Nobody likes to feel painful emotions.  As a society we do everything we can not to feel them: we numb them with substances, food, the media or other addictions, we block them out by over-scheduling, we deflect them, project them, anything to avoid the pain.

But what happens when emotions don’t get processed?  They can get trapped in the body and manifest as a physical pain or illness, they can fuel dis-empowering habits such as emotional over-eating or smoking, or they can keep the nervous system stuck in ongoing problems such as insomnia, anxiety, or depression.

I strongly believe that behind any unwanted condition lies unprocessed emotions.  Sadly, our efforts to numb or avoid feeling painful emotions also keep us from feeling love, connection, gratitude and joy.

In this article I want to share 5 tips to release one of the biggest emotions that keep people stuck: anger.

 Anger is a loud, bold, fiery emotion designed to protect you.  It yells, “Fight!”  It displays power, sets limits, and holds boundaries.  It can be BIG and SCARY, but the flip side is passion, focus, enthusiasm, and joy.  If you suppress your anger, you suppress your aliveness along with it.

Most of us are not taught to express anger in a healthy way.  I can’t tell you how many clients have reported they were not allowed to be angry as children.  Some needed to tiptoe around alcoholic or otherwise volatile parents so as not to set off the dragon, and others were told to go to their room when they were angry until they could behave properly. I know I had a lot of judgement around my anger because it didn’t feel “spiritual.”  I did my best to deny it, which only created more problems for me to deal with later.

But let me assure you it’s  not only  human to feel anger, but healthy to be in touch with it, so you can process it and let it out.  All that energy it takes to contain it saps your health, vitality, and enthusiasm for life.

So here are 5 tips to release it:

Tip #1: Acknowledge you are angry and recognize this is a a natural part of being human.  Sometimes just giving an emotion permission to be there allows it to start moving out!

Tip #2:  Exercise of any kind, especially ones involving vigorous movements that get the heart rate up: running, swimming, kickboxing, aerobics, hiking, etc.

Tip #3: Find a secluded place and beat a pillow with a baseball bat or riding crop, slap a piece of an old garden hose on pavement, or throw rocks at a tree. The thuds or slaps can be very satisfying.  Just be sure the area is free of people and animals, so you don’t accidentally hurt anything living!

Tip #4: Go to a secluded place (possibly an empty parking lot in your car) and scream and shout as loud as you can.

Tip #5:  EFT/Tapping  — a powerful Mind-Body technique that meets your feelings exactly where they are in any given moment and allows you to transform them in a relatively short period of time.

Anger can feel scary and out of control, but the rewards of transforming its power to fuel your purpose and goals is well worth it.  As an EFT/Tapping practitioner, I help clients process both current and long-held emotions so they can move out of unwanted conditions and into a life of freedom and joy.

If you are interested in exploring EFT/Tapping, check out my affordable introductory courses at www.themissingpeace.thinkific.com or schedule a free consultation to see if 1:1 transformational coaching might be a good fit for your needs.

Sleep problems following the death of a loved one are common. While grieving, you may experience intrusive thoughts, nightmares, and anxiety that prevent you from falling asleep or wake you during the night. This lack of sleep not only leaves you feeling fatigued, but it also affects your ability to cope with grief in a healthy manner.

Sleep and emotional health are intimately linked. When people don’t get enough sleep, they feel “more stressed, angry, sad, and mentally exhausted,” according to Harvard Medical School. Poor sleep also promotes negative thought patterns and prevents you from processing painful memories. As a result, you end up stuck in the acute stage of grief for longer than is healthy.

There are several things you can do to restore quality sleep after a loss. While these tips may not solve your sleep problems entirely, they’ll help you sleep better so you can begin to heal.

Maximize Bedroom Comfort

A good night’s sleep starts with your bedroom. These are the must-haves:

• A comfortable bed, pillow, and bedding. Replace mattresses older than seven years. Angie’s List suggests making sure your mattress is big enough and recommends at least a queen or full for most solo sleepers.

• Darkness. Avoid night lights and use an eye mask or blackout curtains.

• Soothing colors. Decorate with colors you find relaxing. Many people prefer muted blues, grays, and greens for the bedroom.

• Quiet. To keep from focusing on distracting noises, use a white noise machine, wear earplugs for sleeping, or install soundproofing.

If you experience sleep problems despite a comfortable bedroom, certain accessories may be a helpful. For the most part, the most effective sleep tools are the simplest ones. In addition to earplugs and white noise machines as mentioned above, you may benefit from an air purifier to promote better nighttime breathing. If you tend to sleep “hot,” a cooling mattress pad to prevent night sweating can help you ease into restful sleep. Avoid high-tech gadgets that promise to interpret your sleep patterns, as most of them are unlikely to solve temporary sleep problems associated with grief.

Tire Your Body

It’s a simple concept: When you’re physically tired, it’s easier to sleep. However, most people underestimate the effects of exercise on sleep. Not only does exercise use energy so you sleep better and longer each night, but it also relieves stress and anxiety so it’s easier to unwind. When planning a fitness routine, emphasize high-impact exercise for better sleep quality.

Quiet Your Mind

A racing mind is not compatible with restful sleep. Unfortunately, it’s hard to quiet your mind when it’s full of grief. To mentally wind down before bed, try these strategies:

• Shut off electronics. The light emitted from cell phones, TVs, and other electronics keeps your mind alert and active. Stop using electronics at least one hour before bed.

