The Veterans’ Retreat

By Carol Look, EFT Master

What I knew was that I was afraid to work with the veterans’ war traumas.  I wasn’t sure I was “up” for being immersed in so much trauma for an entire week.

What I didn’t know was that my life would change forever…

There we were in this bland, nondescript looking hotel room – Gary Craig, EFT practitioners, an observing psychiatrist and Fort Hood Psychologist and the veterans.  The helpers on one side, the veterans staring blankly back at us from their chairs on the other side of the room.  Ever enthusiastic Gary told the fearful, stiff, skeptical, angry, and mistrustful veterans that we were going to “tap” their PTSD and horrific memories away for them, or at least we would try…

Why would they trust us? Why would they believe anything would work on them?  They had tried everything before, with little relief.  But we were determined, armed with a technique we knew had successfully resolved childhood and adult traumas in hundreds of other cases.  We had also all watched Gary’s original “6 Days at the VA” videos, and knew what could be done.  The veterans’ eyes and faces said it all:

Who are you to think you can “help” us with our PTSD symptoms that had virtually ruined our lives? Nothing else had worked for decades…

I had been tapping with clients and in workshops for more than a decade with extraordinary results, but noticed some slight skepticism — would ingrained PTSD symptoms in veterans from Vietnam, the Gulf War, and Iraq prove too intractable for EFT this time?  I was concerned that we had aimed too high, gotten their hopes up, collected a group of such profoundly psychologically damaged individuals, that maybe we needed a month, not 5 short days.

And then I fell in love… with each and every one of these people who had put their lives on the line day in and day out.  I worked with Art, a Vietnam veteran who was deeply medicated and in physical and emotional pain so profound his wife Carole admitted she wanted and needed her husband to be sedated in order to deal with him.  She herself suffered from debilitating migraines and had experienced profound loss and trauma during her childhood as well as her marriage.  Art had come for her, assuming EFT would be useless for him.

Then there was Carlin, only 26 years old with two tours of duty already under his belt, who was actively trying to drink himself to death every night  since he had returned home 2 years earlier.  Carlin was joined by his mother who had suffered profound anxiety while her son was in danger on a daily basis, and never recovered from her “waiting” for something bad to happen.

There was Andy, who had been in trouble with guns and admitted to paranoia and isolation, and Bob who was accustomed to spending long periods of time in psychiatric facilities and told us he had suicidal thoughts no less than 10 times a day.

We starting working with the veterans at 8:30 the first morning, hearing their stories and tapping and tapping and tapping…

I no longer cared about the results, I just cared about them… And of course, the results started pouring in.

On countless occasions I was devastated by the stories the veterans told, certain no human being should have to live through, much less remember , these horrific stories… no wonder some of them were trying to drink themselves  to death.  No wonder several of them wanted to commit suicide just so the thoughts and memories would end.

We worked day in and day out on every symptom of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder they brought up – the memories, the flashbacks, the nightmares, the guilt, the hypervigilence, the insomnia, the shaking, the self-loathing and all the inhumane details of death and violence.  And hour by hour, the veterans reported they felt better, looked more relaxed, had periods without intrusive thoughts, no longer felt haunted by their war memories.  They slept during the retreat, Carlin didn’t drink or smoke, Andy smiled and Bob starting cracking jokes in the common room.

And I tapped on myself for the entire five days. I tapped on the gruesome stories they told, the visual pictures I now had, the feelings of helplessness and powerlessness I felt.  I cried with them, I laughed with them, I experienced new depths of respect for their resilience and will to live after all they had been through.  And above all, my capacity for compassion was stretched to levels I didn’t know were possible.

Five days later, we didn’t recognize the group of veterans sitting with us in the room.  We had tapped incessantly in individual sessions and in borrowing benefits groups on fears, memories, symptoms and behaviors, and made extraordinary if not shocking progress and changed the lives of these people who were ready to give up.

At the end of the retreat, I said to Gary Craig, “This week was unbelievably life-changing…” Gary said, “I know, can you believe it, did you see how many of these veterans were completely different emotionally and physically?” To which I responded,,, “No, Gary, I meant it was life-changing for me…”

I will never be the same emotionally, psychologically or spiritually, and for that , I am eternally grateful to Art, Carole, Carlin, Andy, Bob, Jesse and the others for letting me into their lives and having the courage to reveal their devastating stories so we could all heal together.

Operation: Emotional Freedom is a triumphant documentary that will change how you view humans and the art of healing for the rest of your life.

Carol Look, EFT Master