Author Archive

EFT Tapping Group

It’s getting to be that time again!  If you live in the Chicago area, please come and benefit from our monthly “Borrowing Benefits” tapping group on the north side of Chicago.  We meet in my condo from 3 to 4:30 PM on the last Sunday of the month.  The date is Sunday, August 28, 2011.  The cost is $50, and you need no prior experience with EFT.

Bring a friend and benefit from the “2-for-1” sale.  Or, come by yourself, pay $50 and you can come to the September tapping group for free.

Each tapping group has been very successful, with people reporting that they have experienced significant lessening of their own stress levels just by tapping along with whoever is working on their own issues.

If you don’t live in the Chicago area, please call and set up an affordable group of telephone tapping sessions.  Live sessions or telephone sessions are equally valuable, and the cost is $130 for a 60 minute session.  If you prefer to purchase a package of 6 or more tapping sessions, the cost is only $595.

You can pay by check or PayPal.  If you haven’t tried EFT, you owe it to yourself to learn this simple, yet highly effective stress-relief tool. 

I look forward to tapping with you,

Kiya

There’s a wonderfully expressive Yiddish word, that has been somewhat incorporated into the American dialect. That word is “kvetch.” It means complaining bitterly and often about a given situation. It is also used as a noun: So and so is such a kvetch! He’s always complaining about something.

I have to admit, I have been quite a “kvetch” myself lately about the intense heat spell we’ve had in Chicago. I drove by a bank the other day and it said that the heat index was 107 degrees. It is hot.

I believe that I can be more comfortable on a hot day by using tapping. Of course, I can’t literally change the temperature, but I can change my emotional relationship to the heat.

I am reminded of a funny episode of M.A.S.H. where Klinger is given a sugar pill that is supposed to relieve him of the intense heat. Everyone else is sweating profusely while Klinger is parading around in heavy clothes and a mink coat.

When someone finally tells him that the pill was only a placebo, he immediately rips off his heavy clothes and starts sweating and kvetching about the unbearable heat.

How is it that patients can take a Sugar Pill, believing it is a heavy narcotic and be suddenly free of excruciating pain? Or someone with chronic Insomnia manages to sleep peacefully through the night just because they think they have taken a powerful sleeping pill?

If we accept the fact that everything is energy, then I believe that the “Placebo Effect” is simply a shifting of energy that allows the person to use their natural healing abilities because their belief system has been changed.

I think that tapping does essentially the same thing, only we get to be totally conscious of what we are doing and there doesn’t need to be a sense of being “duped.”

You can try this at home. Either remember vividly or create a cool experience for yourself. All I have to do is remember the cool water against my skin when I was in a swimming pool. Or you might want to set a big bowl of ice cubes in front of a fan and blow the cool air on your face.

Next, move away from the fan (or the cool memory), and allow yourself to give full reign to your kvetching about the weather.

KC: (3X) Even though I HATE this heat and it makes me feel angry, frustrated, uncomfortable, and irritable, I accept myself anyway.

EB: This unbearable heat.

SE: This unbearable heat.

UE: I am inside a furnace at work.

UN: I can’t stand it anymore.

Ch: I want to move to the Arctic Circle.

CB: I feel so angry.

UA: I feel so frustrated.

RC: I feel so uncomfortable.

WR: I feel so irritable.

TH: This unbearable heat.

Keep going until you have brought all the numbers down close to zero. Then start planting a new idea. You can skip the Karate Chop, and just tap on all of the points saying something entirely positive and cool:

EB: That cool fan on my face.

SE: That bowl of ice cubes.

UE: The feel of cool water when I jumped in the pool.

UN: That cool fan on my face.

Ch: I can feel cool anytime I want to.

CB: I can re-create that feeling of coolness.

UA: I feel cool right now..

RC: I can ignore the thermometer.

WR: I choose to feel cool.

TH: I choose to feel cool.

Please e-mail me and let me know if you have success with this idea.

Blessings,

Kiya

Many things about Energy Work are so very different from traditional counseling, and Borrowing Benefits is a great example. I am glad that I have training and experience in both modalities, and I often incorporate EFT coaching with regular psychotherapy in my private practice.

Whenever I have set up a traditional counseling therapy group, there are important issues of confidentiality, safety, and consistency. There is a careful process involved in introducing new members to the group, and the participants usually make a commitment to a certain number of weekly sessions.

Because the possibility of anonymity and confidentiality are built into an EFT Coaching Group, new people are welcome to join at any time. And because Basic EFT is so simple to use, newcomers can join in who have no experience with tapping at all. In fact, I encourage people to bring friends so they can witness how it works and easily participate.

So, once a month we gather and the group can be very different each time. I ask everyone to write down 4 or 5 issues that they would like to work on. I ask that they think of simple, specific issues that are: single-faceted, current and measurable.

For example: Last Friday, at 10 to 5, my boss gave me a huge assignment that he wanted done before I left work that day. I felt angry, frustrated and exhausted.

Next to that specific event, I ask the person to write down a number from “0” to “10” to indicate the intensity of the feelings. “Zero” means that it doesn’t bother me at all, and “ten” means that it bothers me as much as anything ever could.

The confidentiality, safety and anonymity issues are all handled by the simple fact that the person can come to the group with these issues and not reveal what they are to anyone (even the facilitator). People can come to the group and just mention their first name. If it is important to the person to keep their issue totally private, they can simply volunteer (or not) to work in front of the group, and simply say:

Even though I HAVE THIS ISSUE, and it makes me feel angry, frustrated and exhausted, I accept myself anyway.

More often than not, people who come to the group feel comfortable and are willing to openly share their issues with the group. But, it is important that everyone has the clear option to remain private.

Everyone in the group has a list of their own issues that they have written down and given an arbitrary intensity level. Then, they put their issues to the side, as one person volunteers to work in front of the group.

Everyone then taps with the volunteer, saying the same words s/he says and tapping the same points at the same time. It is a powerful experience to have a group tapping with you and adding to the movement of energy.

The borrowing benefits part works like this: as a group member, you are totally focused on the volunteer’s issue. You are doing lots of tapping, but not for yourself or your own issues. Then, after you have totally supported the volunteer, you look again at your own list. Very often you will find that the intensity level of your own issues have diminished significantly!

So, the group is “Win-Win” for everyone involved. It is a satisfying experience to support another person by tapping with them, but it is even more satisfying to know that your own issues tend to get resolved at the same time.

If you are in the greater Chicago area, call to reserve your space in the monthly Borrowing Benefits Group, meeting on the north side of Chicago on Sunday, July 31, 2011 between 3:00 PM and 4:30 PM. Call or email Kiya at: (773) 880-5492 or email.

Dear Tappers,

For the first time since I started my website, I am choosing to skip my monthly newsletter for June.  After a very long illness, my Mom died today, Friday, June 3, 2011.

My mother had a very long and full life.  It is my intention to celebrate her 95 years on this planet, but first I need to take a little time to say “goodbye” not only to her, but to the end of an entire generation of my blood relatives.

I choose to picture her in Heaven dancing with my Dad.  I picture her surrounded by the last 2 generations of grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins welcoming her to her new life free of pain.

Thanks to all of you who have been so supportive along the way.  One little tapping tip that helped me through this long process:  every time I was alone on the very slow elevator going up to my Mom’s room in the nursing home, I said the Ho’Pono Prayer over and over again while I tapped:

EB:  I LOVE YOU,

SE:  I’M SORRY,

UE:  PLEASE FORGIVE ME,

UN:  THANK YOU.

Ch:  I LOVE YOU,

CB:  I’M SORRY,

UA:  PLEASE FORGIVE ME,

RC:  THANK YOU.

Wr:  I LOVE YOU,

TH:  I’M SORRY,

EB:  PLEASE FORGIVE ME,

SE:  THANK YOU.

And I just kept going until the elevator doors finally opened.  I often tapped and recited the prayer at least ten times that way.

Blessings to all of you.  I may blog during this time and I’ll definitely have a newsletter for July. 

Please remember, if you are in the Chicago area on Sunday, June 26, 2011, please register for my Borrowing Benefits* once-a-month tapping group on the north side of Chicago from 3 to 4:30 PM.  The cost is $50 per session.  Call or e-mail me as soon as possible to reserve your space because of limited seating.  Call: 773 880-5492 or e-mail: kiya@eft-tap.com.

* Borrowing Benefits refers to the discovery that people who gather in a group and tap for another person’s issue end up having relief from their own issues that weren’t even addressed.