139. Stage 2 Series: 8 Targets + 8 Cues to Guide Your Work in Stage 2

Summary

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Podcast Summary

The Leading Edge in Emotionally Focused Therapy

Episode 139: Stage 2 Series: 8 Targets + 8 Cues to Guide Your Work in Stage 2
Release Date: May 5, 2026
Hosts: Dr. James Hawkins & Dr. Ryan Raina

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Dr. James Hawkins and Dr. Ryan Raina delve deep into the complexities of Stage 2 in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), focusing on “8 Targets and 8 Cues” to help anchor therapists navigating these often ambiguous and emotionally charged sessions. Their goal is to demystify the process, provide practical structure, and highlight how to lean into, rather than avoid, the intense affective work required in Stage 2. The discussion is rich with clinical insights, personal examples, and practical tools that empower therapists to foster healing and build lasting change for clients.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Nature & Challenge of Stage 2 in EFT

• Importance of Bravery in Therapeutic Work
  • Therapists are encouraged to not shy away from emotional pain, particularly shame, which is central in Stage 2.
  • “[Therapists] are changing the world... it’s a very special person to see something dark and dangerous and go dive in it head first.” (Dr. Ryan Raina, 03:12)
• The Role of the Therapist
  • Referencing Sue Johnson’s foundational ideas: therapists kickstart clients’ natural self-actualizing process and help them move past emotional blocks (primarily shame).
  • “Our job is to kickstart the process… and guide them, the client's past blocks. So Sue is assuming as we evoke emotion, blocks are going to pop up.” (Dr. James Hawkins, 07:05)
• Finding the Balance Between Safety and Challenge
  • Too much focus on comfort can stall growth; some tension is essential.
  • “For EFT to work, I’ve got to go into unhappy. If I keep you comfortable and happy all the time, I probably haven’t created enough space for something different and new.” (Dr. Ryan Raina, 08:14)

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2. The Objective of Stage 2: Building Co-regulation Bridges

• The aim is to create powerful new emotional bridges between partners, so that painful, previously unregulated experiences are no longer faced alone.
• “We’re going into darkness and out of darkness... until the body, just like physical therapy, retraces this movement.” (Dr. Ryan Raina, 11:09)
• Deep healing in Stage 2 is a key driver behind the very low relapse rates found in EFT research.

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3. The 8 Targets in Stage 2 (What to Go After)

(Ryan Raina’s curated list, built from training and experience)
(See also: 14:28–20:57)

1. Individual Trauma:

   • Experiences prior to the relationship that shaped a belief that “life isn’t safe.”
   • “My favorite definition of trauma is a form of suffering that happened without escape.” (Dr. Ryan Raina, 14:51)

2. Disowned Parts:

   • Early experiences of rejection, e.g., “You didn’t get picked. They didn’t want to play with you.”
   • Lifelong process of pushing down certain parts of self to avoid future pain.

3. Relational Trauma / Attachment Injuries:

   • Specific moments in the relationship that led to “never again” vows and reclassification of closeness.
   • “Where someone experienced an event and made a never again vow... you’re no longer in my inner circle.” (15:35)

4. Big Losses:

   • Significant experiences of grief or bereavement (e.g., death of a grandparent).
   • “Grandma’s couch lives inside of me, right. It’s beautiful. It’s internalized.” (Dr. Ryan Raina, 17:42)

5. Family of Origin Trauma:

   • Chronic patterns, rigid roles, or outright abuse in early family life, shaping relational expectations and self-worth.

6. Formative Relationship Ruptures:

   • Early breakups or divorces, especially those that felt life-altering at the time.
   • “Never going to try this much again... never choose to put their heart out there.” (19:44)

7. Negative Model of Self:

   • Deep-rooted feelings of “I am not enough” or “I am a failure.”

8. Deepest Attachment Fears & Needs:

   • Core vulnerabilities: fear of reaching, fear of not being accepted or supported.

Memorable Perspective:
“If you want to certify, we would really love to see you stay in deep emotion... walk around in the pain... not just primary emotion.” (Dr. Ryan Raina, 20:57)

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4. What Makes Deep Change Possible – The Somatic Invitation

• Therapy must move beyond conversation into embodied, somatically experienced emotion.
• “Is it somatically alive in the room or is it a conversation you’re having?...If you have casual conversations, then you have casual revision.” (Dr. James Hawkins quoting Kathryn Rehm, 21:44–22:02)
• Distinction between Stage 1 & Stage 2 Enactments:
  • In Stage 2, clients articulate their innermost wounds and fears (e.g., “I’m afraid that you’ll see I’m a failure,” 25:52).
  • True corrective experience can only happen if the therapist supports clients in naming and sharing these raw, often unspeakable beliefs—with themselves and their partners.
  • “The first target isn’t to revise it. The first target is to connect in it.” (Dr. Ryan Raina, 27:27)

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5. The 8 Evocative Cues for Deep Scene Work

(Used to help clients re-enter and experience core emotional scenes; 31:42–35:18)

1. Join the Client in the Scene:

   • Assertively invite them to return to a specific memory or location.

