By Carol Solomon, PhD

Dear Gary,

During a recent teleclass on how to lose weight with EFT, I was helping the participants identify specific events. One woman identified several negative comments that her parents had said to her while growing up.

For instance, her mother said things like "I thought you were on a diet, and now you are having butter on your toast." Her father once said to her "everyone in my senior group thinks you are my mother because you are so fat".

As hurtful as these comments were, the real kicker was when she weighed 123 pounds, and her husband told her she was fat. At the time, she had a 22-inch waist.

We discussed a little bit about what the comments meant to her, and what she told herself afterwards. I find that it is often not so much the comment itself, but what the client tells themselves, what conclusions they make following the hurtful comment.

The progression of statements can tell the story of what occurs after the hurtful comments. If the practitioner gets this right, it is extremely helpful to the client.

We then did the highly effective Borrowing Benefits procedure with the class. Here are the statements we used:

Even though I don't feel good about this issue, I deeply love and accept myself.

Even though my husband said I was fat when I weighed 123 pounds, I deeply and completely accept myself now.

Even though I felt hurt, and I thought I would never be good enough for him, I deeply and profoundly accept myself.

Even though his opinion was very important to me, I deeply love and accept myself.

Even though I started believing I was fat, just because he said so, and I felt hopeless . . . I didn't know what to do, I deeply and completely accept myself now.

Even though I knew he was wrong, I am open to the possibility of accepting what happened . . . maybe even forgiving him.

Even though I felt so judged, I am open to the possibility that he was doing the best he could at the time (at this point, she interrupted me, saying "I don't believe that".)

Even though I felt so judged, I choose to know that he had his own issues, and it had nothing to do with me. (This statement is important to counteract the tendency for people to blame themselves, and to take comments personally.)

We did 2 rounds of tapping around the body with statements like these:

Feeling judged

It hurt

I can't believe my own husband would say that

I didn't know what I had to do to please him

I felt hopeless

He had his own issues

But it is still costing me now

I may have to accept it and understand that it is his problem

I may even have to forgive him, at least be open to that possibility

I am open to the possibility of letting it go

Not for him, but for me

Then we ended with a positive round:

Feeling calmer

Relaxed and calm

I choose to know the truth

I stand in the truth

Feeling calm

I can calm myself no matter what anyone says to me

Letting it go

Feeling peaceful

I can find my own peace

Needless to say, this really hit the mark for her. She had been carrying around these hurtful comments for decades. She called the next day and said that she no longer felt this heavy, depressed feeling that she used to wake up with every morning, and she didn't feel tempted to overeat to soothe her feelings. Yeah!

Carol Solomon, Ph.D.

Certified Mentor Coach

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