I have a client who I consider a very courageous woman.  I say that because it takes courage to want to deal with a life long fear of snakes to eliminate it.   She is 72 years old.  Her fear was so great that when she said the word snake she would shudder and feel her body shake.  Her lips and her nose would scrunch up as well.   She said, “I have this fear of snakes, and I don’t even like to say that word.  I often spell it or say “nake”.

However, she is in Florida this winter and she is surrounded by an area that has a lot of weeds and there are snakes in her RV park and needed help so she could enjoy her surroundings.

We met for an hour session on Skype, and I asked when did this all begin that she can remember and she revealed an incident when she was 5 years old when a 12 year old boy pulled a prank on her.

We started tapping globally first to take the edge off of her anxious feelings about even talking about it.  After bringing her anxious feelings down to a low level we then used the movie technique and the tell the story technique and each time telling the story she would scrunch her lips and nose up during the telling at a certain point so we kept tapping on every aspect of that incident.

• the snake’s head popped out of the oatmeal box about 6 inches
  
• how long the snake was (2 feet)
  
• the snake looked like a python
• the color of the snake (grey and black)
• the squiggling of the snake
• her screaming
• the boy laughing
• the way it dangled down and was wiggling on the boy’s arm when he picked it up 
• the boy chasing her with the snake while she was screaming
• the boy’s mother came out and yelling at him
• ending with the boy’s mother bringing her inside where she was safe and warm

We even tapped on what the snake may have feeling when he popped out of the box and heard her screaming and how scared that made him.  A little humor is always good to break tension and to help release the issue.

When we ended the tapping session, she had no physical symptoms of scrunching her nose up and she could tell the story without any feelings of tension, fear or anxiety.  When we started  she described her anxious feelings as a 10 on a 1 to 10 scale with 10 being the most intense.