• Create a relaxing bedtime routine. Following the same routine each night tells your body it’s time for rest. In addition to your hygiene routine, listen to calming music, read, journal, stretch, take a warm bath, or do something else that relaxes you.

• Focus on positive thoughts. If you can’t keep your mind from wandering to thoughts of your loved one, try to focus on positive memories.

• Practice tapping. Emotional freedom techniques (EFT) is a popular tool used by mental health care providers everywhere. It’s a process that can help reduce stress, which may be keeping you awake at night. You can get started now or contact a certified practitioner for guidance.

• Try progressive relaxation. When you still can’t relax, progressive muscle relaxation (instructions at No Sleepless Nights) or a similar relaxation exercise may help.

If your bedroom is filled with reminders of a deceased spouse, you may find it difficult to fall asleep. If you need to, remove photographs, clothing, and other reminders. You don’t need to hide them away, but taking them out of the bedroom can help you quiet intrusive thoughts.

Don’t expect these strategies to solve your sleep problems overnight. You may continue to experience sleep disruptions until the most intense phases of your grief have passed. However, by taking these steps, you can feel as well as possible during this difficult time.

Author

After losing her husband Greg, Sara Bailey created TheWidow.net to support her fellow widows and widowers.

Image via Unsplash

 

 

Is a dark cloud of guilt weighing you down?  You know what I’m talking about… that sinking, icky feeling whenever you think about something unpleasant and your role in it.

Many of my clients suffer from guilt, and today I wanted to explore “useful guilt” versus “toxic guilt.”

Certain types of guilt can be useful. 

If you are doing something you believe is wrong, that uncomfortable feeling of guilt can often put you back on track and get you to stop doing it.  In this case the guilt can be a catalyst for making better choices.

If you have done something to hurt someone else, guilt can lead you to taking responsibility for your actions and making amends.

In both examples, there is something you can do to BETTER the situation, and guilt can be a useful arrow on your moral compass to put you back on track.

But most of the guilt I work with is toxic guilt.  People feel guilty about things that happened in the past that didn’t turn out well.  Maybe they made a choice that didn’t go the way they had planned, like a bad investment or marrying the wrong person.  Maybe they did something that backfired, such as initiating a conversation that ended in a horrible argument.  Maybe they weren’t able to do what they had set out to do such as stay with a man for life even when he was abusive.  Or maybe they feel guilty about things that couldn’t possibly be their fault, such as surviving a car crash when the other passengers did not.

In these examples, what’s done is done.  Your feeling guilty about it doesn’t change the past and doesn’t lead to anything useful or productive in the future.  It is simply dark toxic energy clogging up your system that at best keeps you from fully moving forward and enjoying your life and at worst gets trapped in your body and causes physical ailments or disease.

Luckily, there is a simple and incredibly effective mind-body technique to help overcome guilt.  Clients are always amazed at how much lighter they feel after addressing their guilt head-on with this technique.  Sometimes YEARS or DECADES of guilt can be lifted in minutes!

If you are struggling with guilt, ask yourself  two questions:

• Am I doing something that I should stop doing?
• Is there anyone I need to make amends with?

If the answer is yes to one or both questions, then you can take appropriate action.  If you need help taking this action, this Mind-Body Technique can help with that too!

If, however, you answered no to both questions, you are dealing with toxic guilt, and, in order to fully move forward in your life, you need to find a way to lift it.

I would like to help you do that.

I want to share with you how my process works so you can put down that heavy burden of guilt once and for all.

Simply click the link below, let me know a couple things about yourself, and select a time for your FREE heart restoration call.

On this call I’m going to lay out a clear path to heal your heart, so you can release guilt and other heavy emotions and MOVE ON with your life. 

If you would like my help and guidance along this path, I will spend a couple minutes telling you about my program.  If the program seems to be a good fit for your needs I may invite you to join a select group of other amazing women to walk this healing path together.  Simply click the link below to get started!

www.bit.ly/freeheartcall

Today I want to talk about a huge KEY in unsticking emotion, moving on, and creating that beautiful life you’ve always imagined for yourself. 

Just about every client gets to a point where forgiveness – either of others or of themselves – is needed.  No matter WHAT brought them to see me originally, at some point in our work finding FORGIVENESS becomes a turning point, a huge KEY to unsticking emotion and healing whatever they came in for.

Many people come into my office and say something like this: “There is no way I could possibly forgive that person or those people.  How could I?  The damage was too great.  I’m still suffering because of what he, she or they did.”

Some people say, “There is no way I could possibly forgive myself.  How could I ever forgive myself for all the horrible things I’ve done?”

I understand these feelings.  I’ve had them too.  Now, however, I think when people say these things they don’t fully understand what forgiveness is and what it is not.

Forgiveness is NOT:

• Glossing over, denying or forgetting what happened
• Condoning or excusing bad behavior
• Allowing anybody to “get away with” anything

Although forgiveness may involve reconciling with the other person, it does not necessarily have to.

Forgiveness IS:

• Freeing your heart and mind from toxic feelings of anger, resentment, shame, humiliation, or other negative feelings
• Making a conscious choice to put down a heavy burden, so YOU can be free
• Deciding YOU no longer wish to suffer for bad behavior of the past (whether it was someone else’s bad behavior or your own)

It has been said that unforgiveness is like gripping a burning coal in your hand and thinking it’s hurting the other person.  Forgiveness is releasing this burning coal – even if that means loosening your grip one finger at a time – SO YOU CAN BE FREE.  Ultimately, forgiveness is NOT about the other person.  It is an act of self-healing and self-love.

