EFT: Power in Your Hands

Dr. Hankins is a Harvard-trained Psychiatrist, Mindset Coach, and Emotional Freedom Technique (aka EFT or tapping) practitioner, who survived suicidal depression and now shares these powerful techniques with both individuals and in group settings. 

Please connect with her at the links below on Instagram and LinkedIn, or reach her by email at hello@MelissaHankinsCoaching.com.

 ehttps://www.linkedin.com/in/MelissaHankinsMD

https://www.instagram.com/MelissaHankinsMD

Please join the discussion at Mind Surfer MD on Facebook! 

Transcript

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Tue, 3/8 · 4:02 PM

1:00:33
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
eft coaching tapping physicians patients handdecreasingcharts reframe stressed acupuncture thought evidence techniques shifted intuitively psychiatrist

0:11
Welcome to Mind Surfer MD. I'm your host, Dr. Liz Treynor. And my mission is to normalize discussions about mental health and provide resources to those of us who are riding the waves. So let's dive in.
0:25
Alright, we're doing this, it's beginning. Hey, it's so great to have you, Melissa, I'm so excited to talk to you. You have a lot to offer our listeners, you have a fascinating background. You're a psychiatrist, trained by Harvard 17 years.
0:42
perfectionist in recovery, I call myself a recovering perfectionist as well, I use that very affectionately. And by that, I mean, I'm sending out my emails without correcting my typos. Now it's like just, "screw just do it!"
0:55
And also, I would love to hear a little bit about your journey, because one of the things that you teach, in addition to being a certified coach is, is something called EFT. And so I'd love for you to help our listeners understand what that is, because that's something that I found helpful. And it's something that is able to shift our energy or mood in a relatively quick time, and it can be used in a more profound, longer term way as well. So, welcome.
1:28
Glad to be here.
1:34
So thank you. Yes, as you mentioned my background is, as an adult psychiatrist, I worked clinically for 17 years or so before transitioning full time to coaching and EFT work. And my focus now is on working with physicians, predominantly female physicians and high performers in areas of burnout and overwhelm, and perfectionism and trying to do all the things that we always try to do, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, I haven't at all,
2:10
at all, and feeling like we still aren't able to keep up and it's just too much. And we're trying not to show that we have all of these cracks on the inside. We're trying to have this little perfect, you know, life on the outside, and it's just too much pressure, right?
2:27
And I'm telling you, Melissa, that's what this podcast is about. It's like, let's embrace these cracks, right? Let's show these cracks, because we all have cracks, and we've all been hiding them. And if we can just share that light that's in between those cracks. I really feel like that'll help us connect, and help prevent the isolation that can really contribute to depression and kind of suck that the joy out of life if we're not feeling that connection. So anyway, but yeah, we tried it, we tried to maintain this perfect
3:01
sphere of beauty for the world, right?

Yes, yes. Especially as physicians because, you know, people look at us and we it from this societal image of what it is to be a physician. You know, this perfect life. Oh, you are making oodles of money and you have this perfect life and you're so smart. And you just, you have it all. And it's like, no, we're human beings. Exactly. Like we're supposed to be superhuman. We're supposed to have no emotions. We're supposed to never, you know, not need to sleep. Right. Our residencies are insane.
3:36
And yeah, and that's just and and, and we have the perfect kids and the perfect spouse perfect marriage. Perfect. Everything. You know what? It's all it's all got to be just Well, I do feel lucky with my husband. He is so hot and I just I feel I thank the universe every day for match calm. Let's just say that worked out great.
3:57
Well, that's a tip for me. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'll talk to you about how to make that that work for you. But yeah, for me, we've been together 10 years now. Oh, that's awesome. I love that. And so you know a little bit about just kind of my my journey so I was
4:16
I was working full time in
4:21
I burned out twice a backup I burned out twice and
4:26
I was working full time and had a in a very very busy outpatient setting like multi specialty clinic
4:39
so it wasn't my practice I was employed and and patients kept coming they kept coming we couldn't close our panels there was none none of that because we had to quote unquote prove our value to you know, in behavioral health, we had to prove our value to to the other specialties so no, close your pants.
