During an EFT session last week, I was working with a client who was struggling with feeling depleted and overwhelmed.
Their life is deeply centered around caring for others and while they do have help, many people rely on them for support.
They often push themself and their body physically and because of how committed they are to being there for others, they push themselves emotionally and struggle with saying no.
This pattern and the emotional and physical experience that surrounds it is not necessarily new to them. In fact, they are able to talk about it quite openly, frequently and thoroughly.
However, despite being very aware of their experience and having the language to talk about it, they’ve never really been able to make a change in an impactful or sustainable way.
Why?
Because patterns (and beliefs) don’t live only in the mind, they mostly live in the body.
Which means that shifting our emotional state and our physical experience isn’t simply “mind over matter.”
Awareness is the first step, and an important one, but that’s not where it ends.
Getting caught in this belief contributes to how/why so many of us get and stay stuck in harmful patterns and beliefs and how/why we can often struggle with creating lasting personal change (amidst a myriad of other reasons).
Our bodies are like a living breathing map of our lived experiences both from this lifetime as well as the lifetimes before us that get passed down from generation to generation.
What the brain may forget or not ever be conscious of, the body will always remember and express / communicate through physical sensation, beliefs, patterns and behaviors.
So, while my client was telling me about their experience, I asked them to pause and focus on what sensations were showing up in their body.
They told me they felt a heavy pressure in their lower back and a tingling sensation going down their leg.
We did a round of EFT/‘Tapping’ to reduce the intensity of their discomfort and after the round I asked them what I ask in most of my sessions:
Were the sensations they were experiencing familiar?
When did they last remember having these sensations?
They paused for a moment and said they had a ‘random’ memory pop up but didn’t feel like it was related to what their current circumstances were.
I reflected back that while it may seem random to you and your brain, it is not random to the body.
When we tap on specific various meridian points on our body and release stored stress, memories that have been long forgotten by the brain often begin to emerge.
When we give the body a sense of space and safety, it begins to communicate the truths that have been buried and hidden from our conscious awareness.
To be clear, it takes courage to do this but on the other side of courage is freedom.
I asked my client to share the memory that had shown up and they reflected that in their first year on their high school basketball team, they experienced a traumatic incident.
A coach forced them to squat with weights that were far beyond what their body could handle / was safe and they pushed their body to the point of hurting their lower back and their leg (the exact places of pain they were now experiencing).
So, this memory wasn’t “random” at all. The physical pain and emotional patterns he was experiencing in present time, ignoring their needs, pushing their body, prioritizing others’ over themselves, were exact replicas of the unprocessed experience (trauma) from their past.
By the end of our EFT session, my client’s pain went from an 8 to almost 0 and we helped release a core belief that this memory had helped to hold up: My needs (physical, emotional, etc) don’t matter.
For the first time in his life he could see, with deep compassion, that many of his current people pleasing / conflict avoidant behaviors and ignoring his body’s needs were outdated survival strategies that had tried to keep him alive in the past.
By releasing the memory, and the stress it was holding, from his body he was ready to create new patterns and behaviors.
He was clear on some of the changes that would support this new shift in his physical and emotional state and made a list of:
His non-negotiable needs Boundaries he needed to put in place
The conversations he needed to have to implement those boundaries
Additional memories he was ready to release to further emotionally regulate
Actions he was ready to take to root this perspective shift into physical form
This is often why trying to change our patterns and behaviors purely from a mental / logical place does not work.
When an event happens to us that our body experiences as stressful and that stress cycle never gets somatically (i.e in the body) completed, it doesn't matter if the brain remembers and/or how much you may talk about it to others.
The body holds onto that stress like a polaroid picture, keeping a snapshot of it and re-living it until it’s fully processed.
Prolonged stress turns into trauma and trauma, whether conscious or not, is what filters our beliefs, behaviors, experiences of ourselves, others and the world around us.
“We have learned that trauma is not just an event that took place sometime in the past; it is also the imprint left by that experience on mind, brain, and body. This imprint has ongoing consequences for how the human organism manages to survive in the present. Trauma results in a fundamental reorganization of the way mind and brain manage perceptions. It changes not only how we think and what we think about, but also our very capacity to think.”
- The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel van der Kolk
This is why I advocate for EFT/‘’Tapping’ sessions and include it in all of my long term 1:1 programs.
EFT Reduces stress-based feelings associated with emotional dysregulation
Activates the OFF switch for stress
Deactivates the Sympathetic Nervous System
Activates the parasympathetic nervous system “rest and digest”
Releases and Reprograms stressed based beliefs to affirming positive beliefs (and life changes)
Stress effects every part of our body and life: physical, mental, emotional, relationships, career.
It blocks our capacity to hear the wisdom of our body, listen to our intuition and make choices that are in alignment with our truth and values vs. our trauma.
When we effectively de-stress, we can allow the body to physically heal, emotionally regulate, own our feelings vs. react to them and make different, healthier and clear choices in every aspect of our life.
And as seen by the world lately, we can all use more emotional regulation not just for the sake of ourselves but so we can make kinder, clearer and equitable choices for all of us in the future.
If you’re ready for a shift in your emotional and physical state and interested in 1:1 EFT sessions, you can find out more here or if you’re highly sensitive and interested in working with me 1:1 in a longer container you can find out more here.
Sending you much care,
Bianca