Cravings For Weirdos


The things I do for you people. Seriously. Everyone around me thinks I’m one tinfoil hat short of an alien encounter. And I did it for you.

EFT
Pronounced “fffffftttt” (kidding – it’s actually pronounced “I spit a lot”), Emotional Freedom Techniques is, in brief, a series of body movements, singing, tapping and eye rolling that you perform in a specific order to achieve emotional freedom.

Lest you say, “But I did not know I was in emotional bondage, Charlotte!” I must point out that everyone has some binding emotions. Think of this as an emotional laxative. Plus it will really make those family reunions a lot more entertaining once the Aunts get a load of you doing this.

Why EFT?
Gary Craig, the founder of emofree.com, and one of the most ardent supporters of EFT explains, “Based on impressive new discoveries regarding the body’s subtle energies, Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) has proven successful in thousands of clinical cases. It applies to just about every emotional, health and performance issue you can name and it often works where nothing else will.” (emphasis his, actually if you go to his site you will discover he is very fond of The Bold.)

He asserts that this technique will help with everything from pain management to addictions to eating disorders to weight loss and everything in between. For my studies though, I was particularly interested in how some people use the technique to help manage cravings.

To be completely honest, I was pushed into this experiment by an overly aggressive bag of Sweetart jelly beans (the absolute best kind ever invented I hate you Willy Wonka and your CandyLand house of HFCS horrors). You see, it’s been hanging around my house since Easter. Perhaps you have something of that sugary ilk lurking in your household? A bean here, a bean there, pretty soon I was pooping green food dye and getting sugar hangovers in the mid afternoon. The neighbors were starting to talk.

How to EFT?
Full of good intentions (and you know where those lead), I downloaded the free EFT instructional manual. First thing you should know – it’s not a manual. It’s eighty-freaking-seven pages. It’s an e-book. As if your butt isn’t already squished into the shape of your (very uncomfortable IKEA) office chair. I skimmed. A lot. Okay, so I just read the bolded stuff. But there was a lot of bolded stuff!

You get the two-minute rundown: basically there are points on your body that are supposed to be emotional release points. Using your index and middle finger you either tap or massage each point. Craig gives a very lengthy explanation and list of steps with various different formulations. Some would say I have a short attention span, I would say I’m built like a hummingbird, but however you look at it Paul McKenna is more succinct:

The Tapping Technique
1. I want you get the biggest desire for a food that you can right now. If you don’t have a big enough craving, put this technique to one side and come back to it when you’re really feeling it.

2. Focus on this craving for a moment, and when you’ve thought of that I’d like you to rate your desire for a food on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being the lowest and 10 the highest. This is important, because in a moment we want to know how much you’ve reduced it.

3. On a scale of 1- 10, how strong is your craving? Remember, if you’re not really craving a bite (i.e. your craving is not at least a 7), come back to this technique later.

4. Now take two fingers of either hand and tap about ten times under your collarbone while you continue to think about eating.

5. Now tap under your eye ten times.

6. Now tap under your collarbone again.

7. Place your other hand in front of you and tap on the back of it between your ring finger and your little finger. Continue to think about your desire for food as you do this and each of the steps which follow:
  • Close your eyes and open them.
  • Keep your head still, keep tapping and look down to the right then down to the left.
  • Keep tapping and rotate your eyes round 360 degrees clockwise, and now 360 degrees anti-clockwise.
Remember to keep thinking about the food you were craving as you do this!
  • Now hum the first few lines of ‘Happy Birthday’ out loud.
  • Count out loud from 1 to 5.
  • Once again hum the first few lines of ‘Happy Birthday’ out loud.
8. Stop and check – on a scale from 1 to 10, what number is your craving at now?
If it hasn’t completely gone yet, just repeat this sequence again until it does.

PS> There’s a video if you follow the link to Paul McKenna’s site.

Bring On the Tin Foil Hat
That’s right, you will be systematically tapping yourself in strange places whilst chanting happy birthday and counting like an over caffeinated preschooler. But other than your pride, what could it hurt to try?

For the last 3 days, every time I have gotten a craving for one of those nefarious little beans I have, much to my children’s amusement, got down with the tapping, singing and eye rolling. In fact, it got so bad that the younger one really thought it was his birthday and the older ones were starting to imitate me. (“You can’t do that sweetie, Teacher will think you have strange tics and send you home early and then I’ll never get my workout in. Plus Teacher already thinks mommy is crazy but we won’t talk again about how mommy missed your randomly assigned “birthday” – since you were a summer baby – and left you bereft of peanut-free cupcakes and/or smelly erasers.”)

The end result? I ate less jelly beans. For reals. I don’t know why. Gary Craig would say that my negative attitude is making me skeptical. I personally think my negative attitude makes me fun at parties but I digress. Whatever the reason – whether it was just distracting myself long enough for the craving to pass or that I “set my emotions free” – it seemed to work. In fact, during one rebellious moment I consciously argued with myself about actually doing the technique:

Me: I want the jelly beeeeaaaaannnnnns!
Other Me: Do the EFT!
Me: No! Because then I won’t want to eat the jelly beans anymore.
Other Me: Well, huh.

I didn’t do the EFT and I ate the jelly beans, feeling marvelously defiant. Take that – ! Um, who am I rebelling against exactly? Me? Oh. Take that, me.

