formerly published in the Rising Sun EFT Newsletter, July 2009

This personal EFT story of mine is a good example of 1) an inner theater session showing the value of the visual approach and 2) a sensitive inner child session showing that even a baby has the full range of human emotion. What I love the most about this session is the amazing healing image that comes at the end. My subconscious did something my conscious mind never could have figured out, and it completely transformed the issue.

Some weeks ago, I shared that I’ve had issues with sleep most of my life and that EFT had not seemed to touch this. I had started using Jade Barbee’s EFT 3 process before bed and finally something was making a difference. (Jade’s free EFT 3 e-book is available at www.emotionalengine.com -in downloads). I’ve had an intuition for a long time that my sleep difficulties are rooted in infancy. During my first 9 months of life, I had severe colic and cried a great deal, was in pain every time I was fed, and never slept long stretches. So I was tapping for the “baby in pain” with the EFT 3 process — and this was improving my sleep. A clue!

So then I did a full session on this issue, with Jade’s guidance. I wanted to go into the Inner Theater (visual approach) and so I began by imagining my healing place. For me, this is a place in the woods with a pond, some deer and a blue heron. When asked to get in touch with the problem, I found, under the roots of a tree, a treasure chest that held this whole issue. I felt like there was an immense amount of sadness in that chest, so I saw myself holding the chest as we tapped for “this sadness.” I began to get flashes of my mother holding a crying baby and she was crying too. I started to feel my mother’s sadness that, despite her best efforts, she couldn’t relieve this baby’s pain. Many tears as I tuned into her feelings of inadequacy:

“Even though she feels like it must be her fault… she’s not a good enough mother… it’s time to bring some healing to this.”

“this sadness… feeling inadequate… thinking it’s her fault… ”

I’ve heard stories about how my parents held and “bounced” me so much in a certain kitchen chair that they wore out a place on the kitchen floor! In the session, I was overwhelmed with the realization of how hard it all was for them. Hours of rocking and bouncing this crying baby. But they did that rather than leaving her to cry alone. I was moved with how much they had really showed up for me.

“Even though nothing seems to work… and the baby is still crying… it’s not your fault!… you’re doing an amazing job… you’re not leaving her alone… ”

“it’s not your fault… you’re doing an amazing job…”

I felt like I needed to go back in time and give my parents a medal! My baby self too. No one had slept much those first 9 months — it was hard for us all.

As I tuned in to the baby self, I had much emotion come up. I felt like the baby had tried desperately to help her mother feel better. She wanted to be a good baby and make it easier for her mother… but the crying kept getting in the way. Lots of tears and lots of tapping.

“Even though I really want to be a good baby… but the crying is in the way… I hate this crying! but I can’t make it stop… it’s time for healing now…”

I felt a lot of sadness for how much we had both felt like failures and how this had hurt the mother-baby bond.

By now, I was really in touch with the scene from the past and that damn crying that just wouldn’t stop! I said, “I need to get the crying out of the picture. That’s what’s in the way.”

Jade guided me then to give it form, give it an image, as we do in inner theater work. I felt the crying energy swoop over to the side of the scene and become birds, loud squawking birds, a whole flock of them in a tree, deafening. Then as this took further shape, I realized that the birds were all baby birds, a hundred of them in a big nest, with their mouths open, screaming for food. We kept tapping for the image:

“all these baby birds… needing to be fed… open mouths, screaming, squawking…”

Suddenly, I saw all the mother and father birds arriving and they did what many birds do to feed their babies — they brought up partially digested food from their crop. (I have a strong image of this in my mind because I have a lovebird who feeds my fingernails this way!– the fingernails are like baby bird beaks for him and trigger that instinctive response. It’s very sweet.)

This was amazing! Perfectly digestible food had so been what was needed. We tapped:

“Even though the baby birds were crying… now they’re getting perfectly digestible food… that will never make their tummies hurt… they can be fed and it won’t hurt…”

I saw the baby birds all calming down and settling into sleep. All those little round heads nestled together. Suddenly they seemed like the cells of my body, and I knew that this healing was reaching the cellular level.

“Even though nothing worked back then… now there is perfectly digestible food… hunger satisfied, no pain, back to sleep… all the cells of my body receiving this nourishment…”

I was feeling amazing. All the sadness was gone and I felt a tingling all through my body, great relief, as if a huge burden had lifted.

In the inner theater, I then went into the scene to give medals all around! Mother, father and baby all got medals for doing such a good job under such challenging circumstances. In a celebratory mood, I imagined us opening some champagne… and baby even got a sip! As I said, “her system is so healed now, she can digest anything!”

The result of that session has been — sleep! A truly vast improvement in my sleep. I can hardly believe it. When I wake up in the wee hours, I can usually just picture the baby birds getting fed and settling back down… and before I know it, I’m back asleep. This is truly amazing since in the past it could take me hours to get back to sleep and often the 4 am awakening was the end of the night’s sleep for me. I am now getting 7 and 8 hours of sleep on a regular basis for the first time in decades. It feels great!

I’d like to thank Jade Barbee for that amazing session. We’ve developed this Inner Theater work as a collaboration, learning from our session trades. But this time I was totally on the receiving end for life-changing benefits. Being listened to so deeply and guided so sensitively is healing in itself. And my subconscious was given the opportunity to create a profound healing resolution I never could have achieved consciously. I can feel that this is real, deep, and cellular-level. Something has shifted profoundly, as if past and present have healed in a way that allows my system to truly find rest.

I recommend Jade’s phone sessions to anyone who truly wants transformational healing.

Sweet dreams to all!