In short, we are blown away by the simple, intuitive and easily-accessible ways inner visuals can rise up and be consistently followed to help people find relief. In the coming months, we look forward to sharing with you much of what we’ve learned in our daily experience with these methods. We hope you’ll explore the articles found here – and know these are just a drop in the bucket around the success stories you’ll be hearing on this site.

To learn more about the exciting ways you can use the power of your imagination along with EFT, sign up for our free Inner Theater Newsletter (right sidebar on our website) and articles feed. We will soon be offering some educational teleclasses that highlight how – whether you are a practitioner or just someone interested in EFT – you can use the power of inner visuals to help transform your experience.

Peace,
Jade Barbee
www.innertheater.net

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.

“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.

My friend Melissa had been struggling with many chronic ailments, including insomnia, constipation (from sleeping pills), fibromyalgia, PTSD and severe pelvic pain for over six months. We had been out of touch for some time, and when we reconnected, I was shocked that my once vibrant and active friend had literally found herself too weak to leave the house most days. Thankfully, she did have a “healing team” consisting of several medical doctors, a reiki practitioner and now – me. Luckily within the last three weeks, following a number of reiki treatments, Melissa had finally been able to embrace the possibility of getting well.

During our preliminary talk, Melissa shared that a reiki healing experience had given her an energetic “kickstart” towards possibly getting her life back. However, while she believed the reiki had been crucial for helping her, she also confided that the visualization offered during this work had involved “too much pushing” and did not necessarily honor her needs.

Two years before, Melissa lost her little sister to a drug overdose. While she indicated a desire to heal and move on, her sister’s passing had had a devastating effect upon her – so much so, she did not think she could ever make peace with it. We spoke about how using EFT in the Inner Theater could potentially help change the way her grief might be affecting her – in a gentle way that would honor her needs completely.

We began our session with gentle EFT on her physical symptoms and her feelings about them. What came up almost immediately was the enormous amount of fear she carried around being “well.” She brought up the clear realization that there was a part of her that was extremely resistant – terrified of being well – just as much as there was a part that was so ready to be healed. “Who would I be? I have never not been struggling against something!” While we worked with this fear somewhat – it did not subside, and I could sense there was a need to get her “out of her head.”

Sensing that a visual, guided approach would help us “sneak up on the problem” more, I offered her the possibility of going into her own Sacred Space. When introducing this process, I will usually offer a road, a door – a gateway to a safe personal space where an inner story can unfold. In Melissa’s case, I offered her a peaceful journey down a road of some kind. She liked this immediately, and we talked about the perfect weather for such a trip. She settled on fall with yellows leaves filling the road and gently falling from the trees.

At the beginning of the scene she immediately found herself driving comfortably along her peaceful road until, quite by her own guidance, she stopped some distance from a gigantic tree. Since this was an “in-person” session and she had indicated that tapping was physically uncomfortable for her, I gently squeezed her fingertips while she told me what she was feeling and what she was seeing. She indicated that the tree felt safe and comforting – so much so that she actually wanted to hug it. She offered that it reminded her of her father or father figure, so safe and warm and deeply rooted under her. She then expressed sadness that she had never felt that safety and security herself – she felt as if she was floating above the roots.

As we moved along, I asked again about that fear of getting well [Note: This is revisiting of an initial intensity level is a form of both inner theater and EFT “testing”]. She immediately said it was like a huge concrete wall. She expressed that she could indeed see it, but that it terrified her, even though it was some distance away to her left. She felt she could not safely approach it, much less climb it. I told her she could do whatever she liked in the space, including sit in the comfort of the tree as long as she needed. She expressed extraordinary gratitude about being able to honor this boundary for herself – to honor her own time and her own needs.

Sitting against the tree, she talked (as I tapped) through some of her feelings of fear. At this point, her sister, Morgan, entered her mind. I asked if she would like her sister to potentially join her somehow in the scene. Without prompting from me, she said, “She’s here,” and indicated that her sister was approaching the vicinity of the tree. The relief and disbelief in her voice was palpable and we spent some time “tapping” through both what she was seeing with her minds eye and feeling as her sister approached and sat down next to her.

For a moment, Melissa was confused that her sister could look so healthy and refreshed and different than the young, troubled woman she had last known. However, we “tapped” on this as well until her feelings stabilized and she was moving on to describing the interaction. Two aspects stand out for me about this part. Firstly, Melissa was momentarily confused about what face to put on her sister, since her face was not in full view. I offered that maybe her face was not visible to her for a reason and to just focus upon the physical parts of her sister she could easily see [note: In Inner Theater, this is called “staying in the moment.”]

