Tapping the Matrix

I've got a new "fan page" on Facebook

2012-01-11T17:24:00.000-08:00

I've been slaving over my new "fan page" on Facebook and I'm pretty happy with the way it's looking. If you haven't seen it, please check it out and give it a "like"!

2011-12-04T13:29:00.001-08:00

Back before Thanksgiving I presented a one EFT weight loss workshop. I was totally blown away by the depth our little group got to, and the trust that made it possible.
I was able to try out some new ideas with that workshop and overall it seemed very successful.

But friends of mine who do Weight Watchers were amazed that I got anyone to come at all. They told me that WW is a ghost town until after the holidays and then standing room only after New Years Day!

So here I go again, January 7&8, 2012. This time I'm adding an optional second day. I'm planning to teach the skills on Saturday, and Sunday will be for deepening them and exploring issues further.

I've booked a nice room at The Flamingo Hotel, which hosts many conferences. I'm really excited about this offering!

Here's a link to the webpage.

Come Learn EFT in Chiang Mai Thailand!

2011-05-31T09:00:00.000-07:00

I'm offering a Level One and Two EFT workshop in Thailand this November for EFT Universe. Come join me!
November is the start of cooler weather there, and follows the rainy season, so everything should be clean and shiny!
Chiang Mai is one of my favorite places on this planet, and a great place to get any dental work done. The clinics there are world class and very cheap.
Even though the airfare is a bit more (about $1000 right now from San Francisco) it's very inexpensive to be there. Food and guest houses are absurdly cheap and it's a wonderful adventure.
I've written more about Chiang Mai here.
I'm also doing workshops in Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa and Phoenix here in the US this year (2011). These are all through EFT Universe and lead toward certification. Check it out!

Language Barrier

2011-05-31T08:22:00.000-07:00

On Sunday I had a client with a very lovely Russian accent. We began doing some Matrix Reimprinting work with a difficult memory and everything seemed to be going well until it was time to ask her echo (younger split off self) what she was feeling. My client got no response. Very unusual!
We tried working with some of the other people in the scene and again...no response. Hmmmm. Everything else seemed to be working. She was able to see them clearly and tap on them.
When we went to an earlier memory, when her echo was only four years old, my client suddenly realized "Oh! She doesn't understand me because I'm speaking English! She only speaks Russian!"
I had heard of this happening but had forgotten, in part because my client's English was really good. Once she switched to Russian we were very successful!
The very next day I was working with a Polish woman and knew enough to have her speak Polish to her younger selves. I just thought that was fascinating!

My First Workshops!

2011-04-27T16:50:00.000-07:00

I've just published a sign up page for my upcoming workshops in Santa Cruz, California and Ashland, Oregon. Both of these are in beautiful settings! In Santa Cruz we'll be at The Garden Sanctuary. In Ashland at the Crystal Room of the historic Ashland Springs Hotel. I feel so lucky to have scored these spots.
These are official certification workshops for EFT Universe. I'm excited to be teaching for them, as the curriculum and program are top notch. I've discovered a burning passion for teaching and I can't wait to be doing these trainings.
Very soon I'll be adding Chiang Mai, Thailand (November) and Santa Rosa, California (January 2012).

New Name and New Website

2011-04-18T18:39:00.000-07:00

I've made a few changes to my business recently, including a new name: Tapping the Matrix, and a new website. It's a lot like the old one, but has a new page for Matrix Reimprinting, some new images here and there, and of course, a new name and banner.
I hope you like it!

Understanding Oneness Through Science

2011-02-24T13:45:00.000-08:00

This beautiful video has a very positive spiritual message, courtesy of quantum physics. It also helps us understand the nature of the Matrix we're working with.

Matrix Reimprinting

2011-02-23T10:04:00.000-08:00

I'm in love!
Matrix Reimprinting is a fantastic new technique that has captured my heart. This technique uses EFT but takes it a step further. The idea is that whenever we experience trauma (big or small) a part of us splits off and takes up residence in it's own energy field.

We call this split off part an ECHO (energy consciousness hologram) and it's very similar to the idea of an inner child--except that it can be any age (we have plenty of traumas as adults) and it isn't really "inner"--it lives in our energy field.

The amazing thing is that these ECHOs are real. They seem to have an independent, autonomous intelligence. I didn't fully believe this at first, but now that I've worked with enough of them, I know it's true. How do I know? When we ask them a question, the answer is often astonishing to my client. They have their own insights and desires. Really.

So how does it work? To put it very simply, I help my client step into the "matrix" (the field where the ECHO is living) and coach them to tap on their ECHO until the emotional distress is reduced. We then ask the ECHO what they learned about life from that experience. This provides immediate, clear understanding of the client's core beliefs. This is exactly where they come from!

We then ask the ECHO how they would like to change the situation to feel better about it. We can make all kinds of suggestions, practical and magical, but we want the ECHO to come up with the best solution. This is where the client gets some real surprises!

Once the situation is resolved in a good way and the original trauma has been replaced with good, happy feelings, we use an imprinting process to literally transform the original memory into the new picture.

When the client goes to remember the original event, they will see the new, happy picture instead. Or something along those lines.

This is incredibly profound work. Changing these memories seems to transform the original core belief, and bring about a fundamental shift in the person.

Right now it looks like I'll be certified as a Matrix Reimprinting practitioner by the end of April. I've been using it with great success in almost every session.
I'm in love!
If you'd like to book a session let me know. I can do this work over the phone!

Transformational Divorce - On The Radio!

2011-02-20T20:43:00.000-08:00

I'm being interviewed on EFT Radio Online next month about my work with Transformational Divorce! The show is on March 9th at 10am and it's a live call in show. It's also available later as a download or podcast.

The program is Love Tap Radio with host Alina Frank, an fellow certified EFT practitioner and trainer in the Seattle area.

This is my first radio experience and I'm pretty excited, especially as it's a call in show. Lucky for me the work I've been doing is very interesting and exciting. I think it'll make for a good program.

Emotional Baggage

2010-11-07T16:39:00.000-08:00

I like the term "emotional baggage". For me it conveys a sense of lugging something around. Something cumbersome and extraneous. A bother. But a bother with a handle. Emotional baggage can be dropped. Left at the station. Tossed overboard. Left behind. At least it can now that we have EFT. I love it.

Packa Pappas Kappsäck (Pack Daddy’s Suitcases), 2006 by Swedish artist Michael Johansson.

