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Easy Techniques to Stop Emotional Eating so that You Can Stick to Your Keto Diet

Join Carole as she chats with Randy Webb, clinical psychotherapist and hypnotherapist about techniques to help ease overwhelming feelings, so that you can move away from using food as your only way of coming with emotions and stress and end emotional eating.

Randy will be teaching us about:
1. Butterfly Hug: a technique developed by therapists Ignacio “Nacho” Jarero and Lucinda Artigas to help traumatized children get reoriented right after a hurricane in Mexico.

2. Safe/Calm/Magical place: a technique developed by trauma therapist and innovator Francine Shapiro that helps you to be present with all your senses and then tapping yourself to strengthen your affirmations and gifts.

3. Emotional Freedom Technique: a method probably derived most from the first evidence-based energy therapy called Thought-Field Therapy by psychologist Roger Callahan which involves tapping at various points or energy centers or meridians in the body while making affirmations.

Carole will also share the details of her program, The Pathway to End Emotional Eating, so that you can end emotional eating, without spending years in therapy, and stay on your healthy keto eating habits.

 

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Transcript:

(Transcript provided by Descript)

Do you struggle to stick with your healthy eating habits due to emotional and or stress eating? Do you wish you had a magic wand you could just wave and eliminate emotional eating? Would you like to learn about some easy ways to cope with overwhelming feelings, emotions, stress, and even trauma? Guess what? This episode you should probably turn out now. No, I’m just kidding. This episode is for you. Wouldn’t that be cruel if I’m like all those things we can’t help? No, that’s what this episode is all about. I’ve got a special guest here. Stick around. You’re gonna learn three easy techniques to release.

Overwhelming feelings, emotions, trauma in the body with our very special guest, Randy Webb, psychotherapist and hypnotist. And I was teasing the other day about how people are terrible introducers because they say the name up front, and so as you’re supposed to hype it all up, and then you say their name is the last thing.

So this is what we do in comedy, right? I’m supposed to say all these great things Randy’s, or see, I’m not supposed to say your name. I did it again. Three techniques to release trauma with my very special guest, psychotherapist and hypnotist. Randy Webb. There we go. That’s how you’re supposed to do it. Hi Carole. I guessed her already. Shelly, I’m so glad you’re here. Hi, Shelly. Yeah. Anyone else watching? Give us a hi. I can see that we do have people watching live. And go ahead and tell us hi, where you’re joining us from, join the show. This is Live and Interactive. The reason I do this live is cuz I love the interaction.

I also, I like it not perfect. Okay. I wanna get information out there in an easy way for me. This is not a polished podcast, I’ll tell you right now. So again, there’s two reasons why I like to do it live is that it doesn’t have to be perfect. It takes less time and effort to do this for me cuz I love to talk. I just, I love to talk to people and and then also we get to have the interaction with the people that are watching. So we’ve got somebody else our Facebook user, Facebook group that’s for Baltimore. One of the weird things about Facebook is you have to allow us to show your name on Stream Yard.

So there’s a way you can allow that within the. Within the Facebook group or within the, whatever the comment says there. But you could also just tell us who your name is and then I’ll probably recognize you. And we’ve also got Jennifer joining. Hi Carolyn, Randy joining from Pennsylvania. Woo. I’ll look at this. We’ve got three people watching us. Love it. Love it. Okay. I know Jennifer’s always telling me, she’s like, when is your next episode coming out? I can’t wait for more. So I’m so glad she Got it here live. All right.

Welcome everyone to Keto Chat Live. I am your host, Carole Freeman ,have a master’s in nutrition and clinical health psychology. I am a certified clinical hypnotherapist and a board certified keto nutrition specialist. But, More importantly, I specialize in helping women 40 plus follow a keto diet for sustainable weight loss. And the medical disclaimer here, this show is meant for educational and entertainment tongue, tire, tongue tied purposes only.

Apparently there’s the entertainment part entertainment purposes only. It is not medical advice nor intended to diagnose, prevent, treat or cure any condition whatsoever. If you have any specific questions or concerns related to your specific needs, specific medical conditions, what Try saying 10 tongue twisters. And I think cures everything. No, seek out the help of a qualified healthcare professional. And alright. Welcome Randy. Okay, let me tell, let me do a little bit more of Randy’s intro. And if you have watched us live before, this is a repeat episode, but if you’re listening to just the audio only this Future podcast, it’s fresh to you.

But the audio we did before. Frankly it was garbage. So yay, I get to have Randy back and do this again. The things that he’s gonna teach you today are just, they’re so easy, so powerful. They help with stress as well. So not just emotional eating, but just if you’re feeling overwhelmed and stressed. And it turns out that I always have him as a guest, when I personally need it. So I hope you get value, but this is what I need today. Everyone. . And I actually, I know Randy because I went to a school at Bastyr University. I graduated 10 years ago now, and I did a double master’s in nutrition and psychology at the same time.

Part of my degree was that I had to get, do an internship. And so I met Randy because he was my supervisor during my psychology internship. And we’ve been friends, I guess now for 10 years. Wow. I can’t believe it’s been that long. And finally, enough is that, I met Randy in the Seattle area. He’d moved from Phoenix, and shortly after moving to Seattle, he went back to Phoenix. But we’ve since switched places, I actually fell in love with Phoenix, going to visit Randy every year in March, getting away from the rain and depression in Seattle. And during the pandemic I decided to move to Phoenix and Randy had relocated to Portland, Oregon area at that time.

So we joke now about how our weather has switched. So you’re getting how many days of no rain and 90 degrees this weekend in Portland?

