Brittany Watkins: It changed my life, and I have never looked back. And, um, there’s nothing that I’m more passionate about than teaching people this method for their own mental health and their own. Just like, self regulation and well being.

Wendy Valentine: Hey, midlifers. Welcome to the midlife Makeover show. Are you ready to break free from your Monday midlife? Are you feeling trapped in a vicious cycle of rinse and repeat days? No matter if you’re experiencing a divorce, hangover job burnout, or you just have the midlife blues, I got you. I’m Wendy, your hostess of the midlife most. I, too, was hit by midlife m like a caferi train. I, too, felt stuck in the same dull chapter. I wanted the clarity of how to create a new life beyond divorce and the courage to lead an unfulfilling career. But I kept telling myself that I wasn’t worthy, and it was just easier to stay in my comfort zone until I found a little secret, the freedom to live my life my way. In this podcast, you will learn how to achieve a vibrant, midlife minded body, how to create solid relationships through love and loss, and how to create an awesome second half of life. Grab your grande latte, pop in your earbuds, and let’s get this midlife party started. As you know, midlife is a bustling time. We manage households, nurture relationships, advance careers, and raise children. These responsibilities, while fulfilling, can sometimes drain your energy and diminish your personal strengths. To help you reawaken those dormant powers and embrace the superhero that you truly are, I created the superhero quiz@mysuperheroquiz.com dot this fast, free, and fun quiz will help you discover which superhero mirrors your strengths and personality. Plus, you’ll receive a detailed guide tailored to your superhero profile, helping you to harness your strengths and soar to new heights. Just head over to mysuperheroquiz.com and embrace the superhero within you. Welcome back to another exciting episode of the midlife Makeover show. Today we have a phenomenal guest who is revolutionizing the way we approach emotional eating and I weight loss. Our guest is Brittany Watkins, a renowned speaker, author, and creator of the echo tapping method. Brittany is a leading expert in emotional freedom techniques and has transformed the lives of over listen to this, 100,000 women. That’s like a city girl. By addressing food cravings, emotional eating, and self sabotage at their roots, Brittany will be sharing her insights on the top subconscious weight loss blockers, revealing how clearing these emotional blocks can permanently change your weight. Set point get ready for an eye opening conversation that will leave you feeling inspired and ready to tackle your health goals. Let’s give a warm welcome to Brittany Watkins.

Brittany Watkins: Hi, Wendy. Thanks for having me.

Wendy Valentine: I told Brittany that I was listening to a song that’s on the drum sex. It’s called y’all. You’ve got to download drum sax.

Brittany Watkins: It is so good.

Wendy Valentine: If you need a boost of energy, listen to some drum sacks.

Brittany Watkins: It is so amazing. I wish I knew how to play drums. Well, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Yeah.

Wendy Valentine: I’m excited for you to teach everyone about EFT and how transformative it can be in your life. I haven’t done it as much is I should do it, actually. I was telling you, I was doing a little bit of tapping, not tap dancing. Well, I was doing my drum sacks tap dancing, uh, but doing some, um, eft before we started, because I’ve been up since, like, 05:00 a.m. and I’m, like, going nonstop, and it’s 05:00 over here in Portugal. And so I was like, okay, I need to, like, chill. And sometimes meditation is great, but sometimes I really dig eft because I feel like. Honestly, I feel like it. It works quicker in some things, right? Like, I feel like it totally just switches my brain into a different mode, actually.

Brittany Watkins: Interesting you say that. Do you know the muse device that goes across your brain and that measures your brainwaves? Okay, so check this out. So, my sister was using it for six months, and the idea is that you listen to these tones, and the more alpha your brainwaves are, I think that’s the alpha state. The more alpha, um, your brain waves are, the. The lower the. The, um, um, little the line is. And then the more birds you hear. So as you hear birds. So she’s like, oh, my God, I’m getting all these birds. And, you know, she was doing really, really well. And so it tracked her progress. Uh, for six months. She put. I’m like, give me that thing. And I had this, like, I had this, like, into intuitive hit, and I put it on my head, and I did it regularly. And, I mean, my line was, like, way up here. Her line was way down here for just two minutes. And then the next time I did it, I tapped while I was wearing it. My brain went down to her level within two minutes of tapping seven. So, yeah, I mean, I eventually got bored because I was just there. So it is one of the best ways to shift your brain into those, like, more calm and relaxed states so that you can be more focused or you can be more, um, you know, whatever it is. You want to be more calm and. And. And have clarity around whatever it is you’re. That’s in front of you.

Wendy Valentine: So, like, it’s like meditation on crack.

Brittany Watkins: It is meditation on crack, yes, or whatever.

Wendy Valentine: So, explain to everyone exactly what eft is.

Brittany Watkins: So, eft, uh, is a combination of acupressure points, stimulating your own acupressure points while focusing on, uh, memories, feelings, or thoughts. So it’s basically cognitive psychology paired with acupressure. Self applied acupressure. And it was discovered in the eighties by, um, a psychotherapist who had been working with a client who was afraid of water. And back then, you did exposure therapy, and he had her in the bathtub, and he had been working with her for, like, 15 years. This woman was not making. Not getting results, and he was learning acupuncture at the time, and so he had this thought, you know, I wonder if I just touched the different acupressure points, because he was learning about how calming that is to the nervous system, and, you know, all the benefits of that. So he starts applying acupressure to her while she’s in the bathtub. And after a few minutes, this woman gets out of the bathtub and runs out the back door and dives into his swimming pool. So that was how eft was discovered, uh, because the therapist was like, okay, like, there has to be something to this. So he. He started exploring with it, and he found that when he got his patients into the. Into the primal states that they were experiencing. So whether that’s stress, anxiety, PTSD, fear, phobias, anxieties, addictions, whatever that was, if they were really in it. And he applied the acupressure point. He applied pressure to the acupressure points. They would shift so quickly, it was almost unbelievable. That’s why it’s only starting to pick up awareness now, because in the eighties and nineties, when he started talking about this, he was like, oh, my God, I’ve discovered the cure to all mental health issues. And he. This is funny, actually. He gave a presentation, and he sold it for $100,000. Wow. Because he knew what it was worth. He knew what it was. Um, but he was a bad marketer, because scientists are, you know, scientists aren’t marketers, but one man bought it, and the man who bought it was Gary Craig, who was an engineer and did a lot of personal growth work. And he helped him. He helped him systematize. Ah, the tapping method. They turned it into eft and, um, they did a whole bunch of studies on it. And then he eventually was the one who taught the tap, who taught the therapist. Gary Craig was the one who brought this to the therapy community, which is how I learned about it when I was 15. My therapist had just learned it from Gary Craig and was like, this sounds totally weird, but I think it’s going to help you. And it changed my life. And I have never looked back. And, um, there’s nothing that I’m more passionate about than teaching people this method for their own mental health and their own just like self regulation and well being.

Wendy Valentine: So I’m so glad that you brought that up about being 15 because I read your about page and I was like, oh, my heart. Like, it makes like, well, because I can relate. I actually also was on my own at the age of 15. So I was like, oh my God, this is my story. So, yeah, so tell everyone, if you don’t mind sharing your story, um, from the age of 15 and kind of what brought you to where you’re at now.

Brittany Watkins: Yeah, sure. So, um, I was raised Mormon, um, and I was the oldest child. My parents got divorced at ten and my mom just didn’t really know how to control me. Um, I was asking really big questions that nobody knew the answer to. And, um, I, looking back, I was just a normal, kind of like angry, rebellious teenager. Um, but one day after swim practice, I came home and all my things were on the front porch with a note that said, you don’t live here anymore. And I had some help from my dad. He co signed for me to pay for my own apartment, but I basically had to drop out of high school. My rent was $350 a month and I basically had to drop out of high school and work full time in order to pay for my food and shelter. Um, and so I learned the value of money. I learned hard work. Um, one of the gifts that my father gave to me was he said, okay, listen, I’m going to help you buy a car because you need to get to and from work. Um, but you have to go see this therapist six times. And after six times, if you never want to see him again, that’s totally fine. I’ll still buy you a car. So I was like, that’s like a good deal. And at the time, I was totally not into therapy at all. Um, obviously I was 15, but, uh, when I met this guy, after the first time I met him, there was just a soul connection and I knew he had the answers that I was seeking. And so from the time I was 15 till about 30, every question I came into therapy with, he would give me a book. Instead of giving me the answers, he gave me a book to read. And so by the time I was 30, I’d read almost 400 books on, like, personal growth and spirituality and, I mean, past lives and soul regression and, you know, any. Any energy work and anything that I was interested in, I would bring up, and he would give me the tools. And he would give me the tools. So I was really self educated. I dropped out of high school. Um, and, of course, everybody thought that I would end up, you know, on the wrong side of the street. And, um, there was definitely times where, you know, it was headed that way. But I really attribute not. I really attribute my success and being the person that I am today to discovering tapping.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah.

