ALS: To The Moon and Back — Episode 19

This week, Portia and I sit down with Steve Fearnley to talk about EFT, or tapping. Now, if you're picturing someone gently thumping themselves on the forehead while chanting "I'm calm, I'm calm, I'm calm"—you're not alone. I went into this conversation with plenty of questions myself. But as Steve explains the science, the nervous system response, and why so many people find it helpful, what initially sounds a bit quirky starts to make a lot more sense.

As often happens on this podcast, we wandered into territory none of us expected. One of the more fascinating discussions was around resilience, coping styles and why women may sometimes adapt differently to a diagnosis like ALS. We talked about feminism, emotional expression, social support networks and whether women have spent generations developing skills that help them navigate uncertainty, vulnerability and change. It's not that women have it easier—far from it—but perhaps some of the strengths developed through life's challenges become valuable tools when facing something as life-altering as ALS.

Of course, it wouldn't be To The Moon and Back without a few laughs along the way. We explore stress, fear, emotional overwhelm, tapping, relationships, and the strange and wonderful ways humans try to make sense of difficult situations. There are moments that are thought-provoking, moments that are surprisingly funny, and probably at least one point where Portia wonders how on earth we've ended up discussing feminism when we started with EFT. That's fairly standard for us these days.

🎙️ Whether you're curious about tapping, interested in the science of stress, navigating a chronic illness, or simply enjoy listening to three people follow a conversation wherever it leads, we'd love you to join us. Have a listen and let us know what resonates. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:14

Welcome to ALS to the Men and Back. I'm Lisa Wright, and my dear friend Portia Turbo joins me each week, and we actually trying to do one each week. We'll see how we go. We try and be honest, very ridiculous on a regular basis, and it's a conversation about living with ALS. But we also end up talking about travel, art, perfume. We also talk about ALS again, the treatments, the timelines, the science, the humour that keeps us sane. We talk about what's hard, what helps, and how to keep living fully in the middle of it all. So if you're joining it, please subscribe, share, and leave us a review. If you really hate it, that's okay. Just pretend you never heard of us. Thank you. Here we go.

SPEAKER_03 1:04

No, no, no. He doesn't hate oh, you've started. Hi everyone.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Hi, Pressure.

SPEAKER_03 1:11

Hi, everybody. We have something really exciting today, Lisa.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

Yeah, we do.

SPEAKER_03 1:19

We have the man in today that will tap your troubles away. Today we're introducing Steve Fernley. How do you say it, Steve?

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Is that right? Yeah, um, yeah, Fernley, just Fernley, just you know, put the Australian. Look, it's it's spelt fair Fernley, but uh yeah, we sort of compress it to Fernley. Yeah. Sure. Or Fernno. Ferno is my other name I get a lot of forget it.

SPEAKER_03 1:50

Welcome to Australia. Yeah, um, so we're really excited to have you in today because we've talked about you good, we've talked about you a lot. And there's so much, there's so many questions in my brain. Um, yeah. So firstly, there's a lot of people who are completely new to EFT. Now, first of all, you have to tell me what EFT stands for. Can you explain what tapping actually is and what happening to the b what is happening to the body when we do it, please?

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Oh well, that's a great question. Okay, let me jump in. Let me see what see it see whether I uh have actually retained anything. But but um yeah, uh EFT stands for emotional freedom techniques. Now it's a bit of a clunky name. Um and it's you know, when I first came across emotional freedom techniques, I thought, no, I'm running away from this. It's it needs better branding.

SPEAKER_03 2:58

Sure. That may that I can hear that.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Yep. But um, look, it started ages ago, 30 years ago, even 50 years ago, um, in terms of the history, you know, please don't quote me, but um it was working with um acupressure points um and you know, talk therapy, basically. So, you know, using acupressure points, say, on uh on your face, which we use a lot of. Um Lisa and I have been tapping away, I don't know how many sessions we've had to date. I haven't kept count, Lisa. But um the acupressure points, which they've now discovered from Korea, that uh you know that when you go to the um acupuncturist, you get um you see those charts of all the the body with all the red and the blue electrical circuitry.

SPEAKER_04 3:52

Oh the marine.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

Um all of that, yeah, that's actually there. They've they've proven that. And that um piezoelectric system, which they stimulate with needles in acupussia, acupuncture, uh, is a collagen system. And yeah, and it runs all the way through the body and all the way through the fascia. And so when we the fascia is this layer of I don't know, muscle, it's not muscle, it's like a it's like a wrapping. Lisa, how would you connective tissue? Is that what connective tissue?

SPEAKER_02 4:32

Whenever you've been to the doctor and you see those muscle charts, and the bit that goes into the white is often fascia. So yeah, yeah, they've covered um a couple of other things recently too, like the lymphatic system, which is actually a lymph system purely draining your brain. Like where this stuff's coming up all the time.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Huge amounts of research, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:02

Yeah, massive. And um, so this is a network that goes throughout the whole body.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

Yeah, it's a whole whole body system. So when you're tapping on something, you're sending piezoelectric signals. You know, your acupuncturist will put a needle in. Um, we found that um with EFT you don't need to put neat, we don't use needles, we just tap on the on those points. Um, and also, you know, talk while we're going there. So it's while we're you know, we're working on what you know um what you might be feeling, what's what's current. My you know, my job as with EFT is simply to locate triggers. A lot of people come to me and say, Well, I've actually got a trigger, I just went, you know, I just lost my mind over something, or you know, the the lady at the shop again drove me mad.