Randy Webb: Yes. It’s been pretty dry, just a little rain since mid-June. And it’s supposed to be nearly 90 again, 90 again this weekend. And they’re wildfires and it’s smoky and it’s super dry. It’s very strange looking. Oh,

Carole Freeman: so instead of the haboob, you get the smoke. And then let me look at the weather here. So we should. , oh, you’ll, oh, you’ll get a kick out of this Sunday. Our high is supposed to be 78 in Phoenix and 37% chance of rain, which means it’s gonna rain . And we’re having apparently record rainfall in Phoenix this year, and the northwest is drier than ever. Apparently pretty soon we’re just gonna swap climates, , it’ll be, and ironically, Randy loves rain, and you move someplace that doesn’t have rain. And I moved away from the rain, and that’s all I’m getting right now. .

Randy Webb: Strange things happening. Oh, alright. Very topsy turvy .

Carole Freeman: Alright. I should get back to the written stuff I’m supposed to be reading now. Randy Webb has a lot of initials after his name. M a m c l M H C. He’s a psychotherapist of 26 years trained by the Milton h Erickson Foundation in clinical Hypnosis and strategic therapy. A master trainer in neural sequential model in caregiving and has worked as a volunteer trainer of EMDR therapy is a certified Adobe captivate, activate captivate. I didn’t bring my glasses. Captivate specialist and currently works for both Shion Consulting LLC of Phoenix and as a technical trainer. specialist Technical training specialist for Washington State Department of Health in Olympia, Washington. So welcome Randy to the show officially.

Randy Webb: It’s a delight to be here again, Carole.

Carole Freeman: It’s fantastic.

Wonderful. Thank you for our viewers here. Alright, so we’re gonna go over three different techniques and I love this last time cuz I immediately went and taught it to my To my ladies. I went over coaching calls and it was, it’s all the synchronicities I love, right? Like I said, how I forget all of these in my own life have a lot of stress. And then I’m like, oh, that’s right. How did I forget these? And then they literally, these are so easy to learn and immediately implement that you all can go and teach this to somebody else immediately with no training besides just watching us here. That’s how easy they are. Extremely effective. I promise if you do them along with us today, you’re gonna feel, oh, just so much more peace and ease and calm.

Just thinking about them. I already feel, calm and easy. So we’re gonna do something called the butterfly hug. A the second one is a safe, calm, magical place. Number three is an emotional freedom technique. Let’s see, as far as like the third one is the more complicated of them, but still very doable as well.  And the nice thing is that, If you’re listening to the podcast of this, you can save this recording and listen to it and do it along in the future. So listen to this as needed.

And if you’re watching the video of this, you can just bookmark this as well. Like it. And if you’re on YouTube, go ahead and subscribe to future notifications and that way you can refer to this in the future. So very easy. But if you forget them put a reminder on your calendar for about a week from now and put this episode in there and, because I guarantee you’re gonna need it again and you’re gonna forget. Alright, so Randy, tell us a little bit about, so let’s start with a butterfly hug.

Tell us about the, how it was developed and how it came to be.

Butterfly Hug:

Randy Webb: The butterfly hug, like all three techniques we’re gonna show you were the result of one of those situations where, Difficulties are kinda like the mother of invention, so to speak. And in the case of the butterfly hug, some trauma therapists who actually were trained in a number of different methodologies, including EMDR therapy, were helping families and individuals in me near in Mexico and after a hurricane Pauline, in the eighties, I wanna say was the late eighties. These two practitioners who were based in Mexico saw these children who were separated from their families.

They were disoriented people, in a really serious hurricane, people can get disconnected from each other and get lost. And based on the learning they had about the beauty of helping people get still and applying some sort of stimulation like we do in EMDR therapy, they gathered the children together and to help them feel centered and relatively less traumatized or to, or maybe a better way to put it, is just help them cope better with this very disorienting experience of all this destruction and people being disconnected and lost from each other, even if temporarily Lucinda Aga and Ignacio Jdo, or Nacho Jdo, as they call ’em, both of them psychologists, gathered the children together and they said, we wanna show you something.

Also Read: Sleep, Satiety, and Keto Diet

So first, as we oftentimes do with a lot of these techniques we use and all these trauma therapies, the these very simple to use techniques oftentimes start with breathing. So where they started is they ask the children to just. Gathering together, think we’re getting that kind of support from being in a group. And so that’s where it came from. And so that’s the origins of it. But there are many techniques like that used in all the trauma therapies to help people just start to get centered. So if you would like, I’ll go ahead and demonstrate the two parts of it.

Carole Freeman: Sounds great. Please do.

Parts of Butterfly Hug:

Randy Webb: Outstanding. Now, the purpose of this, besides what I’ve already mentioned, like a lot of these techniques, if you ever do any kind of trauma therapy or any kind of trauma work, you’ll see that oftentimes the idea behind this is we have some idea neurologically, is that when you help people get in touch with themselves and get in touch with their bodies, start to notice their breathing, notice their emotions, be the observers of their thoughts, it increases the chance that this most human part of the brain.

The prefrontal cortex is, Bruce Perry says, for example, is open for business. It increases the chance that you’ll gain some clarity. You can do some problem solving. And so in the case of the butterfly hook, the first part is to breathe by moving your diaphragm. And there are all kinds of different breathing practices aren’t there, whether you’re practicing Tai chi or yoga or meditation or chigong or any number of other practices.

You can do all kinds of things and I’m gonna show you some variations with that. But the first piece is to fill the belly full of air in such a way that you’re making the diaphragm move. So you’re not, when you’re anxious, you might notice that you’re breathing in a shallow way, , you may not, you may or may not be aware of it, but you may tend to do that. And what this is doing is actually choosing, there’s something very powerful and therapeutic about you choosing something. Isn’t that interesting? So the choosing to fill the belly full of air and you can do things like count the number of seconds you’re breathing in and then holding and then counting the number of sec seconds you’re breathing out, you know you’re exhaling.

