As I watched my youngest daughter pack her suitcase for a 3-day school field trip, I felt sadness. It’s not her first multiple-nights school field trip without her parents. Still, I felt sad and missed her the moment she left. I sat with the sadness for a while, allowing my body to just be with it and to acknowledge how I felt.
Then, as I noticed how the feeling takes me on a mental trip of reminiscing about past events involving that daughter of mine, I knew it was time to tap away the sadness so I can bring my focus back to the planned tasks of the day. Just a couple of rounds of tapping – thus a few minutes – and I felt all happier and grateful I have such a wonderful daughter.
See, that’s the power of EFT. Within minutes, it brings on positive feelings without taking anything away from the upsetting event. In my personal experience, EFT is an effective therapy for treating fears as well.
Once upon a time, I was very scared of bees. That was because I was marked by a very traumatic event when I was about 4 years old. A whole hive of bees fell onto my head and I was stung – from head to toe - by a whole swarm of angry bees who just lost their hive. Ever since I was very scared of bees. Whenever I saw one, either I ran away franticly screaming, or I did everything I could to squash the insect. Well, that was until I used EFT to tap away the fears and acknowledged that traumatic event for what it was. Now, several bees can circle around me and I will either be still or calmly walk away from them – no screaming, no running away, no attempts to squash them because of fears to be stung.
A few years back, fresh out of my EFT training, I also used the technique to help a young man get rid of his abhorrence of cockroaches. Here’s the kicker. I was afraid of bees because I was traumatized by their sting. In his case, the cockroaches have never harmed him in any way. The closest he had ever come near one is looking at one a meter (3.3 feet) away.
The traumatic event we uncovered during the tapping session was about the biggest fight he had with his father when he was a teen. The father had certain educational expectations that he (the teen boy) didn’t satisfy and that greatly angered the father. Unbeknown to the teen at that time, that fight ended up keeping them apart for years to come. After they argued bitterly and quite heatedly, the teen locked himself in his closet. It was in there, as he was crying his heart out and feeling angry at his father and sorry for himself that he saw some cockroaches.
Ever since his mind associated the insect with very unpleasant feelings as well as his unresolved issues with his father. He struggled to meet his father’s expectations for years. After that big argument, whenever he saw one of those cockroaches, he felt extremely upset. All of sudden, situations that were minor (like a dusty corner of a room) took on big proportions.
After we used EFT to dissociate the emotions from the event, the fears of cockroaches vanished. We got that result after only about 15 minutes of tapping while he had that fear for over a decade. The additional bonus was he realized he can let go of his father’s expectations of him. The paternal pressure disappeared as well. One stone, two birds, 15 minutes.
Imagine the freedom he felt after the emotional burdens that weighed him down all those years were lifted.
If you don’t believe that EFT can help you deal with your fears/phobia based on the above stories, see the link below for a study about that topic. Happy reading!
What fear do you want to address today? Book a free consultation here.
If you wish to read the research paper, here's the link: