EFT Tapping for Anxiety, Stress, and Pain: What the Evidence Shows | Gwenn Bonnell
Tapping your face to reduce anxiety?
It sounds strange… until you understand what’s actually happening in the body.
In this episode of the Crackin’ Backs Podcast, we sit down with Gwenn Bonnell, an expert in EFT tapping (Emotional Freedom Technique) and energy medicine, to explore one of the most talked-about—and debated—tools for stress relief, anxiety, trauma, chronic pain, and nervous system regulation.
This is not about blind belief.
It’s about asking a better question:
What if your body is part of the solution?
In This Episode, We Explore:
What EFT tapping is and how it works (in plain English)
Why people are turning to tapping for anxiety, stress, burnout, and emotional regulation
The connection between the nervous system, body, and emotional health
What science says—and doesn’t say—about tapping and energy medicine
Why tapping is gaining traction in both clinical and performance settings
When EFT should be used—and when it should not replace traditional care
A simple 60-second tapping reset you can try immediately
If you’ve ever searched:
“How to reduce anxiety naturally”
“Stress relief techniques that actually work”
“EFT tapping for beginners”
“Nervous system regulation tools”
This episode gives you a practical, evidence-informed perspective—without overpromising.
About Gwenn Bonnell
Gwenn Bonnell is an EFT tapping practitioner and energy medicine specialist who helps individuals reduce chronic stress, emotional overwhelm, and persistent pain by working with both the mind and body.
After experiencing over a decade of chronic pain herself, Gwenn found relief through tapping—leading her to train extensively in EFT, somatic techniques, and energy-based healing approaches.
Today, she works with clients seeking:
Anxiety and stress relief
Trauma support and emotional regulation
Chronic pain management
Improved sleep and nervous system balance
Her approach blends practical tools with body-based awareness, helping people feel more in control of their internal state.
Why This Episode Matters
We’re living in a time where:
Anxiety and burnout are at all-time highs
People are searching for non-drug solutions
The connection between mind and body is finally being taken seriously
But with that comes confusion—and skepticism.
This episode doesn’t ask you to believe.
It asks you to stay curious.
If you’ve been feeling overwhelmed, stuck, or constantly “on edge”…
This conversation might introduce a tool you’ve never considered—but can’t ignore.
🎧 Watch or listen now
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Dr. Spencer Baron (00:01.568)
People are searching for anxiety relief, tools, trauma healing, chronic pain support, better sleep and nervous system regulation. You know, today we are joined by Gwen Bunnell, an EFT tapping and energy medicine practitioner who helps people calm stress, pain and emotional overload by using the body as part of the healing process. Welcome to the show, Gwen.
Gwenn Bonnell (00:28.886)
Thank you very much, I'm so happy to be here.
Dr Terry (00:32.387)
Yeah.
Dr. Spencer Baron (00:32.436)
We are too. We have a lot of questions for you. Gwen, you bet. Before we start talking, Gwen, let's talk about technique. What happened in your own life that made you believe that tapping was more than just another wellness trend?
Dr Terry (00:36.056)
Hahaha!
Gwenn Bonnell (00:36.288)
Okay, I'm ready.
Gwenn Bonnell (00:53.272)
Well, I'm an oldie-the-goody here. Back when I first heard about it, it was not popular at all. I had been living with chronic leg pain, burning leg pain from an ankle ulcer that healed, but the pain stayed. And I had been living with pain for 12 years. I couldn't sit and put my feet on the ground or stand for like five or 10 minutes without this pain coming up my leg.
So I was looking for answers. The medical community, of course, gave me drugs. And this was in the 80s, so probably it was some kind of drug that is pretty hard to get these days. But after a year of being drugged, because I would have to take more for the effect, and my head was just getting heavier and heavier every day, I quit that. So I was in pretty much pain for 12 years. And back then, searching, you you were
Dr. Spencer Baron (01:33.13)
Hmm.
Gwenn Bonnell (01:50.378)
looking for things, you were getting like hands on reiki and things like that. There wasn't really any energy medicine stuff out there. Acupressure, which kind of would help, but the pain would come back and you you'd have to go for sessions. that kind of quit it. So I was just basically living in pain, but I was looking, you know, I had a community of people that I was hanging around with looking for answers.
And one of my friends who spoke Spanish and English met up with a guy from Italy who spoke Italian and a little bit of English. And she said, you know, he helped me get rid of my cat allergy. Let's go meet him and maybe he can help with your pain. I said, OK, as long as I didn't, you know, I didn't I didn't do things like walking on hot coals or jumping out of airplanes. I couldn't see how that would work, but it was certainly suggested. But tapping on like fine, let's try it.
And lo and behold, she translated between the English and the Italian with her Spanish. And we did the tapping for about an hour and my pain went away, which was amazing. So he gave me homework to do. And I religiously did the homework. This was like to me and my husband, this was a miracle. I mean, I could get through the day without pain. I do fun things like make dinner and do the dishes.
and walk the dog and go shopping and just things that you take for granted, you know, that on an everyday basis would give me pain and the pain stayed away. And then I said, OK, all through all these years, I've been looking for all these different answers. And this thing with tapping actually worked and the pain is staying away. And I just took the plunge, bought what was back then VHS tapes.
for the training from Gary Craig who lives in California. There you go. There's your California connection. And began studying it and really studying it and getting in touch with Gary and using it on people that I would meet like in the grocery store or at the bank or the hairdresser that were in pain and it was working. And so my friends asked me to teach it to them. So I taught a class and they paid me and I said, okay.
Dr Terry (04:02.254)
you
Gwenn Bonnell (04:14.936)
If God's gonna give me a signal, just show me the money and I'm like, okay, we got something here. So that started my practice, but that's how I got into it. mean, when you're in pain, pretty much you're just looking for answers. And this was just a heaven sent answer, I guess, know, changed my life.
Dr. Spencer Baron (04:34.218)
We often realize that pain is a master motivator for most people. before we move on, I think people are going, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Tapping on your face is supposed to help anxiety or pain? I would love for you to explain EFT in, I guess, plain English to people.
Gwenn Bonnell (04:55.032)
Okay, so now we have research. Back then, and for the first like 10 or 15 years that I was practicing, we didn't have any research. So what we learned and what we taught and what we said is that any kind of, and traditional Chinese medicine says this, any kind of pain, any kind of anxiety, any kind of negative emotion is caused by a disruption in the body's energy system.
So when you're tapping, you're actually tapping on acupressure points, which are part of a system called the meridian system, which are pathways of energy in the body. And these acupressure points affect organs, and they affect the flow. Most importantly, they affect the flow of energy. So when you get the energy flowing through the body the way it's supposed to, then the body has what it needs to heal itself. So you relax. Once you get the energy flowing, you relax.
When you get stressed, when you see a snake or something happens in the car and you're driving and somebody cuts you off and you stop and you stop breathing and you tense up and you tighten up and that's, you can say that's an energy block because you're, you stop breathing, you get tense, you get tight, you know, the car goes away, the snake goes away and you relax and you get the energy flowing again. Well, the theory was back then that, you know, building up
These tensions and these tightnesses and stopping the energy flowing causes eventually some kind of disruption that's going to cause you anxiety, depression, pain, upset stomachs, know, all the physical symptoms and tapping, we now know, actually sends electrical systems to parts these through these meridians, these pathways of energies in your body.
gets the energy flowing again, gives the body the energy it needs so that it can release the negative emotions, relax, get the energy flowing again so the body has what it needs to heal itself. So that's what we said. just, you know, nobody understood meridians, nobody understood tapping, you know, way back then we just said stress relief and that's basically what it does. It releases the stress out of your body, gives the body the chance to heal.
Gwenn Bonnell (07:22.868)
itself. Now we have research so we know more what's going on because when you say I got rid of my stress, I feel better, you can't really measure that on a clinical basis. There's no real like yeah you just say you feel better but do we really know? Now we have research so it shows the difference in the levels of cortisol, it brings that it changes the levels of DHEA.
Dr Terry (07:24.578)
Hey.
Gwenn Bonnell (07:52.252)
It changes genetic expression. It changes serotonin levels. And so we know it affects the amygdala. It affects what's going on in the brain. It affects how. And I watched a broadcast. You guys had a few broadcasts back where the gentleman was saying that sometimes our brain or our mind predicts what's going to happen.
And a lot of times that's what happens. Something happens in your life over and over and over again, pattern. So your brain, when you walk into a situation is predicting what's going to happen. And what they're saying, what's happening is it kind of sends signals to your amygdala and to your brain that even though you're predicting this is going to happen, we're going to break that connection. We're going to get rid of that so that the next time you're in a situation or a similar situation,
We've already rewired that so we're not going to go into that particular state and go into that stress, go into that fight or flight, you know, reaction where you're stopping and you're and you're always looking and you're not relaxed. So it's just we're still we've only been researching this since the 2010s, you know, so it's not been a lot of research going on, but the research that has been going on is like just
Dr. Spencer Baron (09:00.137)
you
Gwenn Bonnell (09:21.75)
mind-blowing, especially Dr. Barron for PTSD. I know you're interested in PTSD. That research is just off the charts, the results again and what's happening.
Dr Terry (09:32.942)
Hey Gwen, you're talking about research and science. What do we actually know? What are we still learning? And how do you explain just tapping the skin to do all the stuff you're talking about? To somebody who's very skeptical that goes, well, how does tapping my face do all these neurological changes and how do you prove it?
Gwenn Bonnell (09:54.68)
Okay, so what we're tapping, we're tapping with our fingertips and we're tapping on points that are closer to the surface of the skin along these pathways of energy, along the meridians. There are certain points and these points are mapped out and they have been mapped out and they've even dug up mummies and things that show the points on them. And I have charts over there on my wall. You can't see them. But these points are closer to the surface of the skin so that when you do
affect them. And there's acupressure where you can just press on them, you know, or acupuncture where they put needles in and they turn them one way to attract energy and the other way to disperse energy. But what we're doing is we're just tapping. there's a woman called Donna Eden, who is the goddess of energy medicine. She's the energy medicine guru in the world today. And she says that we react because we have a heartbeat.
and our body recognizes tapping. And it sends, it's now showing that these signals from our fingertips are creating electrical signals on these tapping points on the meridians and the meridians flow through the entire body. They go from, this is the stomach meridian. It goes here up around the eyes down the second toe. And then there's a meridian on the big toe that comes up the body.
the toes, the liver, comes out and ends here. So each meridian connects with another meridian and it's this flow through the entire body. So you're affecting every single organ, every single system, and it's a 24 hour flow. Every two hours, another meridian is getting fed and it's just the way energy is meant to work through the body. So when you're sending these electrical signals, when you're starting that electrical signal, let's see, generating it,
It fast tracks through your system and actually goes into the amygdala and tells the amygdala, okay. And the whole idea of this, me back up and start again. The whole idea of this was started by a guy named Roger Callahan, who was a clinical psychologist and he was working with people that had fears and phobias.
Gwenn Bonnell (12:21.144)
And he couldn't figure out, he couldn't get people all over really intense fears and phobias. And he was studying traditional Chinese medicine. So he started using these tapping points. His big thing was you have to focus your mind on what is causing you the stress. So you're just not sending signals to the brain for no reason. You're keeping in your brain, you're focusing on the snake or the guy, you know,
you off in traffic or what happens when you're during a war and you're in a certain situation that was like really causing the post-traumatic stress or the pain that you have in your ankle. Your mind has to be focused on what is causing that disruption in the body's energy system so when you're sending the signal to the brain that's what it's rewiring, that's what it's bringing to mind. There you go. And that's what it's
Disconnecting because now when you're sending the signal and you're getting the energy flowing Instead of the body being in fight or flight. It's in a more relaxed state So you get this this little rewiring where even though I'm thinking of something that would cause me pain stress anxiety Grief, you know, whatever the emotion is You're getting that a little bit rewired in the brain. You're relaxed now. You're okay so
you the next time you go into a situation that might remind you of that, or you bring it to mind, now you've had this repatterning in your brain that says, I'm relaxed instead of I'm in fight or flight and I got to run away or I got fight, you know, it's just a rewiring there. When your mind is focused on something and instead of being in that fight or flight or stress, now you've got the energy flowing, now you relax, now, you know, it's a different pattern.
And the more you repattern that, the more you do this, the longer the effects last. This is one of the things that the more you do it, side effects are positive and they last longer and longer and longer. And you don't have to do it as often. Sometimes you have a one minute wonder, but sometimes you've got to do this over and over and over on a daily basis for a while to pick up all those cues on the outside or those thoughts that would cause you to go into stress and do the tapping.
Gwenn Bonnell (14:44.354)
send the signal to the brain that now you're relaxed. So that signal no longer causes you that stress and whatever result that stress would be, whether it be the pain, the anxiety, know, whatever would, you know, that thought would normally cause you to feel. Does that make sense? Okay.
Dr Terry (15:00.942)
It does.
Dr. Spencer Baron (15:02.537)
Yeah, yeah. know, when there was an interesting study done, I mean, I took acupuncture 40 years ago and we were taught that this enter.
Dr Terry (15:16.312)
they use needles back then or spikes
Dr. Spencer Baron (15:20.469)
I'm gonna use a knife next time you interrupt me. Actually, funny thing is disposable needles is a relatively new thing since that HIV AIDS epidemic. But we always, we would sterilize the same needle every time. Funny that you should ask that. For you, I'm not gonna sterilize anything. It's just going right in. Right about here.
Gwenn Bonnell (15:45.12)
No.
Dr Terry (15:49.198)
Right, right, through the eyes.
Dr. Spencer Baron (15:50.983)
Yeah, frontal lobotomy, I think they call that anyway. Gwen, let me ask you the I mean, let me share something because a lot of people, you know, wonder about, you know, the pseudoscience and is it for real and all that stuff? You know, just to help. I didn't realize energy channels and meridians was the foundational support to EFT and the tapping is is is a mode or vehicle used to to to
to change that energy like acupuncture is, we were taught that the Russians tried to disprove...
this meridian thing, this energy channel thing, and they used Curlian photography, which is a approach that illuminates energy channels. Like if you took a picture of a rock, would just be dark gray or black, whereas a flower would have, you know, be illuminated. So like we have veins and we have nerves that we can see. The Curlian photography showed energy channels in the
Gwenn Bonnell (16:40.029)
huh.
Dr. Spencer Baron (16:58.423)
that corresponded with different organ systems. you know, even 40 years ago when they said, where's the research? The Russians...
found the research, you know, and just like chiropractors, you know, the medical doctors would always say, show us the research. We think you're quacks, you know, now there's more research on spinal and manual, you know, extremity manipulation than, than anything else. But how do you, how would you explain without over claiming the things that help in your field of work and EFT?
Gwenn Bonnell (17:36.374)
I would tell people to try it. I mean, every time I would give a talk or a presentation or a class, we'd do it. I'd just tell them to do it. It's just getting the energy flowing and letting the body relax. And while your mind is focused on what would cause you that stress, you experience it for yourself. Because like I said, the first 10 or 15 years,
I did this, there was no research. Gary Craig wanted me to practice, have like 100 sessions with 100 different people before I hung out my practice, you know, and I'm like, okay, how am going to do that? But what I did was I volunteered at an HIV outreach center in Miami. And I went down there a couple days a week and I had a different dog. It took my dog with me.
Dr Terry (18:21.1)
I got your shingle.
Gwenn Bonnell (18:35.448)
and worked with people that had HIV positive and talked about stress. mean, this was in the early 2000s, you know? So...
I had 20 minutes with each of them and we just tapped. So we tapped everything that would cause them stress. They were on a concoction of medication that they had to take at a certain time every day. Oops, there goes my earbud. And it was government paid and the government was iffy about getting it to them every once in a while. They would lose their jobs, they would lose their partners. A lot of death going on.
not have a place to live. So they were very stressed and I just had to have 20 minutes with them and I just want them to learn this technique. You know, I have charts, I have things that I hand out and this and it's just really easy to learn and just feel how it relaxes you and because it does, that's the best way I could explain it. I mean, that's just what I did. Just did it. Just do it.
Dr. Spencer Baron (19:43.677)
Is there, is it like a, if somebody came to you with a condition, is there a recipe or is it the same tapping for everybody?
Gwenn Bonnell (19:52.682)
It's the same tapping points. And if you go online now, you'll find on YouTube people have websites, have books, and just here's what you say while you tap.
so they call them tapping scripts and you follow along with these tapping scripts and that's going to help because Basically just tapping without even saying anything if your mind is focused on what's causing you stress You're going to feel relaxed. So that's going to help and a lot of times you'll find what we call these one-minute wonders Yeah, I feel great, know, I feel great and then like you walk away and you know this with chiropractic You know, you them all straightened out by the time they go back to their car there
You know, so sometimes you gotta delve a little bit deeper and these are the people I get because Anybody can go online and follow a script. So what we've got to do is Go a little bit deeper And there's different techniques you can use but again, it's the same tapping points so you can learn learn the algorithm and And use it for yourself. But if you know a lot of people that do have
Dr. Spencer Baron (20:39.89)
yeah.
Gwenn Bonnell (21:09.656)
chronic pain, chronic anxiety, PTSD, something like that, it's going to be probably more than one session and they're going to have to do their homework just to help recreate that mismatch over and over and over again to the different signals that would set it up, set up the stress reaction in the brain. And then there's consolidation going on that you have to, say you wanna quit smoking.
Here's one that a therapist would call me in to help them with their hard quit smoking clients.
There's a lot that goes on when you quit smoking, quit drinking, quit something like that that is social. You're interacting socially with people who smoke or people who drink. And that's taken out of your life when you quit smoking and you quit drinking. Right. So you've not only got the urge to smoke or the urge to drink to tap away or there's one chocolate, you know, something, you know, if you want to lose weight.
tap away. So you can tap away that urge, but then you've got to address, okay, what happens because now I'm not part of that group anymore. Now I've lost my social interaction. You know, I don't go out and drink anymore. I don't go out, you know, these people who smoke, I don't go out and smoke on a coffee break at work with them anymore. You know, so then there's a whole other thing going on. So you've got to sometimes carry it through to the different layers and take care of all that.
So sometimes it's a one minute, yay. Sometimes it's more involved where you need to get a little bit more creative and look at the underlying, we call them blocks. They're sometimes called blocks or what good was that habit giving you? Or like eating chocolate, yeah, I can get somebody I've had.
Gwenn Bonnell (23:12.354)
I was giving a demonstration once where we took out our little pieces of chocolate and we tapped away the urge for chocolate. And even one girl was like ready to throw up looking at the chocolate. The urge went away so much. But then when do you reach for that chocolate? You know, when you have a fight with your husband. Nowadays, it's just when you turn on the news, go scroll through your phone. So now you've got to address these different triggers, all these different things that would set you off.
So it can get a little bit more involved than just, you know, I have a headache and I got rid of my headache today. So there's different layers to it. There's different ways, you know, that it works for people and then you have to go. For example, I had a woman back when I was teaching, I was training people for this. I think I ran like an eight week class and the first week was just learning the points, just learning the points, the algorithm, what you think about, what you say, know, basic stuff.
Dr Terry (23:49.842)
Hey.
Gwenn Bonnell (24:13.272)
And just learning the points, tapping on the points, she had a shoulder injury. And she was like, the whole class, she's like raising her hand. And I'm like, yeah, do you want something? No, I'm just the pain's gone, you know? But it came back. And we had to have a private session. what really was why she was really hanging on to that pain in her body was because
Dr. Spencer Baron (24:25.449)
Ha ha.
Gwenn Bonnell (24:40.738)
How she got it was she fell down a flight of stairs that had been painted, that didn't have a wet paint sign on it and injured her shoulder. But it was really getting her, when she kept going to all these different doctors around the state, this was here in Florida, and nobody could do anything about it. So she was really pissed at the medical profession. And that's what she was saying, that's what kept bringing the pain back. And when we tapped that away, that anger.
that frustration, everything she felt about going through that whole year of not getting relief, then the pain stayed away. So it's, you know, you've got to uncover these different triggers and really address those one by one what's happening sometimes.
Dr. Spencer Baron (25:25.001)
You mentioned something interesting, and that is that people could go on YouTube or they could watch somebody or pick it up and start tapping on themselves and so on, which is great.
But the metaphor that's important is, mean, anybody can medicate themselves. They can go to the store, grab some aspirin and take it till their life's content, you know, but, and same with chiropractor. You know, people can, you know, crack their own necks, a low bow, I can do that, you know, myself. The reality is what you had just said. There's a lot of...
Gwenn Bonnell (25:53.804)
Mine doesn't crack as good as a chiropractor does it.
Dr. Spencer Baron (25:58.783)
We, well, nevermind. I've had to, yeah, I was gonna go into the funny part of cracking your own neck, but the reality is, you can teach a monkey how to crack a bone or a joint or something, but the reality is this. Like you said, there's history and somebody to facilitate that understanding of when to do this, how to do it.
Gwenn Bonnell (26:01.496)
You
Dr. Spencer Baron (26:27.525)
the, you know, the, you know, the, that's where the professional comes in. And, you know, I think it is hugely important that, you know, anybody can, you know, pick up what the doctor does and do it themselves. But, you know, there's always that underlying thing before you say, that doesn't work, you know, or that didn't work. I tried that myself, you know. So I appreciate, you know, what you're saying. And yet at what point does it
not replace a medical intervention or a mental health intervention.
Gwenn Bonnell (27:01.996)
Okay, the thing is when anybody comes to me with a mental health or a medical problem, I always make sure they've seen a doctor first. Because number one, I'm covering my own butt. I'm not a medical professional, so I don't have those letters behind my name or anything like that. number two, I don't want to mask anything where they need professional help.
I don't want to get rid of their pain or when they need professional help for that. Okay, so like I broke my ankle. I was running in the rain and slid on cement and I was laughing, running, yay! was raining in Florida and I hit a puddle and I hit dry and then I fell down and I heard it crack. So I sat there and tapped because it hurt and I got rid of the pain so I thought, well, it must not be broken.
Dr. Spencer Baron (27:48.308)
Hahaha
Gwenn Bonnell (28:02.09)
Maybe it's just, you know, I tore something, but it wouldn't support me. couldn't get up and walk. So, you know, that taught me that, yeah, you can get rid of the pain even when there's a physical cause. So I make sure that anybody who comes to me that has a physical problem, have you been to a doctor? You know, make sure you have a doctor look at this just to make sure that we're not masking anything like I kind of did with my broken ankle.
and medical professionals too. I always say we're working with them. And the good thing is these days, a lot of medical professionals are learning to have it, and using it. Yeah, there's...
Dr Terry (28:44.578)
Hey, hey, Gwen, I have a question because I'm listening to this and you keep bringing up chronic pain and there's a condition that I know Dr. Spencer and most doctors were not really fond of and it's called fibromyalgia. And so it's a big bowl that people just throw that diagnosis and then people get identified with, I'm
Dr. Spencer Baron (28:44.821)
interesting.
Dr Terry (29:14.352)
I have fibromyalgia, I'm in a fibromyalgia group and they get into this. That seems to be something that is blocked energy or something like that. You know, you'll get people bringing in books of medication they're under and supplements they're under and how would you handle, because I'm sure people come to you for that, can you give us a little 60 second commercial of what you would do with a person that comes in with that little case and if there's anything they can do at home?
to try and break this cycle.
Gwenn Bonnell (29:47.2)
Okay, now we're going to get into the energy medicine part of this and not just the tapping. Okay, so remember when I said tapping works best when you focus your mind on a specific problem. When you have something as like, like fibromyalgia that's like everywhere and you don't really know what the problem is and it changes, you know, on a day to day basis.
Yeah, you can use the tapping for I feel it here today. I feel it here today. I feel it. I hate this. don't, you So that and that will probably be a long term. And there's nothing wrong with tapping daily. I I tap daily. Yeah, who wants to work with people's problems all day long and not get stressed out? I I need to tap it. And I have a husband.
Gwenn Bonnell (30:44.6)
But for fibromyalgia, would start with the energy medicine part of it. And energy medicine is working on the energy systems in the body. There's other energy systems besides the meridian system. You might become familiar with your aura. And the Karelian photography shows the aura also. There's also chakras.
