Being tuned in

As Gary Craig says, EFT works better when we are tuned in. In my experience I have found that to be very true. It can feel like we are going through the motions if we are not tuned in or associated with whatever we are tapping on and we certainly don't get the movement and shifts that we do when we are tuned in and really feeling what needs to be felt.

The reasons for not tuning in can be many, not feeling safe enough 'to go there', being dissociated and so on. Tapping with someone else who is able to help you access what you might not want to, is invaluable. In essence it is the ability to not shy away from pain, to embrace it instead, knowing that what we avoid grows bigger and more painful.

Ronald Ruden writes about EFT "It is interesting that this inhibition occurs only when the animal is in an activated state", in other words, being tuned in to the disruption enables us to dissolve the disruption. EFT is very powerful when we are tuned in.

References:
Ruden, R. (2007). A model for disrupting an encoded traumatic memory, Traumatology 13: 71–75.

An Interview with George Lough, Ph.D., on Somatic Experiencing

Clinical psychologist Dr. George Lough talks about an approach to trauma known as Somatic Experiencing. He says that trauma is really any experience, a life experience, that overwhelms the nervous system's capacity to deal with it. In the healthy nervous system throughout the day, there's kind of a cycle of arousal and relaxation. It looks like a gentle wave going throughout the day. And when you get kind of activated, the sympathetic nervous division of the autonomic nervous system's sympathetic comes into play and gives you energy and makes you responsive and able to do what you need to do. And then the parasympathetic takes over and you go into rest, digestion, sleep. And so that's the normal kind of way the nervous system is acting. If there's a traumatic experience or even just a difficult life experience -- even a child falling off of a bicycle or something like that can count in this. It can cause disruption in the nervous system regulation. So from the healthy regulation nervous system, this traumatic event comes in and it creates fear and anxiety, fear, and a sense that things are not okay, that you have to be on guard, you have to be careful, you have to be worried. And it can create a hyperviligance and a constriction, a feeling of helplessness like you talked about with the dogs. And so your nervous system tends to be stuck on or stuck off. People are in a freeze, and they can't respond. Read on

Using EFT for stress

I really like the Chopra Centre's definition of stress: stress is how we respond to not having our needs met.

Our need could be for a good night's sleep, a meal, warm clothes or someone to listen to you.

How do you respond to not having your needs met? Make a list of your unmet needs. List every event that contributed to not having having your needs met and start tapping on them. If you find it difficult to be specific at first, start tapping generally on an unmet need, and see what comes up.

I don't want to feel

Acknowledging what you don't want to feel, paradoxically helps nudge you closer towards being able to feel those emotions and accept them. Tapping on the truth is extremely powerful, you're giving yourself permission to feel and be the way you are right now, which is huge step towards acceptance. One of the biggest things we resist or fight is difficult to feel emotions, so we don't feel them, or at least consciously we don't, but subconsciously we do. They start to leak into our lives in all sorts of ways and one of the most obvious ways is how they manifest physically in our bodies as conditions, dis-eases and so on.

Try tapping on these sentences, or choose the one that resonates most with you right now:

I don't want to feel _______

I want to avoid feeling _______ because it makes me feel _______

It's too difficult/painful to feel ________

I give myself permission not to feel _________ for as long as I need to

I completely accept myself for not wanting to feel _________

Not feeling this emotion has helped me __________ (list how it has helped you)

Not feeling this emotion hasn't helped me __________

I would not look upon anger as something foreign to me that I have to fight ... I have to deal with my anger with care, with love, with tenderness, with nonviolence ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Using EFT for allergies

An allergy or intolerance is something our body, or immune system, reacts to because of real or perceived danger. Brent Phillips, who does theta healing has a lovely statement that I like to use when using EFT for allergies, it is:

I have the Divine/Creator/God/Universe's perspective on this ... 

You can use whatever word that feels right for you and then insert the substance that you are allergic/intolerant to and start tapping on all the points. We often develop allergies/intolerances when we don't feel safe at a core level, so addressing allergies from a safety perspective is very important. A very good tapping shortcut that Stephen Daniels shared on Gary Craig's DVDs is to tap the karate chop point and under the nose back and forth until the allergy/intolerance subsides.

*If you have a true allergy such as a peanut allergy use this protocol alongside any medical attention not instead of*

Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety ~ William Shakespeare

Why we need others to heal

Most of our wounds were created in our relationships with others and most of our wounds will be healed in our relationships with others.

Having a relational home as Robert Stolorow puts it in his book Trauma and Human Existence, is necessary for you to feel safe enough to connect with your hurts. If the relationship, whether it be with a therapist, friend or family member is not safe, it will be difficult if not impossible to heal your hurts. Trusting comes from feeling safe and even when you can't trust yourself, you will know when it is safe to put your trust in someone else, trust that knowing however small it seems to you. It is a doorway for you to enter a safe place where you can finally be heard, mirrored, validated and empathised with.