The Signal

2010-11-07T16:35:00.000-08:00

I’m starting to think that most of us have a little invisible antenna, sticking up from the back of our heads. It’s sending out a signal (beep beep beep) to attract very specific kinds of people and situations into our lives.

This image came to me while working with a very nice client I’ll call “Rose”. Again and again Rose would find herself in the same sort of peculiar situations, involving unusually selfish and narcissistic people who would make outrageous demands on her.

Her stories were remarkable, and I was astonished she’d been able to locate so many of these rare (and unlikable) characters. When I asked her about it, Rose was surprised: “What do you mean? Everyone is like that...at least, everyone I know”. This last statement made both of us laugh.

I’ve seen this sort of thing again and again in the couples counseling I do. It’s amazing how people come together to rub each other in just exactly the wrong way. Their issues mesh perfectly. Precisely. How do they find each other? It’s like a miracle.

I’ve come to believe our subconscious sends out secret signals. And of course we must also have subliminal receivers built in. These signals must be very subtle and almost irresistible, because no one would consciously choose to hook up with awful people, right?

So how do we kill the signal? How do we stop calling in the jerks from all directions? Let’s look at the energy powering the signal. My guess is that it comes from bottled up emotions. Unresolved traumas and memories laden with intense fear or shame, anger or sadness; these things “cry out” for resolution.

Unfortunately, the subconscious mind is very literal. It tries to resolve these feelings by reenacting the original scenario. And so the signal goes out, inviting new actors to come play the same old roles in these painful dramas. We may act them out over and over, but it doesn’t usually help.

With EFT, on the other hand, we now have a way to discharge the original emotional intensity. And as the energy behind the signal fades away, we have a new opportunity to change what we’re broadcasting. We can deliberately choose to attract kind, loving people who are generous and supportive. We can call in opportunities for success.

The power behind these new signals comes directly from our decision to “deeply love and completely accept” ourselves. This is the emotional freedom that EFT stands for.

Tapping for a Dog's Fear of Fireworks

2010-07-03T21:55:00.000-07:00

Tonight is the Third of July. Even though the big fireworks happen tomorrow night, several towns nearby have their celebrations tonight and I could hear the booms and cracks quite clearly. So could my neighbor's dog. Usually a quiet little dog, he began a high pitched howling shortly after the explosions began. This was a really awful sound of panic and great distress. Very soon another dog joined in and it seemed that they were setting eachother off. They seemed to be getting more and more hysterical and I felt called to do something.

Without much thought I began tapping for the dogs. "Even though I'm so scared of the loud sounds, my master loves me and will protect me and I'm safe" "Even though the other dogs are scared too, so it must be something really bad, my master will keep me safe" "Even though these sounds are freaking me out, I'm going to be okay and my master will protect me". I began tapping through the points as if I were the dogs "these loud sounds" "so afraid" "these scary sounds". Within two or three minutes the dogs completely stopped howling and barking. Given that they'd been howling for 15 minutes straight and were only getting worse, I believe it was the tapping that made the change.

Since tomorrow night is the Fourth of July, I may get another chance to practice this surrogate tapping for dogs. If you encounter any freaked out animals, be sure to give it a try!

Great News!

2010-06-06T12:16:00.000-07:00

Some Great News

For many years one of the great treasures of the EFT world has been Gary Craig's weekly newsletters, featuring articles from different practitioners on a host of topics.

When Gary decided to retire, near the end of last year, his website stayed up, but the newsletters stopped coming. And then he announced that the website would have to come down too, and eventually set a date of June 1st.

This was very bad news, since that website contains a treasure trove of information and hundreds of articles and case studies for just about every problem you could imagine. As a practitioner I've used the search bar countless times for ideas and inspiration.

The thought of losing this wealth of knowledge was devastating. Hundreds of thousands of us were holding our breath, waiting for Gary's final announcement.

Yesterday that announcement came. And though Gary's website emofree.com is indeed closing, it has been replaced by eftuniverse.com, run by Dawson Church and will contain all of the old information plus an ongoing stream of new articles and case studies.

And the newsletter is back! If you'd like to subscribe, and I highly recommend it, you can click here to sign up.

From the EFT community I'm hearing a vast sigh of relief.

EFT Free

One good thing that did come out of the months of uncertainty is another EFT website eftfree.net, which has become a parallel repository of EFT knowledge and case studies.

Recently they published their own EFT manual, a free pdf download. I recommend this site to anyone interested in deepening their knowledge of this powerful healing tool.

If you haven't been tapping lately, why not jump on board this energetic bandwagon and tap away some old emotional baggage?

If you'd like help, I've decided to offer half off your first session, phone or office for the month of June! Feel free to call me if you have any questions. 707-280-8134

Warm regards,

Rob

Letting Go of a Weight Issue

2010-04-11T15:46:00.000-07:00

Recently I’ve been working with “Ken” who is seriously overweight. He’s about 5’8 but weighs well over 300 pounds and, as you might imagine, this is a real problem for him. However, it’s not a problem we’ve been working on. It’s actually well down the list.

Ken had it pretty rough growing up, with abandonment, brutal beatings and verbal abuse by his various caretakers, sexual abuse, you name it. All of these factors have contributed to a rather unhappy adult life, and we have been working steadily on discharging the negative emotions and beliefs intertwined with Ken’s traumatic memories.

After one particularly productive session Ken found himself “bingeing” all during the week. He was feeling very upset with himself and hopeless about ever returning to a normal size, so I came up with some homework for him around food.

Like most addictions, over eating is essentially a tranquilizer, used to quell deep down anxiety. As he begins to feel stronger, less anxious and more peaceful, Ken’s need to comfort himself with food will gradually disappear.

The problem is that his “tranquilizer” is generating its own anxiety! A classic vicious circle.

I asked Ken to notice every time he finds himself scarfing down the comfort food. Instead of struggling to stop himself, his task is to embrace that underlying desire to nurture and care for himself, and tap something like the following:

“Even though I’m eating this tub of ice cream, and I know it’s not really good for my health, I deeply love and completely accept myself, it’s been a rough day and I just need to feel better right now” and then as he tapped the points “eating this ice cream….I need some comfort….it’s been a hard day…..I love and accept myself anyway….this ice cream…etc.”

