It was early 2003 when a lady contacted me. She was a retired spinster aged 68years, living next door to her father, who was in his mid-90s. Indeed she had been his unofficial carer since she retired from her position in the financial services sector some 8 years previously. Her mother had passed away just over 20 years previously. She did not have any siblings and had had only one romantic relationship – in her mid-40s. That relationship did not last, her father didn’t approve of it.
This client was extremely calm, in fact cool as a cucumber when she was giving me all this information. She appeared very organised, very calm and very professional.
The reason she contacted me? Well it took some time for her to say exactly what it was as she seemed to skate around the houses.
She came for the initial consultation and the conversation was along these lines: “It’s so silly really and I know I should have done something about it before now, but it has never been as bad as this, and it’s not there all the time. But with all of this conflict going in the Middle East, and talk about British troops going over there, it’s all getting too much for me. Every time I switch on the television there’s something about it, and I have to keep it switched off most of the time. And father has the television on, so every time I pop round to see him, it’s on. I just can’t seem to get away from it.”
She still had not mentioned what her problem was, however I was getting the hint it was something to do with conflict and/or war. I asked her direct: “So what is it you feel uncomfortable about? That you feel you don’t want to see or hear.”
“Well - it’s war” was her response.
Now I understood. The time was early 2003 and Britain was poised to go into Iraq - together with the American troops. There had been talk of this for several weeks on television, radio and the papers.
She had mentioned that it “has never been as bad as this“, so I asked her to expand on this some more. Whilst she didn’t have any relatives or personally know of anyone involved in wartime situations, or indeed know anyone who had been hurt through wartime situations, she remembered all the details of:
q The Falklands war in the early-1980s;
q The first time troops went in to Iraq in the early 1990s;
q She remembered about the genocide that had been taking place in Bosnia – with British troops going in there as UN peacekeepers;
q She remembered September 11th 2001 Twin Towers – and whilst she hadn’t had any panicky feelings at that time, she admitted that it was the pictures of it that had shocked and appalled her;
q And NOW this!
Yet in none of these situations was she was aware of anyone who was involved in any way in any of these wars. And I noticed, none of these situations involved the Northern Ireland conflict.
I asked her what happened to her on each of these occasions, to describe how she felt and what her actions were. “Well I have to avoid television and radio and reading the papers or else I become very panicky.”
So I prodded a bit further and asked her what she meant by “panicky”.
“Oh my, now you’re asking something. Well it’s as though I can’t breathe properly, my breathing gets tight in my chest, and I get funny feelings in my tummy and I just don’t want to be there watching or reading or listening about what’s happening. Which isn’t right as I am not going to war – other people are. Why I don’t even know anyone who has been to war or been involved in any war at all. When I was working I used to avoid talking to people about ‘those situations’, I’d change the subject.”
Well her symptoms were definitely a panic response, in fact a typical fight or flight response. And this lady knew about her breathing patterns, as she was a very keen golfer, indeed a very fit 68year old.
So, as she had said that she hadn’t been ‘touched’ by any of these wars personally, I thought I’d ask her of her earliest recollections of war.
“Oh that’s easy,” she said. “It was when I was 5, or was it 6? We, I say we but it was me really, I was evacuated from London. I remember plain as day standing on the station platform with my little case, and my little gas mask and box, and the label tied on string around my neck. And I didn’t know what it said because - I don’t think I could read at that time. But I knew I was going somewhere – without my mother and father.”
And then I asked her what had happened to her – after her remembering the station and her evacuation.
“Well nothing really, my father and mother moved up to where I had been evacuated to shortly after wards. In fact they stayed in that area after the war. So did I really going to school there and making friends there, that is until I started working. Then my work took me out of the area, but I came back here to live when my mother became ill, and I looked after her, father couldn’t, well men can’t look after others really, can they? And then she passed away. And so now I have my own place next to my father – I don’t want to live with him, we both need our space. I pop round to see him all the time, make his meals, take him out, we go on holiday together with his friends who are his age. Now I don’t work I spend a lot of my time around there. He’s very active for a 90year old you know. And I make sure he has all the right foods, everything cooked freshly for him. In fact he doesn’t like pre-cooked foods and it is a bit of a chore really as we have to be so careful where we go, I like him to have freshly cooked foods, even though we may be away.”
I then asked her when her first recollection was of this ‘panicky feeling’. When did that start?
“Well, that must have been around the time my mother passed away… Oh my – I hadn’t thought of that! But why should mother passing away start off these panic attacks?”
I explained the connection between ‘emotions’ and repressed feelings of situations that we had ‘forgotten about’ and that sometimes a shock to the system triggers off those ‘locked in feelings’.
“It’s rather like getting sunburn” I said, “We know when we’ve been sunburnt how uncomfortable it is, so we avoid situations where we may get sunburnt again. Hence each time something came on television, or radio or in the newspapers, you avoided it – but you didn’t know why. Because you had been ‘sunburnt’ as a child and didn’t want to go back there”.
So NOW we had found the ‘emotional’ trigger that had brought on, or rather released, the feelings that caused, the panic attacks. Feelings of a ‘you’re leaving me here for me to go somewhere where I don’t know’ situation. A situation that happened a long, long time ago, to a helpless little girl. A situation that had happened almost 60 years previously. Repressed feelings of abandonment. And the emotional trigger had been her mother passing away and leaving her ‘to be in that situation again’.
And what she had been doing subconsciously was reliving those feelings she had felt as a child. Reliving them through all ‘war’ situations that came up where British soldiers were involved abroad – replicating the situation that happened in the war where British soldiers were sent abroad to fight. That’s why the September 11th 2001 Twin Towers situation she was shocked and appalled yet not panicky – because British soldiers were not involved in that.
So what could we do, now that we had – through talking about her situation using careful questioning – uncovered what had happened to her.
I suggested she tell me the whole story, from her as a 5-6 year old on that station to her mother passing away and on through to now, whilst she tapped on all of the EFT tapping points. We used the ‘Story technique’.
This took us just under 15minutes, as she had already told me ‘her story’ I could include something if she missed it out. There were no tears, no sharp intake of breath, and no sign of any emotion at all as we tapped away. We had uncovered everything by careful questioning – and that in itself had released a lot of emotion. And at the end of that tapping she said she felt like another person. And indeed she looked like another person. She was a lot brighter in herself, her voice was lighter and her facial colour was pinker.
So where does the marriage come into it? You may well ask.
Remember she mentioned that she had only had one romantic relationship in her life, and her father did not approve of it, so it was finished. Well six months after releasing this ‘World War 2’ emotional memory, this lady had met up with someone whom she hadn’t seen since her secondary education days. They met by chance - even though they lived in different towns. He had been widowed a few years earlier. And they met up again, and again, and again. And she took him home to meet her father. And within 6months they were engaged to be married.
And 12 months later, they were married. A big decision for her as she was still caring for her father at home and all three of them had to take his situation into account. He agreed to ‘retire’ into a residential home near where they lived.
Both were 70 when they were married and both looked so radiantly happy, it was as though they were both teenagers in their first flush of youth getting married - and not people in their 70s. I had an invite to their wedding – that’s how I know. And she hasn’t had any panicky feelings since letting go of those - way back in 2003.
So, could releasing those World War 2 ‘blockages’ have cleared the way for happiness to flow into this lady’s life? I like to think so. After all, in the energy business we know that we need to release those negative beliefs and energy blockages before we can access the joys and happiness that are out there for us – just waiting to come in...
Hozho
Christina Elvin
Comments