In the 1990s, Gary Craig simplified Dr. Roger Callahan’s Thought Field Therapy (TFT) from a complex tapping system into a single algorithm tapping technique. Why did Gary call it “Emotional Freedom Techniques?”

In the opening pages of his The EFT Manual (2008), Gary claims that EFT could free a person from negative emotions, years of self-doubt, grief over the loss of a loved one, anger, and negative memories involving rape or other abuse. He says “freedom” could also mean freedom to earn a greater income, to improve one’s golf score, to make cold calls with ease, to lose weight, and to become a public speaker, singer, or comedian. He states one can achieve freedom from the anxiety that drives one to addictions and freedom from PTSD, guilt, and depression. Gary writes, “I mean freedom to express love easily and walk upon this planet with grace and confidence” (pp. 25-26).

Most people who have done their share of tapping have experienced new levels of emotional freedom. One client is free from her vomiting phobia which stunted her life. Another client is free from migraines that kept her from planning with confidence anything in the future. Another client experienced freedom from Diet Coke, another from twice-a-day trips to Dairy Queen, another from late night binging. Another client is free from incessant negative self-talk that zapped him of energy. Still others are free from anger at that one person in their lives who used to drive them crazy. Many clients are free from childhood limiting beliefs about themselves, such as “I don’t deserve a good life,” “I don’t matter,” and “I’m invisible.” The increased emotional freedom I have witnessed proves Gary named his technique correctly.

Freedom to Dance

I wanted to feel more emotionally free when I attended my high school reunion last summer. I had not seen the vast majority of my classmates for 40 years having not attended the previous reunions. I knew old feelings of self-consciousness and awkwardness could make for one long, miserable evening if I didn’t do some tapping.

I did more than one round of tapping, but below is a summary of how it evolved. On the Karate Chop (KC) point I tapped:

Even though I won’t know anyone there and won’t know what to say, I deeply and completely accept myself anyway

Even though I don’t like social situations where I have to make small talk with strangers, maybe I can enjoy myself anyway

Even though I’m afraid of feeling self-conscious, what will they think of me? I accept myself and all of my feelings

Tapping through the points:

I’m afraid of going to my reunion

They don’t know me

I don’t know them

What will we say to each other?

It can be so awkward

Maybe it doesn’t have to be

Maybe I can enjoy myself!

That would be strange — but nice

All these fears about uncertainty

Maybe I can let them go

When I got to the reunion I was relaxed and expecting to have a good time. I had the insight from the tapping that these were just people, and it didn’t matter if we didn’t know each other well. I didn’t find the small talk annoying. In fact, I felt so at ease that when the music started I jumped up to dance in front of my high school classmates without feeling self-conscious. Before tapping, I would have preferred to stay in my seat.

EFT increased my choices of how to behave and how to feel in this situation. It didn’t feel difficult after tapping! I felt emotionally free at my reunion.

No one likes being criticized. During a recent EFT weight loss teleclass, we discussed the topic of body image and how to manage critical remarks. One woman (I’ll call her Amy) identified 2 specific events in which she had been criticized. The one that bothered her the most was by a boyfriend at age 17, who said to her “all you have to do is slim down your thighs and you would be perfect.”

Since that time, Amy has struggled with perfectionism, as well as feeling like she could never live up to the expectation of others. She felt as if she needed to be perfect before she could be loved by herself or others.

When you feel criticized, there are always a number of aspects that you can tap on to remove the sting. First is the remark itself. It’s often helpful just to tap as you repeat the words that were said.

Second, is how it makes you feel, especially how it makes you feel about yourself. Amy felt angry, hopeless and “not good enough.”

Third, is the meaning you give it, what you say to yourself, and the story that evolves from it. Amy told herself she wasn’t good enough, would not be loved unless she was perfect, and thought she could never live up to the expectations of others.

Fourth, is what you do as a result of it. Amy spent decades trying to be perfect in order to please other people in order to feel loved. She desperately wanted to lose weight, but whenever those feelings of anger and hopelessness were triggered, she turned to sweets to comfort herself.

Here are some of the tapping statements we used to collapse this issue:

Even though I don’t feel good about this issue … and I hate what he said to me, I love and accept myself.

Even though he said “all you have to do is slim down your thighs and you would be perfect,” and I thought his opinion was very important at the time …I love and accept myself anyway.

Even though I started believing him just because he said it…I accept myself anyway.

Even though I thought I wasn’t good enough…and I thought I could never measure up to other people’s expectations… I deeply love and accept myself.

Even though I thought I had to be perfect to be loved …and it made me angry, it made me feel hopeless…I accept myself anyway.

Even though I felt hopeless, I felt so judged, and it’s costing me…it was just my reaction…to a thoughtless remark…What was he thinking, saying something like that to me? I am open to the possibility that he was doing the best he could…I may have to accept it, understand it, and maybe even forgive.

Even though I felt so hopeless and angry, I choose to know that just because he said it, it doesn’t mean anything, and I choose to believe in my own worth and value.

EB: He said “all you have to do is slim down your thighs and you would be perfect.”
SE: That was his form of a compliment.
UE: It upset me … made me angry… and it’s affected me my whole life.
UN: It’s been a challenge to measure up to other people’s expectations.
CH: I’ve been hanging onto this my whole life.
CB: Believing what I was told…
UA: It made me angry.
TH: It made feel hopeless.

