Dear Friend, Thank you for downloading this e-book. You will find delights here for your happiness and health. You will find easy ways to heal negative beliefs, allergic reactions and the stress from any trauma -- no matter how big it was, how long ago it was or how recently it was. You can heal a heartbreak or an allergy to potatoes. This book was written in 1996. A lot of new ways to use TAT have become clear to me since then. A couple of years ago, I had breast cancer. TAT helped me heal the emotional roots of it and helped me get through the treatments. I learned a lot and put what I learned in a video or DVD for you. It's called Healing the Emotional Aspects of Cancer, but the information in it is good for healing the emotional aspects that accompany any type of physical illness. I also highly recommend that you get the TAT Workshop 2000. There are approaches to using TAT and explanations of how it works and how to use it that you won't find in any of the other materials. If you use TAT as part of your practice, this is really a must-have. A complete review of all the subjects covered in the TAT Workshop 2000 follows this letter. I think you will be excited to see what you can learn. You will find information in this book about energy field testing. I don't use energy field testing anymore as part of TAT. I recommend that you just do all the Steps of TAT for whatever you want to heal. To order these materials now visit the online shop at http://www.unstressforsuccess.com My dear friend, every TAT item is full of fun and laughter. They are full of my deepest, heart-felt wishes for your happiness. I hope you enjoy them all. With TAT, healing is fun. With love, Tapas
To stay updated on the latest TAT news, events, and information please visit www.unstressforsuccess.com to sign up for our newsletter.
TAT 2000 Workshop Video Course Outline TAPE 1 Tape # Location 1 0:00:00 Introduction to TAT
TAPE 2 Tape # Location 2 0:00:00 Muscle/energy field testing
1 0:11:43 TAT Workshop begins
2 0:14:23 Working with trauma
1 0:22:00 How TAT was developed
2 0:35:43 Extreme Trauma - Ritual abuse and rape
1 0:40:00 Explanation of the 7 Steps and how they evolved
2 0:48:17 Entity attachments
1 0:58:12 The perspective from Chinese Medicine 1 1:08:48 Why this pose has any meaning 1 1:28:07 How TAT works
2 1:08:08 Chaos theory and TAT 2 1:13:12 Taking the other point of view 2 1:19:00 Demo– multiple traumatic surgeries
1 1:51:30 The first TAT experience 1 2:17:14 Demo – trauma from a difficult divorce
TAPE 3 Tape # Location 3 0:00:00 Allergies
TAPE 4 Tape # Location 4 0:00:00 Review and additional information 4 0:02:35 Physical pain
3 02:28:14 Cravings and addictions
4 0:03:30 Eyes/Vision
3 0:34:54 Working with children
4 0:05:45 Hospice
3 0:37:44 Working with “child parts”
4 0:06:05 Exam stress 4 0:07:12 Spiritual growth
3 0:47:27 Working with children who have a long history of trauma
4 0:08:08 Inspiration for Artists
3 0:54:15 Things to work on with kids
4 0:14:32 Healing fears, phobias and inner darkness
3 0:57:50 Surrogate TAT
4 0:18:34 Working with animals
3 1:01:54 Transplants and surgery
4 0:25:58 Negative beliefs
3 1:05:59 The TAT Practitioner § Things to do § Working with the “stuff” § Basics of note taking
4 0:2:31 Daily stress and obsessive thoughts
3 1:21:15 Your Relationship with money
4 0:39:31 Dealing with resistance
3 1:35:51 Demo on money issue
4 0:35:28 When the first step of TAT is too uncomfortable
4 0:50:02 Stories from practitioners 4 1:07:38 A few last things
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You Can Heal Now The Tapas Acupressure Technique (TAT) Workbook
by Tapas Fleming, L.Ac.
iii
DISCLAIMER The information contained in this book is for educational purposes only and represents my personal experience and opinion. I have never seen any adverse side effects from TAT, but I cannot guarantee that there will be no adverse effects. While you are free to use and share the material presented here, I deny any liability caused by third party miscommunication or third parties in any way incorrectly conveying or misusing TAT. Before following or adopting any treatment or any opinion expressed in this book, you agree that you will first discuss the treatment or opinion with an appropriate physician or therapist, and that you will follow all directions precisely and heed all warnings and cautionary information. If your physician or therapist advises you against using TAT, you may receive a 100% refund by sending this book back to TAT International. By keeping this book, you accept full responsibility for the application of TAT. Tapas Fleming September 30, 1998
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thank you to my Mom and Dad who raised me and love me and believed that I could do anything I wanted. Thanks to my husband Chris for helping me with the final details and the actual birth of the book. Thanks to Suta Cahill for editing and letting me know it was really possible to make a book. Thank you to Master Ni for his encouragement. Thank you, Gary and Kamala Dietz, for spending countless hours listening to me and playing with this new healing stuff with me and for giving me your feedback and encouragement. Thank you to Suzan Dalle who introduced me to the importance of the eyes and vision. Thank you to Dr. Devi Nambudripad for her pioneering allergy work. Thank you to my friends, family and teachers who listened to me, loved me, and cheered me on. Thank you to all my patients. Without you, none of this would have happened. First Printing March 1996 Second Edition, November 1998 Copyright 1996 by Tapas Fleming, L.Ac. All rights reserved.
ISBN: iv
CONTENTS Introduction
1 Part One
What is a Trauma and What Does TAT Do? 3 Cellular Memory 5 Learning How to Talk to Your Body 7 The Importance of Thoughts and Intentions 9 How to Do TAT For Traumas 10 Additional Steps of TAT That May Be Necessary The Great File System 17
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Part Two Allergies 19 Animals 20 The Chaos Principle 22 Chemical Exposure 23 Children and TAT 24 Clearing Yourself of the Day 28 Considerations, or A Belt That’s Too Tight 29 Discovering Your Hidden Worst Qualities 31 Dream Interpretations 32 Families 33 Fears and Phobias 34 Helping an Attached Being Move On 35 Hospitalization and Other Medical Interventions 36 A Long Period of an On-Going Traumatic Life 37 Money and Success 38 Prejudice and Inherited Experiences, Stuck Thoughts and Negative Beliefs Rape and Sexual Abuse 41 Recovering Parts of Yourself That Died 43 Stories 44 Surrogate Treatment 50 Veterans and TAT 51
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Conclusion What’s At the Bottom of This? 53 A Review of the Four Steps of TAT Testimonials 55
54 Appendix
Protocols in Script Form for Professionals A Few Words About Myself For Further Information on TAT Recommended Reading v
INTRODUCTION
Both in my own life and as a practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine, I often wondered how to get myself or a patient out from under the negative influence of past events. It seemed that however much therapy or meditation or other forms of healing one had undertaken, certain issues never seemed to get resolved once and for all. I cannot claim to have painstakingly arrived at a solution to this dilemma. I was specializing in allergy work at the time, using a combination of acupressure and acupuncture, based on the methods of Dr. Devi Nambudripad of Buena Park, California. Tapas Acupressure Technique (TAT) came to me after taking a nap in my office one day. I woke up with the thought of a particular acupuncture point, Urinary Bladder 1 (UB1), and how it could be used to heal a person's whole system. This point is called "Eyes Bright" in Chinese. I immediately began incorporating UB1 in my treatment of allergy patients with great success. After several months, a patient told me that his T'ai Chi master had told him to use that point in conjunction with one other for headaches and other problems. Although my insight was based on my training and experience as an acupuncturist, this simple confirmation of my own experience meant a great deal to me. There are many introductory books available on the subject of Traditional Chinese Medicine and energy medicine. Rather than make an extensive presentation of that body of knowledge here, I would rather share my understanding of traumas, traumatic stress, fears, allergies, fixed beliefs and attitudes, and teach you how to do TAT. A short bibliography is included at the end of this booklet if you would like to read more about Traditional Chinese Medicine and related subjects. What I have discovered from using TAT goes beyond what I learned as part of my professional training. I discovered in my acupuncture practice that our bodies, not just our minds, have memories. Not just our memories, but the memories of our ancestors. If we stop and think about it for a minute, it becomes obvious that our bodies are the products of our parents' bodies. We look like our parents, and often have similar health problems as our parents. To take it many steps further, our parents' bodies came from their parents' bodies, whose bodies came from their parents' bodies, and so on for a long, long way back. The color of your hair and your eyes, the shape of your hands and feet, your bone structure, and some of your health problems are the legacy of both your recent and ancient ancestors. Just as car manufacturers base new models on a long line of previous designs rather than reinvent the wheel, you are the latest model of your ancestry. Again, I did not arrive at this conclusion through study and thought, but through experience in my clinical practice. For example, as I was working on a patient who was allergic to dust I "saw," through subtle vision, a farmer pushing a plow and breathing in copious amounts of dirt. Big clouds of dust rose all around him as he followed his plow.
Without mentioning the complete image I was seeing, I just talked to the patient about the dust of the land where she was living, and in her conversation to me she revealed that she came from a long line of German farmers. What was coming to me from her body was what I would call the living history of her body. This living history could also be called cellular memory. When someone experiences a trauma, that memory seems to be stored and passed down at a cellular level. I was inspired to explore cellular memory more deeply as I worked with another patient who, by her early 30's, had been in nine car crashes that she hadn't caused. She had suffered a concussion and other major traumas to the head, and was suffering from constant neck and headaches with a couple of migraines a week at the time I saw her. The story I "saw" as I was working with her was about a young boy of eight or so who was in a mountain cabin with his father when a crazy mountain man came in and killed his father by smashing his head open. When I mentioned this image, my patient was silent for a few moments and then told me that her father had fallen, smashed his head and died, and she was there when it happened. When she told her sisters about this, they told her that they knew of two other men in the family who had been murdered by blows to the head. They also talked about the fact that their children had suffered an inordinate amount of concussions and blows to the head in the course of growing up. I began to realize that along with TAT I had been given the gift of seeing the cellular history of a human body and that TAT was a way to heal traumas that had been passed down from generation to generation. What I have learned from working with many friends and patients over the last several years is that when the stories of these cells are heard, the traumas they have been holding are released and the cells are able to rejoin the organism they are part of and get on with the business of living. A person doesn't have to have a conscious or psychic vision of what happened in order to use TAT. The TAT pose, along with your focus on the trauma, creates a connection between the cells' memory and your function of vision. When you "re-view" the trauma, it becomes physically, mentally and emotionally integrated within moments. Before explaining the TAT method, I would first like to give you a general overview of Traditional Chinese Medicine, an explanation of the nature of traumas, what traumatic stress is and how it can be quickly and easily released.
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WHAT IS A TRAUMA AND WHAT DOES TAT DO?
Thoughts are real things with real energy. When they attempt to deny reality, they create negative energy patterns that impact your life and your health by causing your energy to stagnate. From the view of Traditional Chinese Medicine, a blockage of energy creates disease. If you think of the blockage as a boulder in your body's life flow, you can easily imagine that the life energy that would naturally be flowing along certain streams is going to be diverted. On the upstream side of the boulder, there will be dammed up energy, on the downstream side you will find a lack of energy. This creates emotional, mental and physical disharmony which is known as a yin-yang imbalance. On one side is too much, on the other is not enough. The goal of Traditional Chinese Medicine is to achieve balance. A trauma occurs when life becomes unbearable and you tell it "No." Variations on this theme include: "Hold it right there;" "This is too much for me;" "If this happens, I won't survive." This is not necessarily a conscious choice, but it is a natural one at that moment, and it sets up patterns of mental, emotional, and physical behavior. Traumatic stress is the stress to your system of continually trying to hold off the experience of a trauma. The event really did happen. Traumatic stress ends when the trauma is no longer resisted. Traditional Chinese Medicine is based on the ancient concepts of Taoism. One of the primary concepts that will help you understand how TAT works is yin and yang. These represent any two opposites. Yang symbolizes light, yin darkness. Yang is active, yin is solid or static. In the case of trauma, one side is you, the other is your trauma. If you are in a situation of holding the trauma away from yourself, you have stagnation in the flow of life. Yin and yang are meant to alternate in a dynamic flow of natural movement and change. If you consider yourself as the "victim" of a trauma and the other(s) involved in the trauma as "perpetrator,” and that this is an absolute, then no movement can occur. Within yin, there is a bit of yang. Within yang, there is a bit of yin. Yin and yang together symbolize the moving, dynamic whole. You are both yin and yang, not just one or the other. When you deny the existence of any part of your Self, then life comes to a standstill. You become cut off from life and from yourself. Your only company is your trauma. You have the power to change your relationship with a trauma by directly engaging it through TAT. TAT is a way of saying to your whole body-mind: "Have another look at this." It is an opportunity to change, based on taking a new look rather than continuing to look away. By taking another look, within the context of TAT's direction of the body's
energy flow, the energetic charge that is still being held is removed from the past event and the event can be integrated into your whole system. There are many ways to describe the results of TAT. Integration, harmony, peace, unity, connectedness, relatedness, oneness and wholeness are a few of the terms people have used to express how they feel after doing TAT. I would say that TAT reunites a person with parts of himself or herself that have been locked away or frozen in time. In the following section on cellular memory, we will look at that concept in greater depth. TAT gives you the opportunity to connect with the great flow of life once again. The experience you have doing TAT is of wholeness. This means that you and the trauma, or the victim and the perpetrator, are both experienced as a whole. There is a sense of oneness rather than separation. When you are no longer in a condition of isolation, your traumatic stress ends and there is peace. This can also be called the harmonization of yin and yang, which in Taoism is represented by the T'ai Chi symbol.
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CELLULAR MEMORY
When a trauma happens, and a person's response is, "That's too much for me," the implication of that inner statement is, "I'll get to it later, file it away, and face it when I can, when it isn't life-threatening." But we seem to put off forever something that we don't want to deal with now, and the trauma that we put off stays with us. We can put time and distance between us and the event, but the experience is still on hold. The illusion is created in our minds that it is in the "past" and that we are now in control of our lives. However, the more we keep a trauma locked in the so-called past, the more strongly we are connected to it, and the more traumas we hold off like this, the more narrow and limited our lives become. TAT dissolves the separation between "that" and "me." The energy that holds it off dissolves and you are left with the memory, but no distortion or "boulder" in your energy field. When I work with people, I have a quiet conversation with the cells of their bodies and the memories that are stored there. As I mentioned earlier, a body does not suddenly come into being out of pure nothing. It has parents and grandparents and great-grandparents, and back and back and back for millions of years. If the chain had ever been broken, that body would not be here today. These conversations happen as the results of my willingness to simply hear the history of the body in front of me. In my work as an acupuncturist, I see the body as an energy field that can become cluttered with pockets of stagnant energy or be open and allow its own and other energies to flow freely through it. The cells in which old traumas are stored operate in a survival pattern that is based on something that is no longer real or current for anyone but the person maintaining the pattern. When an unresolved trauma impedes the flow of energy in the body, that energy usually becomes stored or stuck in a particular part of the body, often the organ that is most directly associated with the trauma. It might be the lungs' memory of coal dust, the heart's memory of a deep betrayal, the stomach's memory of poisoned food, the back of the head's memory of a crushing blow, and so forth. When TAT is applied to a cellular memory, it does not erase the memory, it removes the traumatic stress and allows the person to deal with life as it is now. For instance, the lungs of a person with environmental illness may be remembering a time when breathing the dust of dry fields or coal mines made the ancestor's body very ill. When the old traumatic stress is gone, the cells of the lungs may find they are perfectly capable of dealing with current stresses.
