Look! I’m on an advert for something awesome. I didn’t even photoshop it and make it up at all. I know, I know hard to believe. Find out all about this incredible type trauma therapy at Havening.org (or just read the bit I’ve written below the picture).
The first thing you should probably know is that I had to give up my job as a playground supervisor for this. I didn’t want to leave because I loved being a playground assistant. The problem was just that the deputy head didn’t understand that I subsidised my two hours working in school with a second income (known as my real job) as a hypnotherapist. So, when she refused to give me those 2 hours off to go to New York for a week and get certified in Dr. Ruden’s ground breaking Havening technique, I faced a difficult decision. Should I stick with my job working for £14 a week in a rainy playground? Or should I fly to New York in a heat wave, spend a few days at an inspiring conference on trauma, certify in the latest techniques, meet the inventors, their families, have a few days off browsing and boozing in the big apple with old friends? It was a tough choice, worsened by the fact that the deputy head had just offered me a third lunchtime hour each week, yes, she explained if I played my cards right, £21 a week was waiting right there for me.
Let’s talk about Havening. Ok, it’s really simple (no surprises there if I’m teaching it right?). So what you do is basically rub someone’s arms and their trauma goes away and doesn’t come back. I know, sounds dumb doesn’t it? There is actually a bit of science behind it, wanna know?
So, if you think of trauma being a red line memory at the back of the brain. It sits there sometimes quietly dormant, but doesn’t go away. Sometimes, it sits there noisily interrupting everything in your life, popping up in your thoughts all day despite your best efforts to subdue it. The idea is that this trauma is rooted in the amygdala area of the brain. To undo it, you flood the amygdala with your body’s own natural serotonin – by rubbing your face, arms or hands. It’s very simple. Sometimes, people also need to do other things such as hum tunes and count. This is done to distract the more conscious, working memory and to prevent people from getting too overwhelmed if their remembering the bad ole times.
Some of the problems I have treated with a couple of sessions of Havening in my clinic include; rape, assault, shock of discovering a dead body, bullying, a variety of phobias – (dental, height, spiders, jealousy). Blushing, IBS, child abuse – sexual and emotional, drinking, sex addiction, coping with suicide, bereavement, trauma from giving birth, facial tics, physical pain, upsetting childhood memories, abandonment. The list could actually go on and on, I’ve worked with so many different problems with this on adults and children.
The idea is that if someone comes with a range of behaviour that they’re unhappy with – be it feeling low, eating too much, remembering very sad times etc, Instead of treating those things as the presenting problem, you see those things are symptoms of a more fundamental problem (underlying trauma). The skill is in finding the root cause of the problem, which can sometimes be something quite innocuous to us as adults, but may have felt traumatic in our childhoods. If that root cause is treated, with Havening, then the symptoms cease and the person returns to a “normal” sense of well being.
You can do it on yourself too. I don’t recommend you do big traumas without a trained person to help guide and protect you. Sometimes the memories can feel incredibly powerful and overwhelming. But if you feel a bit stressed, then try this. Just rub your arms from your shoulders to your elbows saying “calm, calm, calm” in a gentle voice, but out loud, as you do it.
Ok, gotta go, my kids, I mean My Public, await.
H x