Emotional Pain Lands IN the Body!

"BALANCING THE EMOTIONS 'Any imbalance in an emotional state - when one emotion dominates or overrides the others - can predispose one to heart disease,' says Frank Lipman, MD, an integrative physician, board-certified internist, and licensed acupuncturist. 'Learning to deal with emotions is extremely important.' But studying these emotional states is difficult, concedes Lipman, 'It's not something you can measure easily.' Nonetheless, emotions can get stuck in the body. When you release these emotional holding patterns physically, he says, you're releasing emotional states, as well.' Lipman has facilitated these releases in patients through acupuncture. He also refers some patients to body workers and healers, who are able to shift energy in the body." https://www.webmd.com/depression/features/many-emotions-can-damage-heart Want help moving those painful emotional states? Email me for a Christian EFT practitioner referral - we have practitioners in several countries in a couple continents! Sherrie Rice Smith Certified EFT Practitioner EFTforChristians.com Author of EFT for Christians 5 Book Series

Is EFT Tapping in the Bible?

Sometimes I have people ask me, "Is EFT in the Bible?" Well, of course, it isn't, nor is our automobile (wonder what Jesus would have ridden in on Palm Sunday instead of His donkey???!!), or airplane or refrigerator and washing machine, and we still use those freely. What is IN the Bible is lots of humans with lots of negative emotions that caused all kinds of societal fallout, as it does today. We are human, we have emotional turmoil, but it doesn't HAVE to rule us. Once again, God has provided everything we need, including a path out of emotional pain. The EFT tapping tool sits waiting for us to grab it and use it! Sherrie Rice Smith Certified EFT Practitioner EFTforChristians.com Author of EFT for Christians 5 Book Series

Emotional Pain Sticks to US

It’s indeed a bit like treating the symptoms vs. treating the cause. The “symptoms” are our emotional angst and possibly physical issues. The underlying “cause” (disease) is our trauma, big stuff or lots of little stuff, hurtful memories, and disturbing events in our life. Those emotional “causes” stick around in our cells where our unconscious mind puts them, completely unknown to us. Our cells can be equated to a house attic, storage unit, old barn loft, etc. We stuff items in any or all of those places, forgetting about them, until sometime possible catastrophic happens and NOW we have to deal with the stored up junk. Emotionally it’s the same thing. Bad stuff happens, we “get over it” (time doesn’t heal all wounds, sorry, folks!), move on and THEN our body starts yelling and our emotions begin to flare, forcing us NOW to deal with the past - all those things we stuffed in our emotional attic, barn, and storage unit. Tapping BEFORE we accumulate all that junk keeps the “storage” unit of our unconscious mind clear, clean, and uncluttered! Tap, tap, tap! Sherrie Rice Smith Certified EFT Practitioner EFTforChristians.com Author of EFT for Christians 5 Book Series

EFT Tapping - God's Invention

“Our mind forgets what our heart refuses to remember.” And there is where our emotional pain tends to begin. Forgotten consciously; remembered unconsciously, driving our thoughts, actions, & physical sensations, controlling our very life. ……..until God’s EFT tapping enters our confined, limited space. And our Lord busts us out of that prison by His own healing invention! Sherrie Rice Smith Certified EFT Practitioner EFTforChristians.com Author of EFT for Christians 5 Book Series

Dopamine, Our Pleasure Neurotransmitter! Friend or Foe?