5:00
You know, we can't show God. Okay, let me just say it's taken me 50 years to finally realize my value is not my intellect. My value is not my work. I am not my mistakes. We are all human. And, okay, that is just such BS. And that is something that as physicians, we need to reclaim that intrinsically app's value. Yes, our value is not based on an extra RV years of Yes, RV use any kind of external measure. That is it, we're basing our worth our value on his his BS, right? Let's call BS BS, right? And
5:44
that's right, Sr. We're naming it, it's so. So it was, I was I was struggling, I was struggling keeping up with all of my notes, because I was always a different kind of psychiatrist. And what I mean by that, and people would tell me that my patients would tell me that my colleagues would tell me that I was very much interested in what is going on underneath, I didn't actually medicines were the last thing I would ever talk with my patients about. Because I would bring in the mindful before mindfulness was like that thing, right. So I would bring in mindfulness kind of exercises, let's see what's going on at the root of things. And let's look at your past, but only to inform your present, I always kind of consider myself a psychiatrist, coach, even before I was certified as a coach, because I would look at that, and it was always about empowerment for my patients, empowerment in their personal lives empowerment, even with finding their you know, I would coach coach them around, if they were having difficulties with their primary care. Like, my doctor doesn't listen to me, I'm trying to say something, as you know, find another doctor, if you're not, you know, I would coach them around things that they could try to say. And if that didn't work, say, you know, you can find someone else, you don't have to, you know, just continue to do and you can do that with a job you can do that in you know, relationships, I'm not saying to run first look, and see what you can change, but also look within yourself and see what can be shifted. And in so these this was, this was how I was spending, you know, my psychiatric appointments with my patients. Right, right, which is really the rich stuff, right? Because the coaching again, which was a completely new concept to me, the first time it was introduced, was during a passive real estate class I took a year and a half ago, and I was like, should I miss my Zumba class for this coaching thing? That sounds ridiculous with coaching. And Dr. Sonny Smith worked with us for three and a half hours and it was transformational. I just, I was like this light bulb went off. And yeah, I remember thinking, Oh, that, you know, coaching that? What is that? Number one? And number two, it sounds really woowoo? And like, I don't do we will? I'm a scientist? I'm a pathologist. I don't do we will.
8:17
So but like, in a nutshell, how would you define coaching? Um, you know, for coaching, I would say it really is looking at that. Doing the reflective internal work to create the life that you really want on the outside and know that you are connecting with your own internal power your resources, recognizing those and manifesting the life you want through that. Right. And it's about current. It's like, I feel like you know, psychotherapy. Yeah. Let's look at the past and see why you're messed up. But coaching is like, okay, let's work with your mindset right now, where you're at right now. Yes. And reframe things. Yeah. And you can move forward in a different way in the world right now. Right? And with coaching, there can be some overlap. Because with coaching, especially when you find yourself stuck, stuck with a pattern of behavior that you know, your cognitive mind is you're trying to reframe, you're trying to look at a thought. But if you keep coming up with a behavior pattern that remains stuck, despite the reframe that to me is an indication that you've got a deeper kind of emotional anchor that is holding that in place. And that's where something like EFT comes in. So So with me when I the what is EFT? Let's just say what that is real quick. So EFT is Emotional Freedom Techniques. It's a collection of mind body energy techniques.
10:00
That is really it's similar to acupuncture, but without the needles. So something that you can do on your own doesn't hurt as much.
10:11
It's done right. It doesn't hurt but yeah, yes, yes. No, no, it's not on my daughter passed out. I took my daughter to acupuncture and she literally passed out on the table. She's afraid of me. Yeah, yeah. Yep. I've had acupuncture years and years ago. And, you know, most of the time those little teeny needles, they don't hurt But occasionally, occasionally, and if someone has a needle phobia, then you know, that's, that's just not a good mix. Not a good fit, but emotional freedom Freedom Techniques. Okay, and so, so yeah, my my path to finding EFT was actually a little bit before my burnout. But while I was looking at expanding my own kind of repertoire toolkit for for my patients at the time when I was working clinically, and for myself, and I, and I came across this EFT. So this was probably 12 years ago now something like that. I've been doing EFT for a long time for at least a decade. So. So it, it was fascinating to me, because I saw it, I experienced it firsthand. And I saw other people
11:27
doing EFT and things shifted so incredibly quickly. And and profoundly. It was, it was like, Oh, my God, what is this magical thing? And right, like, why don't people know about this EFT thing, right? So Right. So in a nutshell, it's like tapping, right, that's kind of the old term or happy one happening is kind of a nickname for EFT. Because what you're doing is you're using certain acupressure points, far fewer than you would use an acupuncture so you're only using for the what we call the basic recipe and EFT you only using nine points, you're using them on that side of your hand, your head and your torso, your upper body. And so. So with that, you are really just tapping on lightly, you're not causing yourself pain
12:28
