Have you ever felt trapped by limiting beliefs, stuck in a cycle of self-doubt, or burdened by unresolved trauma? Amanda Wonderland once struggled with these challenges, trying countless methods to break free. It wasn’t until she discovered Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) that they found the key to unlock her true potential.
How did discovering EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) help you break free from your limiting beliefs and transform your mindset?
When I first discovered EFT, I had spent years trying to break free from my limiting beliefs and transform my mindset using various modalities including many decades of talk therapy, positive affirmations, vision boards, and much more. While I gained many insights into where my limiting beliefs came from, I was never truly able to actually rewrite them. I had suffered from years of chronic lower back pain and also full body hives due to the stress I had put myself under in my work situation.
I also had a huge storage bank of unprocessed trauma that was running my life and causing me to behave in ways that were no longer serving me. When I found EFT, I finally found a way to rewrite my story. EFT is an extremely effective, fast-acting, and long-lasting form of Energy Psychology that utilizes neuroscience to help rewire the neural pathways in your brain. EFT utilizes the Transformation Sequence (also known as Memory Reconsolidation), which allows a permanent revision of your thought patterns and unwanted behaviors. The Transformation Sequence consists of three very important steps: vivid reexposure to a specific event, introduction of a contradictory experience, and repetition.
It’s important to unpack the specific events from one’s life that caused us to form these limiting beliefs and negative feedback loops. By vividly re-exposing ourselves to the details of the event (including our emotions and how they are felt in the body), we can target the neural pathways where our dysfunctional thinking and behaving were first laid down. Then, by introducing the contradictory experience of tapping on meridian endpoints to send a calming signal to the brain and also allowing unconditional acceptance of ourselves and our emotions, we can finally take control of our subconscious mind and how we show up in the world.
Upon repetition of this vivid reexposure and contradictory experience, the brain gets the signal that we are ready for a new reality. The Personal Peace Procedure is a wonderful technique within EFT where an individual writes down the upsetting events from their life and then systematically taps through each one to come to a greater understanding of their compulsions and automatic responses. As I moved through my own Personal Peace Procedure, I was able to process and release so much of my unresolved trauma, and it allowed me the space to manifest a better, more whole version of myself. It was also very important for me to practice thought interruption and redirection as I became aware of my own inner critic, my neglected inner child, my repressed shadow, and the beliefs and patterns I had inherited from my ancestors. It was life-changing.
Finally I had found the tool that would allow me to transform who I was and break free from my limitations. I began to transform my mindset and replace my limiting beliefs with a more empowering sense of self, allowing me to finally stand in my power and show up as I truly desired. When this process was complete, I had no choice but to share it with the world and support others through their own transformations.
Could you share some of the initial challenges you faced when starting to reprogram your subconscious mind and how you overcame them?
When I first began to reprogram my subconscious mind, there were inevitable frustrating moments along the way. I will never say that it’s an easy road, but it will always be worth it. It takes great diligence to maintain awareness of every thought that passes through your mind. I didn’t allow one thought to occur without scrutinizing it. Is this an old story? Is this who I actually want to be? Is this what I actually want to think? And how can I take radical responsibility for all of my thoughts and actions?
Once I was able to realize that I was the common denominator in many of my struggles throughout life (in regards to my health, wealth, love/relationships, career, and spirituality), then I was truly able to find the power to choose another action. This time of radical responsibility was followed by a time of radical acceptance of everyone and everything that I had called into my life for my ultimate spiritual growth. From here, I moved into a place of radical forgiveness, and this was a very difficult phase. I was finally able to see how everyone in our lives is merely a teacher, and all of their actions occur in order to encourage our growth.
It was difficult to see from a higher perspective how everything that had happened to me had ultimately happened in order to serve me. When I truly embraced forgiveness toward myself and everyone else in my life, I was able to tap into a frequency of radical gratitude and radical love for each and every person on this planet and for each and every circumstance that I experienced. I could finally tap into the truth that We Are All One. On my journey, there would be times that I would struggle and it would appear that I was right back at square one.
Sometimes I would doubt the effectiveness of the work and wonder if it was truly worth it. But then, I would find myself showing up differently with my triggers and with similar situations to my past. I was able to regulate my nervous system and extend compassion to people in my life in a way that I was never able to before. It was a steady growth. There would be times of explosive transformation and then times where I felt like I was making no progress but, over time, I was able to truly see myself showing up differently. I was able to see that the things that once bothered me no longer bothered me and the things I was once afraid of now felt exciting and inspiring.
I highly recommend that anyone going through this journey of transformation expect inevitable frustration along the path. This is a time to extend extra grace towards yourself and to stay consistent in your practice, even if you’re not seeing immediate results. The changes are happening behind the scenes and, over time, you will see/feel the fruits of your labor.
How do EFT, meditation, and yoga work together to help clients overcome self-doubt and step into their power?
