As long as I can remember, I’ve always had seasonal allergies. My dad had allergies, so I figured I inherited them from him.

Once I moved from the west coast to here in the Midwest they began to get worse. I blamed first crop hay season in June and July. My sinuses would fill the moment I crawled out of bed and my ears, eyes and throat would itch to no end. Then once it get closer to the end of July the symptoms would lessen and I’d feel better.

A good friend involved in another arena of Energy Healing made a comment that my seasonal symptoms could very well be the result of a childhood trauma to which my body is remembering the “anniversary date”. At the time I dismissed the concept; there’s no way could something that happened to me in the past could be what is causing my snotty head today! No way! HA!

In time, I came across EFT and began a slow change in understanding to what we know is true! Our emotional body is directly linked to our physical body. I called my folks and I asked them if anything traumatic ever happened to me. I couldn’t think of anything. I was never was in the ER, no serious accidents other than the usual bumps and bruises of growing up. No unexcused deaths in the family or friends. Mom couldn’t think of anything either. So now what do I do?

The more I thought about it, the more I could feel there was something beginning to brew; something was coming to the surface but I couldn’t quite grasp it. So one day I sat with my husband and said “Lets just assume something “bad” happened and let’s use EFT to see if we can resolve whatever it is that is causing my allergies… This was mid May, and I was nearing my normal allergy season.

As we sat down to begin the search into my allergies, Scott asked me, “Do you know what traumatic event happened to you?” I said “no” and suddenly I was bawling my eyes out! Where did that come from? Now mind you, I’m not one to cry because I’m having a bad day, I’m a sap for good sad movie but I don’t cry on a whim so this sort of freaked us both out. So we tapped, and we tapped on every question Scott could think of and if it presented any sort of intensity, we tapped until I felt calm again.

Even though I don’t know what happened to me, I deeply and completely accept myself…
Even though this thing is bigger than me…
Even though I am afraid of this thing…
Even though I feel out of control…
Even though I can’t run away from this thing…”

Finally, he followed up with

Even though the idea of my mind holding the secrets is very frightening…

Again, the tears poured out and we tapped until I was truly settled and could repeat all the questions without any lingering intensity. He used his own intuition to try and unearth just what it was that had traumatized me but after 2 hours I was exhausted and, at this point, we still didn’t know WHAT it was that had happened in my childhood.

Here comes the month of June and my folks came out to visit us on the farm. We spoke briefly about EFT and all the accounts I’ve read on healing our emotional scars. When I asked again about anything traumatic happening to me and that it didn’t have to be a life and death matter, just anything that would scare a little kid is enough to set the stage. Mom then says, “Oh ya! You were scared to death of dads motorcycle when you were a toddler! He would fire it up and you would take off running through the house screaming your head off!”

Ah Ha! Bingo! I knew in my heart this was it! The moment she said “dads motorcycle” it all made sense! While growing up in California my allergies were hit and miss all year, and now in Iowa they start in early June; just when everyone gets their motorcycles out of winter storage! My body is reliving those terrifying moments! And knowing my dad, he no doubt rev’d the motor a little extra to see the little kid scream! I finally found the answer to my allergies! Needless to say I starting tapping right away! And it doesn’t matter that today I love big engines in race cars or loud motorcycles, but what happened then is still stored in my body today!

Even though I have this fear of dads motorcycle…
Even though the loud engine scares me…
Even though I love my dad, he scares me…

I tapped for everything I could think of about dads motorcycle and how it scared me, even though I don’t remember the motorcycle, my imagination had to do the work! And think about it; when little kids scream in terror what happens? They get all snotted up! I had to be on the right track with this! I just knew it! I began to see a progressive decline in my allergy symptoms. If they began to flare up I could quickly tap and they would settle down immediately.

Scott and I had been working on new fencing out in the back pasture. Each day got a little better for me. No more snotty head, no more itchy ears. But after about 2 weeks, I still would get itchy eyes. But I couldn’t figure out the connection to the motorcycle, so I tapped a question to the Universe.

Even though I don’t know what the reason is for my itchy eyes, I trust the answer will come soon…

About 2 weeks later, I suddenly recalled a day out cutting firewood with my dad and grandfather. We were driving down a rural road and as a child being expected to help work, I sat in the back seat head hanging off one shoulder staring out the side window as we drove. Suddenly I thought I saw what looked to be a hit and run victim! There was a crumpled up body laying in the tall grass on the side of the road. At first I thought that it wasn’t real so the first thought was, “don’t say anything!” Finally I screamed STOP THE CAR! Dad got out and walked back saying “hello? hello?” and the dead body began a drunken mumble to leave him alone! Dad could see his car parked off in the trees, so we guess he drove so far and was sleeping it off! Phew!