happening on these particular energy points which correspond with the meridian, so energy meridians, which if anybody is knowledgeable, or has some awareness of Chinese or Eastern medicine, it's where Qi so the energy Qi runs through the body. So part of the the idea is that she if you're looking at it from a purely kind of energy standpoint, she is when she is not running through the body in the way that it needs to and that it's it's supposed to it can you have blockages, and that can show up and manifest in different ways in the body and in the mind. And, and so that's an Eastern view. Now, there's actually a lot of evidence there's Yes, a lot of randomized controlled trials. Right. Right. I hope people didn't turn off the podcast before you got to this because like, I wanted to interject, there's actually evidence. Yeah, just this woowoo thing, right? Yes. Right. Absolutely. There's a lot there, there are at least over I think 60 randomized control trials,
13:46
supporting the efficacy of EFT particularly in things such as PTSD, anxiety disorders, depression,
13:56
weight loss, food cravings,
14:00
performance, peak performance states, so all of these things and and it can be used for other things like looking at limiting beliefs and shifting those and, and really having a profound change in the way that you approach a situation. It's great for phobias, also. So it's, it's something that has a lot of applications. There's also a lot of work in showing its efficacy in pain syndromes, because chronic pain, a lot of pain, as we know as physicians, pain syndromes have a huge emotional component. And so when you are addressing anything that has a strong emotional component in your using EFT, which is focused on addressing the emotions and the thoughts and events surrounding that combination, when you are addressing that and reducing
15:00
In the emotional intensity around that thought pattern, that event that memory, that situation, then you are decreasing the,
15:13
the, the block around moving forward with that. So with pain, for example, you're actually decreasing the intensity of the pain because you're decreasing the emotional component
15:26
you're with with things like anxiety when you're actually decreasing that you are able to get out of your tunnel vision, right? And then you're open up to a huge world of opportunities and auctions that, that when you are in a fearful, anxious, worrisome panic state that you can't access, right? Because your mind goes offline. Right, right. Like when we're stressed, we get all those, you know, wonderful stress chemicals, the cortisol and, and the the epinephrine and all that good stuff. And our brain just doesn't function as well. Right? Right. And this doesn't. And, you know, some of the evidence around EFT over the past even five years. There's a researcher out of
16:21
Australia. She's a psychologist, and she's probably the preeminent researcher around EFT Peter Stapleton. And she has done several studies, including one a few years ago that showed
16:36
brain changes on functional MRI with EFT and and so and she's also done studies to look at the physiological effects, including decreases in cortisol, I mean, you can decrease with a session of EFT, you can decrease cortisol by 43%, compared to in the same amount of time, a CBT cognitive behavioral therapy kind of approach that didn't have I may have even been in the teens in terms of the the amount that it dropped cortisol so
17:14
so EFT can be really profound. And one of the reasons that I even though I found it a long time ago, I sat on it, because at the time, there wasn't the amount of research and he right, it's not cool for a doctor to do this woowoo stuff. Right. Right. Right. And I love the idea that woowoo is what science hasn't figured out yet. Yes, yes. Yes, absolutely. You know, and and, you know, magic is, is a science without the evidence yet.
17:51
Without evidence based studies yet, right. And so, but but the fact of the matter is, there is the evidence now, but at the time, I was, I was grappling with my own fears of outing myself here. I was, you know, a black female physician in the Harvard systems and you're in medicine, just just in medicine in general, you know, oh, yeah, that I wasn't going to paint a bigger target on my back. Right. Right. Thank you. I don't I like to shop there. But please don't shoot me. Right. And, and so but I had to grow up with my own prejudices around, you know, what is this this thing that I experienced first firsthand, and saw the power of it felt the power and and yet, you know, it was it was difficult. So I started to bring it into my, my practice a little bit with my patients, my patients loved it. I'm like, you know, just humor Dr. Hankins here for a little bit, we're gonna do something right. Right. Let's try this weird thing. Right, right. Bear with me for a minute. And, and it was really helpful. And then some of the, the, the nurses and the therapists who then I showed these patients with sometimes they sat in on some of these sessions, they were like, what is that they would approach me afterwards. And they would be like, Oh, my God, that was amazing. Can you do that with us? And so what is this?
19:26
What is what is what is the you know, so I started doing some lunch and learns kind of, you know, just little tapping groups and group tapping around overwhelm and stress. It's not that hard to learning and Right, right. And, and yet, there are certain things to be it that can make it more powerful. You know, obviously, if, if you're well trained, I'm a trauma informed EFT practitioner, so I've done trainings and in trauma around that
20:00
And, and also different techniques, there are different techniques that you can use when someone is really overwhelmed or, or traumatized or, or emotionally disregulated, you know, which can happen even in coaching, right, we can get certain times, you know, clients who are like that, and so
20:22
but there are absolutely some easy to use in the moment kind of techniques around or applying EFT, that can be helpful just as you're going through your clinical day, right. And you're feeling really stressed and overweight, right. And so one thing that I will often teach my clients is to just choose a tapping point.
20:53
And it can be on the side of the hand. So the side of a hand point is, is from the base of your pinkie to the top of your wrist. And so that kind of meaty portion on the side of your hand, and it can be your left or your right hand, and then use the opposite hand like three fingers on your opposite hand to just tap on that side of the point side of the hand. Right? And nobody knows what you're doing. You're just like standing there just tapping away. Right? Right, you
21:22
know what, if you don't even want to make the motion of tapping, you can actually just hold your hand and press a little bit, you can just press because you're stimulating the points on active pressure.
