Recently, I’ve been researching what makes folks happy in the midst of life’s challenges. Because my husband, Lynn, is in his eighties and still working as a maker of beautiful objects, he became my perfect case study. His creative work makes him happy, but some days are tough because he must invent new ways of accomplishing what seems to be the impossible. During football season, he finds a restorative source of happiness sitting on the sofa watching the skill, teamwork, and fan frenzy that is American football. This past season was no exception, and because of his interest in the games and final 2023 Super Bowl contest, I had an in-depth experience of the value of this sport to a person who never played the game but still appreciates its artfulness.
Category: Healing through Movement
Movement and the Healing Process – Part 2
Please Note: Winter Blooms is an educational website in no way meant to replace building a relationship with a trained EFT practitioner, counselor, or therapist. To find an EFT Practitioner, visit the AAMET website, the ACEP website, the EFT Universe website, the Tapping Solution website, or contact Jane for EFT coaching support.
In my July 3, 2016 blog post, Movement and the Healing Process, I introduced the subject of conscious movement and its support of the healing process. This blog post explores more deeply the effects movement can have on the traumas unconsciously stored in our bodies. Sometimes we think of trauma in specific categories, for example, as physical, such as a sudden fall, or as emotional, as when someone we love is injured, or as intellectual, as when we learn a shocking truth. However, these categories ignore the larger reality of who we are: spiritual beings who simultaneously experience physically, emotionally, and intellectually the deep effects of trauma. Because of the complex interweaving of our spiritual, physical, emotional, and intellectual reality, our healing process is best served by techniques that effect all these aspects of Self. EFT is among the most effective, and empowering, of these techniques.
Please Note: If you suspect you may be suffering from unhealed trauma (and most of us are), be sure to tap as you read this blog: Put one of your open hands on your heart and with the fingers of the other hand, tap gently on the gamut point, that space on the back of the “heart hand” between the tendons of the baby and ring fingers. Don’t worry about doing this perfectly: perfection is not required in this practice. If you set the intention to care for yourself during your reading by tapping gently and reverently as you proceed, you will do so. Should your feelings become uncomfortably intense, stop reading and tap three times on the side of the hand, “Even though I feel unsafe, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.” Then tap through the points on the head and body, starting with the Eye Brow points “I am safe; I am on my path; I can trust my body to release the sensations that make me feel unsafe; I am safe; I can trust my heart to understand and process the feelings that make me feel too unsafe to move forward; I am safe; I can trust my mind to reveal my negative thoughts and then process and release these; I am safe; I am safe; it is okay to feel good; the universe supports my wellness; the Earth supports my joy in being on my path; all is well in my body, my heart, my mind, and my spirit; all is well; all is well; I am safe.
Movement and the Healing Process
Please Note: Winter Blooms is an educational website in no way meant to replace building a relationship with a trained EFT practitioner, counselor, or therapist. To find an EFT Practitioner, visit the AAMET website, the ACEP website, the EFT Universe website, the Tapping Solution website, or contact Jane for EFT coaching support.
As I deepen my dance with EFT personally and professionally, I am struck by the benefits of movement on our healing journeys. Energies begin to shift and flow when we do something as simple as take a deep breath, stretch, or walk a short distance. However, because the memories of trauma are stored in every cell of our bodies as well as in our energy field/aura, conscious movement, something we do with the intention of shifting energies, is much more effective than a random breath now and again. For many trauma survivors, movement’s effectiveness is terrifying precisely because it can free memories we feel unprepared to process and ultimately integrate. Our fear of the unknown, often experienced as free floating anxiety, keeps us locked, quite literally, in rigid physical positions that become our habitual way of defending against feeling. Happily, EFT can help us to develop a gentle movement routine to release memories gradually and without the traumatizing energies we first experienced.