EFT Tapping and Holistic Health Coaching

Professional Emotional Freedom Techniques with Ellie Steele

Overcoming Stress Eating and Food Addiction

I’m willing to bet that you already know that reducing certain foods in your diet would be good for your health, your confidence and your quality of life.

I’m willing to bet that you’ve tried to eliminate or reduce sugar, cookies, cakes, donuts, processed snack foods like chips, crackers, sugary drinks like pop and treats like candy or chocolate and despite your best intentions and multiple attempts you’ve failed to make the permanent changes to your diet that you’d like to make.

I’m willing to bet you’ve been struggling with it for years, or maybe even your entire life and you’re frustrated, depressed and sick of trying.

I’m also willing to bet that you’re starting to think there’s something seriously wrong with you, something is screwy in your brain or maybe you’re wondering if it’s possible that you’re addicted to sugar or specific foods.

I want you to know that you are NOT alone, you are NOT weak and there IS a solution to this problem.

To fully embrace this solution and have it work for you need to understand some very important things about human nature and human psychology that SABOTAGE our BEST intentions, OVERRIDE our logic and GET in our WAY when we try to do something that’s good for us. You also need to know that even the strongest WILLPOWER is NO MATCH for them.

What I’m talking about is our subconscious programming and our brain chemistry.

I struggled with food issues for as long as I can remember.

In grade school I’d come home at the end of the day and eat a BOWL of peanut butter slathered in corn syrup while I sat and watched TV…and then I’d eat ANOTHER one! It was nothing to wash that down with half a dozen homemade cookies (or store-bought, it really didn’t matter), then two hours later  eat a full dinner followed by desert.

It’s no wonder I developed a weight problem early in life. I could eat and eat sweets and my “full meter” just never worked.

I started to develop a “fat consciousness” around the age of 9. I compared myself to my friends, especially my best friend, a naturally lean and tall beauty that made me feel like an ogre.

In high school the dieting started. For the next 20 years I struggled with food addiction, stress eating, poor body image and low self-esteem.

I made valiant efforts to find solutions. In my twenties I became a holistic nutritionist, thinking that I just needed to know more about food to solve my food-related problems. I counted calories, fat grams, protein grams and carbohydrate grams-even counting the fiber in those carb foods and learning about “good” vs “bad” carbs. I did the cabbage soup diet, I did a six day water fast, I did juice fasts, I tried Atkins, Metabolic Typing, The Zone, The NO-Grain diet and every other diet I came across that promised “this was the one” to finally help me “fix” my metabolism and allow me to shed those extra 20-30 pounds and solve my food problems for good. But every time I tried to eliminate processed sugars and carbs I would be “good” for a few days, maybe a week at the most and then the cravings would just take over my brain, and I would put something “off limits” in my mouth. It didn’t matter if it was a stale Peak Frean sugar cookie (I don’t even like those), if it was sweet, I was eating it. And then I’d be consumed by guilt and berate myself for being weak-willed.  It was a horrible, viscous cycle that left me feeling like a completely incompetent FAILURE.

Can you relate? All that knowledge, all that money and time spent learning about nutrition and I couldn’t get myself to DO what I KNEW would be good for me. How depressing. I felt like a total fraud.

Overcome self-sabotage and emotional eating with EFT

But, I persevered.

I knew there was a solution, I just had to find it.

Since the food approach wasn’t working, I turned my attention to the other “proven” method of reducing fat. Exercise.

I’d been exercising fairly regularly since high school, but much like the nutrition end of things, I would be “good” for a while and stick to my routine and then something would happen and I’d fall off the exercise wagon for a few weeks or even a month at a time.

I decided I needed to step it up when it came to exercise and I became a personal trainer. In the years that followed I explored every type of exercise I could to see what the magical formula was for “my body”. Have you ever been there?

I ran, I did yoga, I did Pilates, I lifted weights, I tried to train like a fitness competitor since it seemed to work so well for them. I got up at 6am to do early-morning cardio on an empty stomach. I did HIIT (high-intensity interval training). None of it got me where I wanted to be. Sure I got more fit, but I was still miserable when I compared myself to other women that seemed to be getting great results doing ALL THE SAME STUFF!

I was pounding my head against a wall, trying and trying, learning and expanding my knowledge but not really getting what I wanted..which more than anything was PEACE and SELF-LOVE ..although I didn’t know it at the time.

Then finally…after 30 years of looking for solutions I found the thing that would ultimately pull all the pieces together for me and help me become the person I always wanted to be.

That thing was EFT. EFT is a technique that involves tapping with the fingers on acupuncture meridians to clear subconscious beliefs, negative emotions and helps with day to day stresses.

When I discovered this technique that had the power to re-wire my subconscious beliefs I was off and running. Things didn’t change immediately mind you, but after a few years of using and mastering this incredible tool, the me I am today began to emerge.