If this seems strange at first, I recommend that you imagine that you have given the cells of your body your phone number and permission to call you up. When they call, you answer the phone and say "Hello" with the same openness you would have when you pick up the actual telephone. You don't know who is calling or what they have to tell you, but you pick up the phone and are open to the unknown. In that condition of openness to your cells, you may find yourself "seeing" and "hearing" information from your cells.
LEARNING HOW TO TALK TO YOUR BODY
In order to do TAT, it is necessary to be open to communicating with your body on its terms and to respect what it tells you. Before doing the first step of TAT, therefore, you need to ask the living assembly of cells that collectively function as your body if they are willing to work on the subject or situation you have chosen to work on. This is sometimes called muscle testing or applied kinesiology, but whatever you call it, the principle is the same: you find a simple way in which to become aware of and communicate with the physical organism you call your body. When I do muscle testing, I have a sense of listening to silent voices that usually communicate only through pain or discomfort of one kind or another. To me these are the voices of the body's cells, and I find them not only willing but happy to be asked about their history and to have an opportunity to answer and to heal. This approach may be new to you, but by being open to experiencing a subtle level of reality that may not yet be familiar to you, you allow a wealth of information to be communicated to you, not from far away realms or spirit guides or from a guru or a fortune teller, but from the physical sphere of your own being. The information you receive is first hand. There is no intermediary, and you don't need any tools other than your own two hands. One of the things I like best about muscle testing is that the variations are almost limitless. By that I mean, while there are some standard methods, you can invent any method that works for you. Here are two methods that I like to use. What you are about to do is set up a clear system of communication with your body by asking it to respond in a specific way to a yes/no question.
Palm to Palm: Place your palms together and rub them back and forth a couple of times. Then, ask your body to use a smooth feeling to mean yes. Test it out and see how it feels. Then ask your body to use a sticky feeling to mean no, and test it out to see how it feels. Don't try to make a smooth or sticky feeling happen, just rub your palms together and let your body respond to what you've asked it to do. Let it happen by itself.
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Thumb and Index Finger: Rub the fleshy part of your thumb and your index finger lightly back and forth against each other and just observe how they feel. Now, ask your body to use a smooth feeling to mean “Yes" or "I don't have a problem with that," and then say or think, "Body, would you please show me a yes?" Now rub your thumb and index finger back and forth to see how a “Yes" feels. Next, ask your body to use a sticky feeling to mean “No" or "I have a problem with that" and then say or think, "Body, would you please show me a no?" Now, rub your thumb and index finger back and forth to see how a “No" feels. You can set the system up either way you want to, with smooth meaning “No” and sticky meaning “Yes.” Smooth does not inherently mean “Yes" and sticky does not inherently mean “No." However you set it up is how your body will respond. All you are doing is saying, "Body, I want you to do this to mean yes, and I want you to do that to mean no." I'm reasonably certain that your body will say, "Okay, I can do that." If these methods don't work for you, or if you are concerned that you're making it happen, or if you're concerned that these techniques conflict with your religious beliefs, you can put your healing in the hands of God or the Holy Spirit or simply the divine wisdom of the universe. Whatever you call it, it is that which knows what is truly best for you. Entreat that divine entity, "If it is time for this problem to be healed, then may it happen now. If it is not the time for it to be healed, may it happen when the time is right." Then you can rest in the knowledge that this either is or is not the right time for that particular issue to be healed. Whether you use muscle testing or whether you put your healing in the hands of the divine, be sure to ask whether or not each step of TAT is necessary when you are working on a problem.
THE IMPORTANCE OF THOUGHTS AND INTENTIONS
Do not underestimate the power of thoughts and intentions. Your thoughts and intentions are real things with real energy. They are important and valuable tools that help you in your healing process. They are not invalid just because we can't see them, weigh them and measure them. For instance, it is the original thought of "No!" that holds a trauma at bay and continues to keep it at an uneasy distance from you. When you change that thought to "OK, you happened and you do exist" then there is the possibility for a new relationship between you and that person or event to exist. It is like the common experience of "Gee, you were always there, but I never really noticed you!" The simple act of putting your attention on that person (or trauma) is a statement on your part, just in your thoughts and intention, of granting existence to it. It’s as if you were a great king or queen granting someone an audience with you. You can go on ignoring a trauma for as long as you wish, but once you consent to engage with it directly, you take the first step in healing your relationship with it. Ever get hurt by someone and go off in a huff? As long as you maintain your huff, the relationship can't change. Once you engage directly with someone or something again, there is a chance for healing the relationship. You have the power to change your relationship with a past trauma by engaging with it directly. It is your thought about it, your intention with regard to it that holds the key to healing the past. Once you put your attention directly on your trauma, TAT changes your relationship between you and the trauma to a peaceful and harmonious one in seconds.
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HOW TO DO TAT FOR TRAUMAS Preparatory Steps: 1.
Pick a trauma to work on. Using your favorite biofeedback technique, ask if you can work on this trauma now. If you can, go on.
2.
Place your hands in the TAT pose illustrated below, and hold the thought, "I deserve to live and I accept love, help and healing," for 1 minute or until you feel a sense of release or relaxation. Do not hold the pose in the 1st step for longer than 4 minutes. In general, this statement only needs to be done once, the first time you do TAT.
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THE FOUR STEPS OF TAT Step One -
A]
Put Your Hands in the TAT Pose Put Your Attention on the Problem or Negative Statement Hold the TAT Pose for up to 4 Minutes or Until a Change Occurs
With one hand, lightly touch the tip of the thumb to the area inch above the inner corner of your eye. With the fourth finger (ring finger) of the same hand, lightly touch the tip of the finger to the area inch above the inner corner of the other eye. Both finger tips are now on either side of the bridge of your nose. Place the tip of the middle finger midway between, and about ½ inch above, eyebrow level. You now have all three finger tips lightly touching the three points. Now place your other hand on the back of your head, with the palm touching the head so that the thumb is resting at the base of the skull just above the neckline. The palm is holding the base of the skull, with the little finger approximately at the occipital ridge. Both hands should be resting gently. No pressure is necessary.
B]
Put your attention on the problem as you originally experienced it, and mentally express that experience to yourself in a verbal form. For instance, if you nearly drowned or were mugged, you might use a statement like “This is the end!” to express what you thought and felt at the moment that experience happened to you. Or if you had an abusive parent or spouse, you might use a statement like, “I’m terrified of _______.” There’s no right or wrong way to express the experience. Whatever words naturally come to mind when you think of the experience or person are the right words for you.
C]
While putting your attention on the thought as it is most naturally expressed for you, hold the TAT pose until you notice a change or until four minutes have passed, whichever occurs first. People notice different changes while doing TAT. Common changes include a sigh, a sense of relaxation, not being able to easily focus on the situation any more, the hands automatically coming out of the TAT position, subtle energy movements in the body, or simply a sense of peace. Some people notice no change at all.
Put Your Attention on the Issue Again: Notice whether any aspect of the issue or incident remains stuck. It may be a physical sensation, an emotion, a thought, a piece of the memory, a voice, or a combination of things. It will be unique for each person. If anything remains, choose whatever stands out most, and repeat A through C of Step One until there is nothing left when you put your attention on it.
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Step Two - Hold a Positive Thought in Relation to the Item or Issue Because most difficulties or traumas are focused around denial, they usually involve a negative feeling or idea. Once that negativity has been dissolved by doing Step One of TAT, it can sometimes be helpful to do TAT while holding a positive thought about the situation. For instance, if you had worked on a feeling such as "My mother never loved me," it could help complete the healing process to do TAT with the thought, "My mother has always loved me." First, ask your body if it would be useful to do this step. If the answer is "No," then skip this step. If your body says yes, then put your attention on a positive statement such as, "This (problem or negative statement) happened, and it can heal now," or “___________ happened, and I am OK,” or “________ (person’s name) did not harm me,” or “I am not afraid of __________.” If you have a connection with God or a Higher Power, you can put your attention on a statement such as, "God, thank you for healing (the problem or negative statement)." You can also visualize or think about the problem being cleared up and healing in whatever way you like. In either case, follow the same instructions for Step One and do TAT for about one minute or until you feel a shift. Step Three - Healing the Origins of the Problem Origins can include anything that happened to you at any time, anywhere, that brought about the existence of your problem: events from childhood, things that happened to other people that touched you, dreams, memories, unconscious impressions, cellular memories...whatever happened to you. You don't need to be aware of what the origins are, you can simply have the intent to heal them. First, ask your body if it would useful to clear the origins of this problem. If the answer is "No," then skip this step. If the answer is "Yes," then put your attention on the statement, "All of the origins of this problem are healing now," and do TAT for about a minute or until you feel it is done. If you prefer, you can put your attention on a statement such as, "God (or Higher Power), thank you for healing all of the origins of this problem." You can also visualize or think about the origins being cleared up and healing in whatever way you like. In either case, follow the same instructions for Step One and do TAT for about one minute or until you feel a shift.
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Step Four - Healing the Resonances or Storage Space Traumas and negative thoughts can become stuck or lodged in different parts of the body or in an external location such as a house or a city or country where the event happened, or even in a group or race of people. These resonances or storage spaces are different for each person, and each trauma may be stored differently. You don't need to be aware of the exact places where the problem has been stored, you simply need to be open to their being healed while you do TAT. Begin by asking your body if it would be useful to do this step. If the answer is "No," then skip this step. If it is "Yes," then put your attention on a statement such as, "Wherever this has been a problem in my body, mind and life is healing now," and do TAT for about a minute or until you feel it is done. You can also use a statement such as, "God (Higher Power), thank you for healing all the places (this problem/negative statement) has existed.” You can also visualize or think about the resonances or storage space being cleared up and healing in whatever way you like. In either case, follow the same instructions for Step One and do TAT for about one minute or until you feel a shift. Drink a glass of water! And drink six or so glasses of water the next day. You may also want to rest after doing TAT. A lot has changed, even though it was so simple to do and happened so quickly. Wanting to rest is normal. You are healing!
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ADDITIONAL STEPS THAT MAY BE NECESSARY The basic four steps of TAT will clear most traumas, but not all. If you do all four steps and still notice something that feels stuck when you think of the incident or the person, then one or more of the following steps may be necessary. Anger & Resentment: If, after doing all of the steps that your body feels are necessary, and after reviewing the original statement you used in Step One, you still feel that there is an element of the trauma or issue that is unresolved, check to see if there is any anger or resentment need to be healed. Begin by asking your body if it would be useful to do this step. If it is "Yes," then put your attention on the statement, "All the resentment I had about this problem is healing," and do TAT for up to four minutes or until you feel a change. Then put your attention on the statement, "All the anger I had about this problem is healing," and do TAT again. Forgiveness: Often, in cases of trauma, you will need to forgive someone: yourself, others, God, etc. Begin by asking your body if it would be useful to do this step. If it is "Yes," then put your attention on the statement, "I forgive everyone I've blamed for this problem, including God and myself" and do TAT for up to four minutes or until you feel a change. Then put your attention on the statement, "I ask everyone I've blamed for this problem to forgive me," and do TAT again. Taking the Point of View of the Perpetrator: If, after going through all four steps and working on anger and resentment as well as forgiveness, something still feels stuck, then I recommend taking the point of view of the perpetrator of the trauma. A trauma that has not healed yet is sustained by polar opposite views of a situation: Me vs. the Perpetrator; the good guys (us) vs. the enemy; right vs. wrong; rulers vs. slaves, and so on. We usually believe: “I hate Them. I'm nothing like Them. I could never, would never be like that.” Sometimes, in order to heal a trauma completely, it is necessary to take the point of view belonging to “Them.” It's as if you become Them and see the incident from their point 15
of view. If you can do this, a profound sense of balance replaces the trauma. Here is a story from my practice to illustrate this point. The first time I was set to meet my new patient, she called and had to reschedule. She was suffering a concussion -- she'd just been thrown from a horse. After we met I found out that being thrown from horses was not an uncommon occurrence for this perky 38-yearold woman. When she was 16, she used to ride her mare bareback everyday to a high spot on a ridge. The ridge had room for only one horse, and at the end you could turn around and go back. She was sitting on her horse at the end of the ridge one day when another horse and its rider came galloping toward her! My patient, atop her horse at the end of the ridge, figured that they would stop, but they didn't. As her horse reared up, its back legs slid off the ridge. The horse fell down the side of the ridge, flipped head over heels, fell right onto my patient and rolled over her before running back to the barn. After this, my patient and the mare had a hard time getting along. My patient said, "If she saw me coming, she would run to the other side of the pasture." She sold her mare after a year. Not only that, all mares since that time were uncomfortable around her. We did TAT for the original incident. Then I wondered something and asked my patient, "Do you suppose that your mare was traumatized, too?" "Yes," she told me "definitely." So we did TAT for the trauma with my patient taking the mare's point of view. Another way of looking at this is that we actually did a surrogate healing, using my patient's energy field in order to heal her mare's trauma. I spoke with my patient a year and a half later, and she told me that her relationship with horses had completely cleared up. She said, "I’ve had such good success in helping nurse sick mares back to health that people call me to help with sick mares who hate people."
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THE GREAT FILE SYSTEM
Similar things get filed together in the mind. Similar traumas. Similar feelings. Similar times of year. Similar kinds of people. When you do TAT, you may be working on healing one trauma only to find that it is stuck to several other similar things. It is as if the trauma you are putting your attention on is the hub of a wheel with many spokes, and at the end of each spoke is...another center of another wheel. What a tangle! You can dissolve the tangle with TAT by following the simple rule: Take whatever comes. This sounds simple, and it is. You just have to be quiet and pay attention to whatever your mind brings up next. Your mind might take you along a path of the same person at different times (your dad throughout your life), or similar events (the Holidays), or similar traumas (every time the family got together). How do you keep the movie rolling? How do you get to see what's next? By being open and honest with yourself. Put your attention on “you.” Be willing to hang out there and be aware of whatever is going on underneath all the to and fro of everyday life. As difficult things surface and you do TAT for them, they become integrated as they heal and are no longer suppressed or kept at arm’s length. This transforms darkness into light. You just have to be open and take the attitude "What's really here?"
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TAT Workbook Part Two
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ALLERGIES
In the case of allergies, if one of your ancestors experienced a trauma related to a particular food, that information could have been passed along to you as the message: "Stay away from that food. It's bad for us." If you have a life-threatening allergy, you may use TAT to help alleviate the problem, but do not come in contact with the allergen unless you are under the direct supervision of a physician who is able to help you with any allergic reaction you might have. Here's how to do TAT to clear it up: First, as always when doing TAT, ask your body if you can work on this now. If it's a “Yes," then go on. If not, don't. Wait until another day, or check to see if there is a different problem (often emotional) that needs to be cleared up first. State your prejudice/hatred/ingrained belief/thing-you-have-trouble-with, or hold a sample of what you're allergic to. If you can't get a sample of what you're allergic to, you can put your attention on what you're allergic to. If you like, you can write it down in order to keep your focus. Do TAT with your attention on that. Then, if your body says yes, put your attention on a positive condition in relation to your food or emotional allergy and do TAT. For example: "This is good for me." Or "This person/people can exist and I can feel fearless and at peace with them.