21:35
So you can absolutely do that. And it doesn't help to switch hands or just pick one you can you can do whichever works best for you. You can switch hands, you'd go back and forth. Because what happens is that sometimes some people will find that they'll find a tapping point that actually has a little more charge to them. So and what I mean by that, if you do tapping, you might come across a point and as you're tapping, you'll, you'll be like, Oh, wait, yeah, that one feels really good. Let me stay stick with that point for a little bit. You know, for me, my under the eye points, you know, are pretty powerful. And for some people their collarbone points. So the under the eye point for me it for for anyone is that bone that is right under your eye. And if you're looking straight ahead, the acupressure point is in line with the pupil. And the collarbone point is if you feel the bony prominences of your collarbone. And you go over and down about an inch. Those are the two points there and you can tap it with two hands or you can just go in the midline and have an open one hand. Yeah, right and kind of around where like a knotted tie would be or something like that. But, but the funny thing is, if you ever notice, and you may have done this yourself, that people when when we're stressed, and we hold our head in our hands, and we're and we we put our hand up near our eyes or eyebrows, when we're kind of rubbing our, our eyes or forehead just above our eyebrow, we're actually intuitively going for a tapping point. If we are rubbing this arm holes a little bit, we are intuitively just going and self self soothing at that point. Or we're so smart. We know this already, right? People are when they're wringing their hands with worry or anxiety, or impressing on those Yeah. Or when people are just when they're in thought. And you're you see people with their hand up on their upper chest and near their collarbone and they're sometimes just not even thinking about it. They're just kind of in thought and they're just kind of rubbing and sometimes you see someone with their head cocked to the side and they're like trying to ponder through a problem. And you see their hand they're they're intuitively going through a tapping point. And in so our bodies know how to do this naturally. So we're just coming back to what are the the knowledge our bodies have for soothing ourselves for bringing us back to a state of, of emotional regulation, and and balance. It's like formalizing something that we already intuitively do. Yeah, reminding ourselves to take advantage of this, these points that are always there and always available. Right, right. Absolutely. And what EFT does is it brings together
25:00
A thought so, if you're, if you're struggling with a situation if you're, if you're feeling overwhelmed by something, so say it might be charting, you know, charting is very common issue. I'm so glad I'm just just saying it's like the best specialty okay, but continue charting. Yes, it's so not my problem, thank you.
25:22
Like, you know, someone might be coming to, you know, their EMR and just feeling like, oh my god, I have all these charts and I just I, and might feel really anxious even about doing it. And so you can do a little tapping by focusing on identifying what the emotion is, you know, that you're feeling about a situation. So I guess, first identifying the situation. Okay. I've got, you know,
25:52
40 charts to close, you know, or something. Yeah. I'm some people. Yes, I'm looking at your face right now. No.
26:02
But a bit, yeah. So something you know, so there's like, 40 charts to close. And oh, my God, you know, I don't even know how to even approach that. And so you start to go into your stress response, your fight flight, freeze, fawn response, right. And so that might look for some people like avoidance, and shutting down our procrastination, oh, you know, I'll get to it. And, and some people just try to get through it, but they start to feel so overwhelmed, they start to freeze, and some, so you can identify, Okay, so I've got these 40 charts do and, and the emotion is maybe fear, like, there's no way I'm going to get this done. And so you create a setup statement, which would be, even though I am so afraid, there's no way I can get these 14 charts done. I deeply and completely accept myself. So that last part is what we call an affirmation. And so that last part that I deeply and completely accept myself, you can switch that to something like, you know, I'm doing the best I can, or basically, what you're doing is you're telling your mind and your energy system, that it's okay, that you're having these negative thoughts, because we are caught. Most of us as human beings, it's not okay for us to feel negative, you know, don't turn that frown upside down, you know, be happy, you know, alright, just positive thinking, you know, all right. We're taught, right? And, and so that's really and so, so yeah, you're tired. I just want to say, Yeah, I love the phrase. My acupuncturist suggested which which is more kind of poetic, just that's the vows is I wholly love and adore my entire being or something like that. But you can figure out whatever your affirmation phrases that feels right, right in, but it's like contrasting what is true right now, even though this sucks, yes. And then the affirmation, whatever sounds true or believable, right. And that's the key, it has to resonate with you. And one of the reasons I actually tend not to use love, okay, is because even though people will say I love myself, I love myself, a lot of people struggle with that if you actually go beyond the layers. And so, by saying that, unless people have already done a lot of internal work, that that might not ring true for them.
28:49
And so, so he that's taken me 52 years, okay, just to say it's excepting what I actually find with a lot of my physician clients, and a lot of high achievers in general, is that they have their, you know, the perfectionism that judgment, the self criticism, all that so the even the I accept myself is very hard, it's hard. It's very hard, yo, I often will throw in you know, I'm, I'm doing my best to accept. I'm learning to accept myself. Yes, right that bridging bridging thoughts, yes, at something believable, right. And then as you're tapping through the rest of the points, which are the top of the head, the very the eyebrow point, which is the very beginning of your eyebrow, near the bridge of your nose, left or right, the side of the eye, which is the bone on the outer edge of your eye, left or right, the under the eye point, which is the bone under your eye, left or right.
