 Welcome to Think Tech Hawaii. This is Cynthia Lee Sinclair at Finding Respect in the Chaos. And I'm here today with Dr. Caroline Sakai. It's so nice to have you here. Welcome. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much for coming. Gosh, I've known you for a couple years now, I guess, huh? Yes. I knew you from even before you went traipsing around the world with your TV mission. All right, who would have thought I'd be a college kid backpacking around the world at the age of 60, right? But you've done some amazing traveling. You've been everywhere. And I know that usually on this show we talk about domestic violence and child abuse awareness and things like that. And we're going to take another little spin on that same subject and go all the way to Rwanda, which is where you have done some amazing, amazing work, Caroline. I'm so glad that you're here with us. Can you tell us a little bit about what you've been doing in Rwanda, the work you've been doing there with all the genocide victims? Yes. We were very fortunate to get an opportunity to go to Rwanda. We first worked with 400 orphans in Kigali in Rwanda. We were just amazed because these are kids. We saw them 12 years after the genocide. And they had been unable to study and learn because they were having constant flashbacks and nightmares. They're depressed, angry, really traumatized, so they're still having nightmares and flashbacks. Wow. And you wrote a book about this too, right? Yes. Uh-huh. It's an adversity. And I just love this book. I read it twice. I've sent it to my friends. It's a really wonderful book. And I really recommend it to anyone out there to go and get it and read it. Overcoming adversity is really a wonderful book. Tell us more about it, please, if you would. Yes. When we started working with these orphans 12 years after the genocide, we were amazed that they were able to say that, gee, that what they had been seeing for over 12 years, the constant flashbacks and the nightmares, the flashbacks disappeared and receded like a distant memory, like 12 years ago. And then the next day when we saw them, they said the first time they didn't have the nightmares. Oh, my goodness. And you use a special technique in helping them, right? Called thought field therapy, right? Or TFT for short is what you guys call it, right? And so that's when it started working. I think we have some pictures of some of the kids that you worked with over there in Rwanda. And to me, it's just amazing when I hear some of the stories, ah, here we go right here. Here's some of those pictures. There's such babies to have gone through. This is part of the 400 kids that we treated and they were not having any singing or dancing. We go at the anniversary of the genocide. So the 100 days that they had where they had about a million people killed. And so we were able to work with them and it was transformative. We saw the kids then come back without the nightmares. Oh, and that's going through the thought field therapy where you work with pressure points or something. It's the same points, meridian points that are used in acupuncture and acupressure. But it's without the needles. You're just tapping. You can also do it by massaging those points and you can also do it mentally by just focusing on those points mentally. So if you would tell us a little bit about some of the stories, there's so many stories in here that it's hard to pick which one. So you would maybe try to pick your most dramatic story that shows the difference from how they started to how they were able to heal and overcome that adversity. But first, there was a million people killed in 100 days. Yes. Yes. That's just an overwhelming thought to try to fit in my head. Oh, yes. And this is why they have a beautiful memorial there in Kigali that not only has the Rwandan genocide but it has all the major genocides from the Holocaust and the major genocides in the world and then the last ones are on the Rwandan genocide. But it's something that every new person that we have going on these missions, we take them with us through the genocide memorial first to get them acquainted with that and it's very somber but also one of the things that we are seeing is when we see what they are doing in their country for peace and reconciliation, it really brings the hope about what is possible, the healing that's possible, the forgiveness, the resilience that they're showing and how they're coming together to help each other. Yeah, you were telling me a story about that, about how they have a special day or a special set of days. Yes. But what did they do? Tell me more about that. They are trying to emphasize that they are all one nation, one country, all Rwandans. So they have a community day on the last Saturday of every month and all over the whole country they are all doing some service. Some service? Yes. Like community service for the town or whatever. If there's a building that's getting kind of run down, they all gather there and they all work on fixing it. The day we were there, we saw they were cleaning the streets with their brooms so it doesn't matter whether you're a CEO or a little child, everybody's got their little brooms and they're sweeping the streets. Now, they have gotten a lot more paved roads now so we saw them sweeping that and we said well most of the streets are dirt so we went to look at the dirt roads, they're doing the same thing in those communities. They're sweeping and so the dirt roads are very clean and they look like they're paved, they're so smooth because they're all sweat. That's amazing to think that everyone could come together and what a difference