Energy Provocateur

By Steve Wells

“What the world needs now is love, sweet love
It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of..”.
- Lyrics by Hal David

A year ago I wrote an article “Love as Therapy“, in which I argued  it is love that does
the healing, far beyond any of our techniques. At the time, I sent a copy to my mentor
Frank Farrelly. I thought at the time my main objective in sending it to him was to
acknowledge his great influence in my work, but in retrospect I also wanted his approval.
Well it was NOT forthcoming. Instead, Frank went on a bit of a rant against my over-use
of the word love, which he said could be so easily misunderstood. He suggested instead
that I use various synonyms such as “warm-heartedness”, and “affectionate humour” to
describe those states which we seek to enter into and express when we work with clients
using Provocative Energy Techniques (PET). PET, for the uninitiated, incorporates many
elements of Provocative Therapy, which Frank developed. I’d said in my article that the
love, warmth, and acceptance I felt in my very first session with Frank was the most
compelling element of his therapy, and what I’d learnt was most healing in my work now. I
have to admit I was taken aback by Frank’s tirade against my use of the word love, and
the strength of his negative reaction to that article.

Frank said to me that love has many different shades and colourings, and I should modify
my language to what people could receive. Although I could see what he meant, and even
agreed with much of what he said, I felt hurt, and I admit I had to do quite a bit of
tapping to resolve my hurt feelings. However, I also felt an inner objection to his
position. That inner objection has stayed with me, and grown even stronger over the days
and months since. Now it has reached a crescendo, and I must say this: I disagree with
you Frank!

I’m making the case for love. Loving yourself. Loving your clients. Radiating love
towards them, and continuing to offer it to them through your loving presence.

Someone once said the greatest gift you can give another person is your presence. I say
when you are fully present with another person in a state of love and acceptance that is
where true healing occurs.

Ok, it might be easier for me to disagree publicly with Frank now that he has passed
away and can’t respond. But bear with me. Yes, I know that not everyone is open to
receiving love, and many have shields against it. Yes, many people can’t handle love in
its purest form, or at all in some cases (maybe this was even a problem for good old
Frank himself??).

As David Lake said to me once, “You can give people the good stuff, but can they hold
onto it?” Many people cannot hold onto it. They fear the good stuff. Or they have been
hurt before, some very badly and repeatedly. Some have many false associations to even
the word love. But that does not mean that we should fear using the word ourselves. Or
that we should not seek to enter into and stay in that loving state of grace which heals.

As Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “Love is our highest word, and the synonym for God.”

Perhaps if we do have the severe negative reactions to the word love which Frank talks
about, then we need to treat that. Perhaps skirting around what we really mean by using
watered-down words is just an intermediate solution? And perhaps this is just a symptom
of our underlying challenge with being able to allow love into our lives?

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers
within yourself that you have built against it.” - Rumi

How can tapping help?

Tapping can help us to release the fear and other blocks and barriers which prevent us
from being able to allow ourselves to experience love. Tapping can help us to release the
body-mind blocks and inner objections to allowing love to heal us. Tapping can help to
release our connection to false associations preventing us from knowing and experiencing
the love which is all around us, ever-present and always available to serve us.

How?

Start by tapping on all of your associations to the word love and to everything it
means. Write down everything you believe and everything you’ve learned about love, both
good and bad. Apply tapping to these beliefs as well as to your past experiences with
love. Include both painful and happy experiences, times when love was present and times
when you felt it was absent. Especially tap for any times when you experienced what you
felt was the opposite of love. Even worse than hate will be any experiences of
indifference. If you experienced that, I definitely recommend seeking the help of
another. For this work on love is truly a relational work, and it’s lonely being your own
therapist. That’s why I miss Frank so much, in spite of everything…

Now tapping is not the only way to remove barriers to accessing the healing power of
love. Consider this segment from another blog post of mine, this time about David
Berceli’s TRE, (exercises which initiate a natural shaking/tremoring process to release
the stress and tension in the body-mind caused by trauma):

I was still standing/sitting on the wall (doing the TRE exercises) and I began to muse on
David’s story… A world trauma expert (Porges?) was observing David’s work with a group
of chiropractors. When discussing it with David, he’d made this statement: “They were
able to let the tremors go right through to their necks because they loved you.” When
David explained this to us he said that Porges obviously meant that they trusted him, he
had rapport with them, and that was why they were able to allow the process to go so far.
As I thought about this I wondered to myself,  “What if Porges meant it literally? What
if it was really feeling the love that facilitated the process?” Stay with me here.

I noticed that the tremors in my body had almost stopped completely at this point, as I
was “in my head” thinking about this stuff. I wondered what would happen if I were to
access the feeling of love.  An image of my youngest son Callum instantly came to my
mind. As many of you know, Callum has Down Syndrome, and like many people with Down
Syndrome he seems to have a special ability at times to resonate what I can only describe
as a state of pure love. That is certainly what I experience many times in his presence…

As I saw my son’s smiling face in my mind I started to feel that wonderful loving
feeling that he both resonates and evokes in me. And then something incredible started to
happen.

Instantly, the tremors started to move right through my entire body in a way that was
amazing, rich, and deeply liberating. As the tremors moved through me, they began to
release huge amounts of tension from my back, neck and shoulders, and I became intensely
present to observing and being incredulous of the process.

I realised that this energy, this healing, this love is always available to us, always
present and willing to serve us, it is simply a matter of clearing the blocks that are
preventing us from seeing it, feeling it, accessing it.

You see, I don’t really agree with the lyrics of Hal David’s song. It’s not that there
is really too little love in the world. Love Actually (as in the movie of this name which
my family likes to watch every Christmas) is all around. The biggest challenge is our
lack of willingness, our lack of openness, the barriers we’ve erected within ourselves,
to receiving love, and allowing it to flow into our life.

By Steve Wells

Recently this question was posed on the EFT Practitioners Linked In group about psychological
reversal:

Psychological reversal? Can anyone explain how we can best explain to students how tapping
the Karate chop point during set up ‘fixes’ this? I’m confused myself …

First some background for those new to tapping and EFT: Psychological reversal is the concept
that someone’s energy system can be reversed, as in flowing in the opposite direction, from
their intention. It was used in EFT and its predecessor TFT as an explanation for failure to
progress, and is  seen as the basis of self-sabotage. In EFT the “correction” for
psychological reversal was supposed to be the set-up statement, which includes a verbal
description of the problem, combined with a self-acceptance statement (such as I deeply and
completely love and accept myself), whilst tapping on the karate chop point or rubbing a sore
spot on the chest.

