If there’s one thing I love more than helping a client achieve a major breakthrough during an Emotional Freedom Technique EFT session, it’s hearing from them that they’ve achieved their own breakthrough, all by themselves, using the tools that I taught them. Why? Because my ultimate goal is to empower my clients to look after their own physical and emotional health, instead of being reliant upon me to ‘fix’ them.
So when I received an email recently, from a client whom I’ll call Layla, I was over the moon.
The gist of the story is this: Layla is from a cultural background in which daughters are expected to do as their parents tell them. However, Layla is not the kind of person to go along with this notion, and as a result she has had a very challenging relationship with her parents ever since she began expressing her own ideas and seeking to follow her own path, from quite a young age. Throughout her childhood and adolescence, she experienced her mother as constantly demanding more of her and never giving her any praise or even acknowledgment for what she achieved. Even now as an adult, she felt that her mother did not actually like her as a person, because she wasn’t the kind of daughter her mother had wanted.
Every interaction with her parents resulted in raised voices and someone ending up in tears – generally Layla, who felt constantly attacked and undermined by their criticism of her. As a result, she decided some time ago to minimise her contact with her parents (who live in a different country) and just get on with living her life.
At the time we began working together, Layla was experiencing difficulties with a supervisor at work. We commenced working on the issue using EFT (‘tapping’) but quickly discovered – as is usually the case – that the emotions, thoughts and behaviour patterns triggered by her interactions with her supervisor were actually set long ago, when she began rebelling against her parents’ authority. That led into a LOT of tapping on memories from her childhood, teens and university years.
Layla was a model client: in between her sessions with me, she tapped almost every day on thoughts, beliefs, feelings and memories that were triggered by her current situation. As a result, she not only started handling the work situation a lot better; she also noticed a significant shift in the way she felt about, and responded to, her mother. She wrote to me:
“I’ve been noticing lots of little differences in my reaction to my mum’s behaviour lately. I’m much much more immune/unruffled/understanding/Ok with her seemingly bad behaviour now. I’m much more detached from her and unaffected by her. IT’S WORKING!!!! So thanks for helping me to tackle the mum box!”
The ultimate test of Layla’s ability to hold her ground with her parents came when she stayed with them – in their home, which made her feel much more vulnerable – for 4 days, when she travelled overseas to attend a family occasion.
Anticipating drama, Layla prepared for the visit by tapping like a woman possessed. The results were nothing less than spectacular, as she reported to me by email:
“My tapping saved my a**. It made a massive difference to my reactiveness, my attitude, my fear and anxiety levels, my negative/pessimistic/realistic approach to being in the same room as them.
I actually had a really lovely time with my mum and dad. I bonded with my mum and we became closer. Without tapping I could never have de-escalated the heightened emotions enough to be able to be myself and enjoy myself.
My brother and his wife are living my old ultra unrealistic dream: to have a lovely healthy relationship with my parents, and to have my parents want to live there and look after future children while they (my brother and his wife) go to work. I was able to be truly happy for them while accepting that I couldn’t have it. (Tapping again.)
My brother’s wife has a mutually respectful, loving relationship with my mum. The relationship I’ve always wanted. Again, I’m truly happy for them. They are both good people and deserve it. I’m sad that I don’t have it but I’m happy that mum and I have come so far and that we have a loving relationship.
I only got through this because of you. In the pre-Robyn days it would have ended in tears.”
Layla’s story did end in tears, at least for me… but they were tears of happiness for Layla and her parents!
And although I feel privileged to have been able to introduce her to EFT, and work through many issues together, the fact is that without her commitment to regularly tapping on her issues outside of our sessions, she would not have been able to transform her relationship with her parents nearly as dramatically as she has managed to do. Most of the credit for this marvellous outcome belongs to Layla!
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