EFT Superpower

I used to hide the fact that I'm hearing impaired. I wouldn't say I was ashamed of it, I just didn't want it to be a focus. I've always wanted to be "normal." Well. Guess what? I'm not normal - and it's a good thing! (That only came after my own therapy).

My inability to hear (I have hearing aids in both ears and without them I'm considered "severely hearing impaired") has significantly shaped me. I've adapted really well, but we can't have a conversation if my aids aren't in.

So, what does that mean for me in session?

It means sometimes I have to change my hearing aid battery right in front of my clients because I can't keep going if I can't hear them. Sometimes if my clients turn their head too far when doing an enactment - I have to ask them what they shared because I couldn't read their lips (I'm an amazing lip reader). I am starting to master writing notes and not looking at my notepad so I can keep my eyes on my clients.

The biggest advantage I have is my ability to read non-verbal cues. I've been hearing impaired since birth (and didn't get hearing aids until I was 5), so it was SURVIVAL for me to read non-verbals. Everyone reads non verbal cues, but I don't even know how not to. I can read the micro of micros of facial movement. A tiny little adjustment and I know to move in. I can catch emotion as it's forming.

So, my disability isn't such a disability after all.

I have a friend that has a significant trauma history. I call her when I need to have a felt sense of what a trauma response might be like. She helps me. She gets disorganized attachment. "It's both," she says. "It's needing to pursue AND withdraw and not knowing which strategy your body is going to choose and when."

Maybe being a pursuer is your superpower. You can feel the angst of a pursuer's need to be heard and desperate cry for connection.

Maybe you're a withdrawer. You totally get what it's like to not know your inner world and then to be expected to not only know it, but share it...quickly!

Are you divorced? You have the superpower of non-judgment. You get what it's like to try everything and have to put your relationship to its final rest. To grieve the loss of what you never had.

This is my challenge to you to USE your Superpower. If you haven't explored what the fear side of it is for you - do that first.

Once we enter those places ourselves, out comes empathy, grace and Therapist Superpower! I had to face my wanting to overcompensate in order to be "normal." Once I faced that, I could let myself be impaired and my heart for myself is bigger because of it.

What's your Superpower? Might this be something you talk about in supervision or with your EFT bestie?