29:55
Do you think about doing both? You can answer one or I
30:00
For myself, I will do both some kind of overachiever, I like to do both.
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MSMD Melissa Hankins EFT March 8 2022 with Liz Quick Intro with Wave and Fade and Lincoln outro - 3:8:22, 3.16 PM


Tue, 3/8 · 4:02 PM

1:00:33
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
eftcoachingpeopletappingphysicianspointfeelpatientshanddecreasingchartsreframestressedacupuncturethoughtevidencetechniquesshiftedintuitivelypsychiatrist
Speaker matching in progress...
0:11
Welcome to mind surfer MD. I'm your host, Dr. Luiz trainer. And my mission is to normalize discussions about mental health and provide resources to those of us who are riding the waves. So let's dive in.
0:25
Alright, we're doing this, it's beginning. Hey, it's so great to have you, Melissa, I'm so excited to talk to you. You have a lot to offer our listeners, you have a fascinating background. You're a psychiatrist, trained by Harvard 17 years.
0:42
perfectionist in recovery, I call myself a recovering perfectionist as well, I use that very affectionately. And by that, I mean, I'm sending out my emails without correcting my typos. Now it's like just
0:54
screw it just doing.
0:55
And, and also, I would love to hear a little bit about your journey, because one of the things that you teach, in addition to being a certified coach is, is something called EFT. And so I'd love for you to help our listeners understand what that is, because that's something that I found helpful. And it's something that is able to shift our energy or mood in a relatively quick time, and it can be used in a more profound, longer term way as well. So, welcome.
1:28
Glad to be here. Yeah.
1:32
Yeah.
1:34
So thank you. Yes, as you mentioned, um, my background is, as an adult psychiatrist, and I, I worked clinically for 17 years or so before transitioning full time to coaching and EFT work. And my focus now is on working with physicians, predominantly female physicians and high performers in areas of burnout and overwhelm, and perfectionism and trying to do all the things that we always try to do, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, I haven't at all,
2:10
at all, and feeling like we still aren't able to keep up and it's just too much. And we're trying not to show that we have all of these cracks on the inside. We're trying to have this little perfect, you know, life on the outside, and it's just too much pressure, right?
2:27
And I'm telling you, Melissa, that's what this podcast is about. It's like, let's embrace these cracks, right? Let's show these cracks, because we all have cracks, and we're all been hiding them. And if we can just share that light that's in between those cracks. I really feel like that'll help us connect, and help prevent the isolation that can really contribute to depression and kind of suck that the joy out of life if we're not feeling that connection. So anyway, but yeah, we tried it, we tried to maintain this perfect
3:01
sphere of beauty for the world, right? Yes, yes. Especially as physicians because, you know, people look at us and we it from this societal image of what it is to be a physician. You know, this perfect life. Oh, you are making oodles of money and you have this perfect life and you're so smart. And you just, you have it all. And it's like, no, we're human beings. Exactly. Like we're supposed to be superhuman. We're supposed to have no emotions. We're supposed to never, you know, not need to sleep. Right. Our residencies are insane.
3:36
And yeah, and that's just and and, and we have the perfect kids and the perfect spouse perfect marriage. Perfect. Everything. You know what? It's all it's all got to be just Well, I do feel lucky with my husband. He is so hot and I just I feel I thank the universe every day for match calm. Let's just say that worked out great.
3:57
Well, that's a tip for me. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'll talk to you about how to make that that work for you. But yeah, for me, we've been together 10 years now. Oh, that's awesome. I love that. And so you know a little bit about just kind of my my journey so I was
4:16
I was working full time in
4:21
I burned out twice a backup I burned out twice and
4:26
I was working full time and had a in a very very busy outpatient setting like multi specialty clinic
4:39
so it wasn't my practice I was employed and and patients kept coming they kept coming we couldn't close our panels there was none none of that because we had to quote unquote prove our value to you know, in behavioral health, we had to prove our value to to the other specialties so no, close your pants.
