Please listen to this Radio interview:

http://www.silverliningvillages.org/#/thinktalk-radio-show/4557666377

Veterans can receive help from so many resources. Silverliningvillages in Georgia can help homeless Veterans who want to find peace and create a new life that works for them.

Anger Management is a very important skill for troops who suffer from PTSD and their families, as well as those who want to help them.

In my experience with EFT for Veterans, rage happens when a person had to endure situations that are unforgivable, inexcusable and that violate what he/she believes in.

I have yet to see a soldier that is not outraged about something that he saw, was exposed to, did or couldn’t prevent from happening.

Even though EFT can take the charge out of those memories, in my experience, there are three steps necessary to truly release rage:

Acknowledgement of what happened without judgment

Releasing the intensity with EFT tapping

Transformation of the experience, to find a deeper meaning and new purpose.

Please click on the link below to listen to the EFT Tapping podcast interview with Ingrid Dinter, conducted by Jondi Whitis from TapFest Radio

Hi Ingrid,
I just finished listening to the pod cast you sent me on the intro to EFT and PTSD for Vets. I learned a great deal. I am a Vietnam Vet myself and a CERT-1 EFT person. I do not use EFT for income as I do not charge for my services. I have worked with civilian and Veteran clients. I have been doing so for 3 years.
I have a question. I was recently talking to an active duty reservist about 27 years old. He has served two duty deployments to Iraq. He commented that the previous night he had drank 3/4 of a fifth of whiskey. We were at the local VFW and he was already on his 3rd whiskey and Sprite in a tall glass. I felt certain he was avoiding war memories by his drinking. My question is this, how would I get to know more to see if EFT might help him? I did not know where to start and maybe it wasn’t the right place or my place to go there anyway at that time.
Thank you for your work and your sharing,
Bill Spiller

Dear Bill,
Thank you for your service and for your willingness to help others with EFT!
I deeply relate to the situation with the 27 year old veteran. I think that this is one of our biggest challenges, and the foundation of EFT4Vets:
EFT doesn’t work, as long as the Veteran doesn’t want to try it. Sound’s like a no-brainer, but it is the deepest problem we have.
This is why I teach about the warrior mindset, and the importance of acknowledgment without judgment.

I know that you as a Veteran do this naturally.
For “outside people”, it is often hard to understand: We need to acknowledge without judgment, condoning or excusing anything (ANYTHING!) that happened, and honor the warrior, welcome him back and take over responsibility for what happened in war.
If someone is drinking heavily – then this is the best he can do at the time. If he was looking for someone to help him, he would say so.
He feels that there is no way that anybody will ever understand or even more – be able too heal what happened.

I don’t have to tell you this, as you have been through more than most civilians yourself, and I respect and honor you very much for this.

I never ask straight forward, personal questions, or share my observations about how someone is doing, as this might feel either intrusive or trigger the “I’m OK” response that they are trained to have.
I’d simply sit with him, acknowledge that he is drinking and confirm that this sometimes is the best we can do.
When we get rapport, I might ask: How long have you been back? (as that’s more distant than “where have you been?) it’s a safer question.
Another question is: “How are your buddies doing?” It might be easier for him to talk about his buddies than about himself.

If the rapport is really good, I’d ask :”Everybody came back?”, and either share my relief or offer my regrets by simply saying “I’m sorry… .”

I then share that my father was a POW, and that I grew up seeing what this did to him. I’d share that he would never allow us to ask questions and he never spoke about it.
This opens another door.
I find that all Veteran honor POWs very much, so there is usually a response that might initiate a small conversation.
Sometimes they share that their father was in the Military, too, or something like that.

Then we have mutual ground.
I always keep language short and don’t intrude. For many Veterans, just talking about something is hard. They are afraid of judgment, afraid to be missunderstood. They don’t want to have to explain themselves.
So I just confirm and acknowledge what they are willing and able to share.

I have seen more than once that, once they understand that I am safe and reliable, they begin to talk. This by itself is powerful and healing, and I listen and confirm.

When the time is right, I share :”You know, there is a new relaxation technique that takes the charge out of nightmares and flashbacks, so Veterans can sleep better. There are no drugs involved, and you can learn how to do this yourself.” I don’t explain much about EFT – it would be too weird in the beginning. If they ask how it works, I tap first, and then explain, meaning I show them exactly how to tap, and after each point I make the comment. This way, they see that it is easy and become curious before they receive an answer.