Here’s my response to the question which was posed:

There is no such thing as psychological reversal and there is no need to tap on any
particular points to “reverse” it. What many EFT’ers call psychological reversal is what
therapists have been calling resistance, secondary gain, self-sabotage, and so on for many
years, ALL of may simply be different aspects of the problem OR a failure on the
practitioner’s part to get rapport, understand the problem, engage meaningfully, provide
safety, or address treatment to the right area, among other things.

It seems EFT Creator Gary Craig has also come to this point of view, as he now states in his
online tutorial:

“The term Psychological Reversal (PR) has been eliminated because, after years of experience,
I think it was mis-named. In practice, PR is a form of secondary gain/loss or a new aspect of
the original problem. While the correction for PR remains in the Basic Recipe, I have found
that PR can be handled effectively with the proper treatment of Aspects, Specific Events, and
Detective Work.”

However, Gary does say “the correction for PR remains in the Basic Recipe”. Now why you still
need to include the “correction for PR” if you no longer believe in it, I don’t know! Still,
Gary has said that he likes using the set-up language to do reframes and it makes sense to be
tapping when you do.

By the way, the set-up statement can be a nice way of framing a problem but can also lead
many people into thinking it is really necessary to use it for results, that using words to
describe the problem is necessary to treat problems effectively, or that there is something
magical in a self-accepting statement, when anyone who tests this can find that you will get
results without any set-up statements, sometimes the words can get in the way of really
focusing mindfully on your issue, and using self-accepting statements actually tunes the
client into their lack of self-acceptance rather than helping them to accept themselves more.
The fruitless search for the perfect words to describe the core issue also prevents many
people from being meaningfully helped, holds them back from using the tapping, and frustrates
many practitioners who would do better to focus more attention onto their clients…

I should say that some years ago when we were developing our own Simple Energy Techniques
(SET) I discussed with Gary how we were getting results without any need to use the set-up
statement, just simply to go with whatever is present and tap, Gary was adamant that the
set-up would be necessary for more difficult issues. Looks like his view on this has changed…

By Steve Wells

What is Body Energy Reading and Energy Matching?

Body Energy Reading and Energy Matching are advanced skills which can revolutionize your
practice and enhance all of your relationships. They are important sub-skills of what we
call Advanced Energy Methods (AEM), which includes ways of connecting with another person
on an energetic level and tailoring an energy intervention to help them.

Using these elegant tools you can get very deep rapport with clients, identify and get
to core issues very quickly, use energy interventions which “fit” and feel right for the
client, and help your clients to experience rapid and enduring changes.

In this article I want to demystify the processes of Body Energy Reading and Energy
Matching and give you some examples of how they can be applied to enhance your energy
healing practice.

Body Energy Reading is a process of using all your senses to observe other people
closely and noticing in particular when their emotions and energy shift. Through this
process it is possible to identify, often before the client is even aware, where energy
blocks are occurring and how they are manifesting in the body of this person.

Through this kind of skilful observation you can gain information about how to tailor both
your communication and your energy interventions for maximum effectiveness with each new
person. And you have the best way of evaluating your effectiveness: when energy shifts it
is reflected in bodily shifts that are often easily observable.

When you pay a lot of attention to people they show you and tell you what is wrong for
them in many different and sometimes unique ways and if you are “connected” you can pick
this up not only in what you see and hear but also in your own body feelings in terms of
tactile sensations, emotional states, energy level, type and magnitude. This is something
you can learn to feel directly.

Is this sounding a little complex?

It isn’t really and it is something anyone can learn to do simply by paying a bit more
attention to other people. In my upcoming workshops I’ve developed some simple ways to
help you learn to pay attention to the important indicators and I will also be
demonstrating how to do this, which will make things easier for those of you who attend
to “come to your senses” (including learning to use your 6th sense).

Energy Matching is a process of matching other people’s communication and energy with
your own communication and energy and using that information to tailor an intervention
that is maximally effective for that person’s problem, representation, energy type and
energy magnitude.  By learning a range of ways of intervening on the level that the
client is most strongly representing, expressing or most strongly aware of their problem,
you can tailor your energy intervention to suit them.

The benefits of this approach are:

• You can identify a core issue, see how and where it is affecting the client and know
how to best intervene to help them release it, often within the first 2-3 minutes of
meeting them

• You’ll have a framework to follow in selecting the best energy treatments for each
person you work with based on a range of factors (energy level and magnitude, body
location, preferred communication mode, energetic style of the person, among other
things).

• You’ll learn how to use your own energy, self and experiences as some of the most
powerful agencies for change

In my coming workshops I will teach at least 10 different ways of shifting energy and
emotion beyond just tapping on energy points! And I’ll also demonstrate how these
approaches can be combined with tapping to enhance your results.

But it all starts just with good observation, and being open on as many sensory levels
as possible (as well as reading the energy, which could be considered a 6th sense) and
then simply utilising this in your intervention approach:

Let’s look at some simple examples involving tapping:

Juliet starts to talk to you about her problem and as she does so she moves her hands
around in front of her diaphragm. You point this out and ask what she notices there and
she suddenly becomes aware of a tight feeling in her diaphragm. You ask her to simply
add tapping to that awareness and the tight feeling instantly starts to lift.

Josephine is discussing her challenges at work. As she starts to talk about how she
feels intimidated by her boss, you notice she becomes a little breathless. You observe
that her breathing is shallow and in the top of her chest. As you ask her put her
attention in this area and to apply tapping to the constriction she starts to breathe
more deeply and her face starts to brighten. She later reports feeling more confident
around her boss.

Jane is discussing a problem of feeling controlled by her mother. She suddenly looks
over to her left and immediately breaks into tears. You ask her to look over to that
same spot and tell you what she sees and she suddenly accesses a memory from age 5 of
being scolded for taking the last cupcake. Tapping on this specific event and its
associated thoughts and feelings leads her to feeling strong and in control around
her mother for the first time in years.

