Rock to Dust: Releasing Fear with Inner Theater

by Lynne Shaner
www.eftpraxis.com

“I know it’s not real. But I still feel it, all the time.” My client James was talking about his fear—we had worked through a number of different traumas in earlier sessions, but there was still more fear, a palpable fear that was just not going away. He came in that morning feeling low, and feeling as if everything had a dark pall over it. As he was talking, he held out his hand, and mimicked looking at Fear, resting there, in his palm. The imagery was so clear.

I suggested we see what we could do with that fear, and he agreed, closing his eyes and just visualizing the fear. All the while, I was guiding James through the tapping points, and he was tapping on himself continually while narrating what was going on visually, internally. “It is huge, a huge crystal of some sort—I can almost see around it but it has gotten bigger.” He decided that he wanted to walk around it, so I guided him there, and as he walked around it he found that he wanted to push it out a window. It was still very large. And stubborn. He tried to push it out the window but it was so resistant; it just wouldn’t go. I asked whether it might be able to go there, if it were smaller, and immediately it had transformed into an egg-sized ruby that fit into his palm. “I’m okay with it now, it is just this ruby.” I wondered whether it felt positive in any way so I asked whether the ruby seemed beautiful. “No, it’s very dark and actually it is now a garnet, not a ruby.” So we explored what he’d like to do, if anything, and he wanted to take it to the window, now that it was small. What is happening now? I asked. “It has turned into a puffball—one of those puffball mushrooms that turn to dust.” And he found himself taking it to the window and the garnet just disintegrated. I wondered whether he’d like to have the dust washed away so we brought a gentle, warm, magical rain into the picture and it washed his hands clean of the garnet puffball dust. And how does that feel? What is happening? I asked. James immediately said that he was looking out over a beautiful bay, that the sun was out, and that the water was sparkling. He felt much better, and we brought him out of the space gently, allowing him to return whenever he’d like to.

One of the great beauties of Inner Theater is that it allows the needs of the subconscious mind, or deep mind, to come up very clearly, and be addressed and healed. When James held out his hand and was miming holding this huge crystal of fear, it was clear that his inner mind was using a symbol to communicate clearly what was going on, and giving us a great deal of information—-it was large, it was hard and dense, it didn’t want to go anywhere, but it was also levitating, and could be seen around, and changed with a thought, and was willing to disintegrate.

I just needed to take the cues as they came up and be a gentle guide, following James and the imagery around, calling out the tapping points softly. This way there are no interruptions between what is going on in terms of healing and the client. For example, I didn’t gather the information, then have a break and start with a setup “Even though I see this crystal of fear, I love and accept myself, etc,…” and then after a while “Even though there is still this egg-sized garnet of fear, I love and acknowledge myself.” Rather, we stay with the imagery suggested by the deep mind, which always longs for—and wants to move toward—healing and wholeness. Sometimes the transformation flows beautifully and swiftly, as it did in the session with James. Sometimes things need to go more slowly, or just in parts. What is important is that there is a feeling of flow, of allowing the imagery from the client to lead. I always find myself “seeing” images as my client talks through the story that unfolds, and as it seems necessary, will gently offer some idea or thought or question, to allow the process to continue to flow easily. Sometimes a client feels stuck; the suggestions allow the inner logjam to gently float apart and flow with the current again.

Inner Theater is a beautiful, direct-to-the-subconscious approach; I am so grateful to have learned it from both of you, Betty and Jade.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 27, 2009 at 3:39 pm and is filed under Releasing Fear. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.