I like to use meditation with my clients and retreat participants to help them access the quiet stillness within each of us – that higher Consciousness that we can all tap into to find the answers to our questions in life. I also find meditation and guided visualization to be wonderful practices to help us connect to our inner children, our shadow, and our ancestors in order to move through our fragmentation into wholeness. Meditation is a profound opportunity to escape the fast pace of everyday life and return to the source of all that is, remembering that we are simply a reflection of that source.
Through meditation and guided visualization, we can also connect to our compelling vision of the future – that person that we strive to be – that person with unconditional self-love, authentic joy, and inner peace. This is an important first step as you begin to dismantle your old self-concepts. It’s good to have the container in place to manifest new self-concepts, helping you connect to your authentic self.
Yoga is a wonderful way to unite the mind and the body. It allows us to focus on our breath and stay in the present moment as we move our body in ways that feel soothing and strengthening for us. I practice somatic and meridian yoga which also allows us to tap into the emotions we are holding in our energetic bodies and, through movement, we can clear and release any stuck energy. Yoga is also a wonderful form of self-care. Prioritizing your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health for a certain part of the day can allow your self-worth to elevate at the same time.
EFT as a modality on its own is pure magic, based in science. By tapping on meridian endpoints while processing upsetting emotions and events, we allow the body to feel more at peace and more flexible in facilitating cognitive and energetic shifts that lead to long-lasting transformation. In combination with meditation and yoga, EFT allows for the alchemy of your trauma and the integration of a new you. We are able to see where your self-doubt stems from and take back your power from each and every instance where you once gave it away. With clear channels in your meridian system and the activation of alpha and beta brain wave states (brought on by yoga and meditation), EFT has an even better chance of sinking into your psyche and helping you change into the person you are truly meant to be.
These modalities, in combination with each other, honor the mind-body connection and allow the client’s goals and struggles to be approached holistically.
How do you approach healing core beliefs like “never good enough” in your work with clients?
Many of my clients come to me with feelings of “never being good enough”. This is perfectionism at its worst, and it’s become rampant in our society. We got the message as children that if we made a mistake, we weren’t worthy of love. Sometimes this message came from our caregivers, our teachers, our religious institutions, and/or society in general. As a result, we find ourselves on this endless hamster wheel of constantly trying to be better and better until we believe we’ve reached a state of perfection. This state of perfection, however, is unrealistic and unattainable.
Therefore we end up in a never-ending negative loop of inner criticism and hopelessness. When I begin to unpack these feelings of inadequacy with my clients, we search through their timeline to find specific events where these limiting beliefs were planted. Perhaps it was when they brought home a grade lower than their parents’ expectations, or perhaps it was when they didn’t win that sports game, or perhaps it was when they were compared to their brother or sister. This can lead to all sorts of unwanted behaviors such as addictions, eating disorders, self-sabotage, and much more.
We get clear on what exactly the limiting belief is and then we feel that belief in our body. From there, we trace this somatic sensation back to the first time that the client ever felt it. This can give us a good indication of which events were root events that caused the core wounds. From here, we systematically go through each event and tap on the meridian endpoints while vividly re-exposing the mind-body to the details of the memory and bringing in radical self-acceptance as another contradictory experience.
Over time, the limiting beliefs just don’t seem as true anymore and they are powerfully replaced with more affirming beliefs that allow the client to finally accept themselves just as they are. In my opinion, the goal of healing is to reach a state of unconditional self-love and, in doing so, we can make the world a better place by expanding that self-love into love for all fellow beings.
What inspired you to focus on practices like inherited trauma healing, and how have you seen it benefit those you work with?
After I received my certification as a clinical EFT practitioner, I was so passionate about facilitating transformation for my clients that I continued to grow my toolbox, so I could help the widest array of people. I learned about reparenting the inner child, integrating the shadow, and releasing ancestral trauma. These are the tools that I use in my group retreats, my curated solo retreats, and in my private practice. I feel that they provide me with unlimited ways to support people on their journey toward healing. I was particularly inspired to adopt inherited trauma release as a result of many of my clients showing up with issues that they had no evidence for in their actual lived experience. For example, I had clients who came in with a lack mentality around finances.
However, they had always had every need met and had never lacked for money in their lives. I also had clients coming in with a deep sense of existential guilt and not knowing where it came from. Clients who were once dominated by fear without any reason, are now free to live in their courage and confidence because of the work we’ve done with ancestral trauma release. Science has proven that we inherit certain qualities in our DNA from at least three generations back. Science has also proven, through epigenetics, that we are not defined by our past or our DNA. We have the power to decide which genes are activated in our lives.
I have seen massive transformation, not only in my own life, but also in the lives of my clients through the practice of releasing inherited trauma. It’s a way of cutting cords with the parts of our past that no longer make sense in our lives, making space for new parts of our future that better fit our authentic selves. EFT is a marvelous way to rewrite these old stories from our ancestors and, in doing so, we are not only healing future generations but also the generations before us.