Jenny starts to talk about her problems with her kids and suddenly you notice you are
inexplicably feeling tired! You look closely at Jenny and notice that her shoulders
have slumped and ask how she is feeling. Surprise, surprise she is feeling exhausted!
As she begins to tap with that awareness, she starts to breathe more deeply, and sit
more upright. You feel your own energy start to return too.

None of the above is very complex and many of you will already be doing this. The
challenge is to be open on more than one level so that you are noticing the visual,
auditory, kinesthetic and energetic shifts that occur (in the other person and in you)
as people access their problems and also as they start to process them via the
treatment.

If you notice how the problem is being both represented and expressed, then you can
tailor your communication and your treatment to that person and their problem. Also,
you can then notice later whether these things have shifted as a way of evaluating
the effectiveness of your treatment. Sure they may say they are better, but is there
congruency on all levels when they do this?

Even if you are simply using tapping – and this is not the only way to shift energy or
even the best way in some cases – how you tailor your intervention to the person and
their problem is crucial. The worst thing you want to do is assume that “one size fits
all”.

Tailoring Your Treatment to the Person

Let’s look at some examples of tailoring the energy intervention to the person. In these
examples each person seems to have the same presenting problem (throat feeling) but each
requires a different intervention:

Jayden is telling you about his money problems and when he does so you ask him what he
is aware of in his body. He becomes aware of a feeling in his throat. He says it is like
being strangled. You notice the way his voice shifts when he says the word “strangled”
and see that a tear has come into his eye. So you have him tap on “being strangled”. Just
the words are enough and he instantly starts to feel better. When he focuses on his money
issues he is suddenly able to see new possibilities.

Jarrad has a throat feeling too whenever he focuses on a coming job interview. You ask
him to describe its location, size, shape and colour. He does so easily (round, tennis
ball, front of throat, black). You ask him to focus on the round black lump at the front
of his throat and start tapping and notice how it changes and he is surprised how it
moves through several colours, shapes, and locations and each time it does so the feeling
shifts until ultimately it is completely gone and replaced by a feeling of excitement. He
sends you an email 2 days later to tell you he got the job and (unheard of) really
enjoyed himself in the interview.

Joanne has a throat feeling too when explaining her business challenges. You ask her to
put her attention on the feeling and simply notice what it is like and she says it feels
tight. You ask her to pay attention to the tightness and just observe what it does as she
taps. She says it starts to get tighter and you ask her if she can tap and allow it to do
so. As she does this the tightness increases a little more, then starts to ease, then
disappears. A week later she has completed several business tasks she’d been putting off.

Jim has a throat feeling. You ask him to put his attention on the feeling and tell you
the first image that comes into his mind. He says, surprised, “a house”. You have him
focus on the house image and tap. As he does so, the image expands; you encourage him to
tap and allow it to continue to do so. The house image keeps expanding until it is really
large then suddenly Jim reports that it has started to contract. It keeps contracting
until eventually it has shrunk away completely. The feeling in Jim’s throat has now
disappeared. When he speaks his voice is clear and strong.

Jemima has a throat feeling. You ask her where she has felt this problem before. She
accesses a memory of being pushed under the water by her brother in the bath at age four.
You have her tap whilst focusing on the intense parts of this memory. Progressively the
feeling subsides. Later she calls her brother for the first time in 10 years.

Jetta has a throat feeling when he thinks about a coming presentation. You ask him what
thought goes with that feeling and he says rapidly and anxiously, “I’m going to forget
what I have to say”. You have him repeat that negative statement out loud and the anxiety
increases. Now you ask him to tap continually whilst repeating the same statement very
slowly, one word at a time, with an extended pause between each word, as he taps. Two
minutes later when you have him repeat the statement again as he thinks about doing the
presentation the throat feeling is not there. He is calm. He goes on to conduct a
brilliant presentation with no anxiety at all.

These are just 6 examples of different interventions, and there are dozens more,
including what you do with those clients who aren’t even aware of what they are feeling.
The key is that the intervention is tailored to the person and how they are representing
and experiencing the problem. I haven’t even said anything here about matching the
person’s energy level and intensity when you interact with them. And then there is the
crucial unseen dimension of how you connect with them at a heart level.

In my upcoming workshops I’ll be demonstrating these and many other energy interventions
and techniques and will show you how you can get more effective results by tailoring your
approach to each new person.  I hope you can join us.

What do you think? I’d love to read your comments.

Note from Steve Wells:

10 years ago Dr. David Lake’s daughter Tanya nearly lost her life in the Bali terrorist bombings. On her return to Australia, David treated her using EFT for the emotional trauma she had experienced. The original account of that successful tapping treatment appeared in EFT Creator Gary Craig’s newsletter.

You can read  a copy of the original article here. It is also included in our book Enjoy Emotional Freedom.

Recently, David and his family travelled to Bali for a very special event. This is his account of what happened there…

Bali Revisited: Personal Note from Dr. David Lake:

The first week in May marked a family milestone for me and a deeply satisfying affirmation of life. It is also a reminder of the power of the energy techniques to facilitate life-affirming change far beyond the idea of “treatment”.  My Mum once said that “you can’t worry about what never happened” (meaning, don’t speculate with negative thinking about the ‘what-if’s’ in life). I have often thought of her words in the context of having four adventurous daughters.

2012 marks a decade since the date of the first Bali bombing where my daughter Tanya nearly lost her life. If you have read the account on our website or in our book “Enjoy Emotional Freedom” of her survival and tapping treatment—for the trauma she experienced—then you know she was determined afterwards not to live her life “under a rock”, hiding away from danger or living in fear. Her family and friends gathered in Ubud, Bali, last week to see her marry. It was a celebration in every way. For me it was also evidence of a complete healing.

During the ceremony and afterwards I had many thoughts about how far she had come since that awful day. Who could ever forget receiving a telephone call in the night saying “I’ve been blown up, but I’m alright! ”? I know that her friends were sometimes conscious of that time in the past, during the ceremony. I was very concerned personally about even going to Bali for the wedding. [At this moment a group of terrorists remain at large on the island with the intention to cause another atrocity.] Let’s just say that a lot of tapping was happening in my house recently.

