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One EFT round with Deborah's daughter relieves performance anxiety



Hi Everyone,

Deborah Donndelinger does a brief EFT session for her daughter's "unknown reason for not going to karate class" and concludes with three useful points regarding the experience.

Hugs, Gary

By Deborah Donndelinger

My 8 year old daughter and I take karate classes together three times a week.  Recently she was quite upset about attending classes despite the fact that she always enjoys herself when at class.  (Parents, sound familiar?) My daughter has a tendency to get really frustrated about things and I've never felt particularly effective in helping her sort them out.  She's seen me tap for myself and with clients but often doesn't like it if I suggest she tap on something.

In this case, she was getting pretty hysterical and frustrated and just couldn't explain why she was upset.  This crying and distress was lasting about 30 minutes.  Her words were, "I don't know, I just don't want to go".  The only other information I could get from her was that she had a funny feeling about going.  She took a bath to calm down (wasn't working) and was open to tapping when I suggested it this time.

Side note to parents:  In this case, I was fairly calm and centered.  If I were reacting to her reaction, I would have tapped on myself privately before asking her to tap.

We both tapped, each using the same wording:

Even though I don't know why I'm upset about going to class, I'm still an awesome kid.

Even though I have this funny feeling about going to karate, I'm still an awesome kid.

Even though I don't want to go to karate, I'm still an awesome kid.

EB: Don't know why
SE: Upset about going
UE: Funny feeling
UN: Don't know why
CH: Upset about going
CB: Funny feeling
UA: Don't know why
Top of Head: Upset about going.

After only one round, she calmed down, stopped crying and showed no more signs of distress.  However, she didn't want to talk about it at that time.  I figured she'd calmed down and that was the end of it.  The next day she came to me and said with great triumph in her voice, "I know why I don't want to go".

It turned out to be a logistical issue regarding her practice log. I had recently given her complete responsibility for completing it and she was feeling the pressure of completing the log.  It was an easy solution where I could resume helping her with her log.

This experience brought home three points for me:

1) The clarity we can get when we reduce the emotion, even in children.
2) There can be a time delay in the getting new insights.
3) To keep gently offering tapping as a tool for our children.

So for everyone, child or adult, who doesn't want to do something, here's to tapping to figure it out!




