How tapping helped a mum after losing baby
Sarah Tobin’s baby, Alice, died when she was five days old.
Her cord had been compressed during the labour which meant she’d been in distress, although Sarah didn’t know it at the time.
Sarah, husband Dave and their children
Since it happened in November 2014, the new mum and her husband went on to build a happy family with two young boys, but it was while she was pregnant with her second child that she discovered an unexpected way of managing her ongoing heartache surrounding childbirth.
“I was starting to feel anxiety about having him and the upcoming labour.
“My sister recommended I investigate EFT and I thought anything is worth a shot and it blew me away,” Sarah explained to me.
Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) and Matrix Reimprinting, also known as ‘tapping’, has been described as the emotional version of acupuncture - without needles.
It involves tapping with your fingertips on different energy points on your body while you say aloud key phrases about a negative feeling or situation.
It’s said to stimulate certain meridians and send a calming signal to your brain that turns off the stressful feeling, restoring your energy to a more balanced state.
“My first session of EFT & Matrix Reimprinting helped go back to the trauma of her birth and remove the raw heartache and core pain I was still feeling,” she told me.
Sarah with her son, Casper
Helping other mothers
Sarah was so convinced by the positive effects of the tapping that she decided to train as an EFT practitioner and has a website where other women can find out more about her work, especially those dealing with fears around childbirth.
She told me EFT is a tool for life.
“Clearing the Trauma of Alice’s birth and helping me find peace with it has been invaluable.
“Helping me then prepare for the subsequent births was completely icing on the cake but actually really needed for my own mental health.”
Sarah and her own practitioner, Kate Marillat, filmed this video explaining more about Sarah’s story and the birth of her two sons, Casper and Josh.
Nerves, anger & more
EFT has been clinically tested and many mental health professionals use the technique - with reportedly good results - to help their clients manage all kinds of emotions, from nerves to anger.
Mind-coach and hypnotherapist Natalie Pennicotte-Collier told me she regularly uses the method with her clients.
“It’s been incredibly successful when working with anxiety and fears in the workplace and public speaking.
“Often just a few sessions to eradicate any panic.”
Physical pain relief
There are also studies reporting positive results for pain relief and increasing athletic performance too.
The New York Times best-selling author of The Tapping Solution, Nick Ortner told the Bulletproof podcast that tapping has even been helping war veterans deal with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
He said: “If a guy comes back from Iraq or Afghanistan and nothing else is working, conventional treatment isn’t working, meds aren’t working, everything they’re doing isn’t working and he does this silly tapping thing… six sessions or less - decreasing PTSD symptoms dramatically.”
New research in other areas is happening right now - there’s an NHS study underway looking at whether EFT can help smokers quit.
Wondering how to tap?
Here’s my first foray into the EFT method that outlines first steps.
As with any therapy, I'm told the results can vary and It’s worth getting guidance from a practitioner on how to tailor the method to suit you, but mind-coach Natalie said “almost all” of her clients over the past few years have felt huge benefits from tapping techniques.
She told me: “If you leave all scepticism aside it’s so simple, and now with modern neuroscience and years of research, the question is why would you not try this natural empowering technique?”
Get more tips from Natalie on handling fear and anxiety by listening to #healthHackers ep 3 here.
Find out more about Sarah Tobin and her EFT work with new mums here.
Subscribe to the #healthHackers podcast on iTunes here.
Follow me on Twitter @GemmaEvans / Insta: @healthhackers