2. What Do You See?

   • Visual prompts: objects, people, setting.

3. What are the Colors?

   • Engage visual detail for depth.

4. Temperature:

   • Is the room hot or cold? Somatic orientation.

5. What are You Sitting On?

   • Sensory grounding: chair, floor, bed? Material, texture.

6. What’s Sitting On You?

   • Clothes, blankets; awareness of what client is wearing.

7. Sounds in the Room:

   • Hospital pages, music, silence—auditory details.

8. Look at the Eyes:

   • For couple work: “When you look at your partner’s eyes in this scene, what do you see?”—or “What does your inner child see in your eyes?”

Experiential Impact:
“These cues invite your body to naturally go to it... each time it’s another layer... and then the emotion is on the surface.” (Dr. James Hawkins, 33:30)

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6. Why This Matters—The Lasting Impact

• The depth of Stage 2 work is what allows for “limbic revision”: sustained emotional healing and new neural wiring.
• “If I can get you to go there with me seven times... the chances that you’re going to relapse the rest of your life go astronomically lower.” (Dr. Ryan Raina, 28:42)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the role of tension:
  “If we work too hard to make shame not happen, sometimes we move actually too far away from clients... You can be too careful.”
  (Dr. Ryan Raina, 05:30)

• On deep vulnerability:
  “If all you do is say I go away because I’m afraid, you just did another Stage 1 enactment.”
  (Dr. James Hawkins, 22:55)

• On limbic revision:
  “You have to have deep limbic experience if you’re going to have deep limbic revision.”
  (Kathryn Rehm via Dr. James Hawkins, 21:45)

• On corrective experience:
  “You cannot refute a negative message that has not been said.”
  (Dr. James Hawkins, 27:18)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [05:30] – “Crazy Eights:” Introduction to the 8 Targets & 8 Cues concept
• [11:09] – Building coregulation bridges and the “why” of Stage 2
• [14:28–20:57] – Detailed breakdown of 8 Targets
• [21:44–22:55] – The need for embodied, not just conversational, therapy; Stage 1 vs. Stage 2
• [25:52–27:47] – Bringing shame and failure into the light; power of exposure and validation
• [31:42–35:18] – The 8 Scene Cues: concrete ways to evoke deep emotional experience

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Tone and Style

James and Ryan’s conversation is equal parts practical, passionate, and collegial. They speak with humility about their ongoing learning and with fierce advocacy for both therapists and clients. The episode alternates between deeply personal reflections, direct clinical guidance, and gratitude towards the wider EFT community.

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Summary

This episode deeply equips therapists with concrete strategies and a mentality shift: Stage 2 success in EFT hinges on a willingness to enter pain, skillfully evoke somatic and emotional experience, and stay present through the discomfort of shame and vulnerability—to allow healing and relational transformation to take root. The “8 Targets” highlight essential wounds to enter, and the “8 Cues” provide evocative ways to guide clients into the heart of their experience. For any EFT practitioner seeking a compass in the ambiguous wilds of Stage 2, this episode is a rich and motivating guide.

Transcript

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Hey, come help me change the world. If you're listening to this in 2026, I have three externships in six weeks. I'd love to see you join us. We have discounts for repeaters or please consider sharing this with your colleagues and friends. First week of August, the Mothership Arkansas EFT Center Externship. See Arkansas eft.com First week in September, I'll be out for a three day, very compact externship with Rachel Thomas in Scottsdale, Arizona. See Arizona EFT. And then September 15th, I'll be in Hampton Roads, Virginia with the Hampton Roads community. That's going to be the first for me, at least ever. Externship actually on the beach in Virginia Beach, Virginia. See Hampton Roads eft.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

All right. And for me, I have two externships coming up in August. One is in Ohio and the other is in Alaska. You can find out about the dates and more information and links to register on my website. Doc Hawk LPC and and also something that's a little bit different outside the EFT world. I work with the Cape Cod Institute, a great group of people out there that run a great program where they bring thought leaders from so many modalities across the world. And what you do is you come to the beautiful cape for five days and you get to learn for the first three hours of the day, something like from nine to 12, they feed you lunch and then you have the rest of the day hang on to the Cape, earn some cus while you sun on the beach a little bit. You can find out more about my training that I'll be doing where I'll be talking about emotionally focused appliances, therapy, strengthening bonds and couples, individuals and families. My session will be the 2nd of July. Of July. Sorry, not the 2nd of July. Mine will be July 6th through 10th. So once again, you can find out about [e-mail] welcome to the Leading Edge