5:00
You know, we can't show God. Okay, let me just say it's taken me 50 years to finally realize my value is not my intellect. My value is not my work. I am not my mistakes. We are all human. And, okay, that is just such BS. And that is something that as physicians, we need to reclaim that intrinsically app's value. Yes, our value is not based on an extra RV years of Yes, RV use any kind of external measure. That is it, we're basing our worth our value on his his BS, right? Let's call BS BS, right? And
5:44
that's right, Sr. We're naming it, it's so. So it was, I was I was struggling, I was struggling keeping up with all of my notes, because I was always a different kind of psychiatrist. And what I mean by that, and people would tell me that my patients would tell me that my colleagues would tell me that I was very much interested in what is going on underneath, I didn't actually medicines were the last thing I would ever talk with my patients about. Because I would bring in the mindful before mindfulness was like that thing, right. So I would bring in mindfulness kind of exercises, let's see what's going on at the root of things. And let's look at your past, but only to inform your present, I always kind of consider myself a psychiatrist, coach, even before I was certified as a coach, because I would look at that, and it was always about empowerment for my patients, empowerment in their personal lives empowerment, even with finding their you know, I would coach coach them around, if they were having difficulties with their primary care. Like, my doctor doesn't listen to me, I'm trying to say something, as you know, find another doctor, if you're not, you know, I would coach them around things that they could try to say. And if that didn't work, say, you know, you can find someone else, you don't have to, you know, just continue to do and you can do that with a job you can do that in you know, relationships, I'm not saying to run first look, and see what you can change, but also look within yourself and see what can be shifted. And in so these this was, this was how I was spending, you know, my psychiatric appointments with my patients. Right, right, which is really the rich stuff, right? Because the coaching again, which was a completely new concept to me, the first time it was introduced, was during a passive real estate class I took a year and a half ago, and I was like, should I miss my Zumba class for this coaching thing? That sounds ridiculous with coaching. And Dr. Sonny Smith worked with us for three and a half hours and it was transformational. I just, I was like this light bulb went off. And yeah, I remember thinking, Oh, that, you know, coaching that? What is that? Number one? And number two, it sounds really woowoo? And like, I don't do we will? I'm a scientist? I'm a pathologist. I don't do we will.
8:17
So but like, in a nutshell, how would you define coaching? Um, you know, for coaching, I would say it really is looking at that. Doing the reflective internal work to create the life that you really want on the outside and know that you are connecting with your own internal power your resources, recognizing those and manifesting the life you want through that. Right. And it's about current. It's like, I feel like you know, psychotherapy. Yeah. Let's look at the past and see why you're messed up. But coaching is like, okay, let's work with your mindset right now, where you're at right now. Yes. And reframe things. Yeah. And you can move forward in a different way in the world right now. Right? And with coaching, there can be some overlap. Because with coaching, especially when you find yourself stuck, stuck with a pattern of behavior that you know, your cognitive mind is you're trying to reframe, you're trying to look at a thought. But if you keep coming up with a behavior pattern that remains stuck, despite the reframe that to me is an indication that you've got a deeper kind of emotional anchor that is holding that in place. And that's where something like EFT comes in. So So with me when I the what is EFT? Let's just say what that is real quick. So EFT is Emotional Freedom Techniques. It's a collection of mind body energy techniques.
10:00
That is really it's similar to acupuncture, but without the needles. So something that you can do on your own doesn't hurt as much.
10:11
It's done right. It doesn't hurt but yeah, yes, yes. No, no, it's not on my daughter passed out. I took my daughter to acupuncture and she literally passed out on the table. She's afraid of me. Yeah, yeah. Yep. I've had acupuncture years and years ago. And, you know, most of the time those little teeny needles, they don't hurt But occasionally, occasionally, and if someone has a needle phobia, then you know, that's, that's just not a good mix. Not a good fit, but emotional freedom Freedom Techniques. Okay, and so, so yeah, my my path to finding EFT was actually a little bit before my burnout. But while I was looking at expanding my own kind of repertoire toolkit for for my patients at the time when I was working clinically, and for myself, and I, and I came across this EFT. So this was probably 12 years ago now something like that. I've been doing EFT for a long time for at least a decade. So. So it, it was fascinating to me, because I saw it, I experienced it firsthand. And I saw other people
11:27
doing EFT and things shifted so incredibly quickly. And and profoundly. It was, it was like, Oh, my God, what is this magical thing? And right, like, why don't people know about this EFT thing, right? So Right. So in a nutshell, it's like tapping, right, that's kind of the old term or happy one happening is kind of a nickname for EFT. Because what you're doing is you're using certain acupressure points, far fewer than you would use an acupuncture so you're only using for the what we call the basic recipe and EFT you only using nine points, you're using them on that side of your hand, your head and your torso, your upper body. And so. So with that, you are really just tapping on lightly, you're not causing yourself pain
12:28
