By Deb Gimer
I had previously worked with Samantha (not her real name), so she had some knowledge and experience with EFT.
We initially began addressing the pain (SUD level 6) she was experiencing from a recurrent bleeding ulcer. She had also been waking often during the night and not feeling rested in the morning. With began with the Full Basic Recipe, using the Setup Statement:
Even though I have this pain in my stomach from my bleeding ulcer, I love and accept myself and how I feel.
We completed a couple of rounds on the pain and how it felt. Samantha’s pain dropped to 4—5 on the SUD scale. We then tapped while thanking the pain for being present, serving her needs, and keeping her safe. At that point, I saw a shift in her facial expression and asked her if something had come to mind. She said it was a memory from her childhood. After some discussion, we decided to use the Movie Technique.
The memory was of a traumatic childhood event, with an intensity of 10 on the SUD scale. When she focused on the event, she felt very nauseous and kept a wastebasket close at hand in case she had to vomit. When asked if the nausea had a color or shape, Samantha described it as a dark-green, roundish, smooth mass in her stomach that glowed like a cloud around the edges.
The title of Samantha’s movie was “The phone ringing.” We used the Setup Statement:
Even though I feel all this nausea at a 10 when I think about the phone ringing, I deeply and completely accept myself how I feel now and when I was a child when I heard the phone ringing.
There were six crescendos in this event. Each time after clearing a crescendo, we went back to the beginning of the movie before the phone started ringing.
We used the Full Basic Recipe for our tapping, including alternative points and some eye rolls. The Reminder Phrases we used, as supplied by Samantha, were: Listening so intently, please don’t be our ring, oh no heart sinks, it’s ours, I don’t want to go, I have to go, it always ends the same, no way out, just had to do it, no crying.
After all was cleared and she could run through the movie without upset, we proceeded again to tap while thanking the pain in her body for trying to help her and asked it to consider releasing some of the pain, that maybe it wasn’t needed anymore.
During this portion of the session, I paid close attention to how Samantha responded to the words I used. She showed no hesitancy and nodded her head yes throughout, with tears flowing down her face.
I then asked her to place her hands on her heart and take a couple of deep cleansing breaths.
I asked Samantha to check back in with her body regarding the bleeding ulcer pain we had focused on at the start of the session. She paused a minute to push on her stomach where the pain had been. Then she was shocked! She couldn’t believe it–the pain was completely gone!
She explained that had never happened. When the ulcer pain flared up, it took weeks to resolve. And here it was, completely gone, just like that!
I then asked her to remember vividly the movie about the phone ringing and to try and hear the phone ringing. Her facial expression changed, softened, and showed wonderment. She said she could see how the pain/nausea she had experienced so often in her life was really a protective mechanism to keep her safe. The high anxiety and nausea she experienced helped her keep her mouth shut so things didn’t get even worse.
I asked Samantha about the mass in her stomach and she said it was very small and just dark with no color, a 2 on the SUD scale. She said she felt it was fear and that it was what had kept her safe as a child. She wanted to sit with it a while, not yet ready to let it go, but wanted to appreciate it a while before completely releasing it.