So could this memory be my missing link? Could the fear of seeing a “dead body” in the tall grass be what is causing the itchy eyes? Maybe it’s more like “whats hiding in the tall grass” was the final aspect of my allergies! The memory came for a reason! It had to be a sign! So I tapped;

Scary things hiding in tall grass…
Dead bodies in the tall grass…
Danger in the tall grass …

Bingo! The itchy eyes totally disappeared! But, I was also nearing the end of my normal allergy season so I Iet it rest and hoped that I did in fact have my allergies cured!

Now we come into the next spring so just in case, I re-tap on the fear of dads motorcycle to make sure I got every last ounce of trauma removed. Hard to say, nothing about those fears felt intense any longer, but, once June appeared, so did some allergy symptoms. Not as bad as “normal” and only in the early morning. So, there is more EFT work to do!

I was at a loss and not sure where to go with it until a fellow EFTer made a comment about my birthday being right in the middle of my allergy season. Ah Ha! Every year for 46 years, mom reminds that she went through 30 hours of labor with me! Could that be it? She was never mean about it, just a gentle joking reminder. Could this guilt of causing mom pain be another aspect of this allergy? When in doubt — tap! I also tapped on the fear and pain it must have been being the new-to-be-born and going through the 30 hours of labor!

Even though I feel guilty for causing mom all the pain…
Even though I am in pain during my birth…
Even though the bright lights and cold air scares me…

And because mom was a month pregnant with me before my parents got married, I added;

Even though it’s my fault mom had to get married…
Even though I am to blame mom had no choice but to get married so young…
Even though I was a mistake…(not that my parents ever made that claim, as the unborn child it may have been a potential thought!)

The last few remaining allergy symptoms vaporized!

At this point, I think I finally have my allergy cured. But the test once again will come next season. And if there is more to it, I know that the needed memories will begin to surface. Sometimes you can fix it all at once, but don’t fret and worry if it takes time. Just go with the flow and your body will do the detective work for you and offer up the evidence you need as you need it. I’m living proof you can heal your self!

Terri Webb

<--- click here for Part 1

Next I started thinking about how people have said that if you haven’t eaten dairy products in a long time, your body doesn’t have the enzyme to digest them, and so we tapped on that too, just to be sure.

That afternoon, something incredible happened. It was like I was all of a sudden redefining my whole beliefs about food. I realised for the first time in my life that, despite my lifelong battle with dairy, my body does not have a problem with food; it’s the subconscious beliefs that cause the reaction, not the substance itself. I wasn’t able to realise this until after we’d cleared the “It’s all in my head”, and as we cleared that, I ended up tapping on “It really is all in my head, and that’s OK!” (and got to the point where I could laugh about it!)

I later found myself asking Rex all sorts of questions on how he saw different types of food, and I began to sort my food beliefs into valid and untrue. I realised for the first time that white bread is not nutritionally useful, but it is not poison to the body (as I had long claimed). I found myself for the first time ever entertaining the idea of actually choosing to eat small amounts of food for their taste, even if they aren’t nutritionally great (I’ve been very strict with my diet ever since my candida days, and although I have enjoyed what I’ve eaten, I’ve now come to realise that my metaphor with a lot of food was the same as my metaphor with the candida – a war zone, with my body trying to “kill” the bad guys (like dairy and wheat.)) I actually found myself daydreaming about trying the chocolate croissants they make here in France, made with two former “poisons”.

The next evening, we decided to go for broke and really test it. Rex made cauliflower cheese, which for me was the greatest test – milk, butter and cheese all in one dish. I ate a good helping, and had no anxiety, except feeling a bit strange that I didn’t have any anxiety! I was a bit phlegmy the next morning and sneezed a couple of times, but that’s a reasonably regular occurrence for me, so we concluded there is no reason to believe that my body cannot handle dairy products, it being a far cry from past reactions to even small amounts of dairy.

I have had multiple chemical and food sensitivities for at least 20 years. For the first time in my life I can now see that it is not a case of something poisonous invading my body, but rather an overreaction caused by my seeing myself as unsafe, and under attack. This has been a major revelation to me.

My metaphor has for so long been that of the canary in the coalmine – alerting the world around me that what we are doing to the environment and our own bodies is not OK. The metaphor has now changed, and the canary is now out of the cage and flying free, however I still have real concerns about our bodies needing safe ways to alert us when what we are doing is not OK. This is something I think I will integrate over time.