it makes when people come together. If only we could get that same attitude going in America right now. We all come together as one nation, all working together for common causes for the good. Right. To help to build up the houses that are broken down. Yes, that were burned or broken down, they're working together. Even they have all the people in the community help and they have, as people are getting out of prison, that were the genocide years, they're coming to help and later. The people that committed the genocide are coming down. Yes, not the ones that planned it but the ones who got up with it. One of the things we were seeing was that people were saying, I don't think I can forgive because they killed all my loved ones, my family, my friends, my neighbors and how can I forgive? After they work through the trauma they shift perspectives and they look at, I feel really grateful that I'm just a victim because they were victims and they were told the people that committed the atrocities under duress because they were told, we're killing the rest of your family, we're killing the rest of your children unless you do this. So then under that kind of duress, they committed atrocities which goes against their nature. So the victims who are looking at after they work through the trauma of what they had seen of their loved ones being killed, they said, I am so sorry for what they went through because they were victimized and on top of that they have to live with this guilt the rest of their life about the atrocities they committed and that really goes against their nature. So is the TFT helping those people also then? Yes, in fact that's the recent trip I went this past year was where we were actually starting to work in the prisons. Now I want to hear about that. There's a story about a policeman that I know that you told at one of the seminars that I went to and I was, I'd love it if you told everybody that story because it is a great story. And it's in the forward to the book, David Feinstein who wrote the forward to my book included that story. And we had in our, I'd gone like six years in a row to Rwanda. We had trained people like pastors, priests and police and people in the community to be able to use the thought field therapy and some of the people we brought here to train. We brought to Hawaii for people to train them to become trainers. Well among the people we trained was a policeman who was excellent in his community. So he was using it, did an excellent job and then somehow we got accused and was sent to prison. Now he has to stay in the same prison that the people that he's sent to prison are in. Oh my gosh, yeah. It's like a nightmare for a policeman. Oh yes. You have to go into a prison. I'm feeling very afraid. So even though he knows how to do it mentally, he was tapping away because he was feeling heart palpitating, shaking, feeling very fearful. So he started doing that. As he did that, he thought it was kind of ludicrous because even though he's there and worried there's about 30 people in there that he had sent to prison, he's looking at, oh my God, I'm going to die here. Oh my God. As he was doing that, the palpitations stopped, the shaking stopped, the sweating stopped and he thought, gee, I don't feel that trepidation anymore. I'm not so scared. So then he started laughing out loud. He saw the guy that we did call a strange. This is really strange. And then one of the prisoners came up and asked him, oh, why are you laughing? And he explained he was fearful and he did this. So he said, I'm scared too. Can you show me? So he showed him. The guy started laughing too and pretty soon other people started finding out. And then they started gathering around and said, well, does it work for pain? Or I have this trauma and I have this fear about this thing or I have this anger. And so he was showing them how to do these. So pretty soon he taught all the prisoners and all the guards, except the people that sent to prison. And eventually they came around too. And he treated their anger and rage. And so not only did he survive the three months before his trial, after he was exonerated, everyone in the prison knew the thought field therapy. And there were, you know, no beatings and murders or things in the prison. And so- There was no murders and no beatings after this happened. Well, he was there. And so he was a, he said, he was a very religious, devout person and he said, now I understand why God sent me to prison. And so he went to the Rwandans that are doing the trainings and going into the prisons and said, when you go into the prisons, I will go with you when I am free. And that's how it actually started the initiative for the medical director getting involved with this past time that we went. We were training the medical director and the staff from 13 prisons. 