It's hard to put into words. But it's sort like I'm stepping out of myself, or behind myself, and wondering where I am and how I got there -- this was in the middle of an afternoon matinee concert -- and I start thinking who are all these people? and I don't belong here, and this isn't real as if I've stepped into someone else's life or a scene in a movie --then I start shaking uncontrollably and have the sudden urge to flee. It's really an awful feeling sort of like falling into a parallel universe and I am frantic to find my way to the "real universe" where Bob is waiting for me. I really had to flee -- leaving at intermission. I couldn't calm down until I got home and hugged Kona. Anyway, because I was still pretty shook up from the event, instead of doing EMDR, my therapist suggested we try EFT to calm my nerves.
EFT stands for Emotional Freedom Tapping, though some call it Emotional Finger Tapping. It's quite interesting and if you never heard of it, here's a brief video explaining how it works:
So we did EFT using the phrase "Even though I feel stressed and anxious, I know that I am OK and nothing bad will happen." The therapist would say the sentence and have me repeat it after her as she tapped on her pressure points and I tapped on mine. She changed it up a few times to "Even though I feel shaky and my heart is racing etc." or "even though my palms are sweaty and chest feels tight" and after repeating this exercise about four times, I was surprised to find tears running down my cheeks.
And I said, "I don't even know why I'm crying."
She said, "It's one way your body relieves stress."
And I did feel calmer afterwards.
3 comments:
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Hi Diane, my therapist taught me EFT to help relieve anxiety about my feelings being unable to protect myself emotionally, which work was causing. In addition, I also used to feel disassociated when in the grocery store - too many choices, too many possibilities for mistakes. While I used EFT after she first taught me how, I did't retain the lesson, and now just rely on bringing my focus back to one individual item - dog food, for example - and then reject all the wrong ones; then, when I recognize the correct one. I feel such a feeling of competence. One day, my beloved son-in-law ran into me in a daze in an aisle, and pulled the item I wanted off the shelf for me. Heaven-sent, maybe. Still thinking of you, as always.
It is so relaxing to see Family Stress EFT collapse some old hurts and anger within family members.
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