How to Gently Alleviate Grief and Guilt

By Christine Wheeler, MA Grieving is such a personal experience... your grief is like nobody else's.Any type of loss can leave you feeling empty and alone ... the end of a relationship, the death of a pet, or the loss of a child through miscarriage. In the last several months, thousands of people all over the world have been experiencing grief following the devastation of hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes. EFT is a New Way to Take Care of Yourself While Grieving Conventional therapies suggest intensifying your physical and emotional self-care following a loss.But this can seem impossible if you feel like your coping mechanisms are overwhelmed. You may also have feelings of guilt... or a belief that you don't deserve to feel better.If depression ensues, your doctor may prescribe you an anti-depressant.Fortunately, you now have another option. EFT is a do-it-yourself form of emotional acupuncture that balances the body's subtle energy system and resolves unrelenting emotional pain.Instead of using acupuncture needles, you use your fingertips to stimulate specific acupuncture points. When your energy system is balanced, emotional pain dissolves, allowing you to move past the grief and embrace the next phase of your life.The basics of EFT can be learned by anyone and can be self-applied (usually in minutes).80 PercentEffective EFT does not claim to be a cure-all, however clinical studies have shown it to be effective in about 80 percentof cases. While a complete description of EFT is beyond the scope of this article, you can learn all the basics from the free EFT Get Started Package on the EFT Web site.This includes a free download of the 79-page EFT Manual. Those wishing to save time and dive right in can get the affordable five-star training DVDs.Case History: Intense Emotional Grief and Guilt Following a Miscarriage You can read the entire case on the EFT Web site Mair Llewellyn, an EFT practitioner from the United Kingdom, worked with a young woman, Viv (whose name has been changed to protect privacy),who was unable to emotionally recover following her miscarriage. She was plagued with guilt and self blame for having lost her baby, and she felt that life had little to offer her after this painful incident.She had drifted into a deep depression and her family and friends were worried about her being so distraught. Viv was married just a year prior to her miscarriage, and she and her husband were excited and happy about their new beginning and wanted to start a family right away.After losing the baby, she felt solely responsible for everything going so wrong in their lives and she had daily fears about not being able to conceive again.Viv had a pervading sense of hopelessness. They began doing EFT and, in the process, Viv had the realization that she was harboring serious anger and resentment toward her husband, who she perceived as being unaffected by their loss.Viv said, "My life has changed but his life (her husband's) hasn't changed at all." Mair and Viv spent some more time doing EFT on this insight and Viv was surprised that she had felt so much resentment toward her husband.At the end of the appointment she felt much lighter and happier. Two days after her session, Viv phone Mair and expressed that she and her husband had shared a wonderful time talking and healing things that had been causing them disharmony. They were more relaxed together without the weight of Viv's resentment. Ten days later, Viv had a follow-up appointment and shared that she had been using EFT to balance other areas of her life that were affected by the miscarriage.She realized that she had been using chocolate and alcohol to suppress her anxiety and resentment.Both issues were resolved using EFT. Viv also reported that she had a stunning insight (this often happens when people are performing EFT).She had a vision of herself at 3 years old, sitting on the steps with her weeping mother. When Viv later asked about this memory, her mother said that she had fallen down those stairs and had a miscarriage.Viv's father was away at the time and her mother was left to grieve on her own... feeling very sad and alone.Together Viv and her mother performed EFT for this trauma and, in Viv's words, "Their release was magical." After EFT, Viv was able to be happier within herself and in her marriage, and she now enjoyed a closeness with her mother that she had not experienced before.More on EFT Please note that in addition to resolving grief and guilt, EFT has been a consistently effective healing tool for hundreds of other physical, mental and emotional ailments.For more information, you can explore the EFT Web site and its numerous success stories regarding fears, phobias, emotional traumas and physical ailments. Please consult qualified health professionals before putting EFT into practice for yourself or others.