SPEAKER_04 5:54

You know.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

So my job with EFT um and working with Lisa is simply just to downregulate your triggers. That's that's that's why where I'm coming in to the party here. Yeah. What okay.

SPEAKER_03 6:13

So all your triggers. So someone says a phrase that makes you want to throat punch them, suddenly you'll be able to go, I don't care about that.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

Yeah, yeah. After after a session or two, um, you can, you know, and it depends whether it's a trigger that's been passed on from generation to generation, family stuff. That's usually really easy to clear. Uh, and if you've had an experience, you know, to say you've, you know, um, you know, you say you got bitten by a dog, um, you might have unreasonable fear about dogs, and you probably don't even know. And and and as you're tapping, we will work on points and talk. Um, we'll say, you know, we'll start off with an opening statement, which is even though I have this reaction to dogs, um, I'm still here to, you know, I'm still turning up to find out what it's all about. And as you're tapping on points on the face, you're we're working on the frontal lobe of the body, getting away from the back where the amygdala is. Um, the amygdala is probably where you've stored the memory of the of the trauma of a dog bite. Uh, but because we're processing it in the front of the head, um, the frontal part of the body, it's in, you know, it's actually very it's a very conscious process. And you get to downregulate, you might get a number, you know, we'll we might rate how intense is that dog bite. You might go, well, it's 10 out of 10, you know. And as we're tapping, we we walk through, we we tap through it, we talk through it. And after a few rounds, you might go, well, actually, it's actually feeling more like a five out of ten now. Oh my god, where did that go? I don't even feel and suddenly it can drop away. And you know, I will test that down the track and say, you know, um, you know, how's that memory of the dog? Uh, and I'll go, actually, there's nothing there. No, I feel like I can go and pat a dog. I mean, really, this it's that it's it's that's basically the essence of it. Has that been your experience, Lisa?

SPEAKER_02 8:24

It has. And like, well, as we've talked about a lot in these podcasts, um, the car accident was massive and it completely changed our lives. It um I actually think it could well be the origin of ILS, my journey with it. Um and that is basically something like I just to put it in perspective, the first was probably two to three years after the accident, I almost felt like I had like a Disney curse to tell people the story. And I would go into situations where I would be like, I'm not gonna tell the story, I'm sick of telling the story, but then the story would be coming out, and um how we worked on that is we went through it and then we set up like the car accident somewhere outside of my body as well. So carrying that around was no longer something that I was burdened with, and when I think about where that car accident is out in Steve's panic, it's not really there, you know, like but it was so vivid when I did it, I was able to get it out of my head, put it over there, and deal with it at some point. But through the tapping sessions, even that memory is sitting out there almost like a faint shadow of itself, and it sounds so so like it makes so much sense to me, but I have to admit I was very questioning at the time. But as I I've done a lot of CBT over the years, and I CBT uh was cognitive behavior therapy, and it's almost like talking your story over and over, and I'm sure there's people that have benefited from it. For me, it felt re-traumatizing, just like talking about it. I don't want to talk about that shit, I just want it behind me, you know.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

Yeah, and and and yeah, and the tapping, but the tapping processes, the you know, so you're not re-traumatizing yourself, yeah, you know, when you're mentioning it. That's the whole idea. And tapping users, you know, conventional psycho psychological processes, you know, they they're they're always looking out for, you know, have you just dissociated? You know, of course you don't want to talk about something. Or I remember going to a a psychologist years ago, and he said, you know, I mentioned something and I laughed, you know. And he said, but that why did you laugh around something that was upsetting? Uh and you know, they're going, oh, you just dissociated, you know, you need to come back in on that. And um uh but with tapping, we use dissociation on purpose, Portia. We um we fly in the face of that, of that, which is the we're humans are really good at dissociative states. We like we we like to you know get out of it, we like to not have to feel things, we like to, you know, um let's use that mechanism. We use that incredible human mechanism. So with the car crash, um, you know, it was a very gentle process. We've you know, we've been we were sort of working on it over a few sessions, but we would put the memory, just get you know, got got Lisa to imagine that the the actual car itself, the crash, the whole thing is kind of over that hill. You can't even see it, you know it's over the hill outside of your body, over there somewhere, right? And so we're dissociating of on purpose here and and then down regulating the um the the sh the the response to that. So you we'll get it down to it from a 10, down to a five, down to a four, suddenly be like two or or zero. And we'll go, hey, you know, I'll mention the car accident or an or a component of that, or an aspect of that. Um and aspects is also another important thing we do. You know, what did it sound like, um, you know, smell like uh if it if it had a shape, you know, even if it's a feeling you can't actually, you know, or work out what something is, we will abstract it. We'll say, yeah, it's a shape, it's a smell, it's a taste, it's you try and get as many components, feel how active or intense that is, bring that intensity down through the through the tapping process, and then you find you're not being triggered. And you're then you're not you're when you remember the event, it's not wiping your mind or anything. Um, but when you you remember it, but you're not suddenly flooding your whole body with cortisol stress hormones, you know.

