 I'm here with Dr. Caroline Sakai. Thank you so much for coming, Caroline. Thank you for having me. It's very nice to have you. My honor, thank you. Caroline was a guest here one other time, too, and she's been doing some amazing work in Rwanda. I know that usually my format is just abuse and advocates, but it's also I'm finding respect in all this chaos and there's plenty of chaos out there. And this is some very exciting, important success that's happening out there to help people really recover from trauma. I first want to recommend this book, Overcoming Adversity, that Caroline wrote that is just a remarkable book. It is a page-turner. You will not be able to put it down. It really talks about some important things that you have done in Rwanda. If you would please tell us a little bit about how you got started and going there, and just exactly what is this energy tapping thing? What is it? Yeah, I'll address that last question first. The energy tapping is being able to use as a self-treatment the meridians that are used in acupuncture and acropressure to promote healing and health, and it's something you can do yourself and you can do it as often as you like. It has been a godsend to working with things like traumas, phobias, anger, depression, anxiety, and it has also worked with physical pain and a lot of physical issues as well. And we have actually been able to help people that have been on 18 different pain medications and have problematic effects with the opioids and be able to get off all of the medications and be able to treat pain just with the self-tapping and get much better results. So that has been happening. We've had some people go only from 10 to an 8 on 8 or 9 different medications simultaneously with bad side effects and be able to bring it down to like a 1 or a 2 just with using the tapping, which is a healthy self-treatment alternative. Right, and you know, I know that for many years it wasn't actually an evidence-based practice, right? So it wasn't approved by... That's right, a lot of opposition. And I think it's because they didn't want to put the healing into the hands of the patients. They want to be the ones that do the healing, I'm not sure, but at any rate, I'm so grateful. Tell us a little bit how that all came about. Yes, and the story ties in together with how it became evidence-based and our work in Rwanda because they're actually, once we can credit for helping us become evidence-based. I got interested in going to Rwanda after working out in New Orleans post-Katrina, went there three times, worked with Charity Hospital and Children's Hospital. And we had about 11 to 13 therapists from all over the United States and some other countries, including from Europe, that were helping with working with trauma there. And we were seeing fabulous results. But one of the psychologists, Paul Uus, who is also a pastor in California, said it's wonderful that we're helping in New Orleans but where we are very much needed and maybe have a moral obligation to go, is in Rwanda because he said there's more than a million people that have been traumatized by the genocide with almost a million people killed in 1994 when the United States was really very much preoccupied with Monica Lewinsky scandal. So we failed to make a strong statement against the genocide, which is what they were asking of us. And because of that, he felt that it was imperative because he saw them 11 years after the genocide and he said there's still a debilitated nation. Flashbacks, nightmares, people aren't able to function, kids aren't able to learn and study. And we thought that's something we ought to try to see what we can do to maybe make up for our failure to help at the time they were asking us for help. So we went 12 years after the genocide and we started with children. There were 400 children at an orphanage. I think we have a picture of that. I think we do have a picture of some of the, I think there's about 200 of the children are in the photograph and we worked with this orphanage and these kids for 12 years were still in a transitional school. They couldn't really concentrate because of the flashbacks and the nightmares. So they were still unable to really progress in their reading and writing and math. After they were treated for the traumas, they were able to focus and concentrate without the distractions of the constant flashbacks and nightmares. They were able to concentrate and learn without the depression and anger and fear. And within one year after they were treated for the genocide traumas, they were able to pass the competitive Rwandan exams and get into the regular public schools. It was funny because we had thought we maybe do a little bit of a like a slight little randomized control study. So we had the children, one third of them randomized into like the thought field therapy tapping. One third of them were doing tension relaxation and one third of them were doing the four by four breathing exercise to get them to calm down and relax. And we thought, well, they're all in the same orphanage but they don't have electricity. So we were there from dawn to dusk and we thought we're there when they wake up and we're there when they go to sleep. So