The idea is just to recognize that urge to take action to feel better. This “I’m going to eat sweets to feel better” program was probably adopted when Ken was pretty young, just a small child. Instead of battling against it with will power, the idea is to sidle up next to it and put his arm around its shoulders, so to speak.

The message is “Yes! It’s tough out there and we really want to feel better right now! And I love you for sharing that with me, we’re on the same side”. This is an honest and genuine message, because really it’s just the method for feeling better that’s in question.

Now even if Ken does this wholeheartedly, he’s liable to also feel a familiar sense of self-disgust or even self-loathing. He knows very well that ice cream is hurting him and feels angry, powerless and hopeless about not being able control his eating. And this is another level to tap on.

This “I’m going to hate myself healthier” program was likely adopted later on, possibly in the teenage years, but the motivation is actually just the same—to nurture and care for himself. Unfortunately this battle for control with the younger (and more powerful) “Eat sweets” program creates enough stress and anxiety all on its own to keep Ken bingeing.

I suggested a second and later course of tapping, something like this:

“Even though I’m so disgusted with myself for eating that ice cream, I deeply love and completely accept myself for wanting to be healthy and for wanting to take better care of myself.” And then tapping the points “This self-disgust…this desire to be healthy…this self-loathing…it’s been a hard day…. this need to take better care of myself…etc.”

So eat the ice cream. Enjoy it! And tap in appreciation for that desire to feel better, to nurture yourself. And then tap like crazy on any self-disgust that comes up. Tap in appreciation for trying to take control of your health, for trying to take better care of yourself.

I’m not suggesting this is all that’s required to lose weight, but it might take care of the issue enough to tackle the more fundamental issues. And as your anxiety is tapped away, the desire for that ice cream will go with it.

Specializing

2010-03-03T10:35:00.000-08:00

I've decided to specialize! For years I've helped people with a host of different problems, but just lately it has become clear to me that I'm doing my very best work when I'm helping people deal with the aftermath of a divorce, and helping discharge emotional trauma and PTSD.
So I just ordered new business cards. They are double sided and here's the front and back.
Of course, I'll still help folks any way I can, but having this new focus is already helping me refine my skills, and hopefully reach more people who can use my assistance.

Someone asked me "Why divorce recovery?" and it took me some time to answer that question. What I've come to realize is that while divorce is usually a horrible experience to go through, it really sets the stage for tremendous personal growth. With just a little bit of assistance (tap tap tap), I've seen people go from flat out miserable to genuinely happy, energized and excited about their future. I live for this sort of quantum leap!

Helping people overcome trauma and PTSD isn't usually as much fun, but it's tremendously satisfying work that I seem born to do. I'm hoping in the near future to deepen my skills by working with war vets, police and emergency medical folks, who may have taken on severe trauma in the public service. But so many people have horrific experiences to offload, and every single time we tap the darkness away, the world seems a little brighter.

Core Beliefs

2010-02-27T10:26:00.000-08:00

One of the things that makes EFT so exciting to me is that we can change our subconscious 'core beliefs' that so heavily influence (or wreak havoc on) our daily lives. These beliefs can be very powerful, even though we may be completely unaware of them, sabotaging our efforts to change our lives for the better.
This morning I came across a brilliant explanation of Core Beliefs by EFT practitioner Mary Jones of the UK. Her writing is clear, concise and thorough. Check it out here: Core Belief Change.

photo by Pierre Vossen

Insomnia

2010-02-11T21:06:00.001-08:00

If you’ve ever had insomnia you know how awful it can be. No matter how tired you may be, you just awake in bed, feeling the need for sleep, sometimes desperately, yet sleep won’t come. It can be excruciating.

Sometimes EFT can provide immediate relief. Many people have had great results simply tapping on “can’t sleep, can’t sleep, can’t sleep”, even if they are only tapping mentally so as to not wake up their partner. Sometimes this works and sometimes not.

I think this direct approach works best when the problem is mainly due to a build up of daily life anxiety. Most of us have times when our stress level seems to spike. Gearing up for exams, pre-wedding jitters, getting ready for an important interview, having a bad argument, all sorts of events can make us feel overloaded with unfinished business, worry about the future and regrets about the past. EFT can really help smooth out the anxiety and allow us the rest we need.

Chronic insomnia is a whole different animal, and in my experience, it needs a more in-depth intervention.

Our ego has a lot of important jobs to do. Most of these are pretty obvious. We rely on our ego to get us through the day, make countless observations, judgments and decisions. We can’t really function very well without this central sense of “I”. And at the end of the day we expect our ego to simply knock off work, shut down, turn off and leave us to the unconscious mind where we can rest and dream.

That’s all well and good, except for one little thing. Sometimes we’ve given our ego a special job, a secret job, a job that’s so important it feels like ‘do or die’. That job is to keep certain memories at bay. To keep them far away from our conscious awareness. To repress them by any means necessary.

Perhaps the original event we mustn’t remember actually was life threatening. Or perhaps it only felt so at the time. Either way, the memory is overloaded with too much emotion, whether it’s fear, horror, grief, guilt, shame or what have you. The ego’s job is to keep these memories at bay. This can be a top priority job, especially at times when outside circumstances have stirred things up or triggered the original feelings.

Sometimes, just as they are falling asleep, some people get a terrible jolt of adrenaline, forcing the ego back on the job. This is a likely sign that memories that have been kept at bay by the ego, have come rushing in, triggering the fight or flight reaction.

So how can the ego shut down and turn off and still keep these feelings and memories at bay? Maybe it can’t. In the face of this seemingly impossible impasse, the ego will pay almost any price to stay awake and keep you ‘safe’. No wonder so many people resort to various drugs to shut it down. Who can blame them?

When someone is suffering from chronic insomnia, and simple, direct EFT doesn’t help much, or at all, the true remedy is to address those highly charged memories and drain them of their emotional content. This may take more than a session or two, depending on how many traumas need to be cleared, but it should be very do-able, especially if you have help. And there will be many other benefits beyond a good night’s sleep.

If you feel anxious addressing your traumatic memories, or if you aren’t sure what they are and need some help with detective work, you may want to find a skilled practitioner for help and guidance.

Meta Tapping

2010-02-02T17:06:00.000-08:00

I've been working on a new approach to tapping recently. Instead of addressing a negative emotion, memory, core belief or physical symptom, we use words that directly invoke the energy system and the immediate effects of tapping. I'm calling this Meta Tapping.

