Helping a fear of flying in a taxicab in Paris
On a flight to France several years ago, my plane encountered major turbulence over the Atlantic, and a very bumpy ride was the lot of all on board. Landing in the early morning hours at Charles de Gaulle airport following a challenging journey, I waited sleepily in a long line to hire a cab and struck up a conversation with a young British woman in line behind me. I suggested we share a cab as we were going in much the same direction; she agreed. However, she looked quite pale and upset, and confessed that she’d had a terrible experience during the flight. She’d just begun a new job that she loved, but which unfortunately required that she fly a lot. Alas, she had a history of fear of flying.
Her plans were to travel to Tokyo a couple of days later and, after that, to Australia. I offered her a brief description of a new technique (EFT!) that might be effective in helping her with her fear. I wrote out the web address for the Emofree website (it was few years ago…) to assist her in finding a practitioner in the UK, and I explained a bit further about the technique as we continued to wait for a cab.
She was still very pale and shaken by the flight and was wondering if she should quit the new job that she liked so much otherwise…. We finally engaged a taxi, but it was by then rush hour and we were totally stuck in traffic, bumper to bumper. As we continued to learn more about each other, and with some time on our hands, I asked if she wanted me to show her some tapping points. She agreed. So I showed her the basic recipe and she settled down a bit. Then I asked her more about her phobia. Phobias very often (though not exclusively) have their origin in a traumatic experience; and it is very important to be able to retrace the steps to that significant moment. Once the originating trauma has been discovered, one can then gather more information on the trauma itself, and treat it.
We know that each phobia has very specific aspects that need to be recognized if treatment is to ensue properly and completely. “What is the precise trigger?” is a fundamental question in this regard. In the case of a fear of flying, one might consider the following: the voice announcing boarding; sitting and buckling one’s seat belt; the doors of the plane closing; the security demonstration by the flight attendant; taxiing to take off; the smell of kerosene; the sound of the engine at take off; looking down from the plane’s window; landing; turbulence, etc. (One should always check all the sensory modalities: sound-touch-texture-smell-taste-sight-color etc).
Every person has in her/his mid-brain (the emotional brain: thalamus /amygdala/hippocampus connection) specific inscriptions that will automatically trigger the fear response. These triggers are very often directly linked to the trauma, but not always in a linear, logical way. The practitioner must do thorough detective work and treatment work to discover and clear all these aspects.
So I asked her, “When exactly do you start feeling afraid when you fly?” Without hesitation, she answered, “When I say good bye to my mother and to my boyfriend, I ‘know’ that I will never see them again!”
That in itself was a very specific trigger which, unlike habitual ones, started well before actually flying.
I probed further. “When in your life did you say goodbye to someone and then never see him/her again?” I was not expecting her reaction. She burst into tears and said, “My grandfather! He used to live with us. One day, he went to the corner store to get something and collapsed there from a massive heart attack.” So I started tapping on her right away, as she had become very upset. Fortunately we had plenty of time for treatment since we were still stuck in the early morning rush hour traffic.
I decided to clear the trauma using “the movie technique.” I ask her to tell me, piece by piece, all of the details about the event linked to her grandfather’s death; and I continued to tap until she had no more SUDs. There were very specific images that arose: her mother screaming into the phone, then dropping the phone, and she herself (as a child) not understanding what was happening. We tapped on all the details: the sounds, the colors, the phone hanging, her mother wailing, rushing outside to the store, seeing the body, the crowd, being alone and emotionally unsupported with all the chaos and urgency around her, etc.
She slowly calmed down and we were able to work on the whole movie until she was able to tell her story without any emotion. It was really a revelation for her as she never before made the connection between her fear of flying and the sudden death of her grandfather twenty years earlier. She was deeply relieved as she came to understand the non-rational aspect of her fear of flying.