None of this apprehension mattered in the realization of her creative and inspiring ‘dream wedding’. It was held in a lush, tropical paradise and every detail spoke of care and good intention. We were all surrounded by the love and affection of her friends and our family. Having her two children at play with all the guests provided a delightful counterpoint to any formality. We came completely into the moment. We had so much fun! We all created a vibrational space that is still resonating.

I mention all this purely to give thanks for the wonderful tapping technique that I consider allowed Tanya to continue to live her life, without being held back by the trauma she went through in 2002. It was a timely and vital intervention. I’m pleased that the opportunity came for her to benefit from all that I had learned, especially from Gary Craig. I know some sufferers from that time are still very afflicted. I also know that many trauma sufferers generally have as yet had no access to the kind of good outcomes that tapping can deliver. Their lives have been blighted. But life goes on; families keep going (and giving) too. This ‘ongoingness’ is so important in one’s inner world. Techniques alone can’t give you the emotional ‘food’ that you need to become authentically yourself.

Living well is not just avoiding mistakes or dealing with problems. Tanya has had plenty of those. It is manifesting your real values: the truth as you see it. I think that this tapping result from long ago has allowed Tanya to live her values in a beautiful way that culminated in the ceremony in Bali. How fitting that she should choose the place she loves to show her self to us all.

By Steve Wells

“It is the physician’s love which heals the patient” — Sandor Ferenczi

Many people don’t realise that the term provocative as used in Provocative Energy Techniques actually means “to call forth”, that the focus of PET is on calling forth clients strengths and helping them to access their energy for change, to help them to get back in touch with their own power. But what blows them away even more is when they discover that approach is really grounded in a loving, warm energy and it is this which gives PET its true healing power.

What is really most provocative in a PET session, what is most difficult to handle for many clients is not the practitioners exaggeration of their negative belief systems, nor is it the practitioners ” seeming encouragement of” their own internal put-downs or their doom and gloom thinking. What is most provocative and often hardest to handle for clients is the warm-hearted accepting energy which is flowing to them through the practitioner.

What is this like from the client’s perspective?

Here is a beautiful description from Caroline from our last Brussels seminar:

“In May 2011, when Steve motioned me to come before the group for a PET demonstration, my heart was pounding. He then asked me what I wanted to work on. I replied that “I’m very talented for depression” and I felt the sadness beginning to overwhelm me and I started to feel the sobs rising and shaking me. While tapping, Steve in his inimitable style and with lots of love began to imitate the movements of my body shaken by sobs and says “Looks like a car that is misfiring to start”. The audience and I were quite sure rocked with laughter. What was not visible from the outside but very strong inside, was the sensation of pain mixed with laughter. With equal intensity.

I felt Steve was with me. I felt his look of love and his presence in this moment of most intense pain. He was there with me. Once in a while I was a little embarrassed to have an audience of 130 people on the side but I was trying to welcome something that was beginning to happen in myself. Steve kept looking at me in silence. We tapped continuously. In silence. And gradually as time passed, I felt Steve’s love into my heart I felt someone’s love for me for the first time in my life. Pure love. He looked at me as no one had ever looked at me. It was extremely beautiful and deliciously soothing. I left this demonstration rebuilt, touched in my heart, a place I did not know. I felt that my heart had opened to love and it is still open a year later much bigger. So I say thank you Steve and thank you PET.”

Many patterns used in PET owe their origin to Provocative Therapy, created by Frank Farrelly, including the humorous provocation and paradoxical language, but the main element, the one really key thing Frank taught us, is to keep your heart open.

It was this which so overwhelmed me way back in 1986 when I had my first session with Frank, the overwhelming feelings of love, warmth and acceptance such as I’d never experienced before. And that is what kept me coming back to this man and his approach to experience and to learn more. What I didn’t realise sometimes when I was so focused on learning the techniques and trying too hard sometimes to be funny, was that Frank was really teaching me to open up my heart. Bit by bit.

Over the years as my heart has been able to open more my results with clients have improved exponentially.

When we certify practitioners of PET it is this element which we cannot emphasise enough: Keep your heart open towards the client. Keep yourself in an open, connected,  warm-hearted state at all times.

Ultimately, far beyond any techniques you use, it is this love which does the healing.

What do you think? We would love to read your comments on this article.

Experience the power of PET at a live workshop.

By Steve Wells

- John Farnham, Have a Little Faith (in us)

About 18 months ago I was contacted out of the blue by Bill, a gentleman I’d originally met in the USA back in 2000 at the second Energy Psychology conference. Bill is a war veteran who had suffered clinical depression and had been helped significantly by tapping using EFT to overcome this. He called me to tell me about a new process he’d learnt for treating trauma which involved some exercises designed to initiate a natural shaking process in the body, a process called Trauma Release Exercises (TRE), developed by David Berceli, PhD. TRE  worked remarkably to release tension and trauma, he said, and he told me he was doing all he could to support Berceli to get this out to help the world. He said he knew that I was open-minded and hoped I might be able to help.

I listened with cautionary interest as Bill related the basics of TRE, but my ears really pricked up and the hair stood up on my skin when he said these words:  “Tapping got me back on my feet but this stuff put the smile back on my face.”  I agreed right there to find out more, to try it out and let him know once I’d experienced TRE if I felt it was something I could support.

I immediately went online and ordered Berceli’s DVD, took it home and – eventually – started experimenting with the exercises. As I’ve mentioned in a previous newsletter, I have to admit I put off trying the techniques for a while, as the “control freak” side of me was a little worried about engaging in a process which would initiate a shaking or tremoring process in my body. Once I did manage to watch the DVD’s and try out the exercises however I found that my fears were misguided as the TRE process was very gentle and empowering, the opposite of what I’d feared.

I quickly became convinced through my own bodily experience that what Berceli has uncovered is something quite important and powerful, and I have since become involved in supporting Berceli’s Australian workshops and promoting his work worldwide.

TRE’s simple exercises work to relieve the tension held in our core muscles from the traumas and life stresses which we have experienced through our life, and which have arisen from both “little t” traumas as well as “big T” traumas. The experience is different for everyone, but most find it as I did to be very gentle, relieving and empowering. But there was something more to it, something at the time I felt hard to describe, but it felt positive, whatever it was.

I went on to participate in two training workshops with David Berceli last year in Melbourne, and found him to be a wonderful, gentle soul and dedicated philanthropist who is committed to sharing this natural healing process with the world.

I now feel the need to tell you about what happened to me in the first workshop I attended with David, an experience which was both profound and life altering.

I went along to the workshop with the intention of simply learning the pure process David was teaching and not to impose my own ideas onto it (although I already had some thoughts of how tapping might work together with TRE).

Each time I did the TRE exercises in the workshop, the tremors started happening for me, however they never managed to move much further than my hips. Although this is fine and ultimately the idea is to just let the tremors work at their own pace, it seemed to me they had stalled in that area, and the energy was blocked from being able to move through. When this happened for the third set of exercises in a row I had the idea to try something different, and that was when I made my first discovery.

As I stood (or “sat”) with my back against the wall, one of the exercises designed to initiate the shaking, I noticed that the tremors I was having were once again concentrated around the top of my legs and didn’t seem able to move any further than this.  Now before we did the exercises, Berceli had told us  about a group of chiropractors in one of his workshops who had been easily able to get the tremors to go right through their bodies up to their necks, a sign that their bodies were clear of tension, thus allowing the energy to pass right through.

As I stood/sat on the wall and noticed the tremors becoming stuck in my upper leg area I decided to try a little bit of fingertip tapping as we use in Simple Energy Techniques (SET). The effect was both instantaneous and profound.

In the very instant I started tapping, the energy of the tremors moved right through my body up to my shoulders. As they did so, I felt them starting to release tension in my back and shoulders. The tapping had somehow opened up a pathway to allow the healing energy of the tremors to flow through my body. Or it settled down my judging mind and inner “control freak”, I’m not sure which. The feeling was very pleasurable as I felt the tremors continue to move, more freely now, through my body to the areas of greatest tension and pain.

A little while later I was still standing/sitting on the wall and I began to muse on David’s story about the chiropractors. A world trauma expert (I think it was Stephen Porges) was in the room at that time observing David’s work. When discussing it later with David later, he’d made this statement:  “They were able to let the tremors go right through to their necks because they loved you.” When David explained this to us he said that Porges obviously meant that they trusted him, he had rapport with them, and that was why they were able to allow the process to go so far. As I thought about this I wondered to myself,  “What if Porges meant it literally? What if it was really feeling the love that facilitated the process?” Stay with me here.

I noticed that the tremors in my body had almost stopped completely at this point, as I was “in my head” thinking about this stuff. I wondered what would happen if I were to access the feeling of love.  An image of my youngest son Callum instantly came to my mind. As many of you know, Callum has Down Syndrome, and like many people with Down Syndrome he seems to have a special ability at times to resonate what I can only describe as a state of pure love. That is certainly what I experience many times in his presence…

As I saw my son’s smiling face in my mind I started to feel that wonderful loving feeling that he both resonates and evokes in me. And then something incredible started to happen.

Instantly, the tremors started to move right through my entire body in a way that was amazing, rich, and deeply liberating. As the tremors moved through me, they began to release huge amounts of tension from my back, neck and shoulders, and I became intensely present to observing and being incredulous of the process.

I realised that this energy, this healing, this love is always available to us, always present and willing to serve us, it is simply a matter of clearing the blocks that are preventing us from seeing it, feeling it, accessing it.

I moved to the floor and was able to let the tremors continue to move through me and that day I felt that the tremors removed about 95% of all the tension I’d been carrying in my back  for many months. I felt revived. And my thoughts took on a clarity I’d not known for some time.

Later that day, I speculated on the experiences I’d had. Seeing my state, a friend said the only thing she could liken it to was kundalini rising, which she’d seen before on a couple of occasions. I don’t know about that, but what I do know is that I enjoyed the results for many days afterwards with noticeably less tension and markedly less anxiety along with a feeling of centeredness and positive vitality. And another benefit was that I discovered I no longer needed to do the TRE exercises to initiate the shaking, all I needed to do was lay on the floor, bend my knees up and put my feet flat on the floor and I could simply let the shaking begin. It’s now something I do regularly, and especially before my workshops, as a way of getting myself into a clear state and staying in balance.

After my experiences at that first TRE Workshop, I started to experiment with taking others through the TRE exercises and also to explore the many ways that tapping could be combined with TRE to facilitate the release. I found tapping could prevent people slipping into negative emotional states or dissociating, as can happen with some people with severe trauma when doing TRE. I also found that some others who’d learned tapping also found that doing it along with the TRE helped them to get better results. Here’s just one example:

“TRE is fantastic – highly recommend it, especially for the amazing insight it gives into the way we are so much more than just our minds. For me it was like meeting a whole other part of ‘myself’. When I did the workshop I was concerned that I might be too inhibited to let go and allow the shaking in a room full of strangers, so during morning tea I went off by myself and tapped on this. The result was that, far from slow or Inhibited to learn it, my body was the first to get shaking and the whole experience was extraordinary and surprising. - Beth Spencer, http://www.feelingdelicious.com/

I wondered what might happen if we did this deliberately, if we taught people both techniques, and explored what would happen if we combined them. I already knew results like Beth described were possible, and I was also interested in what more could be gained.

In December I had dinner with David Berceli and Richmond Heath (Australia’s only Level 3 TRE facilitator) and discussed my ideas about doing a workshop combining tapping and TRE. I said I wanted to explore how both approaches might work together synergistically, to facilitate more gentle release, and also to help us access more expansive experiences, as had been my experience. Both agreed it was an idea worth exploring, and thus was born the workshop which I’ll be conducting this May in Melbourne with Richmond Heath.

This will be the first workshop worldwide combining the power of Tapping and TRE. I’m hugely excited about it (if that isn’t obvious) as I’ve already experienced the benefits of using  these wonderful techniques together.

Of course, everyone’s experience is different, so I can’t promise you’ll have the more uplifting or spiritual experiences I had, however I do know that at a minimum you’ll learn some powerful new distinctions for relieving trauma, tension and general anxiety and stress using these two fantastic techniques.

A weekend of tapping and shaking! Sounds weird? It will be, but it will be both wonderfully weird and weirdly wonderful. I hope you’ll consider joining us, especially if you want to explore new potentials or even if you just have some problems you haven’t been able to shake!