EB: It made me feel like I had to be perfect.
SE: And that felt impossible.
UE: I was always trying to live up to other people’s expectations.
UN: That was then and this is now…
CH: What if it’s time now to let this go?
CB: What if I could put this in perspective, and see it as just his careless remark?
UA: What was he thinking saying something like that to me?
TH: What if I could leave this in the past without any added meaning?

EB: What if it was just not about me?
SE: What if he was doing the best he could?
UE: What if I could choose to let this go?
UN: What if I could choose to see this differently?
CH: What if I am already perfect?
CB: And I don’t need to measure up to anyone’s expectations?
UA: I can’t change their opinion of me,
TH: I can’t stop people from judging me.

EB: But I can change my opinion of myself.
SE: What if I could love myself anyway, no matter what anyone says to me?
UE: What if I could feel comfortable in my own skin, no matter what?
UN: What if I could let myself relax about this?
CH: It was just a careless remark
CB: He had no idea how it would affect me.
UA: What if I could let this go…
TH: And accept myself just as I am?

Amy felt so much more peaceful after these rounds of tapping. She felt that she could leave this incident in the past and forgive the person who said it. This tapping allowed her to start to accept and love herself, independent of the opinions of others. It’s what we call Emotional Freedom.

Carol Solomon, Ph.D. MCC is a Psychologist, Certified EFT Practitioner & Master Certified Coach. She specializes in helping clients lose weight and eliminate food and weight issues. She is the author of “How To Stop Food Cravings and Lose Weight With EFT” and the EFT Weight Loss CD. Visit her online at www.EFTtips.com

Halloween…. it begins the long slide into the holiday season. Next is Thanksgiving, then comes Christmas and New Years. A lot of opportunities for socializing. This is fun and also terrible for many of my clients and women I know. There will be a lot of food and a lot of dressing up and sometimes a lot of comparisons and fears about how one looks.

I recently had a painful experience with someone whom I love who was really upset about having to go to a party and not feeling attractive. The more I tried to “convince” and talk to this person, the uglier she felt. I felt like I was in a trap. I realized, there is absolutely nothing and no one who could convince this person that she is beautiful. NOBODY. Even a gorgeous man (by her estimation) flirting with her would not change a thing. She would get temporary relief but it would never sink in to the bottomless pit of low self worth she was feeling. (I didn’t tap with her as it was not something she would do, unfortunately.) It made me really sad because to say that this was someone I cared about would be a huge understatement…. and then later I felt PISSED OFF. Because you know what I realized? This woman was just like me and so many women I know and work with.

I chose to work with body image, weight, self-worth and healing for women for a very good reason. It is my issue too of course, or has been to some degree or other over my lifetime. Though I feel I am a relatively confident and happy woman and love my body now, I am certainly not perfect, and things come up that trigger me, like this incident.

Healing is like peeling back layers of an onion. We heal many things and we are feeling good and then we get triggered by something and know there is more to clear. Well that is what happened here with me. I was grateful for the opportunity to go deeper into my own healing with this issue. I hope that we can all feel that way when something painful comes up. It’s an opportunity for more healing and growth.

Here is a simple process I use for this issue with clients.

The First Step:

Become aware that you are triggered and don’t brush it off. Pay attention to what is bothering you about having to get dressed up and socialize. Is it the clothes and how you fit in them? Is it seeing others and knowing they will say something about the way you look? Is there someone you judge yourself against? Do you wish you were taller, shorter, smaller, bigger (yes, that happens a lot too!), had different features, hair, etc. Be honest, and maybe write it out in a journal to tap on when you have time and space to address it fully.

The recent example from my experience: I was triggered by what my close friend was saying, how ugly and unattractive she felt and that she would never be the “ideal” woman next to all these model type girlfriends she had. She almost didn’t even want to go to the party at all… My first reaction was to justify, explain away how “wrong” that feeling was. Didn’t she know that nobody is the “ideal” woman and images in our society have changed so drastically over the years? I went into my body image rant about size and beauty and cultural ideals over the ages.

However, none of this intellectual explanation really touched the issue at all, of course. I also realized that I felt bad about how I feel I am not measuring up too. I couldn’t pretend that I wasn’t having a reaction in that moment. I felt bad about myself next to those women too…. sad but true. I am deeply aware of the cultural norms and standards and how ridiculous they are, still hurts, ouch. One more layer to peel back of healing. Good to know!

The Second Step:

Release the beliefs and pain of them. Do not skip this step please. I think sometimes we get intimidated by our beliefs and emotions thinking this one is “the big one” I’ll never be able to change it…

No. Not possible.

One thing that I have learned in all the years of doing this work is that any belief that isn’t total love and acceptance for ourselves- no really- is simply false.

So please give yourself a chance and use any and all techniques, especially tapping of course to begin to address your beliefs around attractiveness and beauty.

