← Compassion in a T-Shirt
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- [00:01]
A
Hi, I'm Dr. Stan Steindl and welcome to Compassion in a T shirt. Today I'm joined by Carol Look, a licensed clinical social worker, psychotherapist and one of the very first EFT masters. Carol has spent decades helping people release emotional blocks and transform self sabotage into clarity in action. She's the creator of the yes Code and the author of the brand new book yes, thank you. Tapping into the Superpower of Gratitude. In it she brings together the practice of eft, also known as tapping, with the life changing force of gratitude. And so I bring you. Carol, Look, Carol look. Welcome to Compassion in a T shirt.
- [00:50]
B
Thank you so much Dr. Stan. I'm happy to be here with you.
- [00:53]
A
Yeah, great. You're known as one of the, the original EFT masters, I suppose. And, and so you know, blending psychotherapy and, and these sort of energy psychology, tapping kind of techniques. Can you share a little bit about how you first discovered eft? I suppose. And what, what convinced you maybe that, that this approach could be such a powerful tool for healing.
- [01:16]
B
It's so interesting because I started as a traditional psychotherapist and I love psychotherapy, I love talking, I love listening, I love hearing people's challenges and how I can help them and support them. But then I wanted more, I wanted results that were faster and I entered the world of hypnosis. So I got a doctoral degree in clinical hypnosis and I was an okay hypnotist. I wasn't great, I enjoyed it, but I wasn't great at it. And then someone in my hypnosis class said, you like hypnosis and how the brain works and how the mind works. Wait till you find this new weird tapping technique. And I went to my first class and started having dramatic changes in my own life and in my clients lives. And it was like, oh, this is the tool for me. This is the best tool in my hands. It's fast, it's efficient, it's addressing what we need to address, which is the fight or flight response in our center, in our nervous system. And I just practiced and practiced, as I say, always the first guinea pig, right? Always on myself. And it really transformed my work and transformed what I do and how I do it and, and how I feel I can serve people. So that's the real, really exciting part about it is how I feel I can be compassionate and help more people quickly.
- [02:32]
A
It's really approach to, to sort of being helpful, but it kind of supercharged what you're already doing a little bit. It sounds like you. Yeah, the psychotherapy was, was good and well, working in a way and that sort of thing. But you were really seeking this, this kind of additional piece and, and sort of started on yourself. Can you just, how does that process work? If, if one were to explore the tapping and, and so on, is, is, is that part of the process that one works on themselves with that?
- [03:00]
B
It should be, it should be like all good psychotherapists better be getting psychotherapy or all good coaches better be getting coaching. So what happened is because I was a hypnotist, people would come to me and say, you're my last resort. I've tried everything for weight loss, smoking and anxiety, right? That's what people really come to hypnotist for and habit change. And I say, okay, I'll do the hypnosis script for you, but I've just learned this new self help technique called tapping, called eft and I'll do it for you for five minutes and if you don't like it, I'll give you the time at the end of the session. But if you do like it, then we can do that next time. And every single one of them said, oh my gosh, what did you just do? Well, what I do is I tap on myself mirror, have the client do it themselves, tell them what to say because there's a certain pattern and what you're, what you need to focus on in order to bring up the file so you can edit it. And what happened is I started shifting in myself a lot of anxiety that was creating this long term insomnia. So one day I woke up and it was like, I think I went to sleep last night early. What's called, I didn't understand it when you have something like insomnia. Well, in my case, I didn't talk about it, I just, it was just me. I just had trouble sleeping. That was how I did my life. That's what happened. And I never, I never went to a sleep clinic, I never went to anybody to get help with it. It was just me. And that changed. And when that changed, of course everything else changed. Can you imagine when you start to sleep? Well, your ideas are different, your focus is different, your body's different, your relationships are different and you just feel better. So that was the first thing. And then over the years I kept working on other things for myself. But it really good practitioners should be working on themselves. They should saying, what's my stress, what's my anxiety, what's my conflict? Put it on the table. That becomes your target. And then you use the tapping for your own feelings, your own conflicts, so you can clear it out and just be more compassionate and be more, you know, have more equanimity and really be able to handle what the world or your family or your job is throwing you. Because it is, they are throwing us things. Curveballs, right. Every day, as you know.
- [05:17]
A
Yes. Yeah. No, the, there's sort of like, you actually use the. Did you say it's like a self help therapy or something that actually we as practitioners might, outside of our therapy room use, use this approach on ourselves. That might kind of help to, you know, kind of down regulate our own threat system or, or, you know, and, but, but actually, oddly enough as we're doing it with our clients as well, that that sort of therapeutic benefit might sort of bounce back to us there as well as then providing a technique that the client might take away and use themselves in their own natural environment as well. So it sort of spans across what, what's the mechanism there, do you think, you know, in terms of the, the tapping itself or the, the part of that that actually helps with the change?
