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Suzanne Zacharia finds the root causes of Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS)

Important Note: This article was written prior to 2010 and is now outdated. Please use my newest advancement, Optimal EFT. It is more efficient, more powerful and clearly explained in my free e-book, The Unseen Therapist™.  Best wishes, Gary

Hi Everyone,

MCS is often challenging because there can be multiple causes. A big thank you to Suzanne Zacharia from the UK who gives us a detailed trip through the substantial progress she makes with her MCS client. Note how her inquiries bring up many SPECIFIC EVENTS underlying the problem and how all sessions were DONE OVER THE PHONE.

Hugs, Gary


By Suzanne Zacharia

Before Lyn's first phone EFT session with me, she sent me an email with the following information.  She first experienced signs of MCS over 10 years ago and was not getting much better.  She became ill when exposed to man-made synthetics "which are poisonous to everyone", she said. She reported a build-up of xeno-biotics in her body, due to over-exposure to nail glue, acrylics, acetone, and solvents.  More recently, she was experiencing a strong reaction to perfume and artificial fragrances.  This gave her a problem with her left ear, nausea, trembling, and fatigue.  Since most people at her work wore perfume and artificial fragrances, it was imperative that she got better, or else she could not carry on going to work.

When I took Lyn's history, it transpired that she had been a manicurist for 5 years, two of which had been difficult due to poor ventilation in the shop. She said: "It's hard to get those things out of your body" (and I thought "that is a core belief we have to collapse").  She said that she was afraid to go to work because the perfumes made her so ill.  She had also been exposed to paint and turpentine in art classes during college.  She was now reacting to paint.

She had done EFT on some other things successfully, but MCS was the elusive issue.  She also mentioned having done EFT for father abandonment at 3 ½ years old, which I stored as a potential issue to test to make sure it had completely gone.  She was married for 5 years, and had to leave one job which involved chemical cleaning of carpets.  From the dates she gave me, I worked out that her MCS started a year or so into her marriage.  So with this information, we set about doing the EFT.

We tended to use the KC for the Setup, and usually stuck to the points between and including the Top of Head and UA.

At the start of the first session, I asked something about the father abandonment issue, intending to test that it had gone.  Lyn however, led me into a more pressing direction for her just then, and told me that her mother was overprotective.  Her stepfather was a reclusive workaholic, although that was not an issue, I stored that information for use later.

And just before we started doing anything about the mother issue, Lyn expressed a concern that the EFT was not going to work.  So I asked her to rate on a scale of 0 to 10, the truth of the statement, "Afraid the EFT is not going to work."  It was a 9. So we tapped...

Even though I'm afraid the EFT is not going to work…

We reduced that to 5, at which point, I felt intuitively that we should move on to another issue.  I asked her to rate the truth of another statement, "I don't feel safe in this world."  This one was a 7 or 8 on a scale of 0 to 10.  Then I asked for an incident that represented the mother's over-protectiveness, and that also fed into this feeling of not being safe in the world.  Lyn came up with a time when her mother did not want her to attend a singing competition, because there might be an accident on the way.  We tapped something along the lines of:

Even though I have this singing competition feeling...

Even though my mother said there might be an accident...

After some rounds of tapping on the singing competition, I asked Lyn to rate this statement again: "I don't feel safe in this world." It had gone down to a 3 out of 10.

So now was an opportunity to test if what I suspected was a root cause of the MCS.  Let me explain.  I sometimes find that when someone felt abandoned as a child or when a parent seemed aloof, there is the chance the child may be afraid of commitment for fear of repeating that pattern with his or her husband, wife, or partner.  Given the time the MCS started, this was a strong contender, but I had to be sure first.  So I said: "What if you think of yourself as married to your ex-husband, would that still be a 3?" And the answer was no, it would be a 4.