So if forgiveness is about self-healing and self-love, why is it so hard to do??

I think it goes back to the way our brains have evolved.

There’s a primitive part of our brain called the limbic system that has the job of keeping us safe.  Back in cavemen days this was a really important job because our ancestors often met wild beasts and found themselves in life-threatening situations. Most of you have probably heard of the fight or flight response.  The minute our limbic system detects a threat in our environment, it initiates this response and moves our bodies into a protective stance.  Our ancestors needed a part of their brain to be on ready alert, so they could have the best chance of either fighting a smaller threat or escaping a larger one in a moment’s notice.

Over millions of years of evolution, a new part of the human brain developed called the neocortex.  Now the neocortex is responsible for all that we think of as being uniquely human.  This is where logic, reason, and higher order thinking reside and what makes possible the learning of languages and countless other skills that we can learn but our animal friends cannot.

The primitive limbic system, however, also controls emotions, the encoding of emotions and the long-term storage of emotional events. Emotions such as anger or fear originated to protect us as they drive us to set boundaries and move into action.  Holding onto these emotions long after the danger is past is not logical.  But it is something our primitive, non-verbal, non-logical limbic system does.  When our emotions get triggered, and we feel unsafe in any way, this primitive part of our brain – the limbic system – springs into action and often overrides our more evolved neocortex. 

Therefore, I believe unforgiveness is our primitive limbic system’s misguided attempt at keeping us safe.

If you want to forgive, but don’t know how or somehow feel stuck in unforgiveness, you need a way to communicate with your limbic system.

Remember that the limbic system pre-dates language and logic by millions of years!  This means it doesn’t understand English, Spanish, Japanese, Swahili or any other human language.  Although you may have told yourself many times that you want to forgive yourself or another person, the part of the brain controlling the emotional switches may not be getting the message. 

It may be like those old Charlie Brown cartoons.  Remember when the teacher spoke, all the kids heard was wah, wah, wah…?  This is what I imagine the limbic system understands when we try to have a conversation with it in English! 

This is where EFT/Tapping comes into play! 

While the limbic system cannot understand language or logic, Tapping is a form of communication the limbic system can both receive and respond to.  What it receives are signals of calm and peace, and how it responds is by de-activating this high alert fight-or-flight response.

EFT practitioners have been observing and experiencing this for decades, but, for those of us who like proof, we now have scientific research to confirm it. Researchers at Harvard Medical School have been studying the effects of acupoint stimulation on midbrain arousal.  What they have found — and have used MRI and PET scans to document — is that when certain acupoints are stimulated, the activity in the limbic system associated with stress and fear go way down.[i]

In a 2012 study, Dawson Church, Ph.D. and a team of researchers studied a different aspect of fight or flight: cortisol levels.  This study showed EFT to reduce cortisol levels at an unprecedented rate.[ii]

In short, scientific studies have confirmed that EFT reduces the physical symptoms of stress by communicating with the primitive, non-verbal limbic system and directing it to call off the fight or flight response.

EFT is also known for greatly diminishing emotional intensity around past traumatic events.  In fact, Tapping is perhaps most famous for its tremendous success with PTSD, which stands for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.  Up until recently PTSD was an extremely difficult condition to treat, but EFT is one modality that has proven to be very effective because of this ability to reduce emotional intensity around events in the past.  

When you recall an event in the past that has not been processed, stressful emotions such as anger, fear, sadness, guilt or shame will surface.  As you hold the event in mind and tap on the meridian points you again send signals of calm and peace to the limbic system.  As you keep holding the focus and tapping, the limbic system eventually gets the message that this event is no longer happening.  It actually recategorizes the event and moves it out of the active trauma storage compartment into a more neutral compartment.  When this happens, clients generally report that the event that had seemed so charged just moments before, now feels like a story that happened.  The emotional intensity becomes much less.

You can imagine how much easier it is to forgive someone or something when the emotional intensity is reduced so dramatically.  The limbic system feels safer and can let down its guard.  Then the more advanced neocortex can resume its role and realize that forgiving is a good thing, a healthy thing, and the ONLY way to FULLY move on.

If you would like to experience Tapping for yourself and be guided and coached in a small group, please send me a message and I will put you on the list for the next low-cost group workshop.  If you would like individual attention right away, please schedule a FREE Heart Restoration Call and we will discuss how Tapping and other mind-body techniques can benefit you and your situation.

Click here to schedule a call or inquire about the next class.

 

[i] Hui, K.K., et al. (2000), ‘Acupuncture modulates the limbic system and subcortical gray structures of the human brain: evidence from fMRI studies in normal subjects,’ Human Brain Mapping, Vol. 9, no.1, pp. 13-25; Fang, I. et al. (2009), ‘The salient characteristics of the central effects of acupuncture needling: limbic-paralimbic-neocortical network modulation’, Human Brain Mapping, Vol. 30, no 4, pp. 1, 196-206.

