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EFT By Puja 0 Comments

Feeling Shame vs Being Shamed: The difference is crucial

Shame is healthy and authentic if it helps you follow an internal and external code of ethics and honour in regard to yourself and others. It can help you avoid hurting others in the social space. Regulated shame can help you take messages from your behaviour just like guilt and help you learn. But if you armour up when you feel shame, like Brene Brown says, by people pleasing, going against people or isolating yourself, it doesn’t help. Facing shame, taking messages from it and learning from our biases/prejudices and changing them is helpful. Shame inherently isn’t bad if we know how to release old shaming messages from our past which aren’t healthy and move through authentic shame which has a lot of potential for change.

“Shame will stop you from doing something stupid in your social space if it’s healthy. If it isn’t healthy then it’ll get in your way. “ (Karla Mclaren)

For example, if I have an implicit bias and if someone tells me about it, I might feel shame, which isn’t bad. It helps me look into my bias and work through it. However, instead of moving through my shame , if I armour up and attack others, please them or isolate myself then I’m really getting stuck in the toxic shame cycle.

Now, if I’m shamed for my bias, called names, does it really help me change my bias? Probably not. It only amps up the behaviour more covertly perhaps. Then I feel I’m not good enough and go from there to thinking I’m better than others – both aren’t helpful messages or beliefs. These are flawed conclusions that we reach about ourselves and others.

Brene brown talks about shame being an ineffective social justice tool in her podcast. “Shame begets shame and violence” Shame kills empathy. Empathy is important for social justice. Holding someone accountable is differ than shaming them.

Bottom line: Let’s look at how we experience shame, how we move through shame. Authentic and properly regulated shame can give us important social messages and be a powerful emotion for upholding ethics and honour in society and within ourselves. And let’s also look at how we use shaming as a tactic to change people. Let’s look at the fact that shaming doesn’t lead to change. We need to find better and more healthier ways of bringing awareness and change in society.

Author References:

Brene Brown

Karla Mclaren

EFT By Puja 0 Comments

Polyvagal Theory

Polyvagal theory in a gist.

I love illustrating concepts and putting them into understandable chunks. Hope this helps.

POLYVAGAL THEORY

When we’re threatened our Sympathetic nervous system is active. We go into flight and fight response. It’s the mobilzation stage, the first line of defence against threat. A survival response.

When our life is threatened we might also go into a freeze state which is part of the parasympathetic nervous system. It’s a shut down. This is the second line of defence, the last ditch effort when fight or flight isn’t possible.
This is the dorsal vagal branch of the parasympathetic nervous system. This nerve comes around the brain stem and goes into gut and viscera.

The ventral branch ( Ventral Vagus) of the parasympathetic nervous system is responsible for our social engagement system. When we engage with ourselves, our environment, connect and communicate with others, our ventral vagus nerve is activated. The ventral vagus comes in front of the Brain stem and goes into the chest, heart, throat and face. Healthy attachment with caregivers helps in developing the ventral vagal system.

When there is unresolved trauma, the Fight/flight and/or the freeze response ( dorsal vagus) will drive our system. When we resolve our trauma, then even if we are activated at times, we can easily switch to the rest/digest, repairing part of our nervous system, the ventral vagal branch that helps in connecting and communicating. It helps us feel safe.

You can check out Irene Lyon’s video for more information.

EFT By Puja 0 Comments

Zip-Up

I came across Donna Eden’s book, Energy medicine, around 10 years ago. It was fascinating. I used to do the daily energy routine quite often. Then I kind of forgot about it. Today after hearing Donna in a webinar I was inspired to start the zip up practise.

The practice is to trace the Central meridian which runs from the pubic bone to the chin point. You need to run your open palm ( both hands or one) upwards from the pubic bone to the chin point. Then stop tracing it and move your palm in air above the lip, above your head and then circle down back to the side of you. Breathe while you do this. After 3 times, in the last zip up, stop at chin point and imagine a lock next to your lip and lock it with a key and throw away the key. ( This last part is a new edition)
The chin point is also incorporated in EFT.

