.......Joan

[Guest guest]

Joan, Ok, you have got me a little curious now but I don't have money to hire anyone. How can I find out more about this and the program that came up with? Kathy Joan wrote: >> I've been using EFT for over

a year now. It does help, but yes - it is kind> of weird!Hi April, et al...I'm a huge Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) enthusiast! And, yes, it seemed totally stupid and weird to me at first! However, without EFT I know for a fact I would not have been able to lose 110 pounds within one year while following the no-diet philosophy. I can't say enough about how much EFT has done for me. I'm so grateful I was able to stretch and open up my mind enough give it a try. That in itself is a miracle because I tend to be a bit skeptical of things that sound too good to be true. It turns out I was able to clear out a huge load of emotional baggage within a only few months that I had barely been able to budge, even with 15 years of traditional therapy and every weight loss/food issues program out there, including a decade of OA! Please know I'm not knocking OA, it just didn't help me get free from food

obsession.I loved finding IE, but, personally, was not able to lose much weight with IE alone. In fact, I gained about 20 lbs. at first because it took me such a long time to legalize food. I do believe being in OA for so long prior to that was a big contributor in it taking me so long to make peace with food and trust myself around food. Even though IE helped my thinking about food tremendously, and substantially decreased my bingeing behavior, I was still not able to stop stuffing down my emotions and fears with food...some of which I found out were totally unconscious fears. That's one of the greatest things about EFT - you can reveal, deal with and heal the unconscious messages in your brain that are sabatoging you without you even knowing it...sometimes within mere minutes! No Joke!!! I know, it sounds whacko and waaaaay too good to be true. I didn't believe it either until I experienced it myself.The

only reason I ended up taking EFT seriously enough to try it was because I had read the book by Cheryl 's husband, Gerrish (an exercise physiologist and psychologist who I have a high degree of respect for). I think the name of the book was "Mind-Body Makeover". Anyway, I didn't follow any of his food plan suggestions or exercise regimes because at this point I am done with trying to control food, but the jewel I took from the book was the extensive questionnaire designed to uncover your top 10 "unidentified fitness obstacles" (he calls them UFOs). That questionnaire and his advice and resources on addressing each UFO were incredibly enlightening (even though I doubted I would learn a thing from it because I was already so smart about my weight problem..hee hee..and no one was going to tell me anything I didn't already know...uh..NOT). Fortunately I had decided that I needed to give up the idea that I

knew it all on this subject because obviously if I really did know it all I wouldn't still be fat and miserable. :-)Of course emotional baggage was toward the top of the UFO list which was no surprise to me, but suggested using EFT to clear out the baggage. I had heard of EFT a couple of times before but never really took it seriously. But, coming from someone as grounded as this guy was I decided it was worth at least investigating. I didn't mess around. I seriously wanted to lose the weight so I hired an EFT practitioner/coach who I worked with strictly over the phone for about 4 months. She lives in New York and I live in Seattle so I never even met her. Through my work with her I was able to clear out a slew of conscious and unconscious blocks that were in the way of me losing weight. The weight literally started falling off of me. I naturally gravitated toward eating less and exercising more.

No pushing. No prodding. No disciplined eating. I wanted to eat light and move my body. I joined a women's fitness club and exercised regularly but never compulsively. I barely ever thought about food and I kept reminding myself to not focus on the weight. I focused on living life and feeling my feelings instead. I had no desire to hide in food during that time. I felt freer than I had ever felt in my life. Okay, now I really must sound like an EFT f-r-e-a-k to you all. Well, I guess I am in a sense because after 20 years of trying to resolve my weight/food issues, I stumbled across this ridiculously simple tapping technique that is more powerful than anything I've ever experienced. I felt put-off actually because here I had worked so hard at something without making much real progress and here was this tool that practically fell in my lap that was nearly effortless. It left me feeling kind of resentful actually

at first because how could something I had wanted my whole life suddenly become so easy? It felt sooooo strange at first.Unfortunately I didn't continue using EFT after the 4 months. I continued to lose weight and kept it off for about a year without using EFT. I got cocky though. I laid down the best tool I had ever found. I am now returning to it to clear the rest of the baggage I am carrying around. I am so grateful to know what to do to pull myself back up off of the floor again.As far as describing what EFT is in a nutshell, the easiest way I've heard it explained is it is basically emotional accupressure - accupuncture without the needles. Okay, I could go on and on and on but I'm exhausted and you probably are too if you've made it this far!!!By the way, you probably already know this (I haven't been very good with keeping up with the posts), but I just learned that (the juicy woman)

who I met on this list developed an amazing program that marries IE with EFT. She is brilliant! I just started taking a teleclass of hers and love it! And, no, she didn't pay me to say this! :-)Okay, I am officially stepping down from the soap box now...Smiles,Joan