You can breathe in through the nose and out the mouths. You can put your tongue behind your top teeth when you’re breathing in behind your bottom teeth. When you’re exhaling, all of these are designed to do something similar. You increase the oxygen flow, you’re giving that nervous system of yours, a chance to be still to the power of the pause, increases the chance that you’ll gain clarity about what is needed.

There are all these incredible benefits besides just simply getting more oxygen. For example, you might breathe in. And you can do all those other things if you want to. The counting, the putting your tongue behind the top teeth, behind the bottom teeth when you excel. You can do all those things if you want to. But that’s the first piece. And then what Lucinda and Nacho did is they asked the children to employ the butterfly hug.

This one part breathing and one part, dual alternating stimulation is the technical term for it, or bilateral stimulation. There’s something beautiful about bilateral stimulation. So whether you’re walking or dancing or playing an instrument or playing drums or cycling or jogging or hiking, dancing, we believe, seem to have similar therapeutic effects. In this case, what they ask the children to do is to make a butterfly with their hands. Just have your hands going towards each other until the thumbs meet, until it makes a butterfly. Then place that butterfly. Roughly here on either side of your sternum, know where your collarbone might be. And slowly while doing that diaphragmatic breathing, that deep breathing, slowly tapping.

There is no limit as to how long you can do that if you prefer, because for any number of different reasons, this may seem like it’s getting in the way . And so instead, if you feel more comfortable, just place your hands over your shoulders like this or over your upper arms.  And hopefully the air is cleaner where you are than it is here in western Oregon and western Washington.

Carole Freeman: I’m as you’re going through this motion too, I’m noticing that it parallels, a parent’s natural. When you wanna calm somebody you do this slow pat. So there’s something innate about that, that we do know as calming and soothing to pat them rhythmically.

Randy Webb: There’s something beautiful about rhythm and we are seeing Bruce Perry and other people who study child development, who study attachment who, and I work with caregivers.

I educate caregivers and foster adoptive parents. And we are seeing some of the effects of the pandemic where people weren’t getting enough of that rhythm that helping them co-regulating. And it’s very powerful, that touch that proximity. The offering rhythm is a very healing and powerful thing. And one thing that we find is that when people don’t get enough of that, they’re more likely to be impulsive and attempt to self-regulate in ways that are not quite so healthy. They’re more impulsive.

Carole Freeman: like overeating, highly processed foods.

Randy Webb: Exactly. And we see evidence that when people are not present, they’re not mindful, they’re not getting enough of that rhythm, they’re not giving themselves enough of that rhythm, enough of that mindfulness.

The power of the pause, the prefrontal cortex doesn’t work as well. And it’s the executive function. It helps you delay gratification, helps you see the bigger picture and helps you plan. It helps you follow through. And if you have anything that’s overly stressful and is not resolved, you’re much more likely to go to a quick fix on multiple fronts than of course that would obviously, I’m not a nutritionist, but I would very well suspect that a person’s much more likely to engage in eating patterns that are not healthy.

Carole Freeman: Yeah. Who feels better? Just already give me a thumbs up emoji. Give me the heart one, the reaction, or just give me a yes in the comments of you feel it already and we’ve just begun. That’s just number one .

Randy Webb: And there’s so many, oh, there’s so many you can use.

Carole Freeman: Next let’s let’s go to the safe, calm, magical place.

And I, during my graduate program, during one of the summers, I did take training in hypnosis. And so this was one of the techniques that we learned in helping people get into that hypnotic state of deep relaxation was going to this safe, calm, magical place. I have. Experience with leading people through this one. But this is Randy’s time to shine. So I’ll let him him walk through. So Shelly’s reporting that she’s feeling very, it’s very calming. Oh, wonderful.

Randy Webb: Yeah. That’s outstanding. Safe, calm place. Safe, calm state. Uh, Safe, calm, magical place. Happy place. Gets called a lot of, and people make, you’ll hear it in pop psychology and in pop culture.

I think he went to his happy place. You’ll hear these references to it. And it really is used in so many different approaches and therapeutic approaches where the goal is like the butterfly hug is to increase the chance that the person will focus well, will get centered, get mindful. We’ll have a pause, we’ll have a break long enough to give whoever is in the role of the facilitator, the operator, the therapist. The helper the coach, whatever that role that person may have is to increase the chance that the person start to encounter strengths and values and motivations to be elicited and used in that person’s life, to help that person gain a sense of power, in your circumstances, and you’re more likely to grow and to learn and to be open to newness.

When we help you be in the present, we meet you where you are, we respect your background, your values, your culture, what your motivations are, we’re just simply more likely to find out what those things are, and we can do it pretty efficiently if we can engage in some sort of exchange of information or communication that helps you focus and it may involve relaxation. We’re hoping that you’ll feel safe more than anything else. We’re trying to, we find, and there’s some varis philosophy behind it, but. Safe, calm place is one of those wonderful techniques that kind of embody so much of what Carole’s talking about. And and you can do that great breathing as you do it.

I’m going to I’m gonna give an example of what that sounds like. And there are many beautiful variations based on how each person shows up. You each have a unique nervous system with unique memories and unique experiences. And the job of the helper is to customize it for you. So you, each one of you, even though what I’ll say we’ll see how, what you think about it, you, there’ll be certain pieces of what you’ll That sounds familiar to me somehow. And what if it works really well? Not only does it help you focus and help you get really centered and. But if it works really well, it can help you get in touch with some things that really matter to you and some of your goals and your dreams and your motivations and indications of your values.

So that’s what makes it so among so many things, something that we use in so many different approaches. So what do you think?