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ANIMALS When you work with animals, you need to do the testing on yourself on their behalf (please see section on Surrogate Work, page____). Ask their body if it is OK to work on whatever you think will help them at that moment. If you get a “Yes,” then proceed. There are two ways to do the TAT pose when you work with an animal: 1.
Do it on yourself on the animal’s behalf
2. Do it on the animal. If the animal is comfortable with it, place one palm over the area between the eyebrows as you would with a child (see illustration on page_____). If possible, you want to cover the area at the inner corner of each eye and also between and slightly above each eye. If that is not possible, then cover the area between and slightly above the two eyes. Your other hand should be placed palm down at the base of the animal’s skull. If your animal is not comfortable being touched in this way, place your two palms about three inches from the animal’s head in the same areas. It is as if the animal had a pillow over each area in front and in back and your hands are resting gently on the pillows. After you have gotten a “Yes” that it’s OK to work on whatever the problem is, you can do the Four Steps of TAT. As in the rest of the manual, when I say “Do TAT here,” I mean do the Four Steps plus the TAT pose. When I say “Do TAT for __________,” I am giving you Statement #1 of the Four Steps. There are two ways to approach the Four Steps with animals. You can check by testing on yourself before each step to find out if the animal needs that particular step or not or you can do the Four Steps straight through. Both approaches work. Animals, like people, may have a few seconds of discomfort (not pain) as their system takes in the new information and integrates it. (Please see the chapter on the Chaos Theory, page ). I suggest that you explain this to the animal before you start your TAT work. If the animal shows you that they really don’t want to do TAT now, then don’t force it on them. Allergies If you think an animal is allergic to something, put the substance near the animal and test on yourself with this question: “Does _____ (the animal) have a problem with this?” If the answer is “Yes,” then do the Four Steps of TAT. You can either say the statement for each step out loud or hold the thought silently as you do the TAT pose. If you do not have a sample of the substance, just think of it and test to see if the animal has a problem with it. Then proceed with the Four Steps of TAT as usual. 20
Traumas Think of the trauma you believe is troubling the animal. Then test on yourself to see if it is OK to work on this trauma now. If it is, then say, out loud, to the animal something like, “Now we are going to work on healing the time you were hit by a car,” and do the TAT pose with the Four Steps. After you have done TAT, think of the trauma again and ask, “Is there any more we need to do to clear this up?” and test. If the answer is “Yes,” then put your attention on “Whatever is left about this that is still troubling you,” and do TAT on the animal or yourself. There may be times when you don’t know an animal’s entire history. Say they come home with a limp one day. You can do TAT for “Whatever trauma you just suffered.” Bad Attitudes Animals, like people, can develop bad attitudes as a result of bad experiences. For example, you may inherit a pet who was mistreated by previous owners. You might help the pet by doing TAT for “People are all bad,” or “I can’t trust any humans.” It could also help to do TAT for “Whatever the trauma was that give birth to your unhappy attitude about horses (or whatever the problem is).” Fears You can use TAT to help an animal that is fearful either at that moment or at another time. If it’s happening right in the moment (for example, they are fearful during a storm), you can do the TAT pose and tell them “You’re OK.” Or at another time, you can do the Four Steps for “Your fear of storms.” Prayer I recommend praying for any person or animal you work with. It is not the TAT technique itself that does the healing, it is the Life Force itself. We just extend the invitation and open the door.
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THE CHAOS PRINCIPLE OR “OH NO, I FEEL LIKE I'M GOING TO DIE”
You will occasionally find that things get worse before they get better. Sometimes, when a person is doing TAT they'll say, "Okay, I'm done," but they haven't changed, and perhaps they are even feeling worse. If you are a practitioner who is helping someone use TAT, you can always check their progress by doing testing on yourself as they're doing TAT. If your body tells you that they have more to do, just tell them, "Do it a little longer." It is usually just a matter of another 10 or 15 seconds before the problem clears up. In my experience, the Chaos Principle comes up when a person has been existing as "Someone who __________." The blank is whatever problem you're focusing on, such as: can't enjoy money; was sexually abused; lost all my family; can never do anything right, etc. Whatever it is, it is about to die, and it begins to shake before it dies. This happens in the few seconds in which a person is focusing on their problem and doing the TAT pose. It can be helpful for someone to know that they may experience these types of feelings for a few seconds and that they will pass. They should simply keep their attention on their problem and keep doing TAT.
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CHEMICAL EXPOSURE
Many people these days are exposed to chemicals that make them sick. Often, you can't get a sample of the chemical to hold in your hand in order to do the TAT allergy protocol. For example, people who were exposed to Agent Orange or have Gulf War Syndrome can't get samples of what they were exposed to. TAT has been successful in dealing with continuing reactions to chemical exposure, long after the exposure itself, without having a sample on hand. Here is how you can heal from chemical exposures using TAT. First ask your body, "Can I work on this now?" If yes, proceed. Put your attention on "My exposure to _______________(the chemical) and do TAT. You don't even have to know the name of the chemical. Just your intention to focus on the particular chemical or chemicals that you were exposed to will work. Make a list of all symptoms -- physical, mental, emotional, and anything else -- that you feel or suspect are caused by your exposure. Put your attention on the first symptom and do TAT for one minute or until you feel a shift in your energy. Put your attention on each additional symptom and do TAT. Put your attention on the "storage space" and do TAT. TAT has helped some sufferers of chemical exposure very much and it has only taken minutes. If you have had a chemical exposure and TAT does not clear up your symptoms, I recommend that you find an acupuncturist near you, have them contact me, and I will give them instructions on how to help you. A Story from My Practice: A bright 38-year-old woman asked if I might be able to help her. She had taken her dog to a groomer 10 months before. The groomer had dipped her dog in a dilute form of nerve gas to get rid of fleas. The dog got sick for a while then recovered. The woman had gotten sick but hadn't recovered. She was experiencing headaches, dizziness, ringing in her ears, insomnia, and very low energy. When she saw her doctor, all she could say was that she was feeling off-kilter, but what could they do for that? We did TAT with her putting her attention on the dip, then for each symptom, one at a time. She went home, slept really hard for two nights, and her energy returned and all her symptoms vanished. I checked with her a year and a half after the treatment and none of the symptoms had returned.
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CHILDREN
It is delightful to help children heal by using TAT. They have no preconceptions about what does or doesn’t work. They go along with in trying TAT out and let you know what’s honestly happening. It is very beautiful. Whenever you work with children, put the concepts and instructions in words they can understand. When I work with young children, I usually say something like, “Your body isn’t happy when it thinks about ______________, and what I’m going to show you will make your body feel happier about it.” Or for allergies, “Your body doesn’t like ______________. This will help your body like it.” Instead of using the instruction, “Put your attention on _________” I just say, “Think about ____________,” and I find that it works just as well.
Allergies This can be a lot of fun. You can do a tour of your home and find out what your child has problems with. You can be the secretary, making list as your child strolls through the house checking items. For example, your child can go to their pillow, touch it and ask their body if it likes this or not. Then they do an energetic field test on themselves to see if their body says “Yes, I like it,” or “No, I don’t like it.” The you write down the item and the test results.
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Go through the whole house. Check your perfumes, soaps, toothpaste, cleansers, laundry detergent, fabrics, favorite foods, other foods, tap water, drinks, vitamins, supplements, medications, candies, pillows, bedding, dust, mold, the smell of gas from a heater, newsprint, new book smell, perfumes in erasers and everything else you can think of that might be a source of disturbance to your child. In my definition, allergy means that your body doesn’t like something. In terms of Traditional Chinese Medicine, this could be called an energy disharmony. In western medical terms, this might show up as an allergy, a sensitivity, or not show up in any measurable form at all. My bottom line is that I listen to the wisdom of the body and work directly with that. This is what I recommend to you. Then proceed as I have directed in the chapter on allergies, which I will recap here in short, using some of the language I would use with a child. Step #1:
First have your child treat themselves for “The first time in my whole life that my body felt icky about ___________or didn’t like ___________.” Remember to tell your child, “This means your whole life, and it might have happened while you were still living inside of Mommy. You might not know what it was that your body first didn’t like. I might not know either. That’s OK. Your body knows. Tell your body to remember and think about that time when it first felt icky about __________ or didn’t like _________.” Then have them to do that while they hold the TAT pose.
Step #2
Tell your child something like, “Now tell your body that it can be OK with that stuff now,” and have them hold the TAT pose.
Step #3
Tell your child, “Think to yourself that all the things that ever happened that made your body feel that way about ________ are healing now,” and have them hold the TAT pose.
Step #4
Tell your child, “Think to yourself that all the places in my thoughts (or mind), body and life that have felt icky about _________ are healing now.”
This is basically how to do the Four Steps of TAT with children. Next, proceed with the Top Ten Allergens shown on page _____. If you didn’t happen to check those items in your home tour, check now to see if your child is OK with all of them. Then, clear your child’s favorite foods (including candies, soft drinks, munchies, etc.) using TAT for each, one at a time. If you have a child with MCS (multiple chemical sensitivities), then have them think about petrochemicals and do TAT. You can explain to them that, “Petrochemicals are all the chemicals made out of oil which is made out of long-dead dinosaur bones!” Remember, with TAT, you do not have to have a sample of the substance in order to do a treatment. You can just think about the thing you have a problem with, do the Four Steps of TAT, and it will work. If you have a sample of the thing in your home, go ahead 25
and use it while you do your TAT work. Have your child set the object or substance next to themselves as they do the Four Steps. It can make it a little easier to concentrate. Also, your concentration on the item brings its energetic signature or vibration into the place in your child’s world where they can then do their healing work. The magic of our thoughts is profoundly powerful. What if you are working with an infant? You hold the thoughts for the baby: say the words of each step out loud, and place your hands in the TAT pose on the baby’s head. If the baby is sick or fussy when you touch their head, you can hold your hands about an inch away from its head. You may feel so excited to have a possible cure for a child’s ills at hand that you do not follow rule number one: always, always, always ask their body first if it is OK to work on this, whether it is a trauma, an allergy, a nightmare or whatever. Don’t over-do it with a child. They change fast. You may only need to spend ten seconds in each of the four steps. As time goes on, you will get the feel of when something is done. Don’t think that not much is happening just because it is happening so fast. A lot takes place very quickly with TAT, so be sure to give the child time to adjust and heal. Nightmares If your child has a nightmare and comes in and wakes you up, and you are both half asleep, then do TAT for them if they are not awake enough to do the pose themselves. It doesn’t matter if you hold the pose or if they do. You can say “Think about your nightmare, and hold the pose about a minute.” Ask them to tell you what they are thinking. Then tell them (Step #2): “Think about the nightmare and that you are OK, and hold the TAT pose,” and have them tell you what happens when they do that. If they tell you something like, “There’s one really scary part that I keep thinking about over and over,” then tell them, “Think about that part and that you are OK,” as they continue to do the pose or as you continue doing the pose for them. Then ask them again if there is any part that still bothers them. If there is, have them think about that part and that they are OK until there are no more parts of it that are bothering them. Trauma You may need to take your child to a licensed health care professional to help with a trauma. If they are in an on-going traumatic situation, TAT is not the answer. The answer is to change their situation. TAT is useful for a single incident trauma or if a child had an on-going traumatic situation that is now over. Yet, even if there is no getting out of a situation, I would still do TAT just to help bring some peace to the child. What to say to a child for the Four Steps for a trauma are: Step 1 Step 2
“Think of what happened.” “Think of what happened and that you are OK.” 26
Step 3
“Think ‘All the places this unhappy thing started are healing in me now.’” Step 4 “Think ‘All the places in my thoughts, body and life that felt bad about what happened are healing now.’”
As a parent, you should feel free to change the wording so your child understands the meaning. Sometimes traumas happen and the child may feel responsible. You might want to use a further step in this case: 5.
“I didn’t make this happen and I’m not to blame for it.”
Raising Your Child’s Self-Esteem If your child has negative thoughts about themselves, you can use TAT to help free them of these thoughts. For instance, if they make a mistake and you repeatedly hear them saying “Boy, I am really stupid!” you can tell them, “You know, that’s not true. We can let your thoughts and feelings know it, too. Here’s how. Do the TAT pose and think ‘I am really stupid.’ Then do the TAT pose and think ‘I am really smart,’ or ‘I am not really stupid.’ Then think ‘All the places where this started are healing now,’ while you do TAT. Then think ‘All the places in my mind (or thoughts), my body and my life that felt and thought that are healing now,’ as you do the pose.” As your child is doing the pose and holding each thought, have them tell you what is happening. Give them a few moments of silence, then ask them to tell you what happened. Have them do each step until they feel done. Empower them. This will help free them from their negative beliefs and step into the freedom of positive self-worth. If the wording in these statements for the Four Steps make more sense to you than in the section for grown-ups, please use them for yourself. It’s the thought that counts! I hope you will find great success in using TAT to help your child with their troubles. It is beautiful and awe-inspiring to watch a child flower into better health and relaxation right before your eyes. It is like watching a sun rise in the heart of their existence. I hope you will have this pleasure.
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CLEARING YOURSELF OF THE DAY
This is a simple preventive practice based on the Taoist principle of taking care of problems while they are still small. At the end of your day, you can review the day's events and notice if anything stuck to you. To let it go, put your attention on it and do as many of the Four Steps of TAT as your body tells you are necessary.
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CONSIDERATIONS, OR A BELT THAT’S TOO TIGHT
Some people have big, overlying thoughts that make progress difficult for them. These thoughts are like a lingering cover of clouds that have to be cleared away before you can work on specific problems. They are thoughts like: Nothing ever goes my way. I can't heal. No one can help me. I'm beyond reach. I'm isolated and no one can understand me. I don't deserve help. Nothing works on me. I've never been helped and you won't help me either. I can never change. If I do this, I'll die.
Other variations are what I would call Childhood Matter-of-Fact Conclusions. As children, we often feel stuck in the situation we're in, so we draw ultimate conclusions about ourselves or other people or life such as: I have a blaming mother. I have an angry father. I am stuck with my blaming mother. I am stuck with my angry father. I have to have a blaming mother because I can't go anywhere else. I have to have a blaming father because I can't go anywhere else. I have to live in this house. I can never do what I want or have any fun.
These become "how life is" for us, and not surprisingly, we end up with relationships and life situations just like these, because that's "how life is." Thoughts like this tie up a person's energy like a belt that's too tight and doesn't let the person relax. This belt, which is holding a bundle of problems inside, has to be loosened. How to Loosen Your Belt If you find that you have a lingering cloud of feeling stuck, even after doing all Four Steps of TAT, take a moment to be quiet and simply witness what your mind tells you. It might be a variation of one of the statements above, or it might be something completely 29
different. No one is judging you. Witnessing your thoughts as they really are will help you heal yourself, so take a paper and pen and write your honest answers to the following questions: When I think of healing this problem, I don’t want to because: This problem is useful to me because: I know this problem can never heal because: If this problem heals, I’ll lose: This is not the real problem for me. The real problem is: If this problem ever healed, then: I’m afraid for this problem to heal because: If this problem heals, then it means: When I think of healing this problem, I feel bad because: What I need to clear up before I can even think of healing this problem is: I can’t even think about this problem because: You can then do the four Steps of TAT for each statement you write, no matter how small or large the thought may seem. If another such thought comes up, do TAT on that. Continue in this way until you can do TAT on the problem you originally wanted to work on.
