EFT for Social Anxiety - with Melanie Yates, Neuro Coach & EFT Therapist

In this episode we're joined by Neuro Coach, EFT Therapist and Author of Happy, Joyous and Free: Love Your Life, No Matter What, Melanie Yates.

We discuss how Emotional Freedom Tapping could help ease social anxiety through neutralising the pain in the emotions that can keep us stuck; such as fear, anxiety, and unworthiness.

You’ll learn what EFT is, how it works, and Mel even shares a free tapping taster session  at 24 mins - so be sure to stick around for that.

About Our Guest:
Melanie Yates
Neuro Coach, EFT Therapist, Author
happyjoyousandfree.org

Melanie delivers a wealth of techniques that open the mind to see the power of thoughts. Learn secrets that bring powerful thoughts and ideas together to allow you more joy and fulfillment. It’s time to get out of the bondage of your mind and into the freedom that you have always wanted.

For the free gift from Mel mentioned in this episode, please visit CoachMelanieFreeGift.com

Transcript

Stacie Clark
Hello, and welcome back to the Quiet Connections Podcast. I’m Stacie.

In today’s episode I had the wonderful pleasure of speaking with Neuro Coach, EFT therapist and author of Happy, Joyous and Free: Love Your Life, No Matter What, Melanie Yates.

Mel shares with us how Emotional Freedom Tapping could help ease Social Anxiety through neutralising the pain in the emotions that can keep us stuck - such as fear, anxiety, and those feelings of unworthiness.

You’ll learn what EFT is, how it works, and there’s even a free tapping taster session half way through this interview, so that you can have a go yourself - so be sure to stick around for that!

You’re also going to hear how Mel moved from a place of blame and shame in her own life, to taking responsibility for her emotions which then helped her to heal, make the changes she needed and wanted, so that she could move forwards and live the happy, joyous and free life she knew she deserved.

And guess what? You deserve that too, so let’s dive in…

Stacie Clark
Hi, Mel, what a joy to welcome you onto the show today. How are you doing?

Melanie Yates
Fantastic thanks, Stacie. What an honour it is to be here with you.

Stacie Clark
Great, I'm really looking forward to speaking with you today. Would you like to start by introducing yourself and the work that you do and who you work with?

Melanie Yates
Absolutely. I'm a neuro coach who helps train people's brains to think better, so they get the results they're looking for in their lives. And so I just love spreading the news and the information that I once got that changed my life forever. And I just feel so satisfied by teaching people the things that helped me the most.

Stacie Clark
Amazing, that's so great to hear. So well, let's dive into your story then, shall we? And hear a little bit about your experiences in life? What brought you to this moment? And what's been the biggest lesson that you've learned? And what difference has that made for you?

Melanie Yates
Okay, well, I would say about 10 years ago, I kind of had a turning point. So I've always been a very ambitious person I worked at the Community Hospital in interventional radiology, and I've loved working with patients, and yet working in a hospital was very draining. And I didn't have any tools to help me help other people. But what kind of happened was I put my patients first, and so I was giving a lot to other people, and to the point where I experienced burnout. And I didn't know how to get out of this kind of whirl wind of just going going going and never felt like any time to just stop.

And I also was married and had a baby. And I was running out of options. I was using work as a distraction, so that I wouldn't have to think about what was really going on with me. And I was definitely using alcohol and food to kind of numb my feelings. And I definitely used blame, and my marriage as an excuse that it wasn't my fault. It was his fault, so to speak. And so I really didn't have the tools to take responsibility for my feelings, or my thinking or my actions. And I was in this whirl wind of coping skills and survival skills, basically, I was just trying to survive my life. And it just got to a point where it just wasn't working, I was depressed. I had a doctor who wasn't even a therapist told me I needed antidepressants.

And so it, to me, that was just a sign of even going to the regular doctor's office, I just broke down, I would just break down and start crying, and completely had no control over my emotions. And so then I started taking antidepressants with alcohol. And that just, it just kept getting lower and lower of how I could handle and deal with my life. And so basically, I kind of had a spiritual awakening or a spiritual solution to my problems. And I think, you know, it's like those foxhole prayers, you know, when you're really in pain, you're finally ready to ask for help and that day did come and so I finally basically got on my knees and asked God for help. And yet it it was more than what God was gonna do for me. I mean, I needed physical health, tangible help, people help around me. And I really believe that God facilitated that and gave me resources that could get me to a place where I am today.

