How to Help Your Client Overcome Grief with EFT Tapping?

EFT Tapping For Grief

In this blog, you will learn about stages of grief and ways to help your clients overcome it with EFT Tapping technique.

There was a woman called Kisa Gautami who lived during the time of Buddha's life. One day, her only son who was very little in age, suddenly fell ill and died. As a mother, her obvious reaction was of extreme shock and pain.

She could not bear the death of her only child, that too so young in age. Weeping and screaming, she carried her son and went from door to door begging all the people in the village to help get her son back to life.

The villagers sympathised with her, but nobody could help her. But Kisa Gautami was adamant to revive her son. She came across a Buddhist monk who advised her to meet Lord Buddha himself.

When she took her dead son to Lord Buddha and narrated the sad incident, he listened to her with patience and empathy.

Then, he told Kisa Gautami that there he will give her a solution but for that she will have to bring some mustard seeds from any family in the village where there hasn't been any death till date.

Kisa Gautami felt somewhat relieved as she found a ray of hope. She set off straight away to find such a household. She tried and tried and went to all the houses in the entire village, but she found that every family she visited had experienced the death of one person or another.

At last, she understood why Lord Buddha gave her this task. She realised that suffering is a part of life, and death comes to us all.

Once Kisa Gautami made peace with the fact that death is inevitable, she could stop grieving. She took her son's body away and later returned to the Buddha to become one of His disciples.

Well, most of us would have gone through the grief and pain of losing a loved one and undoubtedly, it is the most distressing feeling where you know that you will never be able to see that person again.

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Some time ago, I received a question:

I have a new client coming in for an EFT session and she’s dealing with bereavement loss of her husband and mother and an unhealthy emotional attachment. Is there any advice on how to deal with loss and bereavement?

Dearest Sheetal,

So great you reached out to ask.

I feel you have so much empathy and sensitivity and this will support your client in so many incredible ways.

It is all about where the client wants to begin. As in where they are at. Some clients may not even be ready to address the grief.

Here is a heartfelt article by Donita of when she lost her mom and she was not ready to grieve as that would mean it was over. So, she first worked on the fear surrounding the grief.

She has included a tapping sequence in these articles.

https://vitalitylivingcollege.info/how-i-eliminated-fear-of-working-on-my-grief/

Overcoming Grief with EFT Tapping Technique

SYMPTOMS OF GRIEF

It is quite normal to experience symptoms of grief after the first few months of loss. But if they persist for very long, seeking therapy would be advisable.

Some common symptoms of grief are:

Anger
Confusion
Extreme sadness
Numbness
Hopelessness
Lack of faith in God
Not wanting to socialise

There can be a number of different responses to grief:

Shock/ Disbelief
Sadness/ Sorrow
Anger
Loneliness/Isolation
The End
Denial/Dissociation
Depression

From a therapeutic perspective clients may want:

Someone to talk to
To let out their feelings
To cry it out
To share they are numbed out and not be judged
Express how they feel guilty

"Often it's the deepest pain which empowers you to grow into your highest self"

karen salmansohn

We can hold space. There was an amazing EFT Master named Inchi. I had gone to her seminar 2 years after my Dad passed, as I had bottled it all up. And suddenly the flood gates opened and I must have tapped and cried for 2 hours while being on stage.

With me was my friend Maria who had recently lost her husband to lung cancer. Inchi asked very pointed question to get to the root of it. (You can do this when the client is ready and able to).

While he pointed questions Inchi explored the suit my friend felt for not being able to get her husband to stop smoking and how she blamed herself and felt responsible.

"Grief is in two parts. The first is loss, the second is remaking of life."

- Anne Roiphe

Working with grief is deeply rewarding and fulfilling and it can also be confronting and scared. So, above all that what you can do best is provide a space supportive space and pace it to where the client is. The stages are:

Acceptance that it happens
Letting it all out
Working with the memories connected to grief, for example one of clients husband committed suicide and we had to work on the image of being found versus the past memories. There can be tapping on the memory when they found out.
Working with past memories connected and not connected to grief
Exploring any limiting beliefs. There can be beliefs on how will they survive and move on.
Moving on from it and finding their confidence with the past firmly in the past

As you are trained in Inner Child Matrix you can also use those processes with the past trauma. But the memories of the present and the immediate loss might be more in the forefront.

Unresolved grief can impact the biochemistry of the body by switching on cortisol and become associated with physical pain or health issues. Its one of the reasons in some cultures once someone loses a loved one they are encourages to get it all out. Tapping on the collar bone and thymus area helps to get it out.

People do not necessarily need to lose a loved one to experience grief. Loss can be experienced after divorce, heartbreak, rejection and job loss. Life as we known suddenly changes.