There's also what we call the radiant circuits or the extraordinary vessels, which are also pathways of energy that from traditional Chinese medicine. So we want to get all those balances actually eight or nine different energy systems that we affect in energy medicine. We have an energy medicine daily routine to do that touches in on all those systems and gets the energy balance over and over and over again. And the thing with
Energy medicine is you do not have to have your mind focused on a specific issue So you don't have to say my wrist hurts today or my finger hurts today or my elbow hurt You know my knee hurt, you know because with fibromyalgia. It's like One thing one day another thing another day. It's not any one thing And energy medicine this daily energy medicine routine it takes like 10 or 15 minutes a day. I Have my own routine because I've taken
training and I teach energy medicine so I know what goes out on me. For example, I had mononucleosis three times when I was a kid so I know my spleen is not quite up to par. So I have things I do to strengthen my spleen energy every morning. I make sure my spleen energy is strengthened.
You just get this daily energy routine, and that's on the internet, too. That's on YouTube. You can just Google Donna Eden daily energy routine and follow along with her. And that gets all the systems balanced. So if I would work one on one with a person, I would find out more specifically what part of their system needs balance, like me with my spleen, and incorporate that into the energy medicine technique. But that's something that they
Gwenn Bonnell (33:04.716)
doing that twice a day for like 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, they're going to start feeling better because you're getting all the energy systems flowing the way they're supposed to flow and doing what they're supposed to do. So when it's something overriding like that, where it's like through the entire body and I always incorporate energy medicine into it. And then we do the tapping and the tapping I would start with how to always start in the present moment.
How are you feeling today? What is your anxiety? What is your stress? Sometimes it's about the fibromyalgia. Sometimes it's about the doctors that you go to that aren't giving you any help and you're frustrated with the medical system. Sometimes it's about the diet that you're supposed to be on and you're not totally comfortable with that. Sometimes it's the husband.
Dr. Spencer Baron (33:58.517)
So I heard.
Gwenn Bonnell (34:02.348)
Funny thing is he was asking me about AI yesterday. So I was trying to show him how to use AI on his phone. And I'm like, and it's not, it used to be really slow, but it got really fast from here. I'll show you. I, and I put into the AI, how do you get your husband to talk to you after a hard day at work? And it's like thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking. It's usually really task, but as thinking.
Dr Terry (34:22.966)
hahahahah
Dr. Spencer Baron (34:23.123)
No.
Dr. Spencer Baron (34:27.199)
That's good.
Gwenn Bonnell (34:32.504)
So I guess I guess there's a lot of stuff on the internet about that but But anyway, I know I always start with what's going on, you know in their face for that day And that's a good way to teach them tapping to deal with daily stress because the daily Stress is causing is certainly not helping their response and the energy system in their body and that stress is feeding into the fibromyalgia
Dr. Spencer Baron (34:35.448)
boy.
Dr Terry (34:37.09)
Ha!
Dr. Spencer Baron (34:39.444)
Yeah.
Gwenn Bonnell (35:01.886)
You're almost on a hamster wheel where you're sick and you're stressed, you're making yourself sicker and then you get stressed more and then you're making, know, so we've got to break that connection. And the tapping will break the connection for what you're focused on that day that's causing that stress, but the energy medicine will help without having to figure out what I say, what I tap on, you know, it's just a routine that will help balance all the energy systems in the body.
to start getting you towards that overall health where it makes my job, the tapping, much easier. So I know that's like, now we're going off on another segment, but for something like fibromyalgia, that's kind of what you need to do. It's not going to be, okay, let's tap today and come back in a week and we'll tap again. And you know, after three or four weeks, you're going to feel better. Probably not. I mean, maybe that would be a miracle. You know, I've seen miracles happen, you know, certainly, but I'm not going to give that kind of
Advice now and say yeah, just go do some tapping and it's going to go away Probably not. I don't know you can play the odds
Dr. Spencer Baron (36:05.553)
Is there something you, is there a patient that you would or a condition that you would not take on?
Gwenn Bonnell (36:13.272)
Mental health like if somebody came to me and said Schizophrenia or something like that I would say
Dr Terry (36:23.906)
Hmm.
Gwenn Bonnell (36:23.928)
I mean, I've had, because I've done trainings, I've had medical professionals in my classes. And yeah, those that would lead to the medical, totally, know, something like that. I have no, that's way out of my, and I did try couples therapy once and now that's, and that's in that either. And children.
Dr Terry (36:49.014)
Hey, hey, I got something
Gwenn Bonnell (36:52.664)
You know, children, I don't have those letters behind my name. So the children, I always tell the parents, I'll tap with the parent because usually the parent is tied in enough with the child so that if you get the parents energy going and getting them relaxed, the kid is going to change too. You know, so, but that's kind of what I stay with.
Dr Terry (37:11.182)
What do you say to the people that, because the people are gonna believe you're gonna believe, but the naysayers, the ones that go, the pseudo effect or the placebo effect is super powerful and the neurological sign, if we want something to happen, we can make it happen. I mean, we're not gonna convince everybody. I Dr. Spencer and I have been trying to convince people that chiropractic actually works for decades, but for somebody just listening,
wants to know how does the science behind I loved what he was saying about curly and photography and there's meridian photography and there's there's all different types of science but what do you say for the person that says well the placebo effect is powerful
Gwenn Bonnell (37:59.892)
And it is. And who cares if it works?
Dr. Spencer Baron (38:02.515)
Yeah, very good. It is true.
Dr Terry (38:03.874)
Love it.
So do you just?
Gwenn Bonnell (38:08.65)
And let me just say too, I go to a chiropractor every month just to keep me straightened out. mean, chiropractic's great. mean, you can't go wrong with it.
Dr Terry (38:23.222)
No. So is there any tapping stuff that you could show us that just the average person watching this show can experience something and if they want to dive deeper they can find somebody or just a health tip that can just improve everyone's life?
Gwenn Bonnell (38:42.102)
Yeah, but first my husband told me, and if I don't, you know what is going to happen, that I have to bring up the PTSD thing. And I have tapped with people. I have tapped with veterans for PTSD. And I would say a lot of people that aren't veterans have PTSD. It's, you know, I've tapped with people that were in cults, people that had traumatic things happen.
I'm not going to get into women that are older than me that lived in kind of the world we're going back to these days. anyway, there is I and I have notes. So I just got I just got to say this. Like I said, back when I first started, we didn't have a lot of we didn't have any research. There's a gentleman called Dawson Church. His website is EFT Universe.
Dr Terry (39:26.744)
No worries.
Gwenn Bonnell (39:43.606)
He does trainings if somebody wants to get trained and have the training to put into their practice. But what he really did when he got into, when he learned about, he's in an organization called Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology, which I'm a part of. kind of grandfathered in because I joined really early. But he joined, he found out about tapping and.
He said, you know, nobody's going to believe this until we do the research. So he started doing research. And him and David Feinstein, who's Donny Eden's husband, took it to Congress and said, listen, this works for PTSD. And it's been decades. And they're finally just being convinced of it. But anyway, he gave a speech in 2016 that I was witnessing. And he did research.
starting in like 2012 for PTSD, using EFT for the PST veterans, PTSD veterans and their spouses because they get like transferred PTSD just being a spouse living with these guys that come home from war. So they did EFT tapping, they did what they call clinical EFT for 218 veterans and their spouses.
And what they had was 10 one-hour long sessions for each of them. And I guess for the way they either, this is clinical or not, I don't know, or this is just the way they score it. But if you have a score of 50, that means you likely have PTSD. So the average score for the veterans before the tapping was 65. After 10 hour long sessions, the average score was 44.
That was a 48 % reduction in the symptoms and six months later they went back and this average score was 42 So it actually went down Okay, and then their spouses who had that transferred PTSD before Tapping their score was 45. So they weren't really you know in the ps PTSD range But after it was the 32 and six months later was the 26 So it really brought it down So he started doing a whole bunch of studies
Gwenn Bonnell (42:04.684)
He's like, OK, we need a bunch of studies to get what is called, I don't know if you guys are familiar with research, have meta-analysis, where they put a bunch of the research together and figure out, just make a meta-analysis. And finally, you had enough research studies done that we could do this. The first meta-analysis we did.
When you do this meta-analysis, you get a rating on what's called a Cohen's d. And if you get a 0.2, that's 2 tenths, that's a small change. 0.5 is a moderate change for the better. And 0.8 means whatever you're doing has a really large effect. For the clinical EFT, for PTSD, they put seven studies together. And remember I said
2.8 is a large effect. The COHINDS-D measured out to 2.96. So this is huge. This is off the charts. And this is when they finally started getting Congress to listen and getting it into the Veterans Association through the organizations and stuff. Also, they did this for, they did 20 studies for depression. And the COHINDS-D was 1.31. They did 14 studies together for the meta-analysis for
for anxiety and the Coens B was 1.23. So this really works. So there's your meta-analysis, your PTSD. now, you know, it's proof that that works a lot. Dawson Church actually did have a website where he had a program veterans could go to and use the website and do tapping. But I guess now there's enough people offering tapping that
He doesn't have that on the website anymore. People can just go into, you know, get help from other people with the tapping. anybody that's a veteran that's listening.
Gwenn Bonnell (44:09.836)
Definitely.
Dr. Spencer Baron (44:10.003)
I got a, veterans, yeah, I got a patient. Well, it's it's a buddy of mine who had a heart attack a couple of years ago. Well, no, two years ago, I think. And he has PTSD from almost dying. And I think this would be an ideal.
aspect of care or treatment for him because he's already very open-minded to it. But this guy, he's a construction engineer, so he has to go to different, well, out of the state to like Aruba or what have you. And he is constantly making sure that there's a hospital in the area because he lives in fear.
And that's his PTSD, which I, you know, I'm so used to hearing PTSD from military, you know, first responders, but this is a unique, you know, area that I think you could.
Gwenn Bonnell (45:08.845)
And let's delve into that a little bit because.
A lot of times if you go on tapping online and they're going to give you a script on tapping points, they're going to give you what is called the shortcut tapping protocol. I learned the long, drawn out version because I was taught, that's what we were taught. And some of the points were dropped. The points, finger points on the hands were dropped and this point on the back of the hand was dropped. If you make a fist,
between the baby finger knuckle and the ring finger knuckle on the back of the hand there's a depression there that's the V. It's like a V in there. There's two acupuncture points in there. So if you tap with two fingers you're getting both points. This affects what is called the triple warmer meridian. What the triple warmer affects is your fight or flight syndrome response. Okay. So when you have PTSD you're in fight or flight.
And you know, they do this to soldiers and I've worked with that. So when they're in war over, know, wherever they are, they're taught to be aware and alert 24 seven because that's the only way they're going to stay alive and come out of their life. When they come home, they don't teach them how to turn it off. So like you said, they're looking for hospitals, they're looking for, know, if you ever, you know, they're looking for the way out, they're looking for the exit door. They're never going to sit with their
back next to an exit door. They're on alert all the time. So massaging here or tapping here will bring down that fight or flight response on its own. So when I'm working with people that have that or something that I pretty much anybody I work with, I'm going to teach them the entire protocol. I'm not just going to teach them the shortcut points that you get on the internet. But I've had a lot of clients and a lot of
Gwenn Bonnell (47:11.352)
people that I trained and a lot of students I tell them you know when you feel that fast response because the triple warmer it's called triple because it has it governs your gut your chest and your breathing it just that's the three your breathing your edge your elimination and your stomach your digestion that's the triple warmer and when you have that
fast response. You feel that fear come up, that anxiety come up, that sadness come up. Anything that comes up, whoosh, real fast, that's a triple warmer response. And by massaging this, it'll bring it down. I'm not saying it's going to bring it down to zero, but when you're in a social situation, it'll bring it down enough that you can make a better decision on how to respond than to just be in that fight of flight. The other way to affect that.
And this is, so this is, I always include this tapping point. So you're not going to see this a lot on people who just do tapping scripts on YouTube, but I always include this. Tapping, when you're doing the tapping, you know, we can do the tapping, but if you're out in public or you don't know what to do or you're just feeling, you know, you can massage it. Tapping or massage, whatever feels better to you. A lot of times when you're tapping and you're tapping and you're tapping and you're tapping, it gets sore.
Dr. Spencer Baron (48:19.391)
Tapping or massage? Massaging. okay. Yeah.
Dr. Spencer Baron (48:31.477)
Okay, got it.