Brittany Watkins: Because I was able to heal all of the pain and the anger and the limiting beliefs that I developed from such a traumatic thing happening.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah, I can imagine. I mean, basically, yeah, you’re not good enough. Get out.

Brittany Watkins: Yeah. I mean, yeah, talk about your not good enough wound.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah.

Brittany Watkins: It’s like the worst lifelong battle.

Wendy Valentine: Um, but what did you struggle with the most? Like, what played out in your life that you were, like, that you really needed to seek therapy, besides the obvious of, like, okay, I’m not good enough. And, um, struggling to make it as. On your own as a teenager?

Brittany Watkins: Yeah. I mean, being emotionally abandoned and emotionally abused, like, there was a lot of emotional abuse that happened in my family. Um, and, you know, I’m not gonna, like, throw my parents under the bus, but, you know, just a lot of very, very toxic behavior. My mom had a lot of mental health issues. She had three kids and no access to therapy, um, and no real life skills on how to. How to deal with. With highly sensitive children, which is, you know, now I’m discovering, oh, I was very highly sensitive, and so I was more attuned and alert to things that are going on around me, and I was just more curious. And so it’s hard for parents, and, you know, she just didn’t have the tools to be able to deal with me and help, you know, get me the help that I needed. And so, um. So, yeah, I think the emotional abuse and, um, feeling abandoned and unloved, I think, are the core things that still come up to this day in relationships and dating. They still come up for me in certain capacities, but I would have been completely shut down as a human, very few friends. I probably would have become a narcissist because, um, I was in this habit of lying and manipulating people to get what I wanted, because that was the only way I knew how to do it. So I probably would have been a very toxic person had I not learned these tools, um, to heal my heart and to heal these patterns that I was developing at a young age. So.

Wendy Valentine: And I think that’s key, right? It’s, uh, for all of us, especially when you get to, you know, in your forties and fifties, is. It might be really hard, but to look back over those years of those patterns and kind of like that common thread that will go through your relationships and your choices and your habits and. And you realize, like, oh, uh, like, this is why I do this. That’s why I chose that relationship. That’s why I chose that unfulfilling job or whatever. I chose to live in that place. And it’s tough. It’s tough to have to face that stuff, but it’s so valuable to go, okay, this is where this is coming from, and I don’t have to own it. I can change that. And that’s what’s so fascinating. I find, like, with neuroscience and rewiring the brain, it literally, and it’s amazing that they’ve only discovered this, what it was, like, 30 plus years ago, that they’re like, oh, we can actually rewire the brain. You know, they’re putting people on the moon, but they’re not like, yes, you can rewire your brain, and that’s really what. That’s what EFt is doing. Right? It’s. It’s reprogramming those.

Brittany Watkins: The neural pathways. Yeah, yeah. So, so what happens when you have a negative emotion or a limiting belief? Your brain fires in a specific way, and it always fires in that exact same way. So by focusing on the bad feeling or the limiting belief, what we’re doing as we’re tapping is we’re sending a flood of serotonin directly to that neural pathway, and it severs the neural pathway, so it shuts off your brain’s ability to react to that feeling or that belief in the same way. And this happens in just minutes. Like, it’s incredible. It’s incredible. It happens in just minutes, but it’s almost so fast and it’s so easy and it’s so good that it’s hard to believe.