More details on the workshop can be found here:  http://www.eftdownunder.com/tretapmel.html

PS: For those who can’t make it to our workshop, I highly recommend you look into Berceli’s work. You can find out more at: http://www.traumaprevention.com

PPS: As future workshops are announced, they will be listed on the Events page of our website.

By Steve Wells

If you suffer from food cravings, tapping using EFT and Simple Energy Techniques (SET) is often successful at reducing the desire for your craved food in the moment. However if you want to go beyond this to produce long-term behaviour change, you need to look at what is driving the cravings in the first place. This might be a simple connection of an emotion to a food but is more likely to be an underlying issue, such as anxiety or depression, where food is being used to sedate the bad feelings (By far the most common symptom is anxiety).

Treating a food craving is actually quite simple. Here is a basic format you can use:

• Identify the food(s) you crave
• Activate the craving (by visualising the food initially, and imagining eating it; then later, after you have calmed the feeling, using some of the food itself)
• Tap on the activated thoughts: e.g. “I want this”, “I need this”, “I have to have this”
• Tap on the feelings associated with eating the food: e.g. The feeling of the food in your mouth, the taste of the food, the qualities you love (e.g. smoothness / crunchiness)…
• Scan your body for any tension and tap on that
• Try hard to activate the craving and keep tapping until the craving settles down and can’t be easily activated by thinking about eating the food
• Repeat the above steps using a portion of the craved food
• If you do indulge in the craved food, tap on your bad feelings (more on this below)

For many people, tapping works to reduce the craving in the moment, but doesn’t produce long term behaviour change. In these instances, we need to look deeper.

First, realise that the craving is performing a function for you. Even at a basic level, for most sufferers, the craving is an unconsciously driven attempt to reduce emotional stress. If the craving does serve to reduce your stress then if you take it away then when you get stressed you will just suffer. So in the short term, accept that the underlying intention of this behaviour is positive, even if the ultimate results for you are not positive.

Often, a craving is held in place by a specific belief, and the behaviour is an attempt to compensate for that belief. If you treat a craving for a specific food but you leave in place the underlying belief then you will be driven to find another substance to medicate the bad feelings which are generated by this belief…

Here are some common issues and negative beliefs that came up in our research study treatment groups:

• NOT feeling loved by either parent,
• The belief that there is not enough,
• Feeling not enough or not good enough

These beliefs may have been picked up from parents who carried these feelings from past events such as world wars, the great depression, or other personal experiences of hardship. As a result of these beliefs, some people end up frequently feeling empty, or never feeling full.

I suffered from a version of this for much of my life, the belief that “There’s not enough”. One of the key drivers behind this belief were childhood experiences where my father, who was “never full”, would distract my attention so that he could eat the food off my plate. The worst thing was that I liked to “save the best til last”, as a reward to myself for having eaten the less tasty stuff first… When my Dad would then “steal” the good bits off my plate, I would be very hurt and angry. That anger and hurt led me to become someone who would eat very fast, to the point where I would not so much eat my food as “engulf” it!

Tapping on these childhood experiences can lead to significant shifts. In my case, tapping on these incidents not only defused the hurt feelings, it also led me to feel compassion and understanding for my father, who was clearly compensating for the fact his own father walked out when he was just 10 years old, among other things. I realised that for him and for me, eating food was really about wanting to feel loved, and no amount of food could compensate for that particular emptiness. Tapping on that feeling increased my love for my father when in the past these experiences for me had represented the opposite of love. Many of you know that my work on Values has also helped me to experience more love in my life, and I find this work very valuable in working with clients with these issues. When you get what you really want, you no longer need your old patterns as much…

Another very common issue for many people with emotional eating issues is FOMO – Fear of Missing Out. This fear also gets in the way of progress as they also fear that by treating their problem with emotional overeating or food cravings they will MISS OUT or SUFFER (Diet, for many people means deprivation!). Instead, they discover to their delight that they can still eat whatever they want, but they don’t HAVE TO. When the intense attachment to the craved food is released, you can either enjoy it without stress, or leave it alone.

One key strategy to help you get to this hallowed place is by using acceptance tapping when you do indulge.

What do I mean here and how to you do this?

Quite simply, the negative pattern causes you to feel as though you are “driven” to do the behaviour you know you “should not do”, such as eating the food you know is “bad for you”.  Ultimately, many people do end up acting on that drive (discipline is highly overrated!). At this point, they then go into guilt and self-punishment mode. This is a  key time to add the tapping, without judgement. Of course, the judgement will be present, so you can then apply the tapping directly, not to the problem behaviour which you just engaged in, but to the judgement itself!

Tap, not on your guilt for having “failed again”, but on the fact that you are judging yourself for this. This interrupts the judgement cycle. When you can engage in the behaviour that was previously a problem for you and feel little or no judgement afterwards, you will have gone a long way to creating the conditions for the problem to simply disappear…

As Eckhart Tolle states: “The moment that judgement stops through acceptance of what it is, you are free of the mind. You have made room for love, for joy, for peace.”

So the simple starting point for most people: Just add tapping to your problem behaviour without trying to change things. That, in itself can often lead you to a very good place.  For our research groups, as well as my clients, the moment they interrupt their pattern of self-deprecation and blame is the moment when things start to change for them.

There is much more we could say on this issue, and a comprehensive program for change will go far beyond the above to:

• Treat the underlying emotional issues driving the cravings / compulsive eating habit
• Treat your beliefs related to food and weight issues
• Treat your inner values conflicts
• Help you to define how you want your life to be
• Give you the tools and strategies to make that a reality; and
• Help you get started

This is exactly the type of program I’ve put now put together for you. Find out more.

What do you think? We would love to read your comments on this article.

By Steve Wells

Recently I read an article in a popular EFT newsletter written by a “certified EFT expert and  trainer” on a “four-word phrase that often clears depression”. I was intrigued. The phrase? “I am soooo happy!” The author of the article says when this phrase is repeated at every tapping point (meaning you tap on each of the EFT points in turn whilst repeating the phrase as you do so), followed by similarly tapping on “I am such a happy person” that this “usually resolves the underlying emotions and begins the recovery process”. The author claims to have had “hundreds” of clients “break through depression” using this technique!!  The author then goes on to say, “Of course, using this four-word phrase just begins the process. To clear depression, more tapping should be done.”