In the webinar Donna even says that if you can’t trace the meridian you can simply look up from the pubic bone point to the chin point in the mirror and that works too.

In her words, zip-up will help you.

  1. Feel more confident and positive about yourself and the world.
  2. Think more clearly.
  3. Tap your inner strengths
  4. Protect yourself from negative energies that may be around you.

Reference: Eden, D. 2005. Energy medicine.

EFT By Puja 0 Comments

Honouring Emotions

Note 1:

Although I’d like to tap daily, some days it’s just not possible. But emotions are emotions and they have a tendency to build up if ignored. So one of my nightly rituals lately has been to simply tap on each acupressure point and acknowledge all the feelings that I felt throughout the day. I acknowledge whatever stood out for me, even if it’s a mildly unsettling feeling. This takes just a few minutes and I feel like I’ve heard my emotions finally, given them a voice, instead of simply brushing them off.

A simple example would be to say, “ I was frustrated in the afternoon when…. and that’s okay/I acknowledge how I felt or still feel.”

Note 2:

Honouring emotions doesn’t mean feeling them all the time or being submerged in them. You can feel emotions in chunks, in small digestible quantities. While honouring and acknowledging emotions is very much needed, you need to decide how much you can process at a given time. Acknowledge then step back and then do the same again and again.

Healing physical Issues Uncategorized • • • • • • By Puja 0 Comments

Mind over genes

Genetic Determinism vs Epigenetics

Nature vs nurture will be always be a hot topic of debate. I remember reading about it for the first time in my psychology class in 12th grade. It was a fascinating topic and still is. Much research has taken place in this area. To make it short, Identical twins studies suggest that even though identical twins share the same genetic material, they often don’t share the same diseases or health outcomes.

The stringent concept of genetic determinism states that we are born with a set of genes and we are bound to get the same diseases our parents and grandparents got. Whereas epigenetics drawing from identical twin studies points out how even if we cannot change the genes, we can change the gene expression, meaning the way the gene expresses itself.

Bruce Lipton, in his book, Biology of Belief, says that Darwin’s theory has undermined the role of nurture (environment) and led us to believe that ‘genes control biology’. He further goes on to say that most diesease like diabetes, cancer etc are due to ‘complex interactions amongst multiple genes and environmental factors, and not due to a single gene’ and, ‘the environmental influences including nutrition, stress, and emotions, can modify those genes without changing their basic blueprint’

Which simply means, environment can triumph over hereditary.

Chromosomes carry genetic material and they are covered by proteins like ‘sleeves’. When the genes are covered, their information cannot be read. What you need is an environmental signal to make the protein to change shape , which allows the genes to be read ( p. 38, Lipton, 2005)

So the environment makes a huge difference in whether your genes will be expressed or not. For example, if you believe you have a ‘diabetic gene’, firstly it’s not a single gene, and secondly the environment will determine whether you will become a diabetic or not, whether the diabetic gene will be turned on (expressed) or off (silenced).

Given that stress, emotions, lifestyle can change gene expression, we have a lot in our control. Here’s what you can do with EFT, meditation and other techniques:

Change your negative beliefs about health. Nocebo effect is when negative beliefs about health make you sick. If you believe you will fall sick, most probably you will. Hence it’s important to release health anxiety, change your thoughts patterns and transform limiting health related beliefs.

More in the next newsletter. Subscribe here

Reference: Lipton, B. (2005). Biology of Belief. India, H

EFT Self-improvement • • • • By Puja 0 Comments

5 tips for learning a new skill

7 years back when I started learning Krav maga, a street smart self-defense, I didn’t realize it would be so tough especially since my fitness level was pretty low 🙂 However, more than the craft itself, it was my attitude that made it difficult. My perfectionism was a problem. I was pushing myself a lot and was too hard on my body. Gradually with the help of EFT, I started paying attention to my body’s signals and understanding when it needed a break or rest and when it needed to be gently coaxed, encouraged, or pushed. I was able to find the right way to navigate out of my comfort zone. Too little stress and no change happens, too much stress and we burn out. We need to find that balance ourselves as each one of us is unique and different.

