Reducing Childhood Baggage

The following article, Reducing Childhood Baggage by Heike Prevrhal appreared in the EFT International newsletter and has been reprinted with permssion. I invite you to read this thoroughly entertaining, beautifully written account of Heike’s use of EFT with her 5 year old son. This is an exceptional example of the power of EFT and how it can help children clear very deep issues that may otherwise go on to become part of their adult baggage.

The following episode with my 5 year-old son Anton made me yet again so grateful for having EFT in my parenting toolbox that I want all parents to know about it.

It was an eye opener for me to experience first-hand how EFT addresses existing issues in children so comprehensively and deeply, and how it greatly contributes to avoiding some of the usual accumulation of emotional childhood baggage – what a blessing!

Here is the story. On a walk to the park Anton accidently ran head-on into a newspaper stand. His lips were bleeding a little bit, and a few bruises started to appear quickly. This was his third “severe” little accident within a few days. Anton is normally very healthy and not accident prone at all.

Now he was in pain, cried hard, and he was very upset. We sat down and I started tapping on him addressing the accident. “Even though I’m hurting, my face hurts, I’m still a great kid; I’m scared, I did not see this stand, it hurts, but I’m still a good kid, Mama and Papa love me,…”

He then kept saying: “Mama, mama” and we simply tapped on “I want my mama, mama!!! Mama!! I want my mama” (while he was sitting on my lap anyway), “I want my mama to help me, and I am a great kid, mama, make it go away!”

He calmed down a bit and then said:”I want to glue up this bad box with all yucky stuff, I am going to make it sooooo yucky that they will take it away! And then I’ll put so many coins in the slot that it’s completely stuffed up, and I’ll have the only key, so nobody can use it and they’ll take it away, so it does not hurt me…” – I heard a whole lot of anger and being mad at the stand, so we tapped on anger, all the while using his own words. After a couple of rounds the power of his anger seemed to wane, and he calmed down.

Then he threw his hat to the ground. I managed to just observe instead of reprimanding him. He also pulled his hair and on the skin on his front head. I asked him what he was doing, he replied “I want to take my skin off!” “So you want to take your skin off?” I mirrored. “I don’t want to keep getting hurt in this skin.” Wow, this is deep. Don’t we all feel uncomfortable in our skin at times and would love to be able to get out of it?? So there was FEAR, fear of being hurt again and having to go through pain again. That’s on what we tapped next “…want my skin off, don’t want to hurt again, afraid of being hurt again, not safe, and I am a great kid anyway…”.

He seemed calm and in a good space at this point. It occurred to me to ask him “So why do you think you’ve been getting hurt so much recently?” He contemplated this for a moment, and then very deliberately answered “Mama, it’s because of those scary bad guys in the dreams I’ve been having.”

What followed was a description of four scary dreams that I had not heard in such detail and clarity before. The most recent one was about “this scary killer person coming to our house”. The other three were from a little while ago; one about a favorite stuffed animal doggie being stuffed into the toilet several times without Anton being able to prevent it; another dream included someone being really mean to Anton’s sister and taking things away from her repeatedly, and Anton could not help her. The fourth dream was set at the playground where a giant scary hand suddenly appeared on top of the climbing structure and tried to grab him.

I sensed a lot of fear and feelings of disempowerment and helplessness in these dreams. I simply kept tapping on him while he was describing his dreams. Then his story started shifting and words just kept bubbling out of his mouths like a waterfall for the next 20 minutes: In great technical detail (people who know Anton well will easily guess what I mean!) he described how the chairs in which the bad guys would sit down would automatically fall over and release the bad guys and monsters into a big, giant long tube extending to the center of the earth, far, far away. He described the mechanism as a one way valve, so there was no coming back for the bad guys. At the center of the earth the bad guys would get all “mushed up” and transformed into “yucky cake”. At this point Anton started having fun with his story, and declared with a big empowered smile on his face, “But then there is another small hole that I can sit on and pee and pooh on the monsters! (laughter and delight – made me think of all those strategies around imagining an intimidating boss naked to feel more empowered, this definitely worked for Anton).

But he kept talking: Now there was another giant, long tube, because now the yucky cake made out of bad guys had been transformed into yummy cakes, and only those would automatically be suctioned back right into our kitchen. There he would share those yummy cakes with his friends (well, all this happened right after the Thanksgiving dinner!), and you know what? The scary hand from the playground had now become his friend, and actually, now there were two of these hands helping him cut the yummy cakes!!!

Only now was he really done and started skip-jumping off to the park in a delighted mood. An hour later and back at the house a friend of ours asked him about the bruises. He looked at her as if that accident had completely dropped from his mind.