With time, people come to a place of acceptance and make peace with the loss. But that doesn't happen overnight.

Grieving is a process, and it is healthy to pass through the process and embrace all the painful emotions in order to heal. Trying to rush through it, or suppressing those emotions would do more damage and will never allow to heal completely. Sitting with the pain is the key to healing it.

According to a theory developed by Psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a person goes through five distinct stages of grief after the loss of a loved one: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and finally, Acceptance.

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5 stages of grief as documented by Elizabeth Kubler Ross:

Kübler-Ross originally developed stages to describe the process patients with terminal illness go through as they come to terms with their own deaths; it was later applied to grieving friends and family as well, who seemed to undergo a similar process. The stages are popularly known by the acronym DABDA.

Denial

The first reaction is denial. Denial is the stage where a person refuses to believe that the death has happened.

It can be hard to believe that we have lost an important person in our lives, especially when we may have just spoken with this person the previous week or even the previous day.

Denial is not only an attempt to pretend that the loss does not exist. One is also trying to absorb and understand what is happening.

Anger

When the individual recognises that denial cannot continue, they become frustrated, especially at proximate individuals.

Certain psychological responses of a person undergoing this phase would be: "Why me? It's not fair!"; "How can this happen to me?"; "Who is to blame?"; "Why would this happen?"

There is so much to process that anger may feel like it allows us an emotional outlet. Anger allows us to express emotion with less fear of judgment or rejection.

Bargaining

When bargaining starts to take place, one is often directing their requests to a higher power, or something bigger than they are that may be able to influence a different outcome.

Bargaining can come in a variety of promises including: "God, if you can heal this person I will turn my life around."; "I promise to be better if you will let this person live."; "I'll never get angry again if you can stop him/her from dying or leaving me."

This feeling of helplessness can cause us to react in protest by bargaining, which gives us a perceived sense of control over something that feels so out of control. While bargaining we also tend to focus on our personal faults or regrets.

We might look back at our interactions with the person we are losing and note all of the times we felt disconnected or may have caused them pain.

Depression

"I'm so sad, why bother with anything?"; "I'm going to die soon, so what's the point?"; "I miss my loved one; why go on?"

One starts to feel the loss of loved one more abundantly. As the panic begins to subside, the emotional fog begins to clear and the loss feels more present and unavoidable.

One might find themselves becoming silent, being less sociable, reaching out less to others about what they are going through, and spending much of the time mournful and sullen.

Although this is a very natural stage of grief, dealing with depression after the loss of a loved one can be extremely isolating.

Acceptance

"It's going to be okay."; "I can't fight it; I may as well prepare for it." When one comes to a place of acceptance, it is not that they no longer feel the pain of loss.

However, they are no longer resisting the reality of the situation, and are not struggling to make it something different. Individuals embrace mortality or inevitable future, or that of a loved one, or other tragic event.

"We knew how to love them in their presence, now we must learn to love them in their absence"

- David kessler

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DEPRESSION, SADNESS AND GRIEF?

sadness

It is an emotion which arises from other feelings like guilt, grief, stress, anxiety or even a migraine. Whatever the reason may be, they are all negative emotions and make the individual feel bad about themselves, causing them to feel sad.

Sadness is a natural reaction to situations that cause emotional pain. As it is one of the basic human emotions, sadness is temporary and fades with time. Generally, no intervention is required to overcome sadness, as it goes away naturally.

It lasts for a short period of time but could result in altering your emotions and how you feel, in general. But if it lasts for a long period of time, it is recommended to seek help.

Depression

It is a clinical condition and considered to be a mental illness that is long lasting (prolonged sadness) and doesn’t allow us to feel good about ourselves or the world in general.

Usually, a person going through depression, loses all hope in life and has little or no will to live.

Depression can be caused due to particular traumatic incidents in a person's life, but sometimes it doesn’t really have any direct cause, and is mostly due to a chemical imbalance in the brain. This condition can also be life-altering and exhausting. Treating depression involves professional therapy and medications.

Grief

It is basically a natural response to loss of a loved one. It is an unbearable pain that is mixed with feelings of anger and shock.

This pain can hamper your physical health as well and is more severe than sadness. Grieving also takes longer to get over, as compared to mere sadness. It is a process that takes time to heal depending on the intensity of the emotional pain.

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What other Practitioners have to say...

Hi Sheetal,

Just meet them where they’re at each session. Providing a loving, compassionate and safe space as you do with all your other clients.

These are the things that helped me after my husband passed away.

Just welcoming and honouring the emotions, allowing the client to fully feel their feelings.

If memory comes, allow them to speak to the departed ones, fully empty out and ask what was not said that you would like to.

For self-help at home, teaching them to be present to their emotions and tap. As in grief, emotions comes in waves. There is no time limit. Every one is unique.

