Welcome to Conquering Chaos a mom's guide to self-care and sanity . I'm your host , Sydney Crow , and today we have the amazing Maria Yakimchak from the Chicago area , who is a therapist and a coach who specializes in EFT tapping . So welcome , Maria . Hi Sydney , Thank you for having me . I am so glad that you could make it on today . Why don't we just kick things straight off and fill the listeners in on maybe what EFT tapping is and how you got specialized into that ?
Speaker 2Yeah . So for anyone who hasn't heard of EFT tapping and honestly , until I started doing it two and a half years ago , I haven't either that much . It stands for emotional freedom technique , and the reason why it's called tapping is because that's what you're doing Tapping on a few points on your nervous system that are basically concentrated mainly around your head and upper body . And sometimes I'm kind of , when I do individual sessions , I bring in some finger points , so they're acupressure points really . So all the acupressure points are lying on our nervous system . So this is just a select you know nine to you know 20 , if you bring in the the finger points and points that really have some of the most direct correlation with our emotions . And so when we tap on those points , we are essentially sending electromagnetic signals to our nervous system , bringing it online , and then we start kind of using a little bit of CBT , which cognitive behavioral therapy in there , or , you know , nlp , for like coaches , which are very similar . It's basically where we talk about the problem and I'm also bringing the positive reframe . So that's really the basis of EFT is that we're allowing ourselves or our clients to talk about the problem in a very safe way , so the nervous system can essentially re-experience an event that was either traumatic or distressing or negative in any way or form , experience it in a safe , validating environment and be able to basically integrate that memory into our memory bank and then basically move on with our life as if you know , yeah , this was a bad event , but I'm okay now versus oh , I'm completely just stuck in it .
Speaker 2So EFT is great for a host of mental health issues . I use it both in my coaching practice and as a therapist . I work with heavy trauma as a therapist . With it as a coach as well , I've done some trauma cases . I work with anxiety on it , depression and then , you know , limiting beliefs are a really big one , and limiting beliefs can be about anything . So I used it on myself for , kind of when I started out my business and you know as I then covered other doors , so it's really widespread . You can also use it on physical issues . It's an amazing tool that's at your fingertips , which is what I really love about it .
Speaker 1Oh that sounds really cool , so explain to me just as if I like break it down even further , as , if you know , this is my first time hearing about it . Is this something that , as a therapist , your , your like hands are on the person and it's like a physical transformation ? Or is this something that you train people to do on themselves ?
Speaker 2Yeah , so it's a do it yourself therapy . It's follow the leader style . So basically a lot of my all my coaching clients are virtual . So it really is , you're working on yourself . Even when the therapist office , like my clients , are doing it on themselves , I show them kind of the points where to go and they just follow me . I'm the one coming up with kind of what to say and then they , kind of the end of our tapping round , tell me whether it resonated or not . So you know , I do my kind of detective therapy , of like thinking what's really underneath there , and that's where , you know , my opinion , kind of like unbiased perspective , comes in right To help my clients understand what might be the root cause that they're not seeing , and then we tap through it . They just follow me .
Speaker 2So it's something that you know , you learn , and then you can do it on yourself . And again , it's super versatile in the sense that it could be done for this really heavy lifting work as a healing work , but it can also be used as a self care practice . So I often do it myself , just , you know , five , 10 minutes a day . If I have time in the morning when I'm showering , I might do a couple of rounds and then I tried to do a few rounds before I go to sleep , especially some things on my mind , and then , you know , also as an emergency thing , if you know , maybe I had a bad day , maybe I had some sort of a fight with my children or with my husband and I'm really feeling this regulated . I will sit there and give myself 10 minutes and tap on myself and try to kind of get through whatever's coming up for me .
Speaker 1Oh , that sounds like such a powerful tool . I'm so glad that you're able to come on and and and lighten the listeners a little bit . How many sessions would you say the average one of your clients has to go through before they start seeing results ?
Speaker 2So it really depends no-transcript . I recommend at least three sessions , especially for heavier issues . I mean , I've had clients that have had a breakthrough in like a session or a session and a half . That's not necessarily typical . It really depends on what we're working on , how ready they are , how quickly we got to the root of it , because sometimes part of our healing is that we're not ready to get to the root and so it's gonna take much longer . So I always recommend doing at least a few sessions before you knock it and say it's not working because it is working .