And so I, I ended up getting a coach. I had been going to therapy, I had been going to individual therapy weekly. And then I started marriage counselling because things were just so bad in my marriage and my relationships were suffering. And I really didn't think I was the problem. I really didn't see my part in any of this. Eventually, I got a coach and I had the most success with the results changing in my life through this coach who taught me EFT tapping, who taught me visualisation, who taught me how body language can change the thought patterns in my head. She gave me tools to kind of identify target thoughts, triggering thoughts that cause these emotions and these behaviours that were not suiting me. And so she also asked the right questions, she helped me uncover my own answers within me. So it wasn't like she was just telling me, oh, this is what you should do. She asked me questions about, well, if you didn't have that feeling, or that thought, how would you live your life? You know, if you didn't have a husband to blame for your feelings? What would that be like? What would you do? How would you solve that problem?

She just got me to see another perspective and ask me questions to find the answers within and that's what really made me want to be a coach. At first I thought she was this like, genius, like one of a kind, talented, like, I even thought of her as like, you know, like maybe she had spiritual powers or some kind of, like woowoo thing that she could like, change people and fix people. And what I realised is that we all have the gift to help each other uncover answers, we all have the gift. I believe it's even a god given gift and skill to release emotions, and something like EFT is from Chinese medicine.

It's on the same basis of acupuncture and so anyone can learn it, it's it's based on energy. And you know, if you believe in science, then you believe in electrons and energy and that's basically what we're made out of. And so this is it. It's actually scientifically proven and now Western medicine even identifies, EFT as being an incredible tool to help PTSD, to help physical pain, emotional pain. It's absolutely wonderful.

And so I'm just, my whole goal and mission is to save as many marriages as I can, to save people's body or their their jobs, to save their souls basically, because that's what I feel like, my soul was on a downward spiral into the drain, and I really was seeking help and I wasn't getting it. And so this coach started uncovering things for me that just kind of opened the door to a whole new level. And I've just ever since I have just, I let her mentor me, I took her classes, I got certified as a neuro coach and as a Emotional Freedom Technique specialist, and now I've just become an expert in body language and relationships, and addiction, because of my own experience, and just wanting to help people because I really was, at the end end of the line, I didn't know who else could help me.

Stacie Clark
That's amazing. It sounds like you've had such such a journey. And such an inspiring story. Definitely sounds like you are on a mission to help support and nurture as many people as possible. And likewise, I felt like my own experience has brought me to that place as well, where it's like, okay, I've been through through this experience myself, now how can I give that back and help support others through that, too?

So I'd love to hear a little bit more about EFT in a moment, but I'm just wondering, because you mentioned a few times there about the feelings that were underneath some of your behaviours. And if you don't mind sharing, what were some of those feelings? Did they relate to feelings of not feeling good enough or unworthiness? What was that for you?

Melanie Yates
That's a great question. I felt a lot of shame and unworthiness. I have always, well, I can see now that I've always struggled with not being good enough. I wanted to be a prima ballerina when I was younger, and my directors told me my body wasn't good enough. And so I think also organised religion had a play in teaching me I needed to be perfect to go to heaven and that also kind of felt like, I'm not good enough. And so it was kind of like, if I'm not good enough, if I can never reach these expectations of other people, I might as well just say, screw it. And I kind of, in a way, lost hope, or just believed that I wasn't good enough. So why even bother? Why even try.

And of course, when you start having that kind of thinking, the feeling just gets more and more, and the behaviours get more and more. And then that's when the shame comes in. Because now it's not just someone telling you, you're not good enough, you actually start behaving not good enough, and in ways you thought you never would react or behave and, and so there is this shame of who I had become and where I was at. And it was like, it kind of felt like, Oh, I know better. But I didn't know there was an in between place between loser and perfectionist, right?

Stacie Clark
I can relate to that.

Melanie Yates
And that was setting myself up for failure, perfectionist has its own problems, and being a loser has its own problems. So it's like, I was setting myself up for failure. And I had these very intense feelings of shame around not being good enough. And it doesn't really matter where they come from, if they come from your parents, or a teacher or religion, we need to get into the solution. And it's important to actually identify what the trigger is, what the target is. And we can talk about, you know, EFT operates on the premise that no matter what part of your life needs improvement, there are unresolved emotional issues in the way, all of us have these emotional issues.