13? Nurses and psychologists and their staff. So we trained people from the 13 prisons. And then we went to one of the prisons that has 3,000 inmates and we worked with 50 of their model prisoners and showed them how to do the thought field therapy. They had very good results. And so what they're doing is now they are going in the prison and teaching the other prisoners. And the staff is doing weekly reviews of the thought field therapy. So they are looking and when they are discharged from prison after their terms are up, they are going to be expected to go into their communities and help those who don't yet know thought field therapy with their trauma. Oh my gosh, that is so exciting to think about. When you think about the possibilities of all of that, it's 13 prisons and each prison has like 3,000 people? Many have more. Or more? That was one of the smaller prisons that we went to. There may be 10,000, there are huge numbers, tens of thousands of people on each prison. Well listen, we have to go to a break right now and we'll be right back. I want you to know that we're going to talk a little bit more about this thought field therapy and maybe learn a little bit about how you can do this for yourself. So I hope that you will come back. This is Think Tech Hawaii and we'll see you in just a minute. Hello, I'm Dave Stevens, host of the Cyber Underground. This is where we discuss everything that relates to computers that just kind of scare you out of your mind. So come join us every week here on ThinkTechHawaii.com, 1pm on Friday afternoons and then you can go see all our episodes on YouTube, just look up the Cyber Underground on YouTube. All our shows will show up and please follow us. We're always giving you current, relevant information to protect you. Keepin' you safe. Aloha. Hi, I'm Pete McGinnis-Mark and every Monday at 1 o'clock I present Think Tech Hawaii's Research in Manila where we bring together researchers from across the campus to describe a whole series of scientifically interesting topics of interest both to Hawaii and around the world. So hopefully you can join me 1 o'clock Monday afternoon for Think Tech Hawaii's Research in Manila. Welcome back to Finding Respect in the Chaos. This is Think Tech Hawaii and I am happy to have you back and I'm here with Dr. Caroline Sakai and we've been talking about the thought field therapy work that she has done in Rwanda and I should say successful thought field therapy work you've been doing in Rwanda, right? Right. So we've talked quite a bit now about how the victims of the genocide have responded to this thought field therapy. Why don't you give us a little background on exactly what thought field therapy is, who started it, how it started, all that kind of stuff because I know I'd like to know more about it and maybe our viewers would like to know more too. I'd be happy to do that. Thought Field Therapy was developed by Dr. Roger Callahan, he's a clinical psychologist who was a professor in Michigan and he discovered he actually was working with someone with a severe water phobia and he discovered that he was kind of desperate after working with her for a while to look at something different so he had been looking at the meridian and said well because she said I can't go any closer to the water because my stomach keeps turning so he said well stomach ready and he said well try tapping under your eye or massaging under your eye and she did that and she said oh my stomach's better and then she started walking toward the pool and he thought oh he was surprised so he started researching more about it and started using it more and he spent the rest of his life until he died about two years ago in his he was in his late 80s he dedicated his life to developing Thought Field Therapy okay and I know that there's other forms of it so to speak there's lots of different people different ways of doing it and I know that some people are kind of put off by the whole thing about tapping right and I know for me I can't do that tapping things I was always really fidgety when I was a kid right and so every time I do any kind of tapping type thing it's like my mom is how I hear is my mom in my ear gone stops it still right and so but I've tried this and I have had remarkable results from it where and I just you know even just using that one spot on the side of my hand to relax I do that every time right before the show starts because I'm nervous right because I'm new to all this and it gets you centered and grounded unless it's negativity or self-doubts it's a very good thing to do it's amazing how much it's helped me in other ways for those of you that are just tuning into this show I'm a survivor of domestic violence and child abuse and that always carries some PTSD that I've worked through for many many years now and have you know gone on to work with other survivors and other victims of domestic violence and child abuse and so I'm looking forward to becoming a practitioner of this because I've had positive results in my own life and I want to share that with other people like the same way that policeman was tell everybody in the prison right and it really does work I'm really I was really surprised and I didn't I must admit I didn't come in with an open mind exactly at first you know but I decided to really give myself to it and I think if you have that block you know you're not gonna let yourself it's not gonna work because you've decided it's not gonna work and so when I decided like wait a minute I gotta let that go if I really want to try this and try to make it work I've got to keep trying it for a little while and give it a chance and once I did that I was really surprised at the results yeah because that's all you need is that curiosity to see well let's focus and do what the directions say and work with it and if you're doing that it can really have an effect because it works on a body level on a somatic level so it's really working on those neural pathways in the brain and in your body so this is why I've seen I have been trained with all the traditional therapies and I have been amazed at what this can do because many of the traditional therapies are working mostly on your beliefs and attitudes which help but if you still have this not in your stomach or the palpitations and the sweating and the shaking it's very hard no matter how you're thinking to quiet that down but this will instantly quiet it down and what we found to our amazement once