I sat in on the class that John Garrett and Inga Tomasino offered at Capabilities on Thursday, March 5, PTSD and You. What struck me right away is that I needed to reevaluate my frame of reference about PTSD. Inga and John began the class by reminding everyone that we all have stress. You don't have to have fought in Iraq or suffered a traumatic accident to experience PTSD. Life events affect us all differently and in unique ways. Getting the brain to redirect the experience to the safe place of memory, taking it out of the "living it" place inside us. Finding a combination of techniques to help relieve stress and its damaging effects is often a life search for many.
Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) involves slight physical tapping on several points along the body, points that loosely correlate to meridian points in acupuncture, points that release energy and bring the remembered event or stress to a different part of the brain. Unlike traditional "talk" therapies, EFT can be learned and practiced immediately. In fact, by the end of the hour and a half all of us were gently tapping our own bodies, following a relaxation exercise led by Inga.
I have since spoken to a therapist friend of mine who spoke about the growing appreciation of these types of physical stimulation techniques in therapeutic circles. While she herself has not employed these techniques with her clients, she has a number of respected colleagues who are and with great results.
Having one more tool in our bags to fight off both the big stress and the small, irritating events that weigh on us every day, seems like a good thing.
If you missed the event, you can learn more about EFT at emofree.com or you can call John at (303) 844-3566 or Inga at 303-423-7903.
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Thank you Kathryn for your kind words. Folks, stress has become a part of our everyday life and although we can't do anything about the world, we sure can do something for ourselves. All it takes is learning a tapping technique that acts faster than you can read this paragraph. A technique that you can try on anything and everything.
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