And so I really believe that be beneath the emotion, there is a thought pattern, or, you know, maybe you had a traumatic event happen in childhood, maybe you're suffering from some kind of PTSD. So, when that happens in our lives, we start forming beliefs, belief patterns, and a neuro pattern of thinking, and that creates those feelings. And then those feelings get us to make decisions and choices that definitely affect our behaviour, which then we get these results that we're either happy with or not.

And so that's really what, why we need each other, right. Because the other part was, I was trying to do this all by myself. I was trying to figure out how to be okay in the world by myself, because I was so afraid. I didn't want anyone to know. I was struggling.

So I put on this facade, like everything's fine. See, I have a husband, I have a kid, I have a job, I make money. I have this car, I have this house. I, you know, it, I call it a worth trap. Right? Because it's like, for sure. I'm grabbing out here because I think it's the real thing. I think it's gonna fill me up with love and worth, and peace and it's counterfeit. And we grab outside of ourselves to try to fill up this hole, and find our identity, right, we're looking for some kind of identity, so that we feel good enough, and we look for love in all the wrong places, is as what I love to say, and I talk a lot about that, in my book, happy, joyous and free love your life no matter what. Because that's what we do, we we fall into this worth trap, that our identity is in a title, the size of our dress, being married, what car we drive, how much money we make, how much we weigh, how many wrinkles I have, you know, it's just this constant.

And then the problem with putting our worth on people, places and things is that they change and they can be taken from us. As I you know, my marriage was taken from me, and my that dream of being happily ever after, as little girls, you know, we're reading these fairy tale books and it's like, happily ever after. I mean, we buy into that, and so it was like this death. I have a dream, a death of my identity I'm attached to, I'm lovable if someone is married to me, and I can show the world, I'm okay because I have this person next to me. And so you take that from me, and it's like, I don't know who I am, I have a false sense of identity, I have a false sense of being good enough.

Because if I lose my job, and my identity is on how much money I make, and you take that, then I don't know who I am, I don't know what to do with myself. And so we want to base our worth, on a way of thinking and it takes time and repetition to build this new way of thinking, this new neural pathway in our brain that our worth is set. We don't earn it, we don't do anything for it. And it's certainly not outside of us, it's inside of us. And, you know, whether you believe in God or not, the universe, there is something bigger than human beings. And so if you can look at the hope of there's something greater than ourselves. And that, that that could be the answer, or just using the word love, love, the most beautiful, pure, unconditional love that that, that you can imagine or dream up of, and that be the thing that we get our true identity from, you know, I mean, we, we were created, and we were born here. And just believing that we do have a purpose, and we do have a plan, and that the universe is for us that God is for us. It's not about not being good enough and think about what we do. When we don't feel good enough, we can't really perform to our potential, we can't really love one another or you know, we're so self centred in our own fear that I can't really give to other people.

Stacie Clark
Yeah, absolutely agree with what you're saying there.

Let's hear a little bit more about EFT, because you've mentioned that a few times now. For anyone who's listening who isn't aware of what EFT is. Could you share a little bit around that? What is the technique of EFT? And how can we use it to help ourselves?

Melanie Yates
Okay, so EFT is a way to neutralise negative emotions. So what we do is, you always want to figure out what the target is. So let's just use stress, because we all have stress in our lives, and it shows up in different ways. So it could be physical pain, it could be emotional pain, it could be an addiction, it could be a mental health issue, right. So the great news is that EFT helps improve the way you feel about yourself. It gets rid of limiting beliefs and helps you work through past traumas. It helps you move on from things that are holding you back.

So the whole goal of tapping is to realign the body mind and spirit in order to let go of these negative emotions and the tension that they cause. So what is EFT? We focus on the stress and the challenge. We actually tap on meridians of the body to peel those layers away of chronic stress. The meridians are paths through which energy known as chi flows. So just like acupuncture, they put the needles in meridians to improve the flow of energy in our body. So just like we have a physical body, we have an energy body. So in western medicine, the blood flow is our circulation. And so the heart pumps bloods out through the arteries and then the veins bring it back. So there's this flow of blood that feeds our organs and keeps us alive and keeps our body functioning, our physical body functioning.