Wendy Valentine: Yes.

Brittany Watkins: And that’s. That’s the biggest, um. Um, issue that we’ve had in getting the message out about tapping is that unless you really experience it. Yeah, it kind of sounds unbelievable, right?

Wendy Valentine: Yeah. It’s like simple and voodoo and most people are like, that looks stupid.

Brittany Watkins: Like, it looks totally stupid, and it doesn’t sound like it would work. And you’re like, how are people on all this medication and having all these mental health issues when there’s a simple solution that’s free that you can do to yourself that fixes all your problems? I know.

Wendy Valentine: It truly does work. And again, like, I I have. I’ll admit I’ve kind of forgotten about it a little bit about eft. You know, like, I’ll do my yoga. I do my meditation. I do my usual thing, and then. And I feel like I’ve become more aware now of that ticker tape of thoughts running across my mind or my emotional level. I’m like, okay, girl, we got to raise that. You know? But there are times when it’s like, you need a little extra something something. And I definitely find that eft works, like, just so fast. Like you said, it’s crazy.

Brittany Watkins: Yeah. Yeah. It’s really incredible.

Wendy Valentine: When did you make the connection as far as, like, with, you know, healthy eating and with eating disorders and weight loss?

Brittany Watkins: So one of the ways that my abandonment trauma manifested was I began to fill myself with. I tried to fill myself with love through food, and I didn’t know that this was going on. I just thought that I had gained 40 pounds and I needed to go on a diet. Right? Like, back then, that was what we did. We’re like, oh, eat chicken and broccoli and run and, you know, um. And so, thankfully, I was in therapy, and I was bringing up, like, how fat I was or something. Like, I was, you know, talking to my therapist about it, and he suggested a book by Janine Roth, when food is love. And so this is a super old book, but, um, it was the first time that somebody had explained to me what I was experiencing where I was hungry. It would come out of nowhere, and I would eat until I was so stuffed that I couldn’t fit anything more into my body. And then I would wake up in the morning, and I would go for a five mile run to try to burn it off, and then the cycle would just continue, and I would hate myself for doing that. And then, you know, it got a little bit better. But I just. I didn’t find any tools in the book to be able to help me. Like, when that craving hit, when I wanted to eat food or if I was feeling like I needed to binge, I couldn’t stop myself in that moment. I just couldn’t.

Wendy Valentine: M mhm.

Brittany Watkins: And even. Even once I learned eft, and regular tapping. Regular tapping couldn’t help me in those moments. It couldn’t help me with weight loss, which is why I created my own version of it called echo tapping, that specifically addresses food addiction cravings, unhealthy eating behaviors, because there’s actually. We have to work with all of these problems separately and use separate techniques. So over the course of probably 13 years of using myself as a human tapping science experiment, I was able to develop specific protocols for food cravings, for emotional eating, for self sabotage, for eating too much at one. At one time, eating when you’re stressed, eating when you’re lonely. All of these. All of these problems, we still apply tapping to them, but it’s tapping in a different method than traditional tapping, because at that point, up till. From the time I was 15 till 30, I was a very good tapper. My therapist taught me tapping, and then he gave me. He noticed how. How excited it was by it. So he gave me the same cds. This is back when cds were. He gave me the cds that they were using to train the therapists on how to do tapping. So I basically have, from the time I was 15, have had a therapist’s level of education in tapping and knowing how to apply traditional tapping, but that wasn’t working for this problem. And I just kept thinking, you know, I had so much self doubt, and I had. I was so instant insecure, and I, you know, the. The feelings of not good enough. I was like, how. How come nobody has figured this out? And I heard this little voice that said, brittany, you’re going to be the one to figure this out. And I didn’t leave it for so long. I’m like, that can’t be. I’m not a therapist. I’m not a scientist. But it just kept saying, brittany, you’re going to figure this out. And then I moved to Mexico to Playa del Carmen, Mexico, in 2012. And my soul just, like, took me down there. I needed to walk on the white, sandy beaches. And every day, I would go for a two hour walk. And I didn’t realize it at the time. I didn’t even realize this until probably two years ago, but I was just downloading information the entire time I was walking on the beach. So I’d go for a two hour walk, and then I would come home, and I would write for 12 hours. Wow. Yeah. So my entire program was created in those two years and all the methods. So, like, one day, I was having a craving, and I went for this walk, and I heard these, like, instructions. Like, this sounds I sound like a crazy person, but I came home and I tried it on myself, and I was like, fuck, that worked. And then I tried it on my clients, and they’re like, oh, my God, that worked. I’m like, I know. So I kept with every problem I had, I kept, uh, finding a solution to it. And so then over the course of those two years, I finally got to the point where I’m like, oh, my God, I’ve cured addiction. I have cured food addiction. And I had done it on enough students where they were like, yeah, that’s worked. And it hasn’t come back. And I don’t have cravings anymore. And so their lives are radically changing because it’s hard, you know, like, when you come up with your own method, you kind of think you’re like. You don’t really believe it at first, right?