If this works, then I might tell them to try it with a physical stress symptom. The reason is that I don’t want to open up a “can of worms” on a public area, and I want to demonstrate immediate results. Stay away from tinnitus in the beginning, as this has shown to come back (we don’t know, why yet), and from medical conditions, as they may or may not improve. Rather work with tension in the body, and, after it subsided, ask how he is feeling now. Then point out that feelings and physical symptoms are connected, and so are our thoughts.

Keep it as easy as possible, so that it is comfortable to digest.

With my veterans, I replace the “I deeply and completely accept myself” with “I honor and respect myself”. It is more suitable language for them – it simply makes more sense.

Then see what he wants to do next, and offer to work with him. Don’t wait for him to call you. He won’t, even if this worked for him. Instead try to offer calling him at a specific time (without pushing). Chances are he won’t be there when you call, but calling multiple times will help him understand that you mean what you said when you told him that you care and want to help. For you as a veteran this should be so much easier than for a civilian.
My guys have always told me that they will most likely not pick up the phone, but that I should please keep trying. It is a symptom of PTSD….avoidance…and they have to get over this in their own way.
Don’t push out the time too far, the sooner the better, otherwise their memories overcome them and the “window of opportunity” closes again. I have seen this, and it hurts when it happens.

I hope this helps and makes sense.
Thank you so much for all that you do Bill!
Please let me know how I can support you!
Ingrid

Did you miss our Tele Class “Introduction to EFT4Vets” last Friday?

Please fill  in your name and email below and get immediate access.

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Please feel free to leave a comment! We are looking forward to hearing from you!

I have received so many requests about working with Veterans that I decided to share the following presentation with you.

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This is the recording of a breakout session that I gave at the international Conference of the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology “ACEP” in Orlando 2009.

I’d like to invite you to a free, 60 min Tele Class:

An Introduction to EFT4Vets:  Helping Veterans with EFT coaching

When: Friday, March 18th 2011

Time: 7:00pm EST

The call will be recorded.

Please know that we honor your privacy and never sell or give away your information to others.

Working with Veterans and their families is an honor and very special and unique in many ways.

It is my hope that the recording and Webinar will inspire you to understand warriors and their families better, and realize why “soldier’s heart” is truly a symptom of the soul.
There is so much that community members, friends and family can do to recognize, honor and help the troops of all wars, and I am grateful that I have to share EFT to help make a difference.
Please expect this work to touch and transform you. Nobody comes back unchanged, and helping warriors and their families will touch you in more ways than you might expect.
Thank you for your interest in helping Veterans and their families.

Blessings
Ingrid

Ingrid has kindly offered me an opportunity to post on her blog.  I accept, in my role as an “old physicist” and current naturopath, energy worker and EFT therapist (11 years experience with clients in Tracy, MN).  I share Ingrid’s passionate interest in attempting to help returning vets, perhaps because I have never served in the military.

If you’ve been reading Ingrid’s blogs, you know that there is concern about what appears to be a high incidence of Post Traumatic Syndrome Disorder (PTSD) among returning military.  Knowing how bloody and traumatic war has been for eons, this is likely nothing new, although the labels change from war to war.  Those of us who work with trauma patients (rape & accident victims, military, others)  like to think that by using EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) or a variant thereof, we can fairly quickly reduce the emotional intensity of the trauma memories, and in my experience EFT works pretty well.  I have found “unconditional forgiveness” to be among the most powerful tools, aided by EFT in the processing.  But it is indeed a learning experience.  In perusing Ingrid’s downloadable free e-book on treating vets with EFT, I found a most interesting section, dealing with the soul.  I’d like to quote a paragraph from her important book:

PTSD and the soul

“The veterans and family members I have worked with feel that PTSD is not a mental illness but rather a symptom of the soul. They describe losing their soul, something breaking inside, or a disconnect from the world and from their own true selves. The soul seems to be gone, broken away at the moment of terror, when survival of the self was a moment’s decision that often caused harm and pain to others. After this break happened, things were never the same again.