Carole Freeman: I’m ready. Outstanding. Let’s go to this magical place. I wanna go to my happy place.

Randy Webb: All right. Okay. So here’s how we’ll start, and there are a lot of different ways we can begin, but I’ll go adding some pieces to it as we go along.

So with your eyes open, or with your eyes closed, or somewhere in between, and invite you to think of a place it can be real or it can be imaginary. Or a combination of the two, and you can think of this place where it feels so good to just be. And as you think of that place where it feels so good to just be, it can let yourself breathe. And as you’re there, you can notice, begin to notice the time of day or the time of year. You can be aware if you’re alone or if there are other people there. And because you’re doing that, you can begin to notice certain colors and shades and the way the light is reflected off certain shapes and textures.

And as you take another breath, you may notice that something invites you to become aware of the sound, and you can hear that sound or those sounds. Some of them nearby, some of them far away, or maybe just some in between the two there for a moment, some of them go away. And new ones may appear. And as you’re noticing the sound or sounds in this place where it feels so good to just be, it can take a breath and notice that something seems to be inviting you to be aware of the smell since you are there observing the fragrances, hints of one kind of smell. Some others, oh, that can feel so good to just notice and observe.

And the more that you notice, , the more you just observe, just letting whatever emotions or thoughts do whatever they’re going to do, it becomes easier and easier to be aware of. Tastes. You can savor those tastes, some of them reminding you of such wonderful tastes of the past. Others, perhaps something you anticipate tasting, or you can just be in the present. Just notice.

Noticing that more and more, feeling the invitation to notice other sensations, some on the surface, some of them underneath. And as some parts of the body are in movement, others are still adjusting, cycling the way they do as your system and systems are observing, doing things with information or just being all of that perfectly in time with everything else you’re experiencing in this place that feels so good to just be. Thoughts of what to do and where to be can be as present to the side, in front or behind with as much or as little as you choose in this moment. And as you’re letting yourself just observe and feel the just wonderful, eternal present of this place, a gift, I invite you to think, to be aware of a word or a phrase.

That would remind you if you were to see it or hear it or write it or to say it. You could remember how good it feels to be in this place. And when you’re ready and you have a sense of the wonderful connection between this word or phrase and this place. Then just allow yourself to tap yourself. You can use the butterfly hug. You can tap yourself on the legs, on the arms, or anywhere you like. If you want to open your eyes and watch me, you can, but you don’t have to. You can rock from one side to the other. You can tap your shoulders just very slowly while breathing and filling the belly full of air. Thinking of that place and that word or phrase that reminds you of how good it feels to just be, just tapping slowly.

Now we’re going to test if a it a little bit. Let’s try it out. Let’s try out your new technique of safe, calm place. Invite you to think of something that might be just a little bit irritating, maybe on a zero to 10 scale, like a one or a two. Something just maybe something that’s been on your mind is mildly irritating or has you worried a little bit perhaps concerned. Allow yourself to just notice that irritating thing that might be mildly stressful. Just notice it.

And then when you have a good idea of what that looks like, feels then think of that word or phrase that reminds you of that place, or it feels so good to just be and just breathe through it now. When you’re ready, you can come back to your present. I’ll count to five. For those of you who might benefit from that, I. Five each time more aware who you are, where you are, and what’s happening. Four more aware. Feeling, the connections between you and that wonderful, safe, magical, happy place. Three.

Allowing more connections while feeling more and more in the here and now and what’s going on. Two, perhaps feeling refreshed, renewed, experiencing more clarity. Maybe a sense of commitment. One. Welcome.

Carole Freeman: It took me on vacation there. Thank you.

How was that? For those of you listening, viewing. If you feel comfortable, share your word or phrase that came up for you. Maybe a little more details of what your safe, calm place looked like for you.

It’s hard to be worked up and high energy after that.

we go into our It reminds me of the Saturday Night Live skit where they’re doing their NPR skits, where they’re like, and up next . Up next. Randy Webb will be leading us through one more relaxation technique. Oh, we, our viewership just ticked up a little bit. Maybe I should use my soothing, calming hypnotic voice more often on this show. If you enjoy this right now,I

Carole Freeman: actually I recorded quite a few hypnosis recordings when I was doing a lot more of that in my work that I was doing with clients and I really enjoyed it. It was really easy for me to get into that voice and that rhythm. And so maybe I should do more of that.

Randy Webb: Wow. Yeah, you sound great.

You sound great. Like a natural,

Carole Freeman: that’s my radio voice. Yes. It was interesting cuz going through the training, it was 12 hour days. I think it was 10, 10, 10 days straight. I can’t even remember now. 10 days, six days straight, something like that. And it was so easy for me to just get in that it was very intuitive to lead people through that.

And the hypnotic rhythm of how you speak to people and, Your eyes open or closed, whatever is most comfortable to you. It was so easy. And then other people were so stilted with the open eyes or closed, whatever you want to do is fine. And I was like, oh, Oh yeah, that happens. Oh, go ahead. Oh, sorry, Jennifer sharing. So relaxed, my safe, calm place was looking up in the sunny sky through the trees. Oh, sounds like bliss.

Randy Webb: Oh, that’s delightful, Jennifer. That’s great.

Carole Freeman: My, my phrase was beachy bliss. And every time I do this, it’s a little bit different, but this time it was taking me back to a beach.

February of this year, I met my friend down in La Paz, Mexico, and she took us to a beach down there. I don’t even remember what the name of it was, but it was just very few people there, not touristy at all, and just so relaxing, perfect temperature. And we put our chairs halfway out into the. Ocean Bay inlet, I don’t know what it’s technically called there and just sat like literally in the ocean, just enjoying it. So that’s where my safe, calm place was today.