that quiets down people's thoughts and attitudes have changed originally Roger Callahan had the cognitive part in it where they had the the cognitions the affirmations and the positive and then he found that many people didn't need it at all so he took it out we only put it in when it's needed one of the offshoots that Roger Callahan trained Gary Craig who developed an offshoot EFT they're using the affirmations but that's because they have a one protocol for all the different like whether it's trauma or depression or anxiety or anger but with thought field therapy it's specific for the thought field very different treatments for different ones so that we have many people who just do it and we have seen it work with babies of course they're bilateral massages done by the parent right animals dogs horses animal yes oh and that's that's one of the things that convince a lot of people because there's no possible effect with an animal yeah a dog that's terrified and then you do the treatment and they just come down a horse you can do it with all the animals as well that you can do it remarkable I know that when I was at that the seminar that you guys had just recently that neurologist was he a neuropsychologist the neuropsychologist doctor yes he was a remarkable guy very compelling and engaging and he told the story of the guy that came into his office with a headache yes and so he didn't know what to do so and the guy was just like I can't do anything I just have this headache and he said okay I'll just do what I do instead of trying to explain any of it or figure he just said just do what I do so what just do what I do and went through that you know all the protocols and guys headache was gone in like three times of going to the protocol his take was gone so of course now he's a believer when that when the neurologist said that I was like wow that is that's pretty powerful evidence right and speaking of evidence you now have evidence this is now an accredited therapy right it's been approved by SAMHSA the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration and it's listed in the National Register of Evidence Based Practices and Programs and how long has it been there it's been like it's now I think almost it's about a couple years it's been around for 39 years first developed by Roger in 1979 but the research has been slower in coming but the what was helpful is when we were treating the rondas because they said wow this works they took it into their schools into the military they took it all over and they were saying wow this helps everybody so you guys in the United States must be lucky you've had it so long everybody must be healthy and happy and we say well we need you know these randomized control studies so that's why we don't have it unfortunately we're not quite so happy and right actually do the randomized control studies they said well we'll help what do you need and that's why we got in two different parts of Rwanda two randomized control studies with adults that the results were just phenomenal they were included in David Feinstein who used to be a clinical research professor John Hopkins he did a meta analysis of 51 energy tapping studies 18 of them are randomized control that's what helped move the energy tapping into more evidence-based practice okay and you call it what now earn a Dean happy what was that energy tapping oh energy tapping okay sorry and quite catch that I was like no it's not an energy tapping hello it's right on the book and it does transform your life's worst experiences I am a believer yes I had personal experience with it that's true and it's it's something that has made things very hopeful whether it's vets or trauma in accidents or in assaults or sexual abuse we're looking at the potential to work through the traumas and to have post-traumatic growth and increase resilience and positive stuff that's what I call finding respect in the chaos I'm so proud to know you what a great job you're doing oh my goodness why do you think it took so long for it to really start to take office is just because you didn't have the studies it was because we didn't have the studies because in in the other countries like in Rwanda and in Central America in other places where it's been taken it just takes off because they look at oh it works and then they can go right into taking it into the schools taking into the military taking it wherever they want to disseminate it and they develop TFT support groups oh my god the windows have them all the the different people are doing that and the Red Cross has adopted it in those countries and they're using it and they have learned the techniques themselves so they're incorporating it we have to have these randomized control studies right so does that wow wow well I hope everybody will go out and get this book because it's amazing you can take charge of your healing I know that most of our shows have been about domestic violence so far but there's all kinds of chaos out there so we need to find respect wherever we can and I think this is an amazing place to find it if you are in a situation where you are being harmed you are in danger we put some numbers on the screen that you can call for help don't just hide alone you're not alone there is help out there for you reach out and get it and if you are a survivor and you have a story that you'd like to tell you can send your survivor story to survivorcentralatthinktechhawai.com and it's been wonderful to have you with us Caroline thank you so much for coming to join us and I hope that you will come back again next time to finding respect in the chaos only on Think Tech Hawaii