Using the client’s cravings to enter into addictions and overweight cases
By Carol Look, EFT Master
Brenda attended my recent “EFT for Anxiety Relief” class at the National Guild of Hypnotists convention. As part of the agenda, I asked for volunteers for an in-class demonstration for food cravings and underlying feelings. Brenda was one of four volunteers.
She chose the bag of M&M’s from my pile of props, and rated her cravings for them as an “8” on the 0-10 point scale. Our first round of tapping was “Even though I have these cravings, and I really love the way my favorite food tastes, I deeply and completely accept myself.” Each person’s 0-10 craving ratings decreased. One woman said her craving had gone down significantly and she was now thinking of the good times she had with her father. Brenda echoed this thought and reported feeling profound grief. She had lost her father when she was 8 years old and her mother couldn’t handle her grief and crying so she gave Brenda food to shut her up.
All four volunteers associated their eating of junk foods with losses they had experienced.
“Even though I feel deep grief, and want to eat to cover it up, I deeply and completely accept myself.”
“Even though I feel these deep losses, and I want to stuff myself with food, I deeply and completely accept myself anyway.”
“Even though I feel abandoned because they left me, I deeply and completely accept my feelings.”
The volunteers continued to unravel layers of sadness around the losses they had experienced. Brenda said that her craving for the M&M’s were going down dramatically, but her feelings of sadness were surfacing strongly. She told the class she had lost two children, a fiance and her favorite pet. She also reported having strong physical feelings of grief in her chest; “a bowling ball in my chest.”
“Even though I use the sweets to feel better, because I love how they make me feel, I choose to feel safe and comfortable without them.”
“Even though I can’t get satisfied, I love myself anyway.”
“Even though sweets are the only thing that make me feel better, I deeply and completely accept myself.”
Brenda told the class that the “bowling ball feeling” in her chest, a heartache, was decreasing in intensity and moving down towards her solar plexus.
“Even though I have suffered so many losses, I choose to feel accepting of myself and of them.”
“Even though I just want to be acknowledged for all my losses and how hard it’s been, I deeply and completely love and accept my feelings.”
Brenda said this one really “hit” her hard. She realized that all she had wanted was to be acknowledged for all the pain that she had been through. She told the class that everyone sees her as such a strong person and that they assume things come easily to her.
We tapped several more rounds on grief and being acknowledged.
We also tapped for Brenda’s belief that whenever she gets close to someone, “they drop dead.”
“Even though I don’t feel safe getting close to someone, I choose to love and accept myself.”
“Even though I’ve suffered enough, and don’t need to suffer anymore, I deeply and completely love and forgive myself.”
Brenda said this last round released the tremendous pain she had been carrying around for so long. She heard herself say “You’re right. I’ve suffered enough” and felt free to let go of her deep grief at this point.
I talked to Brenda today (4 weeks later) to see how she was doing. She had been doing her own tapping during the first week, but then stopped. She had not eaten ANY sweets since the class, including while she was on a week-long vacation in Florida. Ice cream used to be her favorite comfort food, and she hasn’t had any in four weeks. It was her birthday last week and she took one bite of birthday cake and didn’t like it because it tasted too sweet! While in the class demonstration, Brenda used the bag of M&M’s as a symbol for all sweets in her life and was so pleased that it had obviously worked for cake and ice cream as well.
Brenda said she has not gotten on the scale yet, but that several people told her she looked as if she had lost some weight.
She is ready now to deal fully with her weight issue, and reported that the tapping came at exactly the right time in her life.