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Photo by Snapwire on Pexels.com

Slowly I started enjoying the training and my body was able to adapt and pick up the techniques much faster. Surprisingly I was able to withstand the brutal Kravmaga grading as well. I was also able to deconstruct my limiting beliefs and change them. Here’s an article I wrote on this. (https://eftforpeace.wordpress.com/2014/08/09/10-ways-to-develop-persistence-and-enjoy-learning-a-new-skill/)

As I look back, I realize how EFT helped increase my self-awareness. I learnt that I was a perfectionist when it came to acquiring new skills and slowly I was able to change that and be more accepting of myself.

Recently I joined Zumba classes. I’ve always wanted to learn dance and it seemed like the right choice to learn dance and stay fit.

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I’ve been to 4 classes so far. I’m often out of sync in the class as I suck at dance though I enjoy it thoroughly. Thankfully, the perfectionism I experienced in my Krav Maga classes was absent. Then it struck me that the tapping I did for my krav maga classes had brought about lasting changes. I didn’t have to tap at all this time on perfectionism despite the fact that I’m a non dancer and this is as difficult a skill to learn as Krav Maga had been for me 🙂 This a clear case of generalization in EFT. When you tap on an issue thoroughly, the results often generalize to other similar stuff.

I’m sure that some new aspects may come up and I’m all set to tap on them!

So here are the 5 things that can make it easy for you to learn a new skill.

1. Increase tolerance for your mistakes. Fumble, fall, be out of sync, be out of tune – just practice and be tolerant of your mistake because they will happen. That’s how we learn.

2. Decrease worry about what others think – Tap on decreasing your worry and fear of judgement. Stop paying so much attention to the body language of others and guessing what they’re thinking. Making assumptions and guessing drain your energy.

3. Increase self compassion. Be more kind to yourself. Be more accepting and forgiving.

4. Honour and Appreciate the effort you’re putting in. We’re habituated to look at our mistakes rather than the effort that we put in. Tap on appreciating your efforts.

5. Persist and tap on persisting.

mindfulness • • • • By Puja 0 Comments

Take a Stress Pause s-t-o-p

Adapted from Donald Altman’s book, ” The Mindfulness Toolbox”

Here’s a simple way to use mindfulness to take a stress pause in your hectic and busy day.
This STOP exercise helps you in becoming more present, aware, grounded, and helps you respond rather than react to situations. I’ve added Tapping to it. The EFT instructions will be in brackets; you can use them if you want or just do the mindfulness technique. Either way it is effective,

S -Stand: Stand in one place and take a couple of deep calming breaths. Breathe from your belly. [Tap on each point and take a deep breath while standing]

T- Tune: Tune into your body. Feel yourself connected to the earth and rooted like a tree. Feel your feet growing roots that run deep into the earth. Scan your body starting  from the toes to the top of your head and keep breathing. If a body part feels tensed, just contract it and then relax it. [Tap and breathe]

O – Observe: Now observe your external environment. Make note of three sounds and objects in your environment. Observe the quality of the sounds, the texture and quality of the objects that you observe.  [While observing, you can also tap and verbally say what you’ve observed, for example – I’m observing/am aware of the sound of the fan]

P- Possibility: Donald Altman says, “Pause to reflect on the openness, spaciousness and possibilities that lie before you. You have just gone off auto-pilot and are now free to choose a new and beneficial direction… Who says that right now you couldn’t sing, smile, call a supportive friend, take a nice walk, or get a scoop of your favorite ice cream?” [Tap on new thoughts and ideas]

Anxiety EFT Stress • • • By Puja 0 Comments

The Unavoidable Triggers

We all have people, situations and issues that trigger us – push our buttons.

For example, a friend’s habit of interrupting while you speak might be making you furious or an environmental issue might be triggering you to the point of losing sleep. These are repetitive situations that can trigger us.