Immediately Melissa’s voice relaxed and she indicated that her focus was falling comfortably onto Morgan’s knee. As we tapped on this visual, Melissa was able to look a bit higher and rest her gaze on her sister’s thigh. Sensing this was going to be a journey in itself and we were nearing the end of our time together, I thought that this was a good time to again ask about how she felt about the interaction [Note: this “what are you seeing / what are you feeling” back-and-forth is very common in an inner theater session.] She indicated that she wanted to express anger towards her sister for leaving, and that there was much more to say. She also indicated that it “felt so good and right” to be there with her sister and that Morgan had agreed to stay and/or return as long as Melissa needed to talk. Needless to say, this was an enormous sense of comfort to Melissa. For a moment, Melissa indicated that scene had abruptly changed to her watching she and her sister entertain the possibility of climbing the wall together. While she still felt fearful and “not ready”, this moment represented a real awakening to the possibilities of this healing interaction with Morgan.

As the session drew to a close, I offered that Melissa could return to this moment on her own at any time. I also offered that she could take the whole scene into her heart and know that she carried it with her always. We spent some time coming out of the session, processing what was happening, until Melissa felt both connected to her sacred space and completely ready come back to physical reality.

1 Day Update: While still needing to take sleeping medication, Melissa reports that she is more upbeat and pain-free in her waking hours since our session. She has since reorganized her office (a feat near-impossible previously). She reports that she feels enormous peace around the passing of her sister, and comfort that what transpired was real and truly life-changing process for her. I look forward to several more sessions with Melissa – and I’ll let you know what happens!

Three Week Update:
“[Since our session] I’ve been able to envision my own life – untethered from Morgan. Maybe there’s less guilt, maybe that I was unconscious of before – I’ve been able to focus on me with an energy and a fervor for life – there is definitely more peace. There’s a shift there for sure.

During acupuncture, I chose to “go there” to my sacred space – to the tree. It was pretty cool. I liked that I controlled it. We did more work together. She said ‘I’ll go over it with you.’ I could again visualize us going up over the wall. It was beautiful, bucolic, green pastured world. She said, ‘I’ll be with you the whole way. If you want to sit under the tree, I’m here.’ The vision gave me a place to visit her – a beautiful, tangible and accessible place. Very real. This vision has an integrity. It has a life of it’s own.

The biggest thing is the pelvic pain is %60 better. I’m not invested in attributing it to any one thing, but this has been torturing me for over 6 months is finally starting to heal. It has faded, it’s softened. It’s smaller. I feel like I’ve got some hope. I’m also laughing more in a hearty, sincere way. I enjoy the laughter. I’m easier going with my husband – I see and feel the response. Letting go is allowing some light in my body. I’m taking the lighter road. What’s shifting is my relationship with people and that is huge. Before our work together, feeling good inside was not something I knew how to do.”

Leora scheduled a session with me when she began to experience sharp back pains that she felt had an emotional cause, and were important to address.

As we began our session, Leora described her pain. “It feels like someone has punched right through my sternum. It’s really painful.“

Leora’s oldest son had just returned home from a trip overseas, his first without his parents. Letting him go was difficult for her. Initially she was fine with the idea, but by the following day she was hysterical. According to Leora, her son had changed and was different since his return. He had experienced a lot, both good and bad, and needed time to process it all, and since she herself had not had similar experiences, she couldn’t really relate to what her son was going through.

There were also some ongoing issues relating to finances, and secrets that she was keeping from her husband related to those finances. There was a lot of guilt associated with keeping those secrets. As she discussed all of this, Leora became quite emotional.

She felt strongly that she needed to start with how she felt about herself. We had agreed to utilize inner theater during our session, and she visualized herself as young woman with short hair, very much a mess, and trying to feed her very young son some broccoli, which was cold. He refused to eat the broccoli. Picturing herself in this vignette, Leora said,” This person shouldn’t have a baby..what right did she have to think she can do this to a baby?” Gentle continuous tapping.

A part of her felt that she was a poor excuse for a mother, and that she should never have had children. She said that she didn’t do “momsie things” like bake cakes. Another part of her, however, recognized that she had been, in her own words, “A damn good mom”.