Peter Levine talks about going for a walk and suddenly being flat on the ground, hurt and frightened after a car had hit him in his book In an Unspoken Voice. It was only when a woman, who was gentle, calm and kind came and held his hand and was 'just with him', that he felt safe. He says that maybe he might not have recovered so fast and might even have developed PTSD had this woman not provided this safe place for him to feel cocooned. As a result he was able to begin discharging some of the frightening sensations and emotions characteristic of immobilisation/freeze that were coursing through his body at the time.

Harville Hendrix talks about three steps to establish contact, connection and communion in Receiving Love: Transform Your Relationship by Letting Yourself be Loved which can be applied to any relationship. They are:

1. I am listening so carefully that I can mirror back to you what you've just said.
   To mirror, I exercise my capacities for separate knowing and receiving.
2. I affirm you and your right to have these feelings and hold these opinions.
   To validate, I exercise my capacities for connected knowing and giving.
3. I can enter into your world and feel what you are feeling.
   To empathise, I exercise my capacities for connected knowing and giving.

We can mirror, validate and empathise through dialogue but as Peter Levine's example shows, sometimes words aren't necessary. We can transmit the same messages non verbally with just our presence, that's how powerful relationship can be for healing.

When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen ~ Ernest Hemingway

A Neurologist’s Explanation for Trauma, Dissociation and Chronic Pain

Taken from traumahealing.com

During his keynote address to the Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, Dr. Robert C. Scaer invited fellow clinicians to “look beyond the dysfunctional behavior apparent in many PTSD patients to the neurophysiological and autonomic dysregulation that is the source of their symptoms and eventually their disease.”

“Medical science must shed the concept that a symptom, not measurable by current technology, is ‘psychological’ and therefore invalid,” he stated, and encouraged physicians to reject the pejorative implications of the term “somatization” and to stop further traumatization of patients by subtly implied rejection.

Referencing extensive research carried out over several decades, including that of Dr. Peter Levine in the field of somatic experiencing (SE), Dr. Scaer proposes a model of PTSD linked to “cyclical autonomic dysfunction.”

Case In Point: Whiplash Syndrome

According to Dr. Scaer, Whiplash Syndrome constitutes a model for traumatization rather than physical injury; many of its symptoms and clinical manifestations are in fact a universal, animal response to a life threat in the face of helplessness.

This hypothesis is based on the occurrence of dissociation at the time of the motor vehicle accident in the form of numbing and an altered state of awareness, often attributed to concussion.  Scaer reminded the audience that individuals who actively dissociate at the time of a traumatic event are much more likely to develop subsequent symptoms of PTSD than those who do not. Furthermore, he added, children are especially prone to dissociate at the time of a traumatic experience.

Whiplash Syndrome has proven very difficult to treat. Individuals who develop it after a whiplash trauma suffer continual headaches and pain, reduced movement at the back of the neck, tingling in the arms, lumbar pains, fatigue, sleep disruptions and reduced libido. Moreover, in a small percentage of people, these symptoms can persist for months or even years before settling. Yet, even then, residual long-term neck discomfort may be experienced.

These subsequent clinical symptoms are explained by theories of limbic “kindling,” Scaer said. Kindling, he explained, is the name given to the phenomenon of the progressive development of self-perpetuating neural circuits. The symptom can be produced in rats by repetitive time- and frequency-contingent regional electrical brain stimulation. The behavioral expression of kindling in humans may include epileptic seizures and is also a model for a number of clinical syndromes, including PTSD. Read on

Dissociation: the escape when there is no escape ~ Frank Putnam

Awareness and Introspection

Excerpted from Peter Levine's book In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness:

Though frequently used interchangeably, awareness and introspection are two very different creatures. Stated simply: awareness is the spontaneous, and creatively neutral experiencing of whatever arises in the present moment – whether sensation, feeling, perception, thought or action. In contrast, introspection is a directing of our attention in a deliberate, evaluating, controlling and, not infrequently, judgemental way. Introspection, while often valuable (and the essence of many talk therapies) can in itself become interfering, taking us far away from the here and now. The unexamined life, according to Thoreau, may not be worth living. However, introspective examination can become pathological, contributing to increased rumination, inhibition, self-consciousness and excessive self-criticism.

Awareness might be likened to seeing a glowing ember emanating the light of its own internal combustion. Introspection, on the other hand, is like viewing an object illuminated by an external light source, such as a flashlight. With awareness one directly experiences one's life energy as it pulsates and glows. In introspection, one sees only a reflection of the contents of one's life. Confusing thought and awareness, or equating them, is at the root of so much unnecessary human suffering. Insight, while important, has rarely cured a neurosis or healed a trauma. In fact, it often makes matters worse. After all, knowing why one reacts to a person, place or thing is not, in itself, helpful. Indeed, it is potentially harmful. For example, breaking out in a cold sweat when your lover touches you is distressing enough. Yet, having this same reaction, over and over, even after understanding why it occurs, can be further demoralising. Comprehending that what happened was merely triggered by an earlier event, while repeatedly having to endure its uninvited intrusion, can add crippling feelings of failure, shame and helplessness.

On the other hand, “simple” awareness, along with a fortified tolerance for bewildering and frightening physical body sensations, can seemingly, as if by magic, prevent or dissolve entrenched emotional and physical symptoms.