Milton Erickson as Teacher:

Randy Webb: Oh, that’s just a delightful, it reminds me this beautiful story that Milton Erickson told when he was teaching his students. And there are wonderful stories about him doing something like that where he would invite couples to think about where they first met, and you’d hear these stories about them being on this lake at the break of dawn, and this just sun reflected off the water, as if it were a sheet of eyes.

It just that sense of the infinity, of something limited like a lake, but it can seem like it’s infinite. So just a wonderful idea just sitting in the ocean.

Carole Freeman: Did one of the couple remember it like that and the other one was like, no, it was rainy and cold and choppy water. It was the worst thing ever.

The sandwiches were soggy.

Randy Webb: was, it Turns out this one story is kinda like that, where the one person remembered. Oh yeah. It was so still and serene and everything. And the other saying, are you kidding me? I was standing on the, when we first met, I was standing on the side of the lake beating the water with a fishing pole cuz they didn’t wanna be there.

Carole Freeman: You’re like, that’s where the end began

Randy Webb: and there it is. That’s where the end began. .

Carole Freeman: Oh wow. They say there’s they say there’s three sides to every story, but there’s actually probably infinite sides to every story depending on how you’re feeling when you recall it.

Randy Webb: I think that’s very fair that we get reminded.

All these therapies we’re talking about in all these practices turns out the power of memory is quite remarkable. And so the no doubt Carole, in your own clinical work, you’re working with people. Working with families or couples and you get reminded of the power of memory. Different versions of how things happen. We have more evidence than ever that there’s something pretty powerful about memories informing your expression of your strengths and expression, of your qualities, your internal resources, all those beautiful strengths and qualities you may not have known that you had.

And so exercises like these really wonderful to help you remind, remind you of what those are, and give you a chance to resolve those memories that may be related. You’re not feeling like you have much power over your own life, so it’s really wonderful to do these things.

Carole Freeman: So true. All right as wonderful as that was, we do have one more technique that we wanted to present today, which is the EFT or emotional freedom technique.

Tapping Randy, will you give us a little bit of background on that technique,

EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique):

Randy Webb: Absolutely. So a number of really brilliant people had a lot to do with the creation of what is known as thought field therapy. And so Callahan, Roger Callahan, being one of those people, develop what is now known as thought-field therapy.

Thoughtful therapy is an evidence-based practice, actually recognized by the substance abuse mental health services administration at the federal level as an evidence-based practice. EMDR is one of them too. Trauma focused, cognitive behavioral therapies. Another, there are these wonderful trauma therapies, brain spotting and somatic experiencing and thoughtful therapy is really quite interesting because it has a distinction of being the first energy based, evidence based psychotherapy.

And you say energy based, what does that mean? Some of the ideas behind this, If you’ve ever had any exposure to things like traditional Chinese medicine and thinking in terms of meridians and energy centers, or maybe some of you’re interested in Eastern notions about health and balance the chakras, and so maybe you’re interested in that as well. What’s interesting about thoughtful therapy is it spawned a number of practices that are similar. An emotional freedom technique is one of those, and it’s considered one of the original. Thoughtful therapy really is the original tapping solution as it’s sometimes called, and so it’d be a delight to show you a basic protocol that’s very easy to apply to yourself and like butterfly hug and safe, calm place you can help other people learn them.

It’s perfectly safe, especially since the stimulation itself is so slow and designed to help you be mindful, not necessarily designed to drag a lot of stuff up for us to have to resolve use other techniques. So it’s a very safe, this particular protocol or recipe or set of steps, really very safe to use.

But that’s some of the background around it.

Carole Freeman: Wonderful. And then after Randy shows us this next technique, I’m gonna talk about how do you use these, what are applications for helping end emotional eating? So beautiful. Lead us through the absolutely.

Randy Webb: Routine or the recipe. Absolutely. So emotional freedom, technique, the basic recipe consists of four parts and it’s really has, one part has to do with affirmation and it has to do with tapping.

Apply for Help End Emotional Eating

So just to practice, you might think about massaging here, right around your collarbone like we did with the butterfly hook, where the tips of your middle fingers would probably. You can practice this to start with. Just get used to that and make sure that it feels safe and that you’re okay with it.

You’re not making yourself feel worse. We’re not interested in that. We don’t wanna do any harm. And the other place is you can with either hand tap, what’s called a percussion end of your hand is if you were doing a karate chop, you’d be tapping on that edge of your hand. So you can practice either one of those to start with, cuz that’s, we’re gonna use either one of them. You get to use whichever one you want to start with. And here’s how it works. You start with an affirmation that goes like this as you’re tapping or massaging what are called the sore points. You can do either one. I’ll just use the tapping here for right now and the basic protocol, even though I have this, whatever, and you can think about it, you don’t have to.

Make this affirmation, even though I have this concern or problem or this stressful situation or this challenge, it might even be an opportunity. It might be a good thing, but you’re not feeling quite all right about it. So think about that and say this, even though I have this, whatever the concern is, I deeply and completely accept myself just tapping on this.

You can do this one piece as much as you want, even though I have this concern. You can think it or say it, I deeply and completely accept myself. Then repeat that affirmation. You can be thinking it as you’re saying it. I’m gonna show you, and you’ll get to play this over and over again. You’re gonna tap at the edge of your eyebrow.

Could be on either side with either hand. Heck, you can do both of them if you want. Either way is fine thinking that affirmation or saying it, even though I have this concern. Problem or issue, I deeply and completely accept myself. Then what you do, you go to the edge of the eye, right where the bony part of the edge of the eye is making that affirmation.

Again, just tapping. You can five times it’d be fine, but if you wanna tap more, it’s not gonna hurt you. Even though I have this concern, I deeply and completely accept myself, then go to this bony little crease here under your eye socket. Don’t, we’re not asking you to poke your eye just right at the edge of it, at the bottom.