Gwenn Bonnell (48:39.896)
So people say okay, and then you can tap the other hand or whatever but the massage works too. Whatever works for you. It's kind of like an experiment. You just see what works best for you. The other thing I use for PTSD and for people that are really stressed is this is an energy medicine technique. Above your eyebrows you have two bumps here. They're called frontal neurovasculars. Okay, feel those.
Dr. Spencer Baron (48:44.884)
Yeah.
Gwenn Bonnell (49:07.736)
So can either put your fingertips there or you just put the palm of your hand there. You have energy in your hands. You're an electrical person. We're all electrical beings. We have energy. So when we put something here, we're drawing energy to it. When you're in fight or fight, the first thing that happens is blood leaves your forebrain. So you can fight, flee, or freeze, right? Your forebrain is where you make informed decisions. So now you're in fight or flight mode.
Right when you need to think your way out of it, you can't because you don't have any, the energy's gone out of your brain, your blood has gone out of your brain. So putting your fingertips on these points or if you're not sure you have the points, putting your hand across the front of your forehead brings that energy back into your forebrain. And you don't have to not think about what's causing you stress. In fact, if you do think about what's causing you stress, this is almost the same thing as tapping. Now you're...
Dr. Spencer Baron (49:44.338)
sense.
Gwenn Bonnell (50:05.536)
Reorganizing how that works in your brain now you're thinking about what's causing you stress But instead of the blood leaving your brain you're drawing it back up So you have that energy in your core brain? So now you're you've got that mismatch going on again. Oops I usually go into stress, but now I'm not going into stress. I'm out of stress. I feel calm Okay, so you got that mismatch and then you've got a light kind of just consolidate that and you can solve consolidate that with the test
Dr Terry (50:35.276)
Is that why when people get stressed you see them sometimes just doing this?
Gwenn Bonnell (50:38.828)
Yeah, yeah for sure and I remember when I was the kid in my coming yellow mommy mommy something happening first thing she'd do is put her hand across my forehead because you have we have these instinctual responses We just don't know what they're doing and we don't hold them long enough. We just like up and then we're gone This is an I tell students you're taking a test put your hand on your forehead while you're tying to take you know Are you filling out a form and you can't think or?
You've got the answer on the tip of your tongue and you can't get it out. Just put your hand on your forehead and in the next 30 seconds a minute you're going to think of it.
Dr Terry (51:15.532)
I'm going be walking around all day like this because I can't think half the time.
Gwenn Bonnell (51:20.523)
Well, the good news is, remember, I said the effects are positive, the side effects are positive, and the more you do it, the faster it works and the longer it lasts.
Dr. Spencer Baron (51:20.629)
I think what
Dr. Spencer Baron (51:24.949)
Yeah.
Dr Terry (51:30.04)
Great.
Dr. Spencer Baron (51:30.805)
Well, I learned the hard way. And when I would make a mistake and go, damn it, and forget, I would give myself a concussion. Maybe I should just be a little more gentle.
Gwenn Bonnell (51:31.576)
So, what am I
Dr Terry (51:39.63)
That's just a heavy tap.
Gwenn Bonnell (51:43.911)
And if you want to if you're a bed at night or whatever you're can't can't go to bed can't go to sleep because you got all those thoughts running through your head this is a good thing to do and you take your hand and you put your other hand back here and You know Vegas knows the new like thing these days But the Vegas nerve has always been there and this is your freeze response So you get you get this together
Dr. Spencer Baron (51:59.412)
Yeah.
Gwenn Bonnell (52:07.606)
You can't, you know, it's hard to do this when you're tapping because then you don't have anything to tap with but laying in bed at night is so.
This will get those thoughts out of your head, calm you down, and you can get back to sleep. So when I'm doing the tapping for PTSD, back when I was working in person, I would hold the forebrain. I would hold these frontal neurovasculas while they did the tapping. But now I just have people hold across their forehead, and they do the tapping. And it helps. It helps with the PTSD. So I would tell your friend, I would tell your friend that. Tell him, you know, the back of the hand, this is the gamut point.
Dr. Spencer Baron (52:15.637)
That's it.
Dr. Spencer Baron (52:43.657)
I'm just going to send them to you, Gwen. Never mind. I'm just going to send them to you. go, come on. And I go, no, Gwen is the master.
Gwenn Bonnell (52:46.38)
Yeah.
Gwenn Bonnell (52:54.378)
Or this, you know, and it's going to help. But anyway, so you want me to teach you some tapping? What do we got? Yeah, we got enough time left. I'll just take you through tapping points. And you guys got anything that's stressing you today?
Dr. Spencer Baron (53:11.827)
Yeah, my co-host stresses me out.
Gwenn Bonnell (53:17.904)
I heard you have this Florida California war thing going on.
Dr Terry (53:19.01)
There.
Dr. Spencer Baron (53:23.893)
Oh yeah, oh yeah, we definitely do. No, I'm kidding, it's great. Actually though, I don't know, Terry, do you want to do that or do want me go into the rapid fire questions?
Dr Terry (53:36.478)
That's your choice.
Dr. Spencer Baron (53:39.029)
Give us, well, you already shared something that, you know, for people that are, you know, that are stressing, which is probably everyone at some point. Is that one of the easiest? Yeah. yeah. Yeah. Or watch the news or read the news, your hand on your forehead. no, I think those are good. I mean, some of the more complicated stuff, think.
Gwenn Bonnell (53:50.604)
Yeah, scroll through your phone like this, you know.
Dr Terry (53:58.825)
Yeah.
Dr. Spencer Baron (54:06.301)
you people should go to a professional like yourself to do. heard you're extraordinary at what you do. So I would love to get into our that we only have another six or so minutes, but we usually do the rapid fire questions at the end. And that's something I would have fun with with you because you seem like you'd be on point with them. We got five of them. We look for short answers. If you're ready for the challenge, I'm going to.
Gwenn Bonnell (54:12.45)
Thank you.
Dr Terry (54:23.502)
Yeah.
Gwenn Bonnell (54:34.328)
Wait a minute, let me tap.
Dr. Spencer Baron (54:35.57)
Yeah.
Dr Terry (54:35.79)
You
Dr. Spencer Baron (54:39.369)
Good question. Number one, is the one what is one thing the next time anxiety, pain or stress hits? Well, you pretty much told it, you know, is if there's anything supplemental that we can do to try to try and help. There's the hand on the forehead or what gives that little wrap up about the.
Gwenn Bonnell (54:39.864)
Okay.
Gwenn Bonnell (54:59.49)
Breathing breathing is always good Breathing I hear breathing is really important because you know you stop breathing then But breathing I mean even what's happening we have you take a deep breath you know before you start and then between each point The breathing and if you do the breathing where you breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth You're activating your vagus nerve
Dr. Spencer Baron (55:03.742)
Is it?
Dr. Spencer Baron (55:09.557)
Flatline
Gwenn Bonnell (55:28.888)
vagus response, your nervous system response, that part of it. I don't, know, everybody, vagus nerve is the catchphrase today. Everybody's into that, but breathing in through the nose, through the mouth. I would put the hand over the center of the chest. You've got a tapping point. This has, there's a central vessel point here, 17. It's also your thymus gland, which is
tapping there, really thumping there, wakes up your immune system. Okay. It's also helps override. Remember I talked about if you quit smoking, but then all your friends smoke and you don't use, so that's kind of like a reversal that kind of blocks you. This helps get rid of override those blocks you might have to getting well. And it's also called, there's also an energy center there called having rush, heaven rushing in. So it's a really potent place right here. So if you put your hand across there,
And then tap on that gamut point. That's the fear point. That's the point also for depression. And it's also the point for pain. So you're hitting a lot of points here. So if you're not going to do any other tapping, you don't, know, just, you can massage. If the tapping doesn't feel right to you. And take two, three deep breaths.
Dr Terry (56:45.39)
And that's between the fourth and the fifth knuckle or the fourth and the third.
Gwenn Bonnell (56:52.012)
fifth and the fourth The baby finger in the ring finger there's that depression there if you open your hand you kind of lose that depression a little bit But that's how you find it. So put the hand over the center of your chest and just tap there And take some deep breaths. And if you just want to tell yourself, I'm okay. It's okay. I'm alright. I'll get through this, you know Even though that idiot cut me off in traffic. I'm okay. Like even though my boss keeps leaving I have this co-host from hell
Dr Terry (56:53.472)
Okay.
Dr Terry (56:59.244)
Yep. Got it.
Dr Terry (57:20.922)
Ha Ha
Dr. Spencer Baron (57:21.013)
Ha ha ha!
Gwenn Bonnell (57:24.392)
I'm okay. It'll all work out. You know, just say something positive.
Dr. Spencer Baron (57:27.221)
Question number two, Gwen, question number two.
Gwenn Bonnell (57:31.08)
you
Dr. Spencer Baron (57:32.925)
You, Gwen, you studied under some of the pioneers in energy psychology, but what's one lesson you learned the hard way outside of your training that really shaped you?
Gwenn Bonnell (57:46.392)
One thing I've learned through working with so many people is you never know what the other person's thinking and often what you're thinking and what they're thinking about the same situation is totally different. So if you're hanging on to anger, any kind of hostility, any kind of resentment, you know about what happened with them, they're probably
They think something totally different. And that's where tapping can really help. It can help you get rid of a lot of that anger, resentment, frustration that you're hanging on to that's holding you back from really being in a loving situation, a loving place inside yourself. And you're only responsible for yourself. You're not responsible for them. They're not responsible for you. So take responsibility for yourself.
Tapping is a beautiful way to do that, but you never I mean I've had people walk through my house And I'm just like and they're having a pot and I can't you know you need just never know Just never know what the other person's thinking you're not responsible for them. They're not responsible for you Take charge of yourself that way you can find peace Love yourself. Love yourself first know yourself knows. I so I think somebody important said that Millennials ago
Dr. Spencer Baron (59:10.943)
Question number three, if we handed you a completely free day, no work, no responsibilities, what does a perfect Gwen day actually look like from morning to night? Would you tap your life away? No, no, I'm kidding. What would you do?
Gwenn Bonnell (59:28.056)
You know, Dr. Barron, I pretty much have it made. I wake up in the morning and I take my dog out. I take my cat out. I go out in the backyard. It's like four or five in the morning. And I do my, I have my little energy medicine routine and my little salutations. I have my breakfast. I go out and I work in my garden. I walk my dog and then I work in my, I have a vegetable garden for like an hour, an hour and a half. And that's like my grounding.
That's like my day. And then the day starts. Then it's like nine o'clock, nine thirty, ten o'clock, and then my day starts. But if I didn't have that, I wouldn't know what to do. So any perfect day would... Other than being in Italy, I could be in Italy. I could be in
Dr. Spencer Baron (01:00:14.293)
There you go. Question number four. You posted that with difficult roads often lead to beautiful destinations. Can you recall a moment where this happened that you would like to share?
Gwenn Bonnell (01:00:29.186)
Can you say that again? Difficult row, Rose.
Dr. Spencer Baron (01:00:30.741)
difficult often lead to beautiful destinations.
Gwenn Bonnell (01:00:37.41)
That happened in my life with the pain, the 12 years of pain. If I wouldn't have had pain for 12 years, I would have never discovered tapping. And I can't tell you how many miracles I've seen. It's just learning tapping and sharing it is just, it's giving me goosebumps right now. And if I wouldn't have been in pain for 12 years, would have, I would have said, what's that stuff? know? So yeah, it's.
Yeah, the phoenix always rises from the ashes.
Dr. Spencer Baron (01:01:12.723)
Last question, if life isn't happening to us, but something we're actively shaping, what's the one shift in your awareness you've seen people change in their lives, the fastest?
Gwenn Bonnell (01:01:30.274)
that I've seen other people change.
Dr. Spencer Baron (01:01:31.923)
Yeah.
Or that you, yeah, where you've changed people's lives the fastest.
Gwenn Bonnell (01:01:40.742)
just with what I do. mean, I can't tell you how many people say it's a miracle. They say, well, that part wasn't, but this part was. I knew this and I did this, but then this happened. You know, it's, it's, I've seen.
Dr. Spencer Baron (01:01:51.571)
Yeah.
Gwenn Bonnell (01:01:59.896)
My toughest client, I'll tell you, was the guy that had peripheral neuropathy all over his body. His entire body was on fire all the time. And he had tried so many things. And he had been to so many doctors and so many clinics and so many hospitals. And he had a warping pump in his back, in his spine. And we tapped and tapped and tapped.
