What goes around....comes around - My Dad was in the war, and now I'm helping a war refuge

One of my Hmong clients made me an awesome multi purpose bag. This woman can sew! Just perfect and so functional.

It's made like a square handbag, with handles, but another layer in has strings that you can pull which closes it. The strings are long enough to be wore backpack style.

And to make it even more twilight zone, her daughter is mean to her and my mom is mean to me, I need a mother and she needs a daughter to make bags for.

I honor the Hmong people and the Hmong story - the freedom lovers - and am grateful for them helping my dad when he was over in 'Nam. They helped save our American dad's.

And they survive the horrors of real war and have war PTSD, all these years still have it, just like some vets do, and I just happen to be a PTSD expert.  I've been healing it, studying it, embracing it and helping people stuck in it and its the joy of my life to see the light come back on in their eyes. To see them come alive again.

And that's where the Recovery Model and WRAP come in... there's more to life and mental health and recovery then just getting unstuck from the symptoms, it's the perfect time to encourage their interests and engage in their daily life activities and to add into that the Wellness activities of which there are endless ideas for things to do. In other words, wellness is life plus some endorphin producing activities we love to do (sewing) that make life come alive again, in the simple things, the daily routines.

And that's what we did for this lady who made the bags. She made them to say thank you.

Wellness is chop wood carry water, but also color and paint, listen to favorite music, cook a meal with love that feels healthy to you, walking, yoga, animals, writing, helping others, hobbies, fishing, interests, nature, travel, there's just so much to do.

If there is little joy in your life, then focus on these types of activities and you will find joy in the midst of it and it is addictive and has a lingering affect. You just have a smile on your face and a skip in your step a little more. Or at least some relief from being stuck.

All the fatherless Vietnam Vet daughters who also don't have mothers in this American society is so hard to do. We need our mothers. Vietnamese and Hmong refugees are mothers now. Some are unhappy and miss out on mothering in their cultural way because their kids are Americanized and they are integrating into the Western culture, which they need to do to have good lives with good jobs and so forth.  But maybe they are not respecting and appreciating the old country 'backwards' ways of their non-English speaking mothers.

That's ok. It's still great to be in America. And the whole thing is an adventure. Getting unstuck from PTSD opens up a million and one things to do in America.

Now you know they also have their depressed introvert family members and their narcissistic members and so on, so there is the dynamic there of being stuck (husbands chosen for them and married for life) with a spouse that may never once give an ounce of affection. Some of the children may be narcissistic and they are dealing with that devastating (narc abuse syndrome), on top of everything else.

War PTSD and narc abuse and would love to sew 6 amazing handbags to a few social workers that helped her out of her stuck place and gave her hope and encouraged her to do wellness things and she felt better.

She said, "No one ever helped me before but you".  Meaning all these years since Viet Nam war no other social worker ever took the time to listen and know what to look for and know what helps.

Validation, support and encouragement are god sends to these folks. I was her American educated daughter helping her out.  Today she was the mother I never had.. making me things with her own hands.

And by the way, her American daughter thinks she is stupid because she did not finish school and does nothing and knows nothing and yet this stupid woman has sewing skills that need to be passed down to motherless white, black and Mexican women who have narc moms and need a mom figure to be nice to her and teach her to sew.

A sewing circle if you will so many daughters can feel old school mother energy and many mothers can feel love by being a mother. Mothers love to cook for you and sew for you and that makes them feel good. I know, I love it too as a mother.  And there's a lot of mothers who are missing because of drugs and mental health issues and abuse and jail and many things.

Daughters give by letting mothers give to them, and these daughters NEED motherly love.

I wish I could get them together. To match up their needs so they can have some good experiences. Of being loved. Cared about.

It might help fill up the missing wound hole in the hearts of all these women who have gone through trauma in war and at home.

Hmong people helped us in Viet Nam, where my father fought and today I am a counselor with Hmong clients. I never heard of them before. Now I know their story. they were called Freedom Lovers and they helped our men find their way through the mountains they called home. She was just a young girl then, and now she is a mother, What goes around, comes around.


Please SHARE using Social Media Buttons Below. There's someone out there would will appreciate you for it. Thank you! JP Bailey, M.A. Interested in EFT for Codependency Recovery? Get Relief from Emotional Pain & Relationship Issues! Blog: www.RecoveryTapping.blogspot.com FB: https://www.facebook.com/jp.baileyma Twitter: https://twitter.com/RecoveryTapping Kindle Book: "EFT for Codependency"

EFT Tapping Into The 10 Stages of the Recovery Process

EFT  Tapping Into The 10 Stages of the Recovery Process

Stage 1: Exploration and Discovery (healing and grieving) As you move through the Tasks of Mourning, you will be able to Tap on each one that has any negative charge on it. This will greatly aid in moving it along and will make this stage much shorter and less painful.

