I want to tell you about a little boy of 11 years old whom we shall call “Bobby”. Bobby exemplifies for me the future that we are all hoping for in terms of strategic uses of the EFT. His story is surprising as well as inspiring.
To start at the beginning, Bobby comes from a family that I call an “EFT family”. His mother has been practicing the technique for many years. In fact, although she is not an EFT practitioner and does not use it professionally, she has taken and passed both the Basic and Advanced EFT Certificate of Completion exams, thereby demonstrating her thorough knowledge of Gary Craig’s work. She took the trouble to do this because she wanted to become “more proficient at using EFT for my family.”
Both of Anita’s children, she and her husband use EFT, and Bobby, her youngest child and his sibling were brought up “tapping.” When Bobby was about 7 years old he had over 50 food allergies and his mother surrogate tapped endlessly for him to correct them. (To find out about surrogate tapping go to the EFT Search Engine and enter “surrogate”). As a result, Bobby overcame his allergies to a remarkable degree and is no longer symptomatic.
Anita usually taps for Bobby and repeats the EFT phrases out loud for him, but in recent years, as he has grown older, she usually does not have to surrogate tap. Bobby tells her when he wants EFT. This is generally when he is falling asleep at night and has various nighttime issues. His mother has the impression that, among other things, he loves the undivided attention he gets from his mom when she does EFT with him.
(Note: Tapping on a child rather than having the child tap on him/herself is not the only way to use EFT with children because even very young children of 3 and 4 years old can learn to tap on themselves. As you will see, however, it turned out to be a very effective approach in this case.)
Although, her teenage daughter often rolls her eyes when EFT is mentioned (she is, after all, an adolescent), if she is really in trouble she will also say, “Please tap for me Mom.”
Here then is the story of Bobby’s recent health crisis when he and his mom used EFT to remarkable effect.
Several weeks ago Bobby suddenly developed a severe pain in his abdomen. He could barely talk because he was in so much pain and could only remain in bed clutching his belly. He asked for EFT and his mother went to work using it while making an emergency call to their pediatrician. In the meanwhile she asked Bobby to “breathe through” the pain. They used the EFT phrase, “Even though I have this terrible pain, I’m an awesome kid and I know I’m going to feel better soon.”
The pain became much more bearable after this tapping but his mother noticed that he was favoring the right side of his body when he walked. However, upon examination, when the pediatrician pressed on his right lower abdomen, it was tender but he didn’t jump. It didn’t look to her like an emergency, however she decided to send him to the emergency room just to “make certain.”
They arrived at the emergency room in the morning but it wasn’t until early afternoon that the crucial blood test was done, and a CT Scan followed at 7 pm. There were many hours of waiting in the Emergency Room before it was discovered that, to everyone’s surprise, Bobby’s appendix had ruptured! He was immediately prepared for emergency surgery.
The amazing thing was Bobby’s way of handling the long hours of waiting in the ER and his pain during that time. His mother estimates that they tapped at least 70 percent of the time during that long wait. She tapped on him and at times repeated the words for him as well. She recalls that they tapped on such phrases as “Even though I’m afraid I’m going to have to have an operation, I’m an awesome kid.”
When he felt particularly out of control at what was being done to him (which was most of the time), they also used the phrase: “Even though all these things are being done to me and I can’t do anything about it, I know that Mom loves me.”
And later, in response to his expressed fear of having his appendix out and his strong wish to keep that “busted appendix”, they tapped on: “Even though if I keep my appendix I might die, I know I’ll get better if I have it taken out.”
Following this tapping he became much calmer and when he met the surgeon he liked him right away, and decided to tap on: “Even though I don’t want this operation, I’m an awesome kid and this guy is going to get me better.” Following this last round of tapping he looked straight at the surgeon and said, “OK! Let’s get it done!”
His mother, who had now been joined by her husband in the emergency room, stood by watching him in amazement. His parents were seeing a maturity in him they had never seen before. Now, instead of asking for his parents’ help in this distressing situation, the more he tapped, the more he was able to handle the situation himself. He no longer seemed to have anxiety about the operation itself and if a new issue arose that presented a fresh difficulty; he insisted they tap on it.
When Bobby was taken to the operating room, one of the surgical nurses asked what they were doing when they were tapping and his mother explained they were using an “acupuncture technique for anxiety.” Surprisingly, the nurse immediately supported their use of EFT although she didn’t know about this specific technique. She said that she had another job in an alternative health clinic in the city and added, “You know, this stuff really makes a difference.”
Anita then asked this nurse to pray for Bobby along with herself and his father, and the nurse said she would, in her mind, “talk” to Bobby about speed healing and send him good energy during the operation.
Anita tapped continuously in the waiting room outside of the OR while her husband made some urgent phone calls. Her anxiety went way down and out of exhaustion she had actually dozed off when the surgeon came out to greet them after the surgery and told them that the site of the operation had been “a mess”, but that the infection was so well contained that it had not spread at all. “Never in a million years would I have dreamed we would find this kind of situation when we got in.” He said, “He didn’t seem sick enough for this.” Anita is of the opinion that their extensive use of EFT may well have helped to contain the infection.
The surgeon expected Bobby to be in the hospital from four to seven days, although surprisingly he had no fever. Postoperatively they did even more tapping than before because Bobby was in serious pain and had to endure many needles. However, after he tapped about the needles, he didn’t obsess any more about people walking down the hall to approach his room to take blood. Before tapping, every time he heard footsteps he thought someone was coming to “stick him.” EFT took away that fear.
After the surgery they tapped a great deal for Bobby’s feelings of being out of control, and the result was that a surprising quiet authority came over the child. When hospital personnel came in with medications or injections that he did not feel ready for, he would politely say to them, “I don’t want to do that right now. Can I do it in an hour?” His mother doubts that she could have as effectively asserted herself under similar circumstances.
A specific example of the new maturity that he was now displaying was when one nurse missed his vein twice when trying to take blood and it was extremely uncomfortable for him. He turned to this nurse and said, “You’re not doing a very good job. Could you find someone else to do this?” So –– the nurse did.
Bobby then asked the hospital authorities, “What do I have to do to get these things out of my arm?” They explained to him that he needed to be able to walk down the hall, to have had a good bowel movement and be eating a regular diet. He then set out to make these things happen and was soon able to pass all these tests. To everyone’s surprise, Bobby was released from the hospital two and a half days after surgery instead of the expected much longer time.
This was an amazing growth experience for Bobby and as they watched the way he handled himself in the hospital, his parents were viewing him differently. With his fear removed, this little boy was realizing his own ability to assert himself, quietly and strongly.
His mother comments that she would love to see every parent in the world using EFT with their children. When, two weeks after the surgery, Bobby had to return once more to the emergency room because of a stomach virus that was complicating the final stage of his recovery (he bounced right back from this and is now fine). As he was watching the other children in the waiting room who were crying and screaming in fear and distress, his comment was, “I sure wish all these kids could have EFT!”
EFT Master, Dr. Patricia Carrington