and then we're there when they wake up again the next morning so we can do reverse, you know, the second condition and the third day, the third condition. Well, after the first night, you know, because they have nightmares. So they wake up. So the kids having the nightmares that doing the TFD said, oh, the nightmare recedes and they can go back to sleep. And they're very helpful to each other. So they notice, what are you doing? Why aren't you sleeping? They say, oh, because of the nightmares. You know, they're doing either the tension relaxation or they're doing the breathing relaxation. They said, no, I don't think you're doing it right. You need to do this. So they're showing them how to do the thought filter. So the next day, when the we're talking to kids to change the position, we asked them, oh, how was your night? They said, well, I wasn't doing too well. But then, you know, Joey came over and said, hey, what are you doing and showed me how to do this thing? And that worked. And so by the second day, they all knew thought filter, but they had learned from the other kids. They taught themselves. So they definitely did that. So we said, so much for a randomized control study. However, we found something even better. Right. They were able to learn from the other kids who had just learned it. Which is the best thing at all. It was just the best because they, what we have seen and this is what inspired us to look at, we need to somehow be able to do this in our country. They immediately took it everywhere, into the schools, everywhere. And the children were teaching other children. And they had TFT spontaneously formed TFT, like TFT clubs. So kids are helping other kids. And they says, oh, you got that pain there. Well, do this. And so they're teaching each other in the support group. So that was happening there. And it all across the communities. That's what we saw in the schools. And it was just amazing that we saw the transformation of these children, not only in terms of their learning, but I think we have a slide that shows they were, when we've got there, they're eating rice and beans. Oh, yeah. Right. And then we're looking at, they got inspired. They started getting planting seeds. And they had a huge cabbages. Yes. So they had enough to feed all of the orphans. And also that eventually they got enough to even sell some to market. So becoming more self-sustaining. So it was just very inspiring to see the transformation. Right. Sure. It was like goosebumps again. I feel like I'm going to cry. My eyes are filled with, this is an incredible story. It's so beautiful that they could, you could make such a market difference in their lives. A market difference. And when we saw these differences, we're looking at, we were working with adults too, the adult genocide survivors. We work with widows. I think we have a picture of the widows. These are some of the widows that we worked in. And they were, there were efforts like with Oxfam to try to help them. But because they were so depressed and traumatized and not able to concentrate, they weren't able to fully benefit from the efforts to try to help them to become self-sustaining. After their traumas were treated, they were able to become very successful. So now it was, it was kind of funny, we went to look and they have all these store warehouses with potatoes and other crops that they're telling. And we looked out in the fields because there's a, like a, because it's more, was more of like a male dominated society. And especially if you don't have money, which of course the widows were very poor. So there was a lot of discrimination. Widows, single mothers had a lot of discrimination. And when we looked out in the fields, we kind of blinked our eyes and we said, Hey, there were lots of men in the fields killing the fields and packing, hauling the potatoes, you know, in bags of potatoes and carrying them. And we said, those are the, the men are carrying the potatoes and digging up the potatoes. And the widows laughed. And they said, Yes, we have been able to hire them. Oh my gosh. Help us with the work. And we thought, wow, what a transformation. And from, you know, when we first saw the widows, most of them had, they're still beautiful clothes with their colors. But then they had, you know, no shoes, many of them. When we saw them and as we go over years and years later, now recent years, they all have shoes. In fact, they have purses, they have fine clothes that we have some. I don't have the slide here, but we see them in the beautiful clothes and with elegant shawls and purses and very elegant. How wonderful. That is an amazing transformation. It's such a transformation. And in fact, the mayor of one of the carriages that we worked in, that, you know, when he first got there, he would wave to people, but they were so still depressed and distraught from the genocide. This is even 12, 13, 14 years later. And, and he said after they were treated after we came and we were treated, he said they would wave back and they had the enthusiasm and they're more productive, they're working. And so they said, wow, they're very giving people. So they said, wow, we are so fortunate. We're so blessed that you came