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DISCOVERING YOUR HIDDEN WORST QUALITIES
Life itself will give you clues as to your worst qualities. You just need to listen to your most intense criticisms of others. There's your list. Or you can generate a list by writing at the top of the page "What I Really Hate About Others Is.....” Then do TAT for each item. It might take all four steps, and it might take only the first step to dissolve it. Ask your body and find out. When you do TAT on yourself, use the exact wording of what you're critical of in others, because that's exactly what you hate about yourself. What? I'm not that way! I'm critical of them, remember? Yes, I do remember. That's why I say to use the exact words. If you happen to be in one of the helping professions, you can find out about yourself by paying attention to who you most despise or from whom you are most valiantly trying to save your clients. That hated quality most probably lives somewhere in you. It might be hidden deep and away, but I would be willing to bet it's there - in you. I can say this with confidence because of the dark, disgusting qualities I have found in myself. The good news is that it gives you a lot of compassion for others to face that stuff in yourself! Happy hunting!
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DREAM INTERPRETATION Write your dream down while it is fresh in your mind. To access the meaning of a dream, put your attention on any element of the dream (scenery, people, events, etc.) and do TAT. Do one element at a time. My experience is that the meaning simply drops out in front of you.
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FAMILIES
Connecting With Your Family You may find that there is one family scene that embodies your worst memories of your life as a child. Or there may be a few such memories. In that scene, you are probably feeling pretty isolated from your other family members. If this is true for you, here is a way to heal your isolation: Do TAT for about a minute for each emotion you can think of with your attention on “the _____________ (fill in the emotion) we all felt.” Here are some examples: The fear we all felt. The loneliness we all felt. The anger we all felt. The sadness we all felt. The grief we all felt. The anxiety we all felt. anything else you can think of. Dissolving the Identification Between a Parent and a Significant Other Have you ever found yourself getting a significant other confused with one of your parents? What a trouble, for both of you! It doesn't make for a clear, open relationship. Here's an easy way to make the separation. At the top of a piece of paper, write: ________________ (your significant other’s name), you ______________ just like my (mom or dad -- pick one for this blank). Then write a fast list of everything that pops into your mind such as: wear glasses, are a man/woman, dress well, shout, look, etc. Don't edit, just write. Then do TAT for each statement for about one minute.
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FEARS AND PHOBIAS
A fear or phobia is a way of trying to hold something away from you. Trying to hold it "out there.” When you do TAT, you engage with it directly. You put your attention on it as if it were happening now. Engage and strike! Engage and heal, really. Instead of holding the thought "I'm afraid of ____________,” you change your thought to "____________ is happening." Then do TAT. The first thought is just what you think about the thing. The second thought is you in it. Now. It's happening to you now. For example, you're afraid of flying. Instead of thinking "I'm afraid my plane will crash" you put your attention on "My plane is crashing" and do TAT. Related thoughts might be "Fear is gripping my stomach and my teeth are clenched." Next put your attention on that and do TAT. Another related thought might be "I'll never see my family again and my heart will break." Put your attention on it: "I will never see my family again and my heart is breaking." HOW TO CLEAR A FEAR State your fear (silently, aloud, or in writing). Put your fear in present tense (it is happening to me now). Do TAT with your attention on it happening to you now. after a minute, come out of the TAT pose. Put your attention on your fear. Does anything about it still grab you? A sound, sight, feeling, thought, similar trauma, or sensation in your body? Take whatever comes. You don't have to figure out how it's related to your original fear. Just accept that whatever it is, that's what's there for you. That's the next thing that needs to be healed in relation to you. Put your attention on that and do TAT again. Continue repeating this step and the previous one until nothing more comes up. Do TAT for a minute for each thing that comes up or until you notice a shift in your energy or if the thing goes out of your awareness. If your body says yes to the second step of TAT, make a positive statement in relation to your phobia. For example: "I can fly and live." If your body says yes to the third step of TAT, put your attention on the origins of the problem and do TAT. Likewise, if your body says yes to the fourth step of TAT, put your attention on the storage space of the problem and do TAT. You’re done. 34
HELPING AN ATTACHED BEING MOVE ON
It is possible to use TAT to help an attached being move on. I have seen this in cases such as a chaotic childhood in which parents used alcohol and drugs and the children were abused and/or neglected. What happens is that after working with a patient and having a trauma clear up, I get the feeling that someone else is in the room. When I ask my patient about it, they often tell me that they have been aware of “someone” hanging around who isn’t in a body. Then I ask my patient if they’d like to participate in a surrogate healing on behalf of the attached being. They have always said “Sure.” I get an OK from the attached being by doing a surrogate energetic field test on myself to see if it’s OK for us to do that. Then I have my patient do TAT on themselves for “Whatever the trauma was that the attached being suffered that was similar to mine and made them attach to me.” We usually do only the first two steps of the Four Steps of TAT. It may sound funny to say to someone who is not in a body “That happened and I survived,” or “That happened and I’m OK,” but they are there. Yes, they died, but they still exist and they need to get that information. Then I pray out loud and say, “I pray for you to go on to a better life and that you receive God’s love and that you have help along your way.” That’s all there is to it. I think that what has happens is this: when a person (my patient) has a trauma, they step back from it and create a “second self” so that it’s as if the trauma is happened to someone else, not them. When they create that split, it’s as if a swimming pool of energy forms between self #1 and self #2. Someone who is not in a body and who has suffered similar traumas comes by and says “Ah, there’s someone who could understand me. That swimming pool of fear, trauma and violence looks like home to me. I think I’ll hang out there.” When my patient and I complete our TAT work, there is no more swimming pool, so the attached being pops out. I treat the now unattached being like a second patient in the room. I always see angels come and help the person on their way and I often hear the being thank us with a grateful heart. If you feel that you have a patient who has an attached being around them and you are not comfortable with doing anything about it, just pray for their happiness. That is all you have to do. When your patient’s trauma is healed, the being can’t stay attached to them, and they move on naturally. If this subject too foreign, you don’t need to do anything about it. You can do your TAT work and forget this part. I rarely see it, but when I asked a roomful of about 50 psychotherapists how many of them had come across this in their work, close to half of them raised their hands! 35
HOSPITALIZATION AND OTHER MEDICAL INTERVENTIONS For many people, hospitalization, surgery, and other medical interventions are themselves traumatic. People can also have allergic reactions to medications. I met a nurse recently who told me about a study comparing hospitalized patients to torture victims. People often do not recognize how traumatic hospitalization can be. If you have one or more of these traumas in your life, I recommend that you do TAT for each of the following: The original reason you're there (a physical trauma, cancer, a disease, etc.). The hospitalization. The drugs you were given in the hospital and after hospitalization. Emotional feelings that came up as a result of this happening (for example: fear, loneliness, sadness, anger, grief, worry). Attitudes that set in related to this event (for example: "I hate doctors,” "I'll never get better,” "No one can understand what I've been through,” etc.). When all of these items are healed via TAT, you will find that your energy is flowing and you will heal from the event. Your physical body will heal, your chemistry will change to a more vibrant condition, your emotions will be livelier, you won't be stuck in your attitudes, and you'll be more available to others in your personal relationships.
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A LONG PERIOD OF AN ON-GOING TRAUMATIC LIFE
Many people have lived in miserable situations that have g one on for years and years. Every day was about as rotten as the one before. It all seems like one, big non-stop trauma. Where do you start to heal something like this? What you can do is 1. List all the negative attitudes, decisions and beliefs that you can come up with about yourself, life, others and God in three minutes. Write fast without thinking much. You can write more if you want to. 2. Pick one that is especially meaningful to you right now. 3. Ask your body if it's OK to work on this now. If yes, proceed. If no, pick something else and ask about that one until you find one that is OK to work on now. 4. Do TAT with your attention on the one you picked. After you've done TAT for one minute, if it changes to a different thought, do TAT for that for one minute. Keep going this way until nothing about that basic view captures your attention. 5. Write down the positive statement to your negative one. It does not have to be opposite in exact wording, it should just mean the opposite of your original statement. 6. Do TAT for the positive statement. 7. Do whatever succeeding steps your body says are necessary. When you have completed the work on that one attitude/belief/decision, you can work on another one if it's OK with your body. Just ask, "Is it OK to do another one now?" This work looks very simple, but remember that things are changing that you may not be fully conscious of and you need to respect what your body shows you it wants to do. All of those views helped you emotionally survive the events in your life. You have the option now to grow into a more mature view. After you're done working with TAT for one day, and you're ready to do some work with TAT on another day, check to see that your previous day's work is still in place. You can check by using muscle testing, putting your attention on the view you worked on and asking "Is this cleared up for me?" If it's not, put your attention on it and see where your attention gets caught. Do TAT with your attention on that and any other variations on the negative theme, giving approximately one minute to each one or until you feel each one dissolve. Then do the positive statement.
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MONEY AND SUCCESS
Do you struggle with self-fulfilling negative attitudes about money and success that have been with you for a lifetime? Are you convinced that they are "just the way things are?" Try making a list of the ideas or beliefs you have about money and success. Then work on each item using TAT for the perceived problem and then again for its opposite. Each person will have different ideas associated with money and success. I have listed a few here, along with their opposites. I can never make as much money as I want. I can make as much money as I want. I don’t enjoy making money. I do enjoy making money. I can never save money. I can save money. I can’t be spiritual if I have too much money. I can be spiritual and have money. I can’t earn more money than __________________ (my father/husband/friends). I can earn more money than ____________. Money is the root of all evil. Money is not the root of all evil. I have a hole in my pocket. I don’t have a hole in my pocket. And so on and so forth. What I suggest is that you keep a journal of when you do TAT for each attitude. Then, two or three months after you did TAT, see whether that attitude still has the power it did originally. If it has any power left at all, then do TAT for it again, and check it again in another couple of months. A sample journal form is included below, if you want to try it out.
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My New and Healed Relationship with Money Date:___________________
Not Satisfied at All 1. I can make as much money as I want. 1 2 3 2. I can spend as much money as I want. 1 2 3 3. I enjoy spending money. 1 2 3 4. I save as much money as I want. 1 2 3 5. I can plan my savings and spending. 1 2 3 6. I can receive help with money problems and plans.1 2 3 7. I enjoy making money. 1 2 3 8. I enjoy saving money. 1 2 3 9. I enjoy sharing money. 1 2 3 10. I enjoy serving others with money. 1 2 3
4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6
Completely Satisfied 7 8 9 7 8 9 7 8 9 7 8 9 7 8 9 7 8 9 7 8 9 7 8 9 7 8 9 7 8 9
I have reviewed my relationship with money on this date: ____________________. The areas I still need to heal are (numbers from the chart): ____________________________________________. I will do TAT on those areas before the date of my next review. The date of my next review of my relationship with money is:______________________ (One month from the completion of "My New Relationship With Money" chart. Mark your calendar.)
I have reviewed my relationship with money on this date: ____________________. The areas I still need to heal are (numbers from the chart): ____________________________________________. I will do TAT on those areas before the date of my next review. The date of my next review of my relationship with money is:______________________ (One month from the completion of "My New Relationship With Money" chart. Mark your calendar.)
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10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10
PREJUDICE AND INHERITED EXPERIENCES, STUCK THOUGHTS AND NEGATIVE BELIEFS Traumas can engender a whole crop of ideas and beliefs. Most of us have many traumas at early ages and the ideas and beliefs born from those traumas stay with us our whole lives, informing us of "what's really going on out there.” Say we were physically abused. We might decide "I'm worthless," or "I deserved it," or "I can't trust anybody." Or if we were neglected, we could conclude: "I'm not worth being paid attention to," or "I don't have anything worth hearing," or "Nobody's in my corner." Thoughts, feelings, and even allergies can also come from ancestors who had traumas that they never got over. As we know, groups of people have treated other groups of people badly. Very old thoughts and prejudices can still be present in your cells. What do you do when you have a prejudice that is in your very bones? What do you do when you come in contact with a whole race of people and you instinctively hate them? Or perhaps you have a more benign trouble such as motion sickness, which everyone on your mother's side of the family has. As you go through life, or as you do TAT, you may notice some of these thoughts hanging around, playing over and over, like endless tapes you wish you could stop. We're often unaware of these core beliefs and it takes some doing to start to hear them. There are many useful techniques for getting to know this part of yourself. I will leave you to discover what's most useful for you. When you come across one of these negative beliefs, however, you can diffuse it by putting your attention on it and doing TAT. You will often find that when one of them is resolved, another is revealed. Do TAT with that one. Keep going until your mind is quiet on the subject. As you go on with a string of such thoughts and negative beliefs, you may find yourself thinking very child-like thoughts. That's normal. You probably formed many of these beliefs at an early age and you are just getting to meet parts of your young self. Enjoy the process. Enjoy the results. You will probably feel clearer, more relaxed, open and alive.
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RAPE AND SEXUAL ABUSE
Overcoming the trauma of rape or sexual abuse is one of the greatest challenges a person can face in life. TAT can heal the traumatic stress of a rape in one sitting of an hour or less. The person won’t feel worse, because TAT doesn’t restimulate the memory with all of its fear and terror and anger. When a person puts their attention on what happened and assumes the TAT pose, they will immediately start to feel better, not worse, and the trauma will start to heal. It may take more than one sitting if you are a victim of repeated sexual abuse. You may not be able to put your attention on “all of it” and then have every angle of it clear up, but you may be surprised: it is possible to put your attention on an entire section of your life and do TAT and have the traumatic stress about that time clear up. The way to find out how to start working with a prolonged period of sexual abuse is to use energetic field testing to ask your body: “Can I work on that whole period of my life?” If the answer is “Yes,” then go for it. If the answer is “No,” then you have to break it down into smaller pieces that your system will be able to handle. For example, you might have to do TAT for a few single events that were particularly bad for you. You would do them one at a time. After doing a few of those, you could ask your body again: “Can I now do TAT for all the rest of the incidents all at once?” If the answer is “Yes,” then go for it. If the answer is “No,” then break it down again. Another way to break it down is by age. For example, ask your body if you could do TAT for everything that happened during one particular year of your life in regard to this problem. Or one particular month. Sometimes, when you have a big problem that seems like it has over-shadowed every aspect of your life, you may not feel that much has shifted after doing TAT. Keep going. Do some every day for a week (assuming your body says it’s OK). Keep a journal. Then you can see how you started and where you are now. It may also help you to rate how you feel about different aspects of yourself, life, and the problem at the beginning of the week and at the end of the week. Here are some ratings on a scale of 1-10, 1 being “not true at all,” and 10 being “completely true for me.” I accept myself. I accept my perpetrator as being who he/she is. I love myself. I know I didn’t cause my perpetrator(s) to behave the way he/she did. I feel good about my own sexuality. I don’t hate men/women. I trust myself. I trust others. 41
Use the instructions given in “How to Do TAT for Traumas.” Before you start, check yourself for any considerations you have about healing this. If you work by yourself, keep a journal and have someone who is open, supportive and non-judgmental with whom you can share what you are doing. It helps your healing to have someone listen to and support you. You may also find it useful to start a support group or bring TAT to a group you already belong to. I know that TAT can bring you peace and a new sense of wholeness.