SPEAKER_02 13:52

So you're actually retrace so sorry, sorry, Lisa goes to I often find myself getting to that point and I have a massive, almost involuntary in breath or a big yawn. And then you just feel the attention dissipate. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 14:11

Wow. So two things here. Steve, it sounds like you are retraining your body to deal with uh events and your physiologically your physiological response to Raya adventure. Yes, exactly. And Lisa, did you ever watch that movie Waiting to Exhale?

SPEAKER_02 14:38

Oh, ages ago. I should watch it again.

SPEAKER_03 14:41

Yeah, the whole story about that moment when you're in someone's arms and you can just is that kind of the same thing?

SPEAKER_02 14:49

Yeah, it is, it really is. And like very early on in my diagnosis, I was talking to Anthea and Rayner and um Anthea DeSilva artist as he's our favourite artist. And uh I just made the comment that uh like uh as feminists we uh like to be able to like my wave of feminists, like we're all pushing 60 to 80, and we uh often feel we have to uh validate why we're feminist by uh hacking back to trauma that made us feminists rather than just being feminists. And if you've got women around you in my age group, ask them and they'll be able to relate to that. It's not enough to just be a feminist, you have to carry this suitcase of shit around that you drag out about the time you're assaulted in a car park or something like that. And I said to Anthony Rayner, I just want to be able to look back on my life without experiencing the trauma of it every time I remember. It's enough to just remember why we are who we are without experiencing the physical stress and pain every single time. I like part of what I'm going through now, I actually think comes down to how much shit can you let go of?

SPEAKER_04 16:23

Really?

SPEAKER_02 16:24

How much can you let go of? And you know, there's days where I think, are you are we ever done? Like, are we ever truly done? But um, I feel like we've definitely made a dint in it, Steve, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

Yeah, yeah, I think so too. Um, because you will you will mention the car accident again, which was horrendous, you know. It like um, you know, and I can say it's horrendous to you now. Are you are you going, are you feeling like ah no?

SPEAKER_02 16:55

If you would have said it six months ago, I would have remembered being in that car, getting up, looking down, the blood pouring out my face, like and it wasn't little, you know, it was it wasn't drips, it was literally running like a tap. And that would have made me feel really sort of like fuck, and what happened next? What was the next thing we did? And so it was like a little reenactment. I don't do that now.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

Wow, yeah. Wow, yeah, okay. It's it's it's big stuff, Porsche. It really is.

SPEAKER_03 17:34

Yeah, I get it. I hope okay, but moving on. There's been a lot more discussion lately around the nervous system, stress responses, and emotional regulation. Where does EFT fit into that picture scientifically?

SPEAKER_00 17:51

Uh the science is really solid. Um, and a lot of the science that a lot of the work by Peter Stapleton, um Australian um out of Bond University, uh, it was actually her scientific work that made me go, right? I'm actually I'm gonna learn this stuff. Yeah. Because because I was watching them down down regulate or turn off uh PTSD, which lights up in the brain, in brain scans. You can see where it's located. And watching it go out, like not lighting up anymore after six sessions, for example.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Okay. And then when I saw that scientific evidence, I thought, yeah, I'm I'm jumping in because um that's because that's what I needed. You know, I, you know, uh yeah, that was the scientific um stuff. And there's been a whole lot more. Um it's I think EFT is one of the non-medical um uh modality most researched at the moment because of its efficacy in you know um bringing down trauma response. Um, and and you don't forget the trauma, but you all but you can have a cognitive, we call it a cognitive shift where you go, sure, you know, and what's next? You know, um you just and you just unplug from it, you don't lose the memory of it, and you're not losing any of its um impact or whatever. It's just that you're not um you're not you're you're simply not dumping stress, you're not having a stress response to it anymore. And so if you imagine if you slowly just like work on whatever comes up at the time, you know, um, you're actually downregulating all of these different things, and so your body's no not being flooded with uh stress, stress hormones. Um, and it has a really positive effect on the body because of that.

SPEAKER_03 19:53

Wow, okay, so that's really interesting. We just talked about feminism, and then a woman scientist taught you something that made you change. I love that. Isn't that great? Yeah, uh thing, and I love that you are so happy to share that as a white male. That that makes me happy. Um, so which we're stopping things becoming the whole book and making them a paragraph.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And changing your inner narrative, changing that dialogue. Yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 20:30

Are you working with army people?