One of the most effective ways of handling triggers is to use EFT on them. I’ve had tremendous success with EFT in upsetting situations.company_reluctance

There will be two kinds of triggers – situations where your attitude and behaviour have the potential to directly influence the outcome, and situations where they don’t. Taking the earlier example – a situation where you can directly influence the situation. After a few rounds of tapping, you might consider telling your friend not to interrupt you. The difference will be that you’ll be much calmer when you ask them to shut up! 😉 You’ll get the confidence to clearly explain how you feel when you’re interrupted and what you’d like instead.

With an environmental, political or social issue you will not have control over the entire situation. Every time you hear someone speak about it or see it on news, you might get triggered. While it’s good to be aware of societal and environmental issues and not be numb to the causes that need our attention, it’s not good for our emotional health to have sleepless nights and meltdowns over them. You’ll also be hurting your love ones with your anger and snappy attitude.

In both these situations EFT can work.

When things are more or less in your control, meaning your attitude and behaviour can directly influence the outcome.

Steps

1. Tap on the emotion

2. Find out what it’s saying. Listen to its message. Here’s a video link on how to tap on anger and its messages.

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When things are not in your control, meaning your attitude and behaviour cannot influence the outcome directly or immediately. This kind of tapping needs persistence.

Steps

1. Tap every time you feel triggered. If you’re in conversation with someone and getting triggered, press your finger points.

2. Go deeper – tap on your helplessness about not being able to change anything about a situation.

3. After several sounds you might have a cognitive shift. If not, tap on the things that are in your control; what can you do from your end. Every small change that you work on makes a difference. For example, suppose you decide not to use plastic in your house, that’s a change. It will reduce the helplessness you feel.

Please note: While tapping on repetitive ongoing stressors, you may feel immediate relief but it may not last. Tap regularly and take up any new aspects that come up.

EFT • • • By Puja 0 Comments

EFT research recommendation by NICE (UK Government Body)

NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) issued a set of guidelines for PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). The guidelines are for, “recognising, assessing and treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in children, young people and adults.” (NICE, 2018)

NICE PTSD guidelines include a research recommendation for EFT. For the first time a government agency has deemed EFT worthy of research, which is a huge success for EFT.

The following excerpt is from NICE’s website:

The committee decided to make a research recommendation for emotional freedom technique (EFT), which is one of the two combined somatic and cognitive therapies considered in the guideline (the other one being thought field therapy TFT). EFT was selected for a research recommendation as it showed a considerably larger effect size than TFT in comparisons with nonactive controls in pairwise meta-analysis.

To find out why the committee made the research recommendation on EFT,  see appendix L of evidence review D: psychological, psychosocial and other non-pharmacological interventions for the treatment of PTSD in adults.

References:

AAMET Newsletter, Dec 5, 2018

NICE website: https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng116/evidence

Krav maga Trauma • • By Puja 0 Comments

Sharing my personal healing journey

“Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do” Brene Brown

To tell the truth and own it, is the most liberating gift that you can give to yourself. When you share your healing journey, not only do you own your story but the story also gives hope to others to heal. And that’s exactly what this article is about.
I’m sharing a part of my personal journey to tell you that healing is possible – that recovery from childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is possible.

I was sexually abused from the age of 4- 5 to 11 by three different people, a house help and two relatives. I remember that the abuse started when I was nearly 4 years old. I have strong visceral memories of that time period – the unease, confusion, and disgust (I worked on them with EFT1 later)

I also remember writing on the wall of an old water tank in my home, “Puja is dead”, in my native language, when I was around 7-8 years old or maybe younger.
The clearest memories are those of the abuse by one of my relatives. We had a joint family and he was staying with us. That man always evoked a sense of unease with his presence. After a while, I avoided getting near him but was pulled into a web of secrecy and shame. He made me believe that I would be blamed if I divulged anything to my parents. It was so confusing as a kid because close relatives are supposed to be protective and not exploitative.
Children aren’t in an age where they can fully grasp what’s happening; they can’t give or deny consent because they don’t even know what consent is. When a child is touched inappropriately, forced upon, cornered, threatened and/or shamed to stay silent, it is too overwhelming for the child and often they dissociate to cope with it. This hinders the emotional and psychological development of the child.
For years, I struggled with social anxiety, fear of speaking in public, generalized anxiety, stomach issues and other physical manifestations of the suppressed emotions.

