Although his desire to smoke remained high, I soon realized that it was good because the cigarettes themselves functioned as important "keys" that unlocked many of his other issues. For example, I asked him to tell me about the first time he smoked and after several rounds and different approaches, we tapped on:
Even though the first person who gave me a cigarette was my best friend and he was killed in an accident and I feel like I keep him with me when I smoke … I realize that my favorite memories of him were when we were doing other things besides smoking … and I choose to keep him in my heart instead of in my lungs.
Although there was a lot of emotional release with this tapping, his desire to smoke was still very high so I asked him why he still smokes and we tapped on:
Even though I smoke to be accepted by other smokers at work… I believe in my ability to be a good worker.
Even though I smoke to have friends, I choose to have friends who will live a long time and be healthy without smoking.
I asked him about the first time he did something that hurt himself in order to have friends. He said it was too private to tell me so we used the Movie Technique and followed your suggestion for such private matters by having the client hum the words instead of saying them: Even though I hum, hum, hummed, I completely forgive myself. (It worked great!)
By that point, we had the cigarette as a key to issues of being accepted, to having friends, and to keeping the memory of a friend alive. This nicotine key continued to open more doors and gave him many areas of emotional freedom but his desire to smoke continued! I asked him to tell me again why he still smokes. He said it made him feel peaceful.
So we worked on times in his life when he felt nervous (his opposite to feeling peaceful). Once we cleared those times, we did future tapping on situations where he expected to feel nervous. Even though I will feel nervous the next time my boss judges my work with that terrible look he has...
So we went back to other people judging him with a terrible look and cleared major issues with his judgmental father. Then, at the start of our fourth session, his desire to smoke had finally dropped down to a 5 out of 10 and he said that the cigarette suddenly smelled like licorice (which he doesn't like). Many times during all of the sessions, I had the cigarette near him or in his hand or in his mouth as you taught us in the DVD "Six Days at the Veteran's Hospital", but finally, he did not want to even touch it. He simply laughed and said, "Che bello!" an Italian exclamation for "How beautiful!".
I called Mario two weeks after his "Che bello!" session and he is still smoke-free in spite of the teasing he gets from his co-workers. He works in an automobile body shop. According to law, the body shop had to put up a separation to divide a smoker's area from an area for non-smokers in the snack room. They put up a flimsy plastic shower curtain and the smoke from the smokers' side comes easily to the side where Mario sits, sipping his coffee, all alone but thankful and happy to be free from cigarettes and leg pain.
He continues tapping on himself and describes his life now as "Sono tranquillo." (I am peaceful). This was my first experience with using EFT for cigarette addiction and I have since learned from fabulous articles written by EFT'ers on your site, that there is often a certain physical feeling before the craving for a cigarette starts. I recently used the technique of identifying the craving and tapping on earlier times in the client's life when the physical feeling appeared.
A husband and wife were guests for a few nights in my Bed & Breakfast. The husband only had one EFT session and the wife had two sessions. They reduced their smoking, but did not completely end it before their vacation ended. After a 25 year habit of smoking at least a pack every day, the husband was amazed to go two days with only smoking one half of a cigarette.
The wife, also a heavy smoker, went an entire day without smoking. She said she was amazed that she didn’t have her usual desire to smoke when she saw 30 people smoking one day in a nearby town. Seeing other people smoke had been a big trigger for her.
I referred them to EFT in their home country and expect to hear great results. Thank you, Gary for teaching me this awesome way to truly help people.
With lots of love, Judith Rivera Rosso
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