Messages

ideally Karl Davis who pioneered it

I found Gary Craig as EFT founder on emofree.com     Just looking into it atm (1) because of writing about it elsewhere on the forum + other mbr's interest and (2) because of :lightbulb: realisations of my own implementation of it. See next para.

the way I learnt it is saying things to myself like: Even though I can't work full-time, I love and accept myself. What the "even though" is varies, I love and accept myself (or best version I can manage) remains. I may not be able to say "I love myself" maybe just "I accept myself".

This is what my old trauma therapist taught me. I've only just realised that what he taught me was very much adapted to my needs at the time!! That's why he taught me I love and accept myself (or best version I can manage) because raising my self-acceptance was really important at that time.

I feel a bit  to be realising now that EFT is much more versatile, especially the sentences or single words you tap on.

Mental Health & Well-Being Global Summit
               https://www.mentalhealthglobalsummit.com/

It's worth checking links from years gone by! This year's is starting today, May 14th!

June 11th - 13th, 2024

As with all these freebies, I'm sure he'll do another one at the latest in a year.

In fact he did one last week!   I seem to have been automatically signed up for it. I didn't take part.

Also you're meant to attend every day and sign up for one of three possible time slots per day in advance.

Tho I didn't participate this time around, I was being offered all 3 time slots per day w/o having to sign up for one in advance. 

Another freebie, free while taking place that is. From May 20th till May 26th 2024.

Resolved: Healing Nervous System and Trauma-Driven Illness

https://nervoussystemillness.byhealthmeans.com/


If you sign up in advance, there are a few freebie talks before May 20th.

Thinking of you Bach and sending well wishes for recovery from operation

You're welcome, Papa Coco! I'm happy when the notes I type up help just one person. Gives me a sense of purpose.

[C]

My thoughts on this program:

I didn't buy the program and I can't imagine any situation in which I would. The program is guided and takes 6 weeks (though you might have life-time access, I'm not sure, can't remember). The idea for me of tapping the amount of stuff that would come up and trying to process it in the space of 6 weeks is indescribable - I go blank at the idea. Impossible for my system to handle. I did tap a food craving shortly after listening to it all and the craving was gone within minutes. Wow!!

Unfortunately the craving returned with a vengeance the next day and I went ahead and ate and didn't tap and have been having cravings and giving into them ever since. Tho of course none of that means the program doesn't work! But unfortunately I have experience with programs that weren't really designed for cptsd and brought up ever more memories and realisations to deal with. Then instructions like: then use our methods on this new topic and that new topic     till I was totally exhausted.

There's been research on the short-term and medium-term effectiveness of EFT, maybe long-term too.  According to the Ortners it's especially effective for ptsd (there's a study of veterans...) though the study was EFT versus 'talk therapy' / CBT (the presenter couldn't remember which), not EFT versus EMDR /Somatic Experiencing or other kinds of therapy which work to at least some degree for cptsd. Anyway, with a study on a group of veterans, that's ptsd and not Cptsd.

EFT is especially good for reducing cortisol levels, based on the study, which included doing 1 hour of EFT a day. I can't physically or emotionally tap for an hour a day or 10 times a day for 6 minutes, but I do know EFT does work and is not a bunch of hocus-pocus. 

I do find Jessica Ortner's explanations of events, beliefs, thoughts which keep you from being successful in losing weight or in exercising or giving yourself better nutrition etc interesting and logical, really. It all makes sense and good on her for coming up with all this. She did it for herself first, so she has walked her miles in those shoes before. She's genuine, I think. Once you know how to do EFT, you can take some of the information from her program and apply it to yourself. Atm I feel overwhelmed at the number of 'topics' that one little presentation brought up, but I could tap on that too   In a way it's good for me to know how many 'topics' and of them how many really difficult ones are behind my eating issues, because it's easier for me to have some compassion for myself.

I'd certainly recommend listening to a freebie on this healing method and adapting for self if you feel it might be your thing.

I got sent one of these freebies/adverts by one of the Ortner family on tapping to (help) heal from obesity/overeating. The program is for women but I'm sure the information could be useful for any men on OOTS with problems in this area.

With these notes, I'm going to assume the reader knows about tapping / EFT. If you don't, there are undoubtedly tons of free Youtube videos including by the Ortner family. Or if you search EFT here on the forum, you'll find links to free information too. EFT comes up on free Conferences too, which get linked https://www.cptsd.org/forum/index.php?board=272.0 by various mbrs.