SPEAKER_00 20:33

Uh I haven't. I know a lot of people who have. I've had I had the opportunity, and I still do, um, to to um to uh uh volunteer to work, um, but um I haven't as yet. Uh but that that's definitely in the future. And yeah, yeah. Um and all kinds of situations. Um I mean, truly, the way it started for me, my friend Naomi Jansen, who lives in Robertson, and she's somewhere over there. Um, you know, this is you a number of years ago now, 15 years ago almost, she came up to came up here where I am. I'm I'm I'm Lisa's neighbor. And um on the mountain.

SPEAKER_02 21:14

On the mountain meters that way.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

Uh the mountain of Murray.

SPEAKER_02 21:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

And and um um Neo was talking to me about the EFT, and I'm going, oh wow, you know, whatever, you know, um, you know, being you know, a little a little bit woo-woo myself. Um I'm interested. I'm going, oh and um she knew that I'd stopped smoking cigarettes for you know, and I was still having just those, oh, those really strong, oh my god, I need a cigarette moments, you know. And I I was having trouble turning those off. I'd stopped smoking after 30 years of smoking, you know. And um, and she said, Hey, just try this. And so she basically was five minutes, and we ran we ran. Through these points, and she you know talked and uh repeated and you know, rinse and repeat basically. And then she went, Oh my god, I'm late, and she just drove off, right? And I forgot all about it. Um, this is called the apex effect in tapping, where you can completely lose something, you can completely lose something altogether and not even think about it, right? So it was two or three weeks later I bumped into her in Robertson and she said, So how's the how are the thing how's the thing going? We don't we'd we'd like to not really call it anything, we'll call it the thing, you know. And I went, What thing? What are you talking about? You know, she said, uh the uh cravings thing, and I went, Oh my god, I haven't had a craving. That five-minute session turned it off. Wow. And turned it off. And I just went, you know, the site, yeah. I need to know more about this stuff. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:00

That's uh wow, yeah. I remember the pain of giving up smoking. It's it's total shit. Yeah, yes, I was angry for two years apparently.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

Yeah, well, we can we can compress that time really quickly. Uh uh cravings, cravings are really easy to work with. Yeah, they're they're yeah, that's fun to watch them just drop out of the body. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 23:29

And Lisa, you have you have found true relief.

SPEAKER_02 23:34

I have. I think I'm definitely definitely less anxious. I like the there's stuff around family that I used to just play over and over in my head, and I'd be more pissed off with myself because I didn't want to think about it. It was situations I couldn't control, I didn't want to be immersed in it, and I just find myself like a record player with it. Wow, yeah, I'm really like I was just sitting there as I was talking thinking, when did I last think about this certain situation? And it's ages.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

Like Wow Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow, that's that's that's the that's the magic, guys. It's um you know, we have loops, we have tape loops or whatever you want to call them in our heads, and they do neural pathways is what I think they are, but you know Yeah, they're neural pathways. We're yeah, we're doing a little bit of rewiring or something.

SPEAKER_03 24:44

Um and they say them sorry, Steve. They say them they say the more you think about something, the deeper the groove becomes.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

Uh yeah. Uh look, I I I can't back that up scientifically, but um no, but that's but yeah, it could really eat at you, you know what rec, you know, like we all do. Oh, it's just horrible, and um you can turn that shit out off, you know. Um yeah, I'm going through a separation at the moment, and you know, the original dialogue. Yeah, it's I'm we're two and a half years out, so it's not you know, I I can actually talk about it without falling off the chair and breaking into a sweat, you know. Uh and that's tapping. Um, you know, I've I've really downregulated all of that he said she said shit that goes on in your head. Yeah, and I just want it to stop.

SPEAKER_03 25:46

Oh there's there's no good relationship endings. Nah.

SPEAKER_04 25:51

No.

SPEAKER_03 25:52

No, no, no matter how hard you work, the internal monologue becomes messy.

SPEAKER_02 26:00

It does get messy, doesn't it? Um there's an element of eye movement desensitization, isn't there, Steve, with all of this?

SPEAKER_00 26:12

Yeah, we do a little bit of eye movement. Um uh I think tapping sort of stole that from the other um modality, which I truly I can't think of its name. Um we've done CBT, but also eye movement stuff. Um and while tapping on points. And um, you know, they've look at all the scientific tests, they've you know, they've done amazing stuff, like you know, studied people's blood after 15 or 10, just 10 minutes of tapping reduces your cortisol by 50%.

SPEAKER_04 26:48

What?

SPEAKER_00 26:49

In your system. Yeah. It just drops it out. Yeah. And then, you know, because that's that's been triggered by a thought, you know, like our thoughts, you know. Um, and so you you disconnect that, you disconnect the trigger, and then you have the thought again, but it's it but it's not sparking off your cortisol, you know, response in your system.

SPEAKER_02 27:12

So um wow, it's interesting because um like I was wearing a glucose monitor, I should do it while we're tapping, just to see how it does because um while meditating it would have these spikes that would drop, like really drop. And the integrative GP, she said, What's happening here? And I said, It's when I meditate, from the moment I meditate, it drops, and then it just came back out. And it's the cordils are blurring in your body. And I would I would say most definitely while you're tapping, some of those moments would really be like okay, we don't have to worry anymore. And it just drops.

