Healing and Forgiveness After Childhood Sexual Abuse: Julie Jacky, EFT Tapping and Healing the Wounds of the Past

Her childhood was stolen from her, leaving her struggling to trust and love. But Julie Jacky found a way to break free from the chains of her past 

How do we confront and heal from the painful experiences of our past? Julie Jackie, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and author of the book 'On the Other Side,' joins us to share her inspirational journey towards healing and forgiveness.

Julie's journey began by attending a forgiveness workshop, where she faced the difficult process of forgiving her abuser.  Julie discovered EFT tapping, a powerful tool that involves tapping on meridian endpoints with our fingertips to calm our bodies and release trapped emotions. This practice helped her to confront the memories of her childhood sexual abuse and find a path towards healing.

In this moving and informative conversation, we explore the benefits of EFT tapping and the mind-body connection. Julie shares her experience of tapping for eight hours in one day, illustrating the power of allowing emotions to flow freely. We also discuss the responsibility of healing and how it's not something we can put off. Join us as we delve into the importance of self-healing, discovering that we are stronger than we think and that there's always hope for a brighter future.

To purchase Julies book, On the Other Side, https://www.amazon.com/Other-Side-Spiritual-Memoir-ebook/dp/B088CW66XZ/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1QSH6BLALC5IX&keywords=on+the+other+side+julie+jacky&qid=1689350763&sprefix=on+the+other+side+julie+jacky%2Caps%2C121&sr=8-1

Follow Julie on Instgagram: https://www.instagram.com/juliejackycoach/?fbclid=IwAR2_lOQCTPH7AgfQTrA2VRPJLrE_V0Pp3d73O40RqXbsjE7nS9KN_i8jUrA

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Transcript

Jen: 0:01

you are stronger than you think. Don't believe me, we're about to prove it. Welcome back. This is Jen Lee, creator and host of I Need Blue podcast. True Crime to True Life. As a survivor of arm dropery and abduction, i understand the trauma and triggers survivors experience Knowing this and through my powerful podcast, i offer survivors a safe place to share their lived experiences. Survivors need blue to feel they belong, they are loved, understood and my favorite empowered. Please note I Need Blue does contain sensitive topics which could be triggering. Please seek help if needed and remember you always come first. I Need Blue episodes can be found on Apple Podcasts, spotify and many listening platforms, including my website, wwwineedbluenet. There you will find all the episodes, valuable resources, safety tips, my newly released book and e-book Why I Survived by Jennifer Lee, and if your passion is to learn to podcast, you will find a learn to podcast PDF available as well. I would like to thank Shar Good, the talented violinist who composed and performed this opening music. You can find information about Shar Good on my website. As always, thank you for listening.

Jen: 1:50

Let's introduce today's special guest, julie Jackie. She is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and wrote a book on the other side which is a spiritual memoir of her healing journey. I have started reading this book and I know, through reading the pages and my conversations with Julie, the courage it took her to put pen to paper. She is raw and vulnerable. The story pulls at every emotion inside you. Her story is one of healing and forgiveness and she is here to share it with us today.

Jen: 2:32

Julie has found purpose in helping others. She is a spiritual coach, author and certified emotional freedom technique practitioner, also known as EFT and tapping. She has over 20 years of coaching and business experience and loves helping women on their healing journey deepen their personal relationships with themselves and others. I am here to say that I have experienced a tapping session with Julie and I did not realize how un-relaxed I really was. For my session we focused on my anxiety associated with public speaking, which I know many of you experience. It was quite amazing the transformation I felt inside by the time we were finished. I felt I wanted to go out and tell everybody about this experience. I wanted them to feel how wonderful I felt. Anyway, we're going to talk about that a little bit later, but right now, i am honored to introduce Julie. She's my friend and I am thankful that you are joining me today on the I Need Blue podcast.

Julie: 3:50

Oh, jen, i am so honored to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me to be on your awesome podcast.

Jen: 4:00

Thank you, oh, you're so welcome. I'm happy you are here. I'm really glad that I was able to experience the EFT. The tapping with you is quite amazing For you. because of your story, because of what you went through in your childhood, you found that the most effective way for you to deal with your trauma was through the EFT helping. That's what motivated you, because you wanted to help others the way it had helped you. So can we start a little bit talking about your story and your book, because that, ultimately, is what led you into helping others.