Did you know that when we experience pleasure of one kind or another, our brain chemicals impact our limbic system including the hypothalamus, hippocampus, amygdala, & nucleus accumbens, in particular, and ventral striatum, which are connected to the neurotransmitter dopamine and the brain’s natural opiate, endorphin. Once the body associates a pleasure with those chemicals, it wants more! And more. And more. Let’s use chocolate as an example. Often the mere thought or seeing chocolate produces a release of dopamine in the brain. Then when we taste it, opiates (endorphins) are released further binding our behavior to chocolate eating! Once we eat the chocolate our dopamine level begins to drop. The ANTICIPATION of the pleasure drives the dopamine more so than the actual consumption! Now we have entered dopamine lack which often leaves us feeling deprived and we reach for more chocolate to drive the dopamine back up. It’s cyclic and chocolate is simply an example, as anything pleasurable can send our dopamine levels into overdrive, including other foods, alcohol, sex, shop lifting, work, exercise, dare devil activities, drugs, etc. A similar experience happens with cortisol and sugar. This can be the beginning of an addiction or a craving around a substance or activity that drives anxiousness. Anxiousness is very uncomfortable, but tapping can help. How? By often finding the source event or memories driving the pleasure and tapping on those. Many ask why would I want to rid myself of pleasure! You wouldn’t but perhaps letting go of the excess behaviors might feel like a good idea. And it is, as it often then leaves us more satisfied with less of something (like calories, alcohol, etc.). Questions? Thoughts? Comments? Sherrie Rice Smith Certified EFT Practitioner EFTforChristians.com Author of EFT for Christians 5 Book Series

Why Christians Can Use EFT Tapping!

This article succinctly says what I have tried to explain in the 5 EFT for Christians books I have written.

1). Chinese medicine and Chinese religion are 2 different things, just as Western Medicine and any western religious beliefs are completely different. Usually, when we show up in an ER, we don't ask the trauma physician if he or she is a Christian, we are just grateful for their help!

2). As a Practitioner in EFT when working with a client who has physical issues, our first question is, "have you seen a doctor?" There is definitely a place for both Eastern and Western medicine. If I have a gangrene gallbladder, probably caused by my reaction to abuse, where I carry around rage, anger, hatred, I'm not necessarily going to try to "cure" it with tapping. I want a competent surgeon to remove it before it bursts and I become septic. Then I will want to deal with the negative emotions that got me in the fix to begin with so something else physical doesn't go haywire!

3). Being a history buff, I agree with this author that not all early Western medicine researchers, such as William Harvey, Lister, Salk, etc. were Christians. They might have been. Who cares? Does that mean I reject all their findings? Of course, I don't. Their religious beliefs as they researched how God put together the human body has absolutely no bearing on what they personally believed about the Creator Himself!

4). Research surely now seems to show that there is a direct relationship between our emotions and our physical health. God is in the healing business. Jesus performed many miracles, as did His apostles. Miracles still happen today. Healing is God's purview, not satan's. satan never healed anyone! So, like the instructions to Apostle Peter in Acts, eat sacrificed meat, it doesn't matter what the original intent or belief system was, God blesses it and sanctions for our good because He created it for our wellbeing.

Sherrie Rice Smith

Certified EFT Practitioner

EFTforChristians.com

Author of EFT for Christians 5 Book Series

Author Interview for EFT for Christians 52 Tapping Devotions

Here is an interview I did for the Christian Book Show around the 2017 released EFT for Christians 52 Tapping Devotions book. Have you picked up your copy yet? 

EFT for Christians 52 Tapping Devotions takes EFT to an entirely different level of practice.

This book has a short weekly devotion followed by a tapping "action" part that the reader can practice and meditate on all week long. 

It is a great teaching tool to help the reader understand the various questions that one can ask to gain the tapping insight needed to clear life's emotional stuff.

Grab your copy today to deepen your relationship with your Lord!

Remember, EFT is not a substitute for sound medical advice, so consult your own personal physician when that need arises.

Sherrie Rice Smith

Certified EFT Practitioner

EFTforChristians.com

Author of EFT for Christians Tapping in God's Peace & Joy (2016)

Author of EFT for Christians Advanced  (2017)

Author of EFT for Christians 52 Tapping Devotions (Christmas, 2017)

Author of EFT for Christians Devotions (Christmas, 2020)

Use Promo Code SAVE20 when ordering from Publisher to get 20% Of

Tapping Specifically Article

Good article from Andy Hunt! Tapping SPECIFICALLY is what is necessary to get the emotional job of neutralizing our negative feelings done.

I want to make one rather BIG and important addition.

In Step 5, last 2 sentences Andy writes, "For example: “Even though they are looking critically at me, I accept myself and how I feel”, etc. The aspect may yield to simple tapping or you may need to track back to memories of similar feelings to neutralise the source of the aspect."

