Emotional Health and Vaginal Health
I did this talk at Community Roots Collective Vag-Fest on February 4, 2018. It was a really fun event with some great speakers and information. I gave a talk on how Emotional Polarity Technique can be used to help heal our sexuality. Here is most of the text below. Also, pictures of me at 3/4 of my siblings home birth.
I’m Paige Cargioli, and a little about me before I explain what I’m here for. I come from a couple generations of family seeking alternative forms of healing. My parents are both chiropractors, and are pioneers for holistic health, they are always looking for more, different, alternatives, and my brothers and sisters, we were the experimental group. They were doing all the supplements, and soy milk, and blood type diet, organic, magnets, muscle testing, gluten free, sugar free, caffeine free, and vaccine free, prayer, meditation, mantras, visualization, adjustment, family constellations… You name it.
There are five kids in the family, and 3 were home births, and I was at all those. I thought I would share some of the results of the experimentation. So, hopefully, you can feel encouraged. They did all that, and at the same time sought natural ways to help heal emotionally. There are holistic ways to tend to the matters of the soul, just going back to what is true: forgiveness, compassion, and that from the womb we are here to be loved. I’m excited to begin offering Emotional Polarity Technique at the Community Roots Collective.
What is EPT?
Most of you have probably not heard about EPT. It is a completely different approach in emotional healthcare. EPT uses a variety of traditional and nontraditional elements to help people heal fast. Rather than relying on conventional drugs or traditional talk therapy, EPT relies on the science of forgiveness. EPT has over 25 years of clinical success helping people get fast relief from depression, anxiety, physical and emotional pain and suffering in both adults and children. What does this have to do with vaginas?I think a lot. Our emotional health and our bodies are 100% connected. And this is something that has been established in medical research.
Emotional and Physical Health are Connected
The ACE study: this research has been around for a little while, but it’s all the rage in medical research because it is robust evidence that adverse childhood experiences are correlated with chronic physical and mental health issues in adulthood. A person’s ACE score is determined with one point from each of the below ongoing events in childhood:
Recurrent physical abuse
Recurrent emotional abuse
Contact sexual abuse
An alcoholic and/or drug abuser in the household
An incarcerated household member
Someone who is chronically depressed, mentally ill, institutionalized, or suicidal
Mother is treated violently
One or no parents
Parents ever separated or divorced
Emotional or physical neglect
For more information, go watch the TED talk by Dr. Nadine Burke Harris about it. Another researcher, Bessell van Der Kolk, talks even more about the ACE study in his book on trauma “The Body Keeps the Score.”
1500 studies replicate this, and found the same thing. The higher your ACE score the more likely you are to have chronic illness, auto-immune disorder, or depression, anxiety, commit suicide. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19840693 this study found that those with an ACE score of 6 or more died 20 years earlier than those without ACEs.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18533034 Prescribed drugs increase with ACE scorehttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4713310/ Liklihood of adult sexual victimization increases with ACE score (with childhood sexual abuse being the biggest predictor). DON’T FREAK OUT! Correlation does not equal causation, but your awareness of your history and how it could be influencing your body, is the first step to healing.
Our Sexuality is a place we connect mentally, physically, and spiritually.
We live in this world that loves the body/spirit dichotomy, but we also can’t deny that it’s all connected. And scientific research is shows this.And back to vaginas--Sex is a great place to fully experience this mind/body connection. It can also be a traumatizing place. Good sex with another person is going to be a fully integrated experience--emotionally, spiritually, physically. And then when it’s not working, or it’s somehow been tainted or ruined by another person. You don’t even want to deal with it. This thing that is supposed to be fully integrated, we compartmentalize as a coping mechanism in childhood to survive. But as long as we are no longer being victimized in adulthood, it’s no longer necessary. In adulthood, we have the cognitive ability to cope and heal in a multitude of ways. Within Emotional Polarity Technique, practitioners work to heal and fully integrate the body/mind/and spirit, we pretend are totally separate parts of ourselves. Within the EPT modality, there are a lot of roads that healing our sexuality can lead us down:
It could be about our own self-image and self-esteem.
It could be about how we have some toxic shame we have harboured about our sexuality.
The above potentially negative beliefs may bring us back to a sexual trauma or remind us of some shaming by ourselves, others, or groups.
We stuff it, we pretend it doesn’t matter, we eat perfectly healthy, work out, control every other aspect we think we can control to fix it. We pretend we’re over it. Or that that part of ourselves doesn’t matter that much, or on the opposite end--the defining characteristic of our entire selves. I don’t think I’ve met anyone who hasn’t had to somehow reconcile or integrate their mental/emotional/spiritual selves with their physical/bodily/sexual selves. In adulthood, we have the ability to reconcile the broken and shamed parts of ourselves with compassionate self-forgiveness. It rewires your belief systems and autopilot patterns, so that you can grow again.