Tapping For Feeling Beautiful:

1. Start with how you really feel about the way you look. Say whatever you need to, get it all out. Write it down if need be and tap on each feeling it piece by piece. Examples:

Tap on the side of the hand and repeat 3 times whatever the predominant feelings are:

“Even though I feel unattractive right now… I love and accept myself”
“Even though I feel awful when I compare myself to others…. I choose to love, accept and forgive myself now”
“Even though I still feel unattractive deep down and like I’m not pretty enough… I should look like..xyz.. I choose to fully and completely love, accept and forgive myself.”

Through the points on the body:

“I’m not pretty enough”
“I’ll never look like those women (you can insert whoever it is that you judge yourself against)”
“I’m not xyz enough” (tall enough, short enough, thin enough, you name it)
“I’ll never be the right size or shape”

Repeat all of the things that you find yourself feeling about the way you look. Be specific with it.

I recommend doing several rounds of tapping through the points until you feel some release or it brings up a very specific incident for you where you felt unattractive when you were much younger. That is what you want to tap on next.

While I was tapping I recalled a locker room incident that literally ruined sports for me I think when I was younger. I developed early and was the only person I knew with dark skin. I felt like I looked so different and of course, weirder than anyone else. Kids. We judge ourselves against our peers but we often retain the wounds of those beliefs into adulthood even though our adult minds know better. Our hearts and subconscious minds don’t. That is why all the intellectual reasons we give ourselves why we should “know better” don’t work. We have to pull out those thorns that still make us hurt deep down.

Tapping on the memory of feeling unattractive that came up:

On the side of the hand:

“Even though I remember feeling like a freak in the locker room in 8th grade, being so much more developed than the other girls and looking so different from them anyway and being sensitive about that already… I deeply and completely love, accept and forgive myself for taking on this hatred and shame”

Through the points I simply tapped on all of the different parts to the memory:

“I felt so freakish”
“I developed early and felt so embarrassed”
“I was too different”
“I had dark skin and totally different features to begin with”
“I hated being different”
“I hated being so much bigger than them”
“I was like an adult and had to hide that”
“I hated it”
“I was so ashamed”
“Why did I have to stand out so much?”
“Why wasn’t I like them?”
Etc…

Once I could feel myself getting a lot of emotional distance from it I tapped in some positive beliefs:

“I love and accept myself as I am”
“I’m just right, right now”
“I love myself, I’m a child of the divine”
“I am beautiful just as I am”
“I love my skin”
“I love my voluptuous body”
“I am special and unique”
“I love being my beautiful and unique self”
“I’m blessed and lucky to be me”
“There will never be another me, ever in all of creation”

For good measure I tapped on all the things I love about myself. I recommend doing that as well. Go crazy. Are you a good cook? Do your friends love to talk to you and say you are kind and loving? Do you love your hands? Your eyes?

This one cleared pretty quickly for me and left me truly believing what my intellect was saying again about beauty.

I have done this exact same process with so many of my clients now that it is truly amazing. I wonder sometimes if any of us escaped our childhood and teen years feeling acceptable?

It’s not real, this whole beauty thing. It truly is in our heads and hearts.

Let’s let compassion begin with ourselves.

The Dalai Lama says: “The world will be saved by the Western Woman.”

I believe that we save the world truly when we save ourselves. Let the war with our bodies end now and let’s get on with spreading the love and compassion that we are all meant to share.

Blessings my beautiful sisters,

Sandy

Sandy Zeldes is a Certified EFT Practitioner & Certified Nutrition Consultant with over 7 years experience. She helps her clients find relief relief with weight gain, stress, emotional eating, food obsession, and poor body image. Visit her online at www.eatlikeagoddess.com.

What do we do when we have been through enough trauma in childhood and have created a need for a coping mechanism like food to deal with all the unresolved feelings and trauma? What is one of the biggest common denominators for so many of us? We think somehow we must have deserved to be treated the way we were treated, it just feels so well, personal. We end up hating ourselves and usually denying our feelings or “stuffing them” as a coping mechanism. It works pretty well and helps us to survive as children but of course as we get older it starts to be pretty tough to feel good when we don’t have access to our feelings. It can be the cause of so much stress, pain and suffering. The coping strategy that helped us survive becomes a thick heavy coat we wear in summer.

I see this in terms of emotional eating and using food to cope with this kind of suffering and really all feelings that feel overwhelming, even joy eventually.

In our society we also often develop a lot of beliefs about our bodies that can help to perpetuate the problem as well. This lack of self worth, coupled with the societal pressures and beliefs often overlap.

Example of the issue at work and how to release it:

I recently worked with a woman who shared with me her earlier childhood traumas having to take care of her very dysfunctional mother at the early age of 5 years old. As a child she had taken this on as something wrong with her and felt very bad about herself that she couldn’t do all that was required of her. In her current life she is using food very obsessively binge eating and has an expresses a lot of self loathing. Of course, how could a 5 year old do all the laundry, cooking and shopping? We know this in our adult minds, intellectually, but she was still carrying this fear, trauma and low self worth it seemed once we began tapping.

The beauty of EFT is in the reversal statement…. “I love and accept myself.”

Why is that so important? Why do we need to say it? Why does it help to “un-reverse” us? Because I think so often when we are “stuck” with a negative belief process or trauma, what keeps it so locked in place is our lack of acceptance and love. When we shine the light of love and kindness through acceptance on an issue, it is like the sun burning off the clouds. We realize it is not our fault. We can look at it and move on.