According to Jessica Ortner, when you want to lose weight, people concentrate on nutrition and fitness first. The approach is wrong because it goes way deeper. You need to concentrate first on the underlying problem, which lies in events, beliefs or emotions (or in all those categories).

Events: Think back to when you started to have problems around eating or when you started really gaining weight and couldn't stop. What was happening in your life? Events can be 'simple' fat-shaming, criticism from FOO mbrs in your childhood etc. It doesn't have to be a huge thing.

Beliefs: You might have limiting beliefs about your ability to lose weight, e.g. losing weight equals depriving myself, only weak people diet, no point because I'll never manage anyway, when I diet I get exhausted.

Emotions: You may be avoiding feeling any; What do you feel at the thought of somebody taking away your comfort foods? (I feel enraged at the thought of having to give up sugar). Also what emotions do you have when you think of your body? (I experienced shame, shame, shame and some fear and a vague feeling of CSA though of course that's not an emotion, but having that floating back up in my consciousness, I was thinking no wonder this whole eating topic is so hard.)

In addition to thinking back to or feeling into events, beliefs, emotions on eating, dieting, losing weight, body image etc, it's useful to check events, beliefs, emotions on two more broad topics: exerciseand caring for/about yourself. For instance you may use exercise as a punishment against yourself (I felt a lot of bad childhood emotions and still have bad memories from times with FOO and at school in connection with outdoor activities and sports. I also know I tend to get physical pain when exercising and sometimes I dissociate so that I can't follow instructions like 'put your left arm around your right leg' even though I don't generally have problems distinguishing right/left or arms/legs.) Apparently if you feel 'too busy' to exercise, you might need to de-stress.

People also tend to make jail for themselves when trying to lose weight, like they'll say: "I'll allow myself to be happy when I lose weight."
Why not allow yourself to be happy beforehand? Not allowing yourself to be happy causes stress which doesn't make losing weight any easier! (My own example from my teens was: 'I'll start wearing trousers when I lose weight'. Self-punishment - gotta hide myself in skirts. I wasn't even fat! I just didn't like or accept my body, including its natural shape. [Thanks FOO. Not.] Needless to say, my jail sentence didn't work). If you can find the root of your self-sabotaging behaviour,

It's helpful to know what's going on physically when a stressor turns up. Hormones like adrenaline and cortisol flood out, which (1) slow down your digestion and (2)  restrict blood vessels, which make thinking clearly more difficult. This in turn makes you more likely 'to forget' and/or lose sight of your goals and eat a load of comfort food. This flood of adrenaline and cortisol into your body actually inhibits clever decision-making. Cortisol shuts down the creative, problem-solving part of the brain. Stress also decreases your nutritional absorption, which won't help brain activity

Also good to know: There's an emotional impulse to eat AND there's the physical craving. They are different entities.

Tapping reprograms your brain to not react to stressors to begin with. Stress is cumulative so it gets worse and worse over time with a bigger and bigger impact on you. It also takes over your body, so that's why we don't make the best decisions. Stress also makes gaining weight PHYSIOLOGICALLY easier.

When you're beginning the program, it's good to draw a line between the failed diets/exercise programs of the past and now. So  you can write / think / say: My past diets have failed me and that's OK. Or: My past exercise programs have failed me and that's OK. It wasn't my fault they didn't work. Or something similar. (I can't remember, but I think it was suggested you maybe even tap on the sentence. It would make sense.)


Some notes on what to tap on: Any of the beliefs, emotions, memories of events that you come up with in regards to eating, trying to lose weight, exercising, body image etc. You can tap on a phrase like "All this shame" or a whole sentence like "I'll never stick to a diet anyway". Tapping that kind of thing where there's an emotional charge behind the words will reduce the charge! You can also tap in the here and now on a craving. (I first learned EFT from my trauma T and learnt approx "Even though I have this craving, I accept myself." /"Even though thinking of exercise makes me exhausted,...".)  You can tap to reduce future anxiety like when you think about exercising regularly or restricting food intake. Your tapping can refer to quantity or substance (and presumably similar in regards to exercise). Consider also what thought is leading to physical feeling of anxiety. You can also tap on what you feel emotionally and/or physically after overeating. Or if you can find it, tap on the root cause of self-sabotaging behaviour, like if you put yourself in jail / self-punish. (Although my feeling on this one is: be careful if  self-sabotage is one of your cptsd symptoms!)

