I had the honor of spending the weekend at Omega, in beautiful Rhinebeck, NY, with my friends Kris Carr and Elena Brower. You might know Kris from her film, Crazy Sexy Cancer and best-selling books, like NY Times bestseller, “Crazy Sexy Diet”.
The weekend was scheduled to be an interesting combination for participants, mixing EFT with cutting-edge nutrition information with rejuvenating yoga. It was all that was promised and more!
Borrowing from my friend Kevin Gianni, here are 7 things I learned and experienced about this weekend that you might find helpful.
1. I don’t get tired of seeing amazing results with pain relief
When I work with people in pain, especially up on stage in front of a live audience, I joke with them that they don’t have to say, “The pain is gone,” just to make me happy! And the reason I say this is because I continue to be astonished each and every time when the pain just… goes…
Sometimes it’s quick, a matter of minutes. Sometimes it takes deeper work. And sometimes there’s a reduction in the pain, but it doesn’t all go away (and remember this is usually only 20-30 minutes of working on it!)
But even just a reduction in pain, from doing this weird tapping on your face and saying stuff process, is startling! Why doesn’t everyone know about this? And why isn’t everyone using it? I’m not proposing it’s the answer to all pain, all the time, but it sure is extremely effective a lot of the time with no side effects, and it needs to be talked about more.
The thing about pain is… It sucks. I know, what a deep insight. 🙂 But seriously, pain takes up so much energy, so much life force. It robs us of our ability to be in the world, to be in our body, to be with friends and family, and to create. It just plain old sucks. But there are solutions, and EFT is one of the best ones out there.
If you’ve seen our film, “The Tapping Solution”, you’ll remember that perhaps the three most startling cases of results dealt with physical pain. John, a Vietnam veteran with 30 years of chronic back pain (gone by the 2nd day!), Jodi, diagnosed with fibromyalgia for 15 years (pain reduction within minutes of tapping and pain free by the 2nd day), and Patricia, who had fractured her L-1 and was in significant pain (now pain free, off meds, doing yoga!).
Just amazing stuff…and life-changing on so many levels.
So, what does this mean for you? Well, if you’re in pain, you have to dig deep and give Tapping a real shot at handling it. To help you do so, you may wish to check out our program, The Tapping Solution for Pain Relief.
TIP: Remember, the easiest way to get started with pain relief is to tap specifically on what’s going on. “Even though I have this back pain, I deeply and completely accept myself…” Tap through the points. Tap a couple of times, and pay close attention to not only any reduction in the pain, but more importantly, what’s happening with your body and your thoughts. Does an image of your boss come up as you tap? Maybe that’s the next place to go. Do you remember something that happened to you twenty years ago? Tap on that. Tapping is peeling away the layers of an onion, to get to the specific root cause of the pain, of the emotion, of the block. Start with the general (unless you know the specific event right off the bat) and then keep digging deeper.
Most importantly- don’t give up! Two rounds of tapping are not enough to say, “I tried that for my pain.” Sometimes I find it helps to set a timer, or look at a clock and say, “I’m tapping for at least 20 minutes,” or even 10 minutes if that’s all you have. Don’t stop until you’ve hit that goal!
2. Working with people on stage for food cravings is always fun…and it’s also sad…
What do I mean by this? Well, when I bring out the Kit Kats, the Hershey bars, the chocolate chip cookies, the salty chips, and other “treats”, it gets a good laugh as people jump up for them, smell them, ask to eat them, and have what is often an amusing emotional reaction to these “treats”.
Then as people come up on stage to work specifically on their cravings, the humor melts away as we find out that what’s really behind it all are feelings of sadness, emptiness, loneliness, boredom, fear and more. The experience this past weekend was especially interesting because I had three guys come up on stage, which is rare!
But hey, us guys can crave sweets too!
One particularly compelling story was from John (name changed to maintain privacy), who struggled with a need to have chocolate ice cream every night. Digging deeper, we found he was recovering from substance addictions, and the ice cream was the closest replacement he could find to fill that emptiness he felt, especially at night. John is a remarkable, courageous man who has made great progress – and ice cream is a much better solution than his previous choices, but he still wanted to be FREE, and needing the ice cream wasn’t freedom.
We tapped on the craving itself initially (as in pain relief, it’s easy to start with what’s PRESENT for you at that moment, what’s most obvious, and then dig deeper) and after some of the craving itself released, we dug deeper into the feelings he was burying by eating the ice cream.
TIP: If you have a food craving, and you want to release the underlying cause, try this short exercise for clarity. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Visualize a time when you’ve had a craving, or visualize in the future when you might have a craving. Feel that in your body. Feel deeply into the craving and when you’re connected to that feeling, dig a little deeper and ask yourself, “Instead of this chocolate/candy/ice cream, what am I REALLY craving?” Ask it a couple of times if you don’t get an answer right away. Once you have your answer, whether it be, “I’m craving more peace, more love, less stress (whatever comes to you is perfect), then do a couple of rounds of tapping on it.
Examples:
“Even though I’m craving more love from my husband, I deeply and completely accept myself.”