happening on these particular energy points which correspond with the meridian, so energy meridians, which if anybody is knowledgeable, or has some awareness of Chinese or Eastern medicine, it's where Qi so the energy Qi runs through the body. So part of the the idea is that she if you're looking at it from a purely kind of energy standpoint, she is when she is not running through the body in the way that it needs to and that it's it's supposed to it can you have blockages, and that can show up and manifest in different ways in the body and in the mind. And, and so that's an Eastern view. Now, there's actually a lot of evidence there's Yes, a lot of randomized controlled trials. Right. Right. I hope people didn't turn off the podcast before you got to this because like, I wanted to interject, there's actually evidence. Yeah, just this woowoo thing, right? Yes. Right. Absolutely. There's a lot there, there are at least over I think 60 randomized control trials,
13:46
supporting the efficacy of EFT particularly in things such as PTSD, anxiety disorders, depression,
13:56
weight loss, food cravings,
14:00
performance, peak performance states, so all of these things and and it can be used for other things like looking at limiting beliefs and shifting those and, and really having a profound change in the way that you approach a situation. It's great for phobias, also. So it's, it's something that has a lot of applications. There's also a lot of work in showing its efficacy in pain syndromes, because chronic pain, a lot of pain, as we know as physicians, pain syndromes have a huge emotional component. And so when you are addressing anything that has a strong emotional component in your using EFT, which is focused on addressing the emotions and the thoughts and events surrounding that combination, when you are addressing that and reducing
15:00
In the emotional intensity around that thought pattern, that event that memory, that situation, then you are decreasing the,
15:13
the, the block around moving forward with that. So with pain, for example, you're actually decreasing the intensity of the pain because you're decreasing the emotional component
15:26
you're with with things like anxiety when you're actually decreasing that you are able to get out of your tunnel vision, right? And then you're open up to a huge world of opportunities and auctions that, that when you are in a fearful, anxious, worrisome panic state that you can't access, right? Because your mind goes offline. Right, right. Like when we're stressed, we get all those, you know, wonderful stress chemicals, the cortisol and, and the the epinephrine and all that good stuff. And our brain just doesn't function as well. Right? Right. And this doesn't. And, you know, some of the evidence around EFT over the past even five years. There's a researcher out of
16:21
Australia. She's a psychologist, and she's probably the preeminent researcher around EFT Peter Stapleton. And she has done several studies, including one a few years ago that showed
16:36
brain changes on functional MRI with EFT and and so and she's also done studies to look at the physiological effects, including decreases in cortisol, I mean, you can decrease with a session of EFT, you can decrease cortisol by 43%, compared to in the same amount of time, a CBT cognitive behavioral therapy kind of approach that didn't have I may have even been in the teens in terms of the the amount that it dropped cortisol so
17:14
so EFT can be really profound. And one of the reasons that I even though I found it a long time ago, I sat on it, because at the time, there wasn't the amount of research and he right, it's not cool for a doctor to do this woowoo stuff. Right. Right. Right. And I love the idea that woowoo is what science hasn't figured out yet. Yes, yes. Yes, absolutely. You know, and and, you know, magic is, is a science without the evidence yet.
17:51
Without evidence based studies yet, right. And so, but but the fact of the matter is, there is the evidence now, but at the time, I was, I was grappling with my own fears of outing myself here. I was, you know, a black female physician in the Harvard systems and you're in medicine, just just in medicine in general, you know, oh, yeah, that I wasn't going to paint a bigger target on my back. Right. Right. Thank you. I don't I like to shop there. But please don't shoot me. Right. And, and so but I had to grow up with my own prejudices around, you know, what is this this thing that I experienced first firsthand, and saw the power of it felt the power and and yet, you know, it was it was difficult. So I started to bring it into my, my practice a little bit with my patients, my patients loved it. I'm like, you know, just humor Dr. Hankins here for a little bit, we're gonna do something right. Right. Let's try this weird thing. Right, right. Bear with me for a minute. And, and it was really helpful. And then some of the, the, the nurses and the therapists who then I showed these patients with sometimes they sat in on some of these sessions, they were like, what is that they would approach me afterwards. And they would be like, Oh, my God, that was amazing. Can you do that with us? And so what is this?
19:26
What is what is what is the you know, so I started doing some lunch and learns kind of, you know, just little tapping groups and group tapping around overwhelm and stress. It's not that hard to learning and Right, right. And, and yet, there are certain things to be it that can make it more powerful. You know, obviously, if, if you're well trained, I'm a trauma informed EFT practitioner, so I've done trainings and in trauma around that
20:00
And, and also different techniques, there are different techniques that you can use when someone is really overwhelmed or, or traumatized or, or emotionally disregulated, you know, which can happen even in coaching, right, we can get certain times, you know, clients who are like that, and so
20:22
but there are absolutely some easy to use in the moment kind of techniques around or applying EFT, that can be helpful just as you're going through your clinical day, right. And you're feeling really stressed and overweight, right. And so one thing that I will often teach my clients is to just choose a tapping point.
20:53
And it can be on the side of the hand. So the side of a hand point is, is from the base of your pinkie to the top of your wrist. And so that kind of meaty portion on the side of your hand, and it can be your left or your right hand, and then use the opposite hand like three fingers on your opposite hand to just tap on that side of the point side of the hand. Right? And nobody knows what you're doing. You're just like standing there just tapping away. Right? Right, you
21:22
know what, if you don't even want to make the motion of tapping, you can actually just hold your hand and press a little bit, you can just press because you're stimulating the points on active pressure.