- [06:07]
B
So what we're doing is tapping on acupuncture points on the face and the body that are directly related to some of the main primary meridians that the Chinese, traditional Chinese doctors use. And the meridians carry electrical energy through, through the system. And the theory is that if you have a blockage anywhere, emotional, physical, you know, something about limiting beliefs, something about your health, it means something's gotten caught in one of these meridians. That's sort of a basic way to say it. I live in New York City and it's like gridlock, right? When you have gridlock in a big city, you can't go west, east, north or south. And so what we're doing, the mechanisms they have found because the research has come out now in the past decade, it wasn't there in the beginning. There was no research. There were just people saying doctor or therapist or friend, you wouldn't believe what's changed in me now. The research has come out. So the tapping on the acupoints is a big piece of it. What we're doing is accessing the fight or flight response in the amygdala in the brain and calming it down. So you're pairing, you think about something that's distressing you bring up that file. And while it's up and you've been activated, your, your nervous system is activated. We're doing the tapping which sends calming signals back to the brain. So when someone has a phobia, or someone's afraid of public speaking, or someone's afraid of being successful. They now, when they enter that file, when they think about it again, it's not there anymore or it's gone down significantly. So in the beginning, as I say, it was people just saying, I don't know why it works. It's kind of fun. I don't know what happened. And, and now there's just a body of research that they, that people cannot argue with anymore. Which is really nice for someone in my position who's been around for a while having to argue for the tapping for years. And now it's, it's been.
- [08:01]
A
I don't know if this is just me seeing it through the lens of my own training, but is there something there to do with the, the, the classical conditioning of anxiety responses and that certain thoughts will kind of have conditioned responses in the body in terms of sort of that, that sort of upregulation and that the tapping sort of helps somehow with perhaps systematic desensitization almost that it creates an association of calmness with those thoughts or memories rather than the anxiety or stress response. But as I say, is that, what are your thoughts there?
- [08:39]
B
It's not the, the desensitization because that could be done just with telling the story repeatedly. Right, yeah, tell it, tell it again, tell it again. This is actually accessing the part in the brain that has got, that has been lit up, right. Your amygdala or you know, the fight or flight that is lit up and actually sending signals to calm it down. Otherwise we'd just be telling the story 50 times and get the same result, which we don't. So it's pairing the two together and calming, calming it down, which you could say is a form of desensitization. But it's not just the mental desensitization. It's actually happening a physiological, you know, in the body.
- [09:23]
A
Yeah, there's something in the, in the pathways there that's actually being kind of activated by the tapping itself. That sort of, you know, perhaps that is paired with the story in a way. But as you said right at the start, it kind of supercharges it a bit and kind of is an additional pathway in. You've created what you call the yes code, which seems like a framework for people to kind of transform that sort of self sabotaging style that we might have, but into something more, you know, kind of active action based and so on. Could you just introduce us to this idea perhaps? Like why, why saying yes might be A profound shift for people.
- [10:09]
B
Well, I love simple systems. I love keeping it simple, keeping it clear. And the yes code is just my coaching method, where you get very clear on what you want. Why aren't you there yet? Ask the right questions to find out what's the downside of getting what you think you want and then clearing it and coming to your next yes. And all of that involves anxiety, stress, feeling. So there's a process to go through this because you know how people are. They say, oh, I just want to feel better. That's not really a good goal. Right. Oh, I just want to, you know, stop having debt or stop fighting with my spouse or stop doing well. That's not really that clear. We want to see, what do you want? And then the key questions are, why aren't you there yet? What's your theory? Because, you know, people are, oh, it's the economy. Oh, it's my mother. Oh, it's my. It's not. It's not. It's our energy. It's us. And so it's a way to take people through a system. And very simply, at the end, what's your next yes. Oh, I'm afraid to be clear. Tap, tap, tap. Okay, what's your next yes? Well, I could make this phone call. You know, sometimes you don't need to call the divorce lawyer. You need to have a conversation with your spouse and the kids. Right? We're so impulsive. We want what we want yesterday, and including bad things and good things and negative things and unhealthy things. And we just need to go one step at a time. And this. You can go through the yes code every step of the way. If you've got a journey about your work life or a journey in your health or in weight loss or in your relationships, just keep at it with this. Why aren't I there yet? What. What's my block? Why am I afraid to maybe have what I keep telling everybody I want to have? What's the upside of staying stuck? People come to me for being stuck, and I say, what's the upside? They're like, what are you talking about, Carol? Of course there's no upside. I want to get unstuck. That's why I came to you. We're all. We're all doing the same patterns for a reason, and there's some positive gain in staying stuck or some deep fear that activates our nervous system when we picture or imagine what we say. We keep wanting. You know, people come to me for success and abundance, and they're like you know, getting in their own way and procrastinating and avoiding and rebelling and doing all these behaviors instead of doing what's quite simple on paper. And that's just psychological as you know, it's just us getting in our own way. So the system is very simple, ultra simple, but it really works and it helped me put my work in a framework.
- [12:42]
A
The sort of, the calmness or sort of inner peace that comes with the tapping, the kind of query, the sort of self query about what is it that you know that I'm wanting or that I'm blocked. The sort of the setting and intention, the yes is a little bit part intention, I guess, but also part courage to do it, to take the action, I suppose. And it feels like there's a, a sequence there that, that kind of then gets, I guess repeated I suppose when you come to the next kind of thing.