So I asked her about the marriage.  She said her husband was a very nice man, but she was having panic attacks before the marriage.  She had had therapy for this, but of course EFT was not around then.  I asked her if she thought about those panic attacks, what number would she get.  That was a 10. We tapped on that, it came down to 7.  It transpired that her husband was very nice and they separated amicably, and that it did not feel right getting married to him.   As the marriage approached, the panic attacks increased. 

Because when I tested by adding the marriage into the mix, her level of intensity went up, I wanted to hone in on that in this first session.  In retrospect, I should have found a way to hone in on "the big one" then.  In the situation itself, there were reasons why I did not feel it right to lead Lyn (gently of course) more in that direction.  I think one of the reasons is that she said she had had therapy for the marriage issues and had EFT’d the abandonment issues, and in the heat of the moment, I personally could not think of a way to gently focus on the important specific events regarding the marriage panic.  So I chose to move on to something else.

Then I asked about the "Safe in the world" issue, this time it was a 2-3 out of 10. By then we had been tapping for quite some time, Lyn mentioned the name of the nail place where she was exposed to the worst acrylic fumes, so I gave her homework along the lines of:

Even though I my body has been exposed to this [name of nail place] trauma, I allow my body to recover.

At the end of this first session, Lyn wanted to work out whether she wished to do more phone EFT with me or with a more local EFT’er I had also recommended.  Lyn got in touch about two to three weeks later and said she thought the EFT may have been working and had decided to do more with me on the phone.  She reported a healing crisis of increased symptoms straight after our session for some days, which she attributed later to the body detoxing after the EFT.  And she did notice that her left ear was not reacting to cologne in the office anymore. So we arranged a second appointment.

In the second appointment, the first thing we worked on was the nail place where she was exposed to the worst fumes.  That came down to a zero.

Next, I tested for any traces of the singing competition feeling.  That was a 2.  We tapped on it as before, and it reduced to a 1.  Since it was more a sad or disappointed 1 rather than a fearful 1, and my client was on a tight budget, I chose to move on.  I find fear the biggest factor in immune conditions or allergy-like reactions.

After getting these out of the way, I felt confident going back to the panic attacks before the marriage.  This was a 7 out of 10.   When we did tap on the marriage properly in this session, we tapped on many specifics.  This included actual statements her friends had said (that he was a real catch), what her therapist had said, experiencing a panic attack at the time, and the aspect of father abandonment.  We were tapping so fast all around those specifics, that I did not record the detail.  I think I was concentrating on being there for Lyn, making sure this was as painless and smooth a process as possible.  We tapped something like:

Even though I have this [name of husband] panic attack feeling…

We brought it down to a 5, then 3, then 0.  And then we were finally ready to move on to other things. Lyn at that point said that she felt unsupported at work.  A particular colleague wore a lot of "inorganic" fragrance, and Lyn was surrounded by cologne at work.  Her work was helpful but could have done more to support her, especially with an important specific incident that came to mind.  This level of intensity on this specific event was an 8 out of 10 and we tapped, including statements like:

Even though I have this cologne at work feeling...

Even though I was unsupported...

Even though I have this [colleague's name] feeling...

And all the while, we were focusing on that particular event (as this involves other people, I left the details out of this article, however, we did tap all over them).  Finally, for forgiveness and letting go, we discussed whilst tapping how and why the colleague wore so much fragrance, and why the colleague was upset upon finding out about Lyn's request to have something done about this.  This tapping brought about cognitive shifts that changed the frame from "I don't feel safe in this world" to one of calm and understanding.  The event went to a 2 and then about a zero.

Then we tapped more "directly" on the substances themselves.  This is because each main substance can be considered an important specific aspect. We tapped, without measuring her level of intensity, using statements like:

Even though I have this reaction to cologne…, I ask my body to safely process cologne.

Even though I have this reaction to cologne, I ask my body to safely process cologne and all its ingredients.

Lyn also mentioned that co-workers wore a great deal of fabric conditioner and fabric freshener.  We got specific by tapping for one particularly prevalent brand name:

Even though I have this reaction to [brand name], I ask my body to safely process [brand name] and all its ingredients.