[Podcast Narrator]

in Emotionally Focused Therapy with your hosts, Dr. James Hawkins and Dr. Ryan Raina. EFT is a dynamic model that humbles even the most seasoned therapists. Together, we want to come alongside you as you continually push the leading edge of your understanding and application of this wonderful model developed by Dr. Sue Johnson.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

All right, you all, we just want to start off again as we do with our thank yous for you all. You know, I guess even as we're doing this, we just had a meeting in our counseling agency and we were talking about some very deep, hard things that are, that could get complicated and it's so twisted and, and I just see therapists brains working so hard for how do we help best help our clients in situations where even sometimes their bodies are struggle taking in the help. So I just thank you for all the ways. Even as I'm sitting here talking, I keep tightening my shoulders up. I just want to thank you for all the ways it feels like you contort yourself sometimes in an effort to help people. And I want you to know part of why me and Ryan do what we do on here, because we see all the adaptations you're trying to make, and we're just trying to come alongside you and strengthen you and give you confidence and power. So thank you for all that you do for your clients and thank you for. Even if you're listening to this right now, as me and Ryan have said this, it says something about who you are, that you go above and beyond to go the extra mile on the behalf of other people who will probably never know the sacrifice you make for them.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Yeah, agree. Well said. And thank you for your bravery. It's a normal thing to see something dark and dangerous and to go the other way. Ooh. So it's a very special person to see something dark and dangerous and go dive in it head first. And that's what we do as therapists, especially as EFT therapists, especially as EFT therapists in Stage two. So thank you for your bravery. It means a lot. You're. You're changing the world.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

And speaking of Stage two, I've tried not to talk about this too much, but I am super excited. I hope, I hope it doesn't change, but we are going to bring some of the. And I mean, I know there's so many, but we're going to invite three particular voices who have been pioneers in research on Stage two to come and just come have a collective conversation to close out our Stage two series. That'll be a little bit later in May, but we're going to have Jim Furrow, Doc, Dr. Jim Furrow, Dr. Katherine Raymond, Dr. Marlene Best are all going to talk about their foundational research on Stage two. I think it's me and Ryan. We appreciate talking about it, but it reminds me of an African proverb. We all stand on great shoulders of people who came before us. And I just want to acknowledge sue and the rest of the team and also those three people. So that's something exciting to stay attuned to. That'll be like a special release kind of, maybe even a celebration and close out on that. But today I'm also excited for this one. I want to tell you a little bit of the backdrop and set up about how me and Ryan arrived at this one. Um, for me it's, you know, we watch certification tapes and things of that nature and. And sometimes I know stage two could feel so like how much, how deep, how far, how do you know? And so what we want to do today, we're going to titling this one, calling it the crazy eights in stage two. Eight scene cues and eight targets. And the reason why we're not saying these are the ones, but we're trying to be very intentional and very clear so that way your brain doesn't have to be in the moment wondering as much. It just gives you. We want to give the therapist a little bit more grounding but also hear us out. Even while we give you these eight. These are not meant to be hardcore lock in. These are the only eight. But we're trying to give your body and your brain some kind of guidepost in this very deep, mysterious and scary place in stage two.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Yeah, both these lists I got from other people and they helped me. You know, they were just good memories the first few times. I kind of had to look at them in notes years ago. And then eventually they just became part of how I think about things and they've been blessings for me. So hopefully they will be for you. You know, I think about big picture. We're experiential therapists and something that Chad Imhoff was in here before we started. You know, as, as EFT therapists, we prioritize safety and taking care of people and being with people and doing therapy with people, not to people. And we don't want to use shame to. To create change if at all possible because shame is both from and leads to disconnection. And yet if we work too hard to make shame not happen, sometimes we move actually too far away from clients. So we have to be willing to. To create the kind of tension that it takes to create change, knowing that will come back and repair. You can be too careful. We are experiential therapists. We go towards hard things. We trust that experiences is really how humans learn. And we don't treat our clients as if they're fragile. That's a huge mistake. Our clients are vulnerable. Our clients need our presence. They need love. I think just the term love works for me. But most of our clients are actually way too strong in their hurt, like, like scar tissue. And so we need to move towards hard places. And we're going to talk about how to do that some today.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