to help us because now we are getting healthier, we are getting happier, we're getting more productive. And they said, wow, we're very envious of you in the United States because you've had this around Roger Callahan, the clinical psychologist who developed it. He passed away a few years ago, but he had developed it and he said it's been around for 40 years. Everyone in the United States must be healthy and happy because he saw in such a short time the progress that they were making. And we said, well, actually, you're ahead of us because you got it into your military, into the schools, you got it everywhere. We're still trying to get it in there because we need to have evidence-based practices. And they wanted to know what that was. And when we explained it, they said, well, why don't you do what you did for us? You know, you show them how it works. And he says, oh, that's great. And then they'll do it. We need to have what we show that it's better than this control treatment. And then, you know, and they said, well, but then the control treatment, you mean they don't have the treatment that you know works? I said, oh, no, no, no, after it's still, they'll get the treatment after we show that, you know, without that treatment, the control treatment doesn't work as effectively. And then we'll give them the treatment. So they said they have to wait longer to get the treatment, you know, works. So this doesn't make sense. But they then said, we would like to help. How can we help? Because we said we haven't been able to get these studies. And they said, is there any way we can help? And that's how we were able to get two randomized control studies with adult genocide survivors, randomized into the control and regular condition. And we removed our foreign factor, you know, just because I might be right, have a little compounding effect. Okay, wait, I have to stop you. I'm sorry. I don't I don't mean to stop you because I'm I'm so wrapped up in this. But I know I have to take a break. So we'll be back in just one minute. Please don't go anywhere. There is more to the story that you are going to for sure want to hear. We'll be right back. Aloha, I'm Gwen Harris, the host here at Think Tech Hawaii, a digital media company serving the people of Hawaii. We provide a video platform for citizen journalists to raise public awareness in Hawaii. We are a Hawaii nonprofit that depends on the generosity of the supporters to keep ongoing. We'd be grateful if you'd go to thinktechawaii.com and make a donation to support us now. Thanks so much. Hey, Aloha, my name is Andrew Lanning. I'm the host of Security Matters Hawaii airing every Wednesday here on Think Tech Hawaii live from the studios. I'll bring you guests. I'll bring you information about the things in security that matter to keeping you safe, your co-workers safe, your family safe, to keep our community safe. We want to teach you about those things in our industry that may be a little outside of your experience. Please join me because security matters. Aloha. Welcome back to Finding Respect in the Chaos. I'm so glad you stayed with us because this is an amazing story. We are talking with Dr. Caroline Sakai about some of her work in Rwanda and it is important work that affects us here in America. I was so I was so struck when you said these kids were going, hey, you guys must be the healthiest, happiest people in the world because you had this for so long and yet we didn't. So bring us back up to you guys were doing the randomized studies. The government decided, well, let's see what we can do to help you. It wasn't the government, but it was the people. The people in the different villages. And so they helped us with doing two randomized control studies and we removed a foreign factor by training Rwandans and they don't have enough mental health and health professionals. So many of the people trained were lay people, but they did phenomenal work treating the after we trained them, they were treating the genocide survivors. The results were just so amazing. It just blew the independent researchers from university in Arizona who scored and compiled the statistics. They said, I think something's wrong because the results are too good to be true. And so they did it with another team did it twice and had the same results. Wow. So it was just awesome. After those are published, David Feinstein, who was a clinical research professor John Hopkins, he's no longer there, but he did a meta analysis of 51 energy tapping studies. 