Speaker 2It's just , you know , might be very subtle in the beginning , like , for example , for me when I started doing it .
Speaker 2It took me a while to start truly feeling results . Like I definitely started feeling like little shifts , you know , here and there you know some yawn , some like releases , where it's like , okay , I feel a little bit lighter , like my nervous system is kind of trying to let go , but I was pretty guarded . So it took a while before I got to the deep releases . When I've seen that in my clients , the clients were completely unprepared to release . It takes us a while to even get like a yawn or a tear or anything . And then people who have done kind of work with whether it's energy healing that they've done or they've done somatic work on themselves . When we do an EFT session I can go so deep into it with them in an hour and give such potent releases that but that's because they're prepared . They've done this work already , so their body's really ready . So and I've noticed that about myself after practicing for two and a half years I need much shorter sessions with myself to release than I would have when I started .
Speaker 1That's yeah . I mean , when you're dealing with layers of your nervous system , it's almost like peeling back the layers of an onion , right ? So if you haven't , if you're just cracking open like those paper layers of the onion , it takes a while to get down to the center . And that's the same that I've noticed with a lot of like mental wellness therapy and things like that that I've worked on with my clients . So you said that you started this through your own journey . Why don't we fill the listeners in on kind of what you've overcome and share a bit more of your personal story and how that relates now into your current motherhood ?
Speaker 2Yeah , absolutely so . Yeah , I kind of came across EFT when I feel like I was sort of in my moment of desperation . And I have two boys One is gonna be eight in a few months and the other one just turned five recently and with my first one I started developing postpartum depression better name for his perinatal depression in my pregnancy . Didn't know about it , didn't realize it , just kind of realized that I was super excited in the beginning and then as I hit kind of like I'm gonna say it was early second trimester , maybe middle second trimester my excitement went down and I was really tearful and sad and not really looking forward to it at all . And that was almost nine years ago . While we were kind of talking about this , I was with a midwife practice . Nobody was really screening for it that much in pregnancy , so it wasn't caught .
It then followed up by a traumatic birth that ended up being with sort of emergency , non-emergency C-section . I started out at the birthing center . Didn't progress . Turned out that somehow there was just enough water left in my belly for for my son to turn breach while we were in labor instead of just sending down . So after the hospital we went . So it went from me wanting to have a natural birth . To me having a C-section in the hospital with staff that I've never met , had no contact with at all .
Speaker 2So that registered in my body is very traumatic . I didn't really bond with him because of that , because I was on heavy pain medication . Then we had really terrible breastfeeding issues . It was just like a snowball . I just wouldn't end and so I ended up with my postpartum depression becoming really severe , having postpartum anxiety that I didn't even realize because I was having a lot of physical symptoms , like I would sit down to breastfeed him and all of a sudden my heart rate would just jump up and I would have these flutters and I would get nauseous and I would have all of this . And again , I'm a therapist .
Speaker 2I kind of knew about my like you know , maternal mental health then to be like okay , I would probably be able to identify postpartum depression somebody else . But when it came to me I was denying it always showed up as like the perfect patient who's fine kind of got it in my head that like well , motherhood is just this hard , like you need to man up and stop complaining about this , because that was sort of the message I always received growing up is that you're too sensitive . You know everybody else has a harder like basically man up right . So you know all my trauma came to the surface and , you know , fed into my depression and you know , I never really came out of it . It got a little less . I got pregnant with my second unexpectedly . So it started to come out of the depression . Then I got pregnant . Pregnancy was difficult physically . He was a really big boy . I'm a little person , only five too , so he really didn't number on me physically . And then he was also one of those kids who didn't sleep . So for about half a year my husband and I slept every other day because he partied at night . So you know , again my depression came back . And then it was like you know me , with a younger total . We were in kind of like a preschooler and we were , you know , a COVID hit right . So there's just like things happening and happening and I just couldn't come out of depression . I just kept feeling like , you know , there's this cloud over me , like motherhood's going to be terrible forever . I'm always going to be sad . Nothing's going to ever change . We moved to Chicago . We lived in Charlotte at the time , then we moved to the Chicago area about two years ago and you know , move stress .
