Dear EFT Community,
EFT practitioner Karen Degen describes how EFT helped a client overcome two fears, both acquired from other people.
– EFT Universe
By Karen Degen
I enjoyed helping a client recently who had a fear of birds, and also a fear of anything else that flutters. I believe these were two distinct and separate fears. Why they are particularly interesting is that the fears were never hers in the first place, but another person’s.
As far as birds go, Fiona had no distressing memories of her own regarding birds, but her father had a fear of birds. She recalled a memory from when she was young and in the back seat of her father’s car, when he came close to hitting a hawk that was on the road. Her father freaked out and I believe her fear started from this point.
We used the Movie Technique to address this memory and she was amazed to find that the first time she ran the “movie,” the hawk was huge and scary, but after tapping and rerunning the memory in her mind, the hawk was quite small and harmless. After tapping on the “movie,” we addressed two important factors separately. The first was the aspect she hates the most about birds, which is the sound of their flapping. Second, and most important, I feel, is the fact that it was actually her father’s fear. My experience with fear that has been energetically taken on from others is that it won’t shift until that aspect of it is tapped on.
The tapping statements we used were:
Even though I have this movie called “when birds attack,” I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
Even though I hate the sound of birds flapping, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
Even though Dad’s scared of birds and I’m scared of birds, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
We then addressed Fiona’s second fear, which was a fear of anything that flutters. She had a particular fear of them getting stuck in her hair. Moths and butterflies come into this category. When exploring the origin of this fear, once again it started as someone else’s fear, in this case a friend. As a teenager, she was coming home in the evening with a friend and, as they approached her friend’s house, her friend pointed out the moths around the outside light. Her friend said, “I hate those moths, I’m always afraid they’ll get stuck in my hair.” I believe words can definitely stay with us in the same way that emotions do, and often profoundly affect our lives. I always use the exact words uttered where possible, or if not recalled exactly, then the meaning someone has taken from them will suffice.
The tapping statements we used were:
Even though I hate anything that flies getting stuck in my hair, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
Even though Karina said, “I hate those moths, I’m afraid they’ll get stuck in my hair,” I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
At this stage I tested Fiona by reaching over and fluttering my fingers in her hair and touching her face, telling her there was a moth there. She reacted to the touch on her skin in particular, so we continued with:
Even though I don’t like small flying things landing on me or walking on me and I hate the feel of their legs, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
Even though I’m afraid of flying things getting caught in my hair and not being able to get out, I love and accept myself.
By the end of the session, Fiona was pretty sure the fear had gone but wanted to test it. Normally she’d come home in the dark and fumble with the keys, rather than turn the light on and risk moths, but all that was about to change. I’ll let Fiona tell the rest of the story:
“I met Karen Degen through my networking group and booked an appointment with her and tried not to be too skeptical! The issue we worked on was my fear of birds and their flapping, and moths and them getting stuck in my hair! After we completed the process, I went home and turned the outside light on to attract moths and would you believe?… none came! I tried this for several nights and couldn’t attract any moths. Lo and behold, I was in the kitchen one evening and a moth flew in the open window. I batted it away and thought nothing of it until I looked over at my husband who had a look of shock on his face. It was then that I realized that I hadn’t reacted. I can’t tell you how many times that has happened lately and I even had a moth land on my head and I just brushed it away. Can’t believe it–they are just not an issue anymore! This is an amazing technique that can help so many people with whatever emotional issues they may have.”
P.S. Fiona has since informed me of an incident with a bird that similarly had no effect on her. She’s amazed and delighted.