EPT in Four Steps:
EPT does all this through a practical and collaborative approach between the practitioner and the client, and their are 4 basic steps.
Focus on the problem (or solution).
The problem could be a physical issue--pain or allergies, but it can also be an emotional issue--depression, anxiety, birth trauma, it could be a relational issue--divorce, dating. A business issue--money. It could be about fertility. Painful or unpleasant sex. Miscarriages. Wherever you feel stuck, and like your heart is broken forever.After the focus is established, next I 2) Find the root memory of the problem. The root memory is where this pattern started in your life/brain. With conversation and muscle testing, I ask the body where it is. For example, a middle schooler having issues with his mom has an issue coming up in the present is rooted in a negative relational dynamic that his parents had when he was small. Kids soak things up.Because there is so much stress and transition happening, it’s fairly common when testing for a root memory that there are issue in utero or at birth. Someone could be repeating a past birth trauma in their current pregnancy. A person has trouble letting go because of a particularly long of traumatic birth. Sometimes the root connection is obvious: “I have sex issues because I was abused.” Or less obvious: “I have back pain or IBS because I was abused, or my because my mom yelled at me when I was 3.” It’s all connected. After finding the root memory, I 3) Using magnets, neutralize the body’s response to the memory. If you are familiar with acupuncture and ancient Chinese medicine and how negative and positive emotions are connected to various organs. The magnets are used kind of like quick acupuncture adjustment with the magnet over the organ and head chakra and breathing. Lastly, the key to EPT is 4) Using the science of forgiveness and positive affirmation to transform the root memory, heal the original event, which yields a chain reaction of healing into the present and the future. Forgiveness is the key, but within EPT, forgiveness is way more dynamic than “I forgive someone else for whatever they did to me.” The art of forgiveness within EPT helps you heal your relationship with yourself, your relationship to others, your relationship with divine, and this is done through time: past, present, and future.
Forgiveness and Positive Affirmations
When you experience EPT, forgiveness statements almost always begin with“I forgive myself for believing…” In the moment of forgiveness, pain and burden are totally lifted. You’re perception of yourself and others is changed for good. And EPT is designed to get you to this forgiveness moment fast and create life altering changes. Talk therapy, if you have a good therapist, is often directed towards self-compassion and forgiveness, and sometimes forgiving others, but it can take a long time to get there. But in EPT, we go there fast in order to get fast healing and relief. In EPT, the statements are put together by the practitioner and repeated by the client in the moment. They are specific to the root memory/belief and the present issue. Some example of statements are below. They are general statements related to anger and shame because someone ruined sex for me. This doesn’t have to be related to contact sexual abuse. It could be related to a parent/sibling body shaming, unhealthy sexual concepts in childhood, performance anxiety, vaginal health… The idea that “Someone ruined my vagina.” I forgive myself for believing…
I have to hold on to anger because someone made me feel ashamed of my body.
It’s my fault.
If I enjoy sex, I will still somehow be disappointed.
Letting go of anger is letting someone off the hook.
This part of myself doesn’t matter.
This part of myself is forever broken.
The only way I can stay in control is to be angry.
I forgive others…
For passing down unhealthy ideologies about sex.
For shaming me.
For teaching me that my body doesn’t matter.
For bringing up this rage.
I give others permission to forgive me for…
When I shame others about their sexuality or physicality or choices.
When I create the same anger in others because I was hurt.
When I want to (and maybe do) hurt the other as much as I’ve been hurt.
I love and accept myself even when I’m afraid that letting go of anger opens me up to be hurt or disappointed again. I give myself permission to let go of a past that never existed, where I was never ashamed. I give myself permission to accept that I forgive for my own healing, and holding on to anger will never change another person, and giving up the anger isn’t going to make them hurt me againI give myself permission to let go of my entitlement to suffering because of my shame. Without this pattern, I am free to accept love, forgiveness and happiness beyond my anger.Without this pattern, I am free to accept I am secure, safe, and complete beyond my shame and insecurity. Contact me and call for a free consultation: 813-922-8768.
Serenity Prayer: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.
Our quality service promise to you:
It is our aim that you experience remarkable change in your life through 7 EPT™ sessions. However, if after your first EPT™session you decide this therapy is not for you, we will refund your money and part with gratitude for having the opportunity to share our service with you.
An Open and Safe Environment
Paige Cargioli accepts and respects each person, regardless of sexual orientation, race, religion, ethnicity, gender expression, socio-economic status, age or ability. She is dedicated to offering LGBTQ Affirmative Practice.
Paige strives to create an open and safe environment where people can grow and heal. EPTworks is a guided and active approach to healing that, like any therapy, may feel very emotional at times. The difference is that once all the feelings are said and done, you feel different, and very often--much much better and changed forever.