Energy Psychology and EFT

Energy Psychology and EFT

Benefits of Energy Psychology and EFT:

•     Freedom from negative emotions;

•     Freedom from self-doubt, grief, anger, or negative memories;

•     Freedom to earn more, sleep better, enjoy fantastic relationships, improve your tennis  or golf game;

•     The freedom to lose weight, lose shyness, lose low self-esteem;

•     Freedom from anxiety, stress, fears, phobias, PTSD, guilt, depression . . . so much more!

•     The freedom to begin to have a richly, rewarding, and satisfying life!

This is NOT traditional psychotherapy!

Psychotherapy can be time-consuming and quite expensive; energy therapy sessions cost less, but the really dramatic difference between the two is that the results with energy therapy are immediate and, for the most part, lasting and permanent. In most cases, lasting results for a particular issue can be achieved in as few as two sessions.

Energy therapy gives you the opportunity to rid your life of negative feelings forever without delving into childhood issues.

Sessions can be conducted online through Skype, in-person, or on the telephone using a hands-free headset or speakerphone.

Call me for a complimentary introductory session!

510.922.9896

Have You Heard About Energy Psychology?

Chances are you haven’t, so I’d like to take this opportunity to tell you about this exciting, innovative, and effective tool I’ve been using to help clients find relief from stress, anxiety, self- esteem issues, fear, trauma, sleeplessness and many other blocks interfering with balance.
I’ve borrowed the techniques I’m using in my energy psychology practice from a variety of sources: EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprogramming-a powerful therapeutic technique used to treat trauma); my background in Transpersonal Psychology;
Positive Psychology; acupuncture, and wellness coaching.
The positive results from EMDR are well documented, especially for treatment of PTSD and other traumas. Using bilateral sounds or bilateral tapping, disturbing memories which have felt present, painful, and real are dislodged and released. After EMDR therapy, clients report being able to remember the trauma as simply a memory, not as a source of pain and discomfort.
Acupuncture, as you probably know, is an ancient Chinese healing art involving meridians and energy channels.
When energy is blocked along these channels, illness and pain can result. Treatment involves strategically placed needles which release the block so that energy can flow, and healing can take place. Acupressure acts similarly, using pressure on points instead of needles.
In my work using energy psychology, I draw on both EMDR and acupuncture as well as transpersonal theories and coaching strategies. I believe I’ve created an exciting hybrid, a way of working with imbalance to restore balance and wholeness. The results have thus far been wonderful.

I’ve been working regularly with my client, Marie. Marie’s 25-year relationship recently ended, and the breakup is far from harmonious. To exacerbate the situation, Marie recently turned 60, and has Multiple Sclerosis.    As if the physical symptoms of her M.S. weren’t enough, she has also suffered from insomnia, anxiety, and fear as a result of the breakup.
The acrimonious actions of her former partner have left her not only traumatized, but in a state of shock and disbelief, and she fears for not only her health, but for her future.    Marie says, “Filled with anxiety, I contacted Charlynn who agreed to perform a telephone session using Energy Psychology. She asked me to talk about what I was feeling in the moment, and to describe and feel it as best I could. Charlynn then restated what I had said, then had me tap on various acupuncture points, while maintaining the original feeling as best I could throughout the tapping process.
“We repeated this cycle several times, and each time I noticed that my anxiety had lessened and that I was relaxing.
“Next, Charlynn asked me to focus on the areas of my body that were particularly tense and affected by the stress. I repeated the tapping cycle as I held the thought of the stress in my body. I felt the powerful spasms lessen as I relaxed.
“Since our session, the knots in my shoulders and stomach have lessened and I have not felt the level of anxiety and fear that I previously had.   I really am looking forward to continuing my work with Charlynn, a capable, compassionate, and professional practitioner of Energy Psychology.”
I am excited by my discovery of this process and humbled by the potential for healing that exists in it. Obviously, my practice strictly as a Wellness Coach working in the areas of nutrition and fitness has shifted to one of healing. I couldn’t be happier.
This work can be done in person, over the phone, or through Skype.
I believe in this process so deeply that I would like everyone to be able to experience it.    So until the end of September, I will offer an initial session free of charge. Call me, and experience calm, peace, and balance through Energy Psychology.    It works!

Why in the World do I Need a Coach?

This was the question I was asking myself as I waited for my coach to arrive.  It was 1995,  and ten minutes prior to my first coaching session.    My soon-to-be coach was a professor in my graduate psychology program.  He’d ventured into coaching first as an exploration, then as an avocation, becoming more and more enthusiastic about it the deeper he went into the training.  Ultimately, he would give up private psychotherapy practice as well as teaching in favor of coaching and writing which he still does today.  But I am getting ahead of myself.

So here I was in my duplex; graduate student, part-time substitute teacher, saturated with psychotherapy-being in therapy was a program requirement-and curious about what this coaching thing was all about, hoping it was different from therapy.  When it comes to personal growth and moving up the psycho/social/spiritual evolutionary ladder, I’ll try just about anything.   But I’d had enough of delving into my childhood and my dysfunctional family in the therapy room.