Even though I have this concern, I deeply and completely accept myself. Then here, even though I have this concern, I deeply and completely accept myself and then here, even though I have this concern, I deeply and completely accept myself and then right at the collarbone, even though I have this concern.

I deeply and completely accept myself. And then right over the side, right about here or so for some of you, that’d be where you might have a bra strap, for example. It’d be about that far down or that far up. Even though I have this concern, I deeply in completely accept myself. And then you’re gonna keep doing it with your fingers.

So you start I’m gonna see . It’s funny to do this backwards. It’s fun. You can start the thumb, even though just tapping at the crease where your nail meets the fleshy part of your thumb on the top side. Even though I have this concerned, I deeply and completely accept myself. And then

Carole Freeman: here, can you, that one again on the, oh, on the side.

Randy Webb: on the side at the edge of the nail. Okay. Uhhuh, even though I have this concern, I deeply and completely accept myself at the edge of the nail on your index finger, even though I have this concern. I deeply and completely accept myself and the middle finger. Even though I have this concern, I deeply and completely accept myself.

Skip the ring finger and go to the pinky. Even though I have this concern, I deeply and completely accept myself. And now for the third part, it’s called the gamut point. Here we’re gonna go between the ring finger, this crease down here, between the ring finger and the pinky and tap, right? So just tap that.

Okay. Close your eyes. Open your eyes. Look hard down to the right, to the floor. Continue to tap. Look hard left down to the floor. Okay? So you’re not necessarily af affirming. Roll your eyes in a circle in one direction. Roll your eyes in the opposite direction, all while tapping this point here. Hum. Five seconds of the song

continue tapping. Count from one to five Uno, dos, I’m thinking in Spanish. Uno, dos, tres, quatro,

hum. Five seconds of that song again,

it could be any song.

Carole Freeman: We’re gonna have to pay royalties to Michael Jackson

Randy Webb: Then take a breath

and see how you feel. For those of you who love numbers, maybe on a zero to 10 scale, you think, okay, we’re zero. As I feel neutral, or I don’t feel any disturbance, I feel okay. I feel very centered. Zero all the way up to 10 if you’re still feeling stressful. Repeat, wash, rinse, repeat. You go back to where you were before.

Even back to step one, even though I still have this concern, I deeply and completely accept myself. So as you’re watching this video, again, you can practice, you can go through that cycle, that pro, that protocol, or that routine as many times as you need until it feels like, whew, now I’m centered.

That’s emotional freedom technique, the basic recipe.

Carole Freeman: Okay. I remember reading about this probably in the nineties and being. In a book back before we had the YouTubes that we could look up stuff, how to do it. And I was just like, I was so worried. I was like, I don’t know if it’s here or it’s here, or it’s here or there.

And I was just like, all right, I guess I can’t do this. , how important is it to get the exact right spot?

Randy Webb: No, I don’t think it’s critical. Okay. If you’re doing acupuncture, it’s really important, but if you’re doing this, yeah, probably. Yeah. You don’t have to be perfectionistic yet. .

Carole Freeman: Oh yeah. If you’re doing acupuncture, those people are trained to know the body points.

Exactly. So Shelly sharing that this made made her feel sleepy, I wonder if that means maybe Shelly needs rest.

Polyvagal Theory:

Randy Webb: Shelly. That is such a beautiful insight because Steven POEs, who’s the person credited with the development, what’s called the polyvagal theory, has said, that when your parasympathetic nervous system kicks in, maybe you’ve been getting some clarity, you’re resolving some stuff, and people will oftentimes kinda, they’ll get they’ll describe feeling really sleepy.

And one thing we get with all of these techniques related to, especially certainly related to trauma, is you likely gain a lot of clarity as to what the body is trying to tell you. Beso Vander is right? The body keeps the score, body has the last word, and it starts telling you, Hey, maybe you need some rest, maybe you need something.

Maybe you’re thirsty. Maybe you’re not getting proper nutrition. So oh yeah, you’ll get lots of clarity doing these things.

Carole Freeman: And whatever phrase I’m guessing comes up for you, you can use any kind of alternate affirmation. Correct. You don’t have to say that specific thing.

Randy Webb: Oh, no. You don’t have to. In fact any affirmation is really powerful.

It could be, I’m gaining clarity, I’m expressing self-love. Little by little. I feel a greater sense of my power. More and more I honor my body. I will give my body who it needs, and oh, absolutely. Your affirmation could be anything you need.

Carole Freeman: Yeah. I am a worthy person.

Randy Webb: I’m a worthy person. I deserve love.

I can give myself happiness. Oh yeah.

Carole Freeman: Absolutely. Shelly says, cool with three exclamation points. I think with three. That’s excellent. Awesome. Permission to sleep granted Shelly . Oh. And so you talked about that being a what’s the phrase that’s valid, considered research, not research based.

Forgot the phrase, evidence based. It’s practice. Evidence based practice. So can you talk a little bit about, cuz you said it was an energy field technique. How much of it is, energy? Woo. Chinese medicine to some people seems like it’s woo even though it’s been around for I don’t know how many million years.

How much. It’s something they validated as energy field versus just a distraction technique. And even if it’s just a distraction technique and it works, that’s great. Do you have information to share about that? Is it all placebo?  there something more to the specific points that we’re tapping?

Randy Webb: It’s a really good point. It is interesting. It looks like one factor is what does the person who’s practicing believe about it. So if you have a sense that is helping you notice the energy in your body or you’re noticing your own sensations and what emotions go with them, or you have a sense that.

