By Lindsay Kenny, Master EFT Practitioner
When I facilitated an EFT workshop for a group of 14 retired folks ranging in age from 50 to 84, one particular woman, “Kiko,” stood out to me because she entered the room wheeling an oxygen tank. She also had a hard time talking during the workshop introductions. She couldn’t utter more than two or three syllables without wheezing and a raspy intake of breath.
Her sentences went something like this: “I (wheeze) have a hard (wheeze) time going (wheeze) outside be (wheeze) cause I’m afraid (wheeze) of dropping my (wheeze) oxygen tank (wheeze) and not being (wheeze) able to (wheeze) breathe without it.”
It was painful and exhausting for the rest of us to even hear her struggling to talk. She said she had COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and had an intense fear of leaving her house. She was afraid she would drop or damage her oxygen tank and wouldn’t be able to breathe. (It took a long time for her to say this.)
After my “Introduction to EFT” segment, I began the EFT demonstration portion with a volunteer named, “Linda.” She was suffering at the age of 50 with PMS problems, crankiness and terrible abdominal cramps. As I often do in EFT workshops, I used the Borrowing Benefits Technique. It’s not only amazing to experience, but an efficient and highly effective way to demonstrate EFT in a group of any size.
While everyone had different issues to deal with from a severe headache, to the recent death of a brother, we all did the Setup together, saying:
“Even though I’m cranky and am I’m having cramps, I deeply and completely accept myself.”
Everyone starting giggling, especially the only male in the group.
After the first round of EFT tapping, five people said their SUD Level of intensity number from 0-10 had dropped by half, one person’s issue went completely away, and the rest had dropped by 2-4 points.
Most astounding was Kiko, the lady with the COPD.
She said her breathing was much better and her fear of leaving home was only at a SUD Level number of 5. She seemed very emotional about her progress, so we all agreed to work with Kiko and come back to the PMS problem later. Kiko was able to explain without nearly as much wheezing that her lungs had been damaged during World War II, in Japan, when she was just a little girl. She later got TB, then pneumonia, and finally had to resort to an oxygen tank 10 years ago.
I did two more rounds with her, combining the fear of leaving the house with her difficulty breathing. I felt they were very connected and wanted to try doing them together.
The first EFT Setup was:
“Even though I’m afraid to leave the house because something might happen to my oxygen tank and I won’t be able to breath, I deeply accept and trust myself.”
I used the word “trust” because I felt that her issues and fears about her oxygen tank revolved around her making a mistake like losing it, dropping it, bumping into something, twisting the tubes, etc.
After one round, her intensity dropped to a 2 and it was clear that she was breathing almost normally.
For the final round, I went to a Choice statement of:
“Even though I still have some fear about losing my oxygen, I choose to completely overcome it and trust myself to handle the oxygen.”
She had trouble saying competently or confidently, so I just dropped them.
We then did three reminder rounds, the first with the reminder of:
“Remaining fear,” the next round with alternating phrases of “Remaining fear” and “Choosing to overcome the fear.”
On the final round, I did a “free association” with her using different, but related reminders at each tapping point:
“breathing deeply and safely” (at the eyebrows),
“Overcoming this fear” (outside the eyes, etc.),
“Trusting myself,”
“Feeling comfortable without the tank,”
“Letting this fear go,”
“Taking deep, long breaths,” and
“Overcoming this dependency on oxygen.”
We actually did two rounds on this free association method and she added the statement of “Believing in myself.”
When we finished, I asked her how her fear was. She said, “Gone. All gone.” I asked her to try to think of something that would make her afraid regarding her oxygen and she said, “Can’t do it! All gone!”
I then asked her to take a deep breath if she could. She astounded us by taking a long, deep breath and broke out into a bright wide smile.
We all cheered and most of us had tears in our eyes. I admonished her not to throw her oxygen away and to be sure to consult her doctor before making any other changes. She said she would, but felt she didn’t need it anymore.
I called her later on to follow up on her condition and I was amazed at how good she sounded. She said the doctors had told her before that she would always need the oxygen and that she would never have more than 30% usage of her lungs. I asked her what percentage she thought she was breathing at now and she said, “Much, much better, at least 80%, maybe more.”
She was very happy.
