Dr Callahan and TFT

Dr Callahan is a psychiatrist who was treating patients in a home office in the 80’s. He was treating a patient for a water phobia. She became nauseated and said she may not be able to finish the session. Dr Callahan asked if he could tap on some stomach meridians to see if it would help her nausea. She suddenly said, “I’m not afraid of water anymore” and ran down to his swimming pool. She splashed some water on herself. She said, “I still know I can’t swim; I’m just not afraid of the water anymore.”

Dr Callahan refined his work and wrote a book called the “Five Minute Phobia Cure.” It didn’t gain a lot of traction because of three factors. First of all, it went too far against the accepted theory of his time. Second: it was NOT user friendly. The book was written in a style that one had to be another doctor to process. Third, the technique was too complicated. There were different protocols for different problems.

Enter Gary Craig

One reader who did understand was Dr Gary Craig, whose doctorate was in Engineering. He distilled all of Dr Callahan’s work into a simple protocol that would “work on everything” that Callahan’s method would work on. He called his work EFT. His manual was released in the 1990’s. In the 2000’s, he would release his manual into public domain. His work is free for all to use.

Further Evolution

Dr Craig’s original EFT included tapping, some EMDR, and more tapping. It was called the “sandwich.” People using the technique started to notice that the EMDR wasn’t always necessary. As more people started using and teaching it, they went to a shorter form of tapping.

Others found new points that seemed to work better for them. Others started using kinesiology to help work with the body, as in Body Talk, or emotions, as in the Emotion Code.

My Customized Tapping Techniques

I use three different levels of tapping. On the 7 Minutes to happiness podcast, I experimented for a few months with one, two, and three points until finally deciding on one point on the breastbone.

In my ebook, How I Stop Anxiety in 2 Minutes (and have fun doing it), I teach a simple technique called “tap and complain” with my own nine preferred tapping points In my Amazon Book, I teach my own nine preferred points for tapping along with some hacks I learned to be happy before discovering tapping.

In my 7 Day Happiness Reboot, I teach my 9-point system and some of the hacks from the Amazon book in a structured way that is designed to reboot your brain for happiness in 7 Days.

In my 30 Day Intensive Life and Happiness Reboot, I teach a system that is expands on original EFT and uses a lot of different things. By the end of 30 days, the results can be life-changing. If you are interested in the 30 Day Intensive, email me at admin@7minutestohappiness for more details. I am currently doing this individually at a substantial discount from my normal coaching rate.

So How Does it Really Work, anyway?

Dr Craig’s original theory is that it clears “stuck emotions” from your body’s electrical system. He compares those stuck emotions to static on a TV with antenna reception. Dr Callahan called them “thought fields.” Dr Bradley Nelson, who developed a complicated system called “The Emotion Code,” believes we are simply using the technique to reconnect with repressed emotions. Once they are acknowledged, they resolve on their own.

In other words, nobody is sure how it “really works.” But as long as it works, I’m fine with it.

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Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOA) and other dysfunctional household groups.

I identify as an ACOA. While the meeting structure didn’t really fit me, I turned four years of my life into de facto one-on-one ACOA “meetings.” Once I found out about it and quickly learned it applied to all dysfunctional families, it was easy for me to find people to talk to about it. Strangers became mutual therapists. For me, the one-on-one connections were more valuable than the group therapy. However, I have a lot of respect for those who are going through the group.

I 12-stepped myself, but quickly found myself asking, “Is that it?” While the proverbial “weight” was “lifted from my shoulders,” I knew I had a lot more healing to do. So I searched. And searched. And searched.

When I found EFT or meridian tapping, it was the missing link I had been looking for. After over 1000 self-improvement books, tapes, classes, and videos, I had finally found something that could change me experientially. I had learned a lot of theory and techniques that were excellent for me over a period of 30 years of searching, but. this blew everything else out of the water.

After working on pressing issues, I went over the “laundry list” of Tony A. It had become part of the ACOA lexicon. I decided to use meridian tapping on every Laundry List item. I felt it was so important that the first 28 weeks of the podcast had “Laundry List Wednesday,” where I covered one item from the Laundry List and the Flip Side entry for each item. I then did the same for the “Other Laundry List.” You can find these episodes in the 7 Minutes to Happiness page on Buzzsprout.

These are relevant for Adult Children of Alcoholics, but in no way is that the only segment of the population who can use them. And that leads to the next entry.

