EFT for Christians Video # 5: Using Tapping as a First Aid Tool

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JS2OGX99UU

Please subscribe to my YouTube Channel and never miss a new EFT video!

Remember, EFT is not a replacement for medical or psychological help. Call your own personal physician if you feel you need medical assistance.

Sherrie Rice Smith, R.N. (Retired)
EFTforChristians.com 
EFTforChristians@gmail.com 

Tapping with Children

As an EFTUniverse Trainer/Instructor, one of the most frequently asked question revolves around tapping with children and exactly how to do just that.

Because it is such an oft asked question, I decided to videotape several YouTubes around just this subject. Because my EFT specialty is tapping with Christians, these videos are all Christian oriented. To check out these videos, please go to:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmxsHG9CFSWot3rDZac2rSw/videos .

To give you 2 examples of how quickly children clear their emotional issues using tapping, I will tell you 2 different stories I received recently from an EFTUniverse Level 2 student who I have taught here in Milwaukee, and from a Christian gal who is a member of my EFT for Christians Discussion Group Facebook page found here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/352652964926202/ .

Annie texted me to tell me this story about her 6 year old daughter Brandy:

It was lunch time and Annie was preparing what usually is one of Brandy’s favorite lunches – toasted cheese sandwich and tomato soup. For whatever reason, Brandy decided that she wanted something else to eat, promptly and loudly proclaiming this fact with an all-out tantrum.

Brandy began crying and stomping through the house when Annie explained to her that the food was almost ready and she could have her second choice for lunch tomorrow.

After listening to these loud protests for a minute or two, Annie gently settled the wiggly Brandy onto her lap and began tapping on her face points. As Annie did this, all she kept saying was, “I’m angry, I’m angry, I’m angry. I want hotdogs for lunch today.”

To Annie’s surprise in about 2 minutes of tapping, Brandy went from a stomping, crabby, irritable 6 year old back to her usual happy, singing self! 

Annie had never tried tapping with her daughter while she was in “one of her moods.” The text I received simply stated at the end, “I’m thrilled this worked!”

Tapping in the moment is a great way to short circuit the “fight, flight, and freeze” mechanism that was probably triggered by some sensory input in young Brandy’s mind – nothing she would recognize as a trigger. By tapping in the full emotional moment with her daughter, Annie soothed Brandy’s amygdala, the part of the brain where emotions are felt.  She was down-regulating her daughter’s fear center (who knows what Brandy’s subconscious was really thinking, and it didn’t matter in the moment), quieting the response and teaching her daughter to self-regulate her emotions. Annie’s words were what she knew her daughter was feeling, but she could have simply tapped, saying nothing at all, and still Brandy would have quieted. It’s the tapping itself that does all the work of down-regulating behavior.

Crying and tantrums are ok for children, but we adults find them unacceptable later in life. Tapping is a great self-help tool to keep our “nerve” and stress under control.

My second example comes from an R.N. friend who has a N.A.E.T practice here in the Midwest. To that practice, Sara is now adding EFT to facilitate even more healing for her patients.

Sara related this story to me after her first Level 1 & 2 EFTUniverse Training here in Milwaukee last April.

Jake’s father came in for his EFT headache tapping session with Sara. Quite quickly it became evident that 12 year old Jake was pretty unhappy. As he sat in a chair in the waiting room, pouting, Sara inquired of the father what was going on with him.

The dad related that Jake was pretty upset that his mother had just given birth to the 5^th child in the family and Jake really wanted a baby brother. Instead a 4^th daughter had been born, and Jake had been acting out his anger ever since the baby’s birth a week ago.

Before Sara began the father’s tapping session, she asked Jake to come into the office to talk with her.

As soon as Sara inquired what was going on, Jake burst into tears. He sobbed and sobbed, but allowed Sara to gently tap on the top of his head. When he quieted a bit with the tapping, Sara began questioning him as to how he was feeling.

“I’m so mad, I wanted a baby brother, and all I got was another dumb sister. I hate girls,” he told Sara.

Again, Sara gently encouraged Jake to tap along with her, covering all the face & body points, as she repeated his own words, “I hate girls, I hate my sisters, I wanted a baby brother, I’m so mad.”

Once again Jake’s emotions began to rise as Sara asked him again about what he was thinking about his “dumb sisters.”  As he cried, Jake told her, “I want to throw a brick at them. I hate my sisters.”

Again, without any judgment on Sara’s part, she repeated Jake’s own words to him about what he wanted to do to his sisters.

Jake just continued getting more hostile as he tapped, apparently accessing even deeper feelings about how much he hated his sisters because out of his mouth came, “I want to kill my sisters!”

Sara continued to tap with him for another minute or two until Jake calmed down, finally smiling at Sara as he hopped off the exam table he had been sitting on. Quietly, he returned to the waiting room to wait for his dad. When Jake left the office with his dad, he appeared to be back to his usual good-natured self.

