The Power of Havening Series: Punched in the Gut

As a practitioner and am very enthusiastic about this work, but I am not a perfectly healed person. I am on this journey just like you. A lifetime of pattern making doesn’t change overnight - but over time. I believe that we are given what we can handle, when we can handle it, when we’re ready and open to healing it.

It was a couple days ago that I began to feel that PING that something was about to be upturned. I’ve been having a health issue around a herniated disk that has been bringing up a lot of ruminating, especially at night. I have been struggling to sleep both because the pain is constant and the anxiety and fear around what happened last time stalks my mind. Two years ago when the ordeal of my herniated disk had come to a pinnacle, it was a nightmare of an experience. The injury was painful from the beginning but got worse and worse over four months. Eventually, it left me physically crippled, my leg constantly contracted up to a 45 degree angle, unable to stand straight, sit at all, and barely able to lie down. Plus unyielding level 10 pain (worse than unmedicated childbirth) for days that didn’t respond at all to pain killers issued by my GP, muscular steroid shots, or any other measure I had been doing for the previous months. After three or four days of this, I ended up in the ER, half to hysteria with pain.

Well, it was the hospital during the time of Covid when there was rarely room or energy for anyone with any other issue. Unfortunately, my treatment was very poor to say the least and I didn’t have an advocate. I lay on the ER bed, in agony and feeling so forlorn, alone, and hopeless, uncontrollably ugly sobbing. The “compassion” I received was being told that my crying was just making it worse, my hernia was “only moderate,” and my behavior was disturbing other people. For some reason they just thought I was drug addict, and treated me as such, not taking me very seriously. It was TERRIBLE. I was tossed to the curb in a wheelchair I couldn’t even sit in to wait for my angel friend I barely knew (Roanoke was a Covid pitstop for those who don’t know my story) to come get me, with a laundry list of prescriptions and an order for radiology to perform an Epidural Spinal Injection shot “when I could get a change to schedule it myself.” Remember they didn’t believe me. It took a week and a half to get in for the shot. I ended up needing two I was so inflamed, although the first got me walking again. I spent the week and a half waiting, drugged up on pain killers, anti-inflammatory, muscle relaxers, and nerve blockers, living on a little blanket bed on the floor of my living room where I could at least roll over and crawl to the bathroom, being cared for by two dear friends – talk about feeling loved! Kacey and Sarah – I can’t even express my gratitude. Anyway…

So you might be able to understand why, recently as my back pain has steadily returned (ESI shots are just band aids) I have been feeling anxious. I knew this worry and ruminating was the side effect of that traumatic event. The nudge from my higher self said that although I was doing my personal daily work, I would benefit from Event Havening. This style, facilitated by a cohort, would depotentiate the memory and thus reduce or eliminate my reactivity around it. Yes please!

Since over-independence is one of my trauma markers, it took a little push against some residual resistance to reach out for help. I posted in one of my professional Havening groups for an exchange opportunity and was overwhelmed with responses. The Havening community really is great!

What I love about Havening is that I didn’t HAVE to share any of my story. I chose to share a brief summary, but there is no need to retraumatize yourself with Havening. I just needed to get into the energy of that time. How did I feel? Where did I feel it? What emotion was associated with that memory? It was pretty easy for me to get into and feel because it felt so raw (oddly, similar to childbirth, the two years where the shots kept the pain and inflammation under control, it was almost like the memory was in a fog – but when the back pain returned full force and constant, the full trauma of the memory returned also!)

We proceeded to do two rounds of Event Havening. When reassessing the memory, as is very common, it no longer felt like I was The Main Character in the scene. This time, it was as if I was seeing myself in a way that felt detached, like watching a movie. I still felt sad, but I didn’t feel like it was happening TO me anymore. When she asked me to close my eyes again and get into the residual “sad” feeling, it was like my belly button was pulled in. “Ooooof,” I said, “It’s like I’ve been punched in the gut!” We decided to do some Transpirational Havening (using words not distractions) around “Punched in the gut.” As I proceeded to do Havening Touch and repeat, “Punched in the gut,” I felt my body release the energy as it ran through me and out in a shutter-y breath. Then another… Then… As is common with Havening… A memory surfaced.

I was four years old at preschool. I was playing on the playground when I was punched full force in the stomach by a classmate and then mocked for crying. I won’t get into all the emotions that bubbled up because many of them would need more context to understand, but there was a lot! Especially because I was already a sensitive child. Our Havening session ended, but I continued self-Havening until I felt like I had gotten up all the pain from that experience. As I employed Havening on myself, I allowed my mind to show me how that gut punch was related to feelings I had been having since that time – all the way to my treatment in the hospital. Needless to say I took a nap after! This work is no joke! But when I woke up, I felt so much more peace and joy. The scared fog I had been walking around in had lifted. My back still hurts but I feel much more EMPOWERED to be ready to advocate for what I need, not from a place of fear or anxiety, but calm confidence.

Havening is amazing. Our brains are such complex computers that can be so miraculous AND so hindering when the “protection program” is activated and is more like an emergency break when we’re trying to hit the gas! I am constantly astonished at how Havening can help uncover linked memories and heal the whole “case file,” as I like to say.

If you have unexplained reactivity (Hyper-reactive), a lack of reactivity (Hypo-reactive), or feel like you have memories or emotions you would like to try Havning around, reach out to me. I would love to see if Havening can work miracles for you like it’s continuing to work miracles for me.

All My Love,

Reh