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RECOVERING PARTS OF YOURSELF THAT DIED When bad things happen to us, sometimes we feel like part of ourselves dies. In a moment of being yelled at, we can feel, "The part of me that wanted to be heard has died." Or if we are abandoned we can feel, "The part of me that needs to be taken care of has died." Then we end up trying to defend that part that died, trying to stand up for that part, trying to keep it from dying. To use TAT to heal this part of yourselves, you can: Use TAT with the statement, "I died in that moment." Then use TAT with the statement, "I didn't die in that moment." Then check to see if it would be useful to clear up the origins (Step Three), and then the storage space (Step Four). I have found this useful for bringing back parts of ourselves that have been lost, and with them, memories that have been lost. It is as if the life of that part ended in a long-ago moment, and when that part died, its memories and point of view ended as well. Doing TAT allows the full trauma of that moment to be resolved. The part of yourself that has been trying to defend the part that you saw as dying finally lets the dying part die. Then...you find that the dying part really didn't die and is still part of you now!
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STORIES To B: "Would it be useful to work on the origins of the trauma?" If 'no', skip it. If yes, then say: To C/P: "The origins of the problem could be from any time in your history. Neither you nor I need to be conscious of what the origins are. You just need to be open to the origins, whatever they may be. Be open to the origins and do the TAT pose. Let me know when you feel a shift in your energy, or I'll let you know when I feel a change or when about a minute has passed." Your action: Put your attention on your C/P. Test on yourself while they are working with the intent to your own body "Show me a 'yes' when they're done." Watch your C/P to notice any shifts in their breathing, posture, changes in motions, facial expression. Be open with your own body to see if you can feel a release in your own body (your attention is primarily on your C/P, secondarily on yourself, but truly inclusive of both). At this point, I often pray for their healing in relation to this item. Praying is your option. When your body gives you a 'yes', quit testing and keep your attention on your C/P. Wait another 15-20 seconds or so to see if your C/P will tell you "Okay, I'm done" or an equivalent. If they don't, say: To C/P: "I think that's done. Put your hands down. What happened for you?" Your action: Listen to your C/P. Write down notes of what they say in their words. Validate their experience: i.e. "Good" or "Okay" or whatever you want to say to let them know that whatever they experienced is normal and that you heard what they said. To B: "Do we need to hear a specific story in order to clear up the origins of this trauma?" To C/P: "Hold." Your action: Test. If no, proceed to 'storage space' question and procedure. If 'yes', then: To B: "Is it genetic?" To C/P: Hold. Your action: Test. If no: To B: "Is it this life?" To C/P: "Hold." 44
Your action: Test. If no: To B: "Is it past life?" If you are not happy with the idea of past lives or you have a C/P who doesn't want to hear about past lives, say "Is it another situation?" or "Is it another story?". To C/P: Explain "I don't know if what we're coming up with actually occurred or not. What is coming up is a story that resonates with something that is true, and hearing this story helps your body heal." To B: If genetic: Ask "Mother's side?" To C/P: "Hold." Your action: Test. If 'yes', write down 'Mother's side' in notes. If 'no', write 'Father's side' in notes. You may test for 'Father's side' to obtain a 'yes' answer from body if you like. Continue testing for: B.C.? A.D.? If B.C., 1st - 5th century? 5th - 10th century? If earlier than 10th century B.C., tell C/P and write in notes: "A long time ago." If A.D., 1st - 10th century? 11th - 20th century? Ask B: Is this close enough? If not, keep going by halving the times where you get a 'yes' till you've got a 'close enough' answer from the body or the exact century. For example, if you get a 'yes' for 1st - 10th A.D., then ask 1st to 5th? 6th to 10th? If 6th to 10th is a 'yes' and their body still wants greater detail, ask 6th? 7th? 8th? 9th? 10th? Then test for: man? woman? (sometimes 'child' needs to be heard if neither 'man' nor 'woman' feels like a definite 'yes' from the body. Then test for boy or girl.) Test for "Is this enough information?" If not, continue with creative questions like: "Is it work-related? Family-related? Politically-related?" Then after filling in a few more details, ask "Is this enough information?" If not, get a couple more details. You just need to be creative and think: what might have been a traumatic situation that was the origin of this trauma? Write down each detail as you go. For a story from this life, test to find out the age of the person. Test for pre-birth, then birth itself as possible ages. Test to find out if that is enough information. If not, find a few more details. Usual details can be found by asking "Was your mother/father/another relative involved?", "Was a particular emotion of significance?" If an emotion is important, test to find which one: sadness, grief, anger, worry, fright? Keep getting details until you get a 'yes' for your test to the body asking "Is this enough information?" For a story that is a past life or "other situation" you proceed the same as for a genetic story but leave out the questions about whether it's on the mother's side or father's side of the family. Once you have 'enough information' as a result of your testing the body, then: To C/P: Put your attention on (read off all story elements) and hold. 45
Your action: Test. A 'no' or 'weak' response shows that this story resonates with a problem. Or put another way, your question to their body is "How do you feel about this: weak or strong?" To C/P: Put your attention on (read off all elements for first story) and do TAT. Your action: Put your attention on your C/P. Test on yourself while they are working with the intent to your own body "Show me a 'yes' when they're done." Watch your C/P to notice any shifts in their breathing, posture, changes in motions, facial expression. Be open with your own body to see if you can feel a release in your own body (your attention is primarily on your C/P, secondarily on yourself, but truly inclusive of both). When your body gives you a 'yes', quit testing and keep your attention on your C/P. Wait another 15-20 seconds or so to see if your C/P will tell you "Okay, I'm done" or an equivalent. If they don't, say: To C/P: "I think that's done. Put your hands down. What happened for you?" Your action: Listen to your C/P. Write down notes of what they say in their words. Validate their experience: i.e. "Good" or "Okay" or whatever you want to say to let them know that whatever they experienced is normal and that you heard what they said. Your action: Go to beginning of 'story' section and modify first instruction to: To C/P: "Do we need to hear another story in order to clear up the origins of this trauma?" Your action: Proceed as before to the end of the story section and repeat until the body's answer is 'No'. Then proceed to Step Four. Step Three - Be open to the origins and do TAT. Then ask: Are there any stories we need to hear to clear this up (problem stated in step one)? If yes, Story #1 This life? Birth? Before birth? Birth - 1/2 present age? 1/2 present age current age?
Genetic? Other or past life? Mother's side? Father's side? BC? BC? 1st-5th century? 1st-5th century? 6th-10th century? 6th-10th century? AD? AD?
Enough information plus the statement of Step One?
1st-10th century? 1st-10th century? 11th-20th century? 11th-20th century? Man? Man? Woman? Woman? 46
If not, add one factor at a time & recheck for if it's enough information. Was it in relationship to a family member? Mother? Father? Sister? Brother? (etc. - find out by asking C/P who other significant people in their lives were.) Other factors which could be significant.
Enough information Enough information plus the statement plus the statement of Step One? of Step One? If not, add one If not, add one factor at a time & factor at a time & recheck for if it's recheck for if it's enough information. enough information. Other factors (pick Other factors (pick one that seems likely one that seems likely or make up your own) or make up your own)
Was a family Was a family member involved? member involved? Did someone get sick? If a food allergy: Did they eat something & get sick?
Did someone get sick? If a food allergy: Did they eat something & get sick?
Did someone die? Did someone die? Was it a political Was it a political trauma? trauma? Was it a natural Was it a natural disaster? disaster? Was it work related? Was it love related?
Was it work related? Was it love related?
______________________________________________________________ When their body says "enough information" they focus on all of the pieces of the story and do TAT. Repeat for as many stories needed to clear up the origins.
To B: "Do we need to hear a specific story in order to clear up the origins of this problem?
To C/P: "Hold." Your action: Test. If no, proceed to 'storage space' question and procedure. If 'yes', then: To B: "Is it genetic?" To C/P: Hold. Your action: Test. If no: To B: "Is it this life?" To C/P: "Hold." 47
Your action: Test. If no: To B: "Is it past life?" If you are not happy with the idea of past lives or you have a C/P who doesn't want to hear about past lives, say "Is it another situation?" or "Is it another story?". To C/P: Explain "I don't know if what we're coming up with actually occurred or not. What is coming up is a story that resonates with something that is true, and hearing this story helps your body heal." To B: If genetic: Ask "Mother's side?" To C/P: "Hold." Your action: Test. If 'yes', write down 'Mother's side' in notes. If 'no', write 'Father's side' in notes. You may test for 'Father's side' to obtain a 'yes' answer from body if you like. Continue testing for: B.C.? A.D.? If B.C., 1st - 5th century? 5th - 10th century? If earlier than 10th century B.C., tell C/P and write in notes: "A long time ago." If A.D., 1st - 10th century? 11th - 20th century? Ask B: Is this close enough? If not, keep going by halving the times where you get a 'yes' till you've got a 'close enough' answer from the body or the exact century. For example, if you get a 'yes' for 1st - 10th A.D., then ask 1st - 5th , 6th 10th? If 6th - 10th is a 'yes' and their body still wants greater detail, ask: 6th? 7th? 8th? 9th? 10th? Then test for: man? woman? (sometimes 'child' needs to be heard if neither 'man' nor 'woman' feels like a definite 'yes' from the body. Then test for boy or girl.) Test for "Is this enough information?" If not, continue with creative questions like: "Is it work-related? Family-related? Politically-related?" Then after filling in a few more details, ask "Is this enough information?" If not, get a couple more details. You just need to be creative and think: what might have been a traumatic situation that was the origin of this allergy? Write down each detail as you go. For a story from this life, test to find out the age of the person. Test for pre-birth, then birth itself as possible ages. Test to find out if that is enough information. If not, find a few more details. Usual details can be found by asking "Was your mother/father/another relative involved?", "Was a particular emotion of significance?" If an emotion is important, test to find which one: sadness, grief, anger, worry, fright? Keep getting details until you get a 'yes' for your test to the body asking "Is this enough information?" For a story that is a past life or "other situation" you proceed the same as for a genetic story but leave out the questions about whether it's on the mother's side or father's side of the family. Once you have 'enough information' as a result of your testing the body, then: To C/P: Put your attention on (read off all story elements) and hold. 48
Your action: Test. A 'no' or 'weak' response shows that this story resonates with a problem. To C/P: Put your attention on (read off all elements for first story) and do TAT. Your action: Put your attention on your C/P. Test on yourself while they are working with the intent to your own body "Show me a 'yes' when they're done." Watch your C/P to notice any shifts in their breathing, posture, changes in motions, facial expression. Be open with your own body to see if you can feel a release in your own body (your attention is primarily on your C/P, secondarily on yourself, but truly inclusive of both). When your body gives you a 'yes', quit testing and keep your attention on your C/P. Wait another 15-20 seconds or so to see if your C/P will tell you "Okay, I'm done" or an equivalent. If they don't, say: To C/P: "I think that's done. Put your hands down. What happened for you?" Your action: Listen to your C/P. Write down notes of what they say in their words. Validate their experience: i.e. "Good" or "Okay" or whatever you want to say to let them know that subtle energy changes are normal and that what they experienced is normal and that you heard what they said. Also you want to encourage them in their subtle sense perception. Your action: Go to beginning of 'story' section and modify first instruction to: To C/P: "Do we need to hear another story in order to clear up the origins of this problem?" Your action: Proceed as before to the end of the story section and repeat until the body's answer is 'No'. Then proceed to Step Four.
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SURROGATE TREATMENT It is possible to use your own body to treat someone else! Is this amazing? I think so. In order to accomplish this, you need to ask the person’s permission to do TAT for them. I think that it is only ethical to do this. You can’t make a decision like: “Now I am going to heal your bad attitude for you!” First of all, I don’t know that it would work, but more importantly it leaves the other person’s free will out of it, and I don’t think that’s right. If you have a mother with a sick child, and the child is too young to be asked if they want to be helped, then I think it is OK to go ahead and proceed with a surrogate treatment. Even in that case, do a bioenergetic field test on yourself on their behalf to find out if it is OK to do TAT for them on this subject now. To do a surrogate treatment, you make a clear decision to do TAT on behalf of the other person, and then proceed with the Four Steps of TAT as usual. You can do surrogate treatments for animals too. You should ask their permission via energetic field testing. You can do TAT on yourself on someone else’s behalf no matter how far away they are. In fact, doing TAT on yourself now for a problem you had in the past is like doing a surrogate treatment for you in another time! As I understand time and space, both from physics and from my own limited direct experience, they don’t exist. This is why surrogate treatments work, in my opinion.
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VETERANS
Pick a trauma that still haunts you, and ask your body by testing if it is OK to work on that trauma now. If it is, then go ahead and do TAT for it. After you have spent a couple of minutes with it, ask yourself if there is any part of it that still bothers you. If there is, then do TAT for that part for a minute or two. Ask yourself again if there is any part of it that still bothers you. If there is, do TAT for that part. Keep going until there is nothing that still hurts or catches you inside. When the first step of TAT, being with what happened, loses its punch, then go to Step Two: “It happened and I survived,” or “It happened and I am OK,” or any statement that expresses the opposite condition of how the trauma affected you. Sometimes you may have a group of symptoms that occur as a result of a trauma. These can include feelings and thoughts, and might include anxiety with particular sounds, nightmares, a thought like “I could have done more,” or a particular physical pain that surfaces when you are stressed. You can do TAT for each one individually. Then do the third and fourth steps of TAT, and do the step on forgiveness if you need to. It is best to do TAT with a friend, counselor or licensed health care professional who is there for you and who will listen without judgment. If you have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), then I suggest that you do TAT under the direct supervision of a licensed, TAT-trained health care provider. If you have a lot of traumas, you may or may not feel a whole world better after you clear one up. You may need to clear up several before you feel a great deal of relief. Most likely, you not only suffered traumas in battle, you also suffered traumas in training. Don’t forget those. If you were hurt, you can heal. If you feel broken, TAT can do great things to help you mend. You may also find in doing your TAT work that traumas from your childhood come to mind. This is usual. You can work on those too, either in the same sitting or at another time. When you do TAT and put your attention on your trauma, you don’t have to “get into it.” Just the thought of it is enough. You don’t have to re-experience anything. It is as if the whole experience were a woven rug. You just need to have your attention on one thread while you do the TAT pose. It is woven into the rest, and it will all clear up. If there is a 51
part that remains and is especially bad, just think of it, without magnifying it or getting into it, as you do the TAT pose, and let it be with you. Peace will come to your soul.
TAT Workbook Conclusion
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WHAT'S AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS?