The complexity of emotions and issues in this tapping conversation with my son just put me to awe. I was deeply impressed by the creative way in which the negative emotions transformed into “yummy cakes”, empowerment and regaining of control. And really, this basically was just one of those every-day bumps. Usually we’d provide some initial comfort and attention and then simply move on, or we would distract the child away from the negative emotions.

This conversation felt like a window into the soul and psyche of my child to me. Holding this kind of presence with our children seems like a wonderful way of reducing the accumulation of unaddressed negative emotions into emotional baggage they would otherwise have to carry around. Simple tapping – what a gift to pass along to our children!

Follow up: Anton and I have been having a couple of follow-up conversations, and over-all I am touched by the way he is willing and able to share his emotions with me -it seems to transform and deepen our relationship.

One time he woke up with another distressing dream where bad guys were coming from the air, throwing things at him and therefore would not sit down on those “special chairs that drop them” – I simply tapped on him while he was talking, and he very quickly came up with another creative solution that worked for him and calmed him right down (the helper hand would squeeze the bad guys in the air).

Another evening before falling asleep Anton said: “Mama, I am really trying to leave these bad guys behind, but I am still thinking of them”. We tapped on:
…Even though I try really hard to not think about bad guys, I still do, and I am a great kid…
…even though the more I try to NOT think about bad guys, the more I seem to think about them, and I am a great kid…
…trying to not think about bad guys really hard kind of is like thinking about bad guys, it’s so confusing…maybe I should just pretend to not even care if I think about them or not…

Then he decided to transform bad guys into penguins, which he loves dearly. I kept tapping on him while he told me his strategy. Then he shifted and said, with shiny happy eyes: “Mama, now it does not matter any more, it’s even a good thing when I think about many bad guys, because then I’ll have a BIG huddle of penguins”, and he drifted off to sleep peacefully.

Heike Prevrhal
EFT practitioner, Mom of Anton and Annika, and incredibly grateful about this amazing technique!

Bio: In addition to studying/completing online training with EFT founder Gary Craig’s material’s, Heike completed the “Progressive EFT Practitioners Intensive” with Lindsay Kenny and Zoe Walton September in 2008 towards certification as a Progressive EFT Practitioner.. She is now running a successful and rapidly growing Progressive EFT practice in San Francisco. Heike now offers in- person office and worldwide phone and Skype sessions in her office in San Francisco, and phone sessions and skype world wide. Sessions are offered both in English and German.

 

 As a proud mother of two, she has this to say about her own EFT practice: “EFT has made me a much happier and more loving mother, partner, professional and person in general. To me the biggest gift that we can give to our children is dealing with and releasing our own issues. (Kids are a great help in that – they will trigger the most patient of us at some point, clearly pointing out any remaining baggage!!) – The second biggest gift we can give to them might well be teaching them early how to tap!”

For further information please check out visit her web page www.ReleaseIntoPeace.net  or contact her per email: at heike@releaseintopeace.net

Tapping For Kids Book Release

I am pleased to announce that my new book Tapping For Kids – A Children’s Guide To EFT is now available for purchase online through DragonRising Publishing. You can order the eBook or Paperback today!

Tapping For Kids is designed to help children (7-11) overcome traumas and problems of everyday life by using EFT. Through a mix of story, activities, rhymes and tapping scripts, the book effectively enhances children’s learning and shows them how EFT can be used to help them overcome their fears, worries and everyday traumas, while at the same time building up their self-esteem. The story in the book is set within “The EFT Palace of Possibilities for Kids”, a multilevel healing high rise where its ‘Caretaker’, known as the TapMeister, runs play shops to help children ‘master the art of tapping’ – a popular new kids movement taking the world by storm!

Help Promote Tapping For Kids

DragonRising Affiliate Program

If you are interested in helping to promote and share Tapping For Kids with your clients, friends, mailing lists and online communities, DragonRising offers an attractive affiliate program which you are invited to join.

Click here for more information and to sign up as A DragonRising Affiliate

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REVIEW

Here is a review from an 8 year old reader..

“I liked how the book used songs to help you remember the Happy Buttons. I also love how the children in the book travel the 8 floors and each of the floors have a special activity for you to do or something to learn about tapping. I already now a little bit about tapping, but now I know alot more and it seems like more fun and something easy to do on your own” Antonia S, Nth Dandenong VIC

Click here to BUY NOW

Angie Muccillo
Author of Tapping For Kids
Advanced EFT Practitioner
Melbourne, Australia

angiemuccillo@gmail.com

       +61 417391055       

 

 

                   

Reflecting on Your Childhood

“Our childhood experiences tend to establish the avenues we take through life. Some of us spend our lives stalled on Anxiety Avenue or WoeIsMe Way while others move freely along Success Street, Heaven’s Highway and Love’s Lane. Do you suppose our unresolved fears, traumas, guilt and other baggage-like emotions from childhood have any influence on which freeways we frequent. Of course they do. Our childhood experiences are written on our emotional walls and, depending on their quality, they become either “stop signs” or “green lights” as we move through life. Further, they have a way of reinforcing themselves and growing larger over time.” Gary Craig www.emofree.com

How different would your childhood have been if you had known how to use EFT as a child? What events would you have tapped on? What difference would that have made to your life today? Just think about it.