According to Jessica Ortner, you should target the most "present"/strong/pervasive emotion/thoughts/beliefs. (I think it's possible if you have cptsd that that might not be a good idea, especially if you're still skirting around topics rather than dealing head on. Certainly go with your inner feelings).

I'm saving this briefly so I don't lose the whole post.



 

Welcome back Cascade!

Turk's Cap lily - lovely! I've just googled so I could see a picture. Too bad the cat has no sense of visual beauty. I think I read somewhere you can dissuade various mammals from using an area by scattering ground pepper around.

I like the idea of rebel flowers I tend to call them wild flowers and I encourage them

[not]

You don't have to kneel for 30 minutes motionless concentrating on your breathing. There are more active types of meditation, e.g.:
walking slowly, concentrating on your steps
colouring in, especially mandalas works well for me from outer ring to inner 
repetitive singing
even some banal jobs e.g. weeding work for me, so long as I don't set any goals or try to do it methodically

I'm doing a course in meditation atm, not with meditation practice being the ultimate goal but rather as a means to an end.

What I did learn in the first week is that there are different types of meditation but most of what I've quoted up above is actually mindfulness. 

Up until this course the types of real meditation I have done, as defined by the program I'm in now, have been very rigid types with the ultimate goal of reaching a state of bliss daily for possibly several hours.

What I'm learning now has a different goal: to be in my body. Embodied, embodiment. These are words that come up in respect to trauma healing. According to what I'm learning now, it's difficult to heal from cptsd when you can't be in your body. I think it's true. There's something missing for me - I feel kind of flighty - 'always' taking off rather than sitting with things. My brain flits around, I don't stay concentrating on things etc. I've just re-started the meditation practice after about 10-12 day break so I'm still quite flighty, but a smidgen less. That I can feel already. In the recorded meditation, being in your body is reached by concentrating on your breath. The recording brings me gently back when I need it. It's not banning my thoughts, it's having me concentrate on my breathing since when I'm thinking, I'm rarely in my body. I've spent a lot of my life thinking so as not to feel!

Alex Howard, the guy running the online meditation course, mentioned that a meditative activity is not necessarily meditation. To me based on my experience of what I called 'more active meditations', this makes sense.

The sort of mindful stuff I do, like colouring in mandalas, can often help me focus my thoughts, in fact even put me in touch with my thoughts or maybe emotions too but it doesn't help me be in my body. In fact the only way I come in real contact with my body is through some ache, e.g. in my hand and arm from colouring in. It's the same with the type of 'real' meditation I've done in the past like in a particular yoga movement - I would just be putting up with pain in order to sit still the way you were meant to, knowing that if I were to practise more and more yoga asanas, I would be able to sit longer. But due to a panic attack, I stopped practising those asanas regularly and never went back to that committment and regularity. And anyway those meditations were to do with reaching higher states of bliss rather than embodiment. They were more along the lines of: thoughts and emotions are bad. What I'm learning now is not that.

Alex Howard answers a list of FAQ's, among them things like: Do I have to sit still the whole time? Is it bad if my head falls forward? Is it bad to lie down while meditating?     Interestingly enough, he says that the original guru who came up with the type you've been learning probably taught the way they found best as the only true way   (In essence - maybe not A.H.'s words exactly.) That made a whole ton of sense to me!! As if all humans and all human bodies are the same! No wonder I gave up the whole bang shoot after 'a while', meaning years unfortunately.

To answer those FAQ's: You don't have to sit still for 30 minutes or even 5 minutes, your head can fall forward (what a relief, mine does) and depending on state of permanent exhaustion, lying down may be the only way you can even do the meditation!

I hope this might be useful for others on here with questions on what meditation is exactly. Or for those struggling to keep going or for those who have also learnt a more rigid 'guru' type.

1) I've just done my meditation again
2) It's evening so an unusual time for my meditation, but I have started up again, that's the main thing!
3) I do feel a bit better, a bit more hopeful for having done my meditation 

  on being back home and on enjoying the 'small things'. 

    

We're here to offer shelter         if she takes it badly and gaslights/attacks.