Veterans don’t talk politics
March 4th, 2010 | 
Author: 
- Image by The National Guard via Flickr
One of the biggest “turn offs” for most Veterans and active duty personel is, when people begin to talk politics in their presence.
I received emails in the past where practitioners shared with me their political views, and combined them with the desire to help.
I gently shared with them that the desire to help is enough motivation. Warriors don’t talk politics with each other, and neither should we. Going to war is not a political decision for them, it is their mission and their job. It is vitally important for EFT practitioners that we are respectful of this. Pride and honor are two great values of the military.
When we offer our help with EFT, we don’t judge, we don’t condone and we don’t excuse what happened. We help heal what happened. It is important that we keep this focus and make sure that a warrior always feels safe and respected. Many have been through a lot and have a hard time trusting non-military people. So if we avoid to talk politics and make sure that we honor them and their willingness to protect their country it will be easier for us to begin to allow for trust and rapport to build.
The Box Technique
I would like to share the box technique, which I find very useful when I cannot finish a session with a client immediately.
The following situation happened during my latest EFT Level I workshop when a woman began to tune into something very big for her. It turned out that she had been suffering from PTSD for many years, and she wasn’t ready to share any details. Her emotional outburst took her by surprise, since she thought she had successfully addressed her trauma through previous EMDR sessions. The structure of the seminar allowed for a certain timeframe to help her out of this, and we got some good relief. However, it was clear that she needed more.
Here is how she described her situation: “I had to shut the door while we were tapping because it was just too hard to do this in front of a group. I know you gave me the opportunity to take care of things afterwards, but I was just too tired to do anymore that day. I have been suffering from lack of sleep. When I’m emotional, as I was on Saturday, it exhausts me.”
Since she used the phrasing: “I am surprised that this box was opened up again!” we decided to find a way to put things back into the box and safely close it until next time. After all, putting clutter into a designated box can help the cleanup process.
Here is how we did it:
Even though I feel wide open now, I choose to feel surprisingly comfortable putting all my memories in a safe box.
Even though I feel I have more to work do, I appreciate myself for the success I have made so far.
Even though so much has happened, I choose to feel very comfortable distancing myself from it and move on until a later time.
Then we tapped up and down the body like this:
Veterans healing from betrayal and anger
Many Veterans have a deeply ingrained feeling of betrayal and anger about it. Here is a video that might help you relax:
Tapping on betrayal and unfairness
As a healing practitioner, it is important that we honor and acknowledge this experience and feeling: They often come from the soul, from the deepest source or core of being that a person is able to perceive.
Betrayal has many faces, but no matter what someone has experienced, he or she will most likely feel anger and rage about it. When I work with a Veteran, I always check for this feeling very early on. I find that many people find it relatively easy to talk about feeling cheated and betrayed. Betrayal is usually something that can be at least partially blamed on another person or group, and there are memories and arguments to prove that the client has every right to feel the way he or she does. When a Veteran begins to talk about feeling betrayed, it is important not to judge, but to listen with compassion and confirm the betrayal. Read the rest of this entry »
Returning home from combat
Returning home from combat is not as easy as many expect. Thinking of home feels wonderful: a safe and comfortable place, where things will “sort themselves out”. Many veterans can’t wait to get on the plane and head home, and neither can their relatives. But in the weeks and months ahead, many soldiers face great and unexpected difficulties when they come back to their family and try to adjust to “normal life”.
In the days, weeks or months after returning home from combat, many veterans report that the world seems to stand still, as if in slow motion. They still have the adrenaline rush going and the very thing that often protected their lives, being able to always be alert and on guard, and ready to protect themselves and others, is now working against them. In the beginning, this might feel like a normal adjustment period that can be expected after such a high adrenaline life in theater, but after a while, it often becomes clearer and clearer that the inner pressure, the hyper vigilance, the inner arousal from combat stress doesn’t go away on its own. The high tempo in which the world seems to unfold for these men and women often causes conflicts with the rest of the family, who don’t understand or have difficulty coping with the changes they see in their soldier returning home from combat.
In combat, everybody is the same, going through the stress together, warriors fighting for each other. T Read the rest of this entry »
Testimonial
Thank you so much for working with me! I can’t believe the difference that 6 hours of EFT have made for me.
As a Vietnam Veteran I see that if we could get people who come right from the zone and teach them how to tap, they wouldn’t have to go through 40 years of shit like I had to.
Thank you for EFT4Vets!
R.
