Matrix Reimprinting / Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)

Matrix Reimprinting, developed by Karl Dawson, is a technique that uses EFT with specific traumatic memories.  

It connects people with their past traumas and core beliefs and elegantly enables them to transform them into supportive platforms for their lives.  This involves inner child, shadow and parts work. 

What can Matrix Reimprinting and EFT be helpful for?

Matrix Reimprinting and EFT has proved, amongst many others, to be particularly helpful for the following conditions:

• Addictions
• Disassociation Disorders
• Longterm and Chronic Illness
• Negative Core Beliefs
• Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD
• Relationship Issues
• Stress and anxiety
• Trauma, including Preconscious Trauma
• Phobias
• Weightloss
• Smoking Cessation
• Pain
• Confidence / Self Worth etc
   

Why Use Matrix Reimprinting?

By combining EFT with visualisation Matrix Reimprinting is a powerful technique which helps to release and process the chronic effects of past stress and trauma in the subconscious mind. In contrast to other techniques it is both gentle and effective and lessens the risk of the client becoming re-traumatised as they do not necessarily need to re-live the event whilst the technique is being carried out.

The Matrix Reimprinting techniques helps to both acknowledge and release the emotional charge from the trauma. It helps to identify those negative beliefs that were either strengthened or made at the time of the trauma and helps the client to create and imprint new positive beliefs, images and outcomes to aid in resolving the original trauma within the mind and body.

Ultimately this technique aids in the transformation of physical and mental wellbeing for the client, gaining a cognitive shift in insight, perception and belief through the deep reframing of the trauma and providing ultimate emotional freedom from the traumatic memory.

How does it work?

When we experience trauma our fight or flight response turns into a freeze response and as such this part of us that is traumatised then holds all the difficult feelings, emotions, sounds, smells etc from the trauma and splits itself off from the rest of ourselves in order for us to carry on and survive in the world. This is something of a natural protective phenomenon held by other animals too and in the face of imminent death, we go into shock or freeze. We all dissociate from our bodies so that we no longer fully experience the trauma. However, the part that splits off never stops experiencing the trauma, for us, as adults, it becomes a memory and for our younger self or ECHO (Energetic Consciousness Hologram) it continues to remain as a current event.

In Matrix Reimprinting this younger self or ECHO has no physical body, it is made up of energy and has an independent consciousness. It lives in our local fields (see Bruce Lipton’s research on the connection between beliefs and biology, trauma psychology, neuro-development, and quantum physics).

For Example:

Say you have experienced a traumatic event when you were 10, the part of you that splits off, dissociates from your body, still has that exact same 10 year old consciousness. During your lifetime you have gone through many other experiences and learned many other new things however your 10 year old is still trapped within that original traumatic event. Imagine now that something in your present life triggers that old memory and suddenly you start feeling the emotions, smells, sounds, etc that your 10 year old original felt. Your conscious Adult mind is now being hijacked by the past. This is why we sometimes feel intense emotions that don’t really make sense to us at the time – such as fear, anxiety, panic attacks when nothing bad seems to be happening.

Therefore within Matrix Reimprinting your younger self becomes the real client in the counselling/therapy room. As a Matrix Reimprinting Practitioner I will work with you to help your younger self in being able to resolve unfinished traumas.

This may sound very far-fetched and you may be thinking to yourself how can this younger self or ECHO be “real” and is it not just a figment of your own imagination. Let’s provide you with an example:

I was working with a lady who had grown up in Wales and had a lovely Welsh accent. We began working on a memory from when she was about 5 years old. I facilitated the session with her and asked her to step into the scene introduce herself by saying “Hi, I’m from the future and I am here to help you”. When I asked the lady about how her younger self was feeling she said “She won’t answer”. We explored and thought about asking the younger self the same question again but this time in Welsh. It turned out that the lady’s younger self had only been able to speak Welsh up until she was 6. This illustrated to me that ECHOs / younger selves are real. If the lady had been making it up in her head by simply just using her imagination there are no ways this would have happened. Younger selves or ECHOs, who have become frozen in time, often have access to memories that we have long since forgotten as adults. Working with our younger selves and ECHOs allows for exploring different ideas for how they would want to happen that perhaps our adult selves would never come up with by asking questions such as:

“What are you feeling?”

“What did you decide at this moment – about yourself or about life?”

Matrix Reimprinting works for traumatic memories and helps to reverse negative core beliefs. We help the younger selves and ECHOs and we also look at what they decided at that moment – what they were thinking to make sense of what was happening to them. These decisions often become the core beliefs (decision), or perceptual filters that mess up our lives. And the younger self, the more absurd their decisions (core beliefs) tend to be.

For Example:

I’m 4 years old and happily playing on the floor with my toy fire truck. Suddenly my parents are arguing and dad hits mum. In a situation like this, I’m very likely to go into the Freeze response and I might well decide something like: “It’s not safe to play (or be happy) because something bad will happen.”  We, as children, seem hardwired to take responsibility for everything going on around us. This is a survival mechanism within our subconscious. If it is my fault that mum drinks, then maybe I can change myself and things will get better. This means that as a child I may have made terrible decisions, created negative decisions (core beliefs) by saying to myself:

"People I love will abandon me"

“I’m unlovable”

" It is not safe for me to relax"

“The world is a dangerous place”

“I have to hide who I really am, or I will be rejected”
 

“I must be in control at all times”, etc...

These negative core beliefs (decisions) set us up for failure. We begin to misinterpret situations to fit our expectations. Karl Dawson says “We’re always looking for confirmation that our beliefs (decisions) are true”. Unfortunately, we tend to find that confirmation, often by re-enacting the same bad experiences all throughout our lives.

With Matrix Reimprinting we have an elegant solution for this seeming glitch in our human design. Once we’ve tapped away the younger self’s distress, we ask them “How would you like this picture to change?”

Sometimes their answer can astonish my adult clients but invariably the new picture reverses the negative decision (core belief) formed in the original scene. Sometimes changing the picture for the ECHO is easy and automatic and sometimes it’s quite a healing journey.

For Example:

The younger self says “I want daddy to give me a hug”. I ask my client “Can you picture that for your younger self?” If the answer is yes then that’s great. But, sometimes my client will say “No! I can’t picture that at all! My dad would never give me a hug.” In that case we might end up tapping on dad in that memory – helping him get to a better place where he can actually love his child. We could even travel back in time to when dad was a little boy and something bad happened and help dad's younger self. With Matrix Reimprinting we have access to deeper levels of healing as needed. Once the trauma is discharged, and the ECHO is established in a new, much better picture, we go through a process to re-imprint that picture in the client’s mind, body and heart and then send it out into the Matrix. It’s hard to overstate how profound this can be to experience.

Matrix Reimprinting creates happy endings.  Ideally, and most often, when clients look back at the memory of the traumatic event, they automatically see the new picture and feel the lovely new positive feelings associated with it.  And behind the scenes, their belief (decision) system has shifted, which begins to change their entire experience of life. I want to stress that we’re changing the picture for the benefit of the younger self. For the younger self the change is very real. We’re NOT denying that the actual event took place. As our adult selves, we can always access the original memory if we wish (although the emotional distress will likely be gone). But now our younger self is no longer trapped, reliving the same horrible moment endlessly. Instead, when we look back we have the lovely new picture which becomes a source of pleasure and profound transformation for us.

EMOTIONAL FREEDOM TECHNIQUE