EFT Group Archives

The Crying Baby Story

"I wanted to smash the baby against the wall."

Dear EFT Friends,

I would like to start the sharing of this group with a case history. It may be a little long, but I would like to write it up in detail because it's quite interesting and instructive. I do a lot of regression work using hypnotherapy and EFT, often focusing on healing the inner child, but in this case, the EFT alone took my client into regression where some real healing was accomplished.

"Christine" wanted to focus on a strange reaction she has. Sometimes in a grocery store, when there is a crying baby in the grocery line, she has a "sudden intense onset of aggression", as she described it. "I have sudden intense feelings of wanting to destroy the baby. I want to smash the baby against the wall!" She said that the feeling upsets her so much that she sometimes has to leave the store. Christine says she first noticed this reaction about 12 years ago (she's 52) and that it has happened several times a year since then. The most recent incident was a few weeks before our session. She said, "I have no clue as to what this thing is."

She said she had been trying to figure it out and the only thing she could come up with was that her sister had been born 14 months after her. "So maybe it has to do with my sister, who was a baby when I was really little, but that doesn't make sense because I don't think I was ever aggressive to my sister. I loved her." (A note: Even when clients think they don't know, it's good to ask, "If you had a theory about this, what would it be?" "If you did know the source of this issue, what do you think it might be?" People often do know things on an intuitive level. So I thought Christine's speculation might be valid.)

Christine felt that she wanted to 'go within', so she settled into my recliner so I could do the tapping for her and let her stay with her inner experience. We started EFT with the feelings themselves. I asked Christine to close her eyes and imagine the crying baby and let the feelings come back. "Where do you feel it in your body?" She felt the intensity in her chest and especially her arms that wanted to smash the baby down. So we tapped for:

Even though I can't stand this crying baby...
Even though my arms want to smash the baby down...
Even though I feel so much anxiety about this baby crying...

She felt some relief, expecially from the affirmations ("I deeply and completely accept myself") since there had been self-blame and self-judgment about the feeling of wanting to hurt helpless babies.

Then we tapped for:

Even though I don't know where this feeling comes from...

After tapping, I asked her to close her eyes and take a deep breath and see what came to mind. She said, "I see the house where we used to live. I'm about 6 and I'm with my sister who's probably 4." I asked how that scene felt to her and she said, "Fine. I just feel love for my sister." I suggested that she let herself drift further back in time as we tapped again:

Even though I still don't know where this feeling comes from...

She reported seeing herself still smaller, maybe 3, with her sister as a toddler. So we tapped once more, and this time she said, "I'm really little, and I'm with my mother, and my mother is holding a baby. And Mother is saying, 'See your baby? This is your baby." And that makes me feel really anxious! What am I supposed to do? She tells me it's my baby to take care of, and I don't know what to do. I feel a total sense of bewilderment. I feel overwhelmed." She was really feeling the anxiety, so we did some tapping with her words:

Even though Mother says, "See your baby"... Even though I feel anxious and I don't know what to do... Even though I feel a total sense of bewilderment... Even though I feel overwhelmed...

Then, suddenly, at the end of that tapping, she was in the scene, the source of the crying baby problem! She said, "I'm in a room and the baby is in the crib and it's crying -- and no one else is there! There's this live thing in my room and I don't know what to do with it! Its arms and legs are moving at random, something's wrong and I don't know what I should do about it! I want to throw it down and make it stop moving, like when I smash my toys down and they stop moving. There's nobody there -- it's all up to me. I feel so overwhelmed!"

She was feeling a lot of intensity, so we tapped for:

Even though the baby is crying and I don't know what to do...
Even though I feel completely overwhelmed...
Even though I want to throw the baby down to make it stop...
Even though nobody's here and it's all up to me...

I said, "It really wasn't fair for that little girl to be left alone with the baby, was it? There should have been an adult there. It's not ok to leave a little toddler in charge of a baby. The baby was the mother's responsibility, not the little girl's. I'm talking to adult Christine now -- how would you like to help this little girl? She really needs an adult to help her."

Christine said, "I'm going back as an adult to take over." So she imagined herself entering the scene, taking care of the baby, and reassuring the little girl it would be ok now. She hugged the little girl and told her she had done well but that the baby was NOT her responsibility. Only adults can be in charge of caring for babies.

She looked peaceful now. I asked her if we needed to tap for anything else. She said, "No. I could feel the shift happening inside me. I, the adult, am going to be the one to take care of things now. The little girl is ok now." She sighed. Then she said, "I think it was the arms and legs flailing that bothered me the most. Like a turtle... the trunk stable and those arms and legs moving. That must be why some crying babies don't bother me but others do." Then she said, "I just rhought of something. When I was 8 or 9, a neighbor had a bucket of fiddler crabs, and he dumped it over my head. All those legs and arms flailing! I totally freaked! No wonder." But she told that story with zero intensity! The 'charge' was gone.

(Notes from Betty):

I spoke with Christine a few weeks after the session. She had been around several crying babies, in the grocery store as well as the church nursery.She said that the intense reaction was completely gone, although she did feel a little discomfort, a twinge of 'overwhelm'. But, as she said, "Now that I'm aware that there's nothing to fear, I can sit with the feeling and work thorugh it -- I know what it's about." She feels much better and feels that this is helping her take better care of herself and not let herself get overwhelmed (a problem she has had in the past).

I continue to be amazed at how EFT opens the channels to the deep subconscious. Gary often asks "What does this feeling remind you of?" to help people get to core issues, but in Christine's case, I didn't have to ask, she went right to the source with the tapping.

Love,
Betty

Dear Friends,

A few people have asked for clarification about how I tapped for Christine's issues in the case history I shared. You can be quite flexible and tap for several phrases in the same round of EFT. If you're interested, I'll detail one sample round below.

(Tapping on the Karate Chop point for the set up, you can use several phrases instead of doing one phrase 3 times)

Even though Mother says, "See your baby"... I still accept myself completely...

And even though that makes me anxious and I don't know what to do... I still accept myself deeply and completely...

And even though I feel totally bewildered... I still accept myself and I know I'm a good girl... I'm doing the best I can...

(Eyebrow point) Mother says, "See your baby" ...
(Side of eye) Feeling anxious and don't know what to do...
(Under eye) Feeling totally bewildered....
(Under nose) Mother says "See your baby"...
(Under mouth) Feeling anxious and don't know what to do...
(Collarbone) Feeling totally bewildered... etc.

I was just using the client's specific words about what happened and how she felt. Because we were in touch with the child part of her I added some "child" language, too: "I'm still a good girl... I'm doing the best I can."

You would still get good results with the simple language of the Basic Recipe, but ever since I saw Gary's demonstrations at the two recent trainings, I've been more creative and flexible with wording.. Gary has become wonderfully creative and says he trusts his intuition and lets the words come. I'll share some examples of how he did that soon.

Love,
Betty