Julie: 4:38

Yeah, i'd be honored to. I was sexually abused between age 11 and 17 by the same person who was my brother's friend and my best friend's brother, and they were neighbors of ours, so we were together a lot Over those years. I never knew when I was going to be abused or what was going to happen next. And as he got more brave, situations escalated. They ultimately ended when my stepfather came running down into the house where we were and he was abusing me And my stepfather lucky for the person who abused me didn't see it. But had he, things wouldn't have ended well. And that moment was a powerful moment because things ended physically, but emotionally they didn't end until I started dealing with him way later, three decades later, in my 40s.

Julie: 5:48

I had the thought, and as I talked to other women who've been abused in some fashion sexual, mental, emotional, physical abuse I had the thought that, well, he didn't penetrate me with his penis, so I'm okay, i don't need to go to therapy. There's other people who've had it way worse than me. They've been raped, they got pregnant. Whatever story I made up about minimizing my experience And I was woefully wrong I did need help because, being abused over and over, i had behaviors that I unknowingly created to protect myself and cope, and those permeated my whole life. They impacted my significant other relationships And, honestly, i didn't know that until 15 years after my divorce, when I was sitting in the therapist's office and I recognized my own contribution to my failing marriage, which led me to promptly apologize to my ex-husband.

Jen: 7:03

Well, that's an amazing step in itself. Can I go back? Because I think there is this perception that sexual abuse is perpetrated by an adult right, but that was not the case in your situation. It was teenage boys, and have you found now, in sharing your story and speaking with other women, that that is more common than we think?

Julie: 7:33

I think it's for sure more common than we think. I don't know the statistics on what age people are when they abuse, but I've heard so many stories about babysitters abusing the children they're babysitting sexually. Because I've opened up and shared my story, when people read it, they come and talk to me and tell me their story And oftentimes they've never told anybody before, just like I didn't. And not telling isn't because we don't want to heal, it's just not telling. I made that decision when I was 11 years old to not tell, and I made that decision because I didn't think people would believe me over the person who abused me and I didn't want to lose my friendship with my best friend. It was an 11-year-old decision and it stuck for years. But back to your question about essentially kids abusing kids. Frankly, it happens a lot.

Jen: 8:38

I think you're right about that And it's not a conversation that we have because that's unthinkable, but as we continue to talk about it, it'll bring light to the situation. You spoke about how you had particular behaviors and that you didn't realize that they were associated with the trauma that you had experienced, beginning at age 11. So for people listening, can you share some examples, because they may be in their 40s looking back on their life like I can't believe I did that, not really realizing that they were trying to protect themselves?

Julie: 9:20

One of them that comes to mind immediately is I blocked off my heart. I closed it off to protect myself. So when we close our heart off to protect ourselves, so bad people won't hurt us, we're also closing our heart off to good people, And we're closing it off both ways. We think we're just closing it off to protect from incoming hurt, But we're closing our heart off to the outside too. It goes both ways. And so I thought I loved my husband, and I think I did at that time And I did the best I could. But I really wasn't fully open. I wasn't open to fully experience a relationship, to fully explore that unconditional love from another human, an adult human, because I had shut my heart off to protect myself, keep myself safe, so I wouldn't ever be a victim again. That was literally my thinking.

Jen: 10:27

Yeah, the heart is a very delicate thing And sometimes it creates this almost distorted view of love. Like your definition of love changes in what it should look like when you go through something like that. Did you find that in your experience too?

Julie: 10:43

I did when I was young, and I think this is part of being sexually abused as well. I confused love and sex and thought that they were like one in the same, or you needed to have sex with somebody. For me, i choose men. I thought I needed to have sex with them in order for them to love me, and I found that is common with women who've been abused as well. We confuse love and sex and don't know that they're different and don't understand that, and I really didn't understand that until I was, i don't know, somewhere in my mid to late 30s. For me, when I gave sex or had sex when I was in high school, i was giving my power away, not taking it back.

Jen: 11:38

And how did that make you feel later in life, looking back on that?

