You might think that because the traumas were long ago and seemingly not a very big deal, you are no longer being affected by the fears (and beliefs about yourself) that have resulted from those experiences.
Traumas can be big: war, rape, home intrusion, car accidents, death of a loved one. Or they can now feel small: parental death or divorce, peer criticism, childhood abuse or abandonment.
You might ask why it’s important to deal with those old, now seemingly inconsequential, traumas. This is why: If a trauma is not processed soon after the event (often the case with children), it “downloads” into the cells of the body and a person might later develop traumatic stress symptoms such as
- excessive worry
- nightmares/flashbacks
- food or alcohol abuse
- depressed feelings
- chronic pain and disease
- anger or guilt
- low self-esteem.
These symptoms virtually never heal without intervention because, though the mind might bury the trauma, the body remembers.
When a trauma occurs, you feel a strong emotional response which becomes attached to the memory of the traumatic event. Eventually this means that every time you are triggered, all those strong emotions come flooding back with a vengeance because your body cannot tell the difference between something occurring now and something that happened in the past.
When we do EFT for trauma, the process quickly, effectively and gently disconnects the emotions held in the cells of the body from the remembered event. You don’t really forget the event (nothing is ever really forgotten), but because the trauma is no longer attached to strong emotions, the event feels like it’s fading away—into the past where it truly belongs.
As your traumas are neutralized with EFT, you become more and more free to live the life you now dream of.