The side of the mountain with the best views

Last week I revealed the after effects of my first session with Jane, a certified EFT, Hypnosis and NLP Practitioner.

This week is all about what happened during our session.
In our initial session, I began working on a fog which surrounded me and always rolled in as soon as I attempted to take action on and follow through with plans and goals.

I had images of mountains and valleys, rivers and a desire for bridges.

It also brought up a strong desire, need, adrenaline filled reptilian instinct to run and protect myself, to quit trying to access what the issue was or is and just be fine with how things are (forever and ever amen).

It's not as though I live in a box under a bridge or in a van by the side of the river.

So what is with this desire to quit and run away?

Yes, it feels unsafe to discover this part of myself. This little girl, who was repeatedly abused and made to believe it was her fault. That if she had been a better little girl, more loved, more loving, had been worthy of love, no one would have done or allowed "those things" to happen.

I know lots of sexual abuse survivors suffer from this delusional idea, that there was something, we as children had the power to do to prevent the abuse.

I know it's false and yet still some part of me believes and needs it to be true. It's not true is it?

And that's why the amygdala or reptilian brain takes over, directing the adrenal glands to secrete adrenaline and directing the blood supply be decreased to the thinking, logical, rational and creative parts of the brain and increased to the legs, arms, feet, hands, eyes and ears. It's preparing me to protect my body with either fight or flight.

So Jane talks me down from this place I went to willingly, knowing this would be the response. She guides me into the fog, has me describe it to her it's color, texture, weight and scale of resistance from 1 to 10. Her prompts, based on my own stream of consciousness and visualized imagery, along with the physical sensations from my body and the emotions I am able to identify, helps me clear some of the fog. The clearing of the fog reveals the existance of mountains and valleys.

I knew the valleys were there and I am the one who created the fog, which gave me the ability to protect myself from what's in the valleys. The problem with fog though is when it obscures, it obscures everything in it's path, so I also wasn't able to find my way up the mountain.

Jane then helps me remember that I am safe, even if the valleys are exposed. She asks me if I want to go into the valley. Me, no of course not. I want to build a bridge.

Yes and my rational mind peeks and realizes that to build a bridge we must go into the valley. More fear shows up. The fog starts to roll back in.

Had I been performing the meridian tapping without Jane, I would have tapped on the fog again and most likely stopped there. With Jane, using her training and awareness of what was happening, we stopped the fog from rolling in and she asked me to see the valley clearly and reminded me I didn't need to go into it. She asked me to describe what I could of the valley.

I saw a river and dense growth and boulders. I stood half way up the mountain viewing this, from a safe and supported distance.

Near the end of the exploration, I saw a triangle with smooth sides, holding all of this pain, despair and rage. That's where we ended exploring as our hour closing. The final step for the session was to reinforce the positive aspects learned during the exploration, which meant a few final rounds of tapping on the acupressure points. As soon as we finished, I knew almost immediately what our next session would cover.

This is why I'm am growing to appreciate Meridian tapping and working with a trained professional, more and more. I was safe and supported. Now when I see the fog, I know it's also hiding beauty. I act to see the beauty, knowing both rage and damage inhabit the valley and I don't have to get lost in there to access the beauty, which is also there.

If you're already doing Meridian Tapping or some form of the Emotional Freedom Technique, working with a  EFT trained and certified practitionar can help you go deeper, safely.

Find someone you trust. Trust yourself. Heal Yourself.

Read more about what Jane offers and how she offers it.

Next week, the Fire in the Mountain.

Stay tuned as I openly discuss my process of healing and overcoming my obstacles.

Until next time Be who you are meant to be.



Minna

The Concept of "Fine" - Revealed Through Meridian Tapping

On July 7th I had my very first session with EFT, Hypnosis and NLP Practitioner, Jane Unsworth. It was 3 days before I could sit down and write anything about it and what came out was not even close to what I expected.

Since I've been totally open with what's going on for me since I started this blog, I'll share the entirety of what I write and experience from each session with Jane, with her blessing. I hope what shows up helps you, the reader, find answers and stay with the healing process.

July 10, 2010

Me: Oh good grief.

I must not allow myself to have any money because with money comes comfort. With comfort comes relaxation. With relaxation comes stuff spilling out. With stuff spilling out comes shame. With shame comes blame. With blame comes guilt. Or is that reversed, first guilt then blame?

Either way it doesn't matter. That's why I can't allow myself to have money. Money allows me to address these issues. Money allows me to work through these issues and then I'll be exposed and exposure is what kills.

So what am I killing if I expose myself by addressing these issues because I have money?

Unnamed Monster: You're killing your safety.

Me: My safety?

UM: Yes, people don't need to know the truth about what happened to you. No one needs to know. If you'll just leave this alone you'll be fine. You'll be able to do just enough to get by and be just fine.

Me: Will I? Be fine I mean? Will I be happy?

UN: No. This isn't about happy, this is about being fine. If you're fine it doesn't matter if you're happy.

Me: So please define, fine for me.

UM: Yes you just do what's asked of you with a few complaints about it to people and do it everyday until you die, you'll be fine. See.