What we resist persists… with EFT, we stop resisting and therefore begin to release stuck emotional experiences.

We tapped on:

“Even though I feel worthless and like I have to always take care of everyone else first… what if I could love and accept myself now?”

“I have to take care of everyone else first”
“I am worthless if I’m caring for others”
“I come last”
“My worth is in what I can do for others”
“Nobody cares what I need, and neither do I”
“I had to do everything for mom”
“I can’t love myself or feel worthy”

Then we added in a few rounds of tapping using the “what if” statement.

“What if I could?”
“What if I am?”
“What if I am worthy just because I exist”
“What if it is not my fault?”
“What if I was just a little girl and shouldn’t have had to do all that for adults…”
“What if I am worthy now”

We did several rounds of this using the “what if” statement and what was under the worthlessness was all this fear- the constant fear she felt in her childhood.

“Even though I’ve always been scared from the time I was 5 and I had to take care of mom… what if I could love and accept myself now?”

“I’ve always been scared”
“I’ve lived in fear”
“I’ve been living in fear for forever now”
“I’m used to this fear”
“All this fear”
“I have been living in fear all my life”

After several rounds we added the choice statement:

“What if I could love myself now”
“Even though I’m scared, what if I could love myself”
“What if I could love and accept myself now…”
etc.

By the end of several rounds of tapping and peeling back the layers, she felt much less self loathing. It was a great relief to her. The self loathing is often a huge thorn in our sides that perpetuates binge eating. When we pull it out, I often see binges subside.

Using love and acceptance is absolutely key to healing trauma and food and body issues. I can’t imagine how we would ever heal without it. Combined with tapping on energy centers such as meridian points is a way to super charge the process.

Blessings,

Sandy

This is a follow-up to the EFT story posted on 9/17/11. In that article, “Katrina” used EFT to heal an early childhood memory. The result was noticeable relief from her food cravings. I saw her again today, and the results six weeks later were even more exciting. Here is her report:

I have not craved a chocolate bar since I walked through this door and you worked with me that first day. There’s been Halloween candy on the shelves of the grocery stores, and I’m not drawn to it at all. It doesn’t mean anything to me. It’s like, huh! there it is…okay.

There’s a vending machine at work. I just look at it now and know it’s there. But I have no feelings about needing to have the candy or chocolate from the machine. It’s just okay. I think back to before I started with EFT and I would never have envisioned myself having reached this place. Before, oh my God, I would be in the store and the chocolate was like a siren call — Reese’s, Snickers, Milky Way — why not all three? I would sit in my car and open them all and make sure they were near me so that, when I was driving, I could reach all the chocolate without having to take my eyes off the road. This wasn’t every day, but when it hit, there was nothing holding me back. And with Halloween candy, I would have a whole bag and wait till people were in bed… that’s how it always was.

What is amazing is how long this has lasted. I’ve had chocolate on occasion, for instance I had some chocolate milk… but that’s all I wanted. I haven’t even wanted a chocolate bar. It’s great.

We talked about the driven quality of the cravings in the past. Although she thought it was about the chocolate, actually it was about emotion, some feeling that she was looking for in the indulgence. Once that emotion was resolved, the chocolate had lost its power over her.

Katrina had started following a whole foods approach to eating, which would eliminate processed foods from her diet. She found it immensely easier to follow the plan and make the good food choices since she didn’t miss chocolate, candy, and other junk foods. Her concern was continued motivation — what would help her sustain this?

I find that a good approach to motivation is to discuss a person’s values. Why is this change important? What deeper core values would inspire you to make the effort needed and stick with it? I took notes on Katrina’s answers to these questions, and we used that language to address her fears of not following through.

Even though I’ll have to spend more time and energy to follow a whole foods diet, I love and accept myself… and I have a genuine desire to be more healthy.

Even though I’ll have to plan ahead and bring lunches and snacks… I can do it. I’m worth taking care of. It’s important to take care of me.

Even though it’s an effort to exercise daily, I’m highly aware of the quality of life that I desire… I want to be strong and maintain my quality of life through good health.

Even though I might get too busy or stressed, I can slow down and breathe… and make my health a priority. It’s important.

(You could tap the points in an alternating way, for instance, [eyebrow] “have to spend more time and energy…” [side of eye] “but I have a genuine desire to be more healthy,” etc.)

Katrina is a teacher and we talked about the many skillful ways she motivates and encourages her students. She also makes them accountable. If they get too far off track, she calls the parents. We laughed when we decided that if she gets too far off track, she’ll have to be accountable by calling ME to schedule another session!

The one-session breakthroughs are great, but for any lasting change, motivation and maintenance are essential.

“Katrina” came to me for weight loss issues. She said she could eat reasonably all day but towards the evening, she would lose control and, as she said, “when I get started, it’s hard for me to pull back.”

Her feeling was one of frustration, which was at a 10. So we began tapping.

Even though I’m so frustrated that I can’t control my eating in the evenings, I love and accept myself…

The frustration went down to a 4-5. What came up for her then was, she said, “a lot of sadness.” I asked her if she had any thoughts or memories associated with the sadness.

