Ever since I first learned about Tapping, I’ve been a man on a mission to share it with everyone I possibly could. I had experienced the transformative power of Tapping for myself, and I knew that it could change so many lives – and our world – if we only taught more people how to do it.
Through the years, I’ve had the pleasure and the honor to work alongside powerful changemakers and healers who are working to build a better world, bringing tools like Tapping to the communities who need them most.
Today, I want to introduce you to one of those incredibly special changemakers: Fritzi Horstman. Fritzi is the founder of Compassion Prison Project, an organization dedicated to bringing compassion and healing to prisons and communities.
Compassion Prison Project’s mission is to help prisons incorporate trauma-informed practices into the day-to-day lives of prison residents and staff to create safer prisons, reduce violence, and encourage trustworthiness through peer-to-peer support and empowerment.
I’ve worked alongside Fritzi to incorporate Tapping into their curriculum, and I’m so excited to share today a little bit about their mission, the projects we’ve collaborated on, and what you can do to support this important work! (Be sure to scroll down all the way to check out the photos – they gave me chills!)
The mission: addressing the impact of childhood trauma in prison communities
The main focus of Compassion Prison Project is on childhood trauma and how it affects the lives of men and women living and working in prisons
Did you know that 98% of people living in prison experienced childhood trauma?
Extreme childhood adversity causes people to live in a state of fight or flight, compromising their capacity to learn new skills and develop empathy. Abused children often grow up believing that violence is a solution. Traumatic responses can lead to imprisonment, and prison can then trigger flashbacks from childhood leading to dangerous behavioral reactions like rage and acting out. It’s a vicious cycle that can be hard to break.
Through their ongoing efforts on the ground, Compassion Prison Project is working hard to bring childhood trauma awareness, education, and healing to prisons and communities both in the U.S. and globally.
The goal of this powerful work is to break the cycle by educating about childhood trauma and teaching ways to heal from it; for those who are incarcerated, their communities, and future generations.
This quote from their website sums up the mission well:
“It is our belief that when each of us heals our own trauma, we’re doing our part to heal the world. So let the healing begin, for everyone, everywhere, especially for the most traumatized people in our society, those living in prison.”
Tapping is one of many healing modalities being taught in prison communities
We were honored to be a part of one of Compassion Prison Project’s initiatives: a program called Trauma Talks.
This 16-part video series offers education and healing tools to prison residents. After watching each video in the Trauma Talk series, residents sit in groups of 10-12 to discuss what they’ve learned together. They use corresponding workbooks to explore their own trauma history and practice tools to help them heal – including yoga, mindfulness, gratitude, somatic experiencing, and, you guessed it, Tapping!
The Tapping Solution has offered video instruction, Tapping meditations, and workbook materials to help prison residents learn Tapping and apply it in their everyday lives.
As we know from the research, Tapping is a very powerful way to calm down the stress response and turn off the fight-or-flight system. This fight-or-flight system plays a major role in trauma and the harmful long-term effects of traumatic experiences, which makes Tapping an effective tool for processing and healing from trauma.
I’m so glad to know that Tapping is being used to bring real relief, especially to a group of people who has been so heavily impacted by trauma.
How you can support the cause
It fills me with gratitude to know that people like Fritzi are helping tools like Tapping get to a community who so needs the resources and support.
With organizations like the Compassion Prison Project, we really can create ripples of change that will bring healing to those who need it and create a brighter future for the generations to come!
This is such a powerful movement, and I encourage you to learn more by checking out the Compassion Prison Project website and exploring all the amazing things they are up to.
If you have the resources and are called to, please donate directly to the cause here. You can also learn about volunteering opportunities here.
Until next time…
Keep Tapping!
Nick Ortner
P.S. Want to see Tapping in action? Check out these photos from a Compassion Prison Project one-day workshop.
The Tapping session pictured below was led by Tara Packer.
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