It’s mainly distraction or if you have a sense that maybe what’s making this whole thing work so well is you concentrating really well or giving yourself a pause. There’s so many different pieces to it. And in fairness to SAMSA, the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration and their National Registry of Evidence Based Programs and practices, when they were researching these things, they were really looking at outcomes, maybe more about the outcomes than the process itself.

And you say why is that important? Because even though it was the first energy methodology that was considered evidence based by that research group Maybe for them it’s not necessarily so important as to whether a person even believes in all of that or those potential associations they make.

It’s more like some sort of eastern way of healing, but it seemed to get really good outcomes and as it is with a number of other practices we see is that some of these things, frankly, like even with EMDR therapy, we have a set, it’s a very robust, very strong evidence based practice with 35, 34, 35 random controlled trials showing that it’s very effective and yet the model of it, the adaptive information processing model really is a number of hypotheses.

It’s kinda like you’re nervous system, even the neuro sequential. That Bruce Perry talks about. Incredibly beautiful model, but it’s a model. And so I think that’s a really great point, and it really of comes down to, is it working for you? , and you may or may not say, oh, that seems really woo to me.

Okay, whatever. That doesn’t really fit my worldview. But if you find that the practice is helping you get the results you want, then you get to be the final judge as to how much of the model or the philosophy behind it really matters to you. Is it really working for you? Ultimately I think would be fair to a lot of people.

Carole Freeman: It reminds me of an answer one of my professors gave me when I was getting my psychology degree, where I said how exactly does this work? Like, how does it help people get better? And he says yeah that’s a really good question. There you go. And that was his answer.

Randy Webb: it’s two things come to mind, Carole.

One of them is if all of you, and maybe some of you have familiarity with this, and this is not to, I’m not trying to play a physician anyway. I’m not trying to be a psychiatrist. I’m just saying if you look in the physician’s desk reference, if you look in there and you look at the explanation of the mechanisms of how any number of very commonly prescribed medications work, you are going to oftentimes find the following phrase, Carole knows this as well as anybody is you’re gonna find the following phrase used a lot.

The mechanism by which this particular molecule or substance or medication works is not well known.

Carole Freeman: yeah. You’re gonna find a lot of that. That’s such a great point, right? If most of the medications were prescribed, we don’t know how they work. Why do we need to know why these other techniques work either?

Randy Webb: Yeah. It’s something to remember. We have a, your nervous system and everything connected to it is far more complex than even our best models. They’re informed by a lot of data, a lot of tendencies and a lot of statistics. And there are going to be times when something looks like it should work for you and it doesn’t seem to work like the way you intended to, and you get side effects.

And there are other things that don’t. You would say we don’t really quite know why that’s working so well, . So you get to be, you get to be informed and you get to be a decider of what’s going to work for you, what’s gonna, so it may be a little solace, but we know there’s a lot to that.

Carole Freeman: Yeah.

Wonderful. And as promised, now I’m gonna talk about how do, that’s all great and wonderful, but how do we actually use these, integrate these into, reducing or eliminating emotional eating and so I lump emotional and stress eating. They’re the same category. So basically it’s like something comes up that gives us an urge to eat.

To soothe ourselves for a reason other than hunger. So stress eating falls in this category. Emotional eating falls in this category. And couple of very quick things come to my mind is one is that you could just integrate one of these, all three of them, whatever, your choice just daily as a way of calming your nervous system, relaxing yourself, center your.

and just overall calming. It doesn’t have to be in conjunction with an urge or anything like that. So it can just be something you do as soon as you wake up or right before you fall asleep. Or one of the best things to try to develop a new habit is something called habit stacking. And so add it onto something else you already do every day. So perhaps you do it. Maybe you do the safe, magical place while you’re brushing your teeth. Maybe you do the butterfly hug while your coffee is brewing.

Doing it while you’re doing something else. That can be one application to this. Another application can be when you’ve got an urge to eat, to calm or soothe yourself. Eating in any eating something that is not out of. Hunger choose one of these to do in that moment. On demand and, promise yourself I will just do one of these for one minute. If I still have the urge to eat that thing, I still can afterwards, but I’m going to choose to do this first.

That’s another application of it. Those are some quick little easy ideas. Randy, do you have any other ideas about how these may come into something, how they can be used as needed to reduce the urge to self? What’d you call it? Self-regulate?

Randy Webb: Self-regulate, self-medicate. Yeah. Absolutely.

And the thanks you mentioned Carole, are wonderful because to the extent that you can make them habitual and make ’em where they’re less intrusive. So that’s just a beautiful way to think about it is maybe you get into the habit, you’ll hear dentist say, get in the habit while watching tv.

You’re flossing yourself or whatever, right? You’re flossing your teeth. You could certainly do that. I’ve heard folks do things like that where they’re making it, where maybe they’re standing in line at a grocery store or something, and they don’t wanna be standing there doing this. Maybe they, it doesn’t feel safe to them, but maybe they’re just rocking back and forth a little bit, or standing a little bit on one foot and then a little bit on another that you can be doing in between so many other things that you can be doing, like you’re saying, Carole, and that way it of feels less intrusive and you get some of the really positive effects of that bilateral stimulation.

You, you’re getting some of the effects of that tapping and the affirmations and by themselves are just delightful. So in those times when you might. In fact, I’ve heard people say, even while taking a shower, for example, they’ll go into a safe, magical place while taking a shower. And imagine it’s a little bit like a light string technique that we use in clinical hypnosis, right Carole?

So you might think of the light, feels like it’s the water coming and is coming through the top of your head. And as it works its way down like a spiral, pushing out any unwanted energies and stress that you don’t want to feel and that you’re feeling it pushing and moving it as the water slides down the body all through and out the pores at the tips of your fingers, down through the tips of your feet, through the toes and into the drain, or through the walls and into the trees where it can be purified.