My deepest experience of how things are informs me that what is being healed is our relationship with God/Truth/Love (please put here your favorite name for the divine). The ancient scriptures of India say "Thou art That.” Western religions say "God is One without a second." I believe we are all seeking wholeness, and restoring wholeness is the essence of healing. When a trauma occurs, there is the experience of apparent separation between “me and the trauma,” or "me the victim and them the perpetrator." This is never a comfortable situation, however, because duality is not the ultimate truth. Duality always creates tensions, because it we are inherently uncomfortable with un-wholeness or fragmentation. Pogo, the cartoon character, expressed this basic truth of life in his eloquent statement: “We have met the enemy and he is us.” I find that TAT accomplishes healing by resolving the duality of a situation. When the illusion of separation dissolves, we experience oneness. All of existence is my Self. If I am not experiencing that, then I am not at peace. TAT helps me realize this and it is my hope and wish that it will help you realize it too.
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A REVIEW OF THE FOUR STEPS OF TAT
Before beginning, find out by bioenergetic testing if it's OK to work on this item now. If you have never done TAT before, begin with the thought, "I deserve to live, and I can accept love, help and healing," while you hold the TAT pose for up to four minutes or less if you feel a change take place. Before doing steps two, three and four, ask your body whether the step would be useful to do. If your body says "No," then skip it. You only need to hold the TAT pose for one to four minutes in order to release an energy blockage. The pose should not be held for extended periods of time, and TAT should not be done for more than 10 to 20 minutes in a single day. The body and mind need time to reintegrate the internal energy shifts that take place. Practicing TAT for more than 20 minutes in a 24-hour period can overload your nervous system and emotions and is expressly disadvised. Step One: Put your attention on the issue you are working on and do the TAT pose for one to four minutes. Step Two: Hold a positive thought in relation to the person or incident and do the TAT pose. Step Three: Be open to the origins of the problem healing now, and do the TAT pose. Step Four: Be open to healing wherever this item or incident has been a problem in your body, mind and life, and to healing whatever resonates with it, and do the TAT pose. Optional: Additional Steps as Necessary (see instructions on page 9) Anger and Resentment Forgiveness Taking the Point of View of the Perpetrator
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TESTIMONIALS I am a Polarity practitioner and an RN, and I’m very excited about using your wonderful method with my family, friends and clients, when appropriate. My husband was having trouble sleeping, feeling caught in some compulsive thinking about a recent communication with his grown daughter. We tried TAT, following each image that arose, as directed, and he was quite amazed. He had a feeling of relaxation about the issue and a letting go of his need to be “heard.” He said there was a definite change in his thinking that evening. Several days have passed, and he continues to feel quite peaceful. Percyne Gardner Las Vegas, New Mexico I did a quick clearing for my 5 year-old nephew who has a problem with noise now and then. He was a premie weighing 2.6 pounds at birth and in the hospital for the first 3 months of his life. No wonder noise is a problem. He had been running around with his hands over his ears screaming "I can't stand the noise, it's too loud" and crying, too. I did TAT on him and asked his body to effect a safe clearing for whatever was causing his problem with noise. After clearing for a few seconds, he was fine!! It was amazing. Sue __________ I have had (still having, as I continue to work with this) profound experiences and subtle shifts with drastic effects in working with a long-standing eating disorder. Although the actual life-threatening habits have not been present in my life for some time, I found that I still lived in fear and a need to control this urge from arising. With TAT, I have begun to re-organize my self-image and gradually let go of this conviction that I cannot surrender to enjoy my life fully, free of fear of some monster inside of me. An amazing amount of life force has been wrapped up in this kind of control, "pushing this part of me out of my experience," as you say. P. I’d like to tell you how incredibly TAT has worked for me. I am currently getting treatment for allergies using NAET. I recently got a new Westie puppy. I am allergic to cats and some dogs. I was treated for animal dander. I was fine with the pup until he started peeing and pooping around the house and I found myself sneezing a lot and having a constant stuffy nose and red eyes and all the usual allergy symptoms. I didn’t have a chance to see my NAET practitioner, so I decided to give TAT a try. Wow!! In what seemed like a few minutes, my sinuses cleared up and my sneezing stopped. The difference in how I feel now is incredible. Dulce Jansky 55
TAT is like magic. I was so miserable, stuffed up, itchy and running I couldn’t stand another minute. During the treatment, I began to feel the swelling in my nasal passage start to shrink. Before I got off the table, I felt my right nasal passage open. The itching was gone and never came back. Wonderful! Diana Somps Accounting Manager Last weekend I was doing some weeding in preparation for a small garden, and about an hour after I was done I noticed that my forearms were slightly itchy and had red lines all over them, I assume from the weeds. I did TAT, focusing on the weeds, for about 15 minutes and then looked at my arms to find that the redness was completely gone and they didn’t itch at all. It was great to see such a visible sign of what I felt had happened. Valerie Lauterback Los Altos, CA When I came to Tapas, I was in a dark place. Environmentally and chemically sensitive, I was allergic to many foods, unable to pump my own gas, the fumes from cars made me ill when walking down busy streets, and cleaning fluids, laundry detergents and soaps were making me ill too. Not only was my world getting smaller and smaller, but the mold and mildew in my home was making me ill as well. I was terrified as to how sick I was getting. Now I really do believe in miracles. Since I have been treated with TAT, I am now eating dairy after not being able to for 2 ½ years. I am pumping my own gas. Mold no longer bothers me. I can go in the laundromat and down the cleaning supplies aisle at the supermarket, and I can tolerate other people’s perfume. What a gift! Thank you. Adamine Harms On the 4th of July, my dog went nuts over the fireworks. When I TAT’d him, he moaned and laid down calmly. I also stroked his spine while I did it. I worked well! Ana A young woman witnessed a car wreck a year ago, resulting in deaths in both vehicles. Her own car escaped by a hair’s breadth. Since the accident, she has forced herself to drive, but she was very anxious and startles easily. She was anxious whether she was the driver or a passenger. We used TAT during the evaluation session. That was 3 weeks ago. Today, she came in and said that she no loner had a problem. She rode to a town about 2 hours away with her husband, and then drove around the town by herself. She said that her husband was amazed, because it was the first time she didn’t shriek out loud while he was driving. Carolyn Geduld
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A 27 year old man came into my office complaining of insomnia, anxiety, dizziness, shortness of breath, and depression. A week before, he had been in the parking lot of a bar late at night with two of his friends and someone had tried to run over him and his friends with a car. The driver succeeded in hitting his friends and seriously injuring them, but the patient was not physically injured except for a bruised knee. The emotional trauma, however, was severe. He reported that he could not close his eyes without seeing the incident in his mind. I did TAT with him and he reported a big shift occurring. Then he felt very sleepy, and I let him sleep on the treatment table for a while. When he got up, he said he felt completely normal. When he left my office, he seemed like a different person. Peter Stege, D.O.M. Las Vegas, NM Back in January, I ordered your video and workbook. After studying the materials, I felt confident to try it for treating Seasonal Disorder as a toxic sensitivity to seasonal shifts in light. We sat by a bright unshaded window for 10 minutes while I guided my wife through the TAT protocol. It was easy and she was very cooperative. She focused on the "spring/summer" light while doing the procedure and she felt a subtle energy shift (a relaxed feeling) after we were done. Unlike treating conventional allergies (dairy products, wheat, dust, cats, dogs, etc.), we could not immediately test the effectiveness of TAT for this seasonal problem (except with muscle testing). We had to observe her condition over time and note any deviation from the usual effects we have experienced in years passed as the spring season arrives. In previous years, the problems would begin in the February/March time frame and become intolerable in April and May. The problems included anxiety, racing thoughts, loss of appetite, and insomnia. I am pleased to report that as of this writing (April 10), there have been no signs of any of the usual problems this time of year. I am optimistic (and approaching "amazed") that the treatment may have worked. I guess I'm being a bit cautious (maybe even a bit superstitious) before I can confidently declare that she has been cured. I think I'll be totally convinced that she's cured when we get through 2 consecutive years with no seasonal problems. We've been dealing with this for over a decade, so I want to be careful and patient in observing the results over time. But with each passing day, I'm believing more and more that something fantastic has occurred. I will keep you posted on our progress as we move from the spring into the summer months. Now, here are some of my own experiences with TAT. I've used it to treat allergies to dust, pollen, and cats. Especially cats! After the TAT treatment for cats, I went to visit my brother and his family. They have an adorable playful cat named Pepper. In previous visits there, I had to take an antihistamine just to be able to stay in the house for a few hours. This time, I went over there with the pills in my pocket but I never needed them. I had no sneezing, wheezing, or watery eyes at all. There was a little tightness in my chest but that cleared up on its own. For the first time ever, I spent a whole day in the presence of a cat and needed no medication to feel fine. Yes I am amazed (there, I said it!). I've also noticed that my breathing has been much clearer on a daily basis. I don't have the usual congestion that I've gotten used to, especially at bedtime. For years, I have kept Afrin nasal spray on my nightstand and used it frequently. In the past two months since trying TAT, I've only needed nasal spray on 2 occasions. And I don't keep it by my bedside anymore. I wake up most mornings with clear nasal passages. OK ,OK, I am amazed again! 57
Getting back to TAT for Seasonal Disorder, the results we have seen so far have been very encouraging. More research and clinical trials need to be done with other SAD sufferers to demonstrate a consistent pattern of effectiveness. I would recommend that anyone attempting to use TAT for this problem should treat all 4 seasons separately. Follow the TAT protocol 4 separate times for the "fall light", then winter, spring, and summer. Knowledge of muscle testing could help here but isn't necessary. Doing TAT for the 4 seasonal light shifts is probably going to help. Please encourage other SAD sufferers to experiment with this on themselves or to work with a trained practitioner. TAT is so easy, it's worth a try even on the most skeptical of people. I'll keep in touch with you in the months ahead. I hope you'll be out here on the east coast sometime soon. I'd love to attend one of your seminars. I feel so privileged to know people like you, Roger Callahan, Gary Craig, and other pioneers in Energy Therapy. Someday, the world will honor all of you as the "Heroes of Healing". Allan Waring Piscatway, N.J. During a TAT seminar, I closed my eyes and was back in Vietnam in the back seat of a helicopter on a training flight. Several B-52's had dropped hundreds of 500 pound bombs in the distance. I took a deep breath as I remembered the helicopter slowly tilting back as it began to skid into a simulated emergency landing with an engine failure, but this time we were very tilted back. My knees were above my head, and the "stinger" - the tube that sticks out the back of the helicopter to keep the tail rotor from hitting the ground and that has never even touched the ground in my entire two years of flying - was bumping along as if over plowed rows in a cornfield. Then the tail rotor blades hit the ground and next the tail boom hit. When the helicopter finally skidded to a stop, it was upside down, and I was face down with my arms flung out in front of me. The frame of my seat pressing on the back of my helmet forcing my face into the dirt and solidly pinning both my arms and my face into the ground. I was trapped! Everyone else was dead or unconscious. With the engine still running we were sure to burn or explode. I was going to die. Eventually, another helicopter that had seen the crash came to the rescue. Whenever I remember this, my chest gets tight, my arms feel tingly and heavy, my palms sweat, and if I am telling the story to someone, I hear my voice change as my throat tightens, but as I did TAT, all of a sudden I was aware that I had survived that crash! In the years following the crash I had shared, cried, rebirthed, workshopped and catharted this into exhaustion, but this level of awareness of the fact that I SURVIVED was much stronger than any sense of survival I ever had before. It was the truth and I was suddenly aware of something new: there was NO HELICOPTER on top of me. Even as I had that thought, it seemed silly. Of course there wasn't a helicopter on top of me, but I saw there amazed by my new awareness of that reality. For a brief moment I saw the crash scene from above. Although it was just a flash, I noticed that it looked different. It was lighter. I closed my eyes. It WAS lighter. It had always been kind of dark in my memory, as if there were a giant shaded plexiglass dome covering the site. I then became aware that as I was thinking about the crash, my chest, arms, throat and hands were relaxed. All I was having was a memory of an event that had taken place over 58
twenty-eight years ago. Nothing more. The next thought I had was that I wanted the tension back. I had lived with it for so long that it had seemed a part of me. I closed my eyes again, but it wasn't there and I couldn't get it to come back, no matter how hard I focused on the memory. Dick Morrill, Air America On February 28, 1998, at the EFT Seminar, Tapas Fleming publicly demonstrated her TAT "posing" procedure with me and another person simultaneously. We were both highly sensitive to petrochemicals. For me this has been a severe problem as long as I can remember, and I am 63 years young. This demonstration was done in front of some 60 professionals and with video cameras and bright lights on. Perfumes, gasoline , detergents, lip balms, many soaps and a variety of other substances have always been very noxious to me. This has been a major frustration for me, and my wife, for over 27 years, since I could never tolerate any of her perfumes. My eyes would quickly water and sting and the "capillaries curled" in my nose when I smelled her perfume. This was really a big problem, especially when she would first put it on and we would get in our car. I could hardly tolerate it. Then, too, I always wanted to please her by using some male "stink pretty" stuff on myself, but I could never tolerate it. Also, it was always extremely unpleasant when I passed women on the street who were wearing lots of perfume. It was especially unpleasant in enclosed spaces like elevators or store. And, when I went into department stores I would be assaulted by the cosmetic counters, which always seem to be placed by the entrances. I learned to take three deep breaths before entering, hold my breath and dash past the counters as fast as possible. Of course I had to repeat this tactic upon leaving the stores. I never could figure out how to do this with my eyes closed; so, I had to tolerate that offensive stinging and cringing. I did usually close one eye to minimize the damage. The only positive benefits were that I developed a pretty good ability to swim underwater a long time; and, I improved my agility at getting through crowds. Pumping gas was always an unpleasant experience. Turpentine was terrible. Fingernail polish? Yuck! Polish remover? Double yuck! I just could not handle using kitchen sink cleansers. The list of noxious, toxic things seemed endless; and, they were everywhere. Well, after Tapas treated me with her TAT process, all of these things were neutralized. I still do not care for them. I still think they are not fit for human consumption. But, they don't "curl my capillaries" anymore at all. I can breathe them "close up and personal" without the negative reactions I always had before. I pumped gas just today (3-14-98), and I was able to breathe the fumes right down by the hose nozzle (I just had to try it) with no discomfort. Amazing! TAT works! As a result of Tapas' excellent treatment, I am a happy camper, my wife is delighted, and we are both enormously relieved to no longer have this obstacle to our closeness. It is sure nice to have my wife within "touching distance" so much more. She loves her new freedom to wear her perfumes around me. Lastly, I want to tell everyone that Tapas is a remarkably sensitive, perceptive, compassionate and loving person who does her work in a very professional and ethical manner, and yet she is a delightfully warm human being. It is a joy to observe her in action, and very impressive to be her client. I recommend Tapas, herself, and her TAT treatments to anyone. Simply stated, she is good! 59
She has my permission to share this letter, and the video of her treatment with me, with anyone and in any way she wishes. I recommend her highly. You can be confident that she will provide effective help in her area of specialization. Larry Phillip Nims, Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist Orange, California
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TAT Workbook Appendix
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THE TAT PROTOCOL IN SCRIPT FORM FOR TRAUMA Copyrighted by Tapas Fleming, November 22, 1996 --------------------------------------------------------------What you say to your client/patient = To C/P: What you ask your client/patient's body = To B: --------------------------------------------------------------This script is given in the form of a practitioner working with a client or patient. If you are using it on yourself, you will be playing both roles: that of the practitioner and the patient. It is always essential to ask if it is OK to work on a particular item now and also to reflect on what happened after you do each step. All essential instructions are in bold. The other procedures, instructions and explanations to your C/P will change at your discretion depending on variables in your relationship with that person and how you like to work. Here are ways you are free to vary the instructions: You might not use energetic field testing, or you might already have a favorite way to do it that is not the O-ring test and you would substitute a method that works for you. You may prefer to do all Four Steps of TAT and not test the body each time to find
out if each st
Your C/P may already understand the meaning of the origins or the “storage space,” so you won’t need to explain it each time. You don’t need to test yourself to see when your C/P is done with a step. You can rely on them to tell you. Your C/P might already know to let you know when they feel done with a step so you won’t need to repeat that each time. Let’s start!
