EFT Case Story: Healing a -10 Skeptic

Anne arrived for the session promptly and said she had done some internet research and although she had come along she didn't actually feel that EFT could help. This time she was less relaxed but came across as confident and self-assured.

I asked her for her degree of skepticism on the SUE scale as she said it was a -10. We started the session with a round on skepticism and she reported a reduction to -6 so we continued with a further round. At the end she said her levels were back up to -8 and in all honesty they hadn't come down to -6 at all. I reassured her that this was OK and that she didn't have to please me with progress, the session would simply evolve in its own way. We tapped another round on skepticism and she genuinely said that she was now down at -4.

We then started to chat about her heart problem in order to establish a good set-up statement and on talking about it she began to cry and apologized saying she was very stressed at the moment. I mentioned that the previous day she had said she wasn't stressed at all and she replied that she was constantly trying to put a brave face on things. We tapped two rounds on stress before we could continue.

In the space of about 10 minutes Anne had crumbled from a self-assured, together individual into an much more vulnerable state and it was evident from her body language that she didn't feel comfortable opening up to such a degree.

I asked her what she was feeling at that precise moment and she said she felt she had wasted her life in a destructive relationship and that she felt a deep sense of loss in her heart. Through her tears we sat quietly with hands over the heart centre and used the phrase 'I feel a deep sense of loss in my heart' when she felt able to speak. She took a few minutes to become calmer and then we tapped a round using 'sense of loss' as a reminder. After this she stopped crying and resumed her 'together' persona but in a much more open and receptive way. It felt as if a layer of defensiveness had melted away and the atmosphere seemed lighter. The connection between the two of us became easier.

Working together we came up with several phrases for her to take away and use as she saw fit. Anne suggested the words and I merely helped her put them together to form statements she felt truly reflected her feelings. These were:

• This feeling of wasting my life brings me down
• I now choose to move forwards with clarity and resourcefulness
• I feel a sense of loss in my heart
• I now choose to start moving forwards
• This feeling of wasting my life makes me really sad
• I now choose to face my fears
• This feeling of wasting my life makes me feel I've been stupid
• I now choose to listen to my emotions

After several rounds using the above phrases we talked about her heart condition and how her mother had died at the age Anne was now (52), and she acknowledged that she knew she took good care of herself diet-wise, didn't smoke and the likelihood of her suffering the same fate was small. She hadn't previously wanted to look at her relationship and by focusing on a physical complaint could ignore what was happening in her daily life. Anne left the session looking less stressed and anxious and visibly in a better more relaxed state that she had arrived.

Anne emailed a few weeks later unprompted to say 'I'm loving the tapping' which I felt was high praise indeed from a -10 skeptic. Her job involves a lot of travelling and she can be away for several months at a time. I will be in touch with her when she returns from her current trip to see how she is getting on and if she would like another session to help her to continue moving forwards.