Pay particular attention to how Marla Tabaka listens to her client and digs out important core issues. This is an important case for anyone interested in improving sports performance. The EFT principles used here are universal.
By Marla Tabaka, EFT-ADV
This summer I was contacted by a skeptical father of a 17-year-old high school place kicker. His son, "Mark" had a sudden onset of issues around performing under pressure at college camps. Mark's athletic abilities are outstanding and he has no problem achieving peak performance levels in practice and in most games. However, after a lifetime of striving toward college-level play, Mark's performance abilities were mediocre at best during camp competitions where high school level football players vie for the coveted invitation to join high-ranking schools across the nation.
Mark showed a level of intensity of 9 on a scale of 0 to 10 simply by imagining himself performing at an upcoming camp. The intensity level was measured not only by an emotional fear of failure response, but tingling in his legs and heaviness in his chest. He also bounced his foot excessively and I noticed that Mark's ears would turn red whenever we talked about an upcoming competition.
In an attempt to make Mark more comfortable during our first session, we worked on the tingling and tightness first, but he did not show much improvement because the negative scenarios were dancing in his head. So we moved on to those. Since he'd never performed badly before, Mark had no negative memories contributing to his fears.
After about an hour of processing and opening the various doors with EFT, Mark realized that the camps have exposed him to other players who are as good as or better than he is. In his limited experience, Mark had never encountered a peer with equal abilities and he was not prepared for this realization. He began to question his being deserving of a scholarship award, and whether or not the coaches would even notice him.
Beginning with a level of intensity of 9 on a scale of 0 to 10 with the tingling, heaviness and very reddened ears, we began our setup with, Even though I have more competition than I've ever bargained for – and that's shocking and scary…
We tapped on, This fear of the unexpected competition … I really don't like that I'm not number one anymore.
A couple of rounds only brought the level of intensity down to 8 out of 10 in his fear and 7 out of 10 for the tingling and heaviness. So we moved on to Even though I don't deserve this scholarship as much as the others do… After one round of tapping on I don't deserve a scholarship and I feel frustrated about that, the overall level of intensity came down to about a 4 out of 10. It jogged Mark's memories of feeling cocky and overly confident in the beginning of his junior year and so he didn't work as hard as he now feels he should have.
So we said, Even though my ego got in the way and I got lazy about my goals and now I feel frustrated and angry with myself for that… After one round of tapping on this frustration and anger … I was filled with ego and laziness, his level of intensity shot up to a 9 out of 10 again. Why? Because now Mark felt a ton of guilt regarding letting down his teammates and his parents.
Even though I let everyone down, including myself, and I really let that ego get in the way, and now I have this guilt that feels like a ton of bricks sitting on my chest and legs…
After 2 rounds of tapping on this frustration and guilt we used a new setup with an overall level of intensity of 5 on a scale of 0 to 10.
Even though I have this ton of guilt-bricks on my chest and legs, I choose to forgive the 16-year-old in me who had a cocky ego and allow my now mature and driven side to surface freely with confidence and joy.
I choose to forgive that 16-year-old in me and relieve myself of this burden of guilt … after all, I was only 16 and now my ego is safely tucked away.
After 2 rounds, we continued tapping but changed to this visualization, I choose to remove these bricks of guilt, feeling my breath grow deeper and deeper as each brick is lifted.
We tapped for a full round and Mark's color returned to normal and his breathing was deep and relaxed. His level of intensity was zero out of 10, no tingling, no heaviness and now he felt deserving, relaxed and confident.
After performing flawlessly at the next camp (he tapped on his nervousness before going on the field,) Mark was offered a scholarship to his second-choice college. He's keeping his fingers crossed for number one, but has gained the confidence to go in as a "walk on" and work toward some scholarship money at his number one choice school.
Mark continues to come to EFT coaching sessions twice a month because he feels so at peace after working together on his goals. The sessions have not only had an impact on Mark's athletic goals, but his spiritual awareness as well.
Marla Tabaka