As she thought back over raising her sons, her response was, “What have I done? I shouldn’t have had children. I shouldn’t have had to learn through my children.”. She was feeling tremendous guilt about her ability to mother her children.

We spent some time tapping on the things that Leora was feeling.

“This person shouldn’t have had a baby”

“What have I done to my children?”

When I asked her to describe the guilt that she was feeling, she described it as a green pool of slime. She could picture her children lying face down in the slime, with their little t-shirts appearing as humps above the slime. Leora felt that she had used her children as stepping stones, stepping on them to get to where she was today. Visualizing her children face down in the slime, she said “I did that”, crying all the while.

We started a general tapping on the guilt.

“I did that to my children..I put them in that slime.”

“I stepped on my children to get to where I am”

I asked Leora if she could help to turn her children over in the slime, but the kids were taking care of themselves, and jumped up as though they were characters in one of the Super Mario games, with grins on their faces.

At this point the green slime receded, leaving her children standing on a very small platform in the middle of a deep pit, holding on to each other. Could she throw them a lifeline, I asked? Again her boys took care of themselves, and she felt that it was really important to stand back and let them do that, to trust them, knowing that they had what it took to get along in life. Leora noticed that the pain in her back was easing.

Her sons had rope ladders, and tossed them across the gap between the platform they were standing on and the ground around it, and were soon off the platform and out of the pit.

I asked Leora what her children were doing now that they were out of the pit, and she said that they were racing around her in cars, perfectly happy. That reminded her of how difficult it was for her when her oldest son got his first car. She said that logically she knew that her boys were well balanced and capable, but that she tended to panic at the thought of them doing things that most normal teenagers do.

She also had a feeling that although her boys were happy, they didn’t give a damn about her, and would leave her behind. “They’ll go off and leave me”, she said. When I asked if that wasn’t what they were supposed to be doing as they grew up, her quick response was “Yes..shut up!” and we both had a good laugh.

Leora said that she was feeling quite a bit of release.

We spoke about Leora’s oldest son leaving home to take a degree at art college in the city next year, and she was totally unfazed by that major life change for her son and herself.

We ended the session on a very positive note, with Leora recalling a visit that her sons had made to her sister. Her sister was very stressed, and the boys felt that she was no fun to spend time with. Upon their return home, they thanked Leora for doing the work that she had done on herself and her issues, because they saw in their aunt what might have been but wasn’t. We agreed that this was a high compliment, and Leora acknowledged herself for all the hard work that she had done.

Several days after our session, I received an email from Leora. She said “The results of the session with you have been really showing now, with such an improved bond with my youngest son. He has been giving me voluntary hugs and everything just feels easier.”

I have since found that the issues between Leora and her husband have been resolved, and the back pain is gone. So much for that green slimy pool of guilt!

Kelly (not her real name) contacted me about money issues, but said right away that it was not really about money – it was about limiting messages she had received from her mother, whose energy had been blocking her professional and financial success for a long time. Kelly: “I am not good enough, I don’t deserve money and success, I don’t amount to anything – those are the messages I got from my mother. And she was right. But I know that I can be successful, it’s my turn. She is blocking me.”

Her anger was at an intensity level of 10 – her stomach and upper body very tight, so we started with tapping on that and continued with more negative comments that were coming up (i.e. “Why can’t you be like your brother? You are sick in the head if you think you can do that!”).

Then I introduced Inner Theater to her. I asked her to envision her professional goal (she has a very clear goal indeed) as a pot of gold, or a rainbow in the distance, and then tell me what kind of blockage might be showing up between her and her goal.

She said right away that there was this beautiful rainbow in the distance, but her mother was standing there in a field, very stern and demanding. Her mother said, “You are not going there! Who do you think you are? You are nothing!”

Kelly’s anger rose to a 10 again, and a sense of desperation came up: “She did not want me, I was the last child”. More tapping.

When I asked her to look again, Kelly said that the mother was concerned that her daughter was about to go past her: “She doesn’t like it, she is afraid that I am going to leave her in the dust.”

After another round of tapping, the anger and tightness in her stomach dropped appreciably. Taking another look, Kelly said: “She is stepping aside. I am going past her! She says: ‘I can’t believe that you are doing this, how could you.’”

Since Kelly was still a bit afraid that the mother would grab her, we tapped on that fear.

And then came the big shift: “I am halfway to the rainbow, and she is way back. WOW!”

Three weeks later, I received an e-mail from Kelly:

“The session helped me A LOT! More than anything else I have tried and in hardly any time. I feel so much better. I still have a ways to go but I’m getting there. I have kept the visual and have gone way past my mother.”