SPEAKER_03 28:05

Wow. So Steve, can you walk us through a practical example of how someone might use EFT during a stressful moment?

SPEAKER_00 28:16

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um, I've uh you can still hear me because I've got airpods. Um I'm just I'm just correcting uh a log fell out of my fireplace. Because yes, we've got the fire on here in Robbo.

SPEAKER_03 28:28

Oh board. That would be awful watching your house burn down while we're talking.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

So you'd start off, there's a setup statement, and you need to find a kind of a statement that you feel comfortable with. And you know, um, we have statements like, you know, um, even though I've got whatever it is, it's so let's think of something. Um I don't know. What have you what do you think? As a thing to turn off.

SPEAKER_03 28:59

Um for me personally or for listening?

SPEAKER_00 29:02

Yeah, or or just an idea. Um, I've got so many of them in my head. It's like, um, even though even though I have this cigarette craving. Sure. I don't know, or even though I keep thinking about the time, you know, um it's uh you you go, even though I'm thinking this, and you're allowed to say, we know where we actually want to address the negative, okay? When you see EFT on YouTube, please try to avoid it. Most of it is um, I call it, yeah, rolling a turd in glitter.

SPEAKER_03 29:38

You know, you just say that. I say that. You can't polish a turd, but you can roll it in glitter. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

And so they use tapping, go, oh, I'm really amazing, and I can feel I'm just you know, you cover yourself in you know, crystal dust or something, you know. Right. Um, and you're not doing you're not you there's no therapy, there's no hardly any therapeutic benefit in that. Um we actually want to talk about the bit that's you know, the the turd bit. We we actually want to go in there um and look at the the the uncomfortable bit. And and you know, so there's ways of you know, I will be checking with you know a client going, How is that? Are you feeling okay? Um, is it too much? We'll bring it down, we'll just and and and and that's also when we dissociate, we go, well, let's put this out of your body over there somewhere. Or it can be on the moon if it's too far, if it's too much to look at. It's on the fucking moon and it's over there, right? And we can just sneak up, sneak up on it very gently. But sneaking with the client on purpose, this is how how close can we get until it starts feeling uncomfortable? And let's just you know tap on aspects of that memory. But you start off with a setup statement, which is even though, right, even though I've got this fear of dogs biting me. Sure. Um I deeply and completely accept myself. So we've got a few of those end statements, which is sometimes the client will go, actually, I don't accept anything about myself, you know. So you go, okay, let's not go there. It's got to the the statement has to sound authentic to to the client. So usually at the end of the session, you'll be saying, Yes, I deeply and completely accept myself. Yes, you know. So even though you know I've got I'm a you know, I'm I'm I'm a naughty cigarette smoker, I still accept myself. You know, we're not right, sure. There's no there's no bad people in the session, you know, it's we're not doing that. There's none of that kind of concept running through there, you know. And so um if that feels not real, if that's not authentic, you might go, even though um, you know, uh, even though I'm scared of dogs, I don't know, I don't know why I'm scared of dogs, uh, but I've turned up today to try and find out. And you go, okay, that sounds right. Yeah. And then you'll start working on points like top of the head, eyebrow point, side of the eye. So you'll be going, and then you ask the client to tell, just talk about it, like, oh, that fucking dog. I was and then you go, oh my god, I did, I got bitten. It was I was three. And it's amazing. You you can enter a session without any memory on anything, and next thing you know, in it comes. It just accesses it. Um, and and then you break down the experience into little sections, basically. What was the look on the dog's face, or what were you smelling, or you know, and you just break it all down, you sort of go granular on all the little components, keep tapping it, so eyebrow, side of the eye, under the eye, these are the main points. Under the nose, you go, um, you know, oh my god, that dog, I can, it's it's running towards me. Oh my god, I can't stop it. Chin point, collarbone point, oh my god, it just bit me. Oh, you know, and then you go, well, you know, out of 10, 10 out of 10 being the most intense. Oh no, it's a 10. Oh my god, you know. Um, if it's too, if it's too too intense, you can go, hey, just just put the the dog somehow over there somewhere, you know. Okay. And then it's easier to go into it. Under the arm, the other point, and then back to the side of the hand. There are other incredible points, which is the gamut point. This is a vagus nerve reset point we use a lot, um, with a lot of eye movement, which is not sure of the physiology on that point, but it there is science behind eye movement therapy, and um and it retrains or it rewrites. It you know, there's so much about tapping we still don't know, but from what we have already with it, we know it works, yeah. We know it, we know it downregulates traumatic response to memory, and so that's enough to keep moving forward, yeah. So yeah, Lisa is proof of your pudding.

SPEAKER_02 34:35

As an aside, um, I am never setting up a zoom on my mobile phone again because it doesn't I have an account and it's telling me we've got three and a half minutes left, so we might need to get me to generate another link.

SPEAKER_03 34:53

Another link. Okay, and and you can mesh them together, yeah?

SPEAKER_02 34:57

Oh, for sure, yeah. It won't be okay.

SPEAKER_03 34:59

Beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 35:00

So just hold horses and I'll be right back.

unknown 35:05

What the fuck?