 

[ii] Church, D., Yount, G. & Brooks, A. (2012). ‘The Effect of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) on Stress Biochemistry: A Randomized Control Trial.’ Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, pp. 189-896.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In my Facebook Group, “Women Finding P.E.A.C.E. in the Pieces of Divorce, Separation, and Break-up,” there have been conversations about losing yourself in a marriage and not knowing who you are anymore.  Many people resonated with this idea.  The question came up: How do you even START to go about finding yourself after being lost for so long?

It’s a valid question, and I’ve been thinking about it quite a bit. 

In the fall-out of losing my job, I remember looking at myself and thinking, “Who ARE you?  I don’t even recognize you anymore!!”  It was an odd feeling, but here are the things I did to find my way back. 

First of all,  set aside regular time each day or week for YOU.  Turn off the phone and other electronics, set aside distractions, have somebody else watch the kids, etc.  This time is for you.  For many of my clients, this is a new concept.  They have spent their whole lives nurturing others, but have neglected to set time aside for themselves.  Now is a great opportunity for change.  Claiming space for self-reflection and growth can be a positive change during this time of upheaval.  So, what exactly do you DO during this time?  Here are some ideas that worked for me:

1. Designate a journal or notebook to record your feelings as you move through this difficult time. If you’ve not journaled before, now is a good time to give it a try… I’ve found it to be the best way to really connect with myself. Maybe purchase something beautiful and special as a treat for yourself and a commitment to your healing and growth.

2) Nurture yourself. Take a warm bath, schedule a massage, walk in a beautiful place, take a nap, or anything else that feels calming and soothing.

3) Set aside time each week to do an activity that feeds your soul – create art, make music, write, garden, go for a hike, dance, play a sport, make a beautiful meal, volunteer – whatever makes you feel alive. Maybe try something you’ve always wanted to do.  During my divorce I took up swing dancing and that was THE BEST DECISION EVER!  I got out of the house, met new people, did something fun, learned a new skill… and after about a year of doing it consistently, met my husband.  During my job loss, I auditioned for a play, which was also a great decision.  I made a whole bunch of new friends and found a new way to be involved in my community.

4) Find a source of spiritual nourishment that genuinely feeds your soul. This could be a traditional religious setting, a spiritual community, uplifting books you read on your own, a yoga practice… anything that gives you peace, hope, and makes you feel supported and connected to the larger whole.  This might also be a time to question any religious practice that leaves you feeling guilty, ashamed, or unworthy.  If you go to a religious service simply because you’ve always gone, but it leaves you feeling sad and empty, it might be time to give something else a try.

5) Find a balance between alone time for processing your feelings and social support time. Connect with people you care about and reach out for help when you need it.

6) Find a way to MOVE EVERY DAY!!! You don’t have to train for an Iron Man competition, but it’s important to get your body going even if it’s just walking around the block.  If there’s a sport you enjoyed as a kid, maybe find a place to try it again.  If there’s a class you enjoy, make a commitment to go more often.  Or just turn on music and dance around the living room.  The benefits of exercise are so well documented I won’t go into them here, but one thing exercise does is release those feel-good endorphins.  During this difficult time, we could all use some natural feel-goods!

7) Get plenty of rest. As a light, sensitive sleeper, this has been challenging for me at the best of times and nearly impossible during times of crisis.  If you struggle with this as well, do the best you can to stay calm, as being anxious about being awake and not sleeping only intensifies the situation.  Embrace the quiet of the night and use it as a time for reflection and journaling. 

8) Find a way to laugh – this can be challenging during a painful divorce, but it is said that laughter is the best cure for all ailments. Set aside time each week to watch or read something funny if it is otherwise difficult to laugh.  (That’s why I try to post something funny in the group from time to time.  When it comes to healing laughing is Serious Business!!)

9) Keep contact with your ex as minimal as possible. If you continue to stay emotionally entangled, your healing will be compromised and your suffering more drawn out.

Most relationship and divorce experts recommend zero contact if at all possible.  If you do not have children, this is your best option.  If you move in the same social circles, participate in the same activities, or live near each other, you may need to make some adjustments to your routine to avoid contact for a time, but know you will heal and move on more quickly if you are able to make a clean break.

If you have children, this obviously becomes much more complicated as you will share an important responsibility for life.  In this case, you will need to learn how to coexist within respectful boundaries.  As you move through your own healing, you can learn how to have healthy conversations with your ex, but during the initial phase, keep contact as minimal as possible as you focus on your own recovery.

 10) During a huge transition such as a divorce, your limbic system – that primitive, pre-verbal, non-logical part of your brain that controls emotions and has the job of keeping you safe – is in overdrive. In its valiant efforts to protect you, it may actually HIJACK you for a time – which is partly why we feel lost, ungrounded, and can’t do basic things like eat or sleep.  Finding a way to calm, soothe, and effectively communicate with this part of the brain is the single biggest recommendation I have for healing and moving forward.  When you’re in that hypervigilant, emergency, protective mode of fight-or-flight,  peace, joy, and happiness can’t find you.  These feel-good emotions are the OPPOSITE of fight-or-flight. 

I don’t mean to be an infomercial, but if I’m answering this question, I can’t hold this important recommendation back. There are many mind-body techniques that can effectively communicate with this part of the brain.  If you’re interested in learning more about this, you can start by watching the replay of my webinar a short video “EFT: The Science Behind the Magic” or signing up for a free private heart restoration call.