I think we did tap for seven years and he would get results and the pain would come back and he'd get results and the pain would come back but he kept tapping. So we tapped and we finally got rid of the pain and then he had to get rid of the morphing pump and that was a whole nother thing, know, because then that was surgery and that was, and then because he had been on steroids for so long, he had organs that were shutting down and we had to get reactivated and you know, his body had to start making things that he.
you know, he was taking medication to make. And so that was the whole seven year process. And we did it. We did it. And yeah, that was.
It wasn't a quick turnaround, you know, but it was something that really, you know, made his life really better for sure. mean, along the way, he quit his job, he moved, he got married, got a new job, he moved, he got married. I mean, everything shifted in his life, but he's still around, he still calls me these days,
Dr. Spencer Baron (01:03:39.829)
Great. Well, Gwen, think the time, this period of time in our lives is a very ripe time for alternative care like that, which could end up being a mainstream approach. So thank you for sharing EFT with us. I think that was fantastic. Thank you so much.
Gwenn Bonnell (01:03:57.214)
Anytime.
Gwenn Bonnell (01:04:01.277)
You're welcome.
People are searching for anxiety relief, tools, trauma healing, chronic pain support, better sleep and nervous system regulation. You know, today we are joined by Gwen Bunnell, an EFT tapping and energy medicine practitioner who helps people calm stress, pain and emotional overload by using the body as part of the healing process. Welcome to the show, Gwen.
Gwenn Bonnell (00:28.886)
Thank you very much, I'm so happy to be here.
Dr Terry (00:32.387)
Yeah.
Dr. Spencer Baron (00:32.436)
We are too. We have a lot of questions for you. Gwen, you bet. Before we start talking, Gwen, let's talk about technique. What happened in your own life that made you believe that tapping was more than just another wellness trend?
Dr Terry (00:36.056)
Hahaha!
Gwenn Bonnell (00:36.288)
Okay, I'm ready.
Gwenn Bonnell (00:53.272)
Well, I'm an oldie-the-goody here. Back when I first heard about it, it was not popular at all. I had been living with chronic leg pain, burning leg pain from an ankle ulcer that healed, but the pain stayed. And I had been living with pain for 12 years. I couldn't sit and put my feet on the ground or stand for like five or 10 minutes without this pain coming up my leg.
So I was looking for answers. The medical community, of course, gave me drugs. And this was in the 80s, so probably it was some kind of drug that is pretty hard to get these days. But after a year of being drugged, because I would have to take more for the effect, and my head was just getting heavier and heavier every day, I quit that. So I was in pretty much pain for 12 years. And back then, searching, you you were
Dr. Spencer Baron (01:33.13)
Hmm.
Gwenn Bonnell (01:50.378)
looking for things, you were getting like hands on reiki and things like that. There wasn't really any energy medicine stuff out there. Acupressure, which kind of would help, but the pain would come back and you you'd have to go for sessions. that kind of quit it. So I was just basically living in pain, but I was looking, you know, I had a community of people that I was hanging around with looking for answers.
And one of my friends who spoke Spanish and English met up with a guy from Italy who spoke Italian and a little bit of English. And she said, you know, he helped me get rid of my cat allergy. Let's go meet him and maybe he can help with your pain. I said, OK, as long as I didn't, you know, I didn't I didn't do things like walking on hot coals or jumping out of airplanes. I couldn't see how that would work, but it was certainly suggested. But tapping on like fine, let's try it.
And lo and behold, she translated between the English and the Italian with her Spanish. And we did the tapping for about an hour and my pain went away, which was amazing. So he gave me homework to do. And I religiously did the homework. This was like to me and my husband, this was a miracle. I mean, I could get through the day without pain. I do fun things like make dinner and do the dishes.
and walk the dog and go shopping and just things that you take for granted, you know, that on an everyday basis would give me pain and the pain stayed away. And then I said, OK, all through all these years, I've been looking for all these different answers. And this thing with tapping actually worked and the pain is staying away. And I just took the plunge, bought what was back then VHS tapes.
for the training from Gary Craig who lives in California. There you go. There's your California connection. And began studying it and really studying it and getting in touch with Gary and using it on people that I would meet like in the grocery store or at the bank or the hairdresser that were in pain and it was working. And so my friends asked me to teach it to them. So I taught a class and they paid me and I said, okay.
Dr Terry (04:02.254)
you
Gwenn Bonnell (04:14.936)
If God's gonna give me a signal, just show me the money and I'm like, okay, we got something here. So that started my practice, but that's how I got into it. mean, when you're in pain, pretty much you're just looking for answers. And this was just a heaven sent answer, I guess, know, changed my life.
Dr. Spencer Baron (04:34.218)
We often realize that pain is a master motivator for most people. before we move on, I think people are going, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Tapping on your face is supposed to help anxiety or pain? I would love for you to explain EFT in, I guess, plain English to people.
Gwenn Bonnell (04:55.032)
Okay, so now we have research. Back then, and for the first like 10 or 15 years that I was practicing, we didn't have any research. So what we learned and what we taught and what we said is that any kind of, and traditional Chinese medicine says this, any kind of pain, any kind of anxiety, any kind of negative emotion is caused by a disruption in the body's energy system.
So when you're tapping, you're actually tapping on acupressure points, which are part of a system called the meridian system, which are pathways of energy in the body. And these acupressure points affect organs, and they affect the flow. Most importantly, they affect the flow of energy. So when you get the energy flowing through the body the way it's supposed to, then the body has what it needs to heal itself. So you relax. Once you get the energy flowing, you relax.
When you get stressed, when you see a snake or something happens in the car and you're driving and somebody cuts you off and you stop and you stop breathing and you tense up and you tighten up and that's, you can say that's an energy block because you're, you stop breathing, you get tense, you get tight, you know, the car goes away, the snake goes away and you relax and you get the energy flowing again. Well, the theory was back then that, you know, building up
These tensions and these tightnesses and stopping the energy flowing causes eventually some kind of disruption that's going to cause you anxiety, depression, pain, upset stomachs, know, all the physical symptoms and tapping, we now know, actually sends electrical systems to parts these through these meridians, these pathways of energies in your body.
gets the energy flowing again, gives the body the energy it needs so that it can release the negative emotions, relax, get the energy flowing again so the body has what it needs to heal itself. So that's what we said. just, you know, nobody understood meridians, nobody understood tapping, you know, way back then we just said stress relief and that's basically what it does. It releases the stress out of your body, gives the body the chance to heal.
Gwenn Bonnell (07:22.868)
itself. Now we have research so we know more what's going on because when you say I got rid of my stress, I feel better, you can't really measure that on a clinical basis. There's no real like yeah you just say you feel better but do we really know? Now we have research so it shows the difference in the levels of cortisol, it brings that it changes the levels of DHEA.
Dr Terry (07:24.578)
Hey.
Gwenn Bonnell (07:52.252)
It changes genetic expression. It changes serotonin levels. And so we know it affects the amygdala. It affects what's going on in the brain. It affects how. And I watched a broadcast. You guys had a few broadcasts back where the gentleman was saying that sometimes our brain or our mind predicts what's going to happen.
And a lot of times that's what happens. Something happens in your life over and over and over again, pattern. So your brain, when you walk into a situation is predicting what's going to happen. And what they're saying, what's happening is it kind of sends signals to your amygdala and to your brain that even though you're predicting this is going to happen, we're going to break that connection. We're going to get rid of that so that the next time you're in a situation or a similar situation,
We've already rewired that so we're not going to go into that particular state and go into that stress, go into that fight or flight, you know, reaction where you're stopping and you're and you're always looking and you're not relaxed. So it's just we're still we've only been researching this since the 2010s, you know, so it's not been a lot of research going on, but the research that has been going on is like just
Dr. Spencer Baron (09:00.137)
you
Gwenn Bonnell (09:21.75)
mind-blowing, especially Dr. Barron for PTSD. I know you're interested in PTSD. That research is just off the charts, the results again and what's happening.
Dr Terry (09:32.942)
Hey Gwen, you're talking about research and science. What do we actually know? What are we still learning? And how do you explain just tapping the skin to do all the stuff you're talking about? To somebody who's very skeptical that goes, well, how does tapping my face do all these neurological changes and how do you prove it?
Gwenn Bonnell (09:54.68)
Okay, so what we're tapping, we're tapping with our fingertips and we're tapping on points that are closer to the surface of the skin along these pathways of energy, along the meridians. There are certain points and these points are mapped out and they have been mapped out and they've even dug up mummies and things that show the points on them. And I have charts over there on my wall. You can't see them. But these points are closer to the surface of the skin so that when you do
affect them. And there's acupressure where you can just press on them, you know, or acupuncture where they put needles in and they turn them one way to attract energy and the other way to disperse energy. But what we're doing is we're just tapping. there's a woman called Donna Eden, who is the goddess of energy medicine. She's the energy medicine guru in the world today. And she says that we react because we have a heartbeat.
and our body recognizes tapping. And it sends, it's now showing that these signals from our fingertips are creating electrical signals on these tapping points on the meridians and the meridians flow through the entire body. They go from, this is the stomach meridian. It goes here up around the eyes down the second toe. And then there's a meridian on the big toe that comes up the body.
the toes, the liver, comes out and ends here. So each meridian connects with another meridian and it's this flow through the entire body. So you're affecting every single organ, every single system, and it's a 24 hour flow. Every two hours, another meridian is getting fed and it's just the way energy is meant to work through the body. So when you're sending these electrical signals, when you're starting that electrical signal, let's see, generating it,
It fast tracks through your system and actually goes into the amygdala and tells the amygdala, okay. And the whole idea of this, me back up and start again. The whole idea of this was started by a guy named Roger Callahan, who was a clinical psychologist and he was working with people that had fears and phobias.
Gwenn Bonnell (12:21.144)
And he couldn't figure out, he couldn't get people all over really intense fears and phobias. And he was studying traditional Chinese medicine. So he started using these tapping points. His big thing was you have to focus your mind on what is causing you the stress. So you're just not sending signals to the brain for no reason. You're keeping in your brain, you're focusing on the snake or the guy, you know,
you off in traffic or what happens when you're during a war and you're in a certain situation that was like really causing the post-traumatic stress or the pain that you have in your ankle. Your mind has to be focused on what is causing that disruption in the body's energy system so when you're sending the signal to the brain that's what it's rewiring, that's what it's bringing to mind. There you go. And that's what it's
Disconnecting because now when you're sending the signal and you're getting the energy flowing Instead of the body being in fight or flight. It's in a more relaxed state So you get this this little rewiring where even though I'm thinking of something that would cause me pain stress anxiety Grief, you know, whatever the emotion is You're getting that a little bit rewired in the brain. You're relaxed now. You're okay so
you the next time you go into a situation that might remind you of that, or you bring it to mind, now you've had this repatterning in your brain that says, I'm relaxed instead of I'm in fight or flight and I got to run away or I got fight, you know, it's just a rewiring there. When your mind is focused on something and instead of being in that fight or flight or stress, now you've got the energy flowing, now you relax, now, you know, it's a different pattern.
And the more you repattern that, the more you do this, the longer the effects last. This is one of the things that the more you do it, side effects are positive and they last longer and longer and longer. And you don't have to do it as often. Sometimes you have a one minute wonder, but sometimes you've got to do this over and over and over on a daily basis for a while to pick up all those cues on the outside or those thoughts that would cause you to go into stress and do the tapping.
Gwenn Bonnell (14:44.354)
send the signal to the brain that now you're relaxed. So that signal no longer causes you that stress and whatever result that stress would be, whether it be the pain, the anxiety, know, whatever would, you know, that thought would normally cause you to feel. Does that make sense? Okay.
Dr Terry (15:00.942)
It does.
Dr. Spencer Baron (15:02.537)
Yeah, yeah. know, when there was an interesting study done, I mean, I took acupuncture 40 years ago and we were taught that this enter.
Dr Terry (15:16.312)
they use needles back then or spikes
Dr. Spencer Baron (15:20.469)
I'm gonna use a knife next time you interrupt me. Actually, funny thing is disposable needles is a relatively new thing since that HIV AIDS epidemic. But we always, we would sterilize the same needle every time. Funny that you should ask that. For you, I'm not gonna sterilize anything. It's just going right in. Right about here.