Katrina said that what was coming to mind for her was a very early memory. It was not a new memory — she’s always been aware of it. She said that she vividly remembered being a very small toddler in her high chair in the kitchen, and seeing her bottle on the high shelf — but because her mother was weaning her from the bottle, the mother wouldn’t give the little girl the bottle. Her mother’s words were, “That’s not for you.” Little Katrina was given a cup instead.

I asked her to tell me a little more about her childhood. I learned that she was the child of a single mom who had to work very hard to support her family. Katrina was to some extent raised by relatives and neighbors. Her mother was matter-of-fact and didn’t have time for the “nonsense” of children’s feelings. For the mother, it was a very practical matter to wean the child from the bottle. The mother thought she had put it where the little girl couldn’t see it. For Katrina, a sensitive child, the incident in the kitchen had left a terrible feeling of deprivation and hurt.

We returned to “the bottle story” and decided to tap using a modified Movie Method. There wasn’t a lot of action, but there really were a lot of feelings. As we tapped, tears flowed.

Even though I can see my bottle, but Mommy won’t let me have it, I love and accept myself… I love and accept the little girl that I was…

Even though Mommy says, “That’s not for you…”

Even though I’m just a little girl… confused… why can’t I have it? It’s mine!

Even though Mommy isn’t paying any attention to my feelings…

Even though Mommy didn’t understand how much I wanted that…

etc.

We talked and tapped with regard to what the little girl needed: someone to pay attention to her feelings, to validate what she felt, to take her seriously, and to understand her. It wasn’t even so much that the little girl needed the bottle — she needed empathy and understanding for her feelings.

Even though no one took her seriously…no one was really there for her… I love and accept this little girl.

Katrina felt much better and could now recount “the bottle story” without painful emotion.

I had asked Katrina to bring in a “temptation food” to tap for, and she brought a Reese’s peanut butter cup. We decided to get it out and see how she felt about it. Normally her craving would have been high, but just talking and tapping for the little girl inside her seemed to have made a difference. Her craving was only about a 2. We did a few rounds of tapping and she felt even more neutral about the candy.

I often make a hypnotherapy-type recording at the end of a session so that positive and nurturing messages can continue to support the healing process. In Katrina’s case, I knew that it was not yet time to “deprive” the hurt part of her by trying to change behaviors drastically. Instead, we gave good messages to the child part of her. We affirmed that she could have what she wanted now. Katrina could also “tap in” these good messages:

I have the control now.

I can have this if I want to — I can choose to have it or not.

I’m now paying attention to what the craving is about…

I’m slowing things down. I’ll breathe and pay attention.

What the little girl needed was someone to pay attention to her feelings
… and validate her feelings… and take her seriously… and understand her.

I love and accept my little girl self. I honor my child self for what how hard it was at times. No one to pay attention… no one to really understand… but I understand.

When Katrina came in for her next session, she said that it had been amazing. She had had no desire for chocolate during the three weeks since our last session. She said she gave the Reese’s away! She just didn’t want it. “It feels great,” she said. “I’m not feeling as if, when I see it, I’ll go into this caveman ‘gotta have it’ urge. That kind of craving is gone.” She had also noticed feeling generally calmer and happier.

There is more work to do, but Katrina is developing a relationship with the part of herself that was the source of her cravings. That part needed love, attention, and understanding. As our healing work brings this in, I expect that it will get easier and easier for Katrina to make good choices and eat in a balanced way.

Every day I talk to women (and I used to be one who did this too) who feel compelled to constantly diet to lose weight or to control their out of control feeling with food. There is a push-pull relationship that develops, an all or nothing kind of view.

It is incredibly frustrating, defeating, and totally depressing because the dieting never works permanently. It is a temporary fix for some to a deeper problem; the compulsive need to eat.

Unlike other addictions, you can’t stop eating. You can’t just avoid food totally. We have to eat to live, so it gets tricky when food is your obsession and/or addiction.

A process of hyper-vigilance and avoidance, fear and deprivation sets in for many with food. This is also where a state of black and white thinking comes in. On the one hand many feel they have to restrict or control food intake in some way (some form of diet, and there is always a new one) or there is constant eating or bingeing.

Often there are painful feelings or difficult feelings that require addressing but that are too overwhelming and need to be numbed with food.

So a constant focus on food as the “problem” and food as being the thing to control is really sort of dangerous for people with this issue. I often see any hint of deprivation throw clients into a rebellious desire to eat.

The first step to stopping reliance on dieting for some is using EFT to clear the painful or difficult emotions that haven’t been addressed successfully in the past. I have come to believe that emotions are like water and meant to just flow naturally through us. They are not good or bad but an experience. It is when for some reason they get “stuck” or don’t move through us that we have problems and pain.

We don’t have to be aware of what these emotions are, we can start wherever we are at with tapping.

With one of my clients recently we began by tapping on the desire to eat.

Set up phrases:

Even though I just want to eat and I don’t know why, I can’t stop and I don’t know why… I deeply and completely love and accept myself

Inner eye: I don’t know why I want to eat
Outer eye: ”
Under eye: ”
Upper lip: I just want to eat
Chin crease: I’m not even hungry!
Collar bones: I just want to eat
Side of body: I wish I knew why
Top of the head: I’m really tired of it

After this first round a thought came to her about how her father always used to make her feel ashamed and fat, and how once he humiliated her in front of others.