Simply click the link below, let me know a couple things about yourself, and select a time.

www.bit.ly/freeheartcall

On this call I’m going to lay out a clear path to heal your heart and reclaim yourself during this time of transition.  If you would like my help and guidance along this path, I will spend a couple minutes telling you about my program “Bouncing Forward After Divorce.” 

If the program seems to be a good fit for your needs I may invite you to join a select group of other amazing women to walk this healing path together.

Hope this helps!  Love and blessings all!

No doubt about it.  Divorce hurts.  Whether you were left or did the leaving, whether it came as a shock or you had seen it coming for years, whether you were betrayed and abandoned by your partner or the two of you respectfully decided to go your separate ways … no matter what the specific circumstances, the ending of a relationship hurts.

If you are in the process of separation, divorce, or heartbreak of any kind, I feel your pain — and I know there’s a lot of it right now – because I’ve been there. 

I know that feeling of gut-wrenching loneliness, wondering if you will ever find love again. I’ve experienced that heavy curtain of grief, punctuated by teary outbursts.  And that furious rage burning within that can feel scary at times – I’ve had that too.  I couldn’t begin to count the number of times I’ve replayed horrible conversations in my head or the times I wanted to scream at the Universe that this wasn’t fair!  I too have felt cast aside, rejected, and ashamed.

Nobody likes to feel painful emotions.  As a society we do everything we can to avoid them: we numb them with substances, food, the media or other addictions, we block them out by over-scheduling, we deflect them, project them, anything to stop the pain.  Or we stay stuck in our pain and can’t seem to move past it.  But what happens when emotions don’t get processed?  They can get trapped in the body and manifest as a physical pain or illness, they can fuel dis-empowering habits such as emotional over-eating or smoking, or they can keep the nervous system stuck in ongoing problems such as insomnia, anxiety, or depression.  In fact, I believe that behind any unwanted condition lies unprocessed emotions.  Furthermore, our efforts to numb or avoid feeling painful emotions also keep us from feeling love, connection, gratitude and joy. 

As an EFT practitioner, I help clients process both current and long-held emotions so they can move out of unwanted conditions and into a life of their choosing.  EFT stands for Emotional Freedom Techniques and is probably best known as “Tapping,” because it literally involves tapping on the same meridian points used in acupuncture. 

“Tapping” looks a little funny and at first seems ridiculously simple.  When I first heard about it, I admit I thought, how could this possibly work?  But I soon learned EFT is a powerful tool with an outstanding track record for helping people overcome a wide range of conditions including PTSD, depression, emotional overeating, physical pain, fears, phobias, and much more. 

EFT meets your feelings exactly where they are in any given moment and by deeply processing them through your body’s energy system, allows you to transform them in a relatively short period of time.  In this 3-part series I am going to explore three of the most common emotions people experience during divorce – fear, anger, and grief – and show why EFT is the best way I have found for moving through them. 

Fear and Anxiety

Divorce throws our lives into upheaval.  Things that once felt secure, now feel insecure and the future suddenly becomes a vast ocean of unknowns.

During divorce we can easily become overwhelmed by a swirling mass of unspecified anxieties, which can be the most powerful fear of all. Therefore, it’s helpful to make a list of everything causing you anxiety. Just naming these fears and putting them in one place can make them feel less threatening and overwhelming. Here are some common possibilities:

• Fear/anxiety around living alone and being alone
• Fear/anxiety around not being able to support yourself
• Fear/anxiety around becoming a single parent
• Fear/anxiety around what others might think or say
• Fear/anxiety around your own emotions
• Fear/anxiety you will never get over this
• Fear/anxiety you will never find love, joy, happiness, etc. again

Now take a moment to create your own list. 

It’s also helpful to tune into the physical sensations you may experience when you think fearful thoughts.  Here are some common sensations:

• Fast or irregular heart-beat
• Shallow breathing
• Hot or cold sweat
• Stomach discomfort
• Difficulty concentrating
• Dry mouth
• Tense muscles

Take a moment to tune into your body while focusing on the fears you listed and create your own list. You may have strong or mild sensations in your body or you may not have any.  There is no right or wrong.  Just notice, record, and be sure to breathe!  Slow, deep breaths send calming signals to the brain and body.

It’s natural to feel some fear and anxiety when so much change happens at once.  In fact, we’re wired to feel fear because all this upheaval poses a threat to our well-being.

You may be familiar with the stress/fear response, which is better known as “fight or flight.” There’s a primitive part of our brain called the limbic system that has the job of keeping us safe.  Whenever the limbic system detects a threat in our environment, it triggers this fight or flight response, which is a series of physiological changes designed to protect you. 

During fight or flight, everything speeds up.  Your heart beats faster, more blood is pumped to your arms and legs, your brain waves quicken, and stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol flood your body.  Over the course of human evolution, this response evolved to make our ancestors as fast, strong, and alert as possible so they could have the best chance of either winning a fight against a smaller threat or successfully escaping a larger one.

This is super helpful whenever you come face to face with a saber tooth tiger!  Not so helpful when you’re trying to recover from an emotional ordeal such as a divorce and all the events leading up to the break-up.

The fight or flight response was designed for short-term emergency situations.  It was not designed to be used for long periods of time.  Unfortunately, during a divorce, it’s common to remain in the fight-or-flight emergency mode for months or years on end, which often leads to difficulties sleeping, excessive weight gain or loss, depression, physical pain, or a generalized feeling of fear or anxiety.