Anything like that and it, you might do that for a minute. And you really get a lot of that beautiful fact we’re talking about of that mindfulness and getting your prefrontal cortex open for business.

EMDR:

Carole Freeman: Ooh, open for business. Shelly’s asking, I have a question regarding EMDR . Can it help people with overeating?

So first, for people who don’t know what EMDR was, you explained that part and then please answer Shelly’s question after that. Absolutely.

Randy Webb: So Francine Shapiro was a psychologist who had been diagnosed with breast cancer in the late eighties. And one day while she was walking in a park in San Francisco, she just happened to notice that her eyes were going back and forth.

And as she did that, her anxiety went down. That led to all kinds of discoveries and research with all kinds of people who had really bad things happen to them. And in research, which she found out. Is that if she could get people to move their eyes and then later tapping or later hearing alternating sound, but some kind of bilateral stimulation as they were accessing memories of suffering, not necessarily major trauma, not necessarily really nasty things we think about that happen to people, but maybe long ongoing stress or unsatisfactory relationships are not feeling very good attachment.

So over the course of her research, she found out that if in a safe, respectful, centered environment, you have a place where you can tell your truth, tell your story, access the memories where you suffered, not necessarily like hurricanes and tsunami. Or massive experiences of abuse or neglect, but maybe ongoing stressors too.

And once they identify the memories, what the therapist does in that safe, respectful environment, access the memories and apply the, it’s just like second nature to apply this, asking you to move your eyes to follow my hand, but some form or multiple forms of that kind of stimulation.

And they found, just like Francine Shapiro saw in herself, the influence of those memories of suffering go down and the symptoms go with them. For those of us, like Carole and I, who are trained in clinical hypnosis, there’s a lot about EMDR therapy that for us, feels like hypnosis, right? There’s a lot to it that’s involved focusing and re and recalling memory.

So can it help people with overeating Actually, very much and it’s very well indicated for many conditions. Including anxiety and depression and addictions and difficulty with relationships. Cause according to the system, the theory behind the EMDR therapy, the therapist would be treating your memories so to help you with whatever.

So the memories according to that system, that model are informing your overeating. It’s the overeating is just the manifestation of it. It’s the memories that didn’t get resolved according to that system that are informing the symptom of overeating and on all kinds of other potential things. So to, so how’s that for a long answer to a question?

You better believe it can. absolutely. And I could have just said that to begin with.

Carole Freeman: Oh no, that was perfect. Cuz there are gonna be people watching or listening that have no idea what EMDR is.

Randy Webb: Eye Movement desensitization and reprocessing.

Carole Freeman: All right. We covered our three techniques. We covered applications of how you can use these to and reduce, eliminate emotional eating or stress eating or eating for any reason other than for true hunger or nutrient needs.

And Randy, was there anything else that you were hoping I would ask about or that you would like to share?

Randy Webb: If you’re interested in, there’s so much of this, but I would certainly recommend that you watch this podcast over and over again, to practice the techniques. And if you have an interest in any of these really beautiful approaches too you can reach out to Carole and I can share some resources.

And but yeah, you might start by watching this thing and getting real, make it second nature. Make it your habit to, to practice these.

Carole Freeman: Yeah, like I said earlier in this episode is book bookmark This. Put this on your calendar a week from now or maybe tomorrow. Put a link to this, whether that’s audio episode you’re listening to or on YouTube or Facebook.

Just literally copy the link, put it in your calendar, put it a reminder, later tonight, tomorrow, next week, wherever you feel like is when you’re gonna forget about it. And then when it pops up, you’ll have the link here to go back and listen again. Because this is something that you will likely want to use again.

So Shelly says, this was amazing. Thank you both so much. I’m so glad you were here, Shelly. That was wonderful. I’m glad you got a lot out of it. And alright and then when you listen again, come back in the comments and tell us that you’re here again, listening and how much more insights and calm that you have too.

This is a toolbox for you. You’ve got three tools now that you can use at will and to. Help you feel better in all kinds of ways.

Again, help me thank Randy for being here. Our our I closed up my, my notes on my iPad was the battery was dying, so I had to close it up. So I’m like, what did I say? Wonderful qualified psychotherapist and trainer.

Thank you so much for being here. If you’ve enjoyed this video on , if you are somebody who’s not already one of my clients, I encourage you to where’s my banners at? Oh. It should open here. All right, there we go. . If you are looking for some more help, if you are somebody who’s struggling to achieve sustainable weight loss, you’re trying to follow keto long term especially if you’re a woman 40 plus and you’ve tried all the diets and this is something that you’re interested in reach out.

Check out my website, KetoCarole.com. I do currently we’ve been offering some guest spots, so if you’re somebody who’s been considering getting a keto coach to get your success and be able to have long term success check out my website. Send us an email as well. At. Here it is here, Support@KetoCarole.com, and I’ll open up a guest spot on one of my coaching calls so you can actually experience what it’s like to be one of my clients.

And you can see then for sure if it’s gonna be a match for you. Jennifer’s given us the clappy hands. So glad you were here to thank you everyone for watching. And definitely my energy on this one is normally I’m like, ah, and I’m like, thank you all for being here today, to this episode of Keto Chat Live.

We look forward to having you again soon. Come back. If you enjoyed this video on how to end emotional eating, give me a thumbs up. If you’re on YouTube, subscribe, hit that notification so you can get all the notifications. We do this pretty much every week, and we’ve got a whole catalog of episodes. This is episode number 55. I know Jennifer’s watched and listened to all of them, but if you haven’t, go back and listen to the rest of us.

Let me know which one’s your favorite. And again, thank you Randy, for being here. The delight. That’s all for now, folks. We’ll see you next time. Bye now. Thank you.

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