Childhood Trauma and Abuse

It’s safe to say that most people who had childhood trauma and abuse come from dysfunctional families. Sometimes they identify as Children of Narcissistic Parents. Or they identify as abuse survivors. Or any of many titles. Whatever the case, they often have issues that are even deeper than the standard ACOA issues.

Meridian tapping is one of the few ways I know of to reduce or remove the emotional charge of most childhood trauma without forcing you to relive that trauma. Trauma and abuse are bad enough the first time without having to relive them. One of the most beautiful aspects of meridian tapping is that you don’t have to go deeper than a simple acknowledgement of the abuse to create significant change.

My household was abusive. If I was going to compare my childhood trauma and abuse to others, it would be about a 7 for physical abuse and a 9 for emotional abuse. I have come to understand that my parents were tragically flawed people who were doing the best they could and they didn’t see what they were doing as abuse. That has made it a lot easier for me to forgive them.

PTSD and CPTSD

EFT, which is the second generation of meridian tapping but the most popular, has been documented to help veterans with PTSD. As for CPTSD, pretty much every ACOA and abuse survivor has it and tapping has helped numerous people remove the emotional charge of past trauma. Personally, I feel 100% healed from my own CPTSD. However, I am not intellectually arrogant enough to think I am really 100% healed. But it sure feels that way sometimes.

General Stress and Anxiety

This is where tapping truly shines. The more meridian tapping you do, the more of a cumulative effect it seems to have. When it comes to stress and anxiety, I am not remotely the same person I was when I started tapping 22 years ago. I am far from perfect, but I have reduced myself from about a 7 out of 10 on the chronic anxiety scale to about a 0.5.

Affirmations

Starting with people like Napoleon Hill and Dale Carnegie, continuing with Dr Maxwell Maltz, and pretty much every famous motivational speaker of the last three generations, affirmations have been a great part of their teachings. Dr Maltz came up with visualizations and many would come up with long form affirmations. Basically, you would have to spend 20-40 minutes a day visualizing and imagining your affirmations.

This is just too long for most people nowadays. Everyone is working hard. Nobody has an extra 40 minutes a day to spend on affirmations without having 100% faith that they will come true. Luckily, tapping can make affirmations a breeze. And if they are done right, they can have results that are as good or better than traditional affirmations and visualizations in as little as 2 minutes a day.

Last but not Least: Happiness

I teach happiness work on three levels. First you clear the immediate stuff that bothers you the most. Then, you start on long-term traits and deeper negative feelings you want to get rid of. Once you have gotten rid of all the falsehoods and lies that were pounded into your subconscious, you are able to have clarity and look toward a brighter future.

When you aren’t suffering from the old ghosts of past abuse, trauma, and inaccurate/harsh judgment from parents, teachers, bullies, and others who once had power over you, your true self starts to come out. And that true self is always happier than the old one. If you work on reducing and clearing the emotional charge of all the negatives in your past, you are free to finally be happy. And that’s before you start working on your future.

One thing I’ve noticed over the years: good things happen to happy people. The happier you are, the more good experiences seem to come to you. I have experienced this miracle in my own life. I wish it for everyone.

Resources:

Here are the products we offer to help you find your way to happiness.

How I Stop Anxiety Attacks in as Little as 2 Minutes and Have Fun Doing it.

7 Day Happiness Reboot

Amazon Book: 7 Life Changing Hacks for Happiness

7 Minutes to Happiness Podcast

Quick Origin Story

I grew up in an extremely dysfunctional home, but I never bought into the constant gaslighting and/or denigration, at least on a conscious level. Unfortunately, anything said to you while you are being yelled at or physically abused goes straight to your subconscious mind. When I learned about Adult Children of Alcoholics, it was like the proverbial “great weight had been lifted off of my shoulders.”

I learned that my underachievement and feelings of not being good enough were standard fare for ACOA’s. To me, it meant three things. First, there was nothing intrinsically wrong with me. Second, it wasn’t my fault. And third: I knew deep inside that I could fix what had been done to me.

Is it “Fair?”

One of the prevailing themes of ACOA’s and other adult children of dysfunctional homes is that “it isn’t fair.” The basic theme is “my parents were the ones who screwed up, but I have to pay for it.” To me, the answer is “yes and no.” It isn’t fair that we have to fix the damage our parents perpetrated on us, intentionally or unintentionally. But what IS fair is that we have the resources to do just that: repair the damage. Or at least most of it.