At this point we began tapping on the feelings of humiliation through all of the points:

“My dad made me feel humiliated that time in the living room”

After we tapped on that issue, there were several others that came up for her too with him. It seems he was a primary figure in her humiliation with weight and desire to diet to relieve it.

After a few sessions working on these issues and tapping on what came up for her she is no longer binge eating or emotional eating at all through difficult situations where she feels triggered.

Dieting is a way to punish ourselves or use force to achieve a goal, it seems to me. When we take away the force, address the underlying feelings – whatever they are – and release them, we are free to eat in a more “natural” way and the strong desire to binge or eat junk foods can just disappear.

Sandy Zeldes is a Certified EFT Practitioner & Certified Nutrition Consultant with over 7 years experience. She helps her clients find relief with weight gain, stress, mood swings, and low energy or fatigue. Visit her online at www.eatlikeagoddess.com.

“Julie” came to me for weigh and eating issues. She had been working with a book on ending food addiction (author: Kay Sheppard) and had determined that one of the emotional drivers for her was, as she put it, “Not-Good-Enough Pain.”

Because I was in the process of preparing to teach EFT Levels 1-2, I was especially aware of the basic core concepts. So I talked with Julie about how “not good enough” was like a big forest with many individual trees (specific events) or like a tabletop with many legs supporting that table. Would she be open to working with some specific events from the past in order to bring healing to this core belief? She agreed.

We had already done some tapping for the emotions around this. I then asked her to close her eyes and tune in to that “not good enough” feeling. “Just let your mind be open to finding one of the early times that you felt this. What other time does this feeling remind you of?” She said, “I don’t know why this is coming up, but I just remembered being on the monkey bars on the playground, I was probably about 5 years old, and this boy Ricky, who was always mean to me, came up and made fun of me. He had his friends with him, and they called me Little Miss Piggy, Pig Nose.” She was amazed to find tears coming.

People are often surprised at how much pain can still be in these seemingly insignificant childhood memories. I asked Julie to make a small movie of this event — how long would it be? Only a few minutes. I asked her the title. She said, Little Miss Piggy, Pig Nose. The title was a 10 in intensity for her, so we began by simply tapping for the title:

Even though I have this Little Miss Piggy, Pig Nose movie, I love and accept myself
Even though I have this Little Miss Piggy, Pig Nose movie, I love and accept my little girl self — that really hurt my feelings…

It took several rounds of tapping for “this Little Miss Piggy, Pig Nose movie,” but the effect was dramatic. The tears that initially came with these words subsided quickly. After three rounds, the intensity of the title had mostly been released, from a 10 to a 4 down to a 1 or 2.

I then asked Julie to narrate the movie, beginning before the upsetting part. “I’m climbing on the monkey bars… I’m swinging from my arms… I’m having a good time… now I see the mean boy coming…he’s walking over with his friends.” I stopped her — “Any intensity?” Surprisingly, she said, “No!”

She continued. “Now he’s coming over and saying to his friend, ‘hey look, there’s Little Miss Piggy, Pig Nose!” I stopped her again — “Any intensity?” Again, “No!”

“So what happens next?” I asked. Julie then said something totally unexpected: “Well, I just keep swinging and I tell them that they’re just stupid boys and that I don’t care what they say! And I laugh at them!” We both laughed at the conviction in her voice — she knew they were acting stupid and that it was not about her! She said, “I know that’s not what really happened, but that’s what I see in my movie now. All I can do is laugh at them. How stupid those dumb boys were! Picking on a little girl — shame on them.”

Apparently our work together on the title alone had completely cleared the trauma. I realized that the title she had chosen was the crescendo of the event. That might not always be a good idea, but in this case, it worked wonders. Those nasty words, which had hurt her so much as a little child, had been completely neutralized, and she could see the whole thing clearly and not take it personally anymore.

Just to be safe, I had Julie rewind and run the old movie in her mind, trying to stay with the scenario as it had really happened. She found that hard to do! She had trouble even imagining it and couldn’t get back any pain — even though 15 minutes before, she had been in tears.

We ended with a “power tapping” for the little girl inside her.

Even though those boys called me Miss Piggy, Pig Nose, so what? I don’t care! They’re just stupid boys!

As we tapped the points with “so what?” and “I don’t care!” and “They’re just stupid boys!” Julie was grinning. It felt great to empower her inner child to throw off the insult and put those boys in their place.

At the end of the session, Julie felt great. My hope is that this healing result will generalize into other places in childhood and beyond where Julie felt put down or insulted with regard to her appearance. She felt so much lighter and calmer at the end of the session, and she agreed that continuing to tap for those old wounds will really help her heal her issue of emotional eating.

Sometimes binge eating is a coping strategy that develops in order to numb difficult or painful emotions. As a strategy, it can certainly work for a while in terms of “numbing out” difficult or painful emotions, but the consequences are often low self esteem as well as weight gain and a sense of feeling out of control. It can be scary to let go of something that “works” for us, however painful the consequences if we do not have another way to process our emotions. The other thing that happens often is that we can become unconscious of the process of reaching for food, and unconscious of our emotional experience because we are so used to avoiding it. I think we lose a big part of who we are in this way. This lost sense of self is another consequence for many women who use this coping mechanism in my experience.

