Diana Ten Have

Naturotherapist and EFT Facilitator

3 Great Tips to Beat Stress

Do you often feel exhausted, overwhelmed and stressed, while you are not really that busy physically? It might be that your adrenal glands are making overtime.

I believe that in Western society many live their lives this way; on Monday morning we wish it was Friday afternoon already, and we fantasize about our ‘escape’ to the tropics next month or even next year.

We ARE literally wishing our lives away and this behavior causes a lot of stress, since our true self knows this is not the right way to live. I remember the first time one of my spiritual teachers asked me how often I ‘loose’ time…  of course I didn’t know what  she was talking about. She then asked me if I ever experienced driving my car on a familiar road and all of the sudden I already arrived at my destination without actually recollecting the scenery I drove by. I had to admit somewhat embarrassed that that sounded familiar to me.

My mindfulness teacher then sent me home with a nice exercise to see if I switch to ‘auto pilot’ often: I had to go to a grocery store and buy my groceries like I always do and stay alert and aware all the time in that store. Even… when I was waiting in line at the cash registers…

This was the very first time I realized how often I am not ‘in the here and now’. In the beginning of my mindfulness training I was shocked how often I ‘leave my body’ and ‘travel in my mind’ to the past or the future.

My thoughts about the past had often a sad vibe to them.  My thoughts about the future were of an escaping kind, or loaded with anxious feelings about things still waiting to happen.

Daydreaming is one thing, but stressing about the past or the future can have a devastating effect on our health and well being.  Being on auto pilot, more present in the mind than in the present time, can cause stress and anxiety.

Three tips on what to do after you catch yourself on auto pilot with harmful thoughts about your past or future:

 

  1. Focus on your breathing, wiggle your toes and become aware of your body again. Pinch yourself carefully if necessary. Come back in the here and now.

 

  1. Take in your environment. Look for three different shapes, five different colors and then stamp your feet on the ground while breathing consciously into your lower belly if you can (in your own rhythm).

 

  1. Can you remember your harmful thoughts about past or present? Are they often the same? Do you feel stuck in the past or scared about the future? Or would you rather be somewhere else? If so, where would you like to be and can you think of a plan, step by step, to make this a reality?  Write anything that comes up on a piece of paper or on your phone’s notepad. Your true self just gave you advice on how you can make positive changes in your life!

 

If you need help with connecting to your true self and manage your stress and anxiety level, please consider booking  EFT tapping sessions, Reiki Healing or Reflexology with me,  or ask me about a mindfulness workshop.

 

 

How Emotional Freedom Technique can help with Stress

EFT Tapping is a combination of counseling that includes acupuncture without the needles, neuro-linguistic programming, energy medicine, and Thought Field Therapy. By tapping on the energy meridians and giving ourselves a voice, emotional blocks are being cleared from the body’s bio-energy system, restoring emotional, mental, spiritual and physical health.

How EFT can affect the Body:  EFT Tapping accesses the amygdala, an almond shaped part of the brain that initiate the body’s negative reaction to fear (the fight, flight or freeze response). This calms the body’s nerve system by reducing the stress hormone cortisol.  EFT can reduce blood pressure, can help with heart problems, fatigue, weakened immune system and many more  ailments and pains.

How EFT can affect the Mind/heart: EFT Tapping helps with getting more focused and mindful; it brings blood to the brain and balances the brain functions. EFT Tapping brings about a neutral emotional state by clearing core limiting beliefs holding back true potential in a person. It brings about inner-peace and calmness.

How EFT can affect the Spirit:  EFT Tapping makes a person more mindful and aware. It connects the heart and the mind. This influences the intuition positively and a connection with the true self or the higher self is established. The person is ready to live his life to his highest and true potential which will not only bring about health and balance but also establishes a spiritual well-being.

6 Key Pressure Points to Relieve Pain

When I feel some pain or aches coming up and do not have a chance to ‘tap’ or ‘foot reflex’ it right away because I am in a meeting of some sort, I often use acupressure to relieve or even remove the pain.  Acupressure is of course an ancient Tibetan healing method, based on pressing certain pressure points affecting the flow of chemistry in the body.

Here is a list of my favorite pressure points to relieve pain. Please take deep, slow breathes while performing these self- help techniques:

  1. The inside of the eyebrows, just above the bridge of the nose. Applying pressure on this point (the third eye point) can help with relieving an upcoming headache, since it is directly over the facial sinuses. When in pain we often gravitate to this point, as if we intuitively know!
  2. To fight nausea and clear the head apply massaging pressure on the pressure point halfway down the outside of the upper arm. There is a sore spot, this is the pressure point.
  3. Rub the spots right under the collar bone to clear up a sore throat or anxiety. In EFT Tapping these are important points!
  4. The point where the top of the ear meets the skin of the face: great for alleviating headaches and migraines.
  5. Massage with two fingers of each hand where the neck meets the scull. A lot of tension resides in the neck and shoulders and massaging these pressure points helps with reducing stress and perhaps preventing tension headaches.
  6. Applying pressure and massaging the web between pink and ring finger helps with easing back pain and dizziness

 

The Way to Address Emotions and Pain via the Body with EFT Tapping

I believe that our body is not just our physical manifestation, it is also our most important messenger: There where the mind is often confusing us from what is really going on, the body just ‘knows’ what needs to be healed! When we feel the need to heal something, we need to focus on suppressed emotions which we often store somewhere in our body. Our body, our cells, store emotions when we hold on to them. This is why I believe we get sick when we are simply not listening to physical symptoms and/or we are repressing hurtful emotions all the time and not give ourselves the chance to release them.

When working with a client for example through EFT tapping, we find the emotionally charged and trapped energy somewhere in the body. This may sound more complicated than it is; we simply locate a tension, a discomfort or pain. When there is no obvious pain or tension, we just start to tap on bothersome thoughts or feelings the client had today or recently and the body will respond. This response may be subtle, for example a subtle dis-comfortable feeling in the abdomen, or more obvious, for example a sudden sharp pain in the neck.

When we start to use the EFT tapping technique to acknowledge this energy in the body, the client will tell the body that it is okay to open up about this repressed emotion it was holding on to. When the body relaxes, caused by tapping on the acupressure points in face and upper body, the client taps into his or her inner-wisdom whilst he or she ‘gets his mind out of the way’ and accesses information stored in the subconscious mind, our personal computer.

This information will lead the client to discover why he or she is in emotional and/or physical pain and what can be done about it to release it. When it is too painful to discuss this with me, we merely focus on the energy in the body and follow where it leads us in order to release it. This energy can travel through the body; starting out with a dis-comfort in the abdomen, it can move up towards the chest area, then disappears there, appears again in the neck and leaves the body for example through the top of the head. It is a very interesting process to follow; the body exactly knows how to deal with the pain and releases it in a magical way. EFT tapping is truly magical, and it shows us that we are truly energetic magnificent beings perfectly capable of healing ourselves when we just trust.

When the client is ready to speak about the event(s) that has caused this pain we can gently keep on tapping while we do our tapping rounds together. The client may release more emotions and thoughts holding him or her back from feeling well. During the tapping rounds the client will discover solutions for his/her pain and his/her problems if needed.

EFT tapping is an empowering method and it gives me much joy and happiness to watch a client re-connect with his/her inner-wisdom and lets go of whatever it was holding him/her back from feeling well well.