- [13:16]
B
And, and it's, it's also understanding if you don't have a yes, good, fine, find out why. But we're always doing what other people want us to do. We're always influenced by the marketer or the influencer or so sometimes what everybody else is doing is not for you. But if you don't know how to go inside and get the answer we're following, we're barking up the wrong tree as the expression goes. So I just try to encourage people because I spent years and years and years not following my own yes but following other people's. Just like to encourage people to say trust your gut. What are you saying to yourself? What's your nervous system saying? Does that feel like a good direction? And if it's a no, I'm good with a no, that's fine. But we have to listen to ourselves that way. We have to really pay attention. And you know, we're all a little busy, a little too much on social media, a little bit too many things going on in our lives and if we don't take the time to be present and really ask the questions, we're not going to get to the right answers. We'll get to an answer, but not the right answers for us.
- [14:22]
A
It's a kind of wisdom thing as well, you know, being able to, to sort of really have a, a good understanding of ourselves and perhaps what, what is it that we want but what is it that we need? I mean, I presume sometimes the yeses are the harder thing to do. You know, the things that are good for us even if they don't feel great, I guess or something like that. It's sort of, that's where the depth of reflection and wisdom comes in, I suppose, is to kind of know what the, what the yes is. If the yes was kind of like just the stuff that feels good, that might not be so hard to do. But it's the, it's the tough yeses, I guess, that are tricky.
- [15:08]
B
Well, you and I are both in the addictions field and anybody who does trauma work ends up in the addiction field. And you know, having another drink is not a yes, right? It's an easy, numb yourself. I've been in the weight loss, the quit smoking, all that addiction field for a while. And it's really, if you're in alignment, if you really know what's good for you, it's not another drink, it's not another line of cocaine, it's not a cigarette. You know, it, it, it's a holistic understanding of what's good for you. And again, it's yours, it's not somebody else's telling you what to do. So yes, sometimes the yes is hard, but when you're really clear, it's not that hard anymore. And I spent years not being clear because of all the incoming information. And I was highly anxious and you know, trying to figure out my yes was really hard. And I just had to figure out, well, what's a yes for me? Could be yes, could be no. Maybe is a no for now. Maybe is not a yes. Right? So just finding that out and the process with the tapping can help you just quiet the noise that's in your way. What's distracting you from understanding what your next yes or next step should be? What's getting in the way? What are the shiny objects or the thoughts or the beliefs that are, you know, calling to you that are really getting in your way?
- [16:30]
A
I mean, as you know, this, this channel is a lot about compassion and self compassion. And I can hear the, what I would think of, I guess, yeah, as, as that idea of self compassion that's, that's in there, you know, that, that we're, we're trying to tap into the, the wisdom and have the calm mind and, and think carefully about, you know, what, what, what is it that we really need or what is it that would really be helpful for us in our lives? And not necessarily is it the quick self soothing or the quick self stimulation, but rather trying to sort of really think what actions, what are my true yeses? I guess, you know, it's actually, it's sort of a deep thought, isn't it? You know, like what those real yeses.
- [17:18]
B
Are, I guess for us, deep thought and layers. You know, I say to people we have criticizing ourselves for procrastinating or getting in our own way because it doesn't do any good. Bottom line, it doesn't do us any good. And if you grow up in my family, you have my family's problems. If you grow up in your family, you have your influences and we just need to say, huh? Why would I keep getting in my own way when I keep saying I want something else? I want a different outcome in my life? So the compassion turned towards yourself and just compassion about what you were taught that your parents did the best they could given whatever the circumstances were. The compassion really helps. You say, I'm doing the best I can and today is Thursday and let's try again. You know, we have to have that as your work demonstrates to people, for so many people, because if we don't, all we do is say, I'm bad, I'm no good, I shouldn't have, I'm behind, I'm not as fill in the blank as somebody else. And it's useless. It does nothing for us. It's like someone punishing themselves for not going to the gym. The punishment doesn't work. We know that. We know that.
- [18:29]
A
We so often think it is that it does or we think that it's going to motivate us to, you know, the sort of if we whip ourselves into shape or something. But yeah, you've mentioned there that a lot of that might, might have its origins in much earlier experiences and the shoulds and the shouldn't haves and the kind of the berating of ourselves and the self criticism that's often a part of what might be some of the blocks there around the.
- [18:59]
B
Yes, absolutely. Because if you're trained to criticize yourself, you can't look at the deeper layers. It's just do better, this is bad. Do better or and again, what you were taught, what patterns or beliefs or feelings you were taught. So it's loud, it's noisy, it's distracting. And to really get to your truth, your yes may not be anything like your siblings or your parents or your neighbors. It may be completely different and we've got to keep going deeper. And one of the things, the other many things happen for me with doing eft tapping, one of the things was shutting out so much noise that a lot of my intuition came back online. A lot of my, I would call it ESP at the time, but a lot of additional information was available to me. Because I was quiet, I was still. And I was not raised in a still household. I was born, the joke in my family was I was born anxious. And when you're quiet and present, you get access to different answers. You know that again in your work. That's so beautiful for people. But nobody's quiet long enough. Myself included. I've, you know, spent years trying to be quiet, you know, working on building that skill to be present and be quiet to the best of my ability.
