EFT and a Baby with a Water Phobia
I am the adoring “auntie” of an 17 month girl who has (or had) a real fear of water. The first time her Mum took her swimming she was very happy with her new bathing suit and seeing her brothers and sisters in theirs too. But when they all went through the doors to the pool side and she saw the water she became terrified and started screaming. And when her older brothers and sisters jumped in the water, her fear was even greater.
When I met up with her Mother some weeks later she asked me if I would help her out by using EFT to reduce this fear. We didn’t have to wait long for an opportunity. We took the kids out to a local park with a big lake and as Grandad was pushing the buggy towards the lake (but still a long way away) the baby started screaming. Her Mum quickly picked her up and held her as I tapped through the EFT points. As we tapped we gradually turned her to face the water but kept tapping and kept her cuddled up. When she was completely relaxed we took a step forward and went through the sequence again, tapping, relaxing, one step forward. Until we had got a few feet closer to the lake and she was so relaxed she fell asleep.
A week later, when out in the car the baby pointed at a lake and said pretty. Her Mum took that as definite progress, but we knew there was still more to do.
When we went to the pool at a friend’s house for the afternoon, Mum and the kids went swimming and I was designated responsible for cuddling and tapping duty. My pleasure! Firstly, we noticed she wasn’t so bothered about everyone going in the water, it was a smaller pool, which helped, but still it was water and not only where her brothers and sisters in it, but her Mum was too.
She wasn’t scared but she wasn’t sure either and had no desire to go near to the water at all. So she sat on my lap and watched and I chatted to her and kept tapping the EFT points through. Gradually she became more curious and the kids called to her and showed her their water tricks. If I felt her tense up a little, I’d tap through the points again, and eventually she was happy to go and sit near the edge of the pool where I knew we’d end up getting splashed, which previously would have upset her.
We sat there a while tapping and chatting, pointing out the kids and when we did get splashed she didn’t get upset at all.
By the end of the afternoon her Grandad had sat with her on the steps going into the pool with his feet in the water and occasionally dipped her feet in too, while I tapped for her from my seat (this is called tapping by proxy, something you can do on your own EFT points, but for the benefit of someone else - sounds odd eh? But it works.)
So this baby has progressed from a real water phobia to dipping her feet in a swimming pool in two sessions.
The wonderful thing about using Emotional Freedom Techniques for such issues is that you don’t have to get into the causes of a disturbance. You can simply use EFT in situ or “in the field” as we therapists like to call it. That means that any time you, or anyone you know has a fear you can use EFT to diffuse it there and then. This works very well because you are already tuned in to the problem; the trigger is present and you are very much aware of it, so EFT can get to work right away on making you less anxious, and more in control.
With EFT there’s nothing to carry, no book or prompts, no remedies, no equipment, once the set sequence of tapping points is in your head, all you need is your fingers.
PS While we were at the pool my daughter stepped on a wasp and got stung in the bottom of her foot, guess what I used to get her calm and stop the pain?
And later when we were driving home and her foot started stinging again, she used the EFT shortcut for pain relief to get herself comfortable again.
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