SPEAKER_00 35:05

You and fuck yeah, you'll you'll you'll text me, right? You'll text me the next link. I'll have to tap this trauma on. I'll like I'm gonna have to I'm gonna have to tap on this.

SPEAKER_03 35:21

Uh yeah, so hey Pasha, what was I'm gonna ask that question again, shall I?

SPEAKER_01 35:26

Oh, sorry, people.

SPEAKER_03 35:28

What do you what are you sorry for, Dal? You've got ALS. Yeah, it is it is it's like baby brain.

SPEAKER_04 35:38

Oh maybe.

SPEAKER_03 35:41

Hey, I've got a question before we go any further. Actually, can I bring Evie down to your birthday?

SPEAKER_04 35:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:47

Because I think you should meet us, Steve.

SPEAKER_00 35:49

Uh okay, and and also I need to bail about 10 30, okay? So just is it okay. Yeah, yeah. Is that is that okay with your format?

SPEAKER_04 35:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:59

Just we work around you.

SPEAKER_03 36:01

Uh Steve, can you walk us through a practical example of how someone might use EFT during a stressful moment in daily life?

SPEAKER_00 36:14

Um, I can give you an example of mine. Um I had a finger crush accident with a block with a um a log splitter. Oh wow. And my yeah, my finger got crushed.

SPEAKER_01 36:27

I wear that fine.

SPEAKER_00 36:30

Yeah, and um it was basically I've no, I've got a finger, you can see, but it's it's you know, there's scarring, and I mean I I shouldn't have a finger. And um, this is the other thing about tapping. This is where we go into the sort of slight woo zone, the woo-woo zone. But there's something like if you can um if you've had a trauma of anything, if you can actually do some tapping and at least within an hour of that, it will, you know, really pull that the stress hormones out, which after a while will actually damage um you know tissue. So so um I I crushed my finger, and um you know, and I've I'm looking at like there was a white bone sticking out of a raspberry jam finger. It was so unbelievable. And um and my partner, um, my ex, she we were together at the time, and she, you know, very calmly, thankfully, threw me in the car and we were rushing off the barrel emergency, and my whole hand was just covered in, you know, I was just holding a big bunch of tissues around it. And I'm in the car whiting out. I'm going, I'm gonna faint. You know, this is this is way too much. So I started tapping. And it's I I couldn't really muster anything more, but you know, which was oh fuck. So the trip to barrel, I'm going, oh fuck. Oh my god, oh fuck, but I'm tapping right. So you're allowed to swear in tapping if you went if you need to get really say that like tell us how you really think about it, you know.

SPEAKER_03 38:16

Yeah, and are you and are you vocalizing this or is it happening in chat?

SPEAKER_00 38:19

Yeah, I'm vocalizing it. Yeah, and um, you know, but to cut a long story short, that tapping in that process, if you can get to someone quickly, um quite often um you don't you don't think about I can downregulate this trauma. Um, but if you can, you know, if someone has an accident or a burn, um, all kinds of different things, if you can get to it quickly, um, you can you can downregulate the stress response in the system and the body will heal a lot better. Now there are there's a whole lot of um what's the word? Um there's a whole lot of uh stories about this, but uh you know it's not scientifically proven as to why we get that effect. So um I'm not sure if that answered your question. That's more of a tr like an emergency situation.

SPEAKER_03 39:12

Yeah, but still if if I'm doing this where I'm starting to freak out a bit, it's like clutching pearls repeatedly.

SPEAKER_00 39:19

It's exactly, and it's where your pearls are, you know. So if you see that collarbone point as clutching your pearls, which is quite a regular, like people just go, yeah, that's the that's where your pearls are, yeah, and you tap there. Like if you've had a bad phone call or just whatever, if something's really upset you on the radio, if you've been wigged out by any media, you can just you know take the source away and just sit there for even a minute and tap that point.

SPEAKER_04 39:48

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 39:49

And it will bring it down, and then you go, oh, because you can feel it in your system, you know, just so um you can apply it in all kinds of situations, um, you know, especially when you feel yourself peeking over something, you know.

SPEAKER_03 40:06

Yeah, that's so interesting. Um, we know chronic illness can create layers of grief, frustration, frustration, and uncertainty. How can tapping help people process emotions without becoming completely overwhelmed by them?

SPEAKER_00 40:23

Yeah. Well, um, Lisa, you know, as well as Lisa knows, um when she turns up or when I comes come and see her, um, it's um because we're not really that far away from each other. Um it's um it's Lisa that guides the session. I don't have a scroll going now. We haven't we haven't looked at your mother yet, you know.

SPEAKER_04 40:50

We have right and uh you go, really?

