A few weeks back, my friend and fellow Hay House author Meggan Watterson approached me to help her with her fear of public speaking. Meggan and I are sharing the stage in just a few months in San Jose, at the I Can Do It – IGNITE! event, and she was feeling very nervous about the speech.
Cheryl Richardson, New York Times bestselling author and Hay House star, had recommended Meggan try using EFT for her anxiety. She believed it could make the experience positive and enjoyable.
Meggan had taken the stage before with extremely positive feedback from her audiences. But she always read her speeches behind a podium and didn’t feel fully comfortable with the experience. For the Hay House event, she wouldn’t have a podium and was planning on speaking without a set script.
As we began our session, I asked Meggan to visualize being on stage, without the podium or her written speech, and to tell me what she experienced and particularly what she felt in her body.
I find that focusing on the body sensations is a great way to get started addressing any fears, particularly public speaking because it helps us connect more fully to the feelings and determine what’s really going on.
She shared with me that she felt a constriction in her chest and throat when she thought about the event; not a surprising place for a fear of public speaking! I asked her to give it a number and she shared that it was a 7 on a 0-10 scale.
We began tapping with some very simple statements:
Even though I have this constriction in my chest and throat, I deeply and completely accept myself…
Even though something feels stuck in my throat, I deeply and completely accept myself…
And even though I have this anxiety in my chest and throat, I chose to relax now…
We kept tapping through various statements and the points until she could no longer feel the constriction in her chest and throat.
I then had her go back to the image of herself speaking up on stage at the Hay House event, and asked her how she felt about it and what she saw. She shared that she felt better and saw the speech going well, but only once she started. “I think getting started is going to be tough.”
What was this? Of course, another ASPECT of the issue.
An ASPECT is a particular element of fear or memory, and it’s important to search for all the different aspects in order to get the best results. She had cleared out the stuck energy in her chest and throat, and then something else came up. So we continued tapping. Once this issue cleared she shared that she felt she’d get off to a great start.
I continued to ask her to visualize the event and look for anything that didn’t feel right. I even added to the potential pressure, on purpose, in order to make sure everything was clear. For example, I had her visualize the audience not smiling when she first came out. I wanted to see if that would bring up any anxiety.
The audiences at Hay House events are extremely receptive and welcoming to the speakers, but I wanted to “push her buttons” a little bit. This helped ensure we handled all the aspects.
This process continued, again and again, digging deeper and deeper, until she could no longer find any anxiety, stress, or worry about the speech. Instead, she reported, “I’m actually excited for this and starting to think about what I want to discuss. And I could never go there before because I was too terrified of the whole experience!”
Important: The way to get lasting results with fears or phobias is to dig deep and address all the aspects of the issue. This the time to look for what’s wrong, identify problems, poke at yourself, and see how it feels!
Fear of Flying and Deep-Seated Safety Issues
Meggan was delighted with how she felt and we were about to sign off from the call when she
shared with me that she was excited to use EFT on a deep fear of flying that she had, especially since she was going to have to fly to the Hay House event!
The fear of public speaking had only taken 30 minutes to address, so I offered to continue helping her with the fear of flying and she agreed.
She shared with me that fifteen years earlier, she and her sister had flown together on a small airplane. That flight was the worst experience of her life. From the start, the turbulence was unlike anything before—the small plane dropping several feet at once, again and again.
She was sure she was going to die. The pilot didn’t say a word to reassure the passengers, and the muted cries and screams of the people around her made everything worse. They finally landed safely, but to Meggan’s mind and body, the trauma of the experience never left. She had worked on healing and had made progress, but at the deepest level, the trauma was still there, affecting her life in all sorts of ways.
This wasn’t just a fear of flying that we were working on together, it was a deep-seated fear about life, about safety, about who she was in the world, and not having to be on alert all times.
That one experience taught Meggan that she to be on alert at all times. It made her believe that the world was inherently unsafe and that her body was not safe either.
I used the “Tell The Story” technique with Meggan. This is where I ask someone to recount what happened while tapping simultaneously.
I could tell from Meggan’s body language and tone that just talking about the issue brought her some anxiety. I was careful to address this and slowly moved through the story. It was important that I reminded her that we could back away from the experience if the emotional intensity was too high or she felt unsafe.
Visual cues are one of the great things about working with people on video or in-person. The visual cues are so important to recognize and help people.
Meggan recounted what happened from start to finish, and I focused on helping her feel safe, guiding her with questions that brought her deeper into the experience when needed, and pulling her further out when necessary.
She told me what happened, step by step, and tapped the whole time. Her first recounting of it was very emotional but I could see her calming down as she tapped. I then had her tell me the story repeatedly until there was no emotional intensity to any element of it.
You can use this same technique, with others or by yourself. If you’re alone and want to work on something, just retell what happened, out loud, while tapping. Tell the story in as much detail as possible. Focus on sights, sounds, smells, and especially what you’re feeling as you retell the story. Then repeat it, digging deeper for any other aspects that come up until you feel it’s cleared.
In the end, when Meggan thought of the traumatic flight, she broke down in tears of joy. She no longer experienced the fear and pain that just thirty minutes earlier was paralyzing her.
We signed off and the next day, I received this email from her:
“I’ve been sleeping like a teen since our call. If it weren’t for my toddler, I might still be in bed. It’s not fatigue, it feels more like make-up sleep. The part of me that was terrorized into hyper-vigilance during that flight 15 years ago, to stay awake, to keep watch, to be ever on the lookout for my safety finally took a bow and stepped down. Not trusting life takes A LOT of energy. 🙂 I have this visceral knowing that when the make-up sleep has run its course, I’m going to have crazy amazing energy.
I’m so fascinated, and semi-perplexed, at the session’s effectiveness. I keep trying to conjure the fear I once had for flying, and also the naked, exposed feeling I had about speaking without a script in public and I just can’t access it. It’s not there. I remember who I am, or who I was before these fears made a home for themselves within me. I don’t get how tapping works, and I don’t need to – it just does.
It was the most grounded, and grounding, exercise I’ve ever been led through and yet at the same time my logical mind still can’t grasp how doing that strange dance with words and fingers tips against my upper torso served as the catalyst for healing that nothing medical, psychological, or therapeutic could do. Somehow the thoughts I had about the fear attached to the experience itself, and still lived there in my body.
Tapping accessed the actual wound and just lifted it. Poof. Tapping returned me the actual feeling of calm and safety in my body that the trauma of that flight has been blocking ever since. Like a magician pulling the white tablecloth out from under a dining set, tapping revealed that my trust in the world, in my life, has always been there – as my ground of being – the fear was simply obscuring its permanent presence within me.
I’m a convert. 🙂 A smacked-on-the-forehead–true believer-convert. My gratitude is endless.”
-Meggan
So What Happened?
As we can see from Meggan’s story, these traumatic life events can have profound consequences for our whole lives. Meggan’s issue wasn’t just a fear of flying, though I’m sure she’s grateful to overcome that particular fear. Her fear surrounded the broader issue of safety.
If we don’t feel safe in our bodies for whatever reason, it profoundly affects how we approach life. Whether it is a traumatic event, childhood trauma, or other reason, it stays with us. We have to acknowledge this pain in order to release it and find freedom. Meggan was a world force for good even before this session and I can’t wait to see what she does now!
What fears or phobias do you have and how might they be affecting other parts of your life? What beliefs do you have about yourself and the world because of these fears? Tap on them! What did you learn from Meggan’s story?
Until next time…
Keep Tapping!
Nick Ortner
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