By Dr. Esin
A friend of mine was a newlywed. She’d complain to me about her husband’s snoring and cigarette smoking. While chatting about this issue and my interests, the subject of a visit to my office for these complaints arose. They agreed.
When they came to my office, we started to talk about marriage, old friends, smoking, and some family matters. During this conversation, she told her husband, “Come on! What is wrong with you today. Your approach for everything is in negative today. For example, you said, ‘God help us! Something bad is going to happen because my ear has been humming for 2 days.’ Why are you negative? This is just an ear humming. So what?”
This was the point at which I had to jump in.
We first agreed that it was not simply a ringing noise, but a kind of low-decibel humming sensation. I asked him when the humming had begun. He said the previous week. I asked him if he would like to play a little game to get rid of this humming. He accepted and I started the EFT rounds very seriously with general aspects first.
We tapped:
“Even though there is a humming in my right ear, I deeply and completely accept myself.”
He and his wife did the tapping rounds together, laughing at every step. In my way of using EFT, I first use EFT seriously without taking their smiling and laughing into consideration. I do not give a prior explanation. After two or three rounds, people are shocked to recognize that their complaints diminish in a subtle way, they stop being suspicious, and get serious. This way their appreciation is doubled. Instead of explaining the process and background and getting consent, I start using EFT immediately. This is almost always very effective. This is my way.
His ear humming subsided rather quickly with tapping. After the third round, his SUD Level of Intensity number rose back up to 8 out of 10. I felt bad; this was the first time I was feeling hopeless with EFT.
I asked some questions to clarify the issue and to reach the core issue to be resolved.
During the questioning, I was tapping my collarbone point to resolve my block. Suddenly, I heard myself asking, “Which hand do you use during telephone conversations?” RIGHT, it was the right hand. So it was the right ear wherein that core issue happened.
We started tapping:
Even though there was some stress during telephone conversations, I deeply and completely accept myself.”
Even though there was some business tension last week with my boss, I deeply and completely accept myself.”
Even though my boss and Mr. Mehmet pushed me very hard to export the goods in two days, I deeply and completely accept myself.”
After the last tapping round, his eyes opened wide as he exclaimed, “Yep! It is 0. My ear can hear the footsteps of the pet of your upper neighbor!”
It is common for ringing in the ears (Tinnitus) to follow a period of anxiety and elevated stress so it would stand to reason that EFT for this type of symptom is very effective at lowering stress. This would be reflected in reduced levels of anxiety, depression, and other symptoms of psychological distress.