A traumatic experience as a child can be almost anything that effects us emotionally.  These events can be small events such as not feeling that mummy or daddy loves us because they didn’t buy me a new toy from the shop.  Naturally these experiences may not seem very eventful to the parents but depending on what is occurring in that moment this small event can impact emotionally and continue to effect us later in life.

Of course there are going to be larger events that with the right conditions will also continue to cause great emotional stress later in life.  These could be events such as the death of a family pet, or being involved in an accident or some other tragic event.

Whilst a lot of Traumatic events are singular in nature there are those events that continue over a period of time, such events can include war, civil unrest, abuse, sever sickness or illnesses.  These types of long term events can also lead to Post Traumatic Stress, simply due to their long term effects.

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Letting Go of Childhood Trauma

Previously the only way you might be able to let go of any form of traumatic event was to sit down with a psychologist and talk it over, however we know that this isn’t working.

With EFT we are able to release these events simply by utilizing the bodies meridian system, and following specific EFT Processes.

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A Childhood Event Released

The small story below is a small part of what a client was able to let go of.  This client came to me for low self esteem issues and over several sessions we covered various topics and various events in her life that all contributed to her low self esteem.

I have picked out this one instance from our sessions, not because it was anything huge but because I wanted to show how events can cause lasting effects.

Tapping with Paula

Whilst I was working with Paula we came to a point in one of our sessions where she wanted to deal with issues connected with a work colleague.  She felt that this person was not listening to her opinions, and would cut her off during conversations.

Before we started I asked her what level of emotional discomfort she was, Zero being NO level and Ten being the highest level.  Paula mentioned she was about an 8, so we progressed from here and did a couple of rounds of tapping.  At this point I noticed that she had started to move her head and shoulders about and looked a little uncomfortable.  I stopped and asked her if you was feeling anything anywhere in her body, she said she was and that her neck and shoulders were stiff and she was feeling a stabbing pain.

I then asked her what level of pain and stiffness, she told me that she was about a six.  As we were tapping on the issue we also aimed our tapping directly at the pain and stiffness in her neck and shoulders.  I then asked her what level she was and she said that it was still around a 5.  But then I asked her the right question, I asked her if there was another time in her life where her opinions didn’t matter.

She went silent and looked at me intensely and then said that her mother didn’t listen to her and that she didn’t feel loved by her mother.  I asked her if she could close her eyes and try to remember the earliest time when she felt this way, and if she could tell me what was happening.  Paula said that her mum and dad had split when she was around 3 years old, so her childhood was spent between both parents.

Paula said all I wanted to hear from my mum was “I love you”.  However every time I came back from a stay at my dads house the very first thing my mother said to me was “did you have a nice stay, and what did your dad say about me”.  I would try to tell her what we did during our stay but she wouldn’t listen, she would eventually but in and say “did your father talk about me”, she was more interested in knowing if dad had talked about her then listening to what I had to say.

The relationship with her work colleague and her mum were very similar, her work colleague also didn’t listen to what she had to say and butted in constantly.

Going back to her mother I asked her why she didn’t feel like here mother loved her, didn’t your mother ever say she loved you.  She said she did tell me she loved me, however she never said that when I came home from dad’s.  I was excited to see her but she always greeted me the same way and never once said I love you and I missed you.

We then did some tapping on her mother not saying she loved her and missed her and spend about 10 minutes going over this whole scene in her head from getting of the bus to walking into the house and listening to her mother.  After which all her stiffness in her neck and shoulders and the stabbing pain was gone, she felt much better about her mum.  We then checked back to see how she felt about her work colleague and she shrugged her shoulders and mentioned that this lady was just insecure and wanted to be heard.  Paula then said she didn’t feel any more negative emotions, I just feel like she is young and really has not found her way yet.

We can see how childhood trauma can have lasting effects in our lives even 30 years later.  For Paula the feelings she felt as a child because her mother had not responded to her in the way she was hoping by coming out and saying “I love you” when she came home, and the fact that her mum was more concerned with finding out if her dad had talked about her.

Whilst its true that this is not a huge tragic event, and you might say this is not an event that we could classify as childhood trauma.  However I want to say that when it comes to trauma any event no matter how small can seem hugely traumatic to a child.  Remember its not how we see the events today, its how we processed them as a child.  For Paula this stuck with her throughout her childhood and eventually surfaced as part of her ongoing issues with lack of self esteem.

Childhood Trauma’s

The reason I picked the above client to illustrate what could be called childhood trauma was to show you that any event or set of circumstances can become traumatic to a child, and that this can have long lasting effects well into our adult life.  I could have easily picked on a traumatic event such as the death of a family member to illustrate childhood trauma, but you might have said “well of course that would have been an obvious traumatic experience”

The key to remember is that we can use EFT to help clear childhood trauma’s.