I advised Lyn for homework to buy or borrow some of this branded product, hold it in one hand in a sealed container, and tap with the other as we did in the session. We also tapped as follows with a reframe:

Even though I have been exposed to all these toxins, and I was exposed to levels poisonous to anyone for sure, that was way back then, and for some reason, my body doesn't realize that the danger is over.  I am being exposed to far lesser amounts of toxins now, but my body somehow does not realize that yet.  It's still trying to protect me as if I'm way back then.  I choose to be grateful to my body for trying to protect me.  I now allow my body to safely process these minute amounts of toxins.

Reminder: I ask my body to safely process these toxins.

Lyn said that made sense and it resonated with her.  So for homework, I also gave her to simply tap something like:

Even though I have been exposed to all these toxins, I ask my body to safely process toxins.

In the third session, Lyn reported feeling better already.  She was still reacting a little to cologne, but nothing like she used to.  She found that a great improvement.

The focus of the beginning of this session was someone at work, which she did not feel it was safe to talk to, after he misunderstood something she had said and reacted negatively.  This was someone she had trusted and looked up to, and the misunderstanding had involved religious belief, although it was a totally innocent conversation that anyone would have.  I asked her how true the following statement was, considering this particular event: "It's not safe to talk to [name of colleague]" That was an 8 out of 10 and we tapped something like:

Even though it's not safe to talk to [name of colleague]...

It was still an 8. So we tapped more specifically on the incident itself, which Lynn referred to as "[name of colleague] cutting me down".  We also tapped on why he did that, and I reframed it something like this:

Even though [name of colleague] is cutting me down, maybe he feels threatened, although that's totally unjustified.  Maybe what I said made him question his beliefs, and maybe he felt uncomfortable about that. Maybe that's his own insecurity...

We kept this line of tapping, and the level of intensity went down to a 4, a 2-3, then 1 then 0.  And then this daisy-chained to another person in Lyn's past.  This was someone who while staying in her home, used a great deal of scented hair gel, strong smelling washing powder and fabric softener.  This person had said cutting remarks during his stay.  I asked for a representative example.  It was a time when he said something deeply cutting and personal.  That was when Lyn became more sensitive to acrylic paint, coincidentally.  An additional root cause.

Again, although we honed in on a specific event, I will not detail it here for confidentiality of the person involved.  The incident was a level of intensity of 10 out of 10.  So we tapped on this incident and it went to a 5 to a 2 then a zero.  Then we tapped for his hair gel, washing powder, and fabric softener.

Then I tested by asking for her level of intensity for trauma of exposure to each, and tapped more "directly" for them.  Hair gel went from 2 to 1, to 0, washing powder was 0, and fabric conditioner went from 1 to zero.  This was using statements like:

Even though I have this [name of person] hair gel feeling...

Now, up to this point, we had been working on the fear/unsafe theme.  There is another issue I usually address.  So I checked for self-love and self-acceptance.  This is why I do this.  Think of the body as a football team.  If any member has not bought 100% into the teamwork, then another team can win the football match with ease.  This is the same in my experience with perfume, a virus, bacterium, fungus, wheat, etc.  So I asked Lyn how true the following statement was: "I am lovable." This was 90%.  So we tapped something like:

Even though I'm 90% lovable, not 100% lovable…

The heart chakra and green are connected with love, and so we tapped something like the following.

I allow green healing to my heart chakra, I deeply accept myself. We used the Reminder:

Green healing to my heart chakra. Lovable went up to 100%. So we went on to: "I accept myself." This started at 80%, and tapping something like the following, we raised it to 99%.

Even though I accept myself 80%, not a 100%, I deeply...

Lastly, I asked how true is the following statement: "I love myself." This was 100%.

We were due to have another session, and the understanding was if Lyn felt well enough, she could cancel it.  She did, and today, about a month after her third appointment, she wrote that she was still doing well.

Thank you for the best tool ever,

Suzanne

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