Here is an example of wording I used with a client who was heavily "reveresed" and not making much progress:

First the set up statements: Even though the energy system surrounding my heart is disrupted and enmeshed with negative emotions, this tapping is sending pulses of energy directly into that energy system, and these pulses are carrying my intention to feel better.

Even though I have this painful disruption in the energy system around my heart, I am tapping pulses of energy right now, and these pulses are impacting that energy system and straightening it out. These pulses are carrying my intention to love and accept myself.

Even though my heart is enmeshed in a disrupted energy system, the tapping I am doing right now this very moment is smoothing out the tangles and straightening out the disruptions, slowly but surely with every single tap.

And then as reminder phrases: This tapping, This tapping is sending pulses into my energy field. This tapping is carrying the power of my intention to heal. This tapping is smoothing out the disruption. This tapping. This tapping is shaking out the trapped pain in my energy system. This tapping is working even now, slowly but surely. Every single tap is carrying healing intention into my energy system.

My energy system is becoming smooth and there is nothing for the negativity to grab on to. My energy system is becoming slick and the negativity has no way to cling to it. My energy system is smoothing out. Every tap is carrying smoothing energy into my system. Any negativity is now sloughing off.

I threw this in at the end: No matter how negative I feel I accept myself. No matter how tired I become I accept myself. I accept myself right now and I accept all my negative feelings and I accept the way that I am changing. I accept my anger. I accept my guilt and shame. It doesn’t matter how bad I feel, I’m going to accept myself anyway. I accept myself for feeling better and I accept myself for feeling stuck.

I think this might be an exciting approach to explore. I'd love to hear from anyone who gives it a try.

Gout!

2010-01-31T20:36:00.000-08:00

Last night a friend came over with her new sweetheart. She'd been telling us that he has had a nasty case of gout. Gout? I didn't know people still got that. Makes me think of Benjamin Franklin! He was very happy to try tapping, although his gout had been getting better. He said it was only about a "2", but had been upwards of 9 or 10 a few weeks earlier.
We tapped on "this gout" and "this inflammation and pain", which brought it down to a one. Then on impulse I had him tap on "this fear of taking a step" and "this fear of moving ahead in my life" and "putting my best foot forward". That took it all the way down to zero. He was very happy!
I really love seeing these physical problems vanish. I've been reading a great book The Genie In Your Genes, which explains how that's possible.

Starting a Tapping Group

2010-01-08T13:28:00.000-08:00

I love working with groups. The energy of a group makes me feel like a swimmer, buoyed up by warm waters and carried along by exciting currents.
So I've been wanting to start a tapping group for quite a while, and this first month of a new decade seems like an auspicious time.

Here's the web page I just finished for it. Check it out!

I've settled on Tuesday evenings 7 to 8:30 and January 19th for the first session. They'll be $25 a week with the first night free. How does that sound?

I'm hoping this will allow me to work with a lot more folks each week. It's also a very affordable way to get the benefits of EFT. I think I have room for up to 12 people in my office conference room, although it may just be me those first few Tuesdays!

"Even though I'm the only one here, I deeply and completely accept myself..."

Perseverance Furthers

2010-01-01T17:17:00.000-08:00

One of the things that makes doing EFT so fun is the possibility of the “two minute miracle”. Someone has been suffering from a shame filled memory, debilitating phobia or chronic physical pain and with a few rounds of tapping it’s just gone.

That startled look, the blinking eyes, and inevitable question: “What happened? Where did it go?” have become a familiar pleasure for me. And when the pain was severe, or the phobia 25 years running, and suddenly it’s history, EFT can be positively thrilling.

But it doesn’t always work out that way.

Some issues have many aspects to resolve, and this takes time. Sometimes certain aspects of the problem are buried and may want a bit of detective work. Other problems may be straightforward, but just seem to require tenacious tapping to get anywhere. In these situations, an expectation of instant results can make it very tempting to give up.

So if you’ve been “trying” EFT and haven’t had any “two minute miracles” yet, please don’t be discouraged. Sometimes the miracles just take a little longer. Keep tapping!

EFT and the Flu

2009-11-24T09:36:00.000-08:00

Can EFT be effective against the flu or common cold? Here's an account of one man's success in fending off a violent flu. This was posted on Gary Craig's EFT site, what I call The Mother Ship. You can type in just about any malady into the search bar and somebody, somewhere has tried EFT on the problem, often with good results.

Obviously I think EFT is the greatest thing since sliced bread. But here are some other important things I've been doing to reduce susceptibility to influenza (this is not intended as medical advice):

It's important to remember that the flu has only two access points to your body--your mouth and your nose. Clearly, hand washing, especially when we've been out in public, is a great defense. Also avoiding any habitual touching of the mouth or face.

If influenza is introduced into your mouth or sinuses, it takes about three days or so to establish itself sufficiently to make you sick. During this time you can wipe it out with warm saline water, gargling for the throat and using a neti-pot for the sinuses. Drinking hot tea also helps flush any germs down to the stomach where they are destroyed.

Another line of defense I've been using is an 'activated mushroom complex'. This seems to be the cutting edge of building one's immune system. I'm taking Host Defense made by Newchapter Organics, but I'm sure there are many other great brands out there. These aren't cheap, but then neither is getting sick! I take these along with the usual: Vitamin C and D, garlic capsules and occasional B vitamins--not on a regular basis, but whenever I'm feeling 'at risk'.

Finally, I use Zand Throat Spray whenever I feel the least bit of a scratchy throat. It's not too nasty, but you can tell it's powerful.

I hope that you sail through the cold and flu season in great health, and practice EFT to keep your spirits high.

Getting Organized

2009-11-18T21:01:00.000-08:00

I met a woman a while back whose job was helping people organize their homes. She was a professional organizer. Folks would pay her to come into their messy homes and help them sort through their crap, get rid of stuff and set up systems to keep the chaos at bay.

Now I’ve always been a ‘do-it-yourself-er’ kind of guy, so my first thought was “why would anyone actually pay you to do what they could so easily do for themselves?” Clearly not an issue for most of her clients. I guess if your house has been a big mess for the past 12 years, eventually you stop kidding yourself.

She said her biggest challenge was helping prospective clients see the value in having an organized home. What would it mean to them to have all that extra space? To be able to find what they were looking for right away? To enjoy the serenity that naturally follows simplicity?