- [20:18]
A
The self criticism in particular really just reactivates the amygdala stuff you were talking about or the fight flight stuff. It just sort of spurs on the noisy, busy, frightened mind, doesn't it? And, and it doesn't seem to. I mean, I suppose there's, it's useful to critique the situation and kind of work out what is the best way towards our yeses. I mean we, we still want to be maybe thoughtful in that way, but it's, it's more that really self attacking stuff or the, the shame based stuff. I suppose that that is just so threat system activating and kind of clouds out the mind with, with the noise.
- [21:02]
B
And the busyness and it depends on when it started. So in my books I talk about how my parents were loving and funny and intelligent and joyful and, and alcoholic. At age 8, 10 and 12, you have to think it's your fault. There's no option because your brain hasn't developed yet to be discerning enough to say that's interesting, she's drinking and it's not about me. So depending on when the confusion or mixed signals or crossed wires happen, then the, it's not even self criticism. It's, it's shame. It's really deeper than even the behavior of criticism. It feels like, oh, I didn't do enough. Like how did, how did I think I didn't do enough? Because I was young enough to believe that. So it's different if someone has had a blissful upbringing, which I don't know anybody who has, and then at age 23, something happens. Very different psychological approach to their life and to reaching goals and to serving other people. It's very, very different. So it is important to look at. When did things happen that gave you the impression you weren't good enough, you didn't deserve the success. You shouldn't be compassionate towards yourself. Oh no, that's, that's indulgent. When did you learn that stuff or how did you learn it and then go from there.
- [22:24]
A
And I think the tapping can come in there in terms of, and I haven't experienced it, so I'm not exactly sure, but the tapping might be along with the sort of the thinking process of, I'm not good enough as I am, may I begin to accept myself as I am, that there's a sort of a way to work with something like the shame through the EFT approach.
- [22:51]
B
Yes. Well, that's what's beautiful, is that someone can start with, oh, I'm just not good enough, or I'm ashamed of myself. And through the tapping process, as it's calming you down, you start to have different thoughts, you have cognitive shifts. You start to think differently about, oh, what he did, what she did, what happened, the event that happened at school, you don't approach it in the same way when you're completely soothing your nervous system with the action of tapping. So then the story starts to change. And you know, what happens is we all get so stuck to our story, we get victimy, we get stuck to our story, we think something was done to it, whatever, you know how it is. And this starts to change the story and change how we see it and understand that it's not personal. Even if it has our name on it, it's not personal. My mother and father's drinking was not personal and not aimed at me. They hadn't done enough work to. To give up the alcohol as an example. Right. So I think it's really important to be able to pair the truth. That's what we do with the tapping. What's the real truth? I hate myself. If that's what the person's truth is, I'm not good enough. We don't change it. We don't sugarcoat it. We say, well, that's what we're going to start working on. And as we go through the tapping, they start saying, well, wait a minute, well, what about this? Wait, that couldn't be. You know, they start to change how they see view themselves. And then real shifts start to happen. And then of course, they start behaving differently. Right. When you feel differently and believe differently, your behavior has to change. I always say that our culture, I don't know about your country, but our culture is obsessed with behavior in a way that has been quite destructive. You know, stop the carbohydrates, you know, lose the weight, go to the gym, clean up your clutter, you know, buy another marketing program. And it's really led us down pathways that aren't that useful. We need to change our feelings and our beliefs in order to have the result, the behavior change and Then the results change. So I'm on a mission to help people with that as I have been career.
- [25:00]
A
I'm sort of fascinated therefore about the next book or the latest book because, you know, the title is yes comma thank you. And, and so it's, it's sort of, it seems to be. And the, the subtitle Tapping into the Superpower of Gratitude. So it's bringing gratitude in as part of this yes code, you know, that, that. And, and I, I remember discovering some, a long time ago the work of, of Brother David Rast Steindl. I don't know if you've come across him, but he, that he stood out because I share. So it's sort of. Not that I think I'm a relative of his, but. But yeah, he said something like it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy. And so I'm really curious. Yeah. Where do you see gratitude coming in? I guess to the, to the yes Code.