Finally, we arrived at our destination. She was so surprised by and grateful for the experience of our cab ride that she insisted on paying the entire fare. She was truly excited with the possibility of flying without any fear, allowing her to continue on in her new job that held such promise. I encouraged her to continue to work with someone in the UK if she felt there was still some unfinished material needing attention. I never heard from her again, but I’m sure that the little work we did (perhaps only an hour) made a great difference in her life. That is the beauty of EFT: it is ready at our fingertips and can be used in impromptu and emergency situations, such as this one, very simply. Maybe she will continue to work on herself. Who knows? But she received some surprise healing that day… and I got a free cab ride!
PS: I don’t particularly recommend tapping on just anybody you happen to meet in passing, as you never know who they are and how you can affect them. In the case I just recounted, I received a strong intuition that she was psychologically sound and that it was a correct synchronistic situation to engage. And always, always! ask permission.
Marion Blique is a certified EFT practitioner and trainer. She lives and practices in upstate New York and also visits France (her country of birth) regularly to teach EFT and see clients. She offers long distance Skype sessions when meeting in person is not possible. Don’t hesitate to contact her for any questions.
1-845-516-4271
Working on a dream with EFT, ego states and Matrix Reimprinting*
Hoarding things, procrastinating, not moving forward and wasting time. (“I hoard time but don’t use it….”) were some of the main complaints from John, a young man in his early 40s. He wanted to do many things, but just didn’t. His wife couldn’t invite any guests or family to their house, because it was packed with things that John had bought, found here and there, never used, but kept “just in case”. Boxes and piles of stuff were everywhere….in the bedroom, dining room... A storage shed was even built in the garden…
It was taking a toll on his relationship with everybody as you might imagine: his wife, his parents, and his in-laws tried to reason with him, but to no avail. John was also very dissatisfied with his job but was not able to start looking for another one. We all at some point encounter clients with similar problems.
When I work with hoarders and procrastinators, I never directly target the hoarding and procrastinating, because they very often stem from deep fear or even trauma and they are protective strategies.
I usually ask my clients to report any significant dreams at the beginning of each session. I love to work with dreams as they are good indicators of what is happening at a very deep unconscious level.
So John told me about the dream he had had the night before:
“I see myself sleeping under a truck, the truck is slowly sinking into the mud, but I am sleeping…… I am going to get trapped under the truck.”
What struck me in that dream was that he was dissociated, he saw himself, and he was watching, distraught and panicked, a part of himself sleeping under the truck. It was a rather descriptive representation of his real life situation: a lot of things were pressuring him, weighing on him and he was not able to face them and act. He was passive but something had to happen as it had become life-threatening. (He had been concerned about various physical symptoms) I asked him to close his eyes and step back into the dream*. I asked him to just watch what was happening and tell me.
John was surprised because the part of him under the truck (we will call it his “ECHO” - a Matrix Reimprinting term - it can be a child part, a part frozen in time because of trauma, or another part) didn’t care, he was just sleeping.
So we just did some regular EFT tapping on all the elements of the situation, John tapping on himself as the witness in the dream and his emotions and sensations about the dangerous situation his ECHO was in, in the dream, and his fear and anxiety that his ECHO might die, crushed by the truck.
When the SUDs came down to a zero, I asked him what he wanted to do.
He said he wanted so much to save his ECHO; he wanted to pull him out from under the truck while there was still time: otherwise he would be crushed and die. (I just observed John and didn’t influence him in any way. I thought it was a positive reaction in the light of his usual inability to take action; what was also valuable was that he had identified with the witness position, active, strong and conscious.)
I told him to go ahead and pull his ECHO out.
He pulled on his ECHO and got most of him out, but his feet were still trapped.
So we did some more regular EFT tapping on the different emotions and sensations he was having right then, the fact that the legs were still trapped and his ECHO was still sleeping, and the truck still sinking. When the SUDs had gone down, I asked him what he wanted to do.
John was very surprised and annoyed that his ECHO was not waking up. For John, his ECHO was “saved and alive” but still sleeping. “He doesn’t want to wake up”. “He is 95% asleep”.
I asked him how he felt about it and what he wanted to do next.
