Nick Ortner – My Magic Breath
So, I’m driven by the opportunity to share that message. And I’m especially excited that so many more people are coming online. You know, in the more developed world we tend to forget that many people still don’t have access to these resources in any shape or form. But, that’s changing quickly. People are getting smartphones in some of the poorest parts of the world. And, yes, for all the ills that that can bring with social media and all the challenges we face, it also provides the opportunity to bring so much good for people to connect them to the rest of the world to share these resources.
The thing that I’m spending the majority of my time right now is developing an app for The Tapping solution that should probably be ready in a few months. late fall. I’m passionate about the app because it’s a delivery vehicle for people to use tapping, to use other techniques when they need them when they are facing challenges.
And what I love about tapping, and this is where my work is going with it, and with breathing and mindfulness, is to ask ‘What are the small interventions that we can make on a daily basis, what are the little changes that we can make to relieve some of the anger, to relieve some of the stress?’
There’s certainly practitioners and experts out in the world that are extremely qualified at doing the deeper work when it comes to healing the self and trauma; work that I think is so valuable and so important. And I admire their work and study and explore it. And my role is to say how do I help someone relieve a little bit of the burden that they’re carrying around and help them open the door for that deeper work. I think all too often, we try to jump in too quickly and make changes that are too radical. So, I like to just provide people with a little bit of stress relief, and that’s what gets me excited every single day.
Sandie Sedgbeer: With s excites me about your work is its potential to help children, because with statistics showing that ten million American children are annual victims of domestic violence, 25 percent of all students report bullying, 3 million adolescents age 12-17 have had at least one major depressive episode in the past year, and suicide is the second leading cause of death for ages 15-34, it’s clear that our children need help and they need resources, and what you’re doing is offering them one instant, provable solution to some of their problems. So, let’s talk about your own foundation and how you came to be involved with the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Foundation and Scarlett Lewis.
Nick Ortner: I met Scarlett Lewis shortly after the Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, where I’ve lived for the last seven years. I grew up in the town next to here, Brookfield. I went to Brookfield High School. We played soccer against Newtown. This has been my community for the majority of my life since I was seven years old when I moved to Brookfield.
The Sandy Hook school shooting took place ten minutes from my house. it became even more powerful when it’s in your hometown, and so as the rest of the world watched and was shocked and grieved by the horrible tragedy, I grieved with them.
I’m sure people have seen the pictures and read the stories about Sandy Hook and about Newtown, which is what I would have considered one of the safest places in the world. People treat each other well, the Connecticut landscapes and the towns are beautiful, and as people always say, you never think it would happen here, right?
So, in the couple days of shock after the shooting happened, my first instinct was obviously, well, I know that tapping works extraordinarily well with trauma and PTSD, and here I am, and I’ve got to do something. We had been doing work helping Rwandan genocide survivors in Africa and some children with cancer in Mexico and veterans with PTSD. The business itself had been supporting those causes. So, my brother, sister and I, who all work on The Tapping Solution together, formed The Tapping Solution Foundation for just that purpose, to take that work to the next level and help this community and other communities.
So we put out an email to our list saying we’re doing this, we’re available, we’re here in town, looking for volunteers and monetary support, seeing what we can do. And it was probably five days or so after the shooting, I remember it was a dark rainy night, when Dr, Lori Leyden who led the work in Africa, and I went over to Scarlett Lewis’ house. Scarlett had lost her six-year-old son Jesse just a few days earlier.
We sat, we talked, we cried, and we did some tapping together. I showed her the technique and explained that this wasn’t going to erase the sadness and the grief and the loss of her son, which, nothing can ever do, but it can help with the anxiety and the trauma, and it can help lighten some of the other burdens in life that make that challenge even more unbearable.
Scarlett had good relief from it. Her son JT was also there in the room. He was 12 or 13 at the time and obviously devastated. He didn’t want to go back to school, didn’t feel safe but didn’t want to tap in that moment, either. So, we let him be and kept working with Scarlett.
And then Lori had this amazing insight, and I think this little part of the story speaks to the idea of not pushing something on someone and finding the right avenue for the healing. Lori had been working with genocide survivors in Rwanda for several years, and she had her Project Light Ambassadors, these children who had lost their parents and family that she had trained. And she put together a Skype video call between JT and the Rwandan genocide survivors. They talked, and the Rwandans taught JT how to do the tapping, and he not only felt that burden lift, but was felt so connected to their tragedy and was so inspired by their story that he went back to school a couple days later and raised money for Project Light in Rwanda, and then started his own foundation.
And from all that energy, Scarlett started the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Foundation to teach social-emotional learning. It’s been unbelievable watching her journey, and how her curriculum and all the teachings are now being brought into schools. And tapping is one of the modules that we created for her curriculum, so as her work gets out in the world, tapping gets out into the world as well.
And that is the tragic and joyous story of Scarlett and JT Lewis and the incredible work they’re doing in the world that I’m just proud to be a part of and support.
Sandie Sedgbeer: It must give you enormous satisfaction to
know that you’ve contributed to that. For let’s not forget what happens when our kids do not get the help they need ¾ situations like Sandy Hook and others that have occurred since. So, it really is critical to help them as young as possible.
Nick Ortner: 100%, I agree. You know it’s very easy to talk about forgiveness, but when Scarlett talks about forgiving Adam Lanza, the murderer of her son, you know she means it; you feel it to the depth of your core, and it’s even more powerful when you’re with her in person. It’s her truth and it’s awe-inspiring to be around that energy. I can’t say I would be able to do what she’s done, but I aspire to it. Her book Nurturing Healing Love and the stories in it are profound. So, yeah, check out her work
Sandie Sedgbeer: Is it astonishing to you to think that you were surfing the internet one day, came across tapping, and suddenly you have this family business, and the whole world opens up for you. That seems to go beyond synchronicity to something that was just meant to be.
Nick Ortner: Honestly, it feels like a fairy tale what I get to do and how the doors have opened every step of the way. That doesn’t mean we haven’t worked hard or had challenges along the way, but, yeah, it is beyond synchronicity. And I really think that we’re just getting started. I want to take tapping even further, especially to people who are usually not aware of these kinds of techniques.
Continue to Page 4 of the Interview with Nick Ortner