Julie: 11:43

I used to feel shame and embarrassment and I used to judge the heck out of myself and put myself down until I went through therapy and I could understand my behaviors and have some compassion for myself. I was doing the best that I could, knowing what I knew, And I can see it for that now And I can love myself. That's where I was.

Jen: 12:10

I love that. I went to church on Sunday and one of the biggest message that he said was forgive yourself, god's already forgiven you. It was rather empowering because you were able to say I'm sorry to your ex-husband And it probably took you much longer to have that forgiveness for Julie.

Julie: 12:33

I actually went through a forgiveness workshop. I had been coaching with a coach I think this was pre-therapy And she wanted me to write a letter to the person who abused me and forgive him. And I just thought she was off her rocker. How could I possibly forgive him for what he did? And yet I wanted to forgive because that's the right thing to do, or that's what we're taught to do, and maybe I would feel better.

Julie: 13:09

There's a couple of things that I took away during that experience. One was she said a phrase that stuck with me and I understand it more than ever. And it's hurt people hurt people. And she wanted me to understand that. His behaviors he's just a year older than me and he's sexually abusing me. Something is happening to him to cause him to do that to me, because that is not normal behavior. When she first brought that up, i was pissed Like what. I'm the one who is hurt, and I had to think about it in a different way, and that was the first time I ever thought about him. I had always thought about me, and that's hard to do when somebody hurts you, but it took me a while to fully understand that.

Julie: 14:08

So she had me write out this letter to him. I wasn't gonna mail it to him or anything like that. It was for me to forgive him. Frankly, i just did whatever she told me to do. I just wrote down what she said to write And although looking back on the letter and I included this in my book looking back at the letter it seems like I forgave him. But frankly, i half asked it. I just did what she told me to do because I wanted to be done with it.

Julie: 14:34

But after I went through therapy and did a ton of tapping on different aspects of the abuse, i wanted to forgive him. It's something about forgiving somebody else. It's not condoning their behavior, it's not saying, oh, that's okay, it's not. I didn't go to him to forgive him. I forgave him to free myself And that was powerful And I share this workshop in my book too. I volunteered to be the person who demoed forgiveness process in front of everybody And I did that because I didn't wanna let myself off the hook like I had done in the letter that I had wrote several years earlier. I wanted to forgive And I did. I was embarrassing to do that in front of the group, but man was it powerful And so freeing emotionally, physically, mentally in every aspect. It was so freeing And I felt a connection with God during that process as well. That was profound And I just I remember seeing this white light come in at the end of the forgiveness process, like freeing me, and it was so beautiful.

Jen: 16:03

That is amazing And I get to see you as you are speaking those words and feel it in your energy And that is amazing And that is possible for everyone. But it took a lot for you to take that step And to volunteer to get up in front of them and be that person. So kudos to you. I'm so glad you did because I see that just how wonderful it has been for you. Heart people, heart people. Can I ask you a question And I apologize if it's uncomfortable. Once you heard that, was there a part of you that wanted to reach out to him and just have conversation, like did somebody hurt you?

Julie: 16:46

Yeah, i think I've been curious like what happened to you and have you been able to do your own healing work on this journey? because For you to do what you did to me, clearly you were hurt, like somebody was hurting you, but also you were hurting me, and so now like your hurt sandwich, because you got hurt and you're hurting, and so I've been curious about it, but I've never had the desire to reach out to him.

Jen: 17:23

Right now, let's go back to age 35, which is decades after the abuse occurred, and then stop. You ended up in a marriage which ended in divorce. What happened then? after that? What path did you end up on?

Julie: 17:43

so I got divorced when I was 30 and Became a single mom. I think at that point in my life I was just going through motions and Trying to figure things out and trying to make money. I had a lot of focus of, you know, wanting to do the next thing that I could make a lot of money on and have financial freedom. I had a jewelry business. I used to hand make beaded jewelry for 10 years and I had a online travel website and I used to teach people how to book travel online when it was new. And Then we had a recession, and both of those are discretionary income businesses Because when a recession hits, people stop traveling right.

Jen: 18:38

That becomes a luxury and not so much a necessity.