And on that one this is a quote of mine, I always say in trainings of Sue's, sue said, if we concur with the premise of experiential therapies, that clients are imbued. So hear this. They, they are always trying to move towards a self actualizing tendency. Sorry, back in the Sue's quote then the overall role of the therapist is simply to kickstart this natural process. That's what Ryan is saying. We're experiential. Our job is to kickstart the process. But listen to this, you all and guide them, the client's past blocks. So sue is assuming as we evoke emotion, blocks are going to pop up. And the one Ryan's highlighting which is so common in stage two is shame. So just go ahead and know it. If you try and kickstart the process and hope shame's not going to be there, then guess what? They don't need stage two in a way right as they arise. So working directly with emotion is a huge part to kick that kickstart that process. Because going with Ryan, if you are trying to stay away from shame, then you're going to have to start staying away from pain, fear, in all the places where they really need you to change. So we've got to kickstart the process, accept that the blocks are going to come and then have the skills to work through those.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Yeah. If we move too far away from that, if we're so afraid to shame people, what's going to happen is you end up trying to keep people happy, which is not the same as safe. Ooh. Yeah. Like I've got, I've got probably for eft to work, I've got to go into unhappy. If I keep you comfortable and happy all the time, I probably haven't created enough space for something different and new. So this is this, this is this tightrope that we're always walking, we're always willing to repair and take, take feedback and so forth. But we are soldiers going into hard places. We just are. You know, I think Leanne Campbell, who's thought to be so nice and sweet and she is, is also one of the toughest people I've ever met. She will stick her nose in super hard, traumatic stuff and get up and do it again. And this is who we gotta be. This is what we signed up for. So feeling macho right now?

[Dr. James Hawkins]

No, that's good. And you know, Leanne's a really easy person to get macho behind because she is very compelled. The only way that person gets free is if Someone can join them and help them do something different.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Right.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

If she realizes if I stay away from that place, they stay bound, they stay locked up in it. And that's not fair to any human being.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Yep, exactly. Speaking of Leanne, we're going to head up to the Summit next year. And James, I think you have something you want to say as a representative of ICEF a little bit. Let's talk about the summit coming up.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

Yeah. So here it is. We wanted to let you know once again, the EFT World Summit will be coming up in 2027 in Vancouver, May 9th to 11th of 2027. Hear that? 2027, and we would love to see you there. The Summit really is the flagship gathering of the global EFT community. The moment when practitioners from over 40 countries come together in one place. And you'll be in the room with researchers and clinicians that have shaped your practice and you'll participate in conversations that are right in the next chapter of EFT and of this work in the world. The lineup of plenary speakers for 2027 include Gail Palmer, Lee Ann Campbell, Jim Cone, Mark Soames and Gordon Neufeld. Sorry if I mispronounce names. I apologize. Alongside your four choices of 12 Hands on workshops across all three modalities, hosted by leaders in the EFT community. And all the sessions are eligible for CE credits so that you can fulfill your continuing education requirements while connecting with practitioners who speak your clinical language. I'll even be doing one talking about working with blocks in the caregiving system. And there are so many other good breakout sessions. Come join us in Vancouver. To do that, you can visit eftsummit2027.com to register today and take your place in this, in the gathering this community has been waiting for.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

So to me, I've said this before, some of this is repeat. But you know, EFT is repetitive. Anything that's therapeutic must be repetitive. So hopefully we're following along there. To me, what we're trying to do in stage two is to build CO regulation bridges. What that means is that a person's body experiences their partner and the therapist, but more importantly the partner entering their most painful places to bring about comfort, contact. And what that does is it builds an experiential bridge where that person's body now goes, oh, here's an option. When life destroys me at this level, I now have this experience, this memory, this bridge that I don't have to suffer by myself. And that changes everything. So you can't teach people to do this. We have to experience it. So we're going into darkness and out of darkness and into darkness and out of darkness and into darkness and out of darkness, over and over and over until the body, just like physical therapy, retraces this movement. And so now the body starts to just do as it's trained so people don't have to learn and think about skills and think about even EFT or whatever. It's like the body just. Just follows the bridge that it's been trained to do in our offices. It's a beautiful thing. It is. And so specifically, though, I think it's a decent presupposition to say, well, well, what's in that darkness for you? Because the. The what's in the darkness that's not been regulated. It really is ripe for relapse. And to me, that's one of the separators of EFT in the research, is when EFT is effective, the relapse rate is so low, I've heard 8% across meta analyses that, in other words, when eft is effective, 92% of people hold the change and don't go backwards into that negative cycle. That's extremely rare for any therapy, especially couples. And I think one of the reasons that's there is in stage two, we're doing this deep intrapsychic get back in touch with self by going into memories or. Or. Or emotion or pain that largely someone's been left alone with. Because when you're left alone with pain for a really long time, again, it's much more likely to get triggered by the suffering that is inevitable of going through a lifespan. So when we're doing these deep dives in stage two, I'm trying to go find any unregulated memory, any unregulated pain, or these eight what we call targets, and stage two here, and you already know them, but I want to say them. I don't know that I've seen them listed, honestly, James, I have, in terms of an actual list. So I put this together based on experience and based on, you know, I saw Marlene do this. You know, I saw Gail do this, I saw George do this, I saw Leanne or whomever. You know, I saw a person certifying that goes after this target. I'm like, ooh, that was nice. So I. I just put this list of eight together. I'm probably leaving out some stuff, but we'll throw it out. How about that?

