by Nick Ortner.
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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. (If you want to learn more about the event, see the banner below, or follow this link, I’d love to meet you there!) Cheryl Richardson, New York Times bestselling author and Hay House star, had recommended to Meggan that she try using EFT for her anxiety and to make the experience a positive and enjoyable one.
Meggan had often 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…
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 got 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 the 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 tapped on this issue, until it cleared and 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, to see if that would bring up any anxiety. The audiences at Hay House are great and extremely receptive and welcoming to the speakers, but I wanted to “push her buttons” a little bit, to make sure 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 that, “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 is a time when it’s good to look for what’s wrong, to identify problems, to 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, her sister and her had flown together on a small airplane, and the flight was the worst experience of her life. From the start, the turbulence was unlike any she had ever experienced, with 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 her. She had worked on healing and had made progress, but at the deepest level, the trauma was still there, and 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 had taught Meggan that she needed to be on alert at all times, that the world inherently wasn’t a safe place and that her body wasn’t safe either.
I used the “Tell The Story” technique with Meggan, asking her to recount to me what happened while tapping at the same time. I could tell from Meggan’s body language and tone that just talking about the issue brought her some anxiety, so I was careful to move slowly through the story and told her that if she ever felt the emotional intensity was too high, or if she didn’t feel safe, we could back away from the experience. This is one of the great things about working with people on Video Skype or in person, the visual cues are so important to recognize and help people with.
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 and memory when needed and pulled 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 again, and again, and again, 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, focusing on sights, sounds, smells and especially what you’re feeling as you retell the story. Then do it again and again, digging deeper for any other aspects that might come up until you feel it’s cleared.
At the end, when Meggan thought of the traumatic flight, she broke down in tears of joy because she was 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, smile. 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 a healing that nothing medical, psychological, or therapeutic could do. Somehow the thoughts I had about the fear were circumvented to the experience itself, that 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. Smile. 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 – it was the overall safety issue. If we don’t feel safe in our bodies, for whatever reasons, whether it be a traumatic event, childhood trauma, or any other reason, it profoundly affects how we approach life. Meggan has been a force for good in the world even before this session, I can’t wait to see what she can do 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?
Comment below and share your thoughts, experiences and questions with others. And if you liked this story, make sure to hit the Facebook “like” button below. 
Nick Ortner
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