The Set-up statement he uses as his example is, IMHO, still wayyyyyy too broad to be tapped on. It is imperative to "track back to memories" to get the tapping job done effectively.

If a client came to me and told me that exact same sentence "they are looking critically at me," wanting to tap on that issue, I would continue questioning the client asking, "When was a time when you felt as though someone was looking at you critically? Give me a concrete example."

That should afford the client the opportunity to respond with a statement such as, "Well, when I was 13 years old I had to stand up in class, and Mrs. Schmidt gave me the evil eye while I gave my report on the Battle of Gettysburg."

That's a pretty specific time "when" the client thought she was looked upon critically. I might even go on further to get even more specific by asking, "How do you feel now when thinking about that evil eye back then?" or "What exactly did Mrs. Schmidt evil eye look like to you and did you feel about that?"

When tapping we are digging for "emotions" to tap about? Facts are good, but facts aren't feelings, they are facts! Always, always ask yourself (or the client) how they "FEEL" about something they have just told you. They hopefully can tell you 2 things: (1) give the "feeling" an emotional name, such as sadness, anger, remorse, guilt, disdain, discouraged, dismissed, un-validated, ignored, etc. Most anything can be a "feeling" by simply adding the word "feeling" to the client or your words! (2) Hopefully the client (or yourself) can tell you WHERE (gut, head, eyes, shoulder, thigh, chest, heart, etc.) in their body they feel the "feeling" or emotion resides.

This information is ALL that is necessary for tapping specificity.

Here's what my classroom report Set-up and tapping might look like using the steps above:

"Even though I remember the time when I was 13 and I gave that Gettysburg report in Mrs. Schmidt's class, and she gave me the evil eye, right now I feel anger in my left chest, a tightening feeling, I deeply and completely, etc. - finish the acceptance statement. THAT IS SPECIFIC!

The reminder tapping statements would simply be: "this anger" or "this anger in my chest." Continue tapping those simple reminder statements on the acupuncture spots until the SUDS drops out to zero!

Go onto the next memory of the time when you felt you were looked at critically, and repeat the process.

When a client or yourself comes in with a broad statement such as "I'm looked at critically" there is probably a huge core issue underneath around self-esteem, etc.

Core issues take more work than just a few individual memories because a client's entire life viewpoint could well be built around that one thought (and sadly many of us have dozens of core issues we need to work on!)

That example I just typed about being 13 years old should give any experienced self-tapper or EFT Practitioner plenty of tapping material if the client has a core issue around the example.

There are probably 100s of other questions that can be asked. It's detective work! But the questions need to be specific while digging for feelings.

Once this memory/incident is tapped to a 0 SUDS, ask yourself or the client, "Do you have another memory of a time when you got a critical look, or a time when something similar happened?"

You continue to repeat this process until the problem is no longer the problem!

I will admit, and this is WHY I've written 4 EFT for Christians books, that any tapping questioning can go in a multitude of directions whereby you find dozens of other thoughts/feelings/events in life that need to be tapped about.

Sometimes the line of questioning gets bogged down or the client/yourself shuts down, and then you can use the advice I give you that I have already written out in detail in the EFT for Christians books.

Wonderfully written article by Andy. My opinion is the more specific we get in our tapping makes EFT so very much more effective.

God be praised!

Remember, EFT is NOT a substitute for sound medical or psychological advice, so contact your own personal physician if you have such needs as these!

Sherrie Rice Smith

Certified EFT Practitioner

EFTforChristians.com

Author of EFT for Christians Tapping in God's Peace & Joy (2016)

Author of EFT for Christians Advanced  (2017)

Author of EFT for Christians 52 Tapping Devotions (Christmas, 2017)

Author of EFT for Christians Devotions (Christmas, 2020)

Use Promo Code SAVE20 when ordering from Publisher to get 20% Off

Why Do I Need to Tap? Why Can't I Just Pray about All of This?

One of the questions that routinely pops up within the Christian EFT world is this, "Why can't I just pray about this, why should I tap?"

Often when I try to answer that question, my tongue gets tied up in my mouth and my answer sounds like I'm advocating that tapping is better than praying. That is not at all what I believe or what I wanted to say!