I can’t say it was like a switch flipped, it was more like hundreds of little switches were flipped, one at a time as my subconscious beliefs bubbled to the surface one by one and I was able to unravel and re-wire them. At the same time, my knowledge of the human brain and psychology began to evolve and the lights just gradually came on.

Food is still a challenge for me occasionally. If I’ve had a bad day, not enough sleep, if someone rejected me, if I’m lonely or if my hormones or brain chemistry are fluctuating a bit too much, I still find myself rooting through the cupboards. It happens less and less these days, and even if I find myself wanting to eat for emotional reasons, now I can successfully manage that impulse without negative impacts on my health.

Do I look like a fitness competitor? NO.

Am I completely happy with my body? NO.

But my fitness level is still very high despite being in my 50’s.

I eat clean 80-90% of the time, meaning I generally avoid sugar, processed foods and industrial seed oils. My diet consists of whole, mostly organic, unprocessed foods. Within that framework, I’ve learned how to enjoy healthy indulgences without guilt and with minimal impact on my health so I’m not forsaking the pleasure that food provides.

I feel good about my body most of the time. Sure, I still compare myself to other women once in a while, but I no longer base my worthiness on the appearance of my thighs, or hit emotional low points because I have cellulite. I’ve learned how to love my body, flaws and all.

And you can do the same.

You can get off the diet roller coaster.

You CAN be HEALTHY and FIT and feel AMAZING, but I’m here to tell you that willpower is NOT the answer.  In fact, food and exercise is only a VERY SMALL part of the equation when it comes to making permanent changes to your health and your life.   When you get your MIND right, the rest just FALLS into place!

I share more details about how to do just that in my presentation on Why We CRAVE and what we can do about it!

I’d love it if you’ll join me as I share:

  • what I’ve learned about brain chemistry, stress eating and food addiction that will COMPLETELY change the way you view your struggles with food and empower you with a mindset geared to SOLUTION
  • three PROVEN mind/body techniques you can learn in 5 minutes to DRASTICALLY reduce food cravings and actually change your brain chemistry (and no, I’m not talking about deep breathing)
  • how to uncover the subconscious roots of self-sabotage so you can UPROOT them and stop them from NEGATING your willpower.

Register here and watch for a link in your inbox!

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I'm ready to learn why I crave and what to do about it!


Applications in EFT Tapping: The Personal Peace Procedure

Personal Peace one story at a time…

The Personal Peace Procedure is the first step in effective, life-changing EFT.  It involves making a list of all the things that have happened in our lives that we wish hadn’t happened or the people we would’ve preferred to skip and systematically applying EFT Tapping to the unresolved emotions these memories hold.

The premise of EFT is that these unresolved emotions are the key to unlocking our limiting core beliefs and allowing us to see our true, unlimited, unconditionally loveable selves.

Our identity, who we believe ourselves to be, our goodness or badness, our beliefs about what we deserve and our beliefs about all the things in the world around us begin to form as soon as we begin to think. Any event, circumstance or situation of our lives causes us to feel certain emotions and come to conclusions, generally about ourselves or our role in the situation we’re in. These conclusions are often flawed, yet they contribute to our internal fabric and become part of our identity. Sometimes to great detriment.

Life events and conclusions we’ve come to before the age of seven are even more influential in creating our identity because these are formative years when we interpret everything that happens in our life as being ABOUT us, even if it wasn’t. If Mom and Dad are fighting, a child under the age of seven that is still thinking about the world only from THEIR perspective comes to the faulty conclusion that the fight is somehow about them and that they’ve done something wrong to cause it. We may not recall thinking these thoughts, as they are often below the level of consciousness, but that makes them even more powerful than conscious thoughts.

Would you trust a seven-year-old (or younger) to accurately evaluate a situation in your life now and tell you how you should think about it?

No, you wouldn’t, but unfortunately, most of us are walking around listening to the voice of that little version of ourselves and reacting to our current life with the belief systems we forged long before we had a fully functioning adult mind.

The goal with the personal peace procedure is to recall these memories as we tap away any unresolved negative emotional charges that may accompany them. In releasing the emotions that are tangled up with our memories we (somehow, although we’re not sure how yet) open our minds to a complete cognitive shift on the memory and can suddenly see it with fresh, adult, rational eyes in a way we’ve never seen or understood it in the past. Now we have a more accurate response to it, truly feel differently about it, and come to a new level of self-compassion and understanding that unlocks the self-imposed limitations we created with our childhood perceptions and conclusions.

Emotional Freedom and Personal Peace are the natural result of shifting those limiting core beliefs we created in childhood as a result of our faulty conclusions.

It’s very common for us to lock away or repress our emotional pain, but OFTEN when we sit with the process and make an intention to really see where our unresolved emotions lie,  we may see that residual upset about things that happened to us as a small child.  We make an assumption in EFT that if it was a situation that seems like it should be upsetting and you haven’t already cleared that emotion in some conscious manner, the emotions are there, festering below the surface and still causing disruptions in your energy system and having a negative effect on your life.


