When The Tornado Touches Down…Are YOU in Kansas, anymore?

In our STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, we’re doing a deep-dive into our Book Club selection! This week is Chapter 3 of REWIRED: The Breakthrough Tapping Method to Stop Overthinking, Calm Your Body, and Finally Feel at Ease by Nick, Jessica, & Alex Ortner.

In Chapter 3: The Science of Rewiring: What’s Really Happening in Your Mind & Body, the Ortners describe the funny disconnect when a few rounds of tapping take you from a state of stress & worry, to a state of calm, where your mind feels like it’s resting and your thoughts are no longer trapped in an anxiety spiral.

You take the win, but of course your logical mind starts cranking its gears, wondering, as the Ortners put it,

• “Was it just distraction?”

• “Is this some kind of placebo effect?”

• “Did I just imagine feeling better?”

• “How could something so simple actually work?”

Yes, it actually does work, and guess what?

EFT was A Happy Accident

EFT Tapping was first discovered in 1980, when Dr. Roger Callahan tried for a year and a half to cure his patient Mary’s fear of water using numerous modalities — systematic desensitization, cognitive therapy, and hypnosis — but nothing worked…

Until Mary described how she felt a terrible sensation in her stomach every time she thought about water, and he remembered from his study of an ancient Chinese medicine that there was a point underneath the eye that was linked to the stomach meridian. He had her tap that point while thinking about water and, like a miracle, the dis-ease she felt so strongly in her stomach disappeared.

Sensing it was gone, this woman, who never allowed herself to get anywhere near a body of water, not even to bathe in a bath, much less go anywhere near a pool, walked straight outside to a swimming pool, sat beside it, and — the next day — went to the beach by the ocean. Her fear of water was gone.

This result was entirely unexpected.

No one expected it to work so well. Not even Dr. Callahan. It’s just not how the field of psychology thought treatment worked.

Both he and Mary were perplexed, and I might be hard pressed to believe it myself, but no.

My MINDFUL Reflection:

I know EFT is tremendously powerful.

Because it worked like magic for me, too.

The first time I tried tapping during one of my migraines with aura and anxiety, the usually debilitating rumination that takes place during my migraines suddenly vanished.

Without having taken any of my migraine medication.

Without waiting in a darkened room with a mask, furiously massaging my head, begging my brain to give me a break from the anxiety spiral it usually stays trapped in for hours.

Yes, when the rumination evaporated my logical brain definitely jumped into questioning how it could be possible. I couldn’t help it. My thinking mind couldn’t stop asking, “How? Really? What’s happening? Why?” at the same time that my spirit was celebrating the drastic difference of having a migraine that was not only less physically painful, but less emotionally punishing too.

And, amazingly, I noticed that the benefits started as soon as I began tapping. From the start, what was left of the physical pain — the “prodrome” symptoms, in migraine terminology — didn’t reach the highest level of severity that it usually reaches during my migraines.

This was a completely different experience:

The prodrome felt like the beginning of a tornado, forming beneath darkened skies and threatening, ominous clouds. The wind picked up speed, beginning to spiral as it always does. The twisting vortex of pain was nearly upon me, my rumination thrashing my body and spirit as I desperately grasped the ground, flattening my body, hoping to survive the storm, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to escape it. I never could, every other time in the past.

Massaging my head, it’s like my fingers reminded me to do EFT, instead. And I watched, as the steady tapping of my own fingers along my Meridian points, cleared the storm away.

As if each tap called a cleansing wind to save me.

It came. At first a gentle breeze, then a slow yet steady front of clean, clear air that lightened the skies and pushed the darkness away, until the vortex became powerless, unable to collect itself anymore.

Like a miracle, the clouds began to part.

The sun began to shine. I felt its warmth on my face.

And a calm, cool ease spread throughout my body, as I stretched my arms wide, my fingers no longer numb, but able to feel each and every blade of bright green grass.

I did not have to strain or stress about the pain anymore, or brace myself for painful impact, because the storm had passed.

And I was somehow at peace. Without the pain that usually lasted for hours, plus at least a few days of trying to recover afterwards.

EFT was like a miracle, restoring me to just me.

Me.

Being.

In my body, without the dis-ease that threatened to destroy me.

And it wasn’t a fluke.

EFT worked like magic for my migraines more than once. Many times, in fact.

And, if you are a fellow Migraine Sufferer, you know how life-altering that is. Migraines can be so bad you go to the hospital for help. They’re so debilitating, you have to cancel plans when those prodrome symptoms start to flare up. They affect your entire life and make you plan around them.

Trust me, migraines are no where near a normal “headache.” And if you don’t believe me, or don’t “get it,” that means you’re one of the lucky people who do not get them.

And it always amazes me, how people who don’t get migraines cannot fathom the relentless pain that they can unleash. In fact, when I’ve written about my migraines in the past, and gone into detailed descriptions of the terrible rumination that can torment me during the worst of it, I shared a link to my Post with a Note — highlighting how important it is to be kind to ourselves, especially when we’re suffering — and I had a Keyboard Warrior comment, “What in the crybaby non-sense is this?”

I didn’t respond. (Why bother with someone who’s dedicated to misunderstanding you?)

But my immediate reaction was, “Tell me you didn’t read the actual Post without telling me you didn’t read the Post. 🙄”

Or, “It’s obvious you’ve never given birth to a child before — or felt a comparable amount of pain — because, clearly, you don’t know what extreme pain can feel like.”

THAT’s truly how bad my migraines with aura and anxiety can get.

But, therein lies the silver lining:

My own experience as a migraine sufferer has helped me to see just how effective EFT can be.

It’s why I believe it when the Ortners describe the miraculous effect of Dr. Callahan’s EFT on Mary.

And the science backs it up.

Decades later, in hundreds of studies, the scientific research has since confirmed that EFT works alongside your body’s electrical system. Thinking of the negative issue sounds the siren, but then the tapping short-circuits the normal loop of alarm to send calming signals to your brain instead.

And the change can be long-lasting. Scientists have discovered that when we recall a memory — even an alarming one — there is a short period of time when we can actually alter our memory of it. By tapping, we’re rewiring the memory, changing it from one of alarm to one that’s calmed.

That change sticks because as, the Ortners put it,

“The memory itself has been changed…. You’re not learning to cope with fear. You’re actually updating the source code [in 3 steps:

(1) Recognize,

(2) Interrupt, and

(3) Rewire]….

This is how lasting change happens. Not through force or willpower, but through gentle, persistent rewiring of your nervous system’s defaults.”

That’s precisely the kind of brain change that I love.

It’s like the clouds have parted, the sun’s shining, and my airplane for EFT Tapping’s flying through the air, writing my favorite geeky motto, “I 💙 Neuroplasticity!” in the sky. 🤣✈️

Now, Take a Mindful Moment, to ask yourself:

⭐️ What’s the tornado that threatens you?

⭐️ Would you like to rewire that memory so it’s no longer a threat to you?

⭐️ How might that change your identity?

⭐️ How would you feel, if you knew that you could part the clouds and bring out the sun, by simply tapping with your fingertips?

⭐️ What if we’re far more powerful than we think?

⭐️ I’m ready to use EFT to tap on all my Limiting Beliefs — to BREAK FREE from them — aren’t you?

STAY TUNED!

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I strongly believe that we are stronger together. That’s why I’m encouraging us to “do the DO” as a community, in a safe & private space for members-only, where we can embrace Becoming in all of its messy glory. So, let’s BREAK FREE, together!

Simply join The Mindful VICTUS Playscape to step into a 🏡Creative Home🏡 that’s sometimes cozy, sometimes crazy, and always creative!

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