It is a joy to see them find themselves again doing this work.

I have been working with a client who has been binge eating her entire life to deal with difficult emotions. She is very aware of her reasons for bingeing and even knows how to help others with emotional concerns, but not herself.

In fact this really annoys her that she can help others and not herself… (I hear this quite a bit by the way with women in the holistic or healing professions that I work with. We are great at helping others, but still struggle ourselves in some area that makes us feel like a failure.)

When we tapped on her frustration over this, another deeper issue came up about self worth which was so pivotal in healing her need to over-eat.

“I Can’t Help Myself”

I asked her to take a few slow deep breaths and then we began tapping. (Whenever a client seems to be in a desperate place where i can tell that they are not connected to their feelings or body experience, I always begin with closing the eyes and taking deep breaths. Try this some time, it really helps.)

Karate Chop (or Side of the Hand): Even though I am great at helping everyone else with their problems, but I can’t help myself, I choose to accept my feelings.

Even though I am an expert at being helpful for my kids and students, but when it comes to helping myself through this problem… I’m a failure… I choose to accept myself anyway.

Even though I’m totally humiliated and frustrated that I haven’t been able to help myself through this problem with over-eating and I’m ashamed… I choose to accept myself anyway.

(Often I will use all of the variations of how someone explains the problem to me on the Setup phrases. If they do not get a significant SUDs (Intensity Level) reduction after tapping several rounds, then I will be more specific by asking them exactly which feelings bring up the most intensity for them. Usually however, this works just fine.)

Eyebrow Point (EB): “I can’t help myself with over-eating”
Side of Eye (SE): “I’m great at helping everyone else”
Under Eye (UE): ” I’m actually an expert at helping everyone else”
Under Nose (UN): “But I can\’t do it for myself”
Chin (Ch): “I’m so ashamed”
Collarbone (CB): “I’m embarrassed”
Under Arm (UA): “I’m humiliated”
Top of the Head (ToH): “I’m a failure at this area of my life”

After around 2 or 3 rounds of tapping on being ashamed and humiliated that she was totally out of control in this one area of her life but so great in many others – she had an insight:

“Not Good Enough”

She realized that she had always felt embarrassed and ashamed, like she wasn’t really “good enough” and it wasn’t just about this issue.

We began tapping on all of the ways that she felt like a failure with food, and therefore her life:

Karate Chop (or Side of Hand): I’ve always been such a failure with food… and I choose to accept myself anyway.

I’ll always be this way, I’m a total failure with food and that means I’m a failure entirely! I choose to love and accept myself.

I’ll always be this way, I’m a failure with food and I accept and love myself completely now.

Eyebrow Point (EB): I’m a total failure with food
Side of Eye (SE): I’ll always be a total failure with food
Under Eye (UE): I’m a failure with food
Under Nose (UN): I’ll always be a failure with food
Chin (Ch): Because of this failure with food I am a total failure
Collarbone Point (CB): ”
Under Arm (UA): ”
Top of Head (TOH): I choose to know that I am not a total failure just because I have had this problem with food and I choose to know that I am healing this issue now.

This client was ready for a positive reframe at this point. I could feel her shift. Positive reframes won’t “take” if we try to use them too early before the unconscious mind is ready. I find that as I feel someone shift enough, I try introducing the new idea and see if it works. How do we know it works? Because the belief is shifted or we get a drop in the Intensity (or SUDs) Level.

After about 15 minutes of tapping on what came up around this, she felt much better. Suddenly it wasn’t an issue at all, and she had no intensity around being frustrated or humiliated about her inability to heal her emotional eating.

At this point in the session she was just extremely sad because of her sister’s problems with obesity and possibly dying from cancer. The sadness was extreme and it brought up her fears of losing her mother years earlier to cancer. There was a lot of stored up grief in these issues that were causing her to binge eat.

Sadness

Though it may sound obvious that an extremely painful emotion would be the cause of binge eating, or underlying the need to binge, I find that so many have no idea what the cause is! It just happens automatically and the actual feeling is suppressed, even when it seems obvious to us later! It is a powerfully intelligent defense mechanism that got created often when we needed it most, when we were very young.

We began tapping:

Karate Chop (KC) (or Side of the Hand), three times: Even though I’m afraid of losing my sister like I lost mom… I choose to love and accept all of my feelings now.

Eyebrow Point (EB): I don’t want to lose my sister
Side of Eye (SE): I can’t lose my sister too
Under Eye (EU): ”
Under Nose (UN): ”
Chin Point (Ch): ”
Collarbone (CB): I don’t want to lose her
Under Arm (UA): ”
Top of the Head (ToH): “

We tapped on this specific issue for several rounds, going back to the Karate Chop (Side of Hand) a few times too for the remaining fear of losing her sister until it was almost zero in Intensity (SUDs) level.

After this session, ALL of her sadness and grief diminished to the point where it just didn’t exist in her daily life anymore, and she had stopped bingeing entirely over this issue.

I believe that this was an example of unexpressed stored grief over the loss of her mother being triggered by this new experience with her sister. Identifying this hidden stored grief was of tremendous help to her in stopping bingeing.

