Doing the EFT Movie Technique in slow motion -- getting to important and otherwise hidden aspects

By Chris Shaver

Recently, I did EFT on a young man who had trauma tormenting him from two life-threatening situations. These produced a level of intensity of 10 out of 10 when saying the statement, "I can't trust anyone on earth."

One incident involved a gun, the second one a knife. Both turned up a means of unpacking life-threatening trauma aspects with a slightly different twist on the Movie Technique. I call it The Slow Motion Movie Technique. Understanding how this works can help you understand how to get at all the unprocessed emotion that deeply traumatic situations can produce.

The Slow Motion Movie Technique is based on the fact that time can literally slow down AND become very expansive, when people experience life threatening trauma.

I first learned of this when a friend of mine described being shot in the jungles of Cambodia during the Vietnam war era. He described the scene starting with moment the bullet left the barrel of the gun. He saw the flash of the gun powder and immediately KNEW that the bullet would hit him. Then he saw the bullet leave the gun, slicing through the fiery powder flash at the gun muzzle. From 50 yards away, the bullet appeared as big as a grapefruit to him, occupying almost his entire field of visual perception during the entire time it traveled toward him in slow motion.

As the bullet traveled toward him, he had a series of thoughts and feelings, about loved ones, about his time on earth, about things in his life that were unresolved. He said that from the time he saw the bullet leave the gun time both "slowed down and opened up." Literally, as he tells the story it sounds like the bullet took 5 minutes to leave the gun and strike him. So there were 100's of frames of "trauma aspects" to unpack for him in an episode that took an estimated 1/10 of a second of "clock time."

What this means is that, like a supercomputer, we are capable of generating an intense amount of emotional information and conflict in almost no time at all. It is up to the therapist to unpack these in "real time."

I used this knowledge of slow motion/expansive time for the young man who had 2 life threatening episodes. To show you how I use the slow-motion movie technique I've recreated his narrative and the EFT session for the knife fight. I indicate where time is Normal or Slow Motion, give his story-telling within brackets[], and list the issues we tapped on. To keep it short, I don't provide every question I asked to get at the trauma. But note that I sometimes had to ask a few questions to get a hit on a piece of trauma that I "felt", but couldn't get the patient to voice.

NORMAL MOTION MOVIE FRAMES:

[So, I'm at this club. And we go out back and I see these two drunk dudes rolling on the ground fighting. And I'm just watching them and minding my own business]

This produced a level of intensity of 7 on a scale of zero to 10 … that we tapped to a 0 out of 10 with:

Even though I was just standing and watching two dudes fight, just minding my own business… Even though I did absolutely nothing to attract attention…

Even though I should have known that being around fights is a dangerous thing…

Even though I didn't do anything and this dangerous kid found me…

NORMAL MOTION MOVIE FRAMES:

[Then the one dude peels off and he kind of looks around and I can tell he sees me but I don't think anything of it.]

This produced a level of intensity of 8 out of 10 that we tapped to 0 out of 10 with:

Even though this look meant nothing…

Even though it felt creepy when he saw me, but it meant nothing really…

Even though I could have just turned around and walked away right then if I was really paying attention to my feelings…

NORMAL MOTION MOVIE FRAMES:

[So the dude walks over and is like, "What the f-k are you looking at?" And he reaches out with his left arm across my chest and grabs the left side of my shirt. And I just felt this click inside me, which is like the "holy shit, here we go" lockdown mode that puts me on autopilot where I'm going to do what I have to do to survive]

This produced a level of intensity to an 8 which we tapped to 0. But note that as the danger increases, the amount of aspects begins to increase:

Even though his words put me into a "holy shit, here we go" lockdown mode…

Even though the feel of his hand on my shirt gave me a weird feeling in my stomach…

Even though I knew this was not going to end well…

Even though I didn't seek him out, and I now know that I could have avoided this…

Even though he had a very dead look in his eyes that scared me…

NORMAL MOTION MOVIE FRAMES:

[So then, I brought my right arm up under his left arm, grabbed his wrist and twisted it and pushed him away from me. He ended up with his back to me with his arm bent up behind his back.]

He had no emotional charges on this sequence of actions and just reported that he was in autopilot self-protection mode.

SLOWER MOTION MOVIE FRAMES:

[But then, I saw his right hand go into his pocket. And I was like, "F-k!" And then his hand came out of his pocket and I saw the knife blade.]

