Fia came to see me for severe, debilitating migraines, which she has had for over 35 years since she was about 20 years old. She’s been suffering frequent, regular migraine attacks on average every 2 – 5 weeks since her early 30s, lasting for up to 3 days and taking another 2 days before she feels completely recovered. We had done a few EFT sessions before this one providing some relief.

During this session Fia wanted to focus specifically on her feelings of hopelessness and of being so out of control with the migraines, so we started out with a few rounds of more general tapping. We had done one Inner Theater session previously and since Fia has worked with visualisation in the past and found it very helpful, I thought that Inner Theater might be a better approach.

I had a feeling that Fia would need to feel safe to go more deeply into this healing journey, so I suggested to her to begin to imagine a door leading into a safe Inner space. Fia imagined herself in front of a free standing door leading into a labyrinth created out of stones on a familiar beach. She went through the door and found herself suddenly very, very tiny at the edge of a big, deep hole in the centre of the Labyrinth. In the hole was a giant snake, Fia is scared of snakes and yet she felt compelled to move closer. She felt like she was being swallowed up, engulfed by a sticky, gooey, yellow substance inside the snake. This sticky substance represented to her how she gets swallowed up and taken over by the migraines, how they completely take over her life, yet in spite of being so unpleasant and yucky inside the snake, it also felt oddly familiar and safe. We did gentle tapping throughout on the various feelings of being scared, engulfed, swallowed up by, feeling familiar etc.

As we tapped the snake began to become more spacious and transparent, light began to filter through and it turned into a giant Chinese paper dragon. The paper dragon was filled with hundreds of small dragonflies, beautiful, shimmering, rainbow coloured dragonflies. As we tapped all the small dragonflies began to change into one big one, Fia herself becoming one with it, it continued to grow until it was about a meter across between the wings. Fia, as the beautiful big Dragonfly, flew out through the open end of the paper dragon, out into the world. The feeling of flying was absolutely fantastic, liberating, filling her with a completely new sense of joy and freedom. We did a few rounds of positive tapping, tapping in this fabulous newfound sense of freedom deep into every part of her body.

Fia was migraine free for 2 months after this session, the longest period in more than 25 years. Even though her migraines are not yet completely cured and there’s more work to do, Fia is feeling a new sense of hope and will carry on working with EFT and Inner Theater. In addition Fia feels that these images are very helpful and comforting to go back to and into at times, when a migraine attack is under way.

I’m finding the combination of EFT and Inner Theater very powerful. The subconscious mind will use the inner imagery to guide a person to exactly the right place within the inner landscape at any given time, finding a way to bypass any potential control and resistance of the conscious mind. I really enjoy journeying with clients in this way and will often ‘see’ the inner landscape with them, allowing them to gently guide the way. I’m finding Inner Theater to be an extremely helpful addition to have in my tool box, thank you so much Jade and Betty for this wonderful, creative innovation.