So, Ronda Stone, co-author of EFT for Christians, 52 Tapping Devotions, as usual, says it so much better than I do:

"I think it may be possible that some people respond better to prayer and some need tapping to break things loose to allow healing. Some may feel relief with the prayer but still tapping is needed for complete relief because the emotional pain is stuck in their body's cells. In my experience, I have seen the Lord move on people when I have only prayed {for them}, so one has to be aware of the direction the Lord is leading one -- to pray and tap, or to tap and pray.

People who have long standing emotional issues may think God has to fix them and they don't take responsibility for the part they may have played in the problem, thus believing God is the only one Who can act to help them, they don't accept that they play a part in their healing either.

Others who have some faulty reasoning or have been disappointed with God through prayer often pull away from Him. Those with that disappointment will respond better with tapping and prayer, and in fact, maybe even better than prayer alone."

Our God is a God of miracles! There is no doubt He is!

But God also requires for us to do work on this earth. Philippians 2:11-12 talks about "working out our salvation." Many believe Apostle Paul is discussing sanctification here. We are to "press on" toward heaven. God wants to deliver us, but He requires we participate in this earthly endeavor. Salvation in Jesus is a free done deal, but our earthly job is to give glory to the Lord and to work toward becoming more and more like Jesus, as we exhibit the Fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23).

His will for us is perfect. Jeremiah 29:11 assures us He has a good plan for our life.

We must pray, but some of us must also do our emotional tapping work to bring us into a calmer, more aware, less stressed, clearer space in life. Why? Early abusive events implant the pain into our body's cells. Prayer will relieve the spiritual content of the memories, but the "damage" remains in our body. Tapping often integrates the whole - body, mind, and spirit - to complete the healing we so desire.

God has always been there for us (Psalm 54:4). Our own emotional fog hides Him from our eyes. What a beautiful gift it is when tapping relieves the painful fog of past negative life events and allows us to see our Heavenly Father for Who He is!

Consider joining the thousands of Christians who have stepped forward for their healing as they tap.

The EFT for Christians website is chockful of goodies to assist you to learn to tap.

Join us!

Remember, EFT is not a substitute for medical care, so contact your personal physician when help is needed.

Christmas Blessings! He is born!

Sherrie Rice Smith

Certified EFT Practitioner

EFTforChristians.com

Author of EFT for Christians Tapping in God's Peace & Joy (2016)

Author of EFT for Christians Advanced  (2017)

Author of EFT for Christians 52 Tapping Devotions (Christmas, 2017)

Author of EFT for Christians Devotions (Christmas, 2020)

Use Promo Code SAVE20 when ordering from Publisher to get 20% Off

EFT for Christians Video #29: EFT & Implicit memories - Science of Stuffed Cellular Memories

Here is another EFT for Christians instructional YouTube video:  EFT for Christians Video #29: EFT & Implicit memories - Science of Stuffed Cellular Memories

Remember, EFT is not a substitute for sound medical or psychological care. Please call your own personal physician and take responsibility for your own emotional and physical health.

Please subscribe to my EFT for Christians YouTube Channel to get notified about all new YouTube EFT videos as they are produced.

Blessings in our Risen Savior!

Sherrie Rice Smith
Author of the EFT for Christians series found on Amazon.com 

Example of Tapping in the Moment

Example of in the moment tapping:

A friend phoned to tell me she heard that the perp who sexually assaulted her was given an auto by her father.

She wasn't too happy with this.

I asked her to tap while she ranted.

No Set-up, no rounds, she just picked her own acupressure point and tapped while she yapped.

"There we go again. Reward the perp. Nothing for the victim. What are those people thinking? I'm so angry. My chest hurts. Why does no one care? I'm sad" and on and on she went.

5 minutes later she reported, "Ok, I'm finished. Let God figure it all out. I have things to do!"

Conversation over.

This piece of info could have ruined her day or even her week, or dragged out even longer, her health, had she continued to dwell on it.

She didn't. She tapped, giving it all to God.

EFT is not a substitute for sound medical or psychological care, so consult your own personal physician if you need that type of assistance.

