By Dawson Church, EFT EXP-3
Imagine gathering up a big bowl of your favorite chocolate. Piece by piece you add it to the bowl. Then imagine yourself walking over to a trash can and throwing away the whole bowl of chocolate.
Do you have an emotional reaction in your body when I describe that scene?
That’s not unusual, because most of us have a hard time throwing food away, but imagining throwing away a food you crave can elicit the strongest possible reactions.
Picture that scene again.
Imagine selecting those pieces of chocolate (or a food you love to eat), then throwing all of the chocolate (or your favorite snack) away.
Assess your level of emotional triggering, with the number 10 being the maximum and 0 being the minimum. Then try a tapping statement several times while picturing the chocolate (or your favorite snack going into the garbage.
“Even though I am craving [name craving], I deeply and completely accept myself.”
The chances are good that your SUD Level of Intensity number will drop down close to a zero.
Throwing chocolate away is something that I do on a regular basis. On the second day of every Level I EFT workshop, I offer a cravings exercise, and we bring chocolate into the room to allow workshop participants to experience cravings. Many have a high SUD level number of 10.
What is astonishing is to see what happens next.
Sure, EFT brings their SUD levels way down. Studies show the average drop in cravings is 83% after about 30 minutes of tapping on emotional events in their lives (Church & Brooks, 2010).
That’s the last module of the EFT workshop, and participants leave afterward. They gather their belongings, chat, make friends, and leave the room. The chocolate we used to test their cravings lies forgotten, strewn all over the tables. They get up and walk away with no more thought given to the chocolate than to the empty coffee cups and water bottles in the room.
When I and the staff cleanup, we then throw all of the chocolate into the trash, because no one wants it. In the course of my teaching career, I’ve probably thrown hundreds of pounds of chocolate into the trash after EFT Level 1 workshops.
Using EFT to reduce cravings gives you great leverage during a weight loss program.
You can tap directly on your cravings, and also tap on specific emotional events associated with the item you crave. When cravings are high, your SUD Levels are high and you have full access to the experience of a craving. Periods of peak intensity bring the issue to the forefront of your awareness, and that’s the perfect time to tap.
A craving is a strong desire, or an intense longing, for a special something. It can be for anything, even raw carrots, but among those who would like to lose weight, raw carrot cravings are rare. Ice cream, chocolate, macaroni and cheese, pound cake, cookies, chips, and other filling, satisfying, high-fat, high-carb treats are the comfort foods that keep calling.
You might find it hard to believe that EFT can take away your craving for food you find irresistible. So let’s try it in practice.
Grab a food you crave the most right now.
Look at the food. Rate your SUD Intensity Level of longing on a scale from 0 to 10 with 10 being the highest craving and write down your number.
Write: SUD before: [number level]
Then tap on your Karate Chop point continuously while saying the following EFT Setup Statement out loud 3 times:
“Even though I have this irresistible craving for [name food], I deeply and completely accept myself.”
“Even though I have this irresistible craving for [name food], I deeply and completely accept myself.”
“Even though I have this irresistible craving for [name food], I deeply and completely accept myself.”
Now tap through all of the tapping points from top to bottom while using the name of the food as your Reminder Phrase.
“This [name food] craving…”
After you get to through the last tapping point, rate your SUD level of craving a second time.
Write: SUD after: [number level]
You’ll probably find that your number level has gone down quite a bit. In live EFT workshops, or on EFT for Weight Loss coaching calls, I find that most people’s SUD levels goes down by at least 2 numbers. A few people in the group are startled to find that their craving level has dropped to a 0.
Congratulations! You’ve now had your first experience using EFT for cravings. It is that simple to get started, and you’ll unlock more and more of the power of EFT as you continue to use it.
Excerpt from: EFT for Weight Loss
By Dawson Church
Chapter 2 – Tapping Away Cravings
Pages 87-89
