We're All Dealing With Some Kind Of Trauma — Here's How To Heal

Lissa Rankin, M.D., and Kelly Turner, Ph.D., have both spent years studying how people use spirituality to overcome illness against all odds. And what they've found is fascinating.

Turner, a researcher who has spent time with over 1,500 hospice patients, has identified nine keys to healing—and only two of them are physical. The others, things like releasing suppressed emotions and identifying your reasons for living, may be difficult to write a prescription for, but they provide a potent medicine. Rankin is intimately familiar with these more emotional approaches to healing too, and she has spent the last seven years traveling to lands near and far to study other cultures' sacred healing practices.

When Turner and Rankin took to the revitalize stage this year, the topic of trauma inevitably came up. When trauma, no matter how severe, is left unattended to, it can spiral into the types of illnesses that these two New York Times bestselling authors are so intimately familiar with.

"The more of those 'Big T' and 'Little T' traumas that build up in the system, the greater the risk of disease, especially as we get older," Rankin explained. Luckily, she added, recent science suggests that trauma is completely treatable.

Turner agreed, saying, "We have the science now to apply to emotional interventions, and that's the marriage that I'm excited to finally be seeing. It's like, let's not just see what happens when you take this supplement or eat this new diet. What happens when you go through an eight-week forgiveness course? What happens to your body?"

EFT, also known as "tapping," is a traditional Chinese medicine technique that involves—you guessed it—tapping on key energy centers of the body to release stagnation and pain. "A new study came out that showed that one hour of tapping can significantly change in a positive way the gene expression of 72 genes," Turner shared.

Turner and Rankin are both hopeful that more science will come out to support the efficacy of these trauma healing techniques, and they would like to see them go more mainstream—especially among underprivileged populations.

As Rankin said to round out the discussion, to spirited applause, "We really need an expedited way to get trauma healing to the masses in an affordable way, where it's not a luxury good."