21:35
So you can absolutely do that. And it doesn't help to switch hands or just pick one you can you can do whichever works best for you. You can switch hands, you'd go back and forth. Because what happens is that sometimes some people will find that they'll find a tapping point that actually has a little more charge to them. So and what I mean by that, if you do tapping, you might come across a point and as you're tapping, you'll, you'll be like, Oh, wait, yeah, that one feels really good. Let me stay stick with that point for a little bit. You know, for me, my under the eye points, you know, are pretty powerful. And for some people their collarbone points. So the under the eye point for me it for for anyone is that bone that is right under your eye. And if you're looking straight ahead, the acupressure point is in line with the pupil. And the collarbone point is if you feel the bony prominences of your collarbone. And you go over and down about an inch. Those are the two points there and you can tap it with two hands or you can just go in the midline and have an open one hand. Yeah, right and kind of around where like a knotted tie would be or something like that. But, but the funny thing is, if you ever notice, and you may have done this yourself, that people when when we're stressed, and we hold our head in our hands, and we're and we we put our hand up near our eyes or eyebrows, when we're kind of rubbing our, our eyes or forehead just above our eyebrow, we're actually intuitively going for a tapping point. If we are rubbing this arm holes a little bit, we are intuitively just going and self self soothing at that point. Or we're so smart. We know this already, right? People are when they're wringing their hands with worry or anxiety, or impressing on those Yeah. Or when people are just when they're in thought. And you're you see people with their hand up on their upper chest and near their collarbone and they're sometimes just not even thinking about it. They're just kind of in thought and they're just kind of rubbing and sometimes you see someone with their head cocked to the side and they're like trying to ponder through a problem. And you see their hand they're they're intuitively going through a tapping point. And in so our bodies know how to do this naturally. So we're just coming back to what are the the knowledge our bodies have for soothing ourselves for bringing us back to a state of, of emotional regulation, and and balance. It's like formalizing something that we already intuitively do. Yeah, reminding ourselves to take advantage of this, these points that are always there and always available. Right, right. Absolutely. And what EFT does is it brings together
25:00
A thought so, if you're, if you're struggling with a situation if you're, if you're feeling overwhelmed by something, so say it might be charting, you know, charting is very common issue. I'm so glad I'm just just saying it's like the best specialty okay, but continue charting. Yes, it's so not my problem, thank you.
25:22
Like, you know, someone might be coming to, you know, their EMR and just feeling like, oh my god, I have all these charts and I just I, and might feel really anxious even about doing it. And so you can do a little tapping by focusing on identifying what the emotion is, you know, that you're feeling about a situation. So I guess, first identifying the situation. Okay. I've got, you know,
25:52
40 charts to close, you know, or something. Yeah. I'm some people. Yes, I'm looking at your face right now. No.
26:02
But a bit, yeah. So something you know, so there's like, 40 charts to close. And oh, my God, you know, I don't even know how to even approach that. And so you start to go into your stress response, your fight flight, freeze, fawn response, right. And so that might look for some people like avoidance, and shutting down our procrastination, oh, you know, I'll get to it. And, and some people just try to get through it, but they start to feel so overwhelmed, they start to freeze, and some, so you can identify, Okay, so I've got these 40 charts do and, and the emotion is maybe fear, like, there's no way I'm going to get this done. And so you create a setup statement, which would be, even though I am so afraid, there's no way I can get these 14 charts done. I deeply and completely accept myself. So that last part is what we call an affirmation. And so that last part that I deeply and completely accept myself, you can switch that to something like, you know, I'm doing the best I can, or basically, what you're doing is you're telling your mind and your energy system, that it's okay, that you're having these negative thoughts, because we are caught. Most of us as human beings, it's not okay for us to feel negative, you know, don't turn that frown upside down, you know, be happy, you know, alright, just positive thinking, you know, all right. We're taught, right? And, and so that's really and so, so yeah, you're tired. I just want to say, Yeah, I love the phrase. My acupuncturist suggested which which is more kind of poetic, just that's the vows is I wholly love and adore my entire being or something like that. But you can figure out whatever your affirmation phrases that feels right, right in, but it's like contrasting what is true right now, even though this sucks, yes. And then the affirmation, whatever sounds true or believable, right. And that's the key, it has to resonate with you. And one of the reasons I actually tend not to use love, okay, is because even though people will say I love myself, I love myself, a lot of people struggle with that if you actually go beyond the layers. And so, by saying that, unless people have already done a lot of internal work, that that might not ring true for them.
28:49
And so, so he that's taken me 52 years, okay, just to say it's excepting what I actually find with a lot of my physician clients, and a lot of high achievers in general, is that they have their, you know, the perfectionism that judgment, the self criticism, all that so the even the I accept myself is very hard, it's hard. It's very hard, yo, I often will throw in you know, I'm, I'm doing my best to accept. I'm learning to accept myself. Yes, right that bridging bridging thoughts, yes, at something believable, right. And then as you're tapping through the rest of the points, which are the top of the head, the very the eyebrow point, which is the very beginning of your eyebrow, near the bridge of your nose, left or right, the side of the eye, which is the bone on the outer edge of your eye, left or right, the under the eye point, which is the bone under your eye, left or right.
29:55
Do you think about doing both? You can answer one or I
30:00
For myself, I will do both some kind of overachiever, I like to do both.
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