Four years ago I was sent a client who was suffering from ‘bouts of bulimia”. It was Karen’s (not her real name) mother who had been to one of my EFT Workshops and decided that Karen could really benefit from this ‘tapping’ technique.

When we first met, Karen seemed quite confident however her physical appearance was of a little girl, rather than a 25-year-old. She was dressed in an androgynous fashion.

During the first session I gathered details about her life and especially about her eating habits. So, when, where and how did the habit of regurgitating her food come about?

The key to Karen’s stuffing herself and then throwing up, was bread. Freshly baked bread. Every Sunday morning Karen would go to the local bakery early in the morning when the delicious smells of baking were wafting through the air. She would purchase 4 loaves of bread as they came out of the oven. Then she would return to her apartment and eat her way through the soft, spongy, fragrant bread. It always made her feel wonderful while she was indulging herself and then she felt terrible and would go to the sink and force herself to throw up!

I asked her why she felt so good about eating the freshly baked bread.

Karen said that her parents had split up when she was a kid and her happiest memories were before that incident. Mum was happy and so was Dad. Mum would bake bread every Sunday morning and Karen would come down to the kitchen and sit with anticipation on the bench waiting for the bread to be done. Mum and she would wait together and it was a very special time for Karen. She loved that time just being with her mother and enjoying snuggled up with her. When her parents finally split up, Karen had to go live with her Dad and she missed her mother terribly.

Some how Karen got into the habit of buying fresh bread and wolfing down the whole loaves till she felt sick. The more she missed her mother the more fresh bread she consumed, never realizing how the feelings of loss and love were tied together.

Once we had found the place where Karen’s need to gorge on ‘comfort’ food was coming from, we did several rounds of tapping on:

Even though I missed my mother and wanted to get those good feelings back…..I accept myself.

Even though I couldn’t put 2 and 2 together to figure out I was eating to compensate…

Even though I had no choice but to go live with Dad….

I can forgive myself for wanting to make it better by eating bread…

I can forgive myself for wanting to bring back the good feelings…

Even though I threw it all up, I can choose to just enjoy a couple of slices of fresh bread and remember fondly the special times Mum and I had together

Karen reported back to me after 4 sessions that she was not longer gorging herself with bread and then throwing it all up. Karen’s mother also told me that their relationship had improved and that Karen was much more open and sharing with her than ever.