Coaching, it turns out, is practically the polar opposite of psychotherapy.  While therapy focuses on pathology, or what’s wrong in the client’s life, coaching turns instead to what’s right, what strengths the client brings, where the client has been successful in the past, and celebrates and uses these strengths and successes to help bring about whatever change the client wants to work on.  In therapy, the therapist drives the session; coaching is client-driven.   Therapy feels like a pounding followed by a pressure-hose cleansing; coaching feels like a revelation followed by a joyful celebration.

My new coach and I had agreed to complete the initial session in person; follow-up sessions would be held over the telephone.  He had explained that the initial interview would last perhaps an hour, and that the once-weekly sessions following would take approximately 30 minutes.  There would be a total of three sessions per month and he asked for a commitment of 3 months, which is the time it usually takes to initiate and sustain lasting change. I had agreed, albeit somewhat skeptically.

He arrived and we began working.  The interview was thoughtful, compassionate, and insightful.  And it took nearly an hour.  By the end of the session, we had identified some areas to work on, and I set some goals.  He even gave me “homework.”  Since this was fifteen years ago, I don’t remember what the specific goals were, but let’s say one was to stop fighting with my mother and establish a better relationship with her, and that the second one was to meet someone who could become a life partner.  Now that I think of it, these just might have actually been the first coaching goals I set for myself.

How I would accomplish these goals would be in nice, comfortable baby steps.  Regarding my relationship with my mother, the “homework” might have been, let’s say, to end a phone conversation with her (rather than let an argument escalate), in a respectful and thoughtful manner, the moment I felt her starting to push my buttons.  In the case of the relationship, my homework might have been to join a dating site, or to research a group activity that I enjoyed, and join it.  The goal might have even been to do both if I felt it appropriate.  I was to report my level of success back to my coach on our next session.

Setting these goals served a number of purposes:  It kept me conscious and focused, and forced me to be present, especially with my relationship with my mother; it allowed me to look at my life in terms of what I knew I needed in order to move forward, and it enabled me to draw on strengths I knew I had but had forgotten about.

This was, as I mentioned, fifteen years ago when coaching was even newer and more unknown than it is now.  I am now a certified wellness coach.  A requirement of the certification program, just as it was in my graduate psychotherapy program, was to work with a coach.  Only in this case it was to be a peer coach.  My coach and I began working together in November in preparation for testing, and although we are both now certified, we are still working together. I think this speaks volumes as to the power of the work.

Coaching brings out the best in both client and coach.  For the coach, the richness comes from the client’s courage and willingness to make the journey, and for the client it’s about being heard, acknowledged and celebrated.  In my work with my coach, that is the power for me, and it is what has allowed me to move into areas in my life that I never dreamed I could or would.

Coaching is truly a remarkable process.  It is a celebration of renewal and rebirth comparable to none I’ve experienced.  If you are thinking about working with a coach, I hope you have the openness to give it a try.  I think you will be happy you did.

Chop Wood, Carry Water

In a psychology class I taught one day last summer, the topic was aging.  I asked the students to name the first thing they thought of when they heard the term, “Older Adult.”  I was expecting responses like, “Sweet,” or “Kind,” or perhaps “Wise,” but do you know what they said?   “Fat!”   Really?  Ouch.

After I brushed my indignation aside, I realized that the truth for many of us is that getting older does mean getting fatter.  If you don’t believe me, just Google “Ideal Weight.”  You will notice that it increases proportionally as age increases.  And it’s widely assumed, I think-mostly because of media representation- that it just happens automatically, and we have no control over the process.  But I emphatically disagree.  Here’s why.

I’m a tennis player, and I find tennis to be a great teacher, mainly of being present.  It is impossible to win matches, to even play for that matter, without being present on the court, without seeing the ball, without knowing where the racquet is in relation to the ball.  Presence. If we were to bring this same presence to food, to nourishing and fueling the body, I don’t believe anyone would ever again need diet or nutrition gurus.

There is a Buddhist teaching  that goes, “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.  After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.”  To me this teaching speaks to this notion of being present.  It also speaks to the importance of simplicity, of eating simply, mindfully, and close to the earth.  And as we get older, I think, we  do things more on an automatic pilot; we perform habitual activities that are comfortable and routine, forgetting about what benefits come from being present.

I used to work in a very stressful occupation, and I realized after I left it that much of the eating I had done (and the weight I had gained) was a result of, and a response to, the stress I was feeling.  I ate automatically, seldom when I was hungry.  Eating mindlessly  was a way to not be present with the stress, to not acknowledge it, to deny that the stress was perhaps harmful, which it was.  Have you ever done this?  Check yourself the next time you  reach for something in the cupboard.  Are you genuinely hungry?   Did something just cause you agitation or anxiety?  How are your muscles and jaw?  Are they tight, clenched, rigid?  If so, chances are that you are responding to the stress and not to any physical need for food, and this is what causes fat to accumulate and ill-health to perpetuate.

Working with the breath is the most effective way I have found to practice being present; to chop wood, carry water, to not be on auto-pilot.   Paying attention to the movement of the breath forces us to become present, to slow down and check in:  Am I really hungry or am I responding to something external?  Breathe in, breathe out.  Chop wood, carry water.

Being well and healthy is the best gift we can give these bodies that do so much for us and allow us to experience so much joy and pleasure in this life.  Being present is key to maintaining good health and good balance in allowing health to happen.  Namaste.