This is a spoken YouTube tutorial by Karol Darsa, Psy.D. teaching two self-help techniques for acute stress and trauma symptoms: (1) Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) tapping across specific acupuncture points with a scripted affirmation and SUDS (0–10) check-ins; and (2) a sound-healing breathing exercise (the "Vous" technique, vu→va) emphasizing long exhales, vocal vibration, and seated/standing variants for grounding. The presenter notes practical tips (face vibration, volume, posture), possible emergent feelings (e.g., sadness), safety/disclaimer that these are supportive (not a therapy substitute), and refers viewers to her Trauma Map book and Reconnect Trauma Treatment Center (Los Angeles).
Chapters
Foreign. Hi, I'm Dr. Carol Darza, author, trauma psychologist and founder of Reconnect Trauma Treatment center in Los Angeles. Welcome to my series about learning tools of how to deal with trauma and stress in general. Last week I talked about grounding technique. In fact, I taught a grounding technique. So I highly recommend you watch that. Today I'm going to teach you two different techniques so that you can learn how to deal with stress and trauma symptoms as well. The first one is called eft. That stands for Emotional Freedom Technique. The original founder is Gary Craig. I would recommend actually you find his books and read it. But there are very simple ways to do eft. And EFT is actually a tapping technique based on certain acupuncture points that block the emotions. And when you tap those points, it helps you to release negative emotions. You can use it for so many different things for anxiety, depression, panic attacks, just stress, and sometimes even physical ailments like pain or allergies. Let's assume you're going to use the EFT technique for anxiety. That's a very common one. So I'm going to go with that. So think of a topic that stresses you. Maybe you had a fight with your boss or when you think of your homework, something like, not something so big, please. And when you think about that, let's assume you have anxiety from 0 to 10, 10 being the worst amount of anxiety. Where are you at in the scale? I'm going to assume again you are five. So, and here's how it works. So I have five anxiety. And I start first with tapping the karate chop point and saying, even though I feel anxious, I still completely love and accept myself. We say this three times. So repeat with me. Even though I feel this anxiety, I still completely love and accept myself. Even though I still have anxiety, I completely love and accept myself. Don't worry if you mess up the words just like I did. Okay? And then we tap right where your eyebrow ends, in between of them. So, and you say what the feeling is. And you feel the feeling as you tap this anxiety. Tap about six to 10 times next to the eyes, this anxiety under the eyes, this anxiety under your nose, this anxiety on the chin, this anxiety right out of the collarbone, this anxiety. Underarm, this anxiety. And top of the head, this anxiety. And then you take a deep breath and you let go. And then check again. When you feel, when you think of what happened, what is the feeling now? Is it still anxiety? Is the number still five or has it decreased? I'm going to recommend that you do this again. On your own a few more times so that you can really feel the benefits of it. If you notice that underneath anxiety, another feeling comes up now, which often happens, by the way. It could be a sadness or something else. Then you go through the same motion with that feeling. So if it's sadness, even though I feel the sadness, I completely love and accept myself. And then sadness, sadness, sadness, sadness. I'm just going through all the points with you here. Once you memorize the sequence, you can do this on your own many times throughout the day. So I have been using this technique for years with my clients and with myself as well. And I can't tell you how frequently people told me that it really relaxes their nervous system. And even though it's very brief and very to the point, it could be very effective. So that was my number one technique to deal with stress and trauma symptoms. In fact, you can have this if you have flashbacks coming up or you. You wake up maybe from a nightmare, and all of a sudden you're disoriented and you have the anxiety of the nightmare and it feels like it was real. Cause that's a very common reaction of trauma. You can just do with the nightmare, right? The anxiety about the nightmare or the feeling or the picture that you're seeing. So you can just tap it away. One little detail. When you do this, also feel the vibration on your face. That really helps the person to feel much more grounded in their body. And. And something about especially the. The points on. On your face feel very relaxing to the person. Okay, now we're going to go into our second technique. This is a very interesting sound healing technique. We call it the Vous technique. I did not invent this. So Peter Levine, who's the founder of Somatic Experiencing, has actually brought this from a Tibetan practice. So I don't know if you know this, but in the breathing techniques, the most important thing is not actually the inhale, but it's the exhale. So in this wood technique, we're not only utilizing the sound as a healing factor, but we're also going to take a breath in and exhale it for a very long time. So the real release of a negative emotion happens with actually on the exhale and not so much on the inhale. So it's going to look like this, and then I'm going to explain a little bit more. So I'm going to take a deep breath from my nose and I'm going to exhale until I can't say the sound anymore, basically. So it's A complete exhale, really emptying my lungs, feeling the push from the back of my throat, and really, again, feeling the vibration on my face and saying the V sound. So push it. Play with the volume. If you're alone, increase the volume. See how that feels. But really feel it in your gut and feel it at the back of your throat. Okay, so let's do one together. Okay. By the way, don't worry if you do not last as long as I do. I tend to have a big lung, apparently, so I can go for a very long time. All right? So, but just notice your body first. Put all the thoughts aside and just really let go of the stress and take a deep breath. All right? And then just take a moment, take another deep breath. And then you can do one more time the vu this way. And then just notice what happens in your body, in your thoughts, and the vibration that a lot of the times people report feeling in their faces or in their hands or in their throat or in their stomach. So the second part of this sound technique actually starts with a V, but it turns into an ah sound. So again, here's how it works. So you're going to do it again until you are running out of breath. I'm not going to do it this time with you. I want you to just learn how to do it and then you can do it yourself. But here's an important thing. When you say the va, really feel the push, because you actually are able to release a lot of energy and anger out when you can do it that way. So that's why I said play with the volume. Notice when you're increasing and when you're really pushing how it feels. A lot of people report really a sense of release at the end after you try sitting down. Vu and then va. I would like you to try this time the third version of it, which is standing up. So there's no right or wrong answer of which one will will work best for you. Just try them all. Sometimes people do all of them back to back. Okay. So when you're standing up, it's important to really feel your feet on the ground. It's almost like when in the martial arts, people just feel their core just sort of, you know, hanging onto the floor to make you feel more grounded. Okay. So it goes like that again. This time I'm actually going to add one more thing. So I'm going to start with vu ah, but I'm gonna go alternate between sound and I'm gonna make it a bit longer so you can really do it with me. At the same time. There's more power when you do it with your mouth really open and feel the muscles so you can really release the energy and the stress out of your mouth. So it actually looks like that. And then we'll do last one together. Okay? Okay. I'm gonna pause, so I want you to do it with me. Stand up, notice your body, feel how it feels different, and just really get in touch with being in the moment. And here we go. Take a breath O and then take a nice breath and just kind of settle down and uncheck in again. Did that feel too much? If it is so, you may want to sit down or not do that next time, but just notice your body and see how that feels. Thank you for watching these videos. I hope you'll be able to use these tools when you're stressed or when you have a lot of different symptoms of anxiety, trauma symptoms, and then you'll find an immediate relief following that. Of course, these are not to substitute treatment or therapy, right? But this should be good, supportive tools for you. If you would like to learn more tools and know more about how to deal with trauma, you might go to my link and read the Trauma Map book. It's recently been published. You'll find great little exercises and tools that you can use. And remember, trauma equals disconnect. Healing equals reconnect. Please stay connected. Sam.