Gwenn Bonnell (15:45.12)
No.
Dr Terry (15:49.198)
Right, right, through the eyes.
Dr. Spencer Baron (15:50.983)
Yeah, frontal lobotomy, I think they call that anyway. Gwen, let me ask you the I mean, let me share something because a lot of people, you know, wonder about, you know, the pseudoscience and is it for real and all that stuff? You know, just to help. I didn't realize energy channels and meridians was the foundational support to EFT and the tapping is is is a mode or vehicle used to to to
to change that energy like acupuncture is, we were taught that the Russians tried to disprove...
this meridian thing, this energy channel thing, and they used Curlian photography, which is a approach that illuminates energy channels. Like if you took a picture of a rock, would just be dark gray or black, whereas a flower would have, you know, be illuminated. So like we have veins and we have nerves that we can see. The Curlian photography showed energy channels in the
Gwenn Bonnell (16:40.029)
huh.
Dr. Spencer Baron (16:58.423)
that corresponded with different organ systems. you know, even 40 years ago when they said, where's the research? The Russians...
found the research, you know, and just like chiropractors, you know, the medical doctors would always say, show us the research. We think you're quacks, you know, now there's more research on spinal and manual, you know, extremity manipulation than, than anything else. But how do you, how would you explain without over claiming the things that help in your field of work and EFT?
Gwenn Bonnell (17:36.374)
I would tell people to try it. I mean, every time I would give a talk or a presentation or a class, we'd do it. I'd just tell them to do it. It's just getting the energy flowing and letting the body relax. And while your mind is focused on what would cause you that stress, you experience it for yourself. Because like I said, the first 10 or 15 years,
I did this, there was no research. Gary Craig wanted me to practice, have like 100 sessions with 100 different people before I hung out my practice, you know, and I'm like, okay, how am going to do that? But what I did was I volunteered at an HIV outreach center in Miami. And I went down there a couple days a week and I had a different dog. It took my dog with me.
Dr Terry (18:21.1)
I got your shingle.
Gwenn Bonnell (18:35.448)
and worked with people that had HIV positive and talked about stress. mean, this was in the early 2000s, you know? So...
I had 20 minutes with each of them and we just tapped. So we tapped everything that would cause them stress. They were on a concoction of medication that they had to take at a certain time every day. Oops, there goes my earbud. And it was government paid and the government was iffy about getting it to them every once in a while. They would lose their jobs, they would lose their partners. A lot of death going on.
not have a place to live. So they were very stressed and I just had to have 20 minutes with them and I just want them to learn this technique. You know, I have charts, I have things that I hand out and this and it's just really easy to learn and just feel how it relaxes you and because it does, that's the best way I could explain it. I mean, that's just what I did. Just did it. Just do it.
Dr. Spencer Baron (19:43.677)
Is there, is it like a, if somebody came to you with a condition, is there a recipe or is it the same tapping for everybody?
Gwenn Bonnell (19:52.682)
It's the same tapping points. And if you go online now, you'll find on YouTube people have websites, have books, and just here's what you say while you tap.
so they call them tapping scripts and you follow along with these tapping scripts and that's going to help because Basically just tapping without even saying anything if your mind is focused on what's causing you stress You're going to feel relaxed. So that's going to help and a lot of times you'll find what we call these one-minute wonders Yeah, I feel great, know, I feel great and then like you walk away and you know this with chiropractic You know, you them all straightened out by the time they go back to their car there
You know, so sometimes you gotta delve a little bit deeper and these are the people I get because Anybody can go online and follow a script. So what we've got to do is Go a little bit deeper And there's different techniques you can use but again, it's the same tapping points so you can learn learn the algorithm and And use it for yourself. But if you know a lot of people that do have
Dr. Spencer Baron (20:39.89)
yeah.
Gwenn Bonnell (21:09.656)
chronic pain, chronic anxiety, PTSD, something like that, it's going to be probably more than one session and they're going to have to do their homework just to help recreate that mismatch over and over and over again to the different signals that would set it up, set up the stress reaction in the brain. And then there's consolidation going on that you have to, say you wanna quit smoking.
Here's one that a therapist would call me in to help them with their hard quit smoking clients.
There's a lot that goes on when you quit smoking, quit drinking, quit something like that that is social. You're interacting socially with people who smoke or people who drink. And that's taken out of your life when you quit smoking and you quit drinking. Right. So you've not only got the urge to smoke or the urge to drink to tap away or there's one chocolate, you know, something, you know, if you want to lose weight.
tap away. So you can tap away that urge, but then you've got to address, okay, what happens because now I'm not part of that group anymore. Now I've lost my social interaction. You know, I don't go out and drink anymore. I don't go out, you know, these people who smoke, I don't go out and smoke on a coffee break at work with them anymore. You know, so then there's a whole other thing going on. So you've got to sometimes carry it through to the different layers and take care of all that.
So sometimes it's a one minute, yay. Sometimes it's more involved where you need to get a little bit more creative and look at the underlying, we call them blocks. They're sometimes called blocks or what good was that habit giving you? Or like eating chocolate, yeah, I can get somebody I've had.
Gwenn Bonnell (23:12.354)
I was giving a demonstration once where we took out our little pieces of chocolate and we tapped away the urge for chocolate. And even one girl was like ready to throw up looking at the chocolate. The urge went away so much. But then when do you reach for that chocolate? You know, when you have a fight with your husband. Nowadays, it's just when you turn on the news, go scroll through your phone. So now you've got to address these different triggers, all these different things that would set you off.
So it can get a little bit more involved than just, you know, I have a headache and I got rid of my headache today. So there's different layers to it. There's different ways, you know, that it works for people and then you have to go. For example, I had a woman back when I was teaching, I was training people for this. I think I ran like an eight week class and the first week was just learning the points, just learning the points, the algorithm, what you think about, what you say, know, basic stuff.
Dr Terry (23:49.842)
Hey.
Gwenn Bonnell (24:13.272)
And just learning the points, tapping on the points, she had a shoulder injury. And she was like, the whole class, she's like raising her hand. And I'm like, yeah, do you want something? No, I'm just the pain's gone, you know? But it came back. And we had to have a private session. what really was why she was really hanging on to that pain in her body was because
Dr. Spencer Baron (24:25.449)
Ha ha.
Gwenn Bonnell (24:40.738)
How she got it was she fell down a flight of stairs that had been painted, that didn't have a wet paint sign on it and injured her shoulder. But it was really getting her, when she kept going to all these different doctors around the state, this was here in Florida, and nobody could do anything about it. So she was really pissed at the medical profession. And that's what she was saying, that's what kept bringing the pain back. And when we tapped that away, that anger.
that frustration, everything she felt about going through that whole year of not getting relief, then the pain stayed away. So it's, you know, you've got to uncover these different triggers and really address those one by one what's happening sometimes.
Dr. Spencer Baron (25:25.001)
You mentioned something interesting, and that is that people could go on YouTube or they could watch somebody or pick it up and start tapping on themselves and so on, which is great.
But the metaphor that's important is, mean, anybody can medicate themselves. They can go to the store, grab some aspirin and take it till their life's content, you know, but, and same with chiropractor. You know, people can, you know, crack their own necks, a low bow, I can do that, you know, myself. The reality is what you had just said. There's a lot of...
Gwenn Bonnell (25:53.804)
Mine doesn't crack as good as a chiropractor does it.
Dr. Spencer Baron (25:58.783)
We, well, nevermind. I've had to, yeah, I was gonna go into the funny part of cracking your own neck, but the reality is, you can teach a monkey how to crack a bone or a joint or something, but the reality is this. Like you said, there's history and somebody to facilitate that understanding of when to do this, how to do it.
Gwenn Bonnell (26:01.496)
You
Dr. Spencer Baron (26:27.525)
the, you know, the, you know, the, that's where the professional comes in. And, you know, I think it is hugely important that, you know, anybody can, you know, pick up what the doctor does and do it themselves. But, you know, there's always that underlying thing before you say, that doesn't work, you know, or that didn't work. I tried that myself, you know. So I appreciate, you know, what you're saying. And yet at what point does it
not replace a medical intervention or a mental health intervention.
Gwenn Bonnell (27:01.996)
Okay, the thing is when anybody comes to me with a mental health or a medical problem, I always make sure they've seen a doctor first. Because number one, I'm covering my own butt. I'm not a medical professional, so I don't have those letters behind my name or anything like that. number two, I don't want to mask anything where they need professional help.
I don't want to get rid of their pain or when they need professional help for that. Okay, so like I broke my ankle. I was running in the rain and slid on cement and I was laughing, running, yay! was raining in Florida and I hit a puddle and I hit dry and then I fell down and I heard it crack. So I sat there and tapped because it hurt and I got rid of the pain so I thought, well, it must not be broken.
Dr. Spencer Baron (27:48.308)
Hahaha
Gwenn Bonnell (28:02.09)
Maybe it's just, you know, I tore something, but it wouldn't support me. couldn't get up and walk. So, you know, that taught me that, yeah, you can get rid of the pain even when there's a physical cause. So I make sure that anybody who comes to me that has a physical problem, have you been to a doctor? You know, make sure you have a doctor look at this just to make sure that we're not masking anything like I kind of did with my broken ankle.
and medical professionals too. I always say we're working with them. And the good thing is these days, a lot of medical professionals are learning to have it, and using it. Yeah, there's...
Dr Terry (28:44.578)
Hey, hey, Gwen, I have a question because I'm listening to this and you keep bringing up chronic pain and there's a condition that I know Dr. Spencer and most doctors were not really fond of and it's called fibromyalgia. And so it's a big bowl that people just throw that diagnosis and then people get identified with, I'm
Dr. Spencer Baron (28:44.821)
interesting.
Dr Terry (29:14.352)
I have fibromyalgia, I'm in a fibromyalgia group and they get into this. That seems to be something that is blocked energy or something like that. You know, you'll get people bringing in books of medication they're under and supplements they're under and how would you handle, because I'm sure people come to you for that, can you give us a little 60 second commercial of what you would do with a person that comes in with that little case and if there's anything they can do at home?
to try and break this cycle.
Gwenn Bonnell (29:47.2)
Okay, now we're going to get into the energy medicine part of this and not just the tapping. Okay, so remember when I said tapping works best when you focus your mind on a specific problem. When you have something as like, like fibromyalgia that's like everywhere and you don't really know what the problem is and it changes, you know, on a day to day basis.
Yeah, you can use the tapping for I feel it here today. I feel it here today. I feel it. I hate this. don't, you So that and that will probably be a long term. And there's nothing wrong with tapping daily. I I tap daily. Yeah, who wants to work with people's problems all day long and not get stressed out? I I need to tap it. And I have a husband.
Gwenn Bonnell (30:44.6)
But for fibromyalgia, would start with the energy medicine part of it. And energy medicine is working on the energy systems in the body. There's other energy systems besides the meridian system. You might become familiar with your aura. And the Karelian photography shows the aura also. There's also chakras.
There's also what we call the radiant circuits or the extraordinary vessels, which are also pathways of energy that from traditional Chinese medicine. So we want to get all those balances actually eight or nine different energy systems that we affect in energy medicine. We have an energy medicine daily routine to do that touches in on all those systems and gets the energy balance over and over and over again. And the thing with
Energy medicine is you do not have to have your mind focused on a specific issue So you don't have to say my wrist hurts today or my finger hurts today or my elbow hurt You know my knee hurt, you know because with fibromyalgia. It's like One thing one day another thing another day. It's not any one thing And energy medicine this daily energy medicine routine it takes like 10 or 15 minutes a day. I Have my own routine because I've taken
training and I teach energy medicine so I know what goes out on me. For example, I had mononucleosis three times when I was a kid so I know my spleen is not quite up to par. So I have things I do to strengthen my spleen energy every morning. I make sure my spleen energy is strengthened.
You just get this daily energy routine, and that's on the internet, too. That's on YouTube. You can just Google Donna Eden daily energy routine and follow along with her. And that gets all the systems balanced. So if I would work one on one with a person, I would find out more specifically what part of their system needs balance, like me with my spleen, and incorporate that into the energy medicine technique. But that's something that they
Gwenn Bonnell (33:04.716)
doing that twice a day for like 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, they're going to start feeling better because you're getting all the energy systems flowing the way they're supposed to flow and doing what they're supposed to do. So when it's something overriding like that, where it's like through the entire body and I always incorporate energy medicine into it. And then we do the tapping and the tapping I would start with how to always start in the present moment.