As she talked I began to see the similarities with the work I do. Only, instead of working on their house, I help them clean out the basement (that is, their subconscious mind).

Let me tell you, for most people, the subconscious mind is a really big mess. There are heaps of old tape loops—half of them running nonstop and the other half set to click on at the drop of a hat. You’ve got closets full of deep dark memories, all saturated with the worst sorts of emotions, often leaking out onto current events. There are self-sabotaging programs kicking the props out from under of all efforts for change and progress. We see piles of debilitating core beliefs, not to mention energy draining guilt and shame deposits. Ugh!

Until EFT came along, dealing with your subconscious was really not a ‘do-it-yourself’ kind of job. Not that you were likely to get all that much help from the pros. But where traditional talk therapy gives you a teaspoon and says “start digging”, EFT hands you a snow shovel. You can make a lot of progress very quickly!

And that’s just doing it on your own. A session with a skilled practitioner? Imagine Mr. Clean with a backhoe and a fire hose—we’re going to clear out a lot of ‘stuff’ fast.

Sometimes when I’m telling people about EFT I feel like a snake oil salesman. It probably sounds too good to be true. Imagine trying to describe an ipod to a teenager back in 1966.

But today I’m wondering if I’ve been doing a good enough job helping prospective clients see the value of a clean and organized subconscious mind?

Whether you do it yourself, or hire a pro, the ultimate benefits are the same: enhanced inner peace, the freedom to know and pursue your passions, greater clarity, energy and health, and new access to happiness and joy.

EFT. It's a great "product". Fast, effective and FREE! Try it on Everything. Try it today!

photo courtesy BoingBoing.com

Happy Tapping

2009-11-07T18:45:00.000-08:00

I'm famous! Sort of. This article in our local newspaper The Bohemian just came out. Here's a link.

A Pain in the Neck

2009-11-04T21:46:00.000-08:00

For many years I had a massage therapy practice, and I still see a few of my old clients time to time.

“Diane” has been coming to me for almost nine years, ever since she injured her neck in the workplace. Every month or two her neck and shoulders would get so tight that she'd end up with a migraine headache. When the pain would get too bad, I'd do my bodywork and she'd feel better for awhile.

A few days ago Diane came in for yet another massage. Her neck was so stiff she couldn't turn her head side to side—she had to move her torso. She said her pain was a 9 out of 10. I really had no idea whether it would work or not, but I decided to try EFT before doing any bodywork. I felt all fired up from studying for my certification, and ready to tackle anything.

I had Diane tap on the karate chop point and say “Even though I have this neck ache....” and then we went through the basic recipe, 9 gamut and all. She went from a 9 down to a 6 or 7 right away. From there I had her say: “Even though I still have some of this neck pain....” and as we tapped “This remaining neck pain”.

The pain dropped down to a 4 or 5, then after another round down to 3. At this point I decided to ask if she thought there was an emotional contributor to the pain. “Oh yes” she said, “anger!”. So we did a round or two on anger:

“Even though this pain has kept me from living the life I wanted to live.”

“Even though I'm angry at my workplace for not protecting me.”

“Even though I'm totally sick of this pain and angry it won't get better”.

After that a few more rounds brought it down to zero. Diane was amazed! She was moving her head from side to side and swinging it all around—no more pain. I had been watching the clock and in just ten minutes we'd accomplished far more than 75 minutes of intensive massage therapy.

I told her that I didn't know if we'd solved the problem forever, but if it came back then she'd be able to tap on the pain as soon as it was noticeable, and before it got very bad. She loved the idea of being in control of the situation, after so many years of feeling victimized by the injury.

We won't really know for a month or two if the EFT caused a permanent resolution of Diane's neck issue, but my guess is that I just lost my last massage client. And that's fine by me. Getting results like this is tremendously satisfying!

Iraq Vets Stress Project

2009-10-28T11:16:00.000-07:00

I recently signed up to provide free EFT sessions for Iraq vets who are experiencing PTSD or other war related traumas.
The Iraq Vets Stress Projec t is essentially a research program attempting to get enough hard data to convince the the VA to make EFT therapy available for all vets.
If you know of an Iraq or Vietnam era veteran who needs help, I'm offering up to six free sessions. They can contact me directly, or check out the Stress Project website.

Certified

2009-10-28T09:02:00.000-07:00

Last month I took Gary Craig's new exam for EFT practitioners. For many years Gary had a very hands off approach to credentials and allowed third party groups to offer them. This led to a very confusing array of titles and initials behind the names of practitioners who might or might not be very qualified.
This year Gary established an official EFT credential program with rigorous exams to pass. So far just the Cert-1 is available to take. I spent a good solid month studying for the test, which was largely based on three sets of training dvds. Rumor had it that the exam was pretty tough. It was. There's no way you could pass it without a thorough knowledge and understanding of the material.
At first I was reluctant to commit the time and energy to studying. I had already watched the dvds once, studied the manual and The Promise of Energy Psychology. I'd taken three workshops for practitioners, and worked with a great many clients with fantastic results.
As soon as I began studying though, I became very excited--picking up ideas and techniques I'd missed or glanced over the first time though. My sessions with clients became even more productive and my enthusiasm for EFT has been supercharged.
Now that I'm on the website, I'm getting calls from all around the US and abroad, and doing more phone sessions than ever before. I love it.
If you'd like to start learning EFT, the best place to start is downloading Gary's free manual. Here's a link.

Fear of Heights in Yosemite

2009-10-14T17:36:00.000-07:00

Last week my daughter took four days of nature classes in Yosemite National Park. On the second day I helped chaperone the group of eight kids. We were to hike up a steep trail toward the top of Yosemite Falls, but one little girl, “Anna”, age 9, was really holding up the group. She kept repeating that she “hated heights” and wanted to go back down right now. She would only walk very slowly, and only with the teacher holding her hand.

When we stopped for a break I could see the teacher was frustrated and at a loss, so I asked the little girl if she'd like me to help take away her fear. I told her that was my job back home and it was very easy and wouldn't hurt at all.

After some hesitation she agreed and I had her tap on her karate chop point with the set up statement: “Even though I have this fear of heights I'm a great kid”. We tapped the short cut points with “This fear of heights” but about halfway through, another little boy shouted “does anyone want my apple?”, totally distracting Anna. I had to ask for her attention again to complete that single round of tapping. Nevertheless, when I asked about her fear, she in a very matter of fact voice: “It's gone”.