Sherrie Rice Smith, R.N. (Retired)

Certified EFT Practitioner

EFTforChristians.com

Author of EFT for Christians (2015)

Author of EFT for Christians, Tapping in God's Peace & Joy (2016)

Author of EFT for Christians Advanced (2017)

Author of EFT for Christians 52 Tapping Devotions (2017)

Past Events Effecting Us Today

Dr. Gabor Mate writes, "it's not what happened in the past that creates our present misery but the way we have allowed the past events to define how we are and experience ourselves in the present.

The greatest damage done by neglect, trauma, or emotional loss is not the immediate pain they inflict but the long-term distortions they induce in the way a developing child will continue to interpret the world and her situation in it. All too often these ill-conditioned implicit ((those held unconsciously) beliefs become self-fulfilling prophecies in our lives. We create meanings from our unconscious interpretations of early events, and then we forge our present experiences from the meanings we've created."

This is where we are beginning to find EFT assisting us in our walk with Christ, our Savior. 

When we can tap, moving aside our past emotional feelings to allow ourselves to heal, God can then use us in His Kingdom.

Have you considered tapping? 

Remember, EFT is NOT a substitute for medical or psychological help, so please consult your own personal physician for that assistance.

Sherrie Rice Smith, R.N. (Retired)

Certified EFT Practitioner

Author of EFT for Christians book series (found on Amazon)

EFTforChristians.com 

What Trauma Does to Us

 Here is a blog article from someone who has had sexual abuse:  This is reprinted with permission. 

If you are similarly suffering, it is time for God to heal you!  Please contact me. See the contact information at the bottom of this blog article.

"Missing June
For those of you abused, what has your abuser(s) taken from you recently? For me, it was my June.

I wait all year for June. It is the equivalent of a kid waiting for Christmas. There are so few precious Junes in our lifetime. Each needs to be properly celebrated and experienced with the June-only traditions like strawberry picking, garden hose frolicking, first-time outdoor swimming, planting of the state-fair zinnias and wayyyyy… too many trips to the ice cream stand. Ah, and kids’ softball. Warm nights watching the games with the evenings played under the lights being a special treat.

Junes come too fast and furious following the craziness of May. May is filled with new spring events, awards ceremonies and end-of-school-year chaos. Then suddenly, one morning we wake-up and June is here in all it’s warm-but-not-too-hot and sometimes-thunderstorms-but-not-gray-skies-glory.

I am always the happiest in June. Last year at the end of this month, I made my husband and our daughters sit in a circle on the living room floor for a special good-bye to June ceremony. We held hands and I sang “Amazing June how sweet the sound, that saved a SAD (seasonal affective disorder) like me. I was once blue but now I’m not, because of vitamin D.” We then went around the circle and shared our favorite thing about June. The rest of the participants weren’t nearly as excited as I, but no matter. I had a glorious moment sitting with my loves reminiscing about the baby animals we had rescued in the past 4 weeks.

This year I started talking about June early. Maybe all the way back in March when we were on our 6th month of dark sky misery. I speculated what June day the bunnies would greet us by the neighbor’s evergreens and debated over if we would try to grow another vegetable garden. And I could not wait to have my three girls all to myself, all day every day.

But this June sucked. Today is already June 13 and the past two weeks are a sucky suckish suck filled fog. I vaguely remember standing at a podium in an elementary school cafeteria asking our school board president to resign after learning of character letters he and a local priest had written for a convicted pedophile. The priest went as far as stating he didn’t feel this dangerous predator deserved any jail time! This injustice triggered the dreaded storm to brew in my every pore. I had certain knowledge a door I rarely even peek through, and then, only when I absolutely have to, was about to fly off its’ hinges and pin me under. But I knew someone had to remind these men who so callously protected a man who enjoyed child rape that there just happens to be tiny victims that you are forgetting.