Wendy Valentine: Like, you kind of. I’m like, am I just lying? You’ll have to do your own tapping on your self sabotage.

Brittany Watkins: Right. Um, but I couldn’t deny the results. Everybody was just saying, like. And then they started using for alcohol or for, you know, shopping or for being a hoarder. And so there’s all these different applications that when you over consume things. So, like, think about us today. Like, we have our phones, tv. There’s lots of things that we overconsume. They were applying the same strategies for all of those things. And their lives were getting exponentially better because of because of that.

Wendy Valentine: I was thinking, I was like, what would be the difference? And I guess, like, you know, tying all those together. The commonality, maybe it’s the physical piece of it, right? It’s the feedback that your body gives to you with addiction or overeating or or under eating the behavior.

Brittany Watkins: Yeah. You stop the be. That’s how you know it works. Cause, you know, people that have tried tapping before, they’re like, uh, I think it works, but I don’t really know. Tapping works so well and so deep that you forget you ever have the problem, uh, to begin with. Which is it’s one of the worst parts of tapping. Because people that don’t know to expect that they heal something. And they forget that they ever had that problem. And then they don’t think it ever works. Because they don’t feel they didn’t have to work for anything other than to do the tapping. Right. Like, we’re so used to change having to be really hard. Hard. But it’s actually not hard when you apply tapping then people. But because it’s not hard, then people don’t give it the credibility that it deserves.

Wendy Valentine: And then that’s when you know that new neural pathway is, like, really setting in totally.

Brittany Watkins: But with food, it’s apparent because they’re like, oh, my God, I didn’t binge today, or, oh, my God, I don’t like chocolate anymore. Oh, my God, I’m only drinking once a week instead of every night. So the results were showing up. And so that’s why most of the, um, I offer a ton of free experiences for people to have to, like, come in and see how this works. And I just saw. I just saw a comment on one of my ads today, uh, about the challenge, the free challenge that I give out. She’s like, I’ve lost 17 pounds in the last three weeks since I joined this challenge. Wow.

Wendy Valentine: That is so awesome.

Brittany Watkins: Um, I was so grateful for that. So a lot of my free stuff, I give away a lot of change work in my free stuff just because I really want people to understand. So within. Within days, you’ll see a difference within days.

Wendy Valentine: And it’s always nice, too, right? Because, like, when you’re starting something new, just to get that boost gives you that confidence and that reassurance, like, okay, this is working, and it makes you want to keep going.

Brittany Watkins: Totally, totally. Exactly.

Wendy Valentine: So, um, because we’ll show this on YouTube as well. So if you’re watching on YouTube, then you can see it. So let’s do a tapping technique, like pick. Pick one of, um, the top limiting beliefs surrounding food and, um, food addiction. Are there sights, sounds, or smells that remind you of a past traumatic event causing you to fight, flight, or freeze? These physical and emotional responses are called triggers, and they happen to all of us. Triggers can be tricky, but the key is to stop the trigger in its tracks and turn the trigger into a treasure. Just like doctor Nicole Lepera said, there’s nothing negative about being triggered. It’s a calling to heal our wounds. To help you heal those wounds, I created a free download called the trigger to treasure technique, where you will learn the four steps on how to identify your triggers, how to control your triggers, and how you can move past your past so you can live peacefully in the present moment. Please go to wendyvalentine.com trigger to receive your free download, and you can begin to turn your triggers into treasures.