And it was! No more problems hiking.

The other chaperone was very excited by this success. He asked if this EFT only worked on children? This made me laugh since I rarely get to work with kids in my practice. He told me his wife, “Jane” had a severe height phobia and I agreed to work with her back at our camp the next morning.

When I asked Jane to just think about heights in the most general way, she reported her anxiety as an 8 out of 10. A round of tapping on “this fear of heights” only brought it down to a 7. Not much improvement. I added in the 9 point gamut, but got no real change.

I asked how she knew it was a 7 and she said there was a heavy feeling on her heart. So we began tapping on “This heavy feeling on my heart” and after six or seven rounds we got it down to zero. It took some persistence!

After that I asked her for specific situations that had triggered her fear. Climbing to the top of a ladder, to get into her attic, was a big one. Especially the feeling of falling over backwards. She started about a 7 again, but this time it only took three rounds, which included “This falling over backwards feeling”.

The next memory was about going on a carnival ride with her son. Even though the ride was “only” about 15 feet high, and she trusted it enough to put her son on it, she'd been in tears the whole time and very embarrassed by her fear.

I had her tap the karate chop point and say “Even though I was afraid of this dumb kiddie ride...” and at that point she began to laugh. She laughed and laughed harder until tears were running down her cheeks. Her husband looked at me in astonishment. I'm used to sighs and yawns, but this was a huge release of energy. We never got past the set up statement because she said all the anxiety was gone.

I asked her to vividly imagine various scenarios—standing on a cliff edge, at the top of a wobbly ladder, etc. She said she could maybe get up to a “2” so we did one more round of general tapping.

Luckily there was a fairly large boulder right next to the campsite. I had her climb up to the top and stand on the edge, about 10 feet off the ground. No anxiety. I had her husband hold onto her coat while she put her feet right on the edge and closed her eyes. I had her imagine she was on the edge of a precipice. No anxiety.

It had taken nearly an hour—no one minute miracle this time, but we called it a success.

That evening her husband came up to me and said he had “photographic evidence” on his digital camera. The pictures showed Jane climbing the very steep and sheer path up to Vernal Falls, then standing a foot away from a vertical drop (she was still using normal caution). I was elated, but it wasn't till the next day, when I hiked up that path myself, that I really got how successful we'd been.

I'd have to say we were three happy campers!

Shedding Old Junk

2009-06-30T18:32:00.001-07:00

We have a big shed in our backyard. We keep our bikes in there, my old tools and hardware, the snow boots and camping gear, and about 10,000 boxes and piles of junk.
Today I needed to find a few things. It was like one of those puzzles where there's one empty spot and you have to slide the tiles around to form the picture. Only the tiles were heavy and dirty and the empty spot was outside on the lawn. Ugh.
After a while I realized I'd gone far beyond trying to find those few things I was looking for. Without meaning to, I'd tackled the shed itself. I do this two or three times a year and when I'm all done there's an amazing amount of room in there. I could set up a ping pong table!
But getting to that point is awful, sorting through all the dusty chaos.
Right in the middle of this process, it occurred to me that this must be what some of my clients feel when we start in on their issues. It's a mess down there, in that old subconscious! Even with our great new cleaning aids like tapping, it's still a job of work. And we might not remember or realize just how spacious and wonderful and full of new potential that inner space can become.
Most of us start therapy for the same reason I started in on my shed today--we just can't put up with the mess any longer. We aren't even thinking about all that lovely space when we're done. It's a nice surprise.
Symbol of Chaos by Ant Allan

Lighten Up! Some thoughts on weight loss.

2009-06-05T12:49:00.000-07:00

Let's play with this metaphor:

Caught up in an adventure, you escape from the bad guys by jumping into a hot air balloon. Casting off you quickly rise up out of their reach. Ha ha! But turning around you see the city rooftops rushing toward you—you aren't going to clear them! You'll crash and burn! Oh no!

At this point in the film, what do you do? You begin tossing sandbags over the side, of course. As you dump the extra weight, the balloon soars higher, clearing the rooftops and sailing on into a beautiful new day, full of promise and wonder. Pass the popcorn, please.

Lightening up is really just the flip side of losing weight, wouldn't you agree? We need to lighten up whenever we're taking things too seriously, feeling unhappy, forgetting to count our blessings or not enjoying life as much as we might. These are our sandbags.

Most people who struggle with weight loss are fixated on their body. The weight they want to lose is the excess fat on their stomach, thighs or butt. Since fat is a physical thing tied to eating too much, or eating the bad stuff, it just makes sense to diet and exercise.

But if this is just plain common sense, why doesn't it work? The weight always returns, and usually with a little extra thrown in. Why?

When you decide to go on a diet (and stay on it) that's a conscious decision. You've made that decision with your conscious mind, and your conscious mind likes to pretend it's in charge of your will power. But it really isn't.

Most people don't realize just how powerful their subconscious mind is. In fact, some people don't even know they have one! Consider the millions (or even billions) of tiny little decisions and actions required just to walk across a room (or lift a piece of chocolate cake to your mouth). Our conscious mind simply isn't up to the job. Almost everything gets decided subconsciously.

For example, suppose you are driving along and suddenly the brake lights on the car ahead of you flash red. Do you have time to think “Hmmmm, those break lights just turned red, what does that mean again? Oh yes, it's a message that I should hit my brakes. But really, I am in a hurry and why should I have to obey all these rules anyway? What's the worst that could happen...., oh right, a crash. Well that would be bad. I guess I'll hit the brakes to avoid it”?

When brake lights flash red a simple program is activated: , and your foot is on the brake pedal before you have time to think. That program is housed in your wonderful subconscious mind, along with thousands ( or millions) of other potentially less helpful programs.

Most people have a host of programs just around food issues. Here's a very simple example: . You can fill in the blank with your favorite treat. The problem with this particular program is that eating ______ will probably make you fat. The more you get fat, the more you feel sad. The more you feel sad the more the program is re-activated, and so on and so forth.

You may have dozens of food programs running all the time, and they may be tied in to all sorts of subconscious belief systems. A common one for many women runs something like .

If you set your conscious will power against a program like that, guess which one is going to win? These unhelpful (and sometimes toxic) subconscious programs are the sandbags we need to toss. And that's where Energy Psychology comes in.

It used to be with traditional talk therapy that the best you could hope for would be an understanding of your sandbags. You could eventually gain insight into what they were and where you picked them up, but there was no real way to chuck them over the side. That's all changed.