I find these questions interesting to dwell on and indeed I have.

Try reflecting back on your own childhood and see if you can find a time or times in your life where you could have benefited from using EFT.

Then the next time you see a child who is upset, sad, angry or anxious consider the implications of teaching them to use EFT.

“What better time to introduce EFT to someone than when they are young? If we can relieve a learning disability, a fear or an ever present anger and thus change the direction of a child’s life by a mere 5 degrees, that shift in direction can mean the difference for some children between graduating from high school or dropping out. It can mean the difference between going to college or menial jobs. It can give some children the self confidence to say no to drugs and THAT, of course, is life changing.” Gary Craig www.emofree.com

Change the life of a child by teaching them to use EFT routinely as a way of healing and soothing emotional upsets.

Angie Muccillo
Author of Tapping For Kids
Advanced EFT Practitioner
Melbourne, Australia

angiemuccillo@gmail.com

+61417 391 055

Empowering Kids To Tap On Their Own

By Angie Muccillo

Author of Tapping For Kids

While EFT is an ideal tool for parents and teachers to use directly with children, there may be times in a child’s life when teachers, parents or other adults are the actual source of stress for the child. Children who have been taught to tap on their own have the freedom to tap on whatever is bothering them at the time including an upset at home or at school, without having to rely directly on an adult to help them sort the issue out. EFT allows children to overcome daily upsets so that they don’t build into bigger problems.

Sometimes due to fear, shame, guilt or anger children simply won’t discuss their issues with adults. Children get angry at their parents for all sorts of things, even if the relationship is a close and loving one. Sometimes this anger is overtly displayed in their behavior or other times you may not know they are angry with you but it may play out in disruptive way.

If as a parent, your child is angry at you for something you said or did or didn’t do and you are aware of it, it’s harder to get them to tap with you and they are less likely to listen to you because they are angry with you. The child who has learnt to tap on their own however, without the help or prompting of an adult will more likely tap on their anger towards their parent and resolve the issue rather than hang on to it, restoring peace and harmony. If the child can neutralize their anger towards you, their behavior towards you will likely change of it’s own accord, making everybody’s life easier!

Tapping can strengthen the bond between children and their parents or students and their teachers by neutralizing the underlying negative feelings that contribute to the problem. For instance an 8 year old I recently taught EFT to, was intimidated by her teacher and fearful of him, due to outbursts he had in the classroom with regards to another student. Even though she wasn’t the one “in trouble” her fear of him affected how she felt in class and she was constantly worried that she would do something to upset him. Of course the teacher could not have known this and whilst he was doing the best he could to handle a disruptive student, his behavior was interpreted by her as intimidating and frightening.

Her anxiety being in his class was increasing and affecting her school work and she was becoming increasingly anxious about “making a mistake” and “getting into trouble.” The fear of her teacher was at a 9 when we started and went down to a zero after tapping several rounds on how he made her feel. She also tapped on the original incident where the boy was dragged out of class by the teacher. We also tapped on her fear of making a mistake and getting into trouble. She no longer felt the fear and was no longer worried about the incident. I suggested that she tap each day after school on any remaining or new fears, worries that she had about this teacher. She now has the ability to release these feelings on her own. The benefit of this? A more relaxed school experience, less pressure and stress, greater confidence and the possibility of seeing her teacher in a different light, improving not only her classroom experience but quite possibly the teacher/student relationship as well. If allowed to spiral out of control, her fear may have continued to affect her school work. With EFT as an intervention this cycle was stopped in it’s tracks and without the fear, worry and stress, a more conducive learning experience was possible.

As parents, teachers and guardians we simply cannot know everything that is bothering a child or how an event affects them emotionally. Passing this skill onto our children empowers them to use it whenever or for whatever issue is bothering them even when the source of the stress is someone they love.

In my opinion EFT is a life skill that no child should be without! “Tapping For Kids” is my first book and is inspired by a strong desire to put EFT into the hands of young people as a tool to help them overcome their fears, worries and everyday traumas as well as build their self-esteem. This book is an essential resource for any parent, educator, counselor or anyone interested in teaching children how to use EFT to manage their emotions and release everyday traumas.

Angie Muccillo
Author of Tapping For Kids
Advanced EFT Practitioner
Melbourne, Australia

angiemuccillo@gmail.com

+61417 391 055