Brittany Watkins: I actually don’t. I don’t tap like that because that doesn’t work.

Wendy Valentine: Okay.

Brittany Watkins: So. So what I would prefer to do is just give people access to my challenge where they can get tapping method for free. I, um, explain everything. There and they’ll have a much better experience because if we try to do that, it doesn’t. If they learn from, like, Nick Ortner or, like, a lot of the things online, if they’re trying to solve. Tapping works for everything, but not when it comes to food and alcohol addiction. It doesn’t do it in a different way. And that’s, like, little niche in my sweet spot. Um, so, yeah, I would prefer to just give them the free challenge because they’ll get a lot more information and then they’ll have a much bigger change. Because if we give people that, they might feel like it didn’t work and then they won’t be like, well, it didn’t work. Yeah, yeah, but, yeah, yeah.

Wendy Valentine: Ah. I mean, uh, even just on your instagram, I was just amazed at how much was on there. And I was just learning so much.

Brittany Watkins: From all of that.

Wendy Valentine: And again, like, before we even started, I was like, ooh. I was like, this is great. Just to feel better like it does. And then you. Like, if any craving is good, it’s to crave more tapping.

Brittany Watkins: Uh, yeah, yeah. So I. Yeah. People either get bit by the tapping bug or they don’t. You know, like, people that have this amazing experience, it’s usually women, uh, women that are highly sensitive or empaths. Um, those types of women usually will get really, really fast results with this because they’ll feel it. Because we take everything in and we’re, we’re so emotionally wired that you’ll feel the difference instantly. And then when something makes you feel so good and so free, you just want to do more of it.

Wendy Valentine: Plus, with tapping, you can do it anywhere. I mean, not all of us can. Like, especially with meditation, for example. And I love meditation. Can you, like, you know what? I need 30 minutes. I’m going to drop into meditation, you know, but what’s happening? Even if, like, you have to go into the bathroom stall, you know what I mean? You have to do some tapping, then so be it. Like. And it’s quick.

Brittany Watkins: Yeah. In my programs, I teach, I show them secret finger tapping spots so that they can do it without anybody. Um, without anybody. Yeah, there’s. There’s ways that you can do it. You can actually even. Just imagine you’re tapping. This is after you’ve been. You’ve been tapping for a while. You can just imagine the feeling of the fingertips on your skin. And that works, too. So there’s a lot of cool ways that you don’t have to necessarily hide it. Um, if it. If it makes. I just do it in front of people. And I did it at the doctor’s office the other day. And couple just looking at me, they were chatting about what they were going to cook for dinner. And then it totally went silent when I started talking. And I was just like, I don’t care.

Wendy Valentine: You’re like, whatever this is for me. Ah, you know, it’s interesting. This just, uh, came to my mind, but when I was having my third son and I had him, um, at home, natural birth. And little did I know that the midwives were actually teaching me tapping because. Yeah. And I didn’t know it because, uh, during that time, like, there wasn’t really. I mean, I hadn’t really heard of tapping and. But it was, it was like those certain pressure points and it would help me to overcome the pain and it helped me would relax.

Brittany Watkins: Yeah.

Wendy Valentine: I mean, and if that’s like, I mean, for a nine pound kid with wide shoulders, I mean, if tabby can work for that, I mean.

Brittany Watkins: Hello.

Wendy Valentine: So, yeah, it’s fascinating. And it’s fascinating what the human body can do if we let it, if we give it that permission, then you can. Oh, my gosh, you can do anything.

Brittany Watkins: Totally. Yeah. Yeah.

Wendy Valentine: So tell us about the program that you have.