And fly open that door did. First the anger overtook me. Anger for these nameless and faceless kids used and thrown away that this priest and school board president just seemed to be forgetting as they stood tall with a dangerous pedophile. And then the anger of the past came roaring-in which morphed into two weeks lost to PTSD so debilitating I slept only a few fitful hours a night and jumped so violently at every little startle I had bruises from banging into things. My abusers’ huge adult faces loomed over my smaller child’s and I could see the wrongness in their eyes and feel the scratchiness of faces. I would wake up choking and try a cool shower to calm me but then the sound of the shower would take me back to a bathroom I hid in as a 13-year-old, naked and vulnerable. And it all just kept coming and coming. It was relentless. The sounds and smells. The voices. The hands. And all I wanted was to reach-out and comfort the other girls that I knew these monsters also had tried to ruin. The ones that like me, had no voices.

This third week has been sheer exhaustion just trying to cope. Coping meaning getting out of bed. And off the floor. For the first time this summer, I walked through my yard and performed one of my all-time favorite June activities- cutting flowers. Bob did a particularity good job on the gardens this year and I was just now observing the roses, daylilies, red-hot poker and dozen other beauties. Inside, as I looked at my collection in a vase, a sudden grief over swept me so fierce it took my breath away. Bob could only hold me and repeat “I’m sorry” as I bawled over and over “I lost my June. I have no June. Because someone took something from me merely because he wanted it, I have lost my June.”

And this is how it goes when surviving sex abuse. Things were stolen from you and no matter how many times you feel that you have made peace with this knowledge, there comes those times you just want them back. There are always the befores and only-ifs. People who love you will prompt you to go through your gratitude list and heal and stay in the present and yes, eventually you do. But damn, when it comes up it is brutal. And different everytime. This time was more anger. Last time it was darkness and depression after one of my abusers, a priest, was removed from a church due to a young girl’s allegations of abuse. I remember thinking My God Yes! Finally Justice!  Finally people will see him for the monster he really is and not his clever facade of the holiest of all men. But in a matter of months he was back out among a new flock of voiceless children.

And here in my hometown, this is what is happening all over again. A pedophile is removed and another man steps-in to defend him. And neither this man the priest, nor the other man the school board president, penned a letter of defense for the kids. The kids that very well today may be dead. And the predator that greatly contributed to their demise gets released from prison in half the time because these men decided it was a swell idea to present the court with letters containing all the selfless things he has done like contributing large sums of money to the church.

Today, and probably forever, the survivor guilt in me agonizes over the amount of victims my abusers had in their lifetimes: those who came before me and those who went after.. I want nothing more at this moment than to tell them that I am paying attention. And I will not forget them.

And I wonder what these men took from them today…"

For more information go to www. EFTforChristians.com .  To schedule a free 15 minute EFT consultation to see if EFT is right for you, email me at EFTforChristians@gmail.com.

Always remember to take complete responsibility for your own health and well-being.

Forgiveness & EFT

The more I read the more I get what is going on underneath all of this EFT stuff.

Forgiveness is the bottom line. It's what Jesus preached about alot, but when is the last time you heard a pastor tell you how to forgive?

Yep! Never! All we ever heard is forgive and forget.

Well, it doesn't work that easy. I'm tired of listening to it.

Forgetting and denial and stuffing it has never gotten a Christian one inch closer to forgiveness. We Christians are the best preachers of "get over it" I've ever seen. And mostly because we don't want to listen to someone else's pain. Why? Because it, too, triggers us. We feel it and it reminds us of our own pain.

The hurt is too deep and too intense. It's glued into our physiology the way God created it to be. Once Adam and Eve sinned, the shame of it got stuck in us for succeeding generations. It's called original sin.

Until each of us is willing to go back into the pain and look at it again, feeling it, and allowing Jesus to release it, not us release it, nothin' ever going to happen.

Tapping is the way God created in us to release it. Once we release enough of our garbage, the forgiveness just plain comes naturally. We eventually feel no angst against whomever hurt us.

They may never, ever, ever change their behavior, but that is NOT our job to change them!  That is the HS's job. Our job is to, with the help of the HS, change ourselves. Cooperate in God's method of sanctification. EFT is one method.

For more information go to www. EFTforChristians.com .  To schedule a free 15 minute EFT consultation to see if EFT is right for you, email me at EFTforChristians@gmail.com.

Always remember to take complete responsibility for your own health and well-being.