Julie: 18:41

Yeah, Yeah and so while Commissions were still coming in like it didn't hit me right away All of a sudden the commissions abruptly stopped because people had stopped traveling and I realized I was in a little bit of travel there and I started pulling money out of my retirement account and ultimately I didn't make ends meet. I was Going bankrupt, both financially and emotionally. And I think that that bankruptcy process because literally I filed bankruptcy It was one of The hardest decisions to make because I thought it was a failure. I Just remember one of my friends pulling me aside and said you know, julie, bankruptcies put in place to help people like you do a reset so you can start fresh again and Do things different the next time, so you can get that relief. And I remember I got Served at the door by a sheriff because I owed the credit card company Money and I hadn't paid them, and so they were suing me, and Rightfully so, but I did not have the money to pay them at that time. That's why I ended up filing bankruptcy.

Julie: 20:00

But I think that was a key turning point for me because I had to make massive changes in my beliefs, in my thoughts around money but also life, and I think that that bankruptcy was really a wake-up call, and That wake-up call is, then, what pivoted me and propelled me into My healing journey.

Julie: 20:27

And while it still took me a few years before I started up therapy and started dealing with The childhood sexual abuse, it started propelling me onto a journey, and that's when EFT entered my life as well. I Remember I heard EFT tapping, eft tapping and, and You know, when something repeats over and over you, like it's a sign I should pay attention. Yes, so I looked up EFT and and found that EFT and tapping are the same thing, and EFT, as you said in the intro, stands for emotional freedom technique, and I took a community ed class so I could learn more about it, and I had a good experience enough that I Was interested in learning more, so I took an online course About weight loss and body confidence. When I was taking that, memories started resurfacing from the childhood sexual abuse.

Jen: 21:29

Had you had those memories before you started this process, like flashbacks, i suppose. I.

Julie: 21:36

Think maybe there were a few here and there, but I was really great at playing whack-a-mole. I Would whack those down as fast as I could, but after I started the tapping, they started coming up more frequently. I think that is because it was time to deal with it. It's like my Body and my subconscious are like hey, julie, hey, we're trying to get your attention, you should do something. And you know what you resist Persist, it doesn't go away Just because you ignore it. It didn't go away. It's decades later and here it is coming up. And so that's really when my Big tapping journey began. Never planning to become an EFT practitioner, because it's crazy, it looks weird And it's not normal. It impacted me so much Like my body calmed down, like you said when you tap with me, how calm your body became, and you didn't even know that it wasn't calm. I had that same experience And that calmness inside. Don't you want more of it?

Jen: 22:49

Absolutely, it was amazing. You know my husband might say something. I was like OK, that's fine, it was great, that was not a drug, that was not a prescription, like literally, that was just my body, Yeah, just reacting, yeah, the freedom, like you said, amazing.

Julie: 23:11

I don't think we realize how much we walk around with our cortisol levels. High cortisol is our stress hormone And I think it's even more prevalent since 2020. More and more people their anxiety is just off the charts And we don't realize how much we just walk around every day feeling very stressed out and overwhelmed and anxious. This tapping when we tap on meridian endpoints with our fingertips which, by the way, that's pretty amazing, we have fingers and we can tap on points on our body and it helps calm us Like our body is amazing. I love it.

Jen: 24:02

It really is. Are you tapping now Or now? I'm just curious. Ha, ha, ha ha.

Julie: 24:09

You know because I taught you that you can tap on the sides of your fingertips and nobody has to see that you're doing that. I was just right at the beginning of our time just to make sure that I came in really calm inside, not because I was anxious to have this conversation, but just supporting my body. so I stay calm.

Jen: 24:33

I love that supporting your body So many times. We're like our body must support us, right? Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, so you were telling us about your EFT journey and not planning to become a practitioner, but you did because you felt so calm.

Julie: 24:50

Ha ha ha. I was that first weekend certification. I got rid of craving for chocolate, i reduced pain in my body, my body felt calmer. I connected with other people who were interested in learning about this and curious. We did several different practice sessions and I was blown away the shift. Each and every five or 10 minute session We learned different techniques and I'm chuckling because I now call myself a tapping geek.

Julie: 25:27

It started back then, but I do things. I tap on almost anything Like I try it on everything because why not? I've done crazy experiments with my friend who I call Tapping Patty. We literally decided we wanted to tap for eight hours in one day to see what would happen And we both learned so much and how the mind and body is connected and how emotions stay trapped in our body until we acknowledge them and process and let them go.