Carna Zacharias-Miller
Certified EFT practitioner
www.missingmother.com
www.magicaleft.com

I have found myself doing more and more guided imagery along with EFT in so many varied and wonderful ways. I also have been combining art therapy with it with very good results.

I had been seeing Rose for a few months. When she walked in the door I could see that she looked more sad than usual. She reported that her life wasn’t going well . . . she said she just felt stuck and didn’t know why or what to do. She talked about her “stuckness” on many levels: emotional, financial and in her love relationships.

I decided to have her start by closing her eyes and visualizing what the stuck place looked like. She talked as she visualized it: It was a big cement block . . . It was a huge square . . .A grayish color . . . It was solid and unmoving.

We talked about it for a bit and then I had her draw a picture of it. . I cautioned her not to think too much . . . just to draw. As she drew in the artist’s notebook I keep in my office, I noticed her hand sweeping the page. Her stuck place took up the whole paper it was a huge square and she colored it black and gray.

Then I had her visualize what the block was up made of . . . she started to describe it . . . she could see parts of her childhood (especially her father) and her ex husband.

Then I asked her draw what she saw inside of her block… She sectioned off the block and began to write inside of it, “my ex husband”, “my father” . . . . (Note: I had been working with her for weeks in therapy . . . she always said her childhood was perfect. She denied any baggage from her parents!) I asked her what they were saying that stuck in her block and she basically said that they both were saying that she better be perfect or else. . .the perfect daughter, the perfect wife. She realized for the first time that her ex and her dad had very similar qualities! They criticized her . . . she had to be pretty all the time, if she didn’t look good . . . she was no good . . . she was the trophy daughter and had become the trophy wife.

Then we tapped:

Even though my father and my ex husband thought I was only okay when I looked good and was totally a “good girl”, I completely and totally love and accept myself.

Even though I built this false self because I was afraid my dad wouldn’t like me if I wasn’t perfect in all areas I am ready to recognize all the inner beauty and wonder inside of me and I completely love and accept myself.

Even though I felt I had to act like they wanted me to act, I know better now and I am willing to see myself differently.

We did the reminder phrases with variations of:

Of course, I am stuck . . . I never knew who I was beyond a pretty face.

Just a pretty face to them.–a perfect little Barbie doll.

That is all that mattered to them. So I thought that was all I had to offer.

They never saw the real me. It was there. I am beginning to be in touch with the real me. I have so much to offer.

Then I had her visualize what she was going to do with the cement block . . . She buried it way out somewhere in a deep woods. Next, I asked her to visualize someone in her life, whether it be her own guardian angel or someone who loves her or her wisest self, tell her all the ways she shines. She came up with, “Funny, smart, responsible, loving, artistic, compassionate, trust-worthy, loyal, etc.”

We tapped as she said those things to herself and I made her a CD with all those positive statements about herself on them. We also tapped on forgiveness of herself and her ex and dad keeping in mind that everyone was doing what they thought was best for her . . . if they knew better they would have done better but now she knows better.

Her whole face looked open and alive. When she left she said, “Thank you Brenda! I feel so free! This was worth 5 years of Freudian Therapy!”

She continues to do well as she is remembering who she really is. What an honor it is to do this work!

“John” felt like he carried a level of stress and anxiety most of the time. When I asked him what it felt like, he said it was like “two heavy boulders on my shoulders.” We talked about his job, his family life, etc., and it seemed that much in his life was good. The feeling of stress and anxiety was chronic and seemed to have been building for a long time but he couldn’t guess where it came from.

After some rounds of conventional tapping, I suggested that we tap for the image since imagery is the language of the deeper mind and might take us beyond what the conscious mind could figure out.

“Even though I have these boulders on my shoulders, that’s just how I feel. I can be with this and see what happens.”

We tapped for “boulders on my shoulders” and at the end of the round, he said, “I think I know where the boulders come from. I just saw the old rock wall that was in the woods where I grew up. I think the boulders come from that wall.” So we tapped again for what was coming up.

“Even though I see the old rock wall and that makes me feel… (’what?’ he said, ‘uncomfortable’)… it’s time to bring some healing to this.”

