a year later, and she reported that it was ‘still gone;’ she was no longer feeling bitter, and that she had moved on’with her life and family.
How Tapping Changed My Life
Kelly Roughton, EFT Life Coach.
EFT changed my life in such positive ways that it became impossible for me to keep such a secret to myself and not share it with other suffering souls. I began by teaching it and then using it in sessions with clients after that.
The day in 2006 that I took a Level I EFT class, I didn't experience any shifts myself during the class. However, the demo subject, after numerous non-transformative rounds of tapping, finally hit on a phrase that resonated with her and when she tapped on it and it released, I could see the complete shift in the woman's body, mind and soul. It so impressed me that it sent me down this EFT/holistic healing modality rabbit's hole from whence I hope never to emerge.
I went home and bought all of Gary's DVDs and began to tap once in a while. I had some success with a few things but I didn't think to use it very often.
One night, almost 6 months after that EFT class, in the middle of an unhealthy relationship, I awoke with a "ball of twine" (anxiety) churning painfully in my chest. It was 2 am. My options were: call my mother (wake her up, freak her out), call a friend (wake her up, freak her out), I had no therapist, I knew it would take me at least a week to find one... I needed help in that moment. I thought, "I'll try that tapping, it can't hurt."
I tapped two, maybe three rounds and went back to sleep. When I woke up in the morning, I realized what I'd done... "I went back to sleep?!?!?! Impossible!" and yet I had. So I started tapping on anything and everything... and anyone who would sit still.
A few years before EFT, I had been in therapy for 4 years. I had made some progress but I still felt like the same person and most of my issues were still in place. With EFT, within 1 or two years of tapping on so many things, I felt like a completely different person. I simply didn't react to so many things any longer that used to upset me or make me anxious or leave me ruminating... it has just been so liberating.
In fact, these issues are SO gone from my psyche that it's even difficult for me to remember exactly what I've been liberated from.
I wish the same for any and all beings (human or otherwise) that are suffering, as so, so many are.
Kelly Roughton, EFT Life Coach.
Borrowing Benefits brings up and collapses the “Big One.”
By Baerbel Froehlin
The issue I tapped on was the most intense issue of sexual abuse very early in my life. This issue had been there for many years and didn't budge, as I tried to get through and over it with hypnotherapy.
After 2 or 3 days of Borrowing Benefits ----- tapping along with a video ----- as I tapped along with a 0-10 intensity of 10, not expecting anything to move as usual, I suddenly "saw" clearly in my mind this large black coffin, wrapped in sadness. The coffin contained my parents, the rest of my family and my relationships with all of them. I just knew that in a flash! It was a powerful metaphor that encompassed the entire sexual issue and all its related aspects.
Today I understand; it completely jolted me out of my obviously suppressed emotions. Borrowing Benefits brought up the "Big One" and collapsed it.
I was experiencing the very last scene in my own painful movie. While feeling chaotic emotions and memories washing over me, the black box in my mind suddenly became very small, broke into a thousand pieces and crumbled into dust, disappearing before my eyes. I could hardly breathe at that moment and struggled for something to hold on to. It felt so incredible that finally that blockage had moved. Eventually I worked with Pat Carrington (thank you, Pat!) during the break to get through my emotional turmoil. She suggested the following:
"Even though I never felt safe enough to get beyond this .... I choose to feel safe enough to begin to open up now"
And so I did. Since that time I have tapped on other events when I didn't feel safe; it suddenly was easier, successful, made more sense. I was able to improve in many areas in my life. Now, looking back again at that day in Flagstaff I understand clearly why so many times we hear from clients that they don't feel or experience anything at all. It's not that they can't feel it, rather, it is that they won't. They have to protect themselves forever from painful memories; the ways of doing that are as many as there are abuse survivors.
My own experience has definitely helped me to see more clearly through my clients' issues. The combination of EFT and hypnotherapy I use has shown to be very efficient, especially for deep rooted and emotionally painful problems as in abuse cases. The release can be facilitated without the pain of reliving everything
I'd like to encourage all abuse survivors out there to not ever give up.
As long as there are effective self-help techniques like EFT, there is hope.
"Stronger I": Madeleine Black's Courageous Story of Inner Healing through Forgiveness
In this video Madeleine Black discusses the effects of being raped at age 13, and her journey to healing herself through forgiveness.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iJXDtlEmPI8