- [25:55]
B
Well, what happened in the beginning of the field is so all you have to do is choose a target, a feeling or a belief or a symptom that you'd like to change. And we tap, tap, tap. It starts to shift and change and then you see where you want to go next with the tapping with official traditional tapping. Then a lot of people came in and said, oh, we can't focus on the problem. That's terrible. You know, all the law of attraction. People came in and said, we can't focus on what's going wrong. We need to just do positive words. Which of course doesn't work. We know it doesn't work. Just to pretend you're positive and try to say positive, uplifting statements. It doesn't work. So what I started to do is bring in gratitude so that we're focused on the problem. We start with, I'm anxious about what's happening at work, I'm anxious about my boss, I'm anxious about whatever, and I'm stressed out. And then after we've dropped the number of intensity, the intensity that we feel, let's say someone feels stressed out about an event at work next week. They measure it 0 to 10. They say, oh, I'm an 8. Oh, I feel so worried about it. Tap, tap, tap. It goes down six, five, four, three, two. Keeps going down. After you've cleared enough of what's in your way, then there's more room for gratitude. A lot of people have taken the idea of gratitude and doing a gratitude list as oh, check. Yep, I did my. I did My gratitudes. That's what they call it. I did my gratitudes last night. What does that mean? Oh, I said three things I was grateful for before I went to bed. And nobody's feeling anything. They're just doing it. And I have my own story about why I wasn't doing it. I didn't think it was a good idea. I wasn't taught to do it. I wasn't. Even though my family was full of gratitude, I didn't know it as a practice, and I was so focused on fixing my family, I didn't think it was a good idea. Right. So now I combine one of the many techniques is to do the tapping on the challenge and then end with your gratitude list, because you're in it and you can feel it and you're tapping on the points that are calming down your fight or flight mechanism at the same time. So I feel like it's a double whammy and in, in a good way. And in researching the book I was researching, you know, finding out about gratitude. Heard about it my whole life. Of course, read plenty of books on it. The research is astounding. The research about lowering your cortisol and stress levels, lowering your, your risk for hypertension, improving relationships at work and at home, improving the research. The numbers are quite overpowering in a positive way. So I combine that and the research on tapping is incredible. How it lowers PTSD symptoms, specific PTSD symptoms, how it lowers the immune IgA in your saliva, how it helps you with anxiety, how it helps cravings. So the research, the two of them, it was like, so putting it together. And I've done it casually in my work, but now I'm. Now, now I'm really combining both of them for the superpower of both of them.
- [28:52]
A
Yes, you frame it as a, as a superpower, it sort of seems to have really added the secret sauce or something to the work. What makes it so transformative, do you think, for people?
- [29:08]
B
Well, I mean, I think the focus. Choosing your focus, Right. So being able to calm down your fear or anxiety or worry enough that then you can focus on gratitude. Because as I said, a lot of people were taught to do your gratitude list, and it's in a way that's very rote and not very fun. And check it off the list. And I did it. And you know, people approach meditation that way too. Well, you know, hurry up. I've got 20 minutes to do my meditation. And it's. There it is. It truly changes your chemistry. So not only does eft tapping change your Chemistry. But gratitude has now been shown and proven to change your chemistry and based on the focus and you're choosing it, you know, we, we have that option. You know, it's all your work and my work is all about how do we give people more tools, better tools so they're empowered and not reliant on other people or reliant on the old story or dependent on somebody else making them happy. And this is a really good way to help yourself, really embody your values, you know, standing up for yourself, understanding what's personal and what's not. You know, it is similar in the way you use compassion, you know, building on itself and, and how it can literally change somebody's life. Being compassionate towards yourself or being grateful for what's in your life and not grateful for, oh, I'm grateful for world peace. We're not getting that. That's not, that's not coming our direction anybody. But if you can be grateful for truly what's going on or compassionate towards yourself even though you think you made a big mistake or made several mistakes, you're going to change how you wake up the next morning. You're going to be different in your relationships. You're going to be different in how reactive you are. And that's what in my mind we all need to do is be less reactive to somebody else's reaction. We're doing this ping pong game back and forth and back and forth and we've got to find tools that can just say, take a breath, be present. No, it wasn't great. But you know, how do you stay stable where a lot of people are been destabilized?
- [31:21]
A
Yes, I liked the, you said double whammy before, I think, and it's a bit like that again. It's sort of the initial peace calms the mind, creates an inner peace and then shift the spotlight sort of thing. Shift the spotlight on the things that we might also feel grateful for, but now in a much more embodied way. The word embodiment had already entered my mind as you said it. It's an experience experiential, embodied sense of gratitude as opposed to a kind of a ticking it off the list type of gratitude or some, that, that kind of thing. That the example you gave was sort of a stressful meeting at work coming up. But I know that this, there's a, this approach really does help with, with healing past wounds really too. And, and that gratitude can be sort of essential there. Can you explain a little bit about, or you know, sort of gratitude combined with the Tapping and, and, and healing old pains.