And so Chinese medicine works on the energy body. And so they, if you've ever heard of chakras, that's an energy system. And, you know, you don't have to believe in these different concepts. I'm a very scientific mind. So just hang in there, if you think I'm talking woo woo, this is really, well, the thing is, it works. And sometimes you can't, even for a scientific brain or logical brain like mine, you almost have to just see to believe, and that's one of the things that I absolutely love about EFT because it is a tangible way to see the intensity of a feeling go down in a matter of minutes.

And so one of the key components of tapping is to rate the intensity of the feeling. So right now, I'm just gonna, we'll just do a little, I think, you know, talking about it, and kind of going through just like a three minute session is going to help anyone understand. And I think so Stacie, what I want you to do right now is rate, the intensity of stress in your life from a 1 to 10. 10 being you got a lot going on, I'm stressed. To one, you're pretty much at peace.

Stacie Clark
I feel like right now in my life, I'm probably about four. Yeah, my life feels okay at the moment, but I definitely have moments of 10. Actually, could I pick one that I, something that I do actually feel quite anxious about at the moment that I still haven't worked through. So it's around social media. And on my personal accounts, in terms of me actually sharing aspects of my personal life on social media, I seem to have quite a big block around that, but it's something that I'd like to kind of work through. But when I think about sharing certain things on on social media, levels of anxiety tend to increase, I would probably say that that's around about an eight for me at the moment. So that seems like a good one to work on.

Melanie Yates
So sometimes I use the word anxious and stress interchangeably. So let's just for this, so that we can include more people with where they could be on the on the scale, and it's nice to have something like an eight so that we have more room to go down. So usually we'll just, we'll, I want everyone to come up with a number and have a target of what they're stressed or anxious about from a 1 to 10.

Stacie Clark
In this next part, Mel is about to share the free EFT taster session with you. Please take a moment to bring to your awareness either a specific situation you would like to feel more at peace with, or a general sense of how you’re feeling right now, and rate the level of anxiety or stress from 1-10. Please do pause this podcast, if you need more time.

Follow along with Mel’s instructions of where to tap, and repeat out loud what she says.

This tapping sequence lasts for roughly 7 minutes, so please ensure you have the time and space to complete it, and bookmark this episode to come back to this session whenever it would be helpful for you.

Before we start, a disclaimer: This session is provided for informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for working individually with a professional who understands your personal circumstances.

For tailored EFT sessions in a secure environment, please do reach out to Mel to discuss.

Melanie Yates
So we have our numbers right now. And then what we're going to do is, we're going to tap on the side of the hand by the pinky finger. And you're going to repeat after me so I'll say it first and then you'll come you'll come behind me like you know Simon says kind of thing I can I'm not gonna say Simon says, well just do follow the leader. Right? Amazing. Okay, so I'm tapping on the side of your pinky finger. I call it the karate chop point.

[EFT SESSION AT 24:00 mins]

Melanie Yates
Okay, deep breath in.

So right now Stacie, rate from and I want you to think about putting yourself out there on the internet. And I want you to think of how anxious or stressed that feels to really put yourself out there for everyone to judge you.

Stacie Clark
I mean, it feels like a three now.  That's such a lovely way, I think to take you through self compassion as well, like, accepting and validating the feelings that you started with, and then moving into that place of like worthiness. And I just, I love that line of "I choose me".

Melanie Yates
Isn't that great? And yet, they've figured out that affirmations by themselves don't always work. I mean, there's been so many amazing books about affirmations. And I'm not saying that they don't work. It's just I've found that through neuroplasticity, which means changing the brain, the brain chemistry and the brains way of thinking and the neural pathways, that the more senses we turn on. visual, auditory verbal. Tapping is a body language, we're touching, smell, anytime we can turn on more senses in the brain, we get a quicker results, because more synapses are firing to build a neural pathway to build a better way of thinking.

And so there's just been so many amazing studies about EFT working as far as lowering physical pain, lowering PTSD, lowering and actually curing PTSD. They've proven that six sessions which would be like six hours of tapping with war veterans that there is a tangible difference, sustainable difference in their post traumatic pain. And I just love that I've had clients that have gotten over phobias, where my favourite one was a girl who was in our coast guard. And she had a phobia of water after her experience as being in the Coast Guard and seeing death and drownings and rescuing bodies, and talk about a stressful, high impact kind of profession. She couldn't even watch Pirates of the Caribbean, it was so scary, you know, she would get a panic attack. And so through tapping that is completely gone. And it's stayed, you're able to quiet the nervous system so that your brain can actually see the facts.