It’s often an ongoing process and at your first writing session, you may find it difficult to recall these uncomfortable events or you may think that you don’t have any emotions about them now. Don’t expect to find every event that you still have some upset with when you make your list, but recognize that if you can’t easily find at least fifty events you’re probably not tuning in deeply enough.


Once we’ve identified an event we also want to get a rating on that event. The rating is a 0-10 rating called a SUDS score, or a subjective unit of distress.   A 10 on this scale would be extremely intense emotions that cause a visible emotional reaction, sobbing tears, intense fear or anxiety, sweaty palms, and serious discomfort. Sometimes we know a memory could be this emotional, but we keep it at arm’s length as a means of protection, but any event that you know could be this upsetting should get rated as a 10.  A zero on this scale indicates a neutral feeling, but not a repressed feeling.  A repressed feeling can often pose as a neutral feeling but they are VERY different.  It can be difficult to tell the difference between repression and neutrality and that may be a case for working with a skilled practitioner. 

A truly neutral feeling feels like peace and ease and even compassion or understanding about the situation.  Repression often comes with a mild feeling of resignation, annoyance or with the sense that re-visiting this old story is pointless and a waste of your time. Sometimes our emotions are SO repressed we feel frozen to a degree, like it’s just a complete void of emotion. If that’s the case, mark down the intensity that you guess you would feel if you could feel it, or simply put an “R” beside that event, but don’t leave events with repressed emotions off your list.  

Our goal is always to find a genuine sense of peace about all of the situations in our life, but as any practiced EFTer will tell you, that is a life-long process of growth and development, so don’t expect to get this work “done”. As we work through events, life gets better and better, our stress responses become more accurate and less intense, relationships improve, we take better care of ourselves and we become much better managers of our own lives, but like anything else in this life, there’s always room to grow.

Clearing the ten most intense events from your list is generally enough to see some dramatic shifts in the quality of your life.

You could do that in a week, or you could do it over three months, but it’s definitely something worth undertaking.

Here is a sample of my own Personal Peace List to give you an idea of what it looks like:

Specific Event SUDS score 0-10
A girl I looked up to was mean to me- “No wonder you’re so fat”7
Slamming Dad’s hand in the car door- “I hurt Dad”7
Messing up my speech in front of the whole school7
Being told to “get lost” by my older brother when I wanted to hang out with him5


Once you have your list you have a great starting point for a regular EFT practice.  It’s recommended that you start with the events that have the highest charges first and systematically tap on one event per day or at least three per week. The faster you clear the old emotions, the faster you evolve into a better version of yourself.

I’m always here to help! If you’re interested in working with me, feel free to book a free 15 minute consultation and we’ll chat!

Let’s get working on creating a movement of Personal Peace!

EFT for Letting Ourselves Be Vulnerable

BestthingsinlifeMarthaMacGillivray

If you’re new to these sessions please read the disclaimer here before participating.
In this call I share my own experiences with learning about my needs and how to authentically connect with other humans by letting myself be open and vulnerable.  We naturally build a wall around our hearts in response to pain and rejection, and the foundational bricks in our wall are generally put in place in childhood.  Even an imagined slight could cause us to retreat and start “bricking,  as a friend of mine calls it.  When we resolve those old feelings of pain and rejection we pull out the bricks and when we remove enough of them, our wall comes tumbling down and we’re able to love with our whole hearts, knowing that the pain of possible rejection is just the price of admission, but it’s totally worth it.

I reference this incredible video from Brene Brown in the call, so I suggest you start here and then tap along with me on a brick from your wall.

 

Fear and Human Vulnerability

EFT for Self-Sabotage

If you’re new to these sessions please read the disclaimer here before participating.
Short-term vs. long-term gain

This may be one of my favourite topics. In fifteen years of working with clients to help them change their lifestyle habits, the most common block I’ve seen is our natural, hind-brain, pleasure-seeking behaviours that sabotage our long-term success.

Here I discuss a new approach to evolving out of our hedonistic drives that get in the way of being the healthy, happy, productive people we really want to be. 

 

 

Short-term gain vs. long-term gain

EFT and Law of Attraction for “I NEED a man!”

If you’re new to these sessions please read the disclaimer here before participating.

In this call we’re exploring a theory of mine about how we can consciously evolve the brain’s primitive programming that’s no longer appropriate. Specifically we’re clearing the female brain’s programming of needing a man in order to feel safe and secure. The reality is, it’s just NOT appropriate any longer in the western world and clearing it feels like a breath of fresh air and let’s us act completely differently in relationship when we’re not being motivated by unconscious, survival instincts. Enjoy!
 

Fear of not having a man