[Dr. James Hawkins]

I like that.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

All right, if you're driving, don't be writing this down.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

Or if you're running On a trail. Don't trip on a rock.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

There you go. And so there's overlap on here, too. So is this 8, or is this 6? Or is this 11? I don't know. So Duan's just individual trauma. You know, what were the experiences in your life before this relationship where you learn that life may not be safe? Maybe even that your. That your life was threatened or. My favorite definition of trauma is a form of suffering that happened without escape, without the ability to get out of this. What were you trapped in? Where did life hurt you the deepest? Inside. Those memories are really crucial parts of you, you know, kind of saying the same thing here. I think about disowned parts. I love to tell the silly slash sad story of the first day of kindergarten. Right. If someone comes from a healthy family, they've got lots of love and lots of love. And, you know, play dates are easy. When families held, I guess. I don't know. Then they get to kindergarten, and sometime in that first semester, for the first time, they get that message which says, so and so doesn't want to play with you. You didn't get picked on this team. And at that point, we start a lifelong process of getting rid of the parts of us to survive rejection to survive not being wanted. And so we're going back to those individual trauma memories where we disown parts of us to survive. There's number one for me. You could call that two if you want, but I'll call it one. And then, in no certain order here, relational trauma. So now we're looking for listening, for opening attachment injuries. Where was the point if there was one in the relationship where someone experienced an event and made a never again vow? You are no longer on my inner circle. Now you forever live in circle three. I might not want to leave the relationship, but because of what happened on this day, you're no longer in my inner circle. That's that attachment injury part. We're definitely looking for that, if they exist. You're writing stuff over there, James. What do you want to say about that?

[Dr. James Hawkins]

Just when you said that circle. And of course, it cues my brain when I think a lot about society. And we have to learn how to define. Like, there's different parameters and boundaries. I don't have the same expectations of circle three that I have of circle one. I think of circle three, maybe like larger society, government or whatever that could be. Circle two could be kind of like if I'm a part of a faith community, an education kind of system, my work environment. But then Circle one is like my intimate relationship and maybe close family and friends.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

I don't know.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

That's just what cue. I like that. I think sometimes in the world we try and treat all the circles as though they're the same and that's not a fair expectation. That's by the way, that then sets me up for hurting myself when I have expectations of circle three that really belong in circle one.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Absolutely. That's the future episode right there. We got to write that one down. Because people can over apply eft and think you're supposed to have these secure deep bonds in every relationship. And that is not.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

They don't have the same level of commitment. And that's exactly.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Yeah, yeah. All right. That's good stuff. My next one is, I was just going to say really big memories of loss. You know, first or worst is what I wrote down on my sheet there. That one doesn't get talked enough about. You know, I think about a client I had who life was pretty unsafe, but man, Grandma, she always had my back. If life got hard enough, I could go to grandma's house and you know, grandma's couch lives inside of me. Right. It's beautiful. It's internalized. And then grandma had a heart attack and I remember being at the hospital. Right. And you can go travel back in a scene at a waiting room at a hospital as your grandmother passes away and, and visit and really get to know that part of you. So I think loss is underrated in stage two.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

We need to have Leon Leanne to talk about grief. That's one of her specialties. If grief trauma and attachment injuries are.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Yeah, nice. Next one. I had family of origin trauma that can be everything from like abuse. But I think sometimes roles, sometimes folks just get stuck in roles, man. And it's just toxic for 10 years. You know, either my parents need me, they triangulate me into their marriage as it may be, or the opposite. I felt excluded. I worked with a lady one time whose parents would shut the door and lock it on her. She'd stay out till 2 or 3am before they'd find they just never liked her. And so, you know, that is definitely trauma and dynamics in a family are so powerful. And so if that's gone on in someone's attachment history and we leave that unregulated, I don't like it. I don't like our odds of creating of our second order change lasting with something like that left. I would say early or formative relationships. You know, I think that 16 year old breakup where someone cries for three weeks. I think that's a big deal. I really do.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

