Finding the roots behind the fear of speaking in front of coworkers--follow up included

By Alan Morison

Hi Gary

I have to write you these case notes as more and more I meet clients with a low self esteem who have been traumatized by their school experiences, often standing in front of a class, wishing the ground would swallow them up. Such is their fear and embarrassment.  I hope it won't be too long before EFT is used regularly in classrooms round the world.  This case describes a girl's fears of school but it is fascinating to discover where it all started.

Best wishes,

Alan

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'Jen' signed up for an EFT session as she was not happy at work.  She had to report on her work in front of the team and every time she felt her confidence ebb a little more.  It had gotten to the point where she felt like giving up, and seeking other employment despite enjoying her job.  But she felt she owed herself something and came for a session of EFT.

We did some work on her feelings in the work place.  There was no bullying, no feeling of being victimized - just a feeling of inadequacy which was very general and difficult to pin down with nothing specific to work on.  Even though I feel awkward and embarrassed in front of the team...

This did very little to reduce her level of intensity from 9 to anything less than an 8 on the 0 to 10 intensity scale.  The answer was clearly not there, so, going on experience, I asked if her school days had been happy.

She said she had good friends and could think of nothing which had affected her; no bullying nor anything else unpleasant in that way.  I asked her some specific questions instead: How did you feel in the English class?  Did you ever have to make a speech in front of the class?  How did you feel doing that?

That hit home and she squirmed a little on her seat.  She said that most of the time it was OK but they all had to give a talk to the whole class for exams at the age of 16.  She said she felt awful and wanted to run away.  We started tapping however on her feelings of the evening before her talk as the nervousness and panic were peaking then.

Even though I felt so trapped and helpless and hated the idea of giving that talk...  This helped reduce her level of intensity from 10 to a 6 out of 10.  Focusing on the day itself and tapping for wanting to run away and the embarrassment of standing in front of the class reduced the intensity even further but everything came to a halt at a 3 out of 10.  I asked if there was anything else related to that day but she couldn't think of anything.

I suggested she focus a little on her panicky feelings and see if they reminded her of anything else - maybe early school days.  Again she squirmed in her seat and looked uncomfortable.  “Whenever we had English lessons in primary school, I would build up my books in front of me to hide behind them.  I hated being asked to say anything in class.” Tapping for hating to say anything in class reduced her new level of intensity from 9 to 5 out of 10.  I introduced an element of forgiveness into the next round:

Even though there's still some of these feelings left, I know she (the teacher) was trying to do her job as best she could.  She never knew how I felt as I hid it pretty well.  I recognize I didn't exactly help the situation but I couldn't do anything else.  I can forgive myself for being such a scared little girl.  

That reduced the level of intensity to a 3 but further tapping produced no results. The senior school intensity had slipped a little to a 2 but nothing was shifting towards resolution.

Again I asked if the discomfort of the classroom scenes reminded her of anything.  She paused for a second or two then said, “It was the hens!”  We could have tapped for the 'hens feeling' to avoid any discomfort at looking into the scene but she chose to explain the situation.

As a young girl on her parents' farm she had the job of collecting the hens' eggs every day but she hated doing it as they pecked her arm when she slid her hand under them to collect the eggs.  It was a task she had to do despite hating it.  I asked her if that theme rang a bell.  She nodded and smiled for the first time in the session as she realized how her whole life had been dominated by these early experiences on the farm.

We tapped for hating it when they pecked my arm and her level of intensity went from 7 to 0 out of 10 in one round.  Checking back to the school issues proved they had gone to 0 as well.  Her fear of reporting to her work colleagues had also been greatly reduced and the remaining 3 out of 10 was resolved when we worked on future fears, how she might feel reporting to the group.

Even though I might get panicky just walking into the room I'm beginning to understand where all these fears came from.  I don't need to feel like this anymore and I can release these old feelings now.  I choose to feel relaxed and positive when I have to give my report and I choose to feel good about myself when I talk.

Using the Movie Technique she sailed through a future scenario without any negative feelings even when I played the role of team leader and interrupted a couple of times for clarification. She left feeling a lot lighter and much more positive about herself.

Contact with Jen as a follow up was difficult but when I finally managed to get in touch several weeks later she said things were going well and is not bothered by group presentations anymore.  She did need to tap a couple times as she wasn't sure how she would feel but stopped when she realized she was actually feeling fine in meetings.  Life has definitely improved and she is enjoying her job.

Alan Morison