With the new meridian tapping techniques, like EFT, you can actually delete, erase, and replace these programs. The process basically involves calling the program up into your energy field, within a context of self acceptance, and then tapping on a sequence of acupuncture points. It sounds more complicated than it is. You can find more detailed instructions by clicking here.

My Never Diet Again program is based around a script to read while tapping. The script contains all of the most common sandbags, programs, core beliefs and emotional triggers that keep extra weight on and prevent lasting change. This will save you time and trouble digging around in your subconscious.

Whether you use our program or do it yourself, it's absolutely possible to tap away the barriers, not only to losing weight, but to feeling good about ourselves too.

One reason for optimism is this: Our bodies come to us all nicely programmed to recognize and desire just the right combination of foods for optimal health and well being. In other words, our “default” settings are perfect. So it's just a matter of removing all the added on junk.

And that's the weight to lose first.

That Old Stereotype

2009-04-30T21:18:00.000-07:00

Does this sound familiar? A patient lies on a padded leather couch, while the bearded old Freudian analyst scribbles on his pad of paper and murmurs “go on” and “I see” and “yes, now tell me about your mother”. The whole affair is vastly time consuming, expensive and ineffective. Honestly, therapy is for rich, neurotic and pathetic New Yorkers who should just get over themselves, right?

I mention this common stereotype for two reasons. One is that many people are embarrassed to ask for help with emotional problems.

There is nothing frivolous or self indulgent about getting help!

To the contrary, it takes courage and responsibility to put the energy into making your life better. The desire to better ourselves and grow is essential to our humanity and to our happiness.

The second point I'd like to make is that EFT sessions are an incredible bargain. Instead of the long drawn out course of treatment in our stereotype, where you hope you might be getting better, with EFT you can expect to quickly resolve your issues permanently.

Most of my clients are “done” after one to six sessions. By this I mean they are substantially over their issues and able to engage life again with new energy and optimism.

Wading Through The Swamp

2009-04-30T19:57:00.000-07:00

On a hike with my family this winter, the path forward was flooded. Up till then we'd been able to skirt the really muddy patches and puddles, but when we got to this point it was deep water all about. We couldn't go on without totally soaking our shoes.
It seemed that we'd have to go back the way we came. But that was a long muddy way. We were actually quite near the end of our trail.
We tried and tried to find a passage through, and had a heated debate about going back. But finally we just took our shoes off and waded through the swamp water.
It was actually my favorite part of the hike! The mud on the trail was just a bit squishy between my toes, and it was a rather warm day, so the water wasn't too terribly cold. At the end we found a faucet and washed the mud off. No harm done.
This struck me as a good metaphor for therapy! We've all got these boggy spots in our psyches. Flooded with emotion, if you will. We get swamped. They seem so unpleasant and impassable that we'll go to just about any lengths to avoid them, even when the direct path is straight through.
Many people are terrified of 'getting into it'. They feel that if ever they start crying they'll never be able to stop. They'll end up in the madhouse. Same thing goes for expressing anger or rage.
Most often the only way out is through.
What makes EFT so great is that it's like draining the swamp. You never sink in up to your neck, and the little bit of wading we do turns out to be not so bad. Ankle deep at best and then we're out. Okay, that's not a perfect metaphor, but I still like it.

I've Been Busy!

2009-04-27T10:58:00.001-07:00

Since my last post I've been to Thailand, written a book and revamped my EFT website. Not to mention seeing a few clients here and there.
I went to Thailand to have my teeth fixed. I ended up saving over four thousand dollars doing this! And that's including the price of the airfare. I was so happy with the quality of the care I received, not to mention saving all that money, that I decided to write a "how to" book so other folks could take advantage of this opportunity. My book just went on sale yesterday. I'm going to put a little ad on this blog for it.
I've also re-done my website, mainly re-writing parts of it to match my growing understanding of energy psychology. I'm not liable to win the Pulitzer Prize, but I think it will be more useful for people looking for help. Here's a sample:

Another great feature of EFT involves the elimination of self-sabotaging and limiting beliefs. This can be a by-product of working with painful memories, or they can be pursued directly. What do I mean by “beliefs”?

We develop our “core beliefs” in two ways. By nature we interpret the events we experience. We might decide that the cruelty of a parent, for example, means that something is dreadfully wrong with us. Or that the world is not a safe place. Or that we should never sing, because that's what seemed to provoke the parent's anger.

Sometimes we are told these things directly by our parents or other authority figures. Once we accept these that we're clumsy, or mean, or lazy the pattern is set. Or we might ingest the idea that money is evil, or men are all pigs, or nothing comes easy in this world.

Once we adopt these beliefs they become the lenses through which we see and interpret future events. They tend to become self reinforcing. By subconsciously expecting bad things to happen we tend to attract them.

It can take years of traditional therapy to uncover and change these dysfunctional core beliefs. With EFT it can be done in a matter of hours, especially with the help of a skilled practitioner.

If you've been wanting positive change in your life, let me encourage you to give EFT a try, either on your own, or with a practitioner. Click here for more information on booking a session.

Walking Backwards Into The Future

2009-01-09T18:54:00.001-08:00

A lot of my clients had terrible things happen to them. Sometimes as little children, babies even. Sometimes much more recently. And very often they’ll be transfixed by the past, and a great deal of their energy goes into coping with it.

Perhaps they’re stuck reliving the events over and over, trapped in a state of endless turmoil or sorrow or rage. Or they may be working so hard to repress old memories that their life is drained of joy and spontaneity. Some people get locked into patterns of reactive compensation, and end up following a life path that has no real meaning for them. They wonder why their life feels so dead. Or why they keep falling into the same destructive patterns.

I’ve started thinking of this preoccupation with the past as Walking Backwards Into the Future.

As folks start shedding the old traumas and emotional baggage, as the compulsion to look back starts to fade, often times they’ll be at a loss for a while. What do I do now? If I don’t have this ‘issue’ anymore, then who am I?

This is the most delicious moment in therapy, when the realization really sets in that “Oh my god, I am FREE”. And that’s when (grounded in the present) we can finally turn around and face the future. We can take stock of what we really want to do, and be, and start making new choices.

That’s really why I’m in this business.