I admit I had to do a lot of tapping on my own negative reactions before I could write this!

My first thought was that the writer doesn’t know anything about real depression. My second thought was that it would be insulting to those who HAVE experienced true depression, and it perpetuates a myth of “instant success” from tapping with depression which “just ain’t so” for the majority of sufferers.

In my experience from 14 years of using numerous Energy Techniques with all types of depression and other emotional problems the approach this person advocates  does not and will not work on the types of depression I see in my practice. I showed it to one of my clients who has suffered from severe depression and she dismissed it immediately with “I’m proof that approach won’t work”. This lady has been through the mill of positive thinking approaches like this, including various intensive programs of spiritual study and learning that would put most of us to shame. She knew it all, yet she was still depressed  (Depressed no longer by the way, but that’s another story which I’ll come back to another time).

The author lumps what I would call feeling “a little down”, or “little ‘d’ depression”, the kind that most of us experience quite often, into a basket category right along with “big ‘D’ Depression”, the kind that overwhelms people’s energy, can incapacitate them for months and years and is totally toxic and destructive to relationships, families, and to life itself.”

I strongly doubt that this person has followed up with those clients to see if the results they apparently achieved in the workshop or tapping session actually held up a few days or weeks or months later.

The challenge with depression is that often it WILL lift in the short term in response to tapping or other treatments. So it DOES often (though not always) tend to lift in a workshop or in the office. And the client goes away with a smile on their face. But what is the case a few days or weeks later? In many cases, without additional support, the client is back to being deeply depressed. And that can be the case even if they have tapped every day. So for these clients tapping usually needs to be combined with other things in order to lift the energy sufficiently to keep their head above water for long enough for them to catch their breath and begin to regain sufficient energy to swim for shore!

Most people working with large numbers of depressed clients in clinical practice agree that the rapid results that tapping achieves on anxiety-based problems are usually not achieved in the same way on depression, other than cases of mild depression. So the approach advocated by this practitioner might be fine for some cases of “little ‘d’ depression, but not “big “D” Depression. In fact, that’s a bit of a test really. IMO if it responds to this approach then it IS NOT what I would call depression. So, hey, if you are feeling a bit down, give it a go. If it works for you, great. But please don’t tell the world it cured your depression. That will feel like an insult to those people who are truly depressed. And if any readers have been depressed for some time and want to give it a go just to prove me wrong, I encourage you to do so and write about your experiences below. Maybe I’m just seeing more than my fair share of really strongly depressed people…

By the way, I am NOT depressed about working with depressed clients, nor am I negative about the chances of getting results. In fact, I think the results I’ve been getting with my own “combo approach” with depressed clients are world class.  I’ll write about this in more detail at another time.  I just know from experience that the best approach for long term results involves a bit more than having them repeat a phrase such as “I am so happy”, even if they really emphasise the word “SOOOOOOOOO”!!

In my experience, treatment for “big “D” Depression usually requires a combination approach to be most effective. Tapping on its own rarely works with severely depressed clients, and here I am referring to those stronger and more clinical forms of depression which are characterised by intense periods of darkness and heaviness, very black feelings and even blacker thoughts, low energy, deep sadness and despair, disrupted sleep patterns, low or no motivation, among other things. Their energy system is overwhelmed, and their brain chemistry is completely awry.  Something needs to happen to “lift” the energy of the depressed person. Now tapping CAN be a huge part of a successful approach, and since using the continual tapping approach of SET and having people tap on a daily basis my results using tapping with depression are far superior to when I was just using EFT. However, in most cases of moderate to severe depression, tapping is not enough on its own, even if clients do tap every day.

What needs to happen to get big “D” depression to lift in a sustainable way? (That’s the key, sustainable, so that the results last). In no particular order, some combination of the following can help:

Good therapy with a skilled therapist or practitioner with experience in treating depression and the capacity to connect with you in a way that you feel understood and safe and held. If you have moderate to severe depression, this will almost certainly need to be more than just “a few sessions”. IMO the therapist needs to see the client through until they are able to function well over time. This doesn’t necessarily need to be someone who uses tapping, as tapping can be added to any therapy. But ideally they are not just a technician who is focused only on technique such as where to tap / what to say, they are someone who can connect on a human level and knows how to use their own energetic and emotional state to influence the state of the client on an ongoing basis. Good therapy with or without tapping addresses not only the despair, but the roots of this in past trauma and negative future projections….

Daily SET tapping in order to help the energy to lift and stay lifted. I recommend  up to an hour a day of tapping or even more for very depressed clients, particularly in the early weeks. It’s not enough to do a few rounds of tapping or a few positive affirmations and expect that alone to do the job. Tap every morning and night and inbetween and add tapping to your daily routine. Get enough of it happening and you will be doing something which may progressively help to lift your mood as over time the benefits can accumulate and build. And combine this with…

Other people. Friends, families and faiths have for centuries done most of the real therapy. We need other people and the key here is to find people who can help your energy to lift. I’d also caution to avoid those who deplete your energy when you are working with the sort of energy deficit of strong depression.  To get your energy to lift you are going to need a steady diet of people who will help you. Asking for their help and accepting it can be an issue to work on in therapy!

Medical diagnosis and possibly antidepressants.  This is a hugely contentious issue as people hate the idea of going to the doctor and detest the idea of drugs. A good medical diagnosis will rule out other things such as thyroid problems which can be upsetting your general balance and mood. I want to go on record that I dislike drugs but not as much as I hate to see people suffering.  They are not for everyone however I’ve seen  people get their life back with the right treatment. We need to get over the “either-or” thinking of alternative vs traditional and “all drugs are bad” biases and work with whatever will help your energy to lift and stay lifted. Sure, the ideal is to ultimately live drug-free and if you can lift the depression sustainably with natural methods alone that is great, however I have seen many people struggle for years trying to use “natural” approaches only to end up more depressed. Many natural approaches  only have good results on milder forms of depression unfortunately…

Good nutrition. There is good evidence that dietary changes can help lift energy, and there’s a lot of good research now for supplements like fish oil, which has in some studies outperformed antidepressants. Without wishing to prescribe anything specific for any one person (you must work with your personal therapist, doctor, alternative practitioner, etc, to work out what is best for you specifically), if I were depressed I’d be getting into daily doses of fish oil, and increasing my diet of raw foods (which I like to do anyway!).