SPEAKER_00 40:58

Are you shy bad no? You know, but you uh but the body brings it up too, you know. You might be starting on something, yeah, and next thing you know, you've gone down your own rabbit hole. I will follow the client down their rabbit hole. I'm I'm not there going, you know, I left it's client led. Yeah. Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 41:20

So um I go in there not even knowing what we're going to talk about as well. So I don't sometimes I've walked in there going, yeah, I'd like to talk about this. Other times, like last Sunday, talking about being helpless. That just came up out of the fucking blue. It was it was wild, you know. So and and it's interesting because um being vulnerable and or helpless has always been something that I just find like the the last thing anybody wants to feel is vulnerable or helpless. Yeah, you can imagine ALS like being vulnerable and you're helpless sometimes as well. Like it's um, and you've got to ask for help. You can't survive illness without asking for help, and those things have been massive challenges for me personally, so you know, I don't know that I needed ALS to learn that lesson, but you know, here it fucking is.

SPEAKER_03 42:40

Lisa, do you find yourself tapping during the day?

SPEAKER_02 42:43

Uh uh Occasionally. Occasionally, I I don't sit there and look for it as a tool. I guess um I have moments like like A-less will make you more emotionally labile. Like that is a symptom of what it does to you.

SPEAKER_03 43:04

More emotionally what?

SPEAKER_02 43:06

Labile, so you're more likely to cry. You know, I think it's more they say it's more laughing and crying as opposed to rage or anything like that. And I find myself now often laugh, crying. My cognition is perfectly fine, but you know, I might see something on TV, whereas I go, oh, now I just go, so I think there's an emotional release in that because five minutes later I'm fine again. Um the havoc it's playing with my voice now is really a massive challenge. And I do find myself occasionally tapping.

SPEAKER_03 43:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 43:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:55

And does that mean you're tapping your vocal cords?

SPEAKER_02 43:59

No, I I because my hands don't work particularly well, I do that one. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 44:05

Yeah, the gamut.

SPEAKER_02 44:06

I guess so. And I think um like I don't live with anxiety or fear in the forefront of how I feel. Like I think I said to you once before, every time I looked at Eric Dane.

SPEAKER_03 44:22

Yes, beautiful Eric Dane.

SPEAKER_02 44:24

Beautiful, beautiful Eric Dane, who was alpha white male in every sense of the word, to be brought down in an industry where his voice was his business and how he looked. He lost his voice and lost his physical ability to be that uh white alpha male, and and he looked like the saddest bastard. Every time I saw him, he just looked completely devastated. Now that's not a judgment on him, but uh he I would, and I don't know the guy, but I would say he's had uh the best part of probably 25-30 years of uh the overculture presenting him as this thing and his illness stepped in very quickly and stripped him of that and as something to deal with is massive. Whereas for me, I I think there's elements of this that like I'm a 60-year-old woman, by the time you get to my age, most women don't give a fuck. Yeah, we don't. We realise there's more important things as to you know, are you wearing the right shoes, clothes, do people think uh more of you if you are a size eight? Most women my age, we don't give a shit anymore. So I think I think that's been something that's been a gift, yeah. For sure. I don't have to deal with uh the overculture's uh opinion of me in dealing with this illness. Yeah, does that make sense?

SPEAKER_03 46:17

Yeah, because I'm watching as a gi football player.

SPEAKER_02 46:22

Bless that poor boy, he's 30.

SPEAKER_03 46:24

35.

SPEAKER_02 46:26

I don't know where he goes for treatment, but if he hears this, he should get in touch with Concord. They've got some amazing trials. And uh 30 gives me goosebumps, like literally gives me goosebumps because like especially it sounds like it's bulb, which will affect his speech and swallowing early. And um see my voice is a little bit affected, my swallowing and cough isn't. I'm now about to start week 11 of a drug trial, and um I'm getting a lot of tingling in my hands and arms and feet.

SPEAKER_03 47:06

Yeah, is it a yay or a boo?

SPEAKER_02 47:08

I think it's a yay. I do, it's really subtle. Um, my grip strength has increased, my oxygen saturations have consistently been up now for three weeks.

SPEAKER_00 47:20

Wow, oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 47:22

I know, and breathing is essential to you staying alive. Now, if you were to say to me, How do you feel? I would go, I don't know. I I I don't feel stronger, but I do feel I just feel like there's less assault on my body. I also did a gut biome test about five weeks ago and it came back the other week, and immunoglobulin A, which is a real inflammation marker, in my gut was sitting at 2300. And when I saw that on the report, I went, that's pretty high. And it like I think the top end of normal is 2000. I was 2300. I went back to the test that I did in November and it was 5,700.

SPEAKER_04 48:17

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 48:18

Yeah, so my nutritionist is telling me essentially I've cured myself of leaky gut.

SPEAKER_03 48:26

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 48:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:29

So I'm gonna stop you there, Lisa, because we only have Steve for five more minutes. Okay, we can talk about your anti-leaky gut next week.

SPEAKER_02 48:39

Yeah, yeah, we can. We can.

SPEAKER_03 48:42

So a lot of people living with illness become very disconnected from their bodies because their body feels unsafe or unpredictable. Can EFT help rebuild that connection, Steve?

