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Sometimes tapping brings up very painful, buried emotions. We use tapping as a recovery tool and part of recovering from childhood trauma is feeling the emotions we buried as children unable to cope with them. I wish I could tell you that a few rounds of tapping take away all painful emotions. That is certainly not the case when you are dealing with traumatic childhood events.
“If the thing you’re trying to clear, usually an emotion, initially gets worse while tapping, you know you are on the right path. When you start opening up to your emotions, a lot of repressed material can start to surface. Try not to get discouraged; it’s your body’s way of telling you exactly how much emotional energy it’s been storing around a particular issue. If you keep tapping, you keep clearing it. The results you can achieve in those cases, whether in minutes, hours, or weeks, are truly life-changing.” Nick Ortner, The Tapping Solution: A Revolutionary System For Stress-Free Living
This morning, I did a tapping meditation on grief. knowing that I am grieving what was taken from me as a child. Instead of reducing my sadness, it brought up more. I didn’t fight it. I know that what comes up is what needs to come up. Fighting it by trying to numb my emotions only means that I will have more negative emotions to deal with down the road. I would rather just feel what comes up when it comes up, even if the negative emotion comes up while tapping.
What I did when the intense sadness came up is realize that I am mourning my childhood that was lost to sexual abuse. I am deep in a grieving process that began in March 2021 when intense sadness started surfacing. It is a process that I wish I could bypass. I won’t lie to you. I would rather not go through it but I have to move from surviving to thriving. I am learning how to feel negative emotions without using my ways to numb them and then let them go.
Grieving my lost childhood means dying to my false self, the self I created as a child for survival. As Richard Rohr says, “It all starts with dying to our own addictive, compulsive, and negative ways of processing reality.” The Apostle Paul, St. Paul to Catholics, talks about both dying to self and becoming a new creation:
“And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” Galatians 5:24 (ESV)
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” 2 Corinthians 5:17 (ESV)
Joy comes after grieving
There are benefits of going through the grieving process when you are a childhood trauma survivor. By feeling the sadness you buried as a child, you open yourself up to great joy. How can we feel positive emotions if we don’t allow ourselves to feel the negative ones? The answer is that we can’t. When you numb one emotion, it becomes a habit, and you numb every emotion.
Joy is your birthright as a child of God. And even while feeling intense sadness, there is joy, which strengthens you so you can keep going through the grieving process. As Nehemiah 8:10 says, “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” (ESV) Let yourself feel sadness as it comes. Clutch on to the joy and know that there is an end to the grieving process. Write down the following Bible verse and memorize it: “Weeping may last for the night, but a shout of joy comes in the morning.” Psalm 30:5 (NASB)
Write that verse in your heart. Let it sink in. Meditate on it. Say it often to yourself. It will give you hope that one day the grief will be behind you. And hope is like a lifeboat. It will get you through until you feel every bit of the sadness you buried within.
“On the other side of grief, we can discover the joy and gratitude that come with new and renewed zest–for every loss creates a space and in that space, something new and wonderful may happen.” Alla Renee Bozarth
Resources
Immortal Diamond by Richard Rohr
A Journey Through Grief by Alla Renee Bozarth
The Tapping Solution: A Revolutionary System For Stress-Free Living by Nick Ortner
Image by Avi Chomotovski from Pixabay