Especially if the body registers that it's a big deal. That reshapes how they see themselves.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Absolutely mean. All of a sudden I'm never going to try this much again. And someone might go the rest of their life and just never choose to put their heart out there again. So there's all kinds of scenes around breakups or a divorce, an early divorce or two in some situations. I think I put that all together. And then the three that we talk about a lot which is working negative model of self really process deepest, deepest attachment fears. That fear of reaching. What would it be like even now? So even imagine relying on James when life gets this dark. So really processing and reprocessing those fears of reaching and then deepest, most vulnerable attachment need. So there's our eight contact points. Maybe that's 11, maybe that's six. I don't know how I listed that out, but I have seen all of these do really, really powerful things in session. If you're listening to this and you want to certify we would really love to see you stay in deep emotion and walk around in the pain and in your enactments have fear of reaching and negative model of self and not just primary emotion.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

I like that. I like that, Ryan. And that was a big one for me. And even when you think about these eight contact points is then you now need to make to me. I'm going to put it out. When I'm looking at your tapes, I'm looking for is it somatically alive in the room or is it a conversation you're having? Is their body in it in some kind of way? I need to see that. For me personally, if I'm watching it also is. Do they have the. Now you're saying here. Do they have this? Is it really a real scene? Can they. Can. Can I see them in the suffering? Is it a real scene that they can then invite us into and are they now this maybe goes back to it and I don't know. I just. I'm trying to think maybe it's even goes back to experiencing it. Are they experiencing that probably goes back to the somatic part a little bit more.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Yeah.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

I need to see that it can't. This is not just a conversation. And here's why though. This isn't just James trying to be hard. I want to give Kathryn Rehm credit for how she influenced me on this. You have to have deep limbic experience if you're going to have Deep limbic revision. If you have casual conversations, then you have casual revision.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Yep. That won't last. Yes, that's right. Yeah. And that's a lot right there.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

That's all Ryan's brain chewing on that.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Well, I was just going back, you know, I think. I think, you know, really, really early stage two.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

Yeah.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Really, really late stage one. I think you can be working with that typical cycle.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

Yeah.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

You know, you can touch the fear and you can just see if their bodies are ready to drop down one more level.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

That's right.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

In that most fearful place. You can even feel it right now. How do you feel about you? Okay. I feel unlovable. Can you turn right now and can you say, it may not seem like it, but when I'm complaining, that's a pursuer. There's a pain in me where I start to question whether I'm even lovable. Right. Can you turn right now and share about that? Like, that's good. That's really early stage two.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

And I'll give the withdrawal one. In that place, when you see me going away, I go away. Because a voice in my head is telling me, you are not enough. Not just not enough for you. I don't believe I'm enough. I don't believe in me. I just see myself ultimately as a failure. And y' all hear that, by the way. I want to hear that in your stage two enactments if you can. If you can. But if all you do is say I go away because I'm afraid you just did another stage one enactment.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Yeah, exactly. Please see the distinction because that does scare us as the trainer team to go. It's not that. That's not good therapy. It's like they understand there's. It's as qualitatively different. And even those two enactments that we just did, those would be early, early stage two or sometimes late stage one. Because if James is my client, the client that he just acted out right there. This. When I go away, I'm really feeling like I'm a failure as good. Early stage two. But the research would show that stage two for withdrawal re engagement is like three to ten, three to nine sessions.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

That's right.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

So I don't want to just stay there. I would love then in future sessions to build a scene.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

Yeah.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

To find a time when life really hurt James and then open a scene. To really, really get in there and excavate pain in his life that he's never been able to co regulate. To help him find his words, to reconnect with that part of himself. And then to take the risk to turn to the partner and invite them in. Talk about how scary this is. Talk about negative model of self. And the scene does something a bit different than just. Than just sort of jumping off the side of an affect to somebody though. That's good too. And so let's talk about scenes.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

Can I say one more thing on that? Because here, maybe this is like, I'll give you even insight on me if my therapist only lets me talk about the fear. I actually have a little bit of relief from that because what I really is a withdrawal. What I don't want to tell you is it's okay. Yeah, I'm afraid. I am afraid. I am anxious. This is uncomfortable. I want to talk about that. I've been doing that in stage one. I feel competent at that, if I'm honest with you. What I really don't want to have to say to my partner is in that place, the reason why I'm really scared is because I'm afraid that you will see what I believe about me, that I'm a failure. And hear me on this. I just heard this kind of quote in a meeting I was at the other day. There's power in putting that to words. If you don't make me say that thing, then it's a secret I keep holding by myself that just keeps screaming from the shadow saying, yeah, they know you're scared, but they don't know that you're really a failure. And it keeps controlling me. So I do think that needs to be brought out into the light. That's the main thing I'm trying to make the point. Yeah, you could do fear, Fear, fear, fear, fear. But at some point I need to say why I'm really afraid. And what I'm really afraid of is you will see what I see. That I'm a failure.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Yeah. That exposure is exposure. That level of raw vulnerability is. That's actually the terror. That's why it makes it so powerful when you do bring it forward. That's why it's so corrective and so limbically revising. That's also what's so dangerous if you leave it in there.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