“Even though I’m craving more love from myself, I choose to relax now.”
Keep tapping until the craving AND the feeling clears. 🙂
3. The participants this weekend were BRAVE
I don’t know if they really knew what they were getting into, how deep we would go, how much we would uncover, but they were present, loving, and honest. It truly touched me to see so many people committed to change, committed to having more in their life.
TIP: Be brave. Go there. Deal with it. Tap on it. You can do it. You can! Believe in yourself. Believe in the tools that are out there to make this work so much easier, and dive in.
Be brave! Do it now.
4. The universe brings us more magic than miracles
I know miracles happen. I believe in them, expect them, hope for them. But miracles can be a HEAVY word, especially if you’re dealing with something serious, and it seems like only a miracle can help. If you’re dealing with cancer or another life-threatening illness, I know you’re hoping for a miracle.
But if it feels like that’s too much, like it’s unlikely to happen, then start looking for “magic”. Not Harry Potter magic, the magic of THIS earth. The synchronistic events, the little signs, the gut feeling to turn left, to turn right, to tap.
Follow the magic and THEN all the magic adds up into a miracle.
Tip: Look out for magic today.
5. We never really lose anybody (and magic reminds us of that)
Towards the end of the weekend, we were all really in the flow. I personally felt fantastic – a bit tired from lack of sleep – but so juiced about the transformations that were taking place. On the morning of the last day, as we did every morning, we each picked a “card” from a big basket of 5-6 card decks that Kris had put together. Some were angel cards, some were cards with sayings on them, some were cards of inspiration, all sorts of fun stuff.
I was up on stage, about to speak, when Kris came over with the basket and I picked a card.
When I looked at it, my jaw dropped.
Staring at me from the card was an exact drawing of my cat, Pythagoras, (we called him Py) who I lost 2 years prior.
I mean EXACT.
It’s a long story, but I moved houses two years ago, and Py, who was a very happy indoor/outdoor cat, left one day and never came back (I spent about a month looking for him, but that’s not relevant to the story!)
What is relevant is that when I saw that card, his message, or the universe’s message, was clear as can be. Losing Py set off a chain of events that have brought me to where I am today, and it’s been beyond perfect.
When it happened, it was one of the toughest things that have ever happened to me. But looking back, I GET IT. 🙂
TIP: I know it’s cliché, but things are working out in perfect order. If you’re going through a tough time, if you’ve recently lost someone, something, or are lost yourself, take a deep breath and know it’s all working out (and tap on it, of course, to make it all easier!).
6. It’s about balance
One of the reasons the weekend was so amazing was because we covered so many topics: EFT, nutrition, and yoga… and they are all vitally important to living a healthy, happy, fulfilled life.
I’m sorry, but you can tap until you are blue in the face and if you’re eating McDonald’s cheeseburgers for lunch, you’re just not going to be healthy.
If you never go to the gym, do yoga, or some sort of exercise, your body is not going to be fit, strong, and full of energy.
I’m a HUGE fan of the Abraham-Hicks material and follow it on so many levels. At the same time, we’re very physical beings on a very physical earth. We need to breathe, move, and get great nutrition into our bodies.
TIP: Check out Kris Carr’s website to learn more about nutrition and check out Elena Brower’s site (especially if you’re in NYC) for yoga info. By the way, Kris and I are coming out with something together later in the year to help you become even healthier, easily. So stay tuned for that.
7. They inspired me
Spending time with Kris and Elena inspired me. I’ve been finding myself eating better, adding some things in that Kris mentioned, some new stuff, some reminders of old stuff. Elena’s voice has been ringing through my head, “Just 15 minutes of yoga! If that’s all you can do, do that!” And I’ve been listening, and have been feeling great because of it.
Right now, I’m writing from Arizona, where the Transformational Leadership Council, led by Jack Canfield, is meeting. I’ve just had the privilege to join in the past year, and the people here are SO inspiring. Jack Canfield, John Gray, Hale Dwoskin, Lynne McTaggart, Arielle Ford, Claire Zammit, Janet Atwood, Cynthia Kersey, just to name a few of the people that are here. SO inspiring to be around them.
TIP: Surround yourself with people that inspire you and help you grow. Now, I can hear what you’re saying already, “You’re so lucky to be around those people, I’m not friends with them, I can’t spend time with them, etc.”
Here’s the reality: For a good TEN years, I spent a huge amount of time LISTENING to all these same people. I would read their books and would listen to their audio programs. My roommate right after college joked that my headphones were permanently glued to my ears. Lol!
And guess what?
After I listened to them enough, after I read enough of their books, attended enough of their seminars, slowly, but surely, I climbed the ladder of MY life, MY possibilities, MY dreams. And now I have the pleasure to call these same mentors my friends and colleagues.
You can do the same thing.
Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed my 7 thoughts. Thanks again to my bud (we went to elementary, middle and high school together) Kevin Gianni, for the idea to share these. “7 things”. You can check out the website he started with thoughts on nutrition, health and more.
Until next time…
Keep Tapping!
Nick Ortner
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