The history of parenting is rather brutal, with children once considered non-entities that could be discarded, killed, or used at the parent’s whim. Over time, our collective approach to parenting is evolving and developing, which is good news indeed. How we collectively parent is the leading force that shapes how we are as a country and as a world. How we parent as a society determines whether we perpetrate violence or encourage peace.

According to Robin Grille, author of Parenting for A Peaceful World, we are in a shift from the socializing mode of parenting to the helping mode of parenting. The socializing mode of parenting tends to see children as good or bad and the goal is to make them productive members of society. The parent is concerned with raising a child that fits in. He follows the rules and sees himself judged by how well his children do.

In the next evolution, called the helping mode, parents are concerned with what the child needs developmentally and choose meeting the child’s individual needs above the need to fit in socially. In the helping mode, there is a greater compassion and recognition of children as unique persons on their own path.
As we consider how we personally fit into this parenting journey, we can look at our own history and our current parenting practices with more compassion. EFT fits into this introspection, offering us relief from patterns and reactions. Consider this a Personal Peace Procedure for Parenting.

Personal Peace Procedure for Parents
The myth of the perfect parent, warm and nurturing, is just that, a myth. Parents are products of their culture and humans have the potential to be the most brutal of the animal kingdom or the most loving. But being human is not a guarantee of parenting well. To move forward in our parenting journey, we first must accept ourselves as we are.

1) Consider all the times you have been less than pleased with your parenting choices and reactions. Make a list of at least five incidents where you shouted, hit, ignored, or shamed your child. Identify the emotions you were feeling as well as the response and emotions of your child. Tap on these incidents until your intensity gets to zero. Be prepared for some cognitive shifts!

Parenting evolves.
It is perfectly okay that what our parents did for us, or to us, doesn’t work for us as parents. Each of us has a mental list, a list from childhood of the things we swore we would never do as parents. Imagine our dismay, when we end up repeating the same exact patterns from our parents. We justify our parental behavior by telling ourselves that we are not so bad, we were treated that way and turned out okay. (Sound familiar?)
Or in an attempt to not be like our parents, we end up on another extreme, just the opposite of our parents.

When this happens, it’s a very good indication we are still reacting rather than creating how we want to be as a mother or father.

2) Make a list of at least five times you remember being shamed, punished, felt guilty as a child. How were you disciplined or punished? Were you hit, spanked, isolated, or shamed verbally? How were mealtimes? How were bedtimes? When were you made to feel wrong or less than? These memories are all excellent tapping material.

Parenting truly shapes the world.

As we treat children with respect and love and model being a democracy, we bring democracy to the larger world. And if we model violence and control and fear, we’ll bring the same.

3) Consider all the times you felt fear as a child or used fear to control your children. Consider all the times you experienced violence or used violence to control your child. Pick five incidents and commit to tapping on them until the intensity gets to zero. Be prepared for some amazing cognitive shifts.

If you are reading this, you are already committed to supporting yourself and other parents. As we move towards the next evolution of parenting, we can release our pasts, our histories, and see that our parents did the best they could, even if it wasn’t enough. We can heal our wounds and choose how to parent ourselves and our children. There is a growing international community of dedicated focused parents who are using EFT to heal their childhood memories and to become fully the parent they want to be.

Welcome to the leading-edge of peaceful parenting.

Deborah is an EFT practitioner and parenting advocate working with parents committed to respectful and peaceful parenting. Her information can be found at: EFTwithDeborah.com.

As a practitioner, EFT mentor, and trainer (over 2000 clients and students around the world) I can say that I consistantly see the same mistakes among tappers. The one thing I hear most often from a new client (even practitioners who are my clients) is that they just aren’t making progress and seeing really verifiable results out in the real world. The reasons are pretty basic if you’ve studied EFT for some time however I still see this so much I thought they were definitely worth repeating.

#1- You are still being too global/general. We know the metaphor for the forest or table top collapsing and still you want to do like the lazy baker’s son, “Killed 7 in one strike” Well, unfortunately most of the time you simply can’t. Break it down. Break it down. Break it down. The more traumatic (and don’t judge here what is trauma for the next guy as it is very unique to each individual) the more you might have to take it to miniscule pieces. This shows up in my work with veterans where we might have to break it down to,”Even though I heard the sound of the incoming bomb,..” then onto,”Even though I am terrified as I look at my buddy’s eyes ..” We could be tapping 15 min on one incident. How do you know you’ve made progress? TEST!

#2- You are heading to la-la land too quickly. Sure who doesn’t want to say beautiful, radiant, heart-felt, affirmations? Well when it comes to EFFECTIVELY using EFT you got to stay in the muck just a little bit first. I got another complaint the other day from someone who attends group meetings lead by another practitioner who does one round then has their group attendees immediately repeat a bunch of reframes like, I forgive, I let it go, I am over it. Bulls*it! You aren’t going to convince anyone that something that was profoundly wounding is going to wiped away so quickly. Yes, I use my intuition to gauge when someone is ready to insert the positive statements but that’s because I have been doing this for so long and I …. TEST! How many of us know really sweet, conscious, spiritual people that go around all day speaking nice platitudes and their lives are a mess? Don’t end up spreading icing on a pile of manure. In the end it still stinks!