My Journey to Recovery

I had started “searching” eight years before I learned about ACOA. It was a breakthrough because I now knew it wasn’t my fault. But once I knew that, I also knew it was my responsibility to fix it. As the saying goes, “it certainly wasn’t going to fix itself.” I consumed more than 1000 tapes, books, and CD’s about fixing myself. I read a lot of books about transpersonal psychology, spirituality, motivation, fixing the subconscious mind, and other systems. I used self-hypnosis and “sleep learning” tapes. I did a great job of getting over my anger. But there was still something missing.

Enter EFT or Meridian Tapping

When I finally found out about EFT, which was the second generation form of meridian tapping, in 2000, it changed my life even more radically than finding out about ACOA had. I was about to do my first musical gig in over 15 years and wanted to vomit a full 24 hours before the gig. My then-wife had downloaded and printed the original EFT manual and asked me to look at it a few months earlier. I told her it was “BS” and that “you can’t heal deep-seated, long-standing problems in 10 minutes.

I had thrown the manual in a box on our bedroom floor and we both forgot about it. But it suddenly looked really good to me when I was desperate, so I tried it on my stage fright. Within 15 minutes, I reduced my stage fright from 13 on a scale of ten to 1.5. I knew I had something really powerful. I had turned myself from stage fright to feeling totally at home in 15 minutes.

I would immediately start using this in every aspect of my life. It works on some things and doesn’t on others. There isn’t always a “reason.” It either works or it doesn’t. But it has been the ultimate game-changer for me. After 23 years of doing meridian tapping, my biggest “problem” is figuring out what to work on.

So Why is it Called “7 Minutes to Happiness?”

The short answer: it only takes 7 minutes or less a day to change your life in ways you may think aren’t possible right now. All of my products, videos, lessons, and podcasts are in chunks of 7 minutes, or at least as close as I can get them to 7 minutes without compromising the integrity or quality of the material.

Each podcast episode starts with an issue to tackle, some information about how the issue most often becomes an issue, and a healing tapping session of around 3-4 minutes during the second portion of the podcast.

One of my “pet peeves” that I still have are answering system messages that say “we know your time is important to you” and leave you on hold for long periods of time. Because of this, I know your time really is important to you. I also know from my time as a massage teacher that attention spans have become drastically reduced because the internet has made it so easy to get information in a few clicks.

If I have to take more than 7 minutes to teach something, I feel it needs to be broken down into smaller chunks. So I try to keep everything under 7 minutes. I actually prefer 5 minute videos for classes so people can take a mental break and fully assimilate the information before moving on.

How to Get the Most out of the Podcast

The only real flaw in my 7 minute podcast is that you can get more out of it if you know a tapping system. I have experimented with different formats, and have found out the most efficient use of time during the podcast is to have you tap on your breastbone, wherever it feels right to you. It takes longer than 7 minutes to teach someone the full tapping technique verbally and people would get lost. It needs to be taught in a pdf or a video.

I have three paid resources for you in the product section. The first is an ebook called “How I Stop Anxiety Attacks in 2 Minutes (and Have Fun Doing It). it is available here for $7: How I Stop Anxiety Attacks in 2 Minutes (and Have Fun Doing It).

The second is my 7 Day Happiness Reboot. It is a series of pdf’s and videos that combine meridian tapping with a specific set of issues, affirmations, and meditations that can have an incredible effect on your happiness level in just seven days. It is available here for $99: 7 Day Happiness Reboot

The third is an Amazon book called 7 Life-Changing Hacks for Happiness. It is just what it says: 7 hacks that can increase your happiness level a lot. It is short and sweet with no fluff. It is available here for $7.99 in Kindle or $12.99 in paperback. 7 Life-Changing Hacks for Happiness.

My own tapping is slightly different than the original EFT manual, but if you want the original, you can get it free. The creator of EFT, Dr Gary Craig, put it into the public domain in the early 2000’s. It is available here: Original EFT Manual.

In conclusion, the best way to get the most out of the podcasts is to tap along with them. I will find issues you didn’t know you had. You will find the issues that are the most important to you. Every time you tap, you are helping yourself become happier, even if you don’t feel it right away. To me, meridian tapping is by far the 20th century’s biggest advance in the self-improvement field. Tap every day for even 30 days. You will see a big difference.

Thanks for reading. Now hop over to the podcast here: 7 Minutes to Happiness Podcast.

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