Originally published in the Rising Sun EFT Newsletter, July 4, 2011
“Jessica” came to me for weigh and eating issues. She had been working with a book on ending food addiction (author: Kay Sheppard) and had determined that one of the emotional drivers for her was, as she put it, “Not-Good-Enough Pain.”
Because I was in the process of preparing to teach EFT Levels 1-2, I was especially aware of the basic core concepts. So I talked with Jessica about how “not good enough” was like a big forest with many individual trees (specific events) or like a tabletop, with many legs supporting that table. Would she be open to working with some specific events from the past in order to bring healing to this core belief? She agreed.
We had already done some tapping for the emotions around this. I then asked her to close her eyes and tune in to that “not good enough” feeling. “Just let your mind be open to finding one of the early times that you felt this. What other time does this feeling remind you of?” She said, “I don’t know why this is coming up, but I just remembered being on the monkey bars on the playground, I was probably about 5 years old, and these mean boys came up and made fun of me. They called me, “Little Miss Piggy, Pig Nose.” She was amazed to find tears coming.
People are often surprised at how much pain can still be in these seemingly insignificant childhood memories. I asked Jessica to make a small movie of this event — how long would it be? Only a few minutes. I asked her the title. She said, “Little Miss Piggy, Pig Nose.” The title was a 10 in intensity for her, so we began by simply tapping for the title:
Even though I have this “Little Miss Piggy, Pig Nose” movie, I love and accept myself
Even though I have this “Little Miss Piggy, Pig Nose” movie, I love and accept my little girl self — that really hurt my feelings…
It took several rounds of tapping for “this ‘Little Miss Piggy, Pig Nose’ movie,”, but the intensity dramatically released, from a 10 to a 4 to a 2.
I then asked Jessica to narrate the movie, beginning before the upsetting part. “I’m climbing on the monkey bars… I’m swinging from my arms… I’m having a good time… now I see the mean boy coming…he’s walking over with his friends.” I stopped her — “Any intensity?” Surprisingsly, she said, “No!”
She continued. “Now he’s coming over and saying to his friend, ‘hey look, there’s Little Miss Piggy Pig Nose!” I stopped her again — “Any intensity?” “No!”
“So what happens next?” I asked. Jessica then said something totally unexpected: “Well, I just keep swinging and I tell them that they’re just stupid boys and that I don’t care what they say! And I laugh at them!” We both laughed at the conviction in her voice — she knew they were acting stupid and that it was not about her! She said, “I know that’s not what really happened, but that’s what I see in my movie now. All I can do is laugh at them. How stupid those dumb boys were!”
Apparently our work together on the title alone had completely cleared the trauma. I realized that the title she had chosen was the crescendo of the event. That might not always be a good idea, but in this case, it worked wonders. Those nasty words, which had hurt her so much as a little child, had been completely neutralized and she could see the whole thing clearly and not take it personally anymore.
Just to be safe, I had Jessica rewind and run the old movie in her mind, trying to stay with the scenario as it had really happened. She found that hard to do! She had trouble even imagining it and couldn’t get back any pain — even though 15 minutes before, she had been in tears.
We ended with a “power tapping” for the little girl inside her.
Even though those boys called me that, I don’t care! They’re just stupid boys!
As we tapped the points with “I don’t care!” and “They’re just stupid!” Jessica was grinning. It felt great to empower her inner child to throw off the insult and put those boys in their place.
I believe this healing result will generalize into other places where Jessica felt put down or insulted with regard to her appearance. The power of seeking core issues and working with a specific event!
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