The focus of my practice is in working primarily with women to heal their relationship to food and their bodies. We work on emotional eating, cravings, energy and weight concerns often. From this work, I have developed my own unique way of working with clients that is part diet related, part nutrition related and a big part emotional clearing related.

I find that with my unique perspective my clients move into joy and freedom much faster and with more ease.

I was listening to a talk recently by another renowned clinical practitioner today speaking about one of the most common causes of fatigue, weight gain, and mood swings that he sees in his practice.

You already know what it is if you read the title of this blog post: Emotional stress.

Emotional Stress

Emotions like grief, overwhelm, sadness, fear, anxiety, panic, depression, anger and frustration to name a few. I also see this in my practice as the #1 cause as well.

The problem for many however can be how to resolve it.

Unfortunately many people have a really hard time resolving stress fully so it just accumulates.

I feel very fortunate to have the tools that I now do to help myself and others release stress in sessions on an on-going basis so that they can take the pressure off of their exhausted adrenal glands, and thus re-balance the body.

The story I want to share with you today is of one of my clients that had such a profound emotional release that it changed everything for her.

This client went from being so exhausted she could hardly stay on the phone for her session, to bounding with energy in under 20 minutes after releasing some emotional issues. And here is the best part: She wasn’t even conscious of the emotional issue.

When I work with someone, they do not need to know exactly what is triggering them. We can still release it. And fast.

Because I also work on a physical level and this person had implemented what I had recommended with diet and supplements, I knew that was not the issue. I felt strongly that she had the nutrients her body needed to feel well, but that this was something else.

I had asked her if anything was up for her or if something had happened that had stressed her since our last session and she said no. But I still felt confident that something was there to look at.

In sessions I often feel a very strong connection to the person with whom I’m working, and I can have an intuitive “lock” on what is going on with them. In fact, I have learned how to test my intuitive hunches using muscle testing now when needed.

I knew we needed to look at this with EFT. I could “feel” the issue in myself touching into her energy.

Tapping Allowed the Issue to Rise Up

We began tapping and within minutes something came up that she had not realized was triggering her into such extreme fatigue. We began by tapping on the fatigue she was feeling:

Even though I’m so exhausted, I can hardly stand to be on the phone
right now.. I deeply and completely love and accept myself…

Inner eye: I’m totally exhausted, and I don’t know why
Outer eye: I’m so exhausted, I can’t stay on the phone
Under eye: I’m exhausted
Upper lip: I’m exhausted
Chin crease: I’m exhausted
Collarbones: I’m exhausted
Side of body: I’m exhausted
Top of head: I’m exhausted

After around one round of tapping she realized that something had happened with a man she had dated over the weekend, but she didn’t really think it was relevant. However, she couldn’t get the incident with him out of her mind and she didn’t know why. It was really bothering her.

We did one round of tapping on this.

“Even though I’m upset about what happened with X this weekend… I deeply
and completely accept myself.”

Even though I have no idea why I am so upset about this incident, it seems
so small but I can’t get over it… I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

Inner eye: I’m upset at X
Outer eye: I don’t know why
Under eye: It feels so small, what happened
Upper lip: I can’t get over it
Chin crease: I’m upset over this thing that happened
Collar bones: I’m upset over this thing that happened
Side of body: I’m upset over this thing that happened
Top of head: I’m upset over this thing that happened

Suddenly it all became clear and she began to cry as this seemingly meaningless incident that had happened to her with the man she had dated – the incident that came up as we tapped – became connected to a core issue of hers.

At this point we were able to tap on the core issue in minutes and BAM! Back came ALL of her energy! It was beautiful to witness.

Thank god for EFT. Thank goodness too that I have learned to trust it so much that I use it in my practice.

I see this kind of thing so often with people that I could go on and on. I see “miracles” every day using EFT and other clearing techniques that are related to EFT.

What a blessing EFT is for my clients and myself.

Here is this client’s experience from the testimonial she wrote:

“When I first started working with Sandy only two months ago I was barely able to get through the day I had such low energy and a hard time focusing. I also struggled with anxiety, was very sensitive emotionally (which I thought was just my personality) and food cravings. I took a lot of naps and couldn’t get a lot of work done it seemed without being exhausted. I also felt a lack of confidence in client relationships. Working out even mildly would wipe me out. In fact in our first session, I could hardly stay on the phone I was so tired. But after implementing even the first few things that Sandy recommended I was feeling much much better, even the next day! It was amazing. Though there were ups and downs as I was recovering, I began to have my energy back more and more with time. I now can work out without wiping myself out, my clear thinking is back. I feel more confident, even in client relationships, less obsessive and anxious, don’t have food cravings and feel like I did many years ago and my energy is consistently strong throughout the day. In fact I started bringing in big clients during the time I was working with Sandy and I had the energy and confidence to do it! I am so grateful for the support I’ve received from you… it’s made a big difference for me. I was beginning to feel hopeless. I’m referring a few friends to you.”

Sandy Zeldes is a Certified EFT Practitioner & Certified Nutrition Consultant with over 7 years experience. She helps her clients find relief relief with weight gain, stress, mood swings, and low energy or fatigue. Visit her online at www.eatlikeagoddess.com.