It is easy to talk to warriors about their soul, asking, “When was the last time you felt connected? What happened before you felt your soul was leaving?”  All the severely traumatized warriors I have worked with had a surprisingly clear answer to that question, and it is usually one of the core issues we will work with.  They know that something is missing in them that they can’t access anymore.  They don’t know how to get back to who they were, and they feel lost and hopeless….”  (From Ingrid Dinter, An Introduction to Releasing War Trauma with EFT4Vets, p. 8; available at www.EFT4vets.com)

Does this really make sense?  Can an individual really “lose his soul” and still be walking around?  In my mind it’s consistent with many of the anecdotal stories we read, about patients leaving their bodies and floating above the operating table during surgery, about automobile passengers leaving their bodies just as a terrible collision happens.  Author Doug Boyd shares a story about Rolling Thunder, a Native American shaman, handled such a case:

“…. As an example (Rolling Thunder) then described to me an episode in which he went in to the hospital to assist a young lady–a friend of friends–who had been in a head-on collision and was a long time in a coma. “I agreed to go in there,” he said, “not knowin’ what I was gonna, have to do, not understanding completely what was wrong with her. We went in during visiting hours, and I told one of my people to look up the hall and another to watch down the hall, ’cause I didn’t want some nurse or doctor walkin’ in on me.  But the moment I took a good look at the body, I could see she wasn’t even there.  I had to find her–go get her–and she was way out in the field where the car’d flipped over the cliff, and she was sittin’ on a rock.  Her friend who was driving was killed.  And this one sittin’ on the rock, she didn’t even know where she was. But, boy, she was determined to stay there.  She was totally disoriented. I had to pull her, nearly force her back.  Only time we can do that is when we know their own will isn’t working–otherwise we always leave it up to their own choice…”  Author Boyd goes on to recount that Rolling Thunder “pulled” the woman back to her comatose body on the hospital bed.  She then awoke, at the same time that he opened his eyes…  (From Doug Boyd, pp. 77-78, Mystics, Magicians and Medicine People (Paragon House, 1989)

I am struck by the seeming similarities between a soldier who is “blown out of his body” (as by an IED) and the woman of Rolling Thunder’s story and countless others.  The woman was indeed comatose in the usual medical definition, while the soldier was still mechanically functioning, perhaps in a “walking coma”….

In the world of physics, we physics professors were fond of pointing out to our students how in the late 19th century, it was understood that physicists had discovered just about all there was to discover.  Electricity and magnetism worked, gravity was “understood”, the laws of mechanics and thermodynamics were considered reliable and dependable.  There were only a few little glitches in Nature that didn’t quite add up.  One of these was the phenomena called “black body radiation”– the radiation given off by a perfect radiator.  When classical oscillator theory was applied to a collection of little vibrating oscillators of a warm object, it just didn’t work.  The equations simply blew up.  This quirk eventually led to the unsettling but “true” science of quantum theory, and now we have the gratitude of most of modern electronics for that little glitch that didn’t quite fit.  Wouldn’t it be remarkable if, in order to really heal this common affliction of PTSD, psychologists had to actually buy into the concept that man has a soul!

Charles Reinert ND, PhD

Helping To Heal clinic

www.helpingtoheal.us/

I just published another paper: “Wholistic Healing through Energy Psychology (EP) for Veterans” in the peer reviewed International Journal For Healing and Caring, right along with Bernie Siegel, MD and other rather well known personalities in our field. I am grateful for this opportunity, as I see that more and more people begin to understand that working with Veterans truly requires so much more insight than just a solid understanding of EFT. I feel strongly that, in order to make a difference for returning troops and their families, EFTers need to understand military culture and the uniqueness of their trauma, so that we can relate and offer support in a respectful and appropriate way. This article is another step in this direction. I am very much looking forward to your feedback!

EFT4Vets is a resource and inspirational website for veterans and military families who are interested in learning more about EFT Emotional Freedom Techniques and how to apply it to war trauma.

EFT4Vets was also created as a resource for all those who want to help veterans and active duty personnel heal with honor and respect, using EFT.

My name is Ingrid Dinter, and it is an honor and privilege to welcome you on my website.

Please take the time you need to browse through the material on this site, and leave a comment with your questions and suggestions.

EFT4Vets training is also available. Please contact us for more information.