EFT4Vets

Archive for November, 2009

Rage and betrayal are two emotions that usually go together.

When I work with a client who shows a lot of rage and anger, I like to start by assuming that injustice and unfairness has happened to the person.

With my Veterans, this is almost always the case. Many have endured the loss of a beloved comrade, being let down before, during or after deployment, having family or other changes that nobody helps them with. They have experienced disrespect or misunderstandings, and often feel that they couldn’t fulfill their mission in the way they wanted to.

I find that it is very important to acknowledge this feeling of betrayal, to listen and understand why the soldier feels this way, and to confirm that what happened was not right, from the soldiers perspective.

Many have struggled all their lives with coming to terms with this feeling, and rage and intrusive thoughts are usually the consequence. If we understand this, we can help someone heal so much easier.

The wonderful thing about EFT is that by tapping on what shouldn’t have happened, we can take the charge out of the excess emotions. It doesn’t have to be right in order for us to help him or her heal. We can go with how it felt, and help the person relax about it.  If there is something that the client feels should be done about the injustice or betrayal, this is going to be so much easier to accomplish after the client feels more relaxed and at peace with him-or herself.

Greetings!

Thank  You! Thank You!! Thank You !!!

Bob’s fundraiser has been a wonderful success! We were able to help him significantly, and I am just humbled, delighted and forever grateful to be honored to be allowed to call you my friends.

I want to share with you that I talked to Bob last night and he was very emotional, grateful and still uncomfortable to accept your help. He is a very resourceful and self reliant man. He just didn’t know what to say…

I reminded him that because of his openness and sharing, that EFT is now being used at the frontlines. It is because of his testimonial, that hundreds of Veterans have found the courage to follow in his footsteps and take the healing opportunities they are presented with; That it is because of his leadership in accepting help in an appropriate way, that hundreds, if not thousands of veterans feel the courage to admit that they, too, just can’t deal with their memories alone.

We EFT practitioners are here to help, but it takes the courage of someone like Bob to step forward and accept it. My friend Andrew Hodnik, who was also in the film, signs his emails with: “It takes the strength of a warrior to ask for help… “

Having had the honor to work with many, I believe I know what he means. Please remember how many Veterans take their own lives each day. Reaching out for help can be harder than giving up one’s life. It is because of Bob, Andy, Art and Carol, Jesse and so many others, that the message of healing can now be spread in the way we do.

Bob now has plans: He will work for a few more weeks to earn another paycheck, spend Thanksgiving with his brother and them move to be with his daughter, find a new job and home in a better area, close to those that he loves. It is due to your generosity that he can finally finish this journey and be where he wants to be.

He knows that he has friends that love and respect him and he is carried by this love as much as his love carries others.

I honor Bob as a friend, and I know that his passion has always been to help others. I thank you so much for your support and kindness!

Ingrid

P.S. If you’d like to support Bob, the "donation" button on www.eft4vets.com will be available for some more time. Thank you!

P.S. If you donated for Bob, but missed tonight’s tele class, please know that I am scheduling more classes right now, and you are welcome to participate in another one for free. Just send me an email!

Please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have!

Blessings, Joy and Success,
Ingrid

Ingrid Dinter
www.eftforvets.com (blog)

www.eft4vets.com

Bob Culver is one of the Veterans I had the honor of working with in San Francisco for the EFT for War Veterans movie.

I just learned that Bob lost all his belongings in a fire in Veterans day.

Click here to donate for the Fundraiser for Bob…

Bob and I had our very first session together the first day, when he told me that life just doesn’t make sense for him, that he had been thinking of taking his life many times and actually tried if a few times in the past.

I asked him :”OK, so how do you want to feel when you are dead? Why would taking your own life be a good thing?” And his answer was “I just want to be done with all this stuff that is haunting me, that is with me day and night. I just hope that it will not be there anymore.”

So I suggested the phrasing: “Even though I want peace so much that I am willing to sacrifice my life for it, I allow myself to find a way to heal and find peace now that truly works for me, and deal with what comes after I die, when I get there.” He looked at me with amazement, as the word “peace” was not a part of his vocabulary since Vietnam, even since before Vietnam. He didn’t feel it’s meaning and didn’t want to use it.

So we called it “the “P” word” (p for peace).

After we first tapped, he didn’t believe in it but was open to it. The next morning, we checked in and he said “you know: that “P” word….I still don’t believe that it is possible, but it feels as if I could think about it. The next day he was smiling and feeling more of it, and then he just used it: “PEACE”. For the first time in many years, I feel PEACE!.

This was the first thing he mentioned with gratitude, when I talked with Bob tonight.

Then, I learned that the house where he lived, had burned down on Veterans Day. I learned that he has lost everything he owns, and only has a room through the Red Cross until Wednesday. A proud and independent man that he is, he refused to accept help from anybody. However, I told him I would do a fundraiser for him anyway. Since time is so much of the essence for him, and he is truly standing there with nothing right now, I decided to reach out to those whose lives have been touched by Bob’s story in the video, by his courage to focus on his past and share his path with others so that he can help someone else heal.

I have put a link to a paypal account on my website http://www.eft4vets.com, and all donations will go immediately to Bob. In return for your kindness, I offer an EFT Tele class on Wednesday night (11/18/09) at 7:30 – 9:00pm EST, which will be recorded for you to download and listen to at your convenience. The topic is “Using EFT for making good choices”.