Speaker 2What I'm finding is I've had IBS since I was 18 . My IBS flared up so badly it couldn't eat anything . So here I am with depression , with depressive symptoms , you didn't know with us moving in a new place , with me being the one taking care of the kids . Because we moved , because of my husband's job , I can't eat anything . My migraines went through the roof after my second . They became chronic . So 20 days at least out of the month I'm in pain , sometimes debilitating so , and I started having PMDD after my second son . So like , just terrible , I just thought .
Speaker 1I never stopped .
Speaker 2Right , she's horrible . I'm like I don't know what to do with this . Even one , two therapists no , I wasn't really helping . I , you know talked to my OB . They especially for PMDD . They had nothing except birth control and I was like I'm never going back on that again . No , thank you , like I need something .
Speaker 2And then I saw the EFT pop through . I think I was researching some sort of CEUs for therapy and it popped through . And then obviously you know , google knows , and so started getting ads . I got this school advertised to me and I was like you know what ? They're having a sale , I'm gonna , I'm gonna do it . You know , I don't know what else to do . So this is like I can heal myself and if it works , I can heal others . Great , so I signed up and I started doing it and it was .
Speaker 2It was interesting because it was hard . I really started peeling the layers back . I did a lot of work on my own . We did a lot of work where we exchange sessions with other students . So I worked with other people helping me and it was a long process before I truly felt like it was cracking , like probably took a good six months before it felt like , oh , the veil is lifting completely and I can actually see colors , I can be happy and joyful and , oh look , my PMDD symptoms are completely gone .
Speaker 2My migraines went back to just being episodic , like , okay , I still get about five or six a month , but that was normal for me since I was 13 .
Speaker 2Right , so , like , things have been rebalancing and I've been working on myself ever since I worked with you know , continuing by myself , worked with other students and practitioners to keep like digging at those layers of like well , what am I not seeing ? What else is sitting under there ? And just continuing to do that work . And the more I've been doing it , the more I've just lifted so much trauma off of myself , just feeling so much better , so much happier and kind of more balanced as a mom . Because my depression was really tough and I was one of those women who had the rage as one of my biggest symptoms , so that was not pretty for anybody . So not to say that I don't get angry and I don't have a short fuse Still I do , I'm still working on it , but in comparison to where I was , I am a thousand times better . So that's why I'm so passionate about and so passionate about sharing it with other moms as well .
Speaker 1Well , I mean the last what eight years have been such an up and down journey for you . I mean I'm so grateful that you were able to find something , to find some relief , and now you're impacting other moms . I mean , I can completely relate to that . I had postpartum anxiety myself and one of my symptoms was rage , and you know it . Just the guilt and the shame that came around after those episodes was so debilitating for me Because I knew that my kids deserve better and I knew that I wanted to be better for them and so being able to find holistic supports and therapies you know , that's part of the whole .
Speaker 1Reason why I started this podcast is because I just want to start bringing these conversations to the forefront , to bring awareness and to help moms not feel so alone , because I mean , you were on that journey for a really long time , feeling alone , feeling like something was wrong with you , feeling like you know it was just never going to get better . And so when you find those tools and we find these ways that we can help other moms and make them not feel so alone and eliminate that mum guilt and that shame around it , I mean that's what this is all about . So I'm so grateful that you were able to come on today . If you had one piece of advice to the mums out there , what would that be ?
Speaker 2Oh , I think my advice would be do ask for help . I know there's still a lot of stigma and fear , but no one's going to take your baby away because you have postpartum depression or anxiety . You know I can speak as you know . A therapeutic professional Like I would never , ever recommend that for my moms , right , Like because you are the best mom for your baby . Just because you're struggling does not mean that you made the wrong choice by becoming a mom . Just means you need help , and a lot of us do so . Don't be scared to reach out . Don't be scared to find the right professional . They are out there . There's a lot of people specializing in maternal , perinatal , mental health that are getting specifically trained to help moms who are struggling . So , yeah , please reach out for help .
I think that's beautiful . Almost made me choke up a bit because , yeah , I mean , when I was in the thick of it I really did feel , if I was honest about where I was at , you know , somebody was going to come and take my kids away . Like I can't say these words out loud , I will just suffer in silence , and when I go to the doctors I'm going to put on my brave face because if I actually say what's really going on , like somebody is going to say I'm an unfit mom . So thank you so much for sharing that beautiful advice and thank you so much for being on here today and for you guys tuning in . Thank you for listening to today's episode where we help you conquer the chaos one day at a time . Thank you .