SPEAKER_00 48:57

Yeah, I think it can. Um I can only attest for, I mean, I could I've I can, you know, talk about other clients, but also the my own work with myself. Um, you know, I you know, I I I was always a sick kid, and um yeah, I was you know automatically dissociating myself. I felt like I was, you know, that in the film Baron von Munchhausen, I was just you know, um, that head. Um uh what's it he was the flying head would escape from the body. Um was Robin Robin Williams. And and that was me. I was just like a head, you know. Um, and I and so tapping has brought me right back into my body. Um it's put me back into m really clear memories of um uh when I was 18 months, I had rheumatoid arthritis, fully fully uh crippled. And um my parents just happened to have moved next door to the incredible old lady who was a nurse in the first and second world wars, and it was a series of bone broth and massage twice a day, and I was walking by the time I was four and a half, and I've had no rheumatoid arthritis ever since.

SPEAKER_03 50:24

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 50:24

Um but the the whole lot of really deep tissue massage and ask and I was asked to scream, you know, if it hurts, scream it out, you know. So there was all of that stuff going on. This was in the 60s in bloody Bundina, you know, a population of five people at the time, you know.

SPEAKER_02 50:43

Um next door to her.

SPEAKER_00 50:45

I mean just moved, just was next door, and um and so what I'm getting at is that you know, I had a propensity to ignore my body, and it's really through um since I've been doing tapping that it's brought me back into my body. Um uh so I'm not sure if that answered your question, Portia, though. I'm not quite sure if I need to put more detail in there.

SPEAKER_03 51:14

Um no, I think that's good. Um, so you have rebuilt your connection with your body. That was the question. Yes. So our last question for today, Steve.

SPEAKER_04 51:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 51:26

For someone who's now listened and is curious about trying EFT, where or what is the simplest place to start? And what can they realistically expect in the beginning? So that's a lot of questions.

SPEAKER_00 51:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, um, you know, you can contact me. Um I don't have a lot of placements in a week because I'm I'm doing other things, yeah. Uh, but I can certainly recommend other um uh EFT training through evidence-based training, the Australian model, which has now become world best practice, by the way. So I know, right?

SPEAKER_03 52:04

Us, you know, the Aussies, yeah, but you know when we get it right, we get it super right.

SPEAKER_00 52:11

Uh-huh. Yeah, and um, and so I can also recommend other people to work with um with them. Um that was the first part of your question. What was the next bit? Uh what what should they realistically expect? Uh um, I think the first, even with the first session, you'll probably feel like, oh my god, can I just now go to bed? You feel really deeply relaxed. Um so you're dropping. So um after a session also with Lisa, um, we will go, oh, you know, when are we going to get together next? Uh like do you think we we actually remember anything? We are so um relaxed, you know.

SPEAKER_02 52:56

I often come home and do a meditation or have an app, my brain is just like, whoa.

SPEAKER_00 53:03

Yeah, so it is we're just dropping the stress signals in the system, right? And and you know, essentially, you know, yeah, it yeah, if that's all you manage to do, right? If you can just go for the triggers, go for the whatever, you know, sure, you know, life keeps throwing things at us, but we have we become more resilient, we're not overreacting, we're not going into, you know, um, it's almost like your whole system is just dumping stress hormones because I don't know, um, something happened when you were eight, you know. Um we can we can address all of that stuff, and um, so what people can expect um is probably a you know, maybe that's why they call it emotional freedom techniques, you're not being plugged in by some older narrative, and you get to write a different narrative, um, I think. Yeah, I think. Does that sound right, Lisa, for you?

SPEAKER_02 54:08

I think writing a different narrative sits really well for me.

SPEAKER_03 54:13

Yeah, yeah. Uh like a different reaction narrative, right?

SPEAKER_02 54:18

Oh, for sure. And you think about you know, if you were scared by a dog at eight, you don't need to be having that emotional response when you're 48, you know. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 54:33

So we should talk about leeches, Steve.

unknown 54:37

Matt Murray.

SPEAKER_01 54:38

Matt Murray is known for its leeches.

SPEAKER_03 54:41

Disgusting. I'm never going back.

SPEAKER_01 54:44

I do think I do harbor trauma with that one, but yeah.

SPEAKER_03 54:48

So we uh we are done for today, kids. Uh Steve. Steve, thank you for coming and being a part of this.

SPEAKER_00 54:57

I I love this kind of conversation, and I'm putting my hand up. See, I'm putting my I'm putting my hand up to say, get me on anytime you want, and um I'm I'm happy to join in with all kinds of levels of conversation. Oh, I love that, Steve.

SPEAKER_02 55:16

You'll meet each other in person next week.

SPEAKER_03 55:18

I know, how exciting is that?

SPEAKER_02 55:20

Ah, part time.

SPEAKER_03 55:23

Yes, it'll be so so let's sign off, and then we'll have a couple of minutes to chat before Steve has to run away. I love you to the moon and back.

SPEAKER_02 55:32

I love you to the moon and back. So good to see you in your pink shirt.

SPEAKER_03 55:36

I know.

SPEAKER_02 55:37

And that was this week's episode of A List to the Moon and Back. Thanks for listening. And if you can share, like, review, we'll always be incredibly grateful. And we hope to see you next time around. Thanks again.