Sara was anxiously waiting until Jake’s mom came in a week later for her appointment when she could inquire about how Jake was now feeling about living with all these girls!

The story the mom told Sara astounded her!

Mom said she watched Jake’s behavior closely the past week, since her husband had relayed the whole “I hate my sisters” tapping episode to her.

The mom caught Jake with his arm around the sister who was next in birth order to him, explaining something she didn’t understand to her. Later in the week, the mom observed Jake with the second to the youngest sister sitting on his lap as he read to her. Never before had the mom ever seen Jake interact like this previously with any of his sisters.

The icing on the Jake cake was mom noticing, very excitedly, that Jake volunteered to change the baby’s diaper AND afterwards he held the baby on his lap cooing to her.

The mother was simply elated seeing the change in Jake’s attitude toward all his sisters, an attitude that appeared to change with a 6 or 7 minute tapping session in Sara’s office.

God bless Sara for noticing Jake’s belligerence that afternoon in her office, and then bless her for taking a few minutes out of her day to tap with that young man. From all the indications tapping that day changed Jake’s life for the better, improving his relationship with his 4 younger sisters, helping peace reign in another household and teaching Jake a self-help tool he can use for the rest of his life!

Remember EFT is not a substitute for medical or psychological care. If you need such care, please contact your own personal physician or psychologist.

Sherrie Rice Smith, R.N. (Retired)

EFTforChristians.com

Certified EFT Practitioner

Author EFT for Christians 

EFT for Christians Video #6: Christian Set-Up Statement

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1EvQqmjMKQ

Please subscribe to my YouTube Channel and never miss a new EFT video!

Remember, EFT is not a replacement for medical or psychological help. Call your own personal physician if you feel you need medical assistance.

Sherrie Rice Smith, R.N. (Retired)
EFTforChristians.com 
EFTforChristians@gmail.com 

Mirror Neurons

When I go into a group of hurting women like those in some support group where their spouses have died, or the spouse has abandoned them for another woman, I hear that same mantra repeatedly, “I want God to heal me through and through. I’m so done with feeling hurt.”

As the group moderator continues to lead them week after week through EFT clearing, it is interesting to watch the varied reactions. Some women open up quickly, easily, baring their souls to one another; others are more reticent, holding back, waiting for the just the right time to let loose of their own personal story.

All of that is good. People heal at a different pace, and even if a woman isn’t saying a word, but continues to tap with her fellow group members, there is a good chance God is healing her, too, in a more subtle way. That way is called “Borrowed Benefits.”

Decades ago, EFT founder Gary Craig, realized something “energetic” was happening underneath the surface of the group to whom he was speaking when he had a client up on stage, tapping with her/him.

Finally, Mr. Craig decided to run a small experiment of sorts. I won’t get this story’s details exactly right, and there are many variations of it out on the internet, but he had the entire audience write down on a piece of paper at the beginning of the conference all the issues that were bothering them right then and there.  Mr. Craig then told the attendees to put the paper away for the duration of the seminar.

On the last day of the conference he asked for another volunteer to come up on stage for a tapping demonstration to be done by him. Apparently no one raised their hand. At last, he asked the group to take out that paper on which they all had written the list of all the things that bothered them and take a look at it. It was right then that Mr. Craig realized the reason no one volunteered. He immediately saw that most of the issues written on those hundreds of slips of paper had been resolved while each attendee tapped along with the client up on the stage. That amazing occurrence was dubbed “Borrowed Benefits,” and we see it routinely in every single group or classroom where tapping goes on.

There is a physiological reason why it happens, but I don’t believe that was discovered until long after Mr. Craig figured out the concept.

God put in us something called, “Mirror Neurons.” These neurons are a particular type of brain cell that fires when we see an action performed. To a certain extent it is imitation. We sneeze; someone else in the room sneezes. We grab our glass to drink; another person does the same. It might even account for why a 2 year old wants his friend’s truck to play with right now, or the concept of a mob getting out of control during a sporting event. We learn by watching others, but more importantly we heal by doing the same thing.

It appears mirror neurons give us the ability to empathize with others and they give us the ability to interpret facial expression in others – we intrinsically understand what a frown means, or was that understanding learned from another, but interpreted by our mirror neurons? This reaction seems to be automatic, not something we put any thought into.  

Two locations in the brain where these neurons have been observed are the premotor cortex and the inferior parietal cortex. There are theories that these mirror neurons help with bonding between people, and that the mirroring intensifies over time.

So, tapping together like praying together helps heal us.

Join a tapping group, or find a friend to tap with. While listening and tapping with another, you will find healing for your own life's issues.

 

Sherrie Rice Smith, R.N. (ret.)
Certified EFT Practitioner              
Author EFT for Christians (2015)
Author of EFT for Christians, Tapping into God's Peace & Joy (Autumn, 2016)

www.EFTforChristians.com