Emotional Freedom Technique

Freedom from Negative Habits - Tapping - Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)

What if there were a simple, easy technique that you could do in your own home to get rid of a behavior, a feeling or a craving?  EFT could be that for you.

I was first introduced to Emotional Freedom Technique, EFT, or tapping when I was a student at Hypnosis Motivation Institute (HMI).  The demonstrations were amazing!  A woman who had craved chocolate her entire life suddenly was not interested in the least.  I was curious – how to change, in a few minutes, how you viewed something you have loved your whole life.

Fast forward to last week.  I continue to struggle with maintaining a healthy weight.  I decided to try tapping on not eating carbs.  Low and behold I went to a lunch networking event and looked at the rolls and potatoes like they were foreign objects and definitely not something I would ever eat.  Dessert? Not a chance, I didn’t even check it out to see what it was.  It can be an amazing tool and I was reminded to use it with my clients.

What is tapping? 

Tapping works with the body’s energy system – the meridians that carry electrical impulses throughout the body.  These meridians were first used (and are still used) in acupuncture and acupressure.  We tap on the end-points of the meridians while repeating a problem statement (eg. My addiction to carbs). In acupuncture, you are needled on a specific point for a specific problem. In tapping, we just tap on all the upper body meridians and assume that one will be the correct meridian.  Tapping is part of a group of therapies called ENERGY PSYCHOLOGY, because they are believed to affect the body’s electromagnetic energy fields.

Where does it come from?

A psychologist, Dr. Roger Callahan, discovered tapping by accident while working with a client with a water phobia.  When she complained that her stomach hurt, he tapped under her eyes, the end point of the stomach meridian, and her stomach pain and water phobia went away.  This discovery was used by Gary Craig to expand tapping and come up with a simple system that can be used by anyone. Gary has had great success with Vietnam Vets with PTSD.  When they tell their stories while tapping the emotional intensity of the stories goes from 10 to 1 or zero.

How do you do it?

We begin by creating a setup statement: “Even though I have this addiction to carbs, I deeply and completely love and accepts myself.” At first, this negativity bothered me – shouldn’t we be focusing on the positive? I was listening to Nick Ortner’s broadcast during the 14th Annual  Tapping World Summit.  He runs Tapping World and is now a leader in the field.  He had the same question about the setup statement and he asked Louise Hay why we start with a negative. We know Louise Hay was all about positive affirmations (as am I) and I was intrigued to hear her answer.  She wisely said “If you want to clean the house, first you have to see the dirt.”

Tapping works on the theory that our unresolved negative emotions are major contributors to most physical pain, disease and anxiety. The cause of all negative emotions is a disruption in the body’s energy system.

We were trained to be negative from the earliest times.  Those who survived were the ones who were watching the bushes for any suspicious activity, were there tigers in the bushes? – those blithely playing in the open did not survive.

I usually do a session with my clients and then give them the recipe so they can do it whenever they want.  And when I say do a session with my clients, I tap along with them so they don’t feel silly – at first it can seem an odd thing to be doing.

Sound interesting? Give me a call 818-929-4944 to set up a session and I will teach you how to do EFT your way or join my free Hypnotherapy Q & A every Wednesday at 10 am PST.

You can register here.

https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0lfu6trjIvGNZ8XkMGblRSB97cmXEKVT6p

Sincerely,

Cinda

HypnoNews and Resources

Here are some articles with more information about EFT-tapping:

From WEB MD, What is EFT tapping? 

https://www.webmd.com/balance/what-is-eft-tapping

From Medical News Today, A Guide to EFT tapping,

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/326434

Unwanted Food Cravings - Emotional Freedom Technique - Healthy Weight Management

Chocolate Bar Craving.jpg

Rachel had always fought to keep her weight under control. After years of yo-yo dieting her frustration level was higher than ever when she finally sought help from a therapist. Asked what she saw as her biggest challenge, she responded Anything Chocolate! She felt that her craving for chocolate was a 10 on a scale of 1-10.

As part of a hypnotherapy guided weight management program, she learned and experienced EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique or tapping) to eliminate her craving for chocolate. After one session she found that chocolate no longer held any special allure for her. With her chocolate craving eliminated, she began shedding unwanted weight and reached her healthy weight goal several months later.

Compared to a normal, non-specific  feeling of hunger (‘I need to eat something soon’), a food craving is usually defined as a strong, immediate urge to eat a specific food (‘I need my chocolate bar now’).

Your craving may come to mind seemingly out of the blue or it may be triggered by a variety of physical or mental/emotional factors. Emotions are one of the biggest contributing factors to specific food cravings.

If a specific craving is making it difficult for you to achieve and maintain your healthy weight goal, your craving may be mainly triggered by negative emotional factors such as

  • chronic stress

  • anxiety

  • frustration

  • anger

  • sadness

When a craving arises you have a few basic responses you might choose from:

  • Indulge in the craving (eat your favorite chocolate bar that you always carry with you or stock in the pantry at home)

  • Eat a healthy snack ‘instead’ (and wait for the craving to pass)

  • Distract yourself with some other non-eating physical or mental activities and let the craving dissipate (but no guarantees on when and how often it will come back)

Cravings are usually ‘satisfied’, one way or the other, in 10 to 20 minutes. However, research tells us that

  • Regularly choosing the indulge response can have negative short term and long term consequences for your heath and weight goals

  • The healthy snack and distraction responses both require constant disciplined effort to follow and can be frustrating and exhausting in themselves

Wouldn’t it be exciting if you could learn a way to seriously reduce the intensity and how often a craving comes up and even prevent it from arising in the first place?

You can!

If you want to reduce or prevent cravings for specific unhealthy foods, a trained  EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) practitioner can help you with that goal.

What is EFT? 

EFT is a proven, evidence based therapy technique that involves concurrently

  • tapping on certain meridians, or energy pathways of the body

  • acknowledging and accepting the craving

  • affirming your self-acceptance and self-worth

EFT can be used for changing habits, weight loss, sports performance, eliminating fears, and changing negative thought patterns.

When I teach this technique to my clients, I tap along with them.  We say together the issue we are trying to change or correct while tapping at specific points on the face and upper body.

Used in conjunction with a hypnotherapy guided weight management program, I find EFT very effective in helping clients to control their cravings and reach their healthy weight management goals.

If this is something of interest to you, please give me a call (818-929-4944) or join us any Wednesday on my Hypnotherapy Q & A. Register here: 
https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYkd--rrz4oGdUY2gJJ5gp07WDIkkz3sz6g

Sincerely,

Cinda

HYPNONEWS and RESOSURCES

For an in depth review of the uses and effectiveness of EFT please see the following article:

Clinical EFT as an Evidence-Based Practice for the Treatment of Psychological and Physiological Conditions

https://www.scirp.org/html/35751.html

For a good overview of methods to help you manage food cravings in general, please see the following:

How do you manage food cravings?

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/322947