Our main objective here at the National Coach Academy is to enable aspiring coaches to reach their full professional potential. One of the most effective ways to educate students about the world of coaching is by offering them a window into the world of real, practicing coaches and showing them all the different ways coaches make a difference in the lives of their clients.
We hope today’s interview adds another insightful glimpse into the dynamic world of coaching.
Today we are interviewing Lorna Minewiser. Lorna is an EFT Trainer and Personal Development Coach based in West Sacramento, California.
NCA: Can you describe your coaching practice and the kinds of clients you typically work with?
Lorna: In my coaching practice, I have office hours and I work online with Zoom and sometimes on the phone. I have quite a bit of flexibility with that.
I work with the energy field. I do a combination of life coaching and energy coaching.
This past week, for example, I had somebody with a phobia. I’ve had somebody that needs to make some future decisions. I’ve had somebody that is a veteran with PTSD and I did energy work with all of them. I taught them how to do the EFT tapping and also I do emotion coaching. Most of my clients have an issue that’s blocking their enjoyment of life and they want to find ways to release it. I do my best to find ways to help them release it.
NCA: Can you explain a little bit more about how you initially got interested in this career path and what kinds of degree or certifications did you need to complete?
Lorna: I was introduced to the energy work in 1991. I’d had a fear of heights that I’d had for 40 years and Jack Canfield introduced The Five-Minute Phobia Cure at a conference I was at and my fear of heights was gone. I was like, “Well, this is something I want to know more about.” I started studying everything I could. I went back and got my PhD in Health Psychology wanting to know more.
After I finished my PhD in 2001, I signed up for CoachVille because I decided I like the whole coaching framework. I’ve taken many, many courses through CoachVille, as well as certifications in energy psychology and EFT to complement my life coaching practice.
What happens is that we tap on specific energy points — either beginnings or ends of the meridians that are used, like in acupuncture. We focus on the issue and we try to find the early memories that started that issue and we tap on the points, like the side of the hands, top of head, eyebrow, etc. while focusing on the issue and saying things like, “Even though I have this fear of heights, I love and accept myself.”
NCA: In working with your clients, what would you say is the most rewarding part of your career and on the flip side, what is the most challenging aspect of the work that you do?
Lorna: The most rewarding is when people have this Aha! and release of whatever’s been standing in their way. The coaching philosophy is that the client has the answers. I help them find their answers and release what’s blocking them, which is really rewarding.
The most challenging is that the field of energy psychology is still so new. Coaching is new, too, but there are skeptics out there that will say things like, “Well, there’s no research.” I know there’s research. I’ve participated in one and helped write up one. It used the tapping for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder and in 6 sessions of EFT, their post-traumatic stress disorder scores dropped substantially and it changed their life. I know there’s research, a little over a hundred peer-reviewed studies. It’s very frustrating when people will say, “Well, there’s no research on that.”
NCA: You mentioned the EFT tapping and the research on it. Can you briefly describe what that is for readers who might not be completely familiar and why you think it’s so effective?
Lorna: EFT stands for Emotional Freedom Technique. It’s basically combines cognitive restructuring with the somatic part of it. What happens is that we tap on specific energy points — either beginnings or ends of the meridians that are used, like in acupuncture. We focus on the issue and we try to find the early memories that started that issue and we tap on the points, like the side of the hands, top of head, eyebrow, etc. while focusing on the issue and saying things like, “Even though I have this fear of heights, I love and accept myself.” And we do that three times and then we’d tap on this fear of heights and add in the other pieces of it — the shaky stomach, the sweaty palms, the fear. We tap on all of those aspects and what we think.
One of several of the research studies have actually shown that when you tap on these acupuncture points, it reduces cortisol, the stress chemical, and increases serotonin, the relaxation chemicals. You’re providing this contrary stimulus and repeat. If you had a fear of heights, how strong is it? Maybe it’s an 8 and we go through it and we tap down and now it’s down to a 6 and then we find some other aspect and we tap it down and it would go down to a 4. There are some times when there’s a secondary gain for not letting go of something, but often, it releases.
David Feinstein is one of the main researchers. He says that it works even better than the behavioral psychology term of extinction; it seems to go away and be gone and not come back.
NCA: I was going to ask you about that occurrence of these phobias or whatever issues the client is dealing with. After the EFT, it sounds like you’re saying that once it’s gone, it’s gone.
Lorna: Yes. Again, if you get all the aspects. For a quick example, in June, I had an automobile accident where I was in a car that was brand new to me. We had 7 miles on it. I was pulling out of the parking lot. My view was blocked and I pulled forward just a little bit and all of a sudden, a car slammed into me. I got out of the car and my chest was really painful and I was afraid I was having a heart attack because I’m 74 years old and heart disease runs through my family. I went to the emergency room and they said I had a partially collapsed lung and I have bruises and all of that.
As soon as I got home, I tapped on myself but then I called on my colleagues to help me tap all of the aspects of the car accident — being in the new car, leaning forward, the sound of the crash, the fear, all of it. We tapped to all pieces of it. I didn’t have any problems driving again in my husband’s car and my car was in the shop for a month. I wasn’t having any problems driving and pulling out of that same parking lot — nothing.
But then I got into the car that I drive. It’s a small SUV and I didn’t have any problems. When I went to pull out of that same parking space which was at my office, I was being cautious and I leaned forward to look to the left and all of a sudden I started to get activated. It was the position I was in that I had neglected to tap on that. The position that I was in was an aspect that hadn’t been released. I’m cautious because maybe I pulled out too soon, but I had to let go of some guilt about it in this new car and all the little pieces of it. I think when you get all of that pieces of something released, then it’s released. It’s amazing. I’ve been doing this for 30 years and I’m still flabbergasted sometimes.
Since Gary Craig started this back in the mid-90s, there’s been a lot of clinical studies. There’s an organization called the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology, if people are interested in looking up the research. Energypsych.org is their website.
The research study I was involved in looked at veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. Looking at the scores, there’s one man who had PTSD from the Korean War. His PTSD on the post-traumatic checklist military PCL-M dropped below the cutoff for PTSD. And the five veterans that I work with, several of them have gone on to get certified as EFT practitioners to work with other veterans. To me it’s wonderfully amazing. They report after the second or third session that their nightmares have gone away and they’re sleeping. Their insomnia scores dropped.
I have an article that’s written for the Journal of Medical Acupuncture. That’s the case study of one of the veterans that I worked with. If he doesn’t do his tapping and something’s going wrong, he knows the reason it’s going off is because he hasn’t done his tapping. So they continue to do it and that’s the other part I like is that they can continue. People can do it on their own and between. They can continue to make progress in between sessions.
NCA: Finally, what advice would you give someone looking to get started in the career path that you chose?
Lorna: One of the things I would say is to look at how you want to coach. What do you want to do? You can’t be all things to all people. If you want to be a business coach, or an executive coach or a life coach or a love coach — to narrow down especially at the start. I think that was my problem in the beginning. Everything was too broad. Narrow down what kind of coach you want to be and find the best coaching training for that. Because again in coaching, like EFT, anybody can be a coach. You don’t have to be trained. Well, I beg to differ. I think you need to know really well how to do what you’re doing because you’re affecting people’s lives.
