Turning the Movie Technique into a cartoon helps with Dysautonomia episode

By Nancy Parker

My whole family is versed in EFT and we have watched both the early basic recipe collections as well as the recent Serious Illnesses DVDs.  My three children are thoroughly knowledgeable in several of the classic techniques and they are so confident that they often use their own intuition to add their own flair and spin.  What a relief to have EFT as part of our family first aid kit.

My husband, who has been so supportive of my own healing efforts, has been relieved that finally there is something he can do with me that actually shows positive results.  Not only do we use EFT to collapse difficult issues, but we tap everyday together on “ creating an E-lationship” just like Gary suggests in his Palace of Possibilities series.  It’s amazing how just five minutes of tapping (touching, right?) can make such a positive difference.  The result is that we have a solid foundation and skill set that we are able to draw upon in a pinch.  This afternoon I found myself in one of those “pinch” moments and I would have never guessed where this EFT session lead us.

Like the woman on the Serious Illness DVD, I have “blood pooling” – the doctors call it Dysautonomia, or POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome) and just like Ginsu Knives it comes with a whole range of added bonuses (symptoms) at no extra cost!  Suffice to say, it becomes a real challenge and at times I have significant difficulty doing even simple things. 

Recently I had a full on body flair at the end of the workday and found myself shaking in the car, so rattled that I refused to let my husband drive us home.  It wasn’t pretty and despite some short attempts at EFT in the parking lot, the energy did not dissipate for another two hours after we arrived back at the house.

I did some EFT again at home and thought I had collapsed the issue.  But I noticed over the next few days, that I was getting very sensitized to being in the car.  Indeed, one afternoon I found myself in tears pulled off at the side of the road (my husband was driving) and I simply refused to go any further.  My husband and I tried the Chasing the Pain technique – since the energy surges through my arms were horrendous.  But even when the physical symptoms seemed to subside, there was still an emotional component that simply said HELL NO I WON’T GO. 

Logically of course I knew there was nothing unsafe about driving back to work, but emotionally I was terrified that the body flair from the week before would happen again.  My husband was persistent and suggested that we just keep tapping the heck out of the incident and as we did, I realized there was another body flair at work a half dozen years ago that felt similar in it’s after-glow.  While the two incidents seemed different on the surface, I realized that my cellular body memory could still have wired connections between the two events.

We used the Movie Technique to go back and play the original incident.  After just a few rounds, my husband noted, “There really doesn’t seem to be much here anymore, let’s go back to the original incident last week.  What happened before I saw you in the car?”  I thought back for a moment, and remembered that there was someone in my office for about 30 minutes before I left work.  In fact, during the conversation I had felt trapped and really wanted to leave. 

“Great!” he said, “Let’s do the Movie Technique again with this scene, but let’s play this one like a cartoon.”  As soon as we started the cartoon story, I could feel a shift.  Up until this point, the mood in the car was heavy and I was so caught up in my own personal pain story.  But cartoons are by nature light and entertaining, so using these cartoon characters to play out the drama lifted my spirit almost immediately.  My husband, held my hand and began tapping on the karate chop point. 

“Who do you want to play the person in your office?” he asked.  “Porky Pig!” I replied without missing a beat.  “And I want to be Foghorn Leghorn, because I was being such a chicken,” I giggled.  Then instead of me imagining the story, my husband created the cartoon adventure, checking in with me every now and again for confirmation we were headed in the right direction.

All the while he tapped on the karate chop point.  In his cartoon, Porky was standing at the door blocking my exit and Foghorn tried every trick in the book to get by, without success.  All of the other farm animals got to go home but Foghorn was still trapped.  In the end, a package from ACME saved the day and Foghorn was able to leave the building.  “But what about when Foghorn gets to the car?”  I asked in a small voice. 

“Well, there’s another box from ACME waiting at the car and in it is a special wrist watch that has an early warning system.  Foghorn puts the watch on his wrist and knows that in the future he will always be alerted in advance so he’ll never get stuck again.”  We used that tag line at the top of the head “Never gets stuck again.”  Eyebrow point “Never gets stuck again.”  Side of the eye “Saved by ACME.”  Under the eye “Never gets stuck again.” Under the nose “Early warning.” Chin “All the piggies go home.”  Collar bone, “It’s safe to be at work” And finally under the arm, “Never get stuck again.”

I had been at a 9 out of 10 on the unwillingness dial to move from where we were parked and I had been pretty pegged there for the better part of an hour as we had tried different “serious” methods.  But after the cartoon technique the whole reluctance dropped to a level of intensity of 0 or 1 out of 10 and we completed our drive back to the office.

So did this one time help dissolve all of my issues?  Gosh I hope so.  But if not, I know that I have a tool and I don’t need to wait until everything “gets better” before I continue to move forward once again.

Peace.

Nancy