The horrors of bushfires don’t go away when the last fire is out. Effects can live on for months or years in the minds and hearts – and bodies — of many people , whether their involvement was actual or as a witness. Traumatised survivors often try to suffer in silence as they struggle to get life back to some kind of normality, believing that memory ‘attacks’ and even depression are inevitable.
Emotional Freedom Techniques is an apparently simple acupressure technique that has measurably relieved traumatic war memories in close to 20,000 U.S. war veterans suffering Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. This has happened over 10 years – in 6 -10 sessions each, some conducted online or over the phone.
So this cutting-edge stress release technique can do the same for terrors of bushfire experience that won’t go away.
Fingertapping on specific energy points on a person’s head and upper body to feel better might sound strange. But according to Harvard Medical School research, tapping on acupuncture points neutralises distress by soothing a non-verbal part of the brain, the fear centre, the amygdala.
Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT tapping) is now claimed by some psychologists as ‘fourth wave’ psychotherapy: fewer sessions needed, results accelerated. University research suggests that EFT can be typically 3 to 6 times faster and more gentle than traditional therapeutic methods.
Certified EFT tapping practitioners are able to apply EFT’s unique trauma techniques to shocking and painful memories and feelings, to take away pain faster than you might expect. EFT is science-backed and typically lasting. EFT’s fans include scientists such as Dr. Bruce Lipton, Dr. Peta Stapleton, Dr. Deepak Chopra, Dr. Joseph Mercola.
2020’s devastating bushfire season affected three in four Australians in some way – adults and children:
- 20 million hectares were burned
- More than 3,000 homes were destroyed
- 33 people died
- Untold numbers of people were injured
- Untold numbers of domestic and farm animals and bush creatures were burned or later starved
Of those people affected by just this one bushfire season, many are recovering naturally, if painfully, over weeks or months.
But others suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress symptoms, which may not surface until weeks or months later. These people may or may not be receiving treatment for unresolved trauma. They may or may not realise that this suffering is not necessarily inevitable. Help is available.
Post-traumatic stress symptoms, or full-blown PTSD, can last for years, constantly undermining a person’s mental and physical health, relationships, work situations, social and financial situations, self-confidence, even the will to live.
And of course Australia has seen many, many bushfires…
What are trauma symptoms?
Post-traumatic symptoms often include flashbacks, where a memory of an event or an image or sound comes up spontaneously, and can feel as though it is happening in the present. Flashbacks can ‘attack’ at any time, often triggered by some harmless experience in the present.
Memories might be of the roar of the fire, or the roar of wind, or the crash of falling trees; or aspects of the fire itself, such as a crimson sky, towering flames, showers of embers, or ash, or blinding smoke; or visions of burned homes, blackened bushland, burned animals.
Distressing body sensations may return. Perhaps again it feels hard to breathe because of smoke that isn’t even there any more, a sense of intense heat may flash up, nausea may rise, even temporary paralysis.
Emotions can return, the terror, the sense of loss, of helplessness, ‘smoke brain’ blankness, perhaps the agony of having had to leave people or animals to the fire, or of losing your home and all that means.
Nightmares and terrible stories heard from others can also haunt a bushfire survivor.
What are common effects on daily life?
This huge disruption makes it harder to get on with normal living. Effects on daily life commonly include irritability, sleep problems, increased anxiety, difficulties with concentration and focus, hypervigilance.
Initially such effects may be more obvious to people around a sufferer than to him/herself.
EFT trauma treatment has neutralised such symptoms for countless stressed people around the world, in a minimal amount of time. The person remembers, but the traumatic impact vanishes, because of the simple neurological intervention.
Severe and ongoing trauma effects need help — and help can be as close as a certified EFT tapping practitioner trained in trauma treatment, to work with online or in person.
A bonus
A bonus is that tappers who experience relief this way are at the same time learning to use basic EFT for themselves for immediate daily stress reduction, to lower anxiety, including anxiety about the future.
Researchers are predicting that Australia are four times as likely to face another Black Summer this year. And in future years?
Perhaps trying a new-to-you proven system of stress release to feel better seems a small risk indeed – especially as tapping learned correctly is a skill to last you (and your loved ones, who you could help too) for the rest of your life.
‘How can I try EFT tapping with Annie?’
Browse her informative website www.eftemotionalfreedom.com
Email annie@eftemotionalhealing.com to:
- Book a free 15-minute consult on phone or Zoom
- Book a private online session
- Book a Freedom Breakthrough 5-session Package and save
- Order her introductory book ‘Tapping Your Troubles Away with EFT’ from amazon.com or from the author
- Attend an in-person weekend EFT INTERNATIONAL Certificate training course in Adelaide, South Australia. (EFT INTERNATIONAL is standardising EFT training around the world.)