Me: Wow. Didn't we do that already? And after a while, we don't do very well with actually doing what's asked of us and then nothing is fine anymore and we're right back where we started, not being fine and knowing that we need to address the whole situation even if we only do it a little at a time.

UM: Yeah so that was then. This time WILL be different. You don't have to address this stuff, just do it. Stop thinking about it and just do it. Do what someone else tells you to do. And be fine. It's called obeying. God wants you to obey.

Me: Oh so you're going to bring God into this. He and why is God a he, he's don't give birth except seahorses and one other creature that is asexual I think clams or oysters or something. Still anyway God wants me to obey and I'll be fine and I'm supposed to trust that.

I obeyed when I was a child. I was good at it. Was I fine then? I'm sorry. I'm not really believing the I'll be fine stuff. I'll be okay sure. I'll survive again yeah sure. I won't be fine. I could give two rats asses about being fine.

I want to be happy.

I want to both like and love myself. I'll start with being able to like myself enough to take care of the body I'm in. I want to know that if temptation shows up I will do the liking of myself instead of following the temptation. If you want me to be fine, you've got to come up with a better definition than, things will just go on with you doing as you're told like this until you die. Who's doing the telling because if it's not me, telling me and trusting me, then I want no part of it.

UM: You don't want to be fine?

Me: No I don't just want to be fine. I want to be happy. I want to be happily married. I want to be debt-free. None of that happens if all I ever am is fine.

UM: Well I can't help you.

Me: Why not?

UM: All I can do is be fine.

Me: Oh.

UM: And you don't want to be fine.

Me: Right.

UM: You want to be Great. You want to be this thing you keep hearing in your head. That's just another fantasy you know.

Me: Is it?

UM: Yeah fantasy. You don't get to architect unless you are fine.

Me: Oh really? Is that so? What the hell are you talking about?

UM: You have to be fine with who you are before you begin to architect.

Me: Hello, I've been architecting this entire time and I've only been fine part of it, so no I don't follow you.

UM: I'm not sure how to explain. I only know you hear that "architect". I also only know I can be no more than fine. The two go together somehow and you can't be one without the other.

Me: So you have another definition for fine?

UM: Being okay with what is, now...

Me: You wanted to put and forever as though it wouldn't change and you didn't. Why didn't you?

UM: Because I don't think it's forever anymore. It's being okay with what is, now. Not being okay with what is now. The comma is important. It's right now, this moment and knowing that once this moment is passed, it no longer has to be the same okay. It just has to be an okay, within each moment.

Me:

However, if I know that I'm fine now and want to be fine with something different in the future, I have to be okay with the now and take actions which most probably lead me to the future I'd like, which obviously isn't now. This only works if I'm okay with what is, now. That last sentence was really a question and yet it wanted to be a statement.

So practicing on that sentence. - I'm okay with that sentence being a statement, now, even though I'm questioning the validity of the statement. Hmm. That's what you mean by fine?

UM: Yes. Is it clearer now? Are you willing to be fine?

Me: I'm honestly not sure. My heart hurts. I need to check in with my body. I just noticed how slumped down in the chair I was. I don't even recall my body slumping down like that.

How did I get that from tapping some points on my face, upper body and head? To be honest, I didn't.
While I was working with Jane, she was keeping track of and feeding back the impulses and stream of consciousness responses I was getting. She helped me access the part of me holding this idea. That's what allowed me to explore and have the conversation, test the messages I tell myself, the thoughts I hold about myself and how true or not they are.

It's different than talk therapy for sure. It involves being aware of your body. I mean it's hard to not be aware that your own fingers are tapping the sensitive skin beside the eyes or that divot just under the nose and mouth.

Is this for everyone? No. Absolutely not. I certainly wouldn't start here. I've been tapping off and on since I first heard about it in late 2008 and my results, while helpful to get over the emotional hurdle of the moment hadn't provided the unlocked door for later exploration. 

Next week, I'll share what happened after our 2nd session.

Notes and Changes

So I talked about all this anger I had and I never really thought about how much space it was taking up inside me or even how consistently everything I came in contact with seemed to bump up against it, trying to find a place to settle.

Now it's all, lots of it is sitting outside me.

Now, when I find myself angry and I do still find myself angry, I can discern more quickly the nature of the anger - did it brush/bump some sensitive esteem issues, what  belief is it rubbing the wrong way, did it shove a value I hold? And in many cases I'm addressing it immediately and watching the anger dissipate on the spot or  soon after.

In those cases where I'm not addressing it directly, I'm instead putting salve on because it really is an open sore. The salve contains compassion wrapped understanding and sometimes a painful scraping away of conclusion jumps and assumptions.

EFT or Meridian Tapping has been one of multitude of things I'm using. It works. It looks odd yes and it works for me. I still won't do an entire sequence in public and I'm okay with that.

I at least will do the karate chop on my hands to remind me to feel the new vibrations, those not associated with anger. Doing even that much is like striking a tuning fork and setting it on a sensitive part of your body.

Anger has it's own set of vibrations. Those vibrations and I have been so in tune with each for so long, that even a small reminder that other vibrations exist is enough to change the pitch a sixteenth note. Who would have thought a 16th note could make that much of a difference?

Where ever you are in the journey of making your music, may you always hear the sound of change.