Now when I look back I feel a lot of compassion for my younger self and I know what a brave little girl she was to have gone through whatever she had to.

Facing the abuser
When I was 11 years old, I gathered the courage to stop the abuse. One day when my relative was forcing me against a wall, I shouted at him and threatened to expose him to his wife (he had just got married and had moved to a new house). And that’s when the abuse ended. This was the first step towards my healing journey. I refused to touch his feet after that (an Indian custom where you pay respect to a ‘respectable’ elder by touching his/her feet).

Healing begins
My memories of CSA started re-surfacing in my college years and since then I have been very vocal about spreading awareness about CSA.
In my college, I took up psychology and that helped tremendously in understanding what I was going through. I did my internship at RAHI in Delhi (a support group for survivors of CSA). The full impact of what had happened in my childhood – the powerlessness, helplessness, shame, guilt, disgust, pain and loss finally sunk in when I read stories by survivors of CSA. As children we often dissociate from the abuse to cope with what’s happening and the encoding of the trauma happens very differently than that of normal events. Usually the traumatic events are encoded as bodily sensations without many words and images attached to them. Hence the body carries the visceral memories of the abuse.  The narrative isn’t linear but comes in bits and pieces. There were some events that were very clear in my head and there were some that were very fragmented. I remember flashes of some coercive abusive episodes.
I read a lot in my graduate years and used a lot of self-help techniques to handle social anxiety, tendency to self harm, anger/rage, insecurities, and fear. My thesis on Feminism further helped me to develop a stronger sense of self.

Disclosure and Facing the abuser again
After my post graduation, I decided to face my relative one last time. I disclosed everything to my parents and they were shocked and felt really guilty for not noticing what was happening. But they supported me unconditionally. I called the abuser, and gave him a piece of my mind over the phone. Of course, he tried to blame me and told my parents that I was being disrespectful and that I was the problem child etc. But my parents cut him off. They’ve always stood by me in all my decisions and have supported me throughout.

Emotional Freedom Techniques1
In 2003, I was introduced to EFT and that’s when the next healing phase began. I did intensive EFT sessions on myself for a year and processed most of the traumatic memories. It helped tremendously in reintegrating the disowned parts of myself and shedding the guilt and shame.
Then I started my private practise as a psychologist and EFT practitioner and worked with a lot of survivors of childhood sexual abuse.
I also swapped sessions with EFT practitioners to work on the remnants of traumatic memories and their effects.

(Added on Dec 2020) I continue to have sessions with EFT practitioners/mentors regularly as it’s very important to keep doing our inner work as therapists while we work with clients.

Krav Maga2
I learnt and practiced Krav Maga on and off for nearly 5-6 years. It helped tremendously in increasing my body confidence and dissolving the remaining unhealed trauma. I’ve been triggered several times during the Krav Maga classes but the triggers were eased and resolved with my trainer’s support and with the self-defence moves and techniques.

Owning your story
There is a stigma attached to speaking up and owning your story. I don’t buy this archaic mentality.
I was abused as a child and I have no shame in owning my story because the shame lies fully and squarely with the abusers.
I have gone from being a survivor to a thriving person and that’s why I can say that healing from trauma is possible.
Coming to terms with my abuse has made me stronger and more compassionate to people around me. Something like this should never happen to any child, but it is possible to move on and leave it behind and use that reservoir of resilience and tenacity to live your life the way you want. Finally, adverse circumstances can either harden you or soften you, as Dalai Lama says. And this has certainly softened me, made me more compassionate as a person.

If you’re a survivor, remember it’s not your fault; it’s not your shame to carry. Assign the shame and blame to the abuser(s) where it belongs and then leave it behind. Heal it, don’t carry it. It’s not yours to carry. You’re not damaged; you’re a whole person as worthy as anyone else.

Meaning of certain terms used in this article:
1 – EFT stands for Emotional Freedom Techniques, a mind-body tool to dissolve stress and trauma.

2- Krav Maga is an Israeli form of Martial Arts, a practical street smart self-defence system.