That's right.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Even if you're acting. Even if James is acting better in his relationship, if that's left there unregulated, untouched, it's just a ticking time bomb until life activates that. And now he has no bridge there. So what does he do? He auto regulates, which is already what he's good at.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

That's right.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

But the problem is that becomes toxic for the relationships. That's us showing backward and forward while we're doing stage two.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

And one more thing with that. And also, I do not get a message that refutes that belief, because part of it, if I go further, is you will see that I'm a failure. And if that's true, I remember and it could almost sound like. And that would be game over for us. I would lose everything that I love. Because at that point, no, how could you love me if I'm a failure? Now when I say it, now the person has a chance to say I. Even in the places where you do fail, even in the places where you do go away, yes, it hurts, but, yes, I can be there and face that fear with you. Now they get to actually refute the negative message. But you cannot refute a negative message that has not been said.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

And Leanne was saying that, right?

[Dr. James Hawkins]

Exactly.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Yeah. That's good. That's.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

So that's who we got it from. Okay. I knew I heard it somewhere recently.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Well, you can't revise something that's unsaid.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

That's right.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

And. And let me be clear. The first target isn't to revise it. The first target is to connect in it.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

That's right.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Both with self and let the partner come in for comfort. But then after we take some deep breaths, we get a chance to revise. Hey, just so you know, I don't think that's true about you. Here's how I see you. And those are nice moments as well. Order does matter.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

And I know you'll hear us talking seriously about it, but the reason why I think it is, it's. I don't want to kind. I want. It's like, maybe I'm being fair and like, I'm just wanting to fight for the client there. That's what the passion you hear in my voice about that. Like, you're doing good work. And especially if you're in stage two here, I don't know how many more times they'll. They'll try and take this kind of journey in life. So while it's open, let's do all we can. It's almost like a doctor doing surgery.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Yeah.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

They're like, man, while we were in here, we found this. We could sew them back up and maybe come back to it later. But while we're in here, let's do it.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Yeah. And. And. And again, not to overplay a situation, but if. If I'm literally working with that client that you were just role playing. If I. If I can get to that place where your deepest sort of excavated fear is not only that I feel afraid. I don't even mind telling you that I feel afraid that. That you will see me the way I see me.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

That's it.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

That I'm a failure, that I'm not enough, that I'm weak and inept. If I can get you to go there with me seven times, talk to your partner, allow them to come in and receive their comfort, the chances that you're going to relapse the rest of your life go drastically, astronomically lower.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

And that's what the research on EFT tells.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Correct.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

Brian is not making that up. We have data for that.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

We have that bridge built, man. So when life hurts you that bad, your body auto looks for comfort in the sort of. The healthy, secure ways. So the second, the last part of this podcast, you and I were just in a staff meeting before we went on today on efit. We were sort of halfway staffing a case and halfway talking process. And as we were going into what we do with the model, I talked about how an eFit, you can build scenes earlier because it's easier to establish safety with an individual than a couple. And we started talking about building scenes and some of the sort of newer practitioners that were there, we were kind of halfway demonstrating what's going on. They're like, oh, I don't do that. I do like one cue or maybe two. And I said, what did I say? I cannot remember something. Like, it's. I would prefer to go to like six or seven cues. Because if you just to use one or two cues to get into a scene, they're still kind of halfway here and halfway there. Or I should say, you can get lost in a story and not really in the. The full evocation of a scene. So don't stop short. Like, let's get after it, right? So here's eight cues that you could use in a scene. Number one is if I'm going to visit you in the hospital room when your grandmother passed away, right? It's like, okay, I love Leanne's comment when she was mentoring me, you might say, yeah, I was in the, in the room that day. That's the first time I really felt like life. I may not make it. Like, I don't even know why I'm here, what I'm doing. Leanne White say, so I'm going to join you right now in this waiting room. So it's assertive right there. So Join them. Me and your partner, we're coming to you right here in this hospital waiting room. So can I get you to close your eyes? Can I get you a couple. Take it. Take a couple of deep breaths, and then here's your cues. And I wouldn't do it this orderly. This is for the podcast, but I might just say so as you open your eyes, what do you see, James? What's in that room? There's one. And then. And I'm particularly looking for what is there. Is there a flower in the room? Is there, like, just chairs? Is it this sort of drab place? You know, number two is like, what are the colors? What's the color of the wall? So see how I'm not just going for the emotion yet? So they wanted to do one cue and say, how do you feel? That's still too close to how they felt just before. I haven't made that shift down into this stage two depth. Like, we're trying to use. Is it hot or cold? Right? Like, what's the temperature in the room even right now? Like, is it. Do you feel air blowing, like air conditioning or outside? Or is it kind of like a, you know, whatever feel it might be? I like to. To the one that surprises me, that's very powerful is. Is on. On two sides. In other words, what are you sitting on? You're in a chair. What kind of chair? Is it soft and padded? Or is it like a hard wood chair or. A lot of my scenes, people are in the floor. Is this a wood floor? Are you on carpet? What's the texture? That has a way of getting people limbically open for. For some reason. And then. And on the second on is what's sitting on you? Do you have a blanket on you? Do you have a coat with you? What are you wearing? Are you. Are you clothed heavily? It's a winter day. Or what's happening there? So I can see your eyes even moving back into, so memories there, which is what we're looking for, you know, and then my. My last second, the last one here is what do you hear going on around you? You know, is there the. The loudspeaker in the hospital? Can you hear the voice of pages and doctors going on like, what's the sound there? Is your music playing right then? I like to sort of. This was confusing for the person that I was asking because they were like, are you asking to be in the memory or to also be the adult in the memory? And I'm like, actually, I like both. So when we look At James's eyes. What do you see in his eyes? So those, to me, are eight evocative cues that really help open that limbic space for possible revision.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