How are you feeling today? What is your anxiety? What is your stress? Sometimes it's about the fibromyalgia. Sometimes it's about the doctors that you go to that aren't giving you any help and you're frustrated with the medical system. Sometimes it's about the diet that you're supposed to be on and you're not totally comfortable with that. Sometimes it's the husband.
Dr. Spencer Baron (33:58.517)
So I heard.
Gwenn Bonnell (34:02.348)
Funny thing is he was asking me about AI yesterday. So I was trying to show him how to use AI on his phone. And I'm like, and it's not, it used to be really slow, but it got really fast from here. I'll show you. I, and I put into the AI, how do you get your husband to talk to you after a hard day at work? And it's like thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking. It's usually really task, but as thinking.
Dr Terry (34:22.966)
hahahahah
Dr. Spencer Baron (34:23.123)
No.
Dr. Spencer Baron (34:27.199)
That's good.
Gwenn Bonnell (34:32.504)
So I guess I guess there's a lot of stuff on the internet about that but But anyway, I know I always start with what's going on, you know in their face for that day And that's a good way to teach them tapping to deal with daily stress because the daily Stress is causing is certainly not helping their response and the energy system in their body and that stress is feeding into the fibromyalgia
Dr. Spencer Baron (34:35.448)
boy.
Dr Terry (34:37.09)
Ha!
Dr. Spencer Baron (34:39.444)
Yeah.
Gwenn Bonnell (35:01.886)
You're almost on a hamster wheel where you're sick and you're stressed, you're making yourself sicker and then you get stressed more and then you're making, know, so we've got to break that connection. And the tapping will break the connection for what you're focused on that day that's causing that stress, but the energy medicine will help without having to figure out what I say, what I tap on, you know, it's just a routine that will help balance all the energy systems in the body.
to start getting you towards that overall health where it makes my job, the tapping, much easier. So I know that's like, now we're going off on another segment, but for something like fibromyalgia, that's kind of what you need to do. It's not going to be, okay, let's tap today and come back in a week and we'll tap again. And you know, after three or four weeks, you're going to feel better. Probably not. I mean, maybe that would be a miracle. You know, I've seen miracles happen, you know, certainly, but I'm not going to give that kind of
Advice now and say yeah, just go do some tapping and it's going to go away Probably not. I don't know you can play the odds
Dr. Spencer Baron (36:05.553)
Is there something you, is there a patient that you would or a condition that you would not take on?
Gwenn Bonnell (36:13.272)
Mental health like if somebody came to me and said Schizophrenia or something like that I would say
Dr Terry (36:23.906)
Hmm.
Gwenn Bonnell (36:23.928)
I mean, I've had, because I've done trainings, I've had medical professionals in my classes. And yeah, those that would lead to the medical, totally, know, something like that. I have no, that's way out of my, and I did try couples therapy once and now that's, and that's in that either. And children.
Dr Terry (36:49.014)
Hey, hey, I got something
Gwenn Bonnell (36:52.664)
You know, children, I don't have those letters behind my name. So the children, I always tell the parents, I'll tap with the parent because usually the parent is tied in enough with the child so that if you get the parents energy going and getting them relaxed, the kid is going to change too. You know, so, but that's kind of what I stay with.
Dr Terry (37:11.182)
What do you say to the people that, because the people are gonna believe you're gonna believe, but the naysayers, the ones that go, the pseudo effect or the placebo effect is super powerful and the neurological sign, if we want something to happen, we can make it happen. I mean, we're not gonna convince everybody. I Dr. Spencer and I have been trying to convince people that chiropractic actually works for decades, but for somebody just listening,
wants to know how does the science behind I loved what he was saying about curly and photography and there's meridian photography and there's there's all different types of science but what do you say for the person that says well the placebo effect is powerful
Gwenn Bonnell (37:59.892)
And it is. And who cares if it works?
Dr. Spencer Baron (38:02.515)
Yeah, very good. It is true.
Dr Terry (38:03.874)
Love it.
So do you just?
Gwenn Bonnell (38:08.65)
And let me just say too, I go to a chiropractor every month just to keep me straightened out. mean, chiropractic's great. mean, you can't go wrong with it.
Dr Terry (38:23.222)
No. So is there any tapping stuff that you could show us that just the average person watching this show can experience something and if they want to dive deeper they can find somebody or just a health tip that can just improve everyone's life?
Gwenn Bonnell (38:42.102)
Yeah, but first my husband told me, and if I don't, you know what is going to happen, that I have to bring up the PTSD thing. And I have tapped with people. I have tapped with veterans for PTSD. And I would say a lot of people that aren't veterans have PTSD. It's, you know, I've tapped with people that were in cults, people that had traumatic things happen.
I'm not going to get into women that are older than me that lived in kind of the world we're going back to these days. anyway, there is I and I have notes. So I just got I just got to say this. Like I said, back when I first started, we didn't have a lot of we didn't have any research. There's a gentleman called Dawson Church. His website is EFT Universe.
Dr Terry (39:26.744)
No worries.
Gwenn Bonnell (39:43.606)
He does trainings if somebody wants to get trained and have the training to put into their practice. But what he really did when he got into, when he learned about, he's in an organization called Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology, which I'm a part of. kind of grandfathered in because I joined really early. But he joined, he found out about tapping and.
He said, you know, nobody's going to believe this until we do the research. So he started doing research. And him and David Feinstein, who's Donny Eden's husband, took it to Congress and said, listen, this works for PTSD. And it's been decades. And they're finally just being convinced of it. But anyway, he gave a speech in 2016 that I was witnessing. And he did research.
starting in like 2012 for PTSD, using EFT for the PST veterans, PTSD veterans and their spouses because they get like transferred PTSD just being a spouse living with these guys that come home from war. So they did EFT tapping, they did what they call clinical EFT for 218 veterans and their spouses.
And what they had was 10 one-hour long sessions for each of them. And I guess for the way they either, this is clinical or not, I don't know, or this is just the way they score it. But if you have a score of 50, that means you likely have PTSD. So the average score for the veterans before the tapping was 65. After 10 hour long sessions, the average score was 44.
That was a 48 % reduction in the symptoms and six months later they went back and this average score was 42 So it actually went down Okay, and then their spouses who had that transferred PTSD before Tapping their score was 45. So they weren't really you know in the ps PTSD range But after it was the 32 and six months later was the 26 So it really brought it down So he started doing a whole bunch of studies
Gwenn Bonnell (42:04.684)
He's like, OK, we need a bunch of studies to get what is called, I don't know if you guys are familiar with research, have meta-analysis, where they put a bunch of the research together and figure out, just make a meta-analysis. And finally, you had enough research studies done that we could do this. The first meta-analysis we did.
When you do this meta-analysis, you get a rating on what's called a Cohen's d. And if you get a 0.2, that's 2 tenths, that's a small change. 0.5 is a moderate change for the better. And 0.8 means whatever you're doing has a really large effect. For the clinical EFT, for PTSD, they put seven studies together. And remember I said
2.8 is a large effect. The COHINDS-D measured out to 2.96. So this is huge. This is off the charts. And this is when they finally started getting Congress to listen and getting it into the Veterans Association through the organizations and stuff. Also, they did this for, they did 20 studies for depression. And the COHINDS-D was 1.31. They did 14 studies together for the meta-analysis for
for anxiety and the Coens B was 1.23. So this really works. So there's your meta-analysis, your PTSD. now, you know, it's proof that that works a lot. Dawson Church actually did have a website where he had a program veterans could go to and use the website and do tapping. But I guess now there's enough people offering tapping that
He doesn't have that on the website anymore. People can just go into, you know, get help from other people with the tapping. anybody that's a veteran that's listening.
Gwenn Bonnell (44:09.836)
Definitely.
Dr. Spencer Baron (44:10.003)
I got a, veterans, yeah, I got a patient. Well, it's it's a buddy of mine who had a heart attack a couple of years ago. Well, no, two years ago, I think. And he has PTSD from almost dying. And I think this would be an ideal.
aspect of care or treatment for him because he's already very open-minded to it. But this guy, he's a construction engineer, so he has to go to different, well, out of the state to like Aruba or what have you. And he is constantly making sure that there's a hospital in the area because he lives in fear.
And that's his PTSD, which I, you know, I'm so used to hearing PTSD from military, you know, first responders, but this is a unique, you know, area that I think you could.
Gwenn Bonnell (45:08.845)
And let's delve into that a little bit because.
A lot of times if you go on tapping online and they're going to give you a script on tapping points, they're going to give you what is called the shortcut tapping protocol. I learned the long, drawn out version because I was taught, that's what we were taught. And some of the points were dropped. The points, finger points on the hands were dropped and this point on the back of the hand was dropped. If you make a fist,
between the baby finger knuckle and the ring finger knuckle on the back of the hand there's a depression there that's the V. It's like a V in there. There's two acupuncture points in there. So if you tap with two fingers you're getting both points. This affects what is called the triple warmer meridian. What the triple warmer affects is your fight or flight syndrome response. Okay. So when you have PTSD you're in fight or flight.
And you know, they do this to soldiers and I've worked with that. So when they're in war over, know, wherever they are, they're taught to be aware and alert 24 seven because that's the only way they're going to stay alive and come out of their life. When they come home, they don't teach them how to turn it off. So like you said, they're looking for hospitals, they're looking for, know, if you ever, you know, they're looking for the way out, they're looking for the exit door. They're never going to sit with their
back next to an exit door. They're on alert all the time. So massaging here or tapping here will bring down that fight or flight response on its own. So when I'm working with people that have that or something that I pretty much anybody I work with, I'm going to teach them the entire protocol. I'm not just going to teach them the shortcut points that you get on the internet. But I've had a lot of clients and a lot of
Gwenn Bonnell (47:11.352)
people that I trained and a lot of students I tell them you know when you feel that fast response because the triple warmer it's called triple because it has it governs your gut your chest and your breathing it just that's the three your breathing your edge your elimination and your stomach your digestion that's the triple warmer and when you have that
fast response. You feel that fear come up, that anxiety come up, that sadness come up. Anything that comes up, whoosh, real fast, that's a triple warmer response. And by massaging this, it'll bring it down. I'm not saying it's going to bring it down to zero, but when you're in a social situation, it'll bring it down enough that you can make a better decision on how to respond than to just be in that fight of flight. The other way to affect that.
And this is, so this is, I always include this tapping point. So you're not going to see this a lot on people who just do tapping scripts on YouTube, but I always include this. Tapping, when you're doing the tapping, you know, we can do the tapping, but if you're out in public or you don't know what to do or you're just feeling, you know, you can massage it. Tapping or massage, whatever feels better to you. A lot of times when you're tapping and you're tapping and you're tapping and you're tapping, it gets sore.
Dr. Spencer Baron (48:19.391)
Tapping or massage? Massaging. okay. Yeah.
Dr. Spencer Baron (48:31.477)
Okay, got it.
Gwenn Bonnell (48:39.896)
So people say okay, and then you can tap the other hand or whatever but the massage works too. Whatever works for you. It's kind of like an experiment. You just see what works best for you. The other thing I use for PTSD and for people that are really stressed is this is an energy medicine technique. Above your eyebrows you have two bumps here. They're called frontal neurovasculars. Okay, feel those.
Dr. Spencer Baron (48:44.884)
Yeah.
Gwenn Bonnell (49:07.736)
So can either put your fingertips there or you just put the palm of your hand there. You have energy in your hands. You're an electrical person. We're all electrical beings. We have energy. So when we put something here, we're drawing energy to it. When you're in fight or fight, the first thing that happens is blood leaves your forebrain. So you can fight, flee, or freeze, right? Your forebrain is where you make informed decisions. So now you're in fight or flight mode.
Right when you need to think your way out of it, you can't because you don't have any, the energy's gone out of your brain, your blood has gone out of your brain. So putting your fingertips on these points or if you're not sure you have the points, putting your hand across the front of your forehead brings that energy back into your forebrain. And you don't have to not think about what's causing you stress. In fact, if you do think about what's causing you stress, this is almost the same thing as tapping. Now you're...
Dr. Spencer Baron (49:44.338)
sense.