The Swamp Monster

2009-01-09T18:10:00.000-08:00

In the midst of her divorce and the death of her mother, Judy’s best friend essentially dumped her. She also found her supervisor and co-workers becoming increasingly un-supportive. No one wanted to hear about it and she began feeling increasingly isolated.

This was no surprise to me. Judy’s frustration, bitterness, negativity and sheer intensity were hard even for me to take. And it’s my job! She was alienating people left and right and just couldn’t help it. She couldn’t understand why no one was ‘there for her’. She was in too much pain to have empathy for their feelings.

So I gave her the analogy of someone who had been thrown into a swamp. An extremely yucky swamp, full of noisome smelly slimy green muck. Judy had gone in over her head and was trying to struggle back out onto solid ground—asking everyone around her to give her a hand and pull her out.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t recognize her. She was coated with muck and she stunk! And all that wild thrashing about! And she was roaring at them! She was a Swamp Monster and all they wanted to do was get the hell away!

So we used EFT—the emotional pressure washer—to start sloughing off the yucky emotions. It took a few sessions, but soon enough she was back on terra firma and ready to stop scaring people away. The day she began laughing in our session, I knew she’d made it.

Judy and the Avalance of Truama

2009-01-07T15:16:00.000-08:00

Judy showed up late for her appointment in a state of agitation. She had been referred to me by her doctor, who felt that Judy’s emotional suffering and intense negativity might be helped with EFT. From the moment we shook hands she began talking rapidly and with intensity. She kept running her hands through her rather wild hair and I was afraid she might actually start pulling it out! As her story unfolded a whole catalog of traumas emerged:

After surviving a rare and especially aggressive form of breast cancer (and the accompanying chemotherapy and radiation treatments) she discovered that her husband of 23 years had become a meth addict. He had been using and lying to her for years, was cheating on her and, as soon as he found out she’d survive the cancer, became

increasingly abusive. He had also somehow ‘lost’ more than a hundred thousand dollars of the equity in their home!

During the incredibly bitter divorce that followed, Judy’s mom died unexpectedly. Judy was unable to get there in time and was suffering terribly from guilt, unexpressed grief and rejection (turned out that her mother hadn’t wanted her there, a harsh finale for a lifetime of really cruel negation).

Shortly after her mother died, Judy’s best friend suddenly ‘dumped’ her and refused to talk about it, or to talk to Judy at all. Next her oldest child went off to college—a good thing in itself, but another source of grief for Judy. Then, at the end of the divorce, Judy bought a house that turned out to have serious undisclosed problems. After a fire broke out she sued the sellers for damages and was still involved in a stressful lawsuit.

Finally, Judy was experiencing intense grief over losing her old house, which she had helped build. She missed it terribly and really hated her new place. After nearly a year she hadn’t unpacked.

This avalanche of traumatic events, mostly falling within the past year and a half, had left Judy emotionally devastated, bitter, unstable and socially isolated. She came to me for relief and was ready to get right to work.

We began with the divorce and her rage at her ex husband rage, betrayal, rejection and bitterness—clocking in at 9 or 10 on the intensity scale. Even though I have this intense anger I deeply love and completely accept myself. It took about 20 minutes and many rounds of tapping to get the intensity down to a 2 or 3, and our time was just about up.

At the end of that first session Judy reported feeling much much better. One of the greatest things about EFT is that results are usually immediate, leaving no doubt about whether “it worked or not”. Judy enthusiastically booked another session for a few days later.

Over the next five weeks we tackled issue after issue, with Judy doing plenty of “homework” in between. Judy was finally able to divorce her ex husband emotionally, despite his on going efforts to ‘get her goat’. She was able to reconcile to having lost her friend and work through her grief at losing her old home. In fact, Judy was able to actually celebrate her one year anniversary at the new place, by unpacking some of her more beloved artwork and hanging it up.

The day we began working on Judy’s grief over her mom’s death was a surprise. The grief resolved very quickly, but also opened out into childhood memories of rejection. She and her sisters were told explicitly and repeatedly that they were worthless and would never receive a penny from their parents, or any other support. Only her brother was prized. And as Judy was smarter, stronger and more capable than her brother, she was singled out for abuse and rejection. When her brother died in his early 20’s from an accident, Judy’s mom made a special point of declaring she’d wished it had been Judy instead!

This toxic upbringing had set up an unhealthy foundation for all of Judy’s later relationships. We tapped on feelings of being unlovable, competitive, isolated and rejected. We did this using specific memories and also directly naming the emotions. How do you know when it’s working? Judy would go from tears streaming down her face and almost too choked up to speak, to being able to calmly recount what happened—peacefully open to new insights, compassion and even forgiveness. Also, by the third or fourth session, Judy started laughing! And she said she was dreaming again--she hadn’t remembered a dream in two years.

Our very last session we tackled the cancer. Specifically, her fear of remission. This was the only issue this brave woman ever flinched away from. It was a dreadful fear, buried deep inside and covered up with layers of denial. Bringing it up was like a cold wash of nausea and despair. I felt it too! But we tapped our way through every dark and terrible aspect of that fear and we both felt a great weight lifting as we progressed. By the end Judy was visibly relieved, feeling better than she had in years. (And I would speculate—less vulnerable to actually experiencing remission!)

I heard from Judy about a month after our last session. She was quite happy, feeling herself to be firmly on the other side of a bad time. And she was actually dating someone! That was unexpected.

This case study was written up with the kind permission of my client. And of course the name and certain other details have been changed.

2008-12-27T20:31:00.000-08:00

For information about EFT and my practice, please visit my new and much more extensive website: www.taprootsenergypsychology.com

When I first started my practice I used this blog as my website, intending it to be static—mainly offering information on EFT and who I am and what I offer. As my practice grew I decided to have a real website. It has a ridiculously long url, but lots of good information for people. It was a do it yourself project and doesn’t have as many bells and whistle as I’d like, but it gets the ideas across. But like most websites, it’s pretty much static—it’s a hassle changing it and the process of re-writing everything could drive me crazy. And where would that get us?

And so I’m starting over with this blog and I intend to make it as conversational as possible. I have case studies I want to share (with permission!) and thoughts on EFT and my own private practice as it evolves. I don’t know how much traffic I’ll get, but I’m hoping people use the comments—either to ask questions or to….leave comments?

In case you are new to blogs, they always have the most recent post at the top. So, if you want to start from the beginning, you’ll have to scroll down to the bottom and work your way up—sort of like the therapeutic process!