Why Fear & Anger Make us Want to Eat
We have friends who up until a few days ago lived in New Orleans. Last year when hurricanes threatened we asked, “Are you evacuating?” “Yes” they replied and then returned to their city unharmed a few days later. This year it is hurricane season and we can’t reach them. All their contact information, addresses and numbers were located in New Orleans, a city that has suddenly ceased to exist as we once knew her. The fear and anger has reached the boiling point in those of us watching events from the safety of our homes and yet, people who drowned in their homes thought they were safe too. Many are still waiting for someone to please come, and we don’t know if they’ll reach them in time.
We’ve become a country that protects the world but not ourselves, and it’s very frightening. People who live in other Gulf Coast areas are fearful wondering, “Could this happen to us?” If you’ve noticed you suddenly want to eat or that no amount of food seems to be enough, don’t be alarmed, nor surprised. It makes sense given the reports of “no food or water” reaching our ears.
When your sense of safety is shattered, who will pick up the pieces? Even if you had money it couldn’t help get you out of New Orleans right this moment (Sept 3, 2005). Every person still there is on equal footing, but the platform on which they are standing is unstable and crumbling beneath their feet. I play for all the people still waiting and hoping help will come, and wish I could do something, but what can I do?
EFT Borrowing Benefits via Surrogate Tapping
Here’s something we can all do: An EFT sandwich using Borrowing Benefits together with Surrogate Tapping. Both Borrowing Benefits and Surrogate Tapping are well known to those who practice EFT. Here we’ll be combining them to help relieve your anxieties, rage, despair, whatever you are experiencing right now, and also it will help if you’ve suddenly found yourself unable to feel full no matter what you’ve eaten. Living through a horrific event or witnessing others while they suffer creates a hole in our hearts. For many this feels like hunger. It may feel like a gnawing, aching emptiness, but since it’s actually heart hunger, no amount of food can fill you up.
That’s why external events sometimes cause eating behaviors that you may not previously have thought were linked. Everything that happens around you affects how you feel and how you attempt to take care of yourself, and eating is simply a way we take care of ourselves. If you feel you’ve lost control around food, or you can’t get enough to eat right now, don’t despair. When you feel grief stricken, horrified, and helpless you can fill that emptiness with purpose and hope, by doing something proactive such as this exercise.
Note: If you don’t know what EFT is about, read this brief three page introduction to NLP & EFT and it’ll make better sense. Although the OMB (One More Bite’s) tools and examples focus on weight loss, EFT can be used for any issue and is very effective for fears, trauma, anger, sadness, grief, phobias, and more.
What is Borrowing Benefits?
Borrowing Benefits is the term for the happy side effect of getting relief for your issue while tapping along with someone else for their issue. This happens often in groups and workshops. We will all benefit in this way from doing Surrogate Tapping.
What is Surrogate Tapping
“Surrogate Tapping” is doing EFT directly for someone else; they don’t even need to know you are doing it. It’s the type of thing you might use as in, “Even though he’s a crotchety old ….” Many use the Surrogate Tapping technique for animals and pre-verbal infants and toddlers. It is equally effective whether the person is across the room or across the country. I know how ridiculous that sounds, but hey, it’s something you can do and certainly cannot hurt, so why not give it a go?
I propose we all do a few rounds of EFT over the next 24 hours for those still suffering in and around New Orleans and anyone directly affected by the disaster. Millions of people have lost their homes, their businesses and jobs, their lifetime treasures and momentos, photographs, and everything that made any sense in their lives, and their very real horror is alive as electric currents mixing in the air we are breathing right now. I’m sure it will help us individually and may help relieve some suffering outside ourselves as well.
“Even though I know my small voice cannot be heard, I deeply and completely accept myself.”
“Even though I feel awful, there’s nothing I can do to help, and I feel guilty that I can’t do anything, I deeply and completely accept myself.”
“Even though people are starving and I’m eating a steak dinner, I deeply and completely accept myself.”
“Even though I feel guilty for what I have, I deeply and completely accept myself.”
“Even though I’m angry (at Bush, the administration, the police, the criminals, the terrorists, my second grade teacher, the world, maybe even God), I deeply and completely accept myself.”
“Even though words cannot begin to describe the depth of my despair, I deeply and completely accept myself.”
“Even though I just want to eat and I wish I didn’t but I do, I deeply and completely accept myself.”
“Even though I’m afraid I’ll never get enough food to eat, I can’t seem to fill the emptiness right now, I deeply and completely accept myself.”
“Even though the fear is too thick to see through, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.”
“Even though I know it’s not my fault, I still feel somehow like I should have done something, and I deeply and completely accept myself.”
Change these words to whatever is happening for you right now, but if you are presently suffering with thoughts of fear, guilt, shame, indifference, whatever it may be, go ahead and do a round or two of EFT on that right now, then later tonight and again tomorrow.
If you were relatively happy until you read this, I apologize. I had so many clients today tell me they were angry, I thought it should be tackled head-on.
See my next blog post on a free tele-class I’m hosting on this subject Sunday and Monday, Sept. 4 and 5.