Julie: 26:06

I had different pain points in my body that came up during our eight hours and at that time I didn't understand the connection and I kind of ignored the pain I felt in my arm And that was a big mistake. Continued to feel this pain for the next week And I was talking with my chiropractor. I'm like why I just have this pain. It was after tapping And she said well, that's emotion, and the energy was trying to go out your arm, but you didn't allow it to, so it got stuck in there. Oh, i get it, because it leaves our body in all different ways. So if you are in the middle of tapping and all of a sudden a pain comes up in your body or a sensation, it doesn't have to hurt. Some kind of sensation comes up in your body, whether it's in your arm or your heart or your throat. You just keep tapping and it will dissipate. It's pretty profound.

Jen: 27:03

So when you had that pain in your arm to release it, we'll call it would you just tap your arm then Like how would you have released that?

Julie: 27:13

No, you don't actually tap where it hurts. You tap on a set meridian points. So everybody, just grab your hand and take your fingertips and just start at the top of your head. You can just tap right on the top of your head And then there's three points around the eye. There's one on the inside of the eye, so I take two fingers and I'm tapping by the bridge of the nose and by my eyebrow, and then the next one is on the outside of the eye. You kind of feel where the corner of your eye comes together. You're just tapping there lightly And then under your eye, on the bone. The next point is under the nose crease in your chin, and you're just tapping there with a couple of your fingers And then you move on to the collar bone and under the armpit, so like three to four inches down under your armpit, ladies, where your broadband would be And then you just keep repeating those points over and over.

Julie: 28:14

So if you have that pain in your arm again, you're not tapping on your arm, you're tapping on those points. And so you just start at the top of the head, you work your way down and you repeat them over and over, while you're focusing your attention on the pain in your arm because you want to acknowledge it. And as you do that, you will notice like, literally, it will dissipate And sometimes your mind will start to wander And so you just bring it back to what you're doing. You're focusing on that sensation in your arm And then notice how it shifts and changes And you tap until it goes away. And that could take two minutes, it could take five minutes, it could take eight minutes, but what's eight minutes? to get that out of your arm and let that? whatever that emotion is? Because I didn't even know what it was related to when I had that experience. I just knew I wasn't going to do that again.

Jen: 29:09

Yeah, That's great. So thank you for sharing those meridian points with us. Earlier you said oh, you just you tap anywhere because you were curious as to what that was going to do?

Julie: 29:22

What I mean is I tap on any topic, any pain, any experience. I try tapping on anything I possibly can. So if I have a headache, I try tapping to help release the headache.

Jen: 29:39

That is wonderful And I can see by you getting those results why you were like I just discovered something amazing that is easy to do And I want to help people. I want to teach them this.

Julie: 29:54

I had amazing results and I didn't know how profound it would be. I knew there was something big to this and I wanted to learn more. But when I say that that was just the beginning, when I was going through my healing process, i used EFT all the time. An example is I tapped on the person's name who abused me, and that might sound funny, but we carry a lot of emotion in people's names. So if you think about an ex and how you don't even want to say their name out loud, that's because there's emotion in it. And when I first tapped on his name, i did not want to even say his name. I couldn't get it out of my mouth without crying And so I just kept tapping as I was crying And then eventually I said his name and I repeated it enough until it just became a name And it didn't. There was no emotion around it anymore. It's just. That was just a name That was powerful and that allowed me to continue doing other work, to heal other memories that I had that I experienced.

Jen: 31:12

Let's talk about your book. It's beautiful, it's intentional And it has this beautiful butterfly on front and she even has it flying forward And she explained because this healing journey is way for her to move forward, like she was very intentional in the way she set up her book. Can you tell us about your book on the other side?

Julie: 31:38

It was never a book I wanted to write. I was in the process of writing a book proposal for EFT on business. I was all prepared to talk about tapping and networking, tapping on public speaking, all the things that we need to be able to do as entrepreneurs and to do them confidently. Well, i put my book proposal on hold while I was wrapping up a different project And I picked my book proposal back up in the new year And when I did, i had this really strong feeling inside that I was writing the wrong book. But I had no idea what the book right book was then Like okay, well, if this is wrong, then what is right? And I had this urge to sit and write out all these different things that I had done in my life, kind of over a 10 year span.