- [32:24]
B
Yes. Well, we've done a lot of work in the EFT field with post traumatic stress disorder, including I was a part of a demonstration in a five day week with veterans. So we saw the worst of the worst from the last four wars and help them with PTSD symptoms. And what happens is you're calming down enough, right? Calming down the old wounds which then of course their childhood wounds. It's not just because the person went to, you know, Iraq or whatever, they were calming down the childhood wounds which then became compounded by a decision to go off to war, then became compounded by what happened there, then became compounded by coming home and people not understanding them. So that's an extreme example. But doing that and then being able to, to be light enough and have enough space inside, they're like, okay, what could you be grateful for? But you cannot think of what you're grateful for in the middle of a PTSD reaction. So then I don't work with veterans anymore, but people come in and say this thing happened to me when I was 10 or 15 or I was shamed at school or I had a car accident or whatever. And you've got to get to that wound that is entwined with beliefs and feelings and self blame and right, get to the wound, calm that down, Re imagine it, reframe it, which is what the tapping can do and completely change your biology. Then you can have gratitude for an experience, you can have gratitude for a mistake and say, wait a minute, I learned from that. You can see other things in your life that desert that you can be grateful for when you're not in so much screaming pain about a childhood issue, a childhood wrong that was done to you or something that happened when you were in university or college or something that happened in your first marriage. If you're in pain and you're really focused there, it's very hard to be grateful. So I like the two directions where you, you look at and admit and deal with the pain. The wound, the childhood wound or the, you know, young adult wound. Deal with that. Which then opens up the door to say, hey, maybe there's more that I could look at or focus on and be grateful for. But it's like telling someone to be grateful when they're unhappy or sad. It's not going to get you anywhere. And a lot of people, oh, just be grateful for what you have. It doesn't work and in fact it's going to invite a complete pushback from the other person. Right. So the Combination, again, is wonderful. Can't just talk about wounds. The wounds they have found out that talk. Plain talk therapy, which I still love, is not enough because the wounds happen in your body and your electrical memory as well. It's not just this experience that happened to you. You've downloaded some of it into your physiology. So the tapping takes care of that. And maybe it takes one session, maybe it takes five sessions. Maybe it's. It's. You've got so many of them, you need to keep working on it. But then it's opening up this space, like cleaning, you know, cleaning out a junk drawer. Right. Well, suddenly you have space. Cleaning out a closet, it's like, oh, well, I can put something in there now. I think a lot of our field, and I think you've. I'm sure you've seen it. A lot of our field has been, you know, put a smile on it instead of really dealing with PTSD or any kind of trauma. I think a lot of people in our field have done some damage with that. Just like, you know, it's over, it's in your past, move on. Where do you want to go if it's not over? It's not, you know, if you still feel it and their memories and echoes in your body and in your thoughts, it's not done. And we've got to give ourselves space for that. I don't know if I'm answering your question. I'm going all over the place. But take care of the traumas, deal with them, admit them, go there, be safe with them in the memories. Right? Then you've got room and space for the gratitude. But often people are trying to ask others to be grateful before they're possibly ready. Before they are could even begin to be ready to be grateful.
- [36:40]
A
Yes. The. The safe word was. Was. It was again, that was the one that, that was sort of hanging for me there, that. It's a safeness, isn't it? The. The tapping. For some reason I had this, this is a really strange image, but I had an image of a. Of a fox cowering in a kind of a den somewhere and sort of, not only cowering and hiding, but kind of snapping at anything that went by. And then I sort of imagined this notion of that first step, which is to kind of create a sense of safeness there, to sort of, you know, kind of in a sense process some of those memories or images that, that are there and activating the fight flight response. I guess that's in the. And then I had this image of this fox Kind of exiting the den and looking at a sunset sort of a thing or something like that. So that was how my brain was kind of imagining what you were describing, actually. I was going to check. Are you sort of helping the person to really create an image of that experience or is it not quite so visually detailed or, you know, in that sense, what is that level of kind of imagery of those past experiences?
- [37:58]
B
Well, we think and believe in imagery, so it happens automatically, but it must come from the client. So if they come up with a beautiful picture like that, it helps because they feel like the fox in the den. That's snappy and cranky and grumpy. Right. And we're wired for safety. And if that means we drink to not feel unsafe, or we fight with our loved ones to not feel safe, or we create drama at work, it doesn't matter what we do. All human beings care about is feeling safe. And lots of things threaten us. People threaten us, experiences, new, you know, new things change. A lot of things threaten us. We don't have to have had a traumatic upbringing to feel unsafe in the world. That's just how our perceptions of it. So imagery is awesome. People come up with it themselves and they say, oh, that's funny. Now I see it this way. Isn't that interesting? Then they're able to process differently. Once they start, the imagery starts to shift. So the scared little fox in the hole starts to come out and feel more open. And they'll say in their body, like, I feel different. That's the thing. Even my most skeptical clients would say, I don't know that this technique is for me, but something happened and they have to admit that, that they feel something in their body that has shifted. And I don't care if they don't use that technique. There are many other techniques that work. But when you feel it and feel safer with acknowledging or just witnessing your own traumas or just emotions or conflicts or you're upset, a lot can change. That's why the compassion is so beautiful, because that's what makes change happen. Not the criticism, but that self compassion and turning it towards yourself. You know, we're very focused on compassion for other people. But yeah, need to have it like you say, you know, we need to have it for ourselves.
- [39:58]
A
Yes, yes. Now that's. You mentioned there. The person who is. Is dubious or skeptical, I suppose. Do you find that much? There's certain types of people or certain sort of scenarios where people feel a bit skeptical of the approach or, or sort of, you know, resist a little Bit.
