A Good Start For Tapping On Grief Part 3 – EFT for Sandy Hooks, Newtown, CT

Yes, I love reframing in EFT, but when we just start with someone who is going through unspeakable amounts of grief, it can feel intrusive to the client.

Where can one begin, when the grief is so overwhelming that there is no solution, to “positive outcome”?

When a family looses a child, it is hard to find meaning in a “higher purpose”.

Trying to see the good in the bad can be very premature and feel violent to the victim of such grief.

Making sense of the death of a child is simply impossible.

The last thing a trauma victim needs to hear is how someone else things she should feel.

 

I found that, after I spent time acknowledging and holding space, the best way to introduce EFT can be through the body.

It is impossible to feel deep grief and not have physical symptoms: Tightness, heaviness, pain, restrictions.

One mother that I helped, who had just lost her daughter to an illness, shared that she feels like there is “a hippo sitting on her chest.”

One of the beauties of EFT is that we can just tap on that, without analyzing and stirring up more overwhelming emotions:

We can ask how big the “hippo” is, which color, what it does, if there is a sound or expression that would be meaningful.

Then tap on what our client told us, without changing or interpreting the words.

Even though I have this huge, dark grey hippo the size of two football fields sitting on my chest, I acknowledge my grief and all my feelings without judgment.

Even though I have this huge, dark grey hippo, the size of two football fields sitting on my chest, I choose to take the time that I need to heal.

Even though I have this huge, dark grey hippo the size of two football fields sitting on my chest, and it doesn’t allow me to breathe, I choose to be respectful of all that I am going through. anybody in my situation would feel the way that I do.

Then just tap on “This dark grey hippo”.

So just begin to work on physical symptoms, and notice how they shift: Does the “hippo” change color or size? Does it change location, from the chest to to stomach, throat or some other place in the body? Does it change from a hippo to an elegant, dog,… . Anything that our client notices is important and relevant. We just observe and notice it, and then do another round of chasing the pain and tapping on the body.

Helping a person by tapping on the physical symptoms still releases the same energy blocks that are causing the thoughts and feelings. But it does it gently, appropriately, without the need for the client to tune into the pain even more.

And it gives the client much control over how she wants to share her feelings, and what she wants us to know, while still getting relief.

It is important to detach ourselves from a “positive outcome” that we expect a client to have when working un such deep levels. Being there for the person and offering support in a way that works for them is is a gift that will be most helpful.