But I ask you to donate the money today, so that we can help Bob asap.

Suggested donation would be $15.-, but more is certainly welcome.

Donate at http://www.eft4vets.com

I thank you for your generosity and am looking forward to having you on the call. If you can’t make it to the call: Please remember that you will receive access to the recording.

Please email me with your questions at: Ingrid@eft4vets.com.

Thank You!

Ingrid

Donate for Bob at: http://www.eft4vets.com

One major trauma that most of my Vietnam Veterans share is how they were welcomed home after a long and often horrifying deployment.

They cry when they talk about being spit at, called “baby killer”, how they were blamed and shamed for the horrors of Vietnam.

Clearing this trauma is important, and can open the doors to better trust and healing. As EFT practitioners is is important that we understand that when tapping on this trauma, we symbolize “the tribe”, the community that welcomes the warrior back with respect and gratitude.

It is important for us practitioners to understand that for a warrior, this kind of welcome is a huge betrayal of the tribe. It is beyond anything imaginable. The pain of it never goes away, it haunts,  infuriates and  saddens those who have endured it. It leaves them feeling forever cut of from society, from their tribe, from those who they thought they were fighting for.

Asking about the homecoming is one of the first questions I ask many of my Veterans. I most often find a lot of rage there, and this can be a great way to start the healing process.

Naturally, since there is a lot of very raw feeling there, we often use strong language, whatever works and fits.

Before we start tapping, I ask how he or she wants to feel about this. I want to help the person feel the way he or she wants to feel, – not because it was right to be treated this way, but because it happened a long time ago, and it is over now – we deserve to find a way to be at peace with it.

The homecoming stories are often heartbreaking, and our compassion and confirmation that injustice was done can be incredibly important.

Here are some tapping suggestions that might give a good start:

KP: Even though I am outraged! How could they spit at me and call me baby killer??! – I deeply and completely accept myself.

Even though I am furious, they let me down after all that I have been through, I deeply and completely accept myself anyway.

Even though I will never forgive them for betraying us like that, and dishonoring my friends, my brothers who died over there, I allow myself to feel surprisingly calm and peaceful now.

TH: I am outraged!

IE: How dare they calling us names after all that we’ve been through

OE: I can’t believe they spit at us!

UE: I am so furious, I will never forgive anybody!

UN: This was way beyond anything I would have ever imagined

UL: I never thought we would be welcomed like that

CB: I didn’t even know what was going on over here

UA: I was stuck in the jungle and had no idea

TH: I am so furious, and I refuse to let it go!

 

TH: What if there was a way that allowed me to move forward anyway

IE: After all, it happened 40 years ago, and there is nothing I can do to change it

OE: I wonder if I could imagine finding peace inside even though they did that

UE: And I wonder what would change if I found a way to move on that truly works for me

UN: I realize that I don’t have to condone what happened

UL: I don’t have to excuse it to move on

CB: It happened the way it happened, whether I am at peace or not

UA: But there is a good chance that I am the only one who is still suffering from what they said to me

TH: Even if I hold on to my rage, they might not know it, and there is nothing they could do to make it undone

 

TH: I can allow myself to consider finding peace in a way that I find appropriate

IE: I can see that I deserve to let go of the rage that holds me hostage

OE: I am giving them and the memory a power they should not have

UE: I can claim that power back now and find peace and relaxation in a good way

UN: I don’t have to excuse or condone what happened

UL: But I can open up to the possibility that some of them might deeply regret what they said

CB: And I can receive their apology with dignity and honor

UA: Understanding that they lived in heated times and this is what they knew

TH: They didn’t know better. That doesn’t make it right, but it can allow me to move forward.

 

TH: I allow myself to relax now

IE: I allow myself to realize that a long time has passed

OE: I can see now the lives that I saved, and I know they thank me for that

UE: I can see that after all these years I deserve peace

UN: I chose to respect and appreciate myself

UL: I chose to receive the respect I deserve

CB: I chose to find the peace that’s good for me

UA: I am who I am today, I can let go of what they did and said

TH: It’s a long time ago, and I chose to be OK and at peace now.

 

Take a deep breath and notice if this made a difference in how you see yourself and what was said and done to you. If new aspects, memories of what happened, specific thoughts or feelings come up, we address them in a new round of tapping.

Sometimes, when a warrior is too upset, I just tap with him or her, silently confirming all the grief, rage, anger and sadness for as long as it takes to let it go.

The sense of peace that comes eventually comes is usually lasting. Weeks, even  moths later, my Veterans report that they now hardly ever think about this, and if they do, it doesn’t bother them.

I am grateful for this powerful way to use EFT.

Even without knowing every detail of a situation, we can create very powerful and effective EFT setup statements that might help you relax and heal. You can find many examples of this in the EFT4Vets Tapping solutions category.

At EFT4Vets we know, that it is often hard to reach out and ask for help in person. But if you’d like for us to write some individualized Tapping sequences, we’d be glad to do that and confidentially publish them in this blog.

All you need to do is email us at Ingrid@eft4vets.com, and let us know what you would like to work on right now. We’d be glad to help, and we keep your identity anonymous unless you ask us to do otherwise.

Please email us at Ingrid@eft4vets.com for more info and to get your EFT sequence.

Thanks!