Julie: 32:33

And then I had a call with my coach who was helping me with my book proposal And I said I'm writing the wrong book And I have this list of things I can felt compelled to write out And I don't know how to proceed because I don't know what the right book is. And we went through the list. She asked me a bunch of great questions to help me figure out what was significant about me writing those things And she came up with this is about relationships. I said I don't know if that's right And I sat with it for a bit and I realized you know what this is about relationships? It's about relationship with myself and relationships with other, but it's all stemming around healing and forgiveness after childhood sexual abuse.

Julie: 33:20

And then I said I don't want to write that book. Obviously that's not what happened. There were stories that came up and wanted to be told. I continued to do healing work so I could write them along the way, as I would share stories with others about what I was working on, what I was writing, the process I was going through, the emotions I was experiencing. I found that people felt very connected when I shared them, because they may have had that experience too, or something similar, and now they could talk about it.

Jen: 33:57

There is healing and sharing. As you know, yes, i do know and I am so glad that you shared your story, because there are going to be others, as you know, who will hear it and relate to it. No, they're not alone And, like you said, they reach out to you as well to share their story. People share with people that they know have been through something similar. There's comfort in that.

Julie: 34:24

I think, an important thing to notice. not like my book is filled with horror stories of my abuse There's a couple of stories in there about that But this is really about the healing. This is about learning to say no. This is about learning boundaries and being able to set them and keep them. This is about that story of worthiness that I told you. That's in my book.

Julie: 34:48

The time that I apologized to my husband that's in my book. The forgiveness letter I told you that I wrote. the coach told me what to say. That's in the book, the letter, literally. I found my journal and put it in there. And the whole forgiveness process, the eight steps that I went through that's in my book. It's not that it's a how to for other people, but as people read my stories they go, ooh, i have that too. Wow, this could help me. Or they have the awareness that they need to work on it as well, because my things aren't so unique to me. What I talk about in there is universal. Most people have had trauma, whether it's sexual abuse or not. they've had trauma and they might have a hard time saying no. They might have a hard time setting boundaries. That's what the book is about is learning to figure out who the heck I am, learning to use my voice in a much loving manner and to free myself from my past, from all that pain, and moving into a better space for my future.

Jen: 36:00

And we cannot forget how to beat the whack-a-mole game. Wack-a-mole is chapter two. Yeah, i used to play that game as a child. Julie, tell our audience where we can find this amazing, inspirational book.

Julie: 36:21

I think the easiest way is juliejackiecom. J-U-L-I-E-J-A-C-K-Ycom. I have a book tab on there and I have the links where you can get it. on Amazon, you can get a signed copy that I'll ship to you. You can get it. I recorded it, so it's on audiobook and it's also available e-book. However you like to read, it's available to you. You can also learn on my website about tapping. I have a women's tapping circle that I do on a regular basis and you can connect with me on all my socials and find those on my website as well.

Jen: 36:59

I love it. Thank you so much, and I will have all of that information in the show notes as well for you to easily link to Wonderful. Well, julie, i am so thankful that you are here today. I'm thankful that you are my friend. I can't wait to see you again. Is there anything that I have forgotten that you want to add to this message?

Julie: 37:22

Take enough time to care for ourselves, and learning self-care is critically important, as is healing our past. Even though somebody else hurt us and we aren't at fault for that, it is our responsibility to heal ourselves. Nobody else can do it, and when we realize that and others can inspire us along the way, then we know that we can do it too, and I think that is a big message in my book.

Jen: 37:59

Your words. It's our responsibility for our healing. It's not really something that I thought about before. So when you said that, i was like, yeah, i get that. So thank you for again putting words into something that it's like I think I knew, but I didn't know Anything else.

Julie: 38:19

You're so cute.

Jen: 38:21

I told you, i try to make this fun and just make you comfortable and lighthearted, but that's honestly really easy to do with you. It's not hard, thank you. You're welcome, julie. Thank you for being my guest today.

Julie: 38:37

Thank you for having me.

Jen: 38:38

Absolutely. This is Jen Lee with the I Need Blue podcast. You can find all of the episodes on your favorite podcast platform, but also my website, wwwineadbluenet. And remember you are stronger than you think.