Stage 2: Relationship History/Inventory (examine and reset boundaries). You'll clear any blocks in your way from defining or enforcing your private spaces and Tap into empowerment, confidence, calm and so forth, speaking to your heart's needs and resourceful state of mind.  Tapping helps immensely with being honest with yourself.

Stage 3: Addiction Control (stages of change). Tapping can help you get a handle on your urges and cravings. Facing addictions means going through the stages of change:  loss, grief and acceptance, and healing. You want a healthy, resourceful body for as long as you're alive. Be sure to use the Choices method to choose what you want to fill the void of stopping bad habits.

Stage 4: Leaving Home and Saying Goodbye (saying hello to your social life). Tapping helps the grief and pain of saying goodbye to old ways, and old people. Letting go of the old home, where you lived mentally, is much more than saying goodbye to your past and the people in it; it's about clearing the voices in your head you hear automatically when you think of those people. Tap into your longings for connection in ways that fit who and where you are now.

Stage 5: Grieving Your Loss (The 4 Tasks of Mourning). Tapping helps you get through the bottom of the curve and helps you then start going upward. Tap your way through the 4 tasks of mourning:

     1. Accept the reality of a loss

     2. Work through the pain of losing what you lost

     3. Adjust to an environment in which the person or thing you lost is no longer there

     4. Emotionally relocate the loss and move forward with integrating it into your life.

Stage 6: New Self-Perceptions (Inner Resources and Social Support). Tap into fresh or rekindled perspectives and perceptions about yourself and make new decisions. Re-invent yourself. Move into the next chapter. Keep it going with intentional goal setting, planning, routines and be rewarded with increased performance and creativity. Each time you clear up an issue, tap into your new, inspiring list statements and exciting goals you really want.

Stage 7: New Experiences (New Foundations). You will build a foundation of new experiences to bolster the decisions you've just made. Your plan writes out what it's like when you're living the life you want and what sorts of actions you take on a daily basis to stay engaged with your life. Taking these planned actions gives you an experience.

Increasing activities that made you feel good will give you new, needed, experiences and these in turn are like watering a thirsty plant rapidly grows more. Learn your lessons, clear any intensity of distress or resistance. Choose what you want from no on and move forward toward it. Those experiences are giving you a good feeling which is healing your brain which is why you start to think clearer. It may be a new experience to focus on you and not on others. After the experience of being on your own as an adult, you further leave home as nature intended for us to individuate and create our own life.

Stage 8: Re-parenting and Self-Management (Self-Care). You rebuild your past present and future in a sense as you become involved in what we call re-parenting and self-management. Recovery is about wellness and increasing your wellness on purpose, not just the absence of pain.

Loving yourself as you are and daily self-care to experience that, intentionally increasing experiences that make you feel good, valued, special, rested, entertained, important and loved. Tap on the Third Eye point while reading this, or make affirmations out of these self-care concepts and experiences. Tap into good parenting (loving and nurturing and protecting) yourself. It's a great experience we all must give to ourselves, we can't wait for the past or someone in it to give it to us. Tapping on deserving and permission helps a lot during this stage.


Stage 9: Self and Relationship Accountability (love your (inner) self). This is where love and wisdom come together. This is where you love your inner self as much as your outer body and environment. You will take on more responsibility and accountability. You've built the foundation for it. You will live by the principles and values that feel right to you while letting the rest go with faith in things working out in the big picture, and not worrying as much as before. If it's not in today, turn it over and focus on how you're spending your time and grow more responsible about how you spend it.


Stage 10: Wellness Maintenance Action Plan (Daily Progress). As a result of changes and paradigm shifts you've made on this journey, you've grown in love and wisdom, good and truth. You decide for yourself what is good and true for you. You keep an open mind and connect with something inner or higher. We have faith and we go about our daily lives, living out our meaningful roles we chose and try to do the right thing for all concerned, but never forgetting we're adults taking care of ourselves.







Please SHARE using Social Media Buttons Below. There's someone out there would will appreciate you for it. Thank you! JP Bailey, M.A. Interested in EFT for Codependency Recovery? Get Relief from Emotional Pain & Relationship Issues! Blog: www.RecoveryTapping.blogspot.com FB: https://www.facebook.com/jp.baileyma Twitter: https://twitter.com/RecoveryTapping Kindle Book: "EFT for Codependency"