By Christina Artuphel
I recently had the pleasure of working with a 10-year-old girl, Ally (not her real name). Before our session, her dad gave me the following background information:
“Ally is a good pupil, gets good grades, and is well respected by the teachers. She is a good athlete, has a very good group of friends, liked by all and has a very extroverted personality and always seeks out new friends. She can get nervous before big events such as a running race or speaking in public. The issue we need your help with is that approximately five out of every seven days per week at 8 pm (just after she is put to bed), Ally comes running out of her room in a physically and emotionally hysterical state crying that she is ‘scared of dying.’ She cuddles and cries in the arms of her mother and takes more than 15 minutes to calm down and be ready to return to bed. Her mum has tried to teach her breathing exercises to calm her down, with only limited success. We have also given her meditation podcasts to listen to to help her fall asleep before and after the issue, but this did not work as well as we had hoped. We took her to an ‘Integrative doctor.’ Blood tests revealed she had low zinc and low magnesium levels. Other tests showed she has very high histamine levels. Medicines to compensate for these irregularities were used resulting in the incidence of this issue declining but not disappearing.”
In our first EFT session, we started with five breaths, holding our hands over our hearts:
Breathing in: “I am right here right now.”
Breathing out: “I am safe and I am loved.”
That calmed Ally’s nerves and her “coming-right-from-school energy.” Even so, she immediately started chattering, so I had her hold her forehead and the back of her head right above her neck, while she kept on chattering for a short time. Then I gently stopped her and recentered. She said, “I am just sure I will get Covid and die.” SUD 10! “I hear it all the time in the news.”
We used sneaking up: “Even though I get scared of dying every night when I go to bed, I am a great kid.” We tapped through the points, including 9 Gamut.
After a few more rounds of tapping, Ally opened her eyes, remembering something: “I got bullied in first grade! I got pushed over by a girl, and I remember her saying that she would find me one day and kill me in my sleep!!!” That was SUD 10 as well.
We tapped on that whole episode, but we did not have much time left and the SUD level was not going much below 7. She said, “Yes, at that time when it happened, it would be 7, but NOW it is a bit better.”
I knew there were other aspects we missed, so we tapped a few sneaking away rounds to make sure Ally felt safe. Then I gave her the breathing exercise we started with and told her she could also tap the collarbone point while breathing and saying “I am safe, I am loved.” I suggested she do these before bed and any time she felt stressed.
When Ally left, I felt I should have done better. I thought, “Why did the SUD not go further down? What did I miss?” She had so much to tell and so fast, and it was hard to “hold the reins” at times.
But then I got this message from my little client’s dad:
“Yes we saw a difference last night!!!! Ally was feeling stressed before bedtime, so she sat on the lounger and started doing your exercises without any prompting from us!!! She calmed herself down and went to bed without any issues. Great result for the first night!!!!! Thank you so much!! Ally really enjoyed your session yesterday and was excited to tell us what she had learned. I will keep you informed on how things go over the next week.”
I spoke with Ally’s dad a week later. He told me she had been able to calm herself every night, until just the night before. She had been scared and had to come in to her mother.
I hope to schedule another session, and I look forward to it. However, to be able to make just this little difference is all worth it!