Exercise. There’s heaps of evidence that exercise can help to lift depression. The challenge is  you need to do it regularly and for a long enough period to get your energy to lift and stay lifted. Best advice is to find someone who will commit to doing it with you. If you can keep it up for a couple of months or more there is usually a compounding effect with increased production of good things like endorphins and a suppression of stress chemicals …

Whatever (else) it takes…  As Dr. David Lake advises, ” May I suggest that you consider having whatever treatment it takes, either natural or orthodox, to get the depression to lift?” This might include exploring such things as allergy treatments, cranio-sacral balancing, David Berceli’s Trauma Release Exercises (TRE), 5-element acupuncture, St John’s Wort, eliminating grains, among other things, as well as seeking out a medical practitioner who you trust and can work with as a partner in health, and exploring all the options offered.

There is much more I could say about effectively treating depression, however I don’t have space here. The main thing is to accept that as long as you are still feeling depressed it means you still need further help, accept that it is out there but may take time and a few blind alleyways before you find the unique combination that works for you. Persist even though at times you may feel that all is lost, realise people can and do overcome this condition and you can to be in that category.

And, hey, if tapping and reciting “I am so happy” works for you, let me know, I’ll be happy to reconsider my position if enough people who’ve experienced real depression convince me it works!! If it doesn’t, take heart, many people – in fact most in my experience – who have experienced real depression DO need more than this. Just because that is so doesn’t make the situation hopeless, just more real.

What do you think?

We would love to read your comments.

By Dr. David Lake

This is a plea for paying more attention to the complexities of the healing process.

Recently I consulted a boy aged 10, who came with his mother and father. The boy was “not sleeping”. After a detailed assessment, and a session of teaching SET continual tapping for all, on review, two weeks later the problem had resolved completely. I was struck by the father’s phrase then that his son had “achieved his goal of sleeping”. As I gently pointed out to him that sleeping well was not really a goal, but a normal process (the ‘default’ position)—and that the sleep disturbance was the issue—I realized once again that personal problems are too easily medicalised or socialized (given labels or categories) when often they are a reflection of that person’s dealing with a life event, a transition in life, trouble in a social or work context, family tensions, or the clash of a particular personality with reality. This is termed the struggle between ‘what should be’ and ‘what is’! It is the cause of all stress and most problems in relationship. .

There are always good reasons for people to get ‘stuck’ in life and this happens regularly. We are not hypocrites. Nobody wakes up in the morning wanting to have troubles. But they exist, or life will provide some for you. I have faith in the process of working through such troubles with the help and support of others, with helping yourself, with a good therapeutic technique to facilitate matters, and sometimes luck, and the passage of time. We are the ones who have to deal with our own reactions .

Above all this process requires personal acceptance of what is. It cannot be achieved by willpower or a decision. .

In the boy’s case his parents had helped him by providing a safe environment for him to regain his confidence. He had several excellent reasons for not sleeping well but the main issue was his persistent worrying and highly sensitive nature. The continual SET tapping gave him some relief. He was able to feel more neutral about the issues generally. Then he got back into his normal balance. His parents were fascinated in the treatment session that I spoke frankly about all the difficulties and hurts the boy was facing, by way of helping him accept the ‘dark side’ of his life at that time. What they did not see initially was that doing this, with good rapport, was enormously relieving for their son. When you accept the negative you don’t have to agree with, or approve of it; it does, however, seem counter-intuitive that talking about it and focusing on it, while tapping, can help. Of course, tapping only ‘works’ on the negative so it’s best to find a way to have the problem come alive in the beginning, so that the healing process can really begin.

I often say to patients that if it were a matter of intellect, reason or logic they would not be sitting in front of me; in other words, if they could have solved their problem by thinking it through then it would have been solved. The feeling dimension is what ‘hurts’ and that cannot be simply sorted out by a decision of will or applying any technique. Humans have not changed inside for thousands of years and we all need what we need: to be heard, affirmed and validated. Suffering is necessary only to get our attention. It is what we do next that counts. This is often a relational effort—getting help. Sometimes this can lead to acceptance (and forgiveness), sometimes not. But the process is very necessary.

Steve Wells repeats the quote (from Mark Victor Hansen and Robert Allen) in his Values workshop that “a failure to live according to your values is a real failure”. It is very instructive to give your mind a job to do by sorting out your values and driving beliefs; this will help it fulfill its function as a faithful servant (thanks, Larry Nims), and bring more satisfaction and self-confidence on that intellectual level. But the modern push in the world of therapy to ‘achieve happiness’ seems bizarre to me. In the world of tapping there is a parallel false belief about personal success, where you are supposed to cure all your own problems by tapping and, ideally, to do it quickly.

Cheerfulness, contentment and happiness I regard as a birthright. Equally, our own negative thoughts and beliefs are our biggest block to just being who we are. We exist in a matrix of friends, family and community, like it or not. This is where the process of “walking the walk” (being authentic) takes place. This “being presence” (see Bob Adamson) is what you bring to the party when you help another, or help yourself.

And remember the tapping…

What do you think?

We would love to read your comments…

These are the audio recordings from a lighthearted and highly informative interview conducted by EFT Master Emma Roberts with Steve Wells on the topic of Advanced Energy Methods (AEM).

You can download the recordings of this interview at no charge from the links below.

There are two files in all as skype managed to disconnect us mid-sentence!

Click on the links below to listen to the audios, or right click and then select “Save link as”, “File save as” Or “Save target as” to save to your computer.

Advanced Energy Methods (AEM) – Part 1 (36 minutes)

Advanced Energy Methods (AEM) – Part 2 (6 minutes 40 seconds)

Hope you enjoy listening to them – I’ll be interested to read your comments!

You can also ask a question which I’ll either answer here or in a future audio interview.

Best wishes,

Steve Wells

Find out more about our workshops here: http://www.eftdownunder.com/events.html

Find out more about Emma Roberts at: http://www.theeftcentre.com/