- [40:21]
B
Yes. And used to happen a lot more years ago when it was so brand new. It's not so brand new anymore. It's been around for a lot longer than I have. But now people are hearing about it and seeing it in magazines and seeing it on tv, and so they're not as scared. But remember, they would be skeptical and scared because it doesn't feel safe. What's the new strange thing you're doing here? You know, I like to do things my way. We're all like that. Right. So they can be skeptical. Well, don't be skeptical until you've tried it is basically what we say. And don't try it for two seconds from somebody at a party, like, learn how to do it really, or go to a practitioner if you need to, but learn how to do it well and notice what happens in your body and your mind when you're doing it. Then it's pretty hard to be skeptical. Again, it may not be your favorite technique. That's fine, but try it before you. Before you decide it's not for you.
- [41:16]
A
Yeah. And in fact, quite often that skepticalness is actually to do with fear about approaching the difficult feelings and difficult memories. And it's sort of a kind of a guardedness or a defensiveness in a broader sense, I suppose, as opposed to just maybe the technique.
- [41:39]
B
Yes. Fear of going where they haven't gone before, which we've all had that experience personally or going someplace with a new person and they're not sure they want to tell the story. So, yes, it can happen from both sides there.
- [41:53]
A
Do you have a little kind of example or an exercise that, you know, perhaps from the book that, you know, if someone's thinking, you know, like, what is this about? How can I. Can I give it a little try? You know, or something like that. The tapping and the gratitude. What's something that. I mean, I'm sure that there's much more to it, but is there a simple little exercise that people could even do now as they listen?
- [42:19]
B
So you're going to be my echo. Okay. You're going to be. You're going to be my echo. So we'll start with a super simple, as simple as you can get, tapping exercise. And then we're going to end with a gratitude. So here's how we start it. We tap here and we choose a target. So let's just say stress, because everybody listening can say, yep, I have stress in my life about this, this, or this. Right. And then we measure the stress 0 to 10. I won't put you on the spot and have you do it. We measure the stress and then we start tapping. Okay, so we do this. So let's just say even though I have this stress about this topic, and everybody can fill in their blank, because that works too. Even though I have stress about this topic in my life, Repeat.
- [43:01]
A
Even though I have stress about about this topic in my life, I deeply.
- [43:06]
B
And completely accept myself anyway.
- [43:09]
A
I deeply and completely accept myself anyway.
- [43:13]
B
Even though I feel stress whenever I think about this topic in my life.
- [43:17]
A
Even though I feel stress when I think about this topic in my life.
- [43:21]
B
I accept who I am and how I feel.
- [43:24]
A
I accept who I am and how I feel.
- [43:26]
B
Let me take two fingers of our dominant hand, and I'm going to point out the points, the tapping points, the acupuncture points. I feel stress when I think about this.
- [43:37]
A
I feel stressed when I think about this.
- [43:39]
B
That's called the eyebrow point. It's at the beginning of the hair of either eyebrow. The next point is on the side of your eye. Either side. I feel so stressed out when I think about this issue.
- [43:49]
A
I feel so stressed out when I think about this issue.
- [43:52]
B
The next point is under the eye. Left or right? I feel so stressed out when I think about this issue.
- [43:58]
A
I feel so stressed out when I think about this issue.
- [44:01]
B
The next point, very important acupuncture point right here. I feel a lot of stress when I tune into this challenge.
- [44:09]
A
I feel a lot of stress when I tune into this challenge.
- [44:12]
B
Next point is called the chin point, right here. I feel so stressed out when I think about this issue.
- [44:18]
A
I feel so stressed out when I think about this issue.
- [44:22]
B
Next point is called your collarbone point. It's the little knobs below your collarbone. So you can either do a hand and you're covering both, or just do one side or the other. I feel so much stress in my body when I think about this issue.
- [44:34]
A
I feel so much, much stress in my body when I think about this issue.
- [44:39]
B
The next point is under either arm, about 4 inches below your armpit. Right there on the side. I feel so stressed out when I think about this issue.
- [44:47]
A
I feel so stressed out when I think about this issue.
- [44:51]
B
Top of the head. We go around in a circle. I feel a lot of stress when I tune into this issue.
- [44:56]
A
I feel a lot of stress when I tune into this issue.
- [45:00]
B
Then you take a deep breath, kind of metabolize it, keep working on it. Now, if I had asked you to measure it in the beginning, if I had said, stan, think of X problem. Measure It. Then we'd go back and say, now measure it again, and what happens? Person starts to go down, and sometimes it goes dramatically down, and sometimes it takes a while and goes by two points. Then you could do that again. You could do another very simple exercise to do that again. Then you have this space and. And ability to tune into gratitude. So then we would go around again and say, I love being grateful for my life.
- [45:36]
A
I love being grateful for my life.
- [45:39]
B
I'm grateful for some of the challenges I have.
- [45:42]
A
I'm grateful for some of the challenges I have.
- [45:45]
B
I'm grateful for some of the problems and some of the challenges.
- [45:49]
A
I'm grateful for some of the problems and some of the challenges.
- [45:52]
B
Thank you, universe, for sending me a solution.
- [45:56]
A
Thank you, universe, for sending me a solution.