Rangana’s covered a fair bit in her classes too.

Tap on yourself too first, as to whats coming up for you.

Love,

Reeta Raivedera

Let her grieve. Ask her 'logically' how much time she thinks a normal person should grieve on losing a dear one?

If she hasn't reached it nothing else to do till then. If she has then she logically knows she is grieving excess by her own time frame.

Then you need to find the root cause of her grief. There could be underlying reason/s which may or may not be related to guilt.

Love,

Bhavesh

EFT TAPPING FOR GRIEF WITH A CLIENT

Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT): EFT Tapping for Overcoming Grief. Follow these steps with the client.

Step 1:

First Use EFT Tapping On What It Feels Like To Feel The Grief

Explore the physical sensations in the body associated with the grief and use the physical tension tapping process to reduce the sensations.

To get started, begin by investigating the physical nature of Grief.

Ask the client to connect with the grief and notice where they feel it in the body.

Briefly, you can begin by asking your client the following questions to explore further:

Where in the body do you experience the grief?
What is the colour, texture, size, shape of the grief in the body?
What are the sensations like? For example rough or smooth

Measure the level of Grief by asking:

"What number is the level of grief at, where 10 is really high and 1 is not high at all." Just go with whatever comes up spontaneously, without thinking too much about it.

Begin by tapping on the Karate Chop or Side of the Hand EFT Tapping Points:

Make the client repeat after you, "Even though I feel the grief and pain and I feel it in my chest and its at a number 6 and it's red in colour and it feels rough, I deeply and completely love and accept myself." (Repeat 3 times).

Tap on the facial and upper body EFT Tapping Points using these phrases:

Eyebrow: This grief...
side Of the Eye: So painful...
Under the eye: Grief in my chest..
Under the nose: It's a red colour...
Chin: At a number 6...
Collarbone: So rough...
Under the arm: This grief...
Thumb: I feel it in my chest...
Index Finger: So much grief...
Middle Finger: Really painful...
Little Finger: The colour red...

Close the sequence by coming back to the EFT Karate Chop Tapping Points and repeat once:

Ask the client to repeat after you, "Even though I feel grief and pain and I feel it in my chest and it's at a number 6 and it's red in colour and it feels rough, I deeply and completely love and accept myself."

Relax:

Ask the client to take a gentle breath in and out and take a sip of water.

Test:

At the end of the EFT Tapping , you can ask the client the following questions:

What number is the grief at now?
What happened?
How does it make you feel?

You can repeat this process by going back to Step 1 if you feel like the number could come down a little more.

Step 2:

Discover past experience of feeling grief and clear them

Explore memories related to the grief and use the Tell the Story & the Movie Technique to clear it.

To uncover the memories linked to grief, you can ask questions like:

When have you felt this grief before?
What does it remind you of?
When did it start? What happened?
Was there ever a time when you did not experience these feelings?
What can trigger and bring on the memories?

Identify past events linked to the feeling of grief and resolve it with the help of tapping therapy.

You can ask the following questions:

When have you felt the grief before?
What happens to trigger the grief?
Who or what triggers the feeling of grief?

These questions will identify your past experiences associated with the grief.

Step 3:

Explore any limiting beliefs that prevented you from releasing grief

Limiting beliefs are thoughts that can be conscious or unconscious and can end up becoming responsible for self-sabotage, procrastination and low self-esteem, in an individual.

For grief, first uncover the limiting beliefs which can either be at the surface level or associated with the deeper root memories. Then shift them from stressful to empowering. For example,

“Something bad is going to happen” to “Everything is going to be OK"
"It not safe" to "I am safe now"

Step 4:

Close with positive EFT Tapping for healing grief:

Examples of a positive tapping sequence might be:

“Even though I experienced grief and sorrow, now, I am open to let it go.”
“Even though I was living with this grief for many months, now, I open myself to the possibility of being happy and peaceful."

In closing providing a space to get it out and heal from it is transformative in so many ways. Allow the client the space and time to heal. Healing from grief is not easy and takes some time. But taking good time and facing those emotions rather than running away from them, helps you a lot.

Continue to learn and explore!

Love,

Dr Rangana Rupavi Choudhuri (PhD)

P.S. Want to discover if EFT Tapping is right for you? Book a Complimentary Discovery Call.

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In summary, EFT is a very powerful tool to deal with scenarios that diminish your sense of peace and calmness. EFT Tapping helps to reduce tension, promote a deeper mind-body connection, and manage symptoms of anxiety, depression or stress.

Disclaimer: The information on this website is purely for educational purposes and does not in any way replace the requirement for medical and psychological diagnosis and treatment. Please seek professional medical and psychological diagnosis and advice for all medical and mental health conditions. It is advised to always book any consultations with qualified professionals.

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