We tapped for “this old rock wall”… “makes me feel uncomfortable…” What he then saw was himself at age 10 or so sitting on the wall in the woods. He said, “I haven’t thought about this in a long time. That was where I used to go when my parents were fighting.” And so our work became an inner child session as we tapped for the feelings in the little boy. There were feelings of “scared,” “insecure,” “don’t feel safe” and “maybe it’s my fault.” He had the insight that the boulders he carried today had a lot to do with that old feeling of “whatever is wrong is my fault,” so we tapped for that with some reframing, “The truth is, everything is not my fault. It was never my fault.” He felt much relief.

I asked John if he would like to create in his imagination a safe place for the boy that would be far away from the lonely place in the woods. He imagined a sunny room that was safe and secure. I asked him what needed to happen with the boulders. He said, “Well, they’re actually much smaller now. But I want a table in the room that is strong enough to hold them. Whenever I find rocks or boulders on my shoulders again, I’m going to go to that room and put them on the table. Because I know where they come from now. They’ll be like museum pieces from that ancient old wall. But I don’t have to carry them anymore.”

We tapped: “Even though I may get boulders on my shoulders, I don’t have to carry them. I don’t have to keep them. They’re only museum pieces from the past. I can put them on the table and walk away.”

I made a little recording for John to reinforce this imagery. We are literally creating new pathways in the brain with this kind of work, and new neural pathways grow stronger with repetition (exciting new brain research has much to tell us about how this works: repetition is a key element in strengthening new neural connections). As John has been combining the tapping with this simple visualization, he has been excited that he can do so much to change his old pattern. He feels empowered that he can now free himself of stress or anxiety on a daily basis. Because the imagery is his own, it’s very meaningful and effective for him. The power of the inner mind plus tapping!

Since learning about Inner Theater through a series of classes conducted by Betty Moore Hafter and Jade Barbee, I have truly embraced this highly visual EFT approach. I have even found that it takes EFT to a whole new level, and opens the doors for healing. Inner Theater provides me with a way in which to approach highly emotionally charged memories that is non-threatening to the client and is less traumatic than some more traditional approaches.

With inner theater, a client creates a safe place in their mind/imagination — an inner sanctuary of sorts in which they have total control. Nobody can enter that sanctuary without their permission, and nothing can happen in that space that they don’t wish to have happen.

Clients are encouraged to give their imagination free reign, and to “go with the flow”, and not try to analyze what happens as this imagery plays out. If a client can trust in the process, they will find EFT and Inner Theater to be powerful tools for change and healing.

I have found Inner Theater to be particularly effective for doing parts work. For those of you who may not know what this means, we all have parts of us with beliefs we have usually carried with us since childhood, not necessarily rooted in reality, but based on the writing on our walls.

One common belief is that we are not good enough. This could be based on messages we got from our parents, siblings, teachers, friends or anyone else when we were growing up. We may not consciously be aware of the belief, but at some level that message continues to replay in our head, undermining confidence and leading to self sabotage.

As we chatted, my client referred a number of times to “the part of me that has to keep smoking”. I briefly explained Inner Theater concepts to her, and asked whether she would be willing to give it a try. She was open to doing so, and I had her relax, close her eyes, take several deep breaths and create an inner safe space. For her safe space, she chose a horse drawn sleigh. To access her safe space, we moved into her barn where she felt she had to hitch up the horse to the sleigh.

As she worked on hitching up the horse, I asked her where that part of her that had to smoke was. That part was there in the barn, dressed all in black, scowling and looking very unfriendly. I asked my client how she felt about inviting that part of her into the sleigh. There was strong resistance on her part, so we tapped on:

“Even though I don’t like that part of me and really don’t want her in the sleigh…”
“Even though I don’t think I can trust that part of me…”
“Even though this part of me does things that I don’t like…”

The client’s level of resistance to having that other part of her in the sleigh came down, to the point where she invited her in, but made her sit in the back seat, facing backwards. With a snap of the reins, the horse and sleigh were off through the snowy landscape.

I suggested that the client start a dialogue with that other part of her, and ask why she wanted to smoke. The client was resistant to doing that, because, in her words, “I can’t trust that part of me.” We tapped on her lack of trust until the other part of her was able to turn around and face forward in the sleigh. At this point my client asked her why she wanted to smoke, and the response was that “she needed her nerve pills”.

We spent some time tapping on stress and anxiety in the client’s life, and ways that she might cope with it, other than lighting up a cigarette. Now the smoking part of my client was smiling and conversing more easily.