He reported a level of intensity of zero on his words above. But note that all the "aspects" being tapped on for this one statement are actually the result of my questions about what he had to have experienced during the expansive trauma moment of seeing the knife produced. Each one of these statements had a level of intensity in the range of a 5 to 9. All of these aspects existed within the space of probably 1 second of "real time" which is what he had to react to seeing the knife and disarming his assailant.

Even though I could instantly see the knife entering into my right side beneath my ribs…

Even though I could feel the knife blade slipping into the flesh of my side…

Even though I still feel the knife blade slipping into my side…

Even though I just saw holy shit how my whole life would change…

Even though I felt incredibly sad at how that felt for me…

Even though I thought "Oh shit what will the girls think of me now?"…

Even though I can see myself in the hospital and see my mother's sad face…

Even though I feel sad at what I am about to do to this dude…

NORMAL MOTION MOVIE FRAMES:

[So when I saw the knife I didn't have a choice. I instantly let go of his left arm and reached down with my left hand and snatched his wrist and jerked him around and spun him around to face me.]

He had no emotional content on this. With his "lock down" program running, the moments that contained no actual danger were normal-motion movie frames with no content hidden in the cracks.

SLOWEST MOTION MOVIE FRAME:

[Then I just punched him in the face.]

Initially, he reported a level of intensity of zero on this statement. But I know from personal experience that when a human strikes or attacks another human, that the exact point of contact (if not before, too) produces TONS of intense emotion. When questioned closer, he reported "being numb, not being able to feel anything." This numbness is also a red flag to dig deep. Feeling nothing where traumatic pain must be produced means emotions are stuffed into dark corners to be processed later. Note again, the expansive nature of time, as there are 13 aspects to tap on in the single moment when his fist made contact with the assailant's face.

Even though I am numb on this…

Even though I felt sad at the look on his face when my fist hit him…

Even though I felt bummed out that the girls I was with had to see this…

Even though I felt a sick feeling in my hand…

Even though I felt a specific sick twinge on the outside of my fingers…

Even though I still feel that sick twinge on the outside of my fingers…

Even though I felt sad that the girls would never see me the same way again…

Even though I felt tension in my neck and shoulders thinking that the girls were watching…

Even though he deserved what he got I felt sorry for him…

Even though this didn't represent my best self in action…

Even though I could see all of his friends coming after me…

Even though I knew my car was too far away to get to quickly I forgive myself for doing what I needed to in a crisis to survive.

NORMAL MOTION MOVIE FRAMES:

[When I hit him, he just hit the ground and I was already looking around. I yelled to the girls to meet me out front and I ran to get the car.  The dude's friends were kind of immobile. But I ran up the hill. Got the car. Got the girls in the car and got the f-k out of there.]

That statement held relatively little emotion and we tapped on.

Even though that was a shitty feeling seeing him hit the ground…

Even though I was fearful running up the hill…

Even though I was hyped up getting the girls in the car…

Even though it kind of sucked thinking what the girls were thinking…

Even though one of the girls now had this freaked out look on her face because of me…

(At this point we had to end the session. With this, the young man's level of intensity of 10 on the statement, "I can't trust anyone on earth," had dropped to a 5 out of 10. But there was no more trauma evident within the framework of the knife fight movie itself.)

CONCLUSION:

To wrap up, it's important to note that as time expands in intensely traumatic moments people can experience trauma around the situation, based on judgments of how it will affect all their relationships, and through projections and visualizations of many different scenarios that might occur. (For example the young man could still feel the imagined knife wound in his side.)

Actually, if you read closely into the story of my friend being shot, you will also see that normal sensory information is not normal and can become hugely distorted as well.

So in using this technique you must really open up your mind and intuition to the whole person's life within that moment's framework. And you must be alert to all the possible sensory information as well as its distortions... and conduct your questioning accordingly, or trauma can be left undetected.

Finally, I was able to intuit many of these time-stuffed aspects, both from a number of physical cues, as well as the pain I get in my heart chakra when I am around unprocessed trauma. The heart chakra thing, I know isn't greatly helpful to others, although I do encourage you to tune into the area of your heart chakra. My wife has developed this ability by doing so.

But I would say that there are literally hundreds of visual and auditory cues to tune into as well for those who can't feel this connection. Finding numbness in areas where a person should feel lots of pain is my number one screaming red flag to question deeper. Having few issues reported when there should be many is the other objective measurement that is useful as well.

Hope this is helpful.

Chris Shaver