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FIND OUT IF IT IS OK TO WORK ON THIS NOW First, establish an energetic field test to determine if it's ok to work on this problem now. For the O-Ring Test: Say to C/P:
"Hold."
Your action: A second after you've said hold, and they're holding strong, do the O-Ring Test on them. Say to C/P:
"As soon as you're done, relax." (Telling your C/P to relax in the context of energetic field testing means that they should relax their strong hold on their fingers.)
Say to B:
"Body, show me what a 'strong' or 'yes' response looks like."
Say to C/P:
"Hold."
Your action: Pull a second after you've said "hold" and they're set. Say to C/P:
"Relax."
Say to B:
"Body, show me what a 'weak' or 'no' response looks like."
Say to C/P:
"Hold."
Your action: Pull a second after you've said "hold" and they're set. Say to C/P:
"Relax. What can I help you with? What problem would you like to work on now?"
Your action: Take notes in their words. summary.) Say to B:
(This is just a brief, general statement or
Can we work on (_____________________) now? this problem
Say to C/P:
"Hold."
Your action: Pull as soon as they're set. If they hold strong, it means 'yes'. If they don't, tell them they need to pick a different issue or look at their thoughts about clearing this up. Your action: If they haven't mentioned several problems, go to STEP ONE below. If the person names several problems or traumas and you want to prioritize which to work on first, after you've written them down, do this: Say to B:
"Show me a 'yes' for the one we should do first." 63
Say to C/P:
"Put your attention on (first trauma) and hold."
Your action: Test. Decide "the one that comes back with a 'yes' is the one we work on.” Continue through list of traumas and write down the one that comes back with a 'yes'. Instead of you prioritizing by testing, you can also just ask your C/P "Which would you like to start with?" Say to B:
"Can we work on this now?"
Say to C/P:
"Hold."
Your action: Test. If 'yes' from body, proceed as follows: STEP ONE Say to C/P:
"Put your attention on _____________(the trauma)." (Fill in the blank with a short phrase, in their words, of what happened.)
Your action: Decide that a 'no' or 'weak' response from their body shows that they do indeed have a problem with this item. The question you are putting to their body is "How do you feel about this: strong or weak?" Test. Say to C/P:
"Put your attention on______________ (the trauma) and do the TAT pose. Let me know when you feel a shift in your energy, or I'll let you know when I feel a change or when about a minute has passed."
Your action: Put your attention on your C/P. Test on yourself while they are working, with the intent for to your own body to "Show me a ‘yes' when they're done." Watch your C/P to notice any shifts in their breathing, posture, movements, or facial expression. Be open to see if you can feel a release in your own body (your attention is primarily on your C/P, secondarily on yourself, but truly inclusive of both). At this point, I often pray for their healing in relation to this item. Praying is your option. When your body gives you a ‘yes,’ quit testing and keep your attention on your C/P. Wait another 15-20 seconds to see if your C/P will tell you "OK, I'm done" or the equivalent. If they don't, say: Say to C/P:
"I think that's done. Put your hands down. What happened for you?"
Your action: Listen to your C/P. Write down notes of what they say in their words noting things that sound like they may still be a problem. A problem equals stuck energy. Stuck energy can feel heavy, dense, distressed, emotionally charged. The person feels most distant from you in their most stuck places. Validate their experience: i.e., "Good" or "OK" or whatever you want to say to let them know that whatever they experienced which might include subtle energy changes are normal and that you heard what they said. Also you want to 64
Say to C/P:
encourage them in their subtle sense perception. The changes experienced in TAT may be subtle, but they are profound. "When you put your attention on ___________(the trauma), is there anything about that which still hurts or grabs you or feels stuck?"
Your action: Listen to your C/P. Write down notes of what they say in their words. Say to C/P:
"Pick the worst of these and do TAT for that."
Your action: Keep your attention on your C/P. Repeat steps in which you ask what happened, then if anything else is stuck, and then have them do TAT for that until nothing more is left about that trauma. STEP TWO Say to B:
"Would it be useful to do a positive statement?"
Your action: Test. If 'no', skip the positive statement. If 'yes', proceed as follows: Say to C/P:
"Put your attention on 'I survived __________ (the trauma)’ or an equivalent statement such as, ‘It happened to me and I'm OK,’ and do the TAT pose. Let me know when you feel a shift in your energy, or I'll let you know when I feel a change or when about a minute has passed."
Your action: Put your attention on your C/P. Test on yourself while they are working, with the intent for to your own body to "Show me a ‘yes' when they're done." Watch your C/P to notice any shifts in their breathing, posture, movements, or facial expression. Be open to see if you can feel a release in your own body (your attention is primarily on your C/P, secondarily on yourself, but truly inclusive of both). At this point, I often pray for their healing in relation to this item. Praying is your option. When your body gives you a ‘yes,’ quit testing and keep your attention on your C/P. Wait another 15-20 seconds to see if your C/P will tell you "OK, I'm done" or the equivalent. If they don't, then: Say to C/P:
"I think that's done. Put your hands down. What happened for you?"
Your action: Listen to your C/P. Write down notes of what they say in their words. Validate their experience: i.e., "Good" or "OK" or whatever you want to say to let them know that whatever they experienced is normal and that you heard what they said. STEP THREE Say to B:
"Would it be useful to work on the origins of the trauma?" If 'no', skip it. If yes, then: 65
Say to C/P:
"The origins of the problem could be from any time in your history. Neither you nor I need to be conscious of what they are, you just need to be open to them, whatever they may be. Be open to the origins and do the TAT pose. Let me know when you feel a shift in your energy, or I'll let you know when I feel a change or when about a minute has passed."
Your action: Put your attention on your C/P. Test on yourself while they are working, with the intent for to your own body to "Show me a ‘yes' when they're done." Watch your C/P to notice any shifts in their breathing, posture, movements, or facial expression. Be open to see if you can feel a release in your own body (your attention is primarily on your C/P, secondarily on yourself, but truly inclusive of both). At this point, I often pray for their healing in relation to this item. Praying is your option. When your body gives you a ‘yes,’ quit testing and keep your attention on your C/P. Wait another 15-20 seconds to see if your C/P will tell you "OK, I'm done" or the equivalent. If they don't, then: Say to C/P:
"I think that's done. Put your hands down. What happened for you?"
Your action: Listen to your C/P. Write down notes of what they say in their words. Validate their experience: i.e., "Good" or "OK" or whatever you want to say to let them know that whatever they experienced is normal and that you heard what they said. Your action: Test to see if you need to proceed to STEP FOUR, the storage space. If 'yes', then: Say to C/P:
"The 'storage space' means wherever in your body or your life _________(the trauma) has been a disturbance. It can include reactions in your body and mind and triggers out in the world. Neither you nor I need to be conscious of where all those places are. What's important is that you are open to those places. Be open to the 'storage space' and do the TAT pose,” or you can say "Be open to wherever in your body and your life this has been a problem," or "Be open to wherever in your body and your life this has been painful."
Your action: Put your attention on your C/P. Test on yourself while they are working, with the intent for to your own body to "Show me a ‘yes' when they're done." Watch your C/P to notice any shifts in their breathing, posture, movements, or facial expression. Be open to see if you can feel a release in your own body (your attention is primarily on your C/P, secondarily on yourself, but truly inclusive of both). At this point, I often pray for their healing in relation to this item. Praying is your option. When your body gives you a ‘yes,’ quit testing and keep your attention on your C/P. Wait another 15-20 seconds to see if your C/P will tell you "OK, I'm done" or the equivalent. If they don't, then: Say to C/P:
"I think that's done. Put your hands down. What happened for you?" 66
Your action: Listen to your C/P. Write down notes of what they say in their words. Validate their experience: i.e., "Good" or "OK" or whatever you want to say to let them know that whatever they experienced is normal and that you heard what they said. Say to C/P:
"Put your attention on _________ (the trauma). Hold."
Your action: Test. A 'yes' or 'strong' response indicates that the problem in relation to this item has been cleared up. You are asking the body "How do you feel about (this trauma): weak or strong?" Say to C/P:
"This shows us that this trauma has been healed." Or, "Wow!!" Or whatever you like that signifies that their body is showing both of you that it's feeling better now in relation to this trauma.
Good work! Your C/P's body and mind have healed and are at peace in relation to this trauma and it's been fun, almost always easy, and awe-inspiring. The Four Steps of TAT are complete.
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FOUR STEPS OF TAT FLOWCHART OR FOLLOWING THE PATH OF MOST RESISTANCE Step One Do TAT with Allergen, Negative Statement, Trauma, etc. Then ask: What happened? Answer 1: If no stuck energy, proceed to Step Two. Answer 2: If stuck energy is encountered, do TAT on that. Then ask: What happened? Answer 2: If stuck energy is encountered, do TAT on that. Then ask: What happened? (Continue until no stuck energy is encountered.) Step Two Hold a positive thought in relation to the item and do the TAT pose. Step Three Be open to the origins and do TAT. Step Four Put attention on the storage space and do TAT.
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HANDLING A DISCRETE INCIDENT WITH TAT For a single incident, you should pay the most attention to STEP 1. Here's what you do. Instruct the client/patient (C/P): "Put your attention on _____________ (the incident) for about four minutes or until you feel a shift." When the client/patient (C/P) indicates that they're done, ask: "Is there anything about it that still gets you or hurts you or that you still find yourself thinking about or that still grabs you inside?" You can word this however you like, just so that they understand what you mean. If they say "Yes,” then tell them: "Put your attention on that and do TAT." When they're done, ask them again: "Is there anything about it that still gets you?" If yes, have them do TAT again with their attention on that. Keep repeating this until their answer is "No, nothing about it still hooks me" (or whatever they say that means that). Then ask their body if it would be helpful to proceed to STEP 2. Often, a positive statement for a single incident will be "I survived __________" or "It happened and I'm OK." This brings a person to the physical realization that they're here now and not still stuck in trying to survive the incident. Then ask their body if it would be helpful to proceed to STEP 3. Often a person is in a situation now because of a propensity to be in that type of situation. It may be genetic or some other cause, but just being open to the origins will usually cover it. Then ask their body if it would be helpful to proceed STEP 4, the place or places where the incident has been stored.
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HANDLING A GROUP OF SIMILAR INCIDENTS WITH TAT Sometimes a person has had many incidents which are similar. I like to do things simply and quickly. Here's how you can do it, too. Ask the person’s body: "Can we work on all of these incidents at the same time?" If the answer is "Yes,” then have the person put their attention on all of the incidents and do STEP 1. If the answer is "No,” then ask the person to choose the incident that is most disturbing or most fresh in their memory, and ask their body if it is OK to work on that incident now. If the answer is “Yes,” then proceed with STEP 1. When that incident clears up, then ask: "Is there another incident we need to hear about before we do all of the rest at once?" If yes, proceed as above. If no, have the person put their attention on all of the incidents at once and do TAT. Then proceed to STEPS 2, 3 and 4 as necessary.
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WORKING WITH SOMEONE WHO WON'T TALK MUCH Sometimes you may find yourself working with someone who either doesn't want to or can't talk much about what happened to them. Perhaps because of pride or perhaps because not remembering much is how they survived a trauma. If they are a teenager, they may be overwhelmed by confusing emotions, or sharing certain things goes against their sense of who they are. If the person is willing to seek help with the problem, however, you're halfway there. Ask the person’s body, "Can we work this way (i.e., by using TAT) now?" If the answer is "Yes,” then ask the person what the problem is. If they can only say one or two words, that's enough. Then ask their body, "Can we work on this problem now?" If the answer is "Yes,” then have them put their attention on the problem and do TAT. When you ask if there's anything else about the incident or problem that grabs them, they can just answer by shaking their head. If something is still stuck, you say, "OK, put your attention on that and do TAT." You keep asking and instructing them to do TAT until nothing more about it bothers them. Then do STEPS 2, 3 AND 4 of TAT as necessary.
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KNOWING WHEN TO GO ON AND WHEN TO STOP WHEN PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL PAIN OCCUR What if someone suddenly gets a headache in the middle of doing TAT? How do you know whether to go on? Ask their body, “Should we continue doing TAT for this problem now?" If the answer is “Yes," then ask, “Would it be best to focus on the headache?" If the answer is “Yes,” then have them focus on the headache and do TAT. This is the way to approach any physical pain while someone is doing TAT. If emotional pain occurs, such as intense grief, it's perfectly OK to give some space to the person to cry and express it. This does not often occur with TAT. There is usually a resolution of intense emotion into peace, but sometimes strong emotion does occur. Give the person a few minutes or whatever you feel is appropriate and then ask their body if it would be useful for them to put their attention on that emotion and do TAT. If it is, have them do that. If not, go on to the next step. If you are ever in doubt about which way to go, remember three things: 8)
Ask their body if it's OK to go on and what to do next; for example, "More on this step? Next step?
2)
If it's OK to work on a problem, it doesn't matter much which piece of it you clear in what order. Once it's cleared up, they're better off. Their junk will remain, and what's clear will help them.
3)
Take what comes. Listen to what the person tells you. That's probably what you should focus on next.