Brittany Watkins: Um, it will probably be better if we. So, basically, what I discovered in those two years that I was just trying to solve this problem is I discovered that there are a seven subconscious weight loss blockers that are. That’s what I call them. Um. Um, I’ve got to come up with another name for alcohol because they’re different for alcohol, but for, for weight loss or for overeating or for, you know, food cravings. Um. Um, there are basically seven subconscious reasons that we eat food or we use food in an unhealthy way. And we can talk about a couple of them here. But basically, my programs and my challenge, I, I expect with the seven day challenge, I talk about a weight loss Bakr every single day. And then we do some tapping for a few of them. Um, and so it’s a really, really radical experience because it’s nothing that anybody’s talking about. Like nobody else is talking about this, nobody else has solved. This is a very unique, uh, spin on why women overeat or why women gain weight. Most of my clients, I definitely have clients that are struggling with 50 to 100 pounds, but most of them are just like, it’s between ten and 40 pounds and they can’t get it off. And typically it’s because they have unhealthy eating patterns that they are maybe aware of, or they’re not aware of it. Um, so, you know, one of the. One of the, um, one of the easiest ones to explain. And actually, I teach a webinar on this, um, that goes into a lot of depth. And I actually show. I take a couple of students from the audience through this, through this process. Um, but one of them is called the clean your plate program. And basically what this is, is, I don’t know if you grew up like this, but, uh, if you told. If your parents told you that you can’t leave the table until all your food is gone, which was really common. You know, our parents came from parents who were in the world war, world war two, and there was a food shortage. And so this has seeped down through generations, and they’re affecting, it’ll probably stop with our, with the younger generation because, like, our.

Wendy Valentine: I.

Brittany Watkins: Your age is like, wait, this is fucked up. But essentially what happens is when you sit down to eat your food, so when you’re a kid, your parents are like, they’re starving children in Africa. You can’t leave the table until all your food is gone. Right. And they would shame you and put fear in you so that you overrode your own body’s sensations, your full signal. And so what happens as an adult is the same thing is happening when you’re sitting down to eat. Even though you know, as an adult, it’s okay to throw half of your burger away or it’s okay to throw some of your food away. You are you. While you’re eating. What’s going on? Subconsciously is that the fear and the shame and the anxiety of. Of. Of, um. Of not, uh, uh, nothing. God, why am I losing this word? The shame and the fear and the anxiety of not doing what your parents want you to do is overriding your full signals in your body. Shame and fear and anxiety are much stronger sensation and emotion than the full signal is. Right.

Wendy Valentine: So, yeah, that’s fascinating.

Brittany Watkins: You can’t tell when you’re full, uh, where it’s like.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah, where your brain is the one that’s like saying, hey, hello, we’re getting full over here. But then that fear and that shame and that guilt would override that.

Brittany Watkins: Yeah, but you don’t know. So that’s. That is the power of the subconscious mind, is that you’re not aware of it. You just know that you don’t like to waste food. You just know that you like to save food and bring it home. Those are the things you know. But what’s driving it is this unconscious pattern and all of this fear and shame and guilt from your parents that they. That they put on you when you were a child. Um, and so. So, yeah, for that. For that technique, we actually have people, um, I had a Holocaust survivor. I had. I had the child of a Holocaust survivor throw a whole meal in the garbage can. And, I mean, when. Yeah, this was like, this is one of the webinars that I teach. Um, she threw a whole meal in the garbage can, and we got her to the point where she was totally okay with it. But even the thought of throwing food away just with anxiety. So if I can do that to that type of person, like, you know, just think it. Uh, just most people have this, too. Most people have this. So what’s happening is every time you sit down to eat a, you think you. You are eating way more food than your body needs, right? So, especially living in America, our portions are so big here anyway, that if you’re not consciously, like, cutting your food in half or sharing a meal with people, you’re going to be overeating. And even if you know that, you’re still probably overriding your. Your body sensations.

Wendy Valentine: Yep. And, um, there’s also that belief, like, if you don’t finish everything on your plate, then whoever made it for you is like, oh, would. You didn’t like it? Something wrong with my food?

Brittany Watkins: You know, totally.

Wendy Valentine: Uh-huh.

Brittany Watkins: Like, oh, my God, I better eat this. Yeah.

Wendy Valentine: Like, that’s his or her feelings if I don’t eat this entire plate of food.