- [45:59]
B
I appreciate the solutions I keep finding.
- [46:02]
A
I appreciate the solutions I keep finding.
- [46:05]
B
Collarbone. I feel grateful for some of the solutions I have found.
- [46:09]
A
I feel grateful for some of the solutions I have found.
- [46:13]
B
There's a lot to be grateful for in my life.
- [46:16]
A
There's a lot to be grateful for in my life.
- [46:19]
B
Thank you, universe, for bringing me a lot to be grateful for.
- [46:23]
A
Thank you, universe, for bringing me a lot to be grateful for. Good.
- [46:28]
B
Then you take another breath, and sometimes we would tune in, go back to the original stress. How's that going? Because it keeps going down. So I like to pair the problem rounds, one or two, and then do a gratitude round again because it has some place to go, has someplace to land. What was that like for you? You've never done the tapping before, and I didn't have you tune into an issue, but what was that like? Could you feel it? Fine if you don't.
- [46:53]
A
I. I tuned into an issue pretty quick.
- [46:56]
B
Oh, you did? Okay, good.
- [46:59]
A
Yeah. There's definitely certain. Certain things in and around that's happening at the moment. No, it's. It is. It is interesting. You feel a little. Little kind of a shift with the initial tapping. But then I think the gratitude practice just sort of brought a smile to my face in a funny sort of a way. You know, like it. That. That was. I think it was the superpower moment sort of thing. It was. It was. There was a. That was when a kind of a shift came in and the. The sequence of. Of phrasings that you used kind of. I was going to say deepened, but I think expanded probably is a better word, the little sequence of phrasing sort of. Kind of expanded to the universe sort of thing. And, you know, I felt that expansion and kind of the smile on the Face.
- [47:56]
B
It's fun, it's good work. I mean I love being able to do it for myself and for others. But again, don't skip the focus on the challenge or the stress if that, get that down and then do the gratitude or do the gratitude by yourself, whichever you prefer. It's just when I was researching the book and got both of them together, it was like, yep, this is, that's what I need to talk about.
- [48:17]
A
Yeah, yeah. No, I, I think. Yeah, no, it makes, it sort of makes sense when you explain it. You know, you can't kind of create that calmness and inner peace and then shift the spotlight onto things, you know, that, that, that gratifi gratitude practice. What do you really hope for readers when they, they, they look at. Yes, thank you. What, what would you. The, the big lessons maybe from or listen maybe from the book, A way.
- [48:47]
B
Out of Emotional pain. Because I talk about my blocks to gratitude which, where I was so focused on fixing my family, I didn't know that we should be grateful. You get low self esteem from certain family upbringing patterns. Right. When you have low self esteem, you don't want to do good things for yourself. You keep working, you do harder, you do this. But you don't really have good self care practices. So we get in our own way and then we do all the sabotage behavior. So hopefully people can find a way with the tapping exercises in the book. A way to say, yes, that was stressful, yes, that was challenging. Yes, that was awful. And there's a way to process it so it doesn't stick with me for the rest of my life. I don't need to be upset about it forever. Then the gratitude on top of it is that double, you know, the double, the double dipping that is so good for us and people can really make choices to feel more joyful. It's a, it is a choice. Then we all come into this world with certain temperaments and our families and experiences. But then when we're older, it becomes a choice. Are we going to keep going down the dark alley without a flashlight all by ourselves or are we going to use tools and processes that are available to us to really enjoy what's going on, enjoy our lives, enjoy the space, enjoy witnessing other people. So that's, I'm answering the question several different ways, but that's what I hope.
- [50:15]
A
Yeah, I love the word joy. You do a lot. I'll include the link to your website and book and you also provide a lot of workshops and trainings and various other activities. Anything you'd like to share there in terms of things coming up for you in the near future or that sort of thing.
- [50:38]
B
I have a series online which I love doing in October because so many people, and it's very, very low cost, so so many people can do it. And from all over the world, we get, I get, you know, between 10 and 15 countries, people joining in. It's a series twice a week for three weeks. So that's fun. On manifesting Abundance. Then I have a live workshop in January in New York City, which will be a lot of fun, which will show up on the website. And then I'm coming to Australia. I'm coming to Brisbane in March of 2027. And there'll be things in between, but they'll all be on my web.
- [51:12]
A
Yes. Oh, well, we'll. We'll definitely need to. To touch base when you're here in. In a year and a half, I guess, or something like that. 2027. Yeah, that's.
- [51:24]
B
It'll go by, like. It'll go by.
- [51:26]
A
It probably will. It probably will. Well, Carol, look. Yes, thank you very much. That. That's really sort of illuminated the, the whole process for me and, and I've certainly heard about it and worked alongside people using that approach. But it's really useful to get a clear sense of just both the process and mechanisms, but also the effectiveness of it all that you've found. But also. Yeah. Thank you for speaking with me on Compassion in a T shirt.
- [51:58]
B
Thank you. Loved it. Wonderful meeting you and I will see you in person one day. We will.
- [52:03]
A
Wonderful. Good.