Third Session

When we started the third session, we felt that we had made huge inroads into all my allergy issues, as a result of dealing with the issue of not feeling safe, and the realisation that it wasn’t actually my body reacting all that time, it was as a result of invalid associations in my subconscious.

I was however still quite nervous about trying wheat, as a result of the severity of past reactions. I still also felt I had an issue with not wanting to let go of the allergies due to feeling like if I did, nobody would believe that I had ever been sick (this is common for people with illnesses like CFS who have had the “It’s all in your head” implications throughout their lives).

As we tapped on this particular aspect, I realised that the main issue was that while I was very sick but the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with me, I started to doubt my own sanity. We were unable to get past psychological reversal on clearing the wheat, until we addressed this aspect.

It was interesting to note here that once we started on this issue, I started crying and accused Rex of making light of the issue and not taking me seriously! It was very hard for him to understand, and I would imagine that any therapists who have not had severe allergies might not realise just how significant this was for me or others like me.

We also addressed the issue that once I no longer had reactions, I needed to choose to rely on my intuition to let me know if it wasn’t a good idea to eat something. And the lifelong dairy “allergy” had disappeared so rapidly and easily, I felt it also important to do a round on “It’s just too easy!” We also did a round with a choice, choosing to be free by learning to choose my own limits, instead of letting my body set them for me.

We then started on the wheat itself, and tapped on the three most recent and severe times I could remember reacting to wheat, and we tapped on Even though I recently heard an ‘expert’ say that wheat is incredibly difficult to clear even with EFT… We then worked on cravings, as I had noticed that I’d been craving cheese ever since the first bit of testing a few days prior.

By this time I was feeling ready to try some organic wheat bread we had purchased for the testing that morning. My only concern was that I wasn’t concerned!!! After enjoying a slice without any symptoms, we made some soup to enjoy the bread with for lunch, and the rest of the day was symptom free. It took a bit of getting my head around this, as past exposure to wheat had left me in pain and with all sorts of horrible symptoms for several days, starting within a couple of hours of eating the wheat.

I noted later in the day, that the cravings I had had for cheese since eating the first lot to test had stopped, and I was not craving the bread at all, which is very unusual as I usually even crave the wheat free bread I eat sometimes. Something else that really stood out for me is that I am normally very paranoid when handling wheat – I always wash my hands right after giving the dogs a biscuit to avoid touching anything that I could later touch before eating. After the tapping, I was very comfortable handling the wheat and had no desire to wash my hands or clean up every crumb on the bench.

That evening we decided to go for broke, and I ate wheat bread, together with three different types of cheeses, with dinner. I enjoyed it, no anxiety at all! A little while after dinner I noticed I was starting to swallow a bit of phlegm. I did a couple of rounds on it, and discovered that I was feeling guilty that I’d eaten so much and expected my “poor body” to be able to cope with digesting it all, for the first time in so long. The phlegm stopped.

A few days later we had dinner with a friend, and as I sat debating in my mind whether to ask what the dessert was, and what it was made of, I realised that it was the first time in 10 years that I had been able to trust that it was OK to eat something, without knowing exactly what was in it. I realised that I have used controlling my food as a way of giving myself a false sense of security, masking the feeling deep down that I wasn’t safe in the world. It was a real eye opener.

Summary

This whole thing has completely blown me away. To think of all the hell I went through during all those years, and it was just because I arrived in the world feeling unsafe, and continued to “build evidence” that that was true as I grew up.

I’m having to revisit everything I’ve “learned” about allergies over the years, and am integrating the fact that it appears that for all these years, my body has not been reacting to substances, but rather to my perception of the lack of safety of those substances. It’s been hard for me to come to terms with, particularly as I’ve had occasions in the past where I have reacted when neither Rex nor I have known that I’ve ingested wheat, and only discovered after some detective work after the symptoms appeared that Rex had unknowingly used stock with a small amount of wheat in it.

However despite what my conscious or unconscious mind thinks I have now been symptom free after eating dairy and wheat (and some anything else I eat or am exposed to) for 3 years, and I am thrilled to be enjoying life without so many limitations. The food is only a very small aspect of this, because clearing this issue has completely changed my understanding of healing and health, and I now feel that the sky truly is the limit. The days of chronic fatigue are long gone, just incredible after battling for over 16 years. And I haven’t had any issues with candida since, without having to modify my diet or take any of the other measures I used to have to take regularly.