What tapping does with amazing efficiency is to halt this fight-or-flight response in its tracks. 

The limbic system – again, that primitive part of the brain that controls the fear response and has the job of keeping us safe — pre-dates language and logic by millions of years!  This means it doesn’t understand English, Spanish, Japanese, Swahili or any other human language.  Although telling yourself to “get over it and get on with it” may be great advice, the part of the brain controlling the switches for the fear response may not be getting the message. 

It may be like those old Charlie Brown cartoons.  Remember when the teacher spoke, all the kids heard was wah, wah, wah…?  This is what I imagine the limbic system understands when we try to have a conversation with it in English! 

Tapping on the meridian points, however, is a form of communication the limbic system can both receive and respond to.  When the meridian points are tapped, the limbic system receives signals of calm and peace and it responds by deactivating the stress response. 

EFT practitioners have been observing and experiencing this for decades, but, for those of us who like proof, we now have scientific research to confirm it. Researchers at Harvard Medical School have been studying the effects of acupoint stimulation on midbrain arousal.  What they have found — and have used MRI and PET scans to document — is that when certain acupoints are stimulated, the activity in the limbic system associated with stress and fear go way down.[i]

In a 2012 study, Dawson Church, Ph.D. and a team of researchers studied a different aspect of fight or flight: cortisol levels.  This study showed EFT to reduce cortisol levels at an unprecedented rate.[ii]

In short, scientific studies have confirmed that EFT reduces the physical symptoms of stress by communicating with the primitive, non-verbal limbic system and directing it to call off the fight or flight response.

Are you ready to try this out for yourself?  Are you ready to hack into your body’s emotional control system and turn down fear and stress and turn up calm and peace?

Click here to schedule a FREE Discovery Call to see if this work would be a good fit for you

[i] Hui, K.K., et al. (2000), ‘Acupuncture modulates the limbic system and subcortical gray structures of the human brain: evidence from fMRI studies in normal subjects,’ Human Brain Mapping, Vol. 9, no.1, pp. 13-25; Fang, I. et al. (2009), ‘The salient characteristics of the central effects of acupuncture needling: limbic-paralimbic-neocortical network modulation’, Human Brain Mapping, Vol. 30, no 4, pp. 1, 196-206.

 

[ii] Church, D., Yount, G. & Brooks, A. (2012). ‘The Effect of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) on Stress Biochemistry: A Randomized Control Trial.’ Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, pp. 189-896.

 

 

 

 

 

In Part One of this series we discussed how pain is an inevitable part of divorce, and how important it is to process it through the body so it doesn’t get stuck and cause problems down the road.  We also talked about the fear/stress response and how EFT is an amazing tool for reducing the physical symptoms of stress.  Today we’re going to talk about another very common emotion during divorce: anger.

Anger is a loud, bold, fiery emotion also designed to protect you.  It yells, “Fight!”  It displays power, sets limits, and holds boundaries.  It can be BIG and SCARY, but the flip side is passion, focus, enthusiasm, and joy.  If you suppress your anger, you suppress your aliveness along with it.

Most of us weren’t taught to express anger in a healthy way.  I can’t tell you how many clients I have who report they weren’t allowed to be angry as children.  Some needed to tiptoe around alcoholic or otherwise volatile parents so as not to set off the dragon, and others were told to go to their room when they were angry until they could behave properly. I know I had a lot of judgement around my anger because it didn’t feel “spiritual.”  Consequently, I did my best to deny it, which only created more problems for me to deal with later.

Let me assure you it is not only natural and human to feel anger, but healthy to be in touch with it, so you can process it and let it out.  All that energy it takes to contain it saps your health, vitality, and enthusiasm for life.  If you are currently feeling angry, yet have a fear or aversion to feeling or expressing anger, the first step is to acknowledge and recognize that you are angry and that this is acceptable and part of being human.  If you are not currently feeling angry, but suspect you might have anger buried within, this is also a valuable step.

Next, get in touch with what specifically is making you angry.  For example, you may feel anger at being rejected, demeaned, abandoned, abused, or humiliated.  It may be helpful to create three categories of who or what your anger is directed toward: 1) anger at your ex, 2) anger at your situation, and 3) anger at anyone else. Take a moment to create your own list.

Now tune into any physical sensations you may feel when you think of these things.  Do you have a knot in your stomach?  A tightness in your chest?  Does your head feel like it’s about to explode?  Record any physical sensations you may be feeling in relation to anger, and breathe into them.

As previously discussed in part one of this series, EFT has been scientifically proven to reduce the physical symptoms of stress.  It is also known for greatly diminishing emotional intensity around past traumatic events.  In fact, Tapping is perhaps most famous for its tremendous success with PTSD, which stands for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.  Up until recently PTSD was an extremely difficult condition to treat, but EFT is one modality that has proven to be very effective because of this ability to reduce emotional intensity around events in the past.  

Remember the limbic system, that primitive part of the brain that controls the stress/fear response and has the job of keeping us safe?  There is a part of our limbic system called the hippocampus, which is involved in categorizing things.  As you go about your day the hippocampus is constantly determining whether the experience you are having is emotionally significant enough to go into long term storage. 