18 of them were randomized control studies. So he included our studies and after that was published, then a lot of your therapy was finally accepted as an evidence baser. All right. Okay. You know, I know about this because I use this technique of myself. Being a survivor of domestic violence and child abuse, I have all kinds of hidden trauma that I'm not quite sure about that I've done a lot of emotional work. I've done a lot of psychological work. I've done a lot of work over the, you know, the 30 years since I first remembered. And, and yet I never could get that extra release until I started doing this. Now, and I know some of you might be the same as I am. The tapping thing. Yeah, you can do tapping or massaging, but you can also do it mentally. Right. Which I can't quite have it perfected that one yet. That's really hard to do. I can see how you could do it, but it's really hard to do. So, um, but for me, just holding that spot or just massaging that spot a little bit. I don't actually have to tap. No, you can just cue it. Right. And I have personally experienced a profound feeling from some of the really deep hidden stuff. And so I think that if you are a survivor out there, I want you to try to give this a try, because I'll tell you, it really helps. It really works. When you get that flush of all the court, you know, cortisol and all that, you know, adrenal axis stuff starts just flowing around and you're so stressed and you feel like you're going to have an anxiety attack maybe even you can go through these protocols in a matter of minutes and you will feel better. And I mean, you will instantly feel better. Okay, enough about me. Let's get back to this because I don't want to run out of time and I want people to hear what I consider the most dramatic story that you have in showing how much this works when you went into the prisons and there was a poli- tell the policeman story, please. Yes, among the people that we had trained was a very charismatic policeman and he was very successful in his parish. He was teaching everybody the thought therapy, so murders, suicide, domestic violence all went down. He was doing very well in his parish and then he was falsely accused and then you have to go into the prison until your trial and there are 13 prisons there, but there are no holding cells for people. So he's just in a general population? With the people that he sends to prison. Oh my gosh, I can't imagine a policeman in prison. He was in prison and feeling very apprehensive seeing, wow, there's a whole slew of people in there that probably would like to get a chance to... Yeah, so he said he knows how to do it mentally, he can do it mentally, but he said, wow, his heart was palpitating, shaking, sweating and so he just started tapping for the trauma treatment and he started doing that and his palpitation stopped, the shaking stopped, the sweating stopped and he thought it was rather ludicrous. He was in prison and fearful for his safety and well-being and he's not having health complications. So he laughed out loud and one of the prisoners, not someone he had sent to prison, came over and said, hey, are you a policeman? He said, yeah, well, you know what happens to policemen? He said, well, yes, that's why I'm doing this, having the guy said, you know, there's two people in here that I think they're out after me so can you show me how to do that? So he shows him how to do the treatment and the guy's fear fades and so he thought it was funny so he starts laughing. So there's two of them laughing in this prison which is a pretty gloomy place and so then other people get curious and say, why are you guys laughing? So pretty soon he's the most popular person in the prison because everybody wants to know and doesn't work for this pain here and I've got this phobia here and I've got this anger here and so he's thought so he has trained all the prisoners except the people that he had sent to prison and had even trained all the prison guards because they were curious too so they're all always around him and so can't get close to him. So finally one of the people he had sent to prison comes over and said, what's the stuff you guys are doing? So he shows him how to do the rage and anger treatment. His rage and anger melted and he sits down with the rest of him and he says oh and I got this pain here and I got this trauma here and so he helps him and so pretty soon all of the prisoners, every single one, and so not only the policemen survived, he went to trial three months later. He was acquitted of all charges but when he left prison he said, now I understand why God sent me here. He's a devout Catholic but had question because you know, after doing everything right in his life trying to help everybody, why is he sent to prison? So he then said, I will go to the Rwandans because we're trained for Rwandans in Hawaii to become trainers so they could train other people so we wouldn't have to keep going. So that was working really well until then this with the what happened with the policemen and David Feinstein who was writing the forward to my book said you don't have my favorite sorry in there so we got permission and then after we got the permission because the government had to look at it and they had testimonials from Bishop and many people from Rwanda and also in the United States so they gave permission so it's in the forward to the book the policeman story but after that came out the Rwandan government asked the four Rwandans that we had trained here in Hawaii to come to their 13 prisons to train the prison staff and I think we have one of the slides shows the staff from the 13 prisons that we trained and they said you have to come back because we're pastors and priests and we're going to be training like psychiatrists doctors nurses psychologists social workers so we need your help so I had kind of retired from going there just connecting with them