Because what happens in our brain is, there's an event and it's like the thoughts and the feelings and the experience get tangled up together. And, and we can't isolate anything, because we just see it as one big cloud or one big event. So what we do with tapping is kind of pull out the emotion so that we can treat the emotion and then we have the information and the facts so that we can actually see the experience for what it is, without being triggered, because it's that triggering that causes a panic attack, that causes depression, that causes "I'm not getting out of bed today", or "I'm going to go eat a whole cake" or then you know, we start using addiction to help us cope.

Right so that's that's the beauty of this, is such a simple way to calm the nervous system and help us make better choices. Because once we're triggered, it's really hard to make a different choice. Or once we have a panic attack, it's really hard. We're already in it. Our body is, has its own, it's taken over. It's almost we don't have control. Yeah.

Stacie Clark
And would you say that EFT would be really helpful for someone experiencing social anxiety as well?

Absolutely, there's basically, the cool thing about you know, the goal with tapping is to realign the body, mind, and spirit in order to let go of these negative emotions and the  tension they cause, right? These even, negative thoughts cause that tension, that anxiety. I mean, that's why pharmaceutical companies are doing so well with sleep, medication, anxiety, medication, panic disorders, you know, depression, and we're putting labels and identifying ourselves with mental health, illness. And drugs are really, what I've seen as the main solution, okay, you can't sleep, take this, you're depressed, take this and, and I have no problem with medications, I have my own diagnosis. And I, I do take medications to deal with mental illness. And I get to use these tools as well.

And I think one without the other wouldn't work as good, only on medication, I think I would still have a lot of trouble, it's not enough to actually get the results I've been looking for. And so with tapping and having a coach, because a coach is someone that has your best interest in mind, and that gets you results.

And so I think anyone can kind of see how having a coach is kind of like accountability, like, that's why you need a coach, when you go to the gym, you know, have a personal trainer. It's like, they're there to get you results, you know, and so, not doing it alone is another thing, too. I think a lot of us try to do it alone. And I know that I was trying to do it alone. And I was trying to get myself out of this depression and anger and an addiction. I was I was trying to figure out how can I do this by myself. And it just really helped having the accountability. And somebody, they're getting me results that I wasn't able to get by myself?

Stacie Clark
Absolutely, absolutely. And likewise, I had a coach and went through coaching when I was also training to be a coach. So I completely agree that like, you know, we absolutely need other people to support us through these challenges. And it's so much easier when you do have that person who's like totally got your back and can ask you those really important questions that help you to reflect inwards and really see your true self again, so absolutely amazing.

So, Mel you have shared so much valuable information with us today. And thank you so much for sharing a free mini tapping session as well. That's absolutely amazing. And you mentioned earlier that you have a free gift for for our listeners today. Would you like to share a little bit about what that is and how they can access that?

Melanie Yates
Yes, I wanted to give you a free gift. So it's CoachMelanieFreeGift.com. And what that is, is basically a way to give people hope. I really love spreading hope. And, you know, I think we all have to take responsibility for training our brain to think better. So we want to reprogram our response in life. If you don't like the results you're getting, it's once we can take responsibility for our part of why we're not getting what we want. That's what the free gift is all about. It basically is five short videos. So you can watch them all at once or you can break it down and watch one a week or one a month or maybe just one. And it just kind of opens the door to reprogramming your brain and I give small little ways to, how to visualise your result, how to use body language to get your result, how to write and question your thoughts to get your results. So it's just my way of giving back and giving information that was so valuable to me that has helped me really achieve dreams that I never thought I was capable of.

Stacie Clark
Wonderful, thanks for listening. To claim your free gift, or get in contact with Mel, please visit happyjoyousandfree.org

Remember to join our free online Community to connect with other like-minded people, walking the same path to quiet confidence, head on over to QuietConnections.co.uk for more info. 

You can find all links mentioned today in the show notes.

Well, it’s a been a pleasure, please do tune in next week, or catch up on a past episode, and in the meantime, stay connected…