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ALLERGIES: A TREATMENT OVERVIEW If something exists, you can have an allergy to it. In my definition, allergy means what's left from a trauma that is unresolved. If a trauma is unresolved, it is as if the moment itself is still with you. You are still actively trying to defend yourself against some information held in that moment. By putting and keeping your troops (your immune system) on alert at your border, you are constantly losing energy. You have invested your all of your energy in selfdefense. The battle rages on, whether or not you are receiving incoming reports from the battlefield. If, for example, you were abandoned, and that trauma is unresolved, then you have troops engaged in holding that moment off. Your personal energy is tied up. In that moment as a child, it may have been too much for you to receive the information "Mommy has left me. Mommy doesn't care about me." So every moment you are fighting off receiving that information. At the time it happened, your stomach might have tightened up and your jaw may have set with the determination "I don't need anyone to help me!" Now you have TMJ (sore, clinched jaw) and stomach problems and your mid-back (where your stomach nerves come from) gets tired at the end of the day and you're seeing medical professionals for help with each problem and taking herbs, vitamins or medications to help ease your pain. Your stomach is tight thinking "I can get food myself and I don't need anyone else to get food for me!" When you're stressed, you can't eat well. This is your basic trauma and resulting chronic problems. To come up with an allergy, you just sprinkle one more ingredient in the pot: an allergen. Say the above trauma happened just after breakfast. If you had milk and cereal in your stomach, the existence of milk and cereal is also being held out. You have troops assigned to the task “resist milk and cereal." Milk and cereal have been lumped into the category of "Not me -- Harmful Outsiders -- Red Alert." And there you have it: an allergy is born. Our cells can carry information such as this for generations. Here we are today in a world full of new things our cells have never encountered: man-made chemicals. We live in a chemical soup: the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, our soaps, and on and on. We have a lot of stress in our world and plenty of opportunity for trauma in which chemicals are added into our trauma stew and become allergens for us. Where to start!? I recommend that you start with the foods you eat. Do TAT for each food that you eat, each vitamin you take, and every supplement you take. Then do TAT for every herb and medication you take. When I say, "Do TAT," I mean that you should check with your body and see which things you have trouble with and can work on now. Then do the Four Steps of TAT. How many can you do in a day? Ask your body before you start each new item and you'll know by your body's response if you can do another one.
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I recommend that for a week, every time you are about to eat a meal, you test to find out if anything on your plate is an allergen. If it is, do TAT for it. I understand that you may be out for business lunches or on the run. Just do it for a while and see what you come up with. You may also need to do TAT for chemicals in the food you eat. Read labels. Find out what's actually in your food. Pick a chemical on the box and just ask your body "Do you have any trouble with __________ (MSG, for example)?" If the answer is Yes, give yourself a treatment. Check your drinking water, too. It's probably full of chemicals, too. Find out if you need to do TAT for your water. If you are environmentally ill, check your air. Put a jar of distilled water in your work environment and another in your home environment for two days. In your home environment, you can put one jar in each room if you are very chemically sensitive. Also put one outside for an air sample. The water will collect samples of whatever is in your physical environment: carpet, paint, cleaning fluids, drapery fabric, building materials, pollens, etc. Then, after the two days, put the jar of water next to you and ask your body if it has a problem with this. If there's a problem, give yourself a treatment with TAT. Then test your sample jar the next day and see whether the treatment worked. If not, you may need to do TAT for each item separately: the carpet, the paint, then the cleaning fluids, etc. If you can't get a sample of each, just put your attention on each. Thought is real, so it works to use a thought with TAT. You just think, "The carpet at work" and do the TAT pose. If you don't know what is making you feel sick, and you suspect it might be an allergic reaction, you can just put your attention on "Whatever is making me sick right now" and do TAT. This often works. If you are starting to get a cold, you can put your attention on "this cold" or "whatever is attacking my body" and do TAT. Then proceed with the Four Steps of TAT as needed. This will often stop the cold in its tracks. Or if you prefer, you can spit into a cup and set the cup next to you and do TAT with your attention on "whatever's making me sick." I have found that in most all cases, you only need to do TAT one time for each allergen and you're done. I have also found that when a person is very stressed, the worst of their allergies may come back in a milder form and need to be treated again. I believe that TAT works like homeopathic medicine: you are giving yourself a dose of the thing you're having trouble with. Your thought is a refined energy which, when combined with the TAT pose, is like the perfect medicine. You are giving yourself a dose of the item that is making you ill. Your resistance to it ends and you come to a peace with the item. You have to be a highly-observant detective in allergy work. Things that are normally taken for granted have to be seen with new eyes. You could be allergic to the smell of one perfume, your friend's after-shave, or a new fabric softener you threw into your dryer. You could be allergic to your newspaper, your friend's cat or your new car. Enjoy the process of discovery and know that you can truly heal. 74
DR. DEVI NAMBUDRIPAD'S TOP TEN ALLERGENS 1. Eggs 2. Calcium 3. Vitamin C 4. B Complex 5. Sugar 6. Grains 7. Iron 8. Minerals 9. Vitamin A 10. Salt
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THE TAT PROTOCOL IN SCRIPT FORM FOR ALLERGIES Copyrighted by Tapas Fleming, November 22, 1996 --------------------------------------------------------------What you say to your client/patient = Say to C/P: What you ask your client/patient's body = Say to B: --------------------------------------------------------------This script is given in the form of a practitioner working with a client or patient. If you are using it on yourself, you will be playing both roles: that of the practitioner and the patient. It is always essential to ask if it is OK to work on a particular item now and also to reflect on what happened after you do each step. All essential instructions are in bold. The other procedures, instructions and explanations to your C/P will change at your discretion depending on variables in your relationship with that person and how you like to work. Here are ways you are free to vary the instructions: You might not use energetic field testing, or you might already have a favorite way to do it that is not the O-Ring test and you would substitute a method that works for you. You may prefer to do all Four Steps of TAT and not test the body each time to find out if each step is going to be useful or not. This is fine, because doing all Four Steps will be no problem. Your C/P may already understand the meaning of the origins or the “storage space,” so you won’t need to explain it each time. You don’t need to test yourself to see when your C/P is done with a step. You can rely on them to tell you. Your C/P might already know to let you know when they feel done with a step so you won’t need to repeat that each time. Let’s start!
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FIND OUT IF IT IS OK TO WORK ON THIS NOW First, establish an energetic field test to determine if it's ok to work on this problem now. For the O-Ring Test: Say to C/P:
"Hold."
Your action: A second after you've said hold, and they're holding strong, do the O-Ring Test on them. Say to C/P:
"As soon as you're done, relax." (Telling your C/P to relax in the context of energetic field testing means that they should relax their strong hold on their fingers.)
Say to B:
"Body, show me what a 'strong' or 'yes' response looks like."
Say to C/P:
"Hold."
Your action: Pull a second after you've said "hold" and they're set. Say to C/P:
"Relax."
Say to B:
"Body, show me what a 'weak' or 'no' response looks like."
Say to C/P:
"Hold."
Your action: Pull a second after you've said "hold" and they're set. Say to C/P:
"Relax. What allergen would you like to work on now?"
Your action: Take notes in their words. Say to B:
Can we work on _________ (this allergen) now?
Say to C/P:
"Hold."
Your action: Pull as soon as they're set. If they hold strong, it means 'yes'. If they don't, tell them they need to pick a different allergen or first do TAT for their thoughts about clearing this up which stand in the way of proceeding. Your action: If they haven't mentioned several allergies, go to STEP ONE. If the person does name several allergies, and you want to prioritize which to work on first, write them down and then do this: Say to B:
"Show me a 'yes' for the one we should do first."
Say to C/P:
"Put your attention on _________ (allergen) and hold." 77
Your action: Test. Decide "the one that comes back with a 'yes' is the one we work on.” Continue through list of allergens and write down the one that comes back with a 'yes'. Instead of you prioritizing by testing, you can also just ask your C/P "Which would you like to start with?" Say to B:
"Can we work on this now?"
Say to C/P:
"Hold."
Your action: Test. If 'yes' from body, proceed to Step One. If you do not do energetic field testing, then pray or make an intention that “If it is time for this to heal now, may it happen.” Do not work more than 10 minutes a day using TAT if you do not do energetic field testing. If you do not do energetic field testing and your C/P feels any discomfort doing TAT, stop immediately.
STEP ONE Say to C/P:
"Hold a sample of the allergen, set it next to you, put it in your lap or think about it. Hold."
Your action: Test. A 'no' or 'weak' response from their body shows that they do indeed have a problem with this item. Say to C/P:
"Put your attention on ________ (allergen). Do the TAT pose. Let me know when you feel a shift in your energy or you feel that you are done processing, or I'll let you know when I feel a change or when about four minutes have passed. This shift may occur in as little as a 10 seconds. "
Your action: Put your attention on your C/P. Test on yourself while they are working, with the intent for to your own body to "Show me a 'yes' when they're done." Watch your C/P to notice any shifts in their breathing, posture, movements, or facial expression. Be open to see if you can feel a release in your own body (your attention is primarily on your C/P, secondarily on yourself, but truly inclusive of both). At this point, I often pray for their healing in relation to this item. Praying is your option. When your body gives you a 'yes,’ quit testing and keep your attention on your C/P. Wait another 15-20 seconds to see if your C/P will tell you "OK, I'm done" or the equivalent. If they don't, say: Say to C/P:
"I think that's done. Put your hands down. What happened for you?"
Your action: Listen to your C/P. Write down notes of what they say in their words. Validate their experience: i.e., "Good" or "OK" or whatever you want to say to let them know that subtle energy changes are normal and that what they 78
experienced is normal and that you heard what they said. Also you want to encourage them in their subtle sense perception. STEP TWO Say to B:
"Would it be useful to do a positive statement?"
Your action: Test. If 'no', skip the positive statement. If 'yes', proceed as follows: Say to C/P:
"Put your attention on 'I can have a healthy relationship with __________(allergen)' and do the TAT pose. Let me know when you feel a shift in your energy, or I'll let you know when I feel a change or when about two minutes have passed."
Your action: Put your attention on your C/P. Test on yourself while they are working, with the intent for to your own body to "Show me a 'yes' when they're done." Watch your C/P to notice any shifts in their breathing, posture, movements, or facial expression. Be open to see if you can feel a release in your own body (your attention is primarily on your C/P, secondarily on yourself, but truly inclusive of both). At this point, I often pray for their healing in relation to this item. Praying is your option. When your body gives you a 'yes,’ quit testing and keep your attention on your C/P. Wait another 15-20 seconds to see if your C/P will tell you "OK, I'm done" or the equivalent. If they don't, say: Say to C/P:
"I think that's done. Put your hands down. What happened for you?"
Your action: Listen to your C/P. Write down notes of what they say in their words. Validate their experience: i.e., "Good" or "OK" or whatever you want to say to let them know that subtle energy changes are normal and that what they experienced is normal and that you heard what they said. Also you want to encourage them in their subtle sense perception. STEP THREE Say to B:
"Would it be useful to work on the origins of the problem with ________(item)?" If 'no', skip it. If yes, then:
Say to C/P:
"Put your attention on ‘All the origins of this problem are healing.’ and do the TAT pose.” Or “Put your attention on ‘God, thank you for healing all the origins of this problem.’ Let me know when you feel a shift in your energy, or I'll let you know when I feel a change or when about two minutes have passed.”
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Your action: Put your attention on your C/P. Test on yourself while they are working, with the intent for to your own body to "Show me a 'yes' when they're done." Watch your C/P to notice any shifts in their breathing, posture, movements, or facial expression. Be open to see if you can feel a release in your own body (your attention is primarily on your C/P, secondarily on yourself, but truly inclusive of both). At this point, I often pray for their healing in relation to this item. Praying is your option. When your body gives you a 'yes,’ quit testing and keep your attention on your C/P. Wait another 15-20 seconds to see if your C/P will tell you "OK, I'm done" or the equivalent. If they don't, say: STEP FOUR Say to B:
"Would it be useful to work on the 'storage space'?"
Say to C/P:
"Hold."
Your action: Test. If 'no', skip it. If 'yes', proceed as follows: Say to C/P:
"The 'storage space' means wherever in your body or your life __________ (this item) has been a disturbance. It can include allergic reactions in your body and triggers out in the world. Neither you nor I need to be conscious of what all those places are. What's important is that you are open to those places. Put your attention on ‘All the places in my mind, body and life where this has been a problem are healing now’ and do the TAT pose, or you can say ‘God, thank you for healing all the places in my mind, body and life where this has been a problem.’ and do the TAT pose."
Your action: Put your attention on your C/P. Test on yourself while they are working, with the intent for to your own body to "Show me a 'yes' when they're done." Watch your C/P to notice any shifts in their breathing, posture, movements, or facial expression. Be open to see if you can feel a release in your own body (your attention is primarily on your C/P, secondarily on yourself, but truly inclusive of both). At this point, I often pray for their healing in relation to this item. Praying is your option. When your body gives you a 'yes,’ quit testing and keep your attention on your C/P. Wait another 15-20 seconds to see if your C/P will tell you "OK, I'm done" or the equivalent. If they don't, say: Say to C/P:
"I think that's done. Put your hands down. What happened for you?"
Your action: Listen to your C/P. Write down notes of what they say in their words. Validate their experience: i.e., "Good" or "OK" or whatever you want to say to let them know that subtle energy changes are normal and that what they experienced is normal and that you heard what they said. Also you want to encourage them in their subtle sense perception. 80
Say to C/P:
"Hold a sample of the allergen or set it next to you or put it in your lap. Hold."
Your action: Test. A 'yes' or 'strong' response indicates that the problem in relation to this item has been cleared up. Good work! Your C/P's body now considers this item a friend and not an enemy. The Four Steps of TAT are complete.
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A FEW WORDS ABOUT MYSELF I am a licensed acupuncturist in California and practice Traditional Chinese Medicine in Los Angeles, California. I studied acupuncture beginning in 1984 at Emperor's College of Traditional Oriental Medicine in Santa Monica, CA and began practicing in 1987. In 1988 I attended advanced training classes in China. From 1987 to 1991 I treated pain and immune-deficient conditions and specialized in substance abuse treatment, setting up and working in detox programs for the California Parole Board, for Beacon House (an alcohol halfway house in San Pedro, California) and for Joint Efforts, a drug rehabilitation program, also in San Pedro. In 1992, I began specializing in bio-energetic allergy treatments and worked successfully without needles for pregnant women, children and patients with needle phobia. I developed TAT in 1993, and since then have been teaching it to my patients and friends, with the amazing result that they are able to free themselves of unwanted effects of traumas, negative attitudes and allergies. My personal background includes 25 years of meditation and mental and emotional release work. I wish you freedom from your trauma, and I wish you health and vitality! Tapas Fleming October 1998
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FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ON TAT I am grateful for the opportunity to share TAT with you. You are welcome to write or email me and let me know your results with TAT or any questions you may have about using TAT. I would also like to know specific symptoms that have improved for you and what traumas have cleared up for you. When you write, please let me know if it is all right to share your story with others and whether or not you want your name used. It really helps me and other trauma sufferers when you share your experiences. If you would like to buy more TAT Workbooks or audio or video tapes on TAT, or if you are interested in taking a seminar on TAT, write, email, or fax: TAT International 5031 Pacific Coast Hwy. #76 Torrance, CA 90505 email:
[email protected] fax: (310) 378-2318 TAT Workshops are held throughout the year. Please contact TAT International for a current schedule or to discuss the possibility of setting up a workshop in your area.
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RECOMMENDED READING Becker, Robert O. and Gary Selden The Body Electric Beinfield, Harriet and Efrem Korngold
Between Heaven and Earth: A Guide to Chinese Medicine
Branden, Nathaniel
How to Raise Your Self-Esteem
Brennan, Barbara
Hands of Light
Chopra, Deepak
Quantum Healing
Gerber, Dr. Michael Vibrational Medicine Liberman, Jacob
Light: Medicine of the Future
Nambudripad, Dr. Devi S.
Say Goodbye to Illness
Ni, Hua-Ching Tao, the Subtle Universal Law and the Integral Way of Life Pert, Candice Molecules of Emotion