Like I said, I don’t know why it worked. I don’t even know if it will keep working. But there is a surprising body of research supporting this as a valid technique beyond just the power of positive thinking. Check it out. In the end, what do you have to lose? Except a little bit of credibility but who cares what those homeless people in the alley think. You shouldn’t be shooting up smack anyhow. Besides, they’re just jealous of your nifty hat.

13 Comments

  1. first? I love your writing. the flow. your style. all of it.

    B? Im in awe at how you seem to pull amazing sh**,errr, creations out of your fingertips daily.

    amazing.

    now I actually believe in this stuff.

    our bodies are such finely tuned instruments and I think that so many of us (the M included) arent even scratching the surface of how we could use our own bodies to find what we seek (be it inner peace or our innards sans-sprees).

    off to work. hope this made any early am sense 🙂

    M.

  2. ps—I love the tinfoil hat. I might steal that for todays arts & crafts project.

  3. While I tend to think all the tapping and humming works to distract one from the cravings, this does remind me of something. There are a number of meditation techniques that can be done to help a person become more finely attuned to his/her body. By being more aware of your physical self and more present in your daily life, you can use simple techniques to overcome strong emotions.

    For example: a person very attuned to themselves can simply tap on their forehead between the eyes a few times and thus completely eliminate strong feelings of anger. I’ve likewise heard that regular meditation on physical awareness can help people overcome emotional eating, so cravings wouldn’t be too far off.

  4. i too am in constant awe of the great (and frequent) writing from you. How Do you do it?

    anyway, the tapping thing is very interesting. I will have to try it out this week when those brownies are calling.

  5. My college roommate used to tap things repeatedly. He had Turret’s though. Not sure if he also simultaneously controlled cravings.

  6. GREAT POST!!!!

    I’ve been reading one of Paul McKenna’s books, and reading about the tapping. I like his book and CD (very relaxing), but I remain skeptical about the tapping. Maybe it’s because I just don’t feel like doing it. (I make enough of a fool of myself in my daily life, do I REALLY have to add this?) Plus, I keep thinking I need to dig out my old tap shoes.
    Anyway.
    I’ll try and keep an open mind. Hey, if Acupuncture works (and I believe it does), then this could,too!

  7. I checked out tapping after reading about it on Gala Darling’s site a few weeks ago. . . . The EFT people really should have located their website at a different URL than emofree.com. It makes me picture sad eyelinered scene kids sulking around listening to Evanescence.

    I tried a basic version of tapping (which thankfully didn’t involve singing “Happy Birthday”) that Gala demonstrated in a video she created and posted on her site, but I was in a bit of a rush and I don’t know if it helped or not. I kept hoping my boyfriend wouldn’t walk in while I was doing it. He’s used to my general insanity, but still.

  8. Woody Allen used to stick a fork in a toaster! Not only did it stop the craving, but cured his depression 🙂

    I have used acupressure quite successfully for headaches and other facial pains, but no tapping.

    No one who tin foils a cat should be trusted!

    Dr. J

  9. You know when my Kid Number One was in therapy her psychologist gave us tapping exercises. We had one that she called ‘butterfly hugs,’ which involved hugging yourself while patting your shoulders and thinking a happy thought (this reinforced the positivity), and another where you would sit cross-legged on the floor and pat the floor while rehearsing a sad memory (this process the sad memory more fully taking away its psychic power). Now it might just be that I am very susceptible to the power of suggestion, but I kind of think it worked! My four year old sure liked it 🙂

  10. I have to admit, I totally thought this was an April Fools joke…oops.

  11. Funny you write about EFT and Paul McKenna cuz I’m talking about him tomorrow.

    EFT has never worked for me, and I tried it over and over. I so badly wanted it to work, but it never did, alas.

  12. You guys are the best commenters ever! I’m amazed that so many of you have heard of this and/or tried it.

    Miz – You are the best – totally made my day:) You know I feel the same way about you, girl! Post pics of the hat!!

    Gena – I’m totally trying that anger tapping point. You are just a wealth of knowledge!

    Workout Mommy – I’m crazy. Seriously. Writing is the one thing (after my kids & exercise) that I always make time for because I just love it so much. The fact that you all read it and like it?? Gravy, baby!! Thanks:)

    Nitmos – warn me before you post! Every comment of yours has me laughing to hard that I’m afraid I’m going to sprain something. I totally did look like I had Tourette’s btw.

    Azusmom – I’m so not surprised that you are already up on this trend! PLEASE let me know how it goes for you.

    GoGo – totally had the exact same image when I went to emofree too. A lot of dissappointed MCR fans, I bet;)

    Dr. J – Post Woody Allen’s quotes more often – my day needed that;)

    Laura – thanks for sharing your experience with us! Glad it helped! Butterfly hugs def. can’t hurt:)

    M – that’s because your April Fool’s joke was so awesome:)

    Stephanie – That is so interesting to me that you have tried it multiple times and didn’t work for you. One would think that just by nature of you WANTING it to work so much would have provided at least a placebo effect. Very much looking forward to your post on it.

  13. It is very nice to read a post on fitness

    Great work buddy, Thxs a lot for this post.

    -Anna,