And what I liked, I did go ahead and experiment with it, Ryan, as you were doing that, and I was like, seeing a scene of when my grandmother was passing. And it's like something. What you did is even though you weren't asking about emotion, just the fact you kept. Each time you did it, it felt like another layer of you making my body just. I shouldn't say making. Inviting my body to naturally go to it. And the process of emotion just does what it did, because each time I'm like, ooh, oh, ooh, ooh. And now it felt like then if you would have finished those rounds with me, you probably would have been like. And even right now, Jane.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Yep.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

I see your eyes go back and forth now. The emotion probably is at least maybe a little bit more on the surface. So I'm not just on a hunting mission.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Right. Well, the presupposition is that in my office right now, this level of limbic pain is kind of locked. It's locked a little bit. I don't have complete access to it. So I want to ask you to leave the office to go back into a scene to fully unlock this limbic place. And you don't want to rush. That is the point. Like, use the five senses. It's a whole different thing to say, tell me what happened at the hospital that day than to say, what surface are you sitting on in this room as your grandmother's in the next room about to pass away? It's very different. And so I'm using, in this case, seven or eight cues in the memory to actually get you out of the office or out of the locked limbic space to use the scene to open this up. And then just what you said, then I'm going to bring it back to the office. So even right now, you can notice the heaviness. The heaviness of this. What do you notice in your body is heavy. The perfect word, right? So. So then we got to bring it

[Dr. James Hawkins]

back, man, Ryan, thank you for that. And that's why I want Ryan to come back to it. That's the early training I got. Shout out to Arkansas Eft externship coming up again. You know, if you see my work, that's a lot of, like, some of it behind. It's just. And that's just not me trying to always be like. It's just a natural, inviting, because guess what? When you start doing that, the human body's going to do its natural process and then what starts happening is all of a sudden it's like that emotion is like almost like it's happening right in front of your eyes. And then going back to that, then we're going to bring it right into the present process. So even right now, as you see that place. Wow. So, anyway, I hope that just helps you all because I know so many of you care so much about stage two and being able to do this well and honoring your clients. And I see you giving your best. So we're just trying to give you our best as well, too. You know, the best that we've learned and you hear us always giving names. Can I say this too? I want to shout out the trainer team. Even though I know I get to see you, we get to thank you, but I want to thank the trainer team for one, the many diverse ways in which we all live and experience the world. And then we get to come together. Oh, shout out to the EFT Triage conference real quick. That's coming up. Lisa Palmer's putting that on. And the theme this year is managing Bleed outs from Betrayal Trauma. And one of the things I've gotten to be with Lisa as we interview many of the presenters and some of them, they're very passionate about their topic. But you want to know, number two, why they're coming to the conference. They're ready to. I liked how Michael Barnett said it. I think I'm going to use your words. He says, I want to avail myself of all the things I already know so I can open myself up to learn from the interesting viewpoints of my colleagues.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

That's beautiful.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

And that's what I wanted to say. Thank you to the trainer team for.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Agree.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

Yeah. All right, you all, thank you so much for letting us push your leading edge so you can help push your clients on their leading edge so that way they can change and grow in their relationship with themselves, with each other and with the world. Thank you so much.

[Podcast Narrator]

Thank you for listening. We hope this experience helps you push the leading edge in your work to help people connect with themselves and with each other. Please subscribe to our podcast and leave us a five star review. You can contact us at pushtheleadingedgemail.com and you can follow us on our Facebook page at pushthleadingedge. You can follow Ryan on Facebook at Ryan Raina Professional Training and on his website ryanrainatraining.com youm can follow James on Facebook and Instagram Doc Hawklpc. You can also check out his website dochawklpc.com.