I know there has been another extensive delay in our posting. I’m still the same person out who posted last time. I was nearly hospitalized about a month ago for a severe kidney infection, and am only starting to feel better. I must have been fighting that infection for a long time which most likely was contributing to our extreme lack of energy over resent months. Hopefully now I will be better able to keep up with posting here as well as make substantial progress on the book.
A significant insight came to me/us at our last EMDR session with our therapist last week. Although many of the other personalities have done the EMDR before, it was my first time using the tappers. I was surprised that they didn’t cause any pain at all – just a low level vibration tingling. I guess I was expecting a low level pain because I was relating them to the tens unit I have used in the past. Anyway, we were talking about our tendency to see the traumas in our past (specifically leaving foster children behind and the abortion, but also recognizing the same was true of other traumas) from the perspective that they were our own fault even though we had no choice in what happened and would not have chosen to do them if it had been our choice. Our therapist suggested we think, “what happened was my fault” while the tapper in our right hand vibrated, and then,”what happened was not my fault” when the tapper in my left hand vibrated. After a few repetitions my right hand became very hot and heavy. The longer I did these repetitions the more I was able to embrace the truth that these severe traumas were not my fault. It was overwhelming to embrace this reality, and we really believe it will make a huge difference in our ability to continue to heal from them.