Brittany Watkins: One of my clients, her dad, was not around very much, but he was a chef. And so whenever he did come around, he would cook food for her and for her sisters. And, uh, when she first learned about this technique, she was like, brittany, if I throw this food away, I’m literally throwing away my dad’s love. And there was so little of it that, you know, I don’t think I can actually do this. And so I taught her the tapping technique to heal this. And she probably had to repeat it 20 or 30 times before m usually do this technique once, and it totally reprograms your. Your brain and those neural pathways so that you stop overeating. So it’s usually like a one and done kind of situation. She had to do it 20 to 30 times, but she forever changed after that. She lost, I don’t know, ten or 15 pounds, just like that came off of her body. She didn’t change anything else consciously. She just did this. This tapping process that I taught her. And, um, reprogrammed that feeling or that subconscious belief that she was throwing away her dad’s love. If she didn’t finish all of her m and she just naturally ate less, and it wasn’t a diet. She didn’t have to use willpower. She didn’t have to think about it. Right? Because I don’t know about you, but, like, I hate when I have to, like, give myself rules or tell myself, I can’t eat this and I can’t eat that. I want to just enjoy my fucking life.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah.

Brittany Watkins: Eat what I want and stop when I’m full. Right, exactly. Your body’s stopping when you’re full is too much. Or if you’re struggling with extra weight, that’s probably one of the biggest culprits.

Wendy Valentine: Yes, exactly. Yeah. I think, um. Um, for me, when I started learning a little bit more about that, too, because I raised in the south, you know, and you better eat all your chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes and green beans, otherwise you’re in trouble. Right. Yeah. Uh, and, ah, but, yeah, I discovered I was like, oh, my God, I’m, like, really full. But then after a while, full wasn’t full anymore. I would just eat it all. I’m like, damn, why didn’t I get full? You know? And then eventually I became more aware of, okay, wait a minute. Slow down while we’re eating and try to get to, like, that 70%, like. Like, out of seven. Out of ten. I usually try to stop at seven, but it takes. But you’ll notice, right. It takes your brain and your stomach a while to catch up with each other, you know, like, almost like a ten minute gap, like a buffer or something.

Brittany Watkins: And most people won’t do that. They don’t have the willpower to actually stick to that. And that was me. Like, I was that person. If I learned a technique like that, I would be all for it, but then I wouldn’t actually implement it.

Wendy Valentine: Right?

Brittany Watkins: And so all of my techniques basically are built for, like, lazy people with no willpower, which I’m not that way anymore, but I couldn’t. I could if I told myself to do something, I couldn’t get myself to do it. And I figured out how to trick my brain into just doing it for me anyway, so that I didn’t have to think about that, and I just slowed down and I ate less without having to have that conversation, which. Which, you know, in some ways, it’s good to have that mental connection and mind body connection and all of that, but when I was, you know, 15. And, you know, trying to fill this void of, uh, in my heart with food. I couldn’t have a conscious thought.

Wendy Valentine: Right. You were just, like, going with it.

Brittany Watkins: Yeah. And a lot of women are still struggling with things that were super painful. And when they’re eating or when they get triggered, you’re. We’re all. We all revert back to being between zero and I. Eight years old, basically. And so if you’re good. Yeah, if you’re triggered, if you’re like a little child and you’re triggered and you’re trying to use food to soothe yourself, an adult having the. Having the capacity of an adult conversation, ah. With yourself is pretty much impossible.

Wendy Valentine: Mhm.

Brittany Watkins: Um, and so that’s why these techniques were created like that, because I just couldn’t get myself to do that in the moments where I was really triggered.

Wendy Valentine: Do you find that when people start doing the tapping surrounding their eating disorders, that they improve other areas of their life?

Brittany Watkins: Every single area of life gets an upgrade? Yeah, it’s one of the coolest when I have goosebumps. Now that we’re talking about it, it is one of the coolest phenomenons that I have ever seen. I have, like seven or eight thinking thin babies. Women that couldn’t get pregnant started getting pregnant. Uh, yeah, women were getting, uh, um, uh, pay increases. They were getting, um. They were starting their own businesses. They were writing books. Their relationship with their husband. I’ve gotten letters from husbands. Brittany