Let’s imagine, for example, it is a Tuesday morning and you are in the middle of your typical morning routine.  You’ve had your shower, gotten dressed, and had your morning cup of coffee.  So far, there is nothing out of the ordinary and your hippocampus can sit back and relax.  Then you go out to your car and remember you and your husband have traded cars for the day.  As you get into his car and reach over to put your bags on the passenger seat, your phone falls out of your purse and into the crack between your seat and the gear box.  After some effort and choice words, you fish your phone out of the crack… but there is something else there.  You pry it out with your fingers and realize it is a note… a love-note to your husband from somebody other than you!  Your blood runs cold, you can feel your heart beating in your mouth and stress hormones coursing through your body.  Now your hippocampus is awake and active and tagging and flagging everything in this scene.  What had started out to be a mundane Tuesday morning not even worthy of notice is now categorized as an emotionally charged event and is headed directly into long-term memory storage.

This is a traumatic event.  It is shocking, overwhelming, and you suddenly feel isolated and alone and unsure of what to do next.  Months later you still can’t think about it without tearing up or wanting to punch him. 

Here’s how EFT can help.  When you focus on a past traumatic event that has not been cleared, stressful emotions and feelings in your body will come up.  In this example, when you think about finding that note, you probably feel some level of anger and sadness.  Maybe you also feel a physical sensation such as a burning in your solar plexus or a tightness in your throat.  At the same time you are focusing on this stressful event, you tap on the meridian points, which send signals of calm and peace to the brain and body.  As you simultaneously hold this focus of past stress and feel the feelings that come up and tap the points for calm and peace, the hippocampus eventually gets the message that it can refile the memory.  This particular memory can move out of the active trauma category and into a more neutral category.  When this happens, clients generally report that this once highly charged memory now simply feels like a story that happened in the past.  If this is a very recent story, this might not happen right away.  But tapping over time will gradually reduce the charge around even the most traumatic events.

Unfortunately, stories like the above example are common among divorce clients, and it’s natural for these clients to feel angry.  Even without a story like the one above, anger is an extremely common emotion during divorce.  If you are feeling angry, EFT is an amazing technique to process it and move it out!  Why not give it a try?

Click here to schedule a FREE Discovery Call to see if this work would be a good fit for you

In Part One of this series, we learned about how painful emotions are an inevitable part of divorce and how important it is to process them and move them through the body.  We also discussed fear, the stress/fear response, and how EFT has been scientifically proven to reduce physical symptoms of stress.  In Part Two we discussed anger and how EFT is especially effective for reducing emotional intensity around past traumatic events.  Today, we are going to discuss another very common emotion during divorce: grief.

While anger is red hot, fiery, powerful and protective, grief is heavy, wet, and oh so painful.  It can feel like an arrow in your heart.  Whenever you lose something important in your life, it’s natural to grieve.  You may feel sad, devastated, lonely, lost, empty, weak, helpless, or depressed.  All are faces of grief.

Although grief is most strongly associated with the loss of a loved one, there are many other possibilities for loss.  It can be helpful to acknowledge specifically what you are grieving.  For example, at the end of a relationship, you might not just be grieving the loss of the person in your life, but the loss of your home, your future plans, your financial security, your status as a couple or family, or time with your kids.  The individual losses may be big or small, but it helps to name them.  Even if you made the decision to leave, know it’s for the best, and don’t even miss your mate, grief is an inevitable part of divorce.  Take a moment to create your own list.

Now tune into the physical feelings in your body.  Does it feel like there’s a brick on your heart?  A lump in your throat?  A heaviness all over?  What’s happening for you? Again, take a moment to record your physical sensations and breathe deeply into them.

Remember in Part One of this series we learned how EFT has been scientifically proven to reduce the physical symptoms of stress and in Part Two we saw how EFT dramatically reduces the emotional intensity around past traumatic events. 

There’s one more thing I want to share about EFT. Scientists speculate that EFT not only lowers the emotional intensity around particular events, but actually permanently alters the neural pathways in your brain.  When conditioned fear pathways in the limbic system are eliminated, similar stimuli no longer produce the same response.  In other words, EFT is actually able to rewire the brain so that events held in storage no longer get triggered in the same way.

A very clear example of this is my client Danielle who came in for insomnia.  Up until eight years before her first appointment, Danielle had slept fine.  Eight years before, however, her husband had died in bed from a heart attack.  While she had received good grief counseling and talk therapy and had moved on to experience her life as a content single woman, one disturbing remnant of the event remained.  Since that night, she had been unable to fall asleep before 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning.  Her hippocampus had tagged and flagged everything in that traumatic memory, including her bed.  Whenever she got in bed, her traumatic memory would be triggered, making her feel unsafe to fall asleep at night.

In a fairly short period of time we were able to tap on all the emotions surrounding that event – her feelings of shock, being overwhelmed, helpless, terrified, guilty that she had slept through some of it and then couldn’t save him, heartbroken at losing him, and fearful that this could happen to her as well if she let down her guard.  After only a couple of appointments, she was able to sleep well again.  Her hippocampus got the message: yes, this was a terrible event, probably the worst day of her life AND that doesn’t mean she has to spend the rest of her life as an insomniac. 

By tapping on all the emotions surrounding this event we were able to communicate with the hippocampus to pull her bed out of the trauma category, so that she could sleep like she did eight years before.  In other words, we rewired her brain so that it no longer responded to bed with a fear response.

