Hello, Stepparents! If you’ve been listening to this podcast, you’ve probably heard me mention Rapid Resolution Therapy. And you might be wondering to yourself, “Ooh, what IS that?”
First, you might be asking, “What makes you qualified to talk about it, Maria?” The answer is that I am a certified Rapid Resolution Therapy® Practitioner. I’m so thrilled to be sharing this revolutionary, alternative approach to getting clear with you today.
I’m going to tell you more about RRT to help you wrap your mind around it. For me, Rapid Resolution Therapy is magical. It has positively changed my life, and it’s been absolutely life-changing for members of my family and my clients’ lives as well.
Why Stepparents Need Emotional Clarity
Rapid Resolution Therapy is a revolutionary psychotherapeutic approach to resolving emotional and behavioral difficulties. It centers around the premise that sometimes we experience disturbing events. Whether it’s a physical event, something that is said to us, or a combination of the two—these disturbing events are trauma.
In North America, our society literally cringes at the word “trauma.” It makes people tense up and run for the hills. We often think of trauma as the horrific events that our nightmares and most disturbing horror movies are made of.
While those events are traumatic, we often overlook the small events we deal with on an everyday basis that can also be traumatic and have lasting negative consequences. For example, moments of humiliation: when you’re teased, bullied, or embarrassed, especially in front of a group of people or your peers.
An Example of Everyday Childhood Trauma
I’m reminded of the story of little Billy, who didn’t clean up his room when he was called for dinner. As he came to the dining room, he saw his dad who had just gotten home from work. When Billy excitedly greeted him, his dad snapped at him and was withdrawn the rest of the night.
Now, the reason his dad snapped was because of layoffs at the office. Dad was worried about being let go and about the family’s financial well-being. But none of this was explained to little Billy.
Billy didn’t get any apologies from his dad. Nor did anyone so much as imply that dad snapping wasn’t Billy’s fault. So, Billy went on thinking that his dad snapped at him because he didn’t clean his room. Because he was four years old and this incident made a strong impression on him, his mind came up with the explanation that if he doesn’t clean his room, bad stuff happens. People he loves won’t love him back and might even leave him.
I’m sure your imagination can come up with all sorts of ways that this belief played out in painful ways for little Billy as he grew up and went through life.
That story is a great example of how this seemingly small event had a profound impact on Billy’s life, creating all kinds of beliefs and stuck-ness that didn’t serve him and weren’t actually true. Therefore, this event was trauma.
What is Trauma?
Trauma is the response to a distressing or disturbing event that overwhelms an individual’s ability to cope, causes feelings of helplessness, diminishes their sense of self, and impacts their ability to feel the full range of emotions and experiences.
As a human, your mind often assigns meaning to these events. Most of the time, you end up thinking that the event means something about you. But usually, that’s not the case. Usually, it’s just someone doing their best to cope with and get through whatever is going on for them in that moment, not realizing they may be negatively impacting you with their words or actions (as is clearly the case in the story of little Billy).
3 Ways Rapid Resolution Therapy Differs from Traditional Therapy
The premise of Rapid Resolution Therapy is that when you’re experiencing disturbing thoughts, feelings, and emotions, it’s because of trauma that your mind is trying to process and get you to do something about.
Largely, your mind is reading the event as about to happen, currently happening, or having just happened. This is what sucks up your energy, creates fog, causes emotional overwhelm, and generates a host of other potential issues for you.
Rapid Resolution Therapy significantly differs from traditional talk therapy in three major ways:
1. Minimal Sharing
As the participant, you only share a “headline” about what’s going on for you. There aren’t several probing questions about your personal or family history. You won’t be asked about all the ways this has ever shown up for you or touched your life before. It’s a respectful approach because it doesn’t re-open old wounds—leaving you exposed, suffering, and having to fend for yourself until your next session.
2. The Ownership is on the Practitioner
In Rapid Resolution Therapy, the ownership is on the practitioner to guide you in the journey toward processing and clearing the stuck-ness. There aren’t extensive things for you to figure out or questions to answer. You just sit back, relax, and enjoy the experience.
3. Very Rapid Process and Results
Often, the emotional clearing occurs in just one session! Can you imagine clearing up what is sometimes years of pain, heartache, and suffering in just a couple of hours? It almost sounds too good to be true. Talk about saving your valuable time and energy! The results are profound.
Reclaiming Your Energy
To go back to our story: later on, adult Billy recognizes that he is trying to control everything in an effort to manage his closest relationships because of his deep fear of abandonment. This causes significant stress for him and conflict with his partner and children.
If Billy utilizes Rapid Resolution Therapy for this issue, he would get his subconscious and conscious mind on the same page, making all of his internal resources, wisdom, and creativity available to him once again.
It would be as if he’s been typing on a computer, noticing it is really slow and keeping glitching out. One day, a tech-savvy buddy looks at the computer and explains that there are several old programs running in the background, sucking up the computer’s energy. Once he shuts down all those unnecessary background systems, everything works perfectly.
It’s as if a light bulb goes on in Billy’s head. The beautiful thing is, once that light comes on, it never goes out.
If there’s something that hasn’t been serving you about the way you think, feel, act, or react—and you’re ready to shut it down—grab a Rapid Resolution Therapy® Session with me. I’d love to help you get clear!
Until next time, be well!
Related Episodes:
- 3 Common Pitfalls Effecting Your Stepchild’s Behavior
- 7 Key Components of a Stepparenting Sanity Routine
- How To Have Difficult Stepparenting Conversations
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