We next did some tapping around the issue of the client not liking or trusting that part of herself:

“Even though I really don’t like that part of me that thinks it has to smoke…”
“Even though I feel like that part of me is weak…”
“Even though I feel like I can’t trust that part of me to not pick up a cigarette…”
“Even though that part of me can’t seem to get through a crisis without a cigarette…”

My client was becoming much more accepting of the smoking part of her, and when she next turned around in her seat to talk (remember, that part was in the back seat!) she found that her clothing has changed from black and witchy looking to normal clothing.

Next we worked on acceptance of the other part of her, tapping on:

“Even though the smoking part of me keeps lighting up cigarettes, I recognize that she really is trying to help me…”
“Even though I don’t like that smoking part of me, I know that she’s helping me to cope with stress by smoking…”

Once the client fully realized that the smoker really was just helping her to cope with her day to day stress, and that cigarettes were the only coping strategy that she knew, she moved on to feeling grateful for the help.

“Even though the smoking part of me tries hard to help me handle stress by smoking, and I don’t really want to smoke, I appreciate her for wanting to help me…”

Now the client was smiling at the other part of her, who proceeded to climb over into the front seat and sit down next to her. They happily rode through the snow together, enjoying the ride.

Back in the real world, the client and I did a bit of brainstorming about strategies that could help her to stop reaching for a cigarette. She agreed to keep her cigarettes in a place that was inconvenient, so that she couldn’t just grab them, and to always walk outside to smoke. When driving, she put her purse in the back seat, again so she couldn’t just grab a cigarette.

Two weeks later, when we had our next session, the client reported that she was down from a pack of cigarettes a day to 5 or 6 cigarettes. She continued to use the strategies that we had discussed, and to tap on a daily basis, and by our 3rd session, she was no longer smoking.

It has now been 3 months, and while I continue to work with this client on other issues, she has not started to smoke again, and finds that she can calm herself and cope much more easily when she taps daily.

Pat Burns
July 2009

Pat Burns is an EFT practitioner in Tallahassee, Florida. She works with issues such as stress, anger, and low self esteem, as well as with those touched by adoption or domestic violence. You can email Pat at Pat@Seeking-Serenity.com and can visit her website at www.Seeking-Serenity.com

photo: Henry Pilch Collection / Madison Historical Society, Madison NJ

I would like to share a beautiful Inner Theatre experience regarding a client suffering chronic anxiety, with a deep fear of hospitals and constant paranoia about having a serious illness.

She started by being aware that behind the door [to her sacred space] there had to be in an open space, so we tapped for that (a closed space would be claustrophobic) till she felt safe to go through – where she was by a lake in the mountains. She did not want to see or remember anything, so we tapped on honouring how painful it had been and how hard it would be to see what might appear, but allowing whatever needed to heal to come forward. Her mother appeared beside her.

With her mother she revisited the memory or being left alone in hospital. We then switched to the inner child work as this was all more feelings than seeing anything, just a strong sense of anger and outrage, and we let that child express herself until she was able to see that her mother had never abandoned her, she had come back, and the hospital had saved her life and perhaps they knew best, or even if not they were doing what they believed was best. She had been at deaths door so she felt gratitude to them and now felt a deep sense of connection. We finished with her being aware of this baby being held safely in her mothers arms. When she was ready to come away she felt a great sense of peace and safety, that she had what it took as an adult to be safe without her mother, knowing that her mother had indeed always been there, and she had been living with the feeling of a baby for most of her life. So we tapped for her regret for that. She felt a great sense of peace and calm and all the stomach pain she had (her original problem was gastroenteritis) had settled down.

I offered a visualisation in her stomach of an army (her nervous system). She indicated that they had been running around in mad confusion with no leader. Then they all laid down and refused to move. At the end they were getting up, relaxed, but altered, brushing themselves down, and she knew they were ready to listen to her higher self. She was her own leader and would respond appropriately when needed, but in the meantime her army was relaxed. We then had to tap for her fears that this was too good to be true, and I invited the part to come forward that was telling her this. This part was the one who had been going for weeks of CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) without relief and they told her not to come back as she was not doing it properly. We allowed her to express all her anger and upset, and she realised she had not failed, they had just not discerned the presence of this terrified, abandoned, angry baby. Now she had been healed, she checked back in and the baby was giggling, and laughing. She realised this process was indeed beneficial, and one she could continue to work with.

I am grateful for all the tools I have gained from you Betty and Jade.

Lots of love,
Gillian Wightman
East Neuk Therapies, Scotland
www.eastneuktherapies.co.uk