#3- You aren’t recognizing shifting aspects. Now this one is tricky especially when working alone. Make sure your statements are very specific (see #1) and then write down what pops into your head if you have to in order to keep track of your mind as it skips from emotion to emotion and scene to scene. This is clearly an advantage to working with a professional for your own issues. I stop at the end of each round and sense a shifting aspect however when I first began I felt more comfortable just asking,”Was anything else popping into your mind as we did that round?” If the SUDs hasn’t dropped enough and you know you’ve been specific then 9 times out of 10 this is the culprit.

#4 – You don’t test enough. Gary says that this is the difference between a master and a novice and he’s right. Don’t be afraid to test your results. If you were successful it is simply great information. Rue Haas says that in order to be a great practitioner you have to be willing to be insatiably curious and being curious about why it didn’t work will cause you to become a better detective and helper.

#5- You are allowing your own blocks to get in the way of becoming masterful. I don’t even want to tell you how many times someone tells me a story about a condition, or situation and I’ve asked,”Well, did you tap on it?” and they give me a sheepish smile. The way to get the most from EFT is DOING EFT.

Bottom line- watch Gary Craig’s DVDs (www.emofree.com), read the free manual, or hire a professional with a proven track record.

Alina Frank, CERT-
www.tapyourpower.net

Alina Frank is an EFT expert specializing in women’s issues. She has written for domestic and international publications on the topic of healing with EFT.

I know that I always stress the importance of testing, testing, and re-testing when we believe we have collapsed an issue with a client. Much has also been said about working through the fear of the fear of any phobia since it can be just as strong as the presenting fear/phobia. I’ve recently seen firsthand the need for this piece of validation. Mary called me to ostensibly work on her infertility issues which she had been attempting to work through using conventional methods. After a few minutes it became clear to me that her greatest challenge was an etemophobia that had been plaguing her many years. Etemophobia is the irrational fear of vomit including seeing vomit or fearing that you yourself may vomit. This woman’s phobia was so severe that she had lost a significant amount of weight and was down to 95 lbs simply because the feeling of fullness in her stomach had made her worry about having to vomit. I immediately felt that this was connected to her inability to bear children; morning sickness, infant spit up, etc.

Using some intuitive detective work I found that Mary had been sexually abused at age 7 and when I asked her to describe the emotions behind that incident she said she felt “disgusted with herself”. We then did a number of rounds of tapping on, “Even though I feel disgusted with myself because ___ touched me here, I deeply and completely accept myself” and “Even though I blame myself for the abuse, I forgive myself”
Next we worked directly on the phobia itself and I was relatively sure that the fear was gone. I asked her to test herself by watch the Exorcist and she mentioned the movie First Dates which has a particularly gruesome scene where a walrus throws up a hundred pounds of fish in a veterinary’s office. We had a follow session where I felt that the fear was in fact gone and she had started to gain weight, but apparently we hadn’t completely resolved the fear of the fear.

Mary called me recently to tell me that she had been in a bar when a man next to her suddenly leaned over his bar stool and had vomited all over her while she remained calm. A week later she helped a sick co-worker in a stall of their office by holding her head as this woman hurled her lunch. Mary was thrilled that she finally had proof that this incapacitating fear was really gone.

I was struck by the timing of that call when a few days later I had the opportunity to see the same fear of the fear with a child “Tessa” I had helped last year with her fear of snakes. I felt that this was a pretty straightforward fear and made sure to cover all the aspects as that Gary Craig so well demonstrates with Dave in his DVDs covering phobias. First we tapped on the general idea of the snake, then on the slithering, then on the sudden movements a snake can make, and even on the fear of the snake’s forked tongue. I felt she had reached emotional freedom from this issue but couldn’t find a way to prove it at right then and there. I did ask her to go to a local pet shop to test herself. The snake fear was only a minor side issue we worked on that day and quite frankly it seems so minor I felt fine about not having tested her as thoroughly as I normally would have.
A few days ago I went as an adult chaperone with this girl’s class to the zoo. Tessa had told her little friends that she was worried about seeing snakes at the zoo. All morning her friends warmly hugged Tessa and they took turns looking ahead at the exhibits making sure that poor Tessa wouldn’t run into any surprises. Could this be a secondary benefit I wondered?

At the end of the day we were at the very last exhibit and there in a glass case was the dreaded object of Tessa’s terror. Just then I had a moment to talk to Tessa off to the side away from her guardians. I reminded Tessa that she and I had worked on this fear and that I thought she would be fine and asked her if she was ready to have a look. The feeling of relief was obvious as she took my hand and saw the creature. A big smile arose as she said, “Cool!”

Moral of this story is test, test, test, and don’t forget to work on the fear of the fear which can sometimes be as powerful (if not more so) than the fear itself.

Alina Frank, CERT-I

Alina Frank is an expert EFT practitioner on Whidbey Island, WA outside of Seattle. She has worked with over 2000 clients around the world in phone and VOIP sessions and has written for international and domestic publications. She serves as a forum moderator on Gary Craig’s women’s issues forum.