By Glenda Rueger Payne, EFT, Reiki, and Core Shamanism Practitioner
This was my second session with Mary (not her real name). A newlywed, she was searching to find more sexual spark in her new marriage. We began examining the blocks to sharing sexual intimacy with her husband.
She described a memory of being molested by her mom’s boyfriend just as her sexuality was awakening. Since that event, she has been attracted to men who don’t respect her boundaries. I asked her to rate her Validity of Cognition (VOC) on the statement, “I have the right to say no.” It was only 50% true for her.
I then asked her to put herself into a memory of saying no to a man and not feeling heard. I asked her to rate her emotional charge according to the SUD scale of 0 to 10 when she remembered the event. She said she felt level 8 frustration. After tapping on the frustration, she found guilt at level 10 whenever she says no.
Investigating the guilt further, we uncovered that she didn’t feel safe saying no. I had her search for a childhood event representing the first time she felt it was unsafe to say no. We found one from age 2 when she witnessed her dad dragging her mom by the hair into the bedroom.
We used gentle techniques until she was able to handle the memory with a lower SUD rating. We used the Movie Technique, reducing each spike to 0 as she ran that scene through. I then had her call in everyone she could think of, either living or dead, who made her feel safe. I asked her to take her adult self along with her safety guard, and introduce herself to her 2-year-old self. I asked her to pull her little self out of that situation and into safety.
Upon completing that guided visualization, her VOC on the statement ”I can say no” increased to 90%. Exploring further, she found “seething anger” at a SUD level of 7. Subsequent emotions that surfaced after each round were “When my husband wants something from me, I feel dirty and shut down.”
We tapped on those for two rounds each. Then she was able to access more easily and comfortably the molestation event that happened when she was 15. We used the Movie Technique on that event as well. I made sure to have her focus on each aspect: noises in the room, the way he smelled, the color and feel of the couch they were sitting on.
At each emotional spike, she was able to access easily exactly how she was feeling in that moment. After tapping each of those spikes down, I had her adult self and her safety entourage go get her 15-year-old self and give her permission to say no and to defend herself. Lots of tears welled up just knowing she had permission to say no. She felt a huge emotional release and gave her 15-year-old permission to smack her attacker with a bat. Her SUD level had reduced to 2 when we ran out of time, so we did a sneak away and set up another appointment.