He said, “I want to pull him out completely.” So he pulled his ECHO out and he finally woke up. He began looking around, realizing the danger he had just escaped.
We can see here that John was connecting with the part of him that was “asleep”.
I asked John to acknowledge that his ECHO needed to protect himself by being asleep and be 95% unconscious all this time, that it was alright and to see what his ECHO needed next.
“He needs a boost of energy to see things clearly, to make decisions. He is tired of being in the fog.”
We started tapping. I was tapping on John and John was virtually tapping on his ECHO after introducing himself and asking permission.
“Even though you were sleeping…..you didn’t see you were in danger, you were in a fog…. you are a wonderful man”……we were both speaking to the ECHO. (see MR protocol)
When we finished, I asked him to bring in the energy that the ECHO needed.
John felt an incredible rush of “high energy” (his exact words) and this “high energy” had the special power to help him to step back and see things more clearly. (a kind of heightened awareness may be)
He felt a huge flow of energy, made of different colors coming down into his mind, and he sent it to his heart (see the MR protocol). John felt it very deeply, all around him but also under his skin. It made him shiver. He experienced a long series of sensations flowing through his body. He took all the time he needed to integrate this new energy into his own body, all the while tapping on the gamut point. (MR protocol) He brought this energy into his heart, and into the cells of his body, and finally reimprinted it in the Matrix (I am omitting the details of the MR technique but the moment of reimprinting is a very special, beautiful and meaningful moment.)
The session on this dream was pivotal and opened a whole new chapter in my work with John. He started to move, to act, to wake up in his own life. He began to take care of his health too, and the fogginess, the depression lifted (He confided in this same session that he experienced bouts of depression all his life which he never had mentioned before, even in his full intake form.)
He had been definitely dissociated at some deep level from a “sleepy part of himself” which was running the show from deep down. He remembered dissociating as a young boy, going into his mind, behind his eyes in a lost place that was so scary for him. “ As a young boy, I was lost in my mind…and couldn’t find my way back. I thought I was crazy…..”
I think the dream was a wonderful opportunity for him to re-connect and re-associate on a deep somatic level with a part of himself (represented in the dream as the ECHO under the sinking truck) who was dissociated and manifested as asleep, passive, the part which didn’t see what was going on. The previous interventions from friends and family to solve his hoarding couldn’t reach this sleepy part separated from his conscious mind. The 5 EFT sessions before this one prepared him to feel safe for that opening.
To give some context, John grew up with parents who were very fearful of everything. So everything was judged risky and scary. They created a very very safe environment but somewhat lifeless. It is so crucial to let young toddlers and children explore, take risks, express their “libidinal” forces, their pulsions, their impulses to act, their desires, which are the expression of the will to live (so essential for all of us but in particular for boys and all kinesthetic people). It had not been possible for John to have free access to this life surge, movement and impulse and his dream expressed it beautifully. He was burying, armoring, deadening himself under all the objects he hoarded, “in case one day” he would become fully alive.
This moment came and it was very moving watching him blossom from week to week.
A few months later after more EFT and Matrix Reimprinting sessions, parts work, dream work, he is really transformed, the hoarding has been almost totally cleared, he is acting and moving forward. We are still working on fears as they emerge…. But he woke up!
Matrix Reimprinting is an off-shoot of EFT created by EFT master Karl Dawson. Check the website
www.matrixreimprinting.com for more info and workshops in your area.
Perhaps you will want to do a training! It is offered to people already having a level 1 in EFT. It is really worthwhile, there is a learning curve, the rapport client/therapist is very loving, respectful, nonjudgmental and supportive.
*It is good to get some training working with dreams: dream work, waking dreams, mental imagery and some Jungian dream work: all are good.
Marion Blique is a certified EFT practitioner and trainer. She lives and practices in upstate New York and also visits France (her country of birth) regularly to teach EFT and see clients. She offers long distance Skype sessions when meeting in person is not possible. Don’t hesitate to contact her for any questions.
1-845-516-4271
Print Version
Recommend this site!