Gwenn Bonnell (50:05.536)
Reorganizing how that works in your brain now you're thinking about what's causing you stress But instead of the blood leaving your brain you're drawing it back up So you have that energy in your core brain? So now you're you've got that mismatch going on again. Oops I usually go into stress, but now I'm not going into stress. I'm out of stress. I feel calm Okay, so you got that mismatch and then you've got a light kind of just consolidate that and you can solve consolidate that with the test
Dr Terry (50:35.276)
Is that why when people get stressed you see them sometimes just doing this?
Gwenn Bonnell (50:38.828)
Yeah, yeah for sure and I remember when I was the kid in my coming yellow mommy mommy something happening first thing she'd do is put her hand across my forehead because you have we have these instinctual responses We just don't know what they're doing and we don't hold them long enough. We just like up and then we're gone This is an I tell students you're taking a test put your hand on your forehead while you're tying to take you know Are you filling out a form and you can't think or?
You've got the answer on the tip of your tongue and you can't get it out. Just put your hand on your forehead and in the next 30 seconds a minute you're going to think of it.
Dr Terry (51:15.532)
I'm going be walking around all day like this because I can't think half the time.
Gwenn Bonnell (51:20.523)
Well, the good news is, remember, I said the effects are positive, the side effects are positive, and the more you do it, the faster it works and the longer it lasts.
Dr. Spencer Baron (51:20.629)
I think what
Dr. Spencer Baron (51:24.949)
Yeah.
Dr Terry (51:30.04)
Great.
Dr. Spencer Baron (51:30.805)
Well, I learned the hard way. And when I would make a mistake and go, damn it, and forget, I would give myself a concussion. Maybe I should just be a little more gentle.
Gwenn Bonnell (51:31.576)
So, what am I
Dr Terry (51:39.63)
That's just a heavy tap.
Gwenn Bonnell (51:43.911)
And if you want to if you're a bed at night or whatever you're can't can't go to bed can't go to sleep because you got all those thoughts running through your head this is a good thing to do and you take your hand and you put your other hand back here and You know Vegas knows the new like thing these days But the Vegas nerve has always been there and this is your freeze response So you get you get this together
Dr. Spencer Baron (51:59.412)
Yeah.
Gwenn Bonnell (52:07.606)
You can't, you know, it's hard to do this when you're tapping because then you don't have anything to tap with but laying in bed at night is so.
This will get those thoughts out of your head, calm you down, and you can get back to sleep. So when I'm doing the tapping for PTSD, back when I was working in person, I would hold the forebrain. I would hold these frontal neurovasculas while they did the tapping. But now I just have people hold across their forehead, and they do the tapping. And it helps. It helps with the PTSD. So I would tell your friend, I would tell your friend that. Tell him, you know, the back of the hand, this is the gamut point.
Dr. Spencer Baron (52:15.637)
That's it.
Dr. Spencer Baron (52:43.657)
I'm just going to send them to you, Gwen. Never mind. I'm just going to send them to you. go, come on. And I go, no, Gwen is the master.
Gwenn Bonnell (52:46.38)
Yeah.
Gwenn Bonnell (52:54.378)
Or this, you know, and it's going to help. But anyway, so you want me to teach you some tapping? What do we got? Yeah, we got enough time left. I'll just take you through tapping points. And you guys got anything that's stressing you today?
Dr. Spencer Baron (53:11.827)
Yeah, my co-host stresses me out.
Gwenn Bonnell (53:17.904)
I heard you have this Florida California war thing going on.
Dr Terry (53:19.01)
There.
Dr. Spencer Baron (53:23.893)
Oh yeah, oh yeah, we definitely do. No, I'm kidding, it's great. Actually though, I don't know, Terry, do you want to do that or do want me go into the rapid fire questions?
Dr Terry (53:36.478)
That's your choice.
Dr. Spencer Baron (53:39.029)
Give us, well, you already shared something that, you know, for people that are, you know, that are stressing, which is probably everyone at some point. Is that one of the easiest? Yeah. yeah. Yeah. Or watch the news or read the news, your hand on your forehead. no, I think those are good. I mean, some of the more complicated stuff, think.
Gwenn Bonnell (53:50.604)
Yeah, scroll through your phone like this, you know.
Dr Terry (53:58.825)
Yeah.
Dr. Spencer Baron (54:06.301)
you people should go to a professional like yourself to do. heard you're extraordinary at what you do. So I would love to get into our that we only have another six or so minutes, but we usually do the rapid fire questions at the end. And that's something I would have fun with with you because you seem like you'd be on point with them. We got five of them. We look for short answers. If you're ready for the challenge, I'm going to.
Gwenn Bonnell (54:12.45)
Thank you.
Dr Terry (54:23.502)
Yeah.
Gwenn Bonnell (54:34.328)
Wait a minute, let me tap.
Dr. Spencer Baron (54:35.57)
Yeah.
Dr Terry (54:35.79)
You
Dr. Spencer Baron (54:39.369)
Good question. Number one, is the one what is one thing the next time anxiety, pain or stress hits? Well, you pretty much told it, you know, is if there's anything supplemental that we can do to try to try and help. There's the hand on the forehead or what gives that little wrap up about the.
Gwenn Bonnell (54:39.864)
Okay.
Gwenn Bonnell (54:59.49)
Breathing breathing is always good Breathing I hear breathing is really important because you know you stop breathing then But breathing I mean even what's happening we have you take a deep breath you know before you start and then between each point The breathing and if you do the breathing where you breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth You're activating your vagus nerve
Dr. Spencer Baron (55:03.742)
Is it?
Dr. Spencer Baron (55:09.557)
Flatline
Gwenn Bonnell (55:28.888)
vagus response, your nervous system response, that part of it. I don't, know, everybody, vagus nerve is the catchphrase today. Everybody's into that, but breathing in through the nose, through the mouth. I would put the hand over the center of the chest. You've got a tapping point. This has, there's a central vessel point here, 17. It's also your thymus gland, which is
tapping there, really thumping there, wakes up your immune system. Okay. It's also helps override. Remember I talked about if you quit smoking, but then all your friends smoke and you don't use, so that's kind of like a reversal that kind of blocks you. This helps get rid of override those blocks you might have to getting well. And it's also called, there's also an energy center there called having rush, heaven rushing in. So it's a really potent place right here. So if you put your hand across there,
And then tap on that gamut point. That's the fear point. That's the point also for depression. And it's also the point for pain. So you're hitting a lot of points here. So if you're not going to do any other tapping, you don't, know, just, you can massage. If the tapping doesn't feel right to you. And take two, three deep breaths.
Dr Terry (56:45.39)
And that's between the fourth and the fifth knuckle or the fourth and the third.
Gwenn Bonnell (56:52.012)
fifth and the fourth The baby finger in the ring finger there's that depression there if you open your hand you kind of lose that depression a little bit But that's how you find it. So put the hand over the center of your chest and just tap there And take some deep breaths. And if you just want to tell yourself, I'm okay. It's okay. I'm alright. I'll get through this, you know Even though that idiot cut me off in traffic. I'm okay. Like even though my boss keeps leaving I have this co-host from hell
Dr Terry (56:53.472)
Okay.
Dr Terry (56:59.244)
Yep. Got it.
Dr Terry (57:20.922)
Ha Ha
Dr. Spencer Baron (57:21.013)
Ha ha ha!
Gwenn Bonnell (57:24.392)
I'm okay. It'll all work out. You know, just say something positive.
Dr. Spencer Baron (57:27.221)
Question number two, Gwen, question number two.
Gwenn Bonnell (57:31.08)
you
Dr. Spencer Baron (57:32.925)
You, Gwen, you studied under some of the pioneers in energy psychology, but what's one lesson you learned the hard way outside of your training that really shaped you?
Gwenn Bonnell (57:46.392)
One thing I've learned through working with so many people is you never know what the other person's thinking and often what you're thinking and what they're thinking about the same situation is totally different. So if you're hanging on to anger, any kind of hostility, any kind of resentment, you know about what happened with them, they're probably
They think something totally different. And that's where tapping can really help. It can help you get rid of a lot of that anger, resentment, frustration that you're hanging on to that's holding you back from really being in a loving situation, a loving place inside yourself. And you're only responsible for yourself. You're not responsible for them. They're not responsible for you. So take responsibility for yourself.
Tapping is a beautiful way to do that, but you never I mean I've had people walk through my house And I'm just like and they're having a pot and I can't you know you need just never know Just never know what the other person's thinking you're not responsible for them. They're not responsible for you Take charge of yourself that way you can find peace Love yourself. Love yourself first know yourself knows. I so I think somebody important said that Millennials ago
Dr. Spencer Baron (59:10.943)
Question number three, if we handed you a completely free day, no work, no responsibilities, what does a perfect Gwen day actually look like from morning to night? Would you tap your life away? No, no, I'm kidding. What would you do?
Gwenn Bonnell (59:28.056)
You know, Dr. Barron, I pretty much have it made. I wake up in the morning and I take my dog out. I take my cat out. I go out in the backyard. It's like four or five in the morning. And I do my, I have my little energy medicine routine and my little salutations. I have my breakfast. I go out and I work in my garden. I walk my dog and then I work in my, I have a vegetable garden for like an hour, an hour and a half. And that's like my grounding.
That's like my day. And then the day starts. Then it's like nine o'clock, nine thirty, ten o'clock, and then my day starts. But if I didn't have that, I wouldn't know what to do. So any perfect day would... Other than being in Italy, I could be in Italy. I could be in
Dr. Spencer Baron (01:00:14.293)
There you go. Question number four. You posted that with difficult roads often lead to beautiful destinations. Can you recall a moment where this happened that you would like to share?
Gwenn Bonnell (01:00:29.186)
Can you say that again? Difficult row, Rose.
Dr. Spencer Baron (01:00:30.741)
difficult often lead to beautiful destinations.
Gwenn Bonnell (01:00:37.41)
That happened in my life with the pain, the 12 years of pain. If I wouldn't have had pain for 12 years, I would have never discovered tapping. And I can't tell you how many miracles I've seen. It's just learning tapping and sharing it is just, it's giving me goosebumps right now. And if I wouldn't have been in pain for 12 years, would have, I would have said, what's that stuff? know? So yeah, it's.
Yeah, the phoenix always rises from the ashes.
Dr. Spencer Baron (01:01:12.723)
Last question, if life isn't happening to us, but something we're actively shaping, what's the one shift in your awareness you've seen people change in their lives, the fastest?
Gwenn Bonnell (01:01:30.274)
that I've seen other people change.
Dr. Spencer Baron (01:01:31.923)
Yeah.
Or that you, yeah, where you've changed people's lives the fastest.
Gwenn Bonnell (01:01:40.742)
just with what I do. mean, I can't tell you how many people say it's a miracle. They say, well, that part wasn't, but this part was. I knew this and I did this, but then this happened. You know, it's, it's, I've seen.
Dr. Spencer Baron (01:01:51.571)
Yeah.
Gwenn Bonnell (01:01:59.896)
My toughest client, I'll tell you, was the guy that had peripheral neuropathy all over his body. His entire body was on fire all the time. And he had tried so many things. And he had been to so many doctors and so many clinics and so many hospitals. And he had a warping pump in his back, in his spine. And we tapped and tapped and tapped.
I think we did tap for seven years and he would get results and the pain would come back and he'd get results and the pain would come back but he kept tapping. So we tapped and we finally got rid of the pain and then he had to get rid of the morphing pump and that was a whole nother thing, know, because then that was surgery and that was, and then because he had been on steroids for so long, he had organs that were shutting down and we had to get reactivated and you know, his body had to start making things that he.
you know, he was taking medication to make. And so that was the whole seven year process. And we did it. We did it. And yeah, that was.
It wasn't a quick turnaround, you know, but it was something that really, you know, made his life really better for sure. mean, along the way, he quit his job, he moved, he got married, got a new job, he moved, he got married. I mean, everything shifted in his life, but he's still around, he still calls me these days,
Dr. Spencer Baron (01:03:39.829)
Great. Well, Gwen, think the time, this period of time in our lives is a very ripe time for alternative care like that, which could end up being a mainstream approach. So thank you for sharing EFT with us. I think that was fantastic. Thank you so much.
Gwenn Bonnell (01:03:57.214)
Anytime.
Gwenn Bonnell (01:04:01.277)
You're welcome.