For anyone working on safety issues alone, if you find that you aren’t accessing the emotions that you need to tap on, I strongly recommend that you sit with a trusted friend or experienced practitioner. It can be very difficult for all parts of you to feel safe enough to clear these early and traumatic experiences without some support from someone you can trust to truly hold a healing space for you.

When my partner Rex and I started watching the EFT DVDs, I had been dairy and wheat free for 10 years, with the exception of occasional tests with small amounts of dairy and inadvertent “tests” when I’ve been unknowingly exposed to wheat. The reactions to dairy are nearly immediate after eating, however not as severe as the reactions to wheat, which after the smallest exposure can leave me seriously debilitated for several days.

We began our journey with EFT and allergies one day after seeing Carol Look make a comment on one of the EFT Training DVDs, to the effect that underlying a lot of allergy issues, is a feeling of being unsafe. Given that, in addition to the food sensitivities I’ve long had chemical sensitivities as well, this resonated with me.

It prompted the memory of my mother telling me that I was born with the umbilical cord around my neck, and an email to confirm that also revealed that I had been administered a Vitamin K injection shortly after birth. I also remember my mother talking about her having fear during her pregnancy with me. Body dowsing (muscle testing) confirmed that this was the place to start.

The First Session

We began with the earliest issue, and worked on me not feeling safe in the womb. Instead of assigning a level of intensity we used body dowsing to check when we were clear. Next we moved on to the umbilical cord, and as soon as I started tapping I burst into tears and was filled with emotion. Two rounds took care of it.

We then moved on to the Vitamin K injection, taking the approach that when I arrived in the world I felt unsafe as I was first nearly “strangled” (with the umbilical cord), then “stabbed” with the injection. While I initially started with no emotion I soon started shifting to interesting new aspects, which after lots of tapping and some imaginative testing on Rex’s part, resulted in a great by-product of me losing my fear of needles!

We decided to end the session there, as it had been quite emotional, and give me a break before carrying on the next day. However, my body had other plans! Later that afternoon I ate some pickled garlic as I have been doing regularly over the last few months. An hour later my abdomen was bloated and I felt very uncomfortable (I had not reacted to it on any of the occasions I’d eaten it before).

Rex suggested I tap on it, and all of a sudden I started crying as I flicked into when I had systemic candidiasis, and had been eating lots of garlic to try to kill the candida. This led to realising that my body had been a war zone for so many years, with my main metaphor being that we had to do whatever we could to kill the “bad guys”. This was a big part of me feeling unsafe for years, as I felt so vulnerable to the “bad guys” for so long. Later that night some of the minor symptoms that I used to have when killing candida came back, so I tapped on them, and they were gone the following morning.

The Second Session

We commenced the second session with the fact that (as told by my mother) I threw up every time she fed me, and she had to feed me again. We had concluded that perhaps after the initial traumas of my birth, I had just associated the next thing that came my way (milk) as traumatic as well, so tapped on, Even though soon after I was born I felt that food was unsafe for me, I now choose to feel delighted that my body can deal appropriately with all foods.

In arriving at this choice, (and dealing with the psychological reversal standing in the way of getting there!), I finally realised that my reluctance to let go of my reactions was because I saw them as warning signs that I was in unsafe territory, and therefore I saw them as my friends.

We then worked on the fact that I was weaned from the breast at three months and introduced to dairy and wheat (my two main food sensitivities). After that we did a positive round on “It is safe for me to let go of my reactions to food”. We continued with working on several aspects of feeling unsafe with food, then went in on dairy products (cows, goats and sheep separately).

At this stage I felt ready to try some cheese, and I was pleasantly surprised at my reaction to Rex saying “I’ll have to cut the mould off the sides and tidy it up, the only cheese I’ve got is a bit gross.” Normally something like that would trigger all sorts of warning alarms and there is no way I would eat it. The fact that it didn’t bother me gave me great encouragement that what we had done had really dealt with my feeling unsafe with food.

About an hour after eating two slices of cheese (and enjoying it!), I suddenly had itching all over my body. Rex body-dowsed and established that it was not a physical reaction to the cheese, but rather a reaction to my anxiety about the possibility of a reaction! We tapped a few rounds on the itching and there was no difference. Then all of a sudden my level of intensity shot up as I realised that I had a major issue with the “It’s all in your head” phrase that anyone with something like CFS has heard or heard implied many times throughout the years. We tapped on that, and the itching started to subside, but not disappear. The 9 gamut and floor to ceiling eye roll brought the itching down to 0…

Click here for Part 2 —>