by internet so that's why we've been going back two years 2017 2018 and we have one more trip this August because we're going to be training people in the prisons to be able to continue the training what they're doing in the prisons is a model I think for transformation in the prisons they took 50 model prisoners they train them and then they do one-on-one therapy if it's needed weekly they have reviews and those 50 then help because some of the prisons have 12 000 inmates so then each time they're then spreading out and training more and more and more and their goal is to train every single prisoner and when they're released from prison they're expected to go into their community and help anyone who has not yet been treated for trauma or depression or rage or whatever and it's a transformation because we've heard testimonials from many of the prisoners who said you know I was feeling depressed and hopeless I'm going to be 30 years here but they said I now have a new purpose in my life I never realized how much joy you can have from helping others because I was hurting other people I wasn't helping them now I'm getting real joy I'm truly helping other people so their lives are transformed okay now let's start crying again oh my gosh so they changed the um the statistics too for like the rapes and the murders and the suicides and stuff too right yes they're really coming down and also they're uh transforming the prisons because they're becoming like model prisons and we looked at it and we said wow this is just amazing and they said well if you need help you know they want to give back so they said if you need help in the united states we can come to help you and I think we might take them up on it we should especially right now in this climate what we got going on maybe we could send them to the white house what do you think I don't think you talked to them but shoot wouldn't that be nice if we could oh my gosh there's so much more to talk about oh yes and I wish we had more time but I know we're out of time now and oh my goodness I hope that you will come back again and talk about what happened in August sure absolutely and I'm just so moved and inspired by what you're doing and the results that are happening and I hope that this can spread like wildfire here in America in the same way that it has spread like wildfire I hope so too it has literally transformed the nation of Rwanda and we were told that by many people in Rwanda that it has transformed the country wow peace and reconciliation and forgiveness which is their president has decreed that and it's something that is helping them move along in that direction and something I think every country would learn from and benefit from because they were a country that was so debilitated and so devastated by the horrors of the genocide and you see them today I mean they have a national unity day every once a month on a Saturday and the entire nation does the same thing whether it's sweeping and cleaning the roads or repairing building and disrepair men women bosses little children everyone is coming together all across the nation one Rwanda one nation in unity doing the same thing it is inspiring it is very inspiring very inspiring I absolutely agree and I know that it has helped me and in in ways I didn't expect I have bad test anxiety right and I'm back in college so I'm sitting there going because I usually take it in the test center and I couldn't get in there so I had to take it with the regular class and I'm thinking oh it's my final I'm gonna rock it right so I just did one and I know it wasn't the right one maybe but I just did one of my protocols and I got an A on the test right all of that anxiety the shaking that I can't think straight was gone right and the anxiety protocol runs through most of the treatments it's a real basic right so you are doing the right thing I know it works yes I know it works on simple things like you're taking a test and you're too nervous and I know it helps on profound trauma for my own self with my own abuse and as I'm writing my book now telling the story of my life I have all these flashbacks and then I go through one of the protocols and I can continue writing and so what it's done for the Rwandans I hope it would do for us here too and I want to thank you for coming on and sharing the story so I'm excited you like to come back and tell us what happens in August so maybe next fall you'll be able to come back and see us again I'd be delighted to thank you so much and I want to thank everybody out there for tuning in with us this has been a powerful story that can really change lives and like I said before if you are someone who has been abused I really want you to look into this get this book overcoming adversity will really help you just reading the book alone you can get all kinds of stuff out of it and the appendix exactly tells you how to do it and everything and if you need more questions her contact information is in there is a local doctor here in Honolulu and I can't recommend all of this highly enough so I want to thank you for tuning in this has been finding respect in the chaos on Think Tech Hawaii I'm Cynthia Lisa and Claire please come back next time