When I discovered EFT, my entire private practice changed for the better. While I was trained as a traditional Social Worker, using EFT for anxiety, addictions, and overall blocks to success made a huge difference in my life as well as the lives of my clients.
After I earned my Doctorate in Clinical Hypnotherapy, I was flooded with referrals for weight loss clients. I had extensive experience working with addictions, and transferred my substance abuse skills immediately to my weight loss clients who suffered from uncon-trollable cravings, compulsive overeating, and repeated failures at long-term weight loss.
One thing all addictions have in common: people use food, alcohol, drugs or cigarettes to tranquilize their anxiety, whether the anxiety is from daily stress, past traumas, child-hood abandonment, or low self-esteem. I started using EFT as my primary method of
treatment for people with compulsive overeating issues. After considerable successes with applying EFT for clearing the conflicts and the emotions underlying overeating, I wrote the training manual How to Lose weight with Energy Therapy.
WEIGHT LOSS AND EFT
Consider “Gail” who contacted me because she was sick and tired of the extra pounds and the emotional baggage. She described herself as a yo-yo dieter and had tried absolutely everything for weight loss including hypnosis, ear stapling, hair analysis, supplements, weight loss pills, and of course every diet book on the market, with no long-term success.
She felt like a huge failure.
After using EFT, Gail was able to unlock the keys to her overeating: (1) self-hatred, (2) fear of abandonment, (3) need to be the family patient, (4) people pleasing, and (5) ex-treme anxiety that she needed to sedate with food. She just couldn’t manage her anxiety and other emotions without overeating.
We used some of the following EFT setup phrases:
• “Even though I am afraid of losing weight because I will feel disloyal to my family, I deeply and completely accept myself anyway.”
• “Even though they need me to be sick, and I want to fit in, I deeply and com-pletely…”
• “Even though I’m afraid to lose weight, because I don’t know who I would be…”
• “Even though the thought of losing weight makes me feel threatened…”
• “Even though I feel unlovable at the core, and don’t feel valued unless I am DOING something, I choose to accept all of me.”
• “Even though I feel undervalued and underappreciated…”
• “Even though I know I can’t protect myself without the weight…”
Less than one year later, Gail had dropped 110 pounds. She reminded me that we never once tapped on her specific food cravings!
ATTRACTING ABUNDANCE WITH EFT
Comfort Zones: I also use EFT to neutralize emotional blocks to success and abundance.
When you have comfort zones–ceilings to what you believe you can achieve–you will always stay within them. After using EFT for my own comfort zones, I increased my income by over 20% the first year. I had not raised my fee or invested in advertising, and the country’s economic situation had in fact worsened. I used phrases such as:
• “Even though I don’t dare raise my income, I deeply and completely accept my-self…
• “Even though I obviously have a block to earning more than $ XXX, I deeply and completely love and accept myself with this conflict.”
• “Even though I don’t feel safe making more than $ XXX because they’ll be jealous, I deeply and completely accept and love who I am.”
Limiting Beliefs: Dozens of clients in my abundance classes have told me that they had sib-lings who were seen as either “slow learners” or having some form of “difficulty” in school.
Some of these siblings turned out to be brilliant while some are still struggling to this day.
The point is that my clients learned from their families “I’m not supposed to shine” and that if they did shine, they were taking attention away from their struggling sibling. It didn’t seem to matter if the sibling was older, younger, the same sex or not. What mattered was that the parents compared the two, and scolded the “fast learner” for looking good, or
“showing off.” The message was “don’t succeed or you’ll hurt someone else.” I typically use the following phrases for this common conflict:
• “Even though I’m not supposed to shine because it will hurt my sister, I deeply and completely accept my brilliance.”
• “Even though I will lose their approval if I do well, I deeply and completely accept my talents.”
• “Even though it’s not safe to succeed, I choose to feel safe when I am doing what I love.”
• “Even though they don’t feel comfortable when I succeed, I deeply and completely accept myself anyway.”
• “Even though I’ll never forget his scolding me when I succeeded, I deeply and com-pletely forgive myself for being so fast.”
• “Even though I’m afraid I’ll be rejected if I succeed…”
Deserving Issues: I have many individual clients who feel guilty when they have desires to do well financially. Consider “Jeff” who said “Why should I take more away from other peo-ple?” (1) The belief that his success would hurt someone else is a mistake. (2) The belief that there is a limited supply of abundance is also, in my opinion, off base. (3) As long as he thinks he has had “his share” he will sabotage progress or inadvertently reject opportuni-ties. Jeff didn’t feel deserving of financial success, and was finally able to see a pattern of rejecting terrific opportunities for advancement in his job.
• “Even though I don’t deserve any more, I’ve had enough, I deeply and completely accept myself anyway.”
• “Even though my mother said we were lucky to have what we had, I deeply…
• “Even though I don’t want to be selfish and take more than my share, I accept and love myself for having desires.”
• “Even though my father scolded me for wanting more, I deeply and completely…”
Prosperity Consciousness: Whether you believe you don’t have enough time, money, love or success, the consciousness behind your belief will block you from receiving financial abundance. Your level of belief exudes a particular vibration. In energetic terms, the theory states that your consciousness about abundance has a certain capacity; you will receive ex-actly what your consciousness is capable of handling. The good news is that your con-sciousness can be expanded to believe there is enough to go around.
• “Even though she told me there was never enough, I deeply and completely accept my fears.”
• “Even though I remember the fights my parents had about money, and I think money is bad, I deeply…”
• “Even though I’m afraid there won’t be enough, so I need to hold on to be safe, I deeply and completely accept who I am.”
CONTACT INFORMATION Carol Look, LCSW, DCH
P.O. Box 1953. Madison Square Station, New York, NY 10159 212-477-8645
[email protected] www.CarolLook.com
Ì ALEXANDER R. LEES, RCC, DCH
Alex Lees is a Registered Clinical Counselor with a Doctorate in Clinical Hypontherapy.
Alex has been in private practice since 1987, and presents seminars and workshops in Canada, USA and Europe. He is a member of the EFT Advisory Board, a Contributing Edi-tor to EFT Insights, and he is the author of Emotional Freedom Techniques–What Is It and How Does It Work? Alex has also been involved with NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming) for 24 years and is a Certified International Trainer of NLP.
Alex Lees had a car accident in his early twenties that caused serious neurological damage and he was told he would never walk again. Over a number of years, he experi-enced numerous healing modalities and no longer needed a wheelchair. He attributed his recovery to his attitude and beliefs. “I ended up in the helping profession, as a counselor and therapist, so that I could help people to realize that they have the power within them-selves to overcome adversity.”