In summary, while Tapping may look funny and feel silly at first, it works powerfully on three levels:

• It reduces the physical symptoms of stress by calling off or halting a stress response.
• It dramatically reduces the emotional intensity around past events by sending signals of calm and peace to the part of the brain storing the event.
• It rewires the brain to respond differently to future situations by moving events from the traumatic category into the neutral category in long-term memory storage. Once these memories have been re-categorized, they are no longer triggered in the same way by current events.

In simpler language, EFT can greatly help the divorce recovery process by easing stressful emotions and symptoms, soothing highly charged memories, and breaking up negative feedback loops that keep you stuck in painful reaction patterns.  Sound good?  Would you like to try this on your own stress symptoms, painful emotional memories, and any unwanted responses being triggered by trauma you have experienced?

Click here to schedule a FREE Discovery Call to see if this work would be a good fit for you

Moving through divorce is difficult no matter what the season, but the big December holidays can intensify feelings of sadness and loss. The omnipresent images of love, family, and festive merry-making rub salt into the wounds of the newly separated and divorced, and it can be tempting to isolate or simply avoid the holidays altogether.

But know there are ALWAYS CHOICES. You can CHOOSE to use this holiday season as a marker for new beginnings. Here are 5 tips to move through the holidays as authentically as possible, so you can close the chapters of the past and open to those of the future.

1. Embrace all your feelings, even the painful ones
Take a deep breath and acknowledge this is a challenging time. Many people try to avoid painful feelings by eating or drinking too much, binge-shopping, stuffing feelings away and pretending they don’t exist, or distracting themselves with the media, extra work or other busy-ness.

While these strategies are OK in small doses, over the long haul, they are not helpful. Unprocessed emotions can get stuck in the body and cause problems down the road such as physical pain, depression, illnesses or dis-empowering habits.  On the other hand, many people spend too much time wallowing in grief, making it difficult to move on.

In my practice I emphasize deeply processing all painful emotions so they move through the body and don’t get stuck. The mind-body technique of EFT is very powerful for transforming emotions, and the first step is to simply acknowledge, accept and even embrace them.

When painful feelings come up, acknowledge their presence. Give them a voice and listen to what they have to say. Journal about them, and then move on to other parts of your life.

2. Nurture Yourself

Divorce  can take a big toll on self-esteem and peace of mind. Holidays, with all their expectations and complications, add extra layers of stress and tend to intensify anxiety and pressure.

Amid the hustle and bustle take time out to nurture yourself. Here are some ideas:
• Fill the tub with a soothing bubble bath, light a candle and play soft music
• Schedule a massage or spa day
• Plan a fun day with a friend or family member
• Watch something funny or find another way to laugh
• Read a new book or re-read an old favorite
• Spend time in nature
• Set aside time for doing things that bring you joy

Also, be sure to schedule movement into your life, whether it be playing a sport, taking a class at the gym, or going for a walk. There is no better way to relieve stress and feel grounded in your body.

Most of all, use this time to celebrate you and the fact that you’re starting a new chapter in your life. Acknowledge your strengths and look ahead to exploring new sides of yourself. Create a vision for how you would like the new year to look.

3. Practice gratitude
Even though you are experiencing a rough patch right now, we all have things to be grateful for. Do you have a roof over your head? Food in the fridge? Warm clothes to wear? Do you have at least one friend or family member who cares about you? Many people are not so fortunate.

What you focus on expands. Do you wish to expand your blessings or your sorrows? Use this holiday time to focus on all you are grateful for. Make a list of at least ten blessings in your life and read that list every day. Once you get started, you may find that list grows rapidly! I can’t tell you how much this simple shift of focus has transformed my own life as well as the lives of my clients.

4. Reach out to others
Although spending time alone to process your thoughts and feelings is important, be sure to create a balance by reaching out to others. Your first holiday season after a break-up can be an emotional roller coaster, so don’t try to ride it alone! Make plans with friends and family who bring you joy, reach out to other divorcees, or join a support group. It can be helpful to be around people who know what you’re going through, and it’s comforting to know you’re not alone in the post-divorce emotions and challenges you’re experiencing. Be open and receptive to help and you will find it!

5. Create new holiday traditions
Rigidly sticking to old traditions or constantly comparing this holiday season to past holidays can intensify feelings of grief and loss, and it becomes all too easy to “should yourself.” For example, you may be thinking, “we SHOULD still be together as a family, he SHOULD be ashamed of what he’s done, I SHOULD have the kids for Christmas morning, or I SHOULD be over this by now.” If you catch yourself going down that rabbit hole, redirect your thinking.

This is the time to develop new ways of celebrating the holidays. Perhaps it’s going on a  trip, celebrating with new friends or neighbors, attending events in your community or spiritual center, or volunteering to help those less fortunate than yourself. Be open to creating new traditions for yourself and your children and including new people in your life.

Looking Forward
Most of all, proclaim this season as the emotional starting point for ringing in the new. Even though this is possibly one of the most painful times of your life, you can use this pain as a catalyst to create the life you’ve always wanted.

In my program “Finding P.E.A.C.E. in the Pieces,” I help women move from pain to peace, trauma to transformation and create a beautiful new life after divorce. For more information on this powerful recovery and empowerment program, click here. Or, to learn more about the 5- Step P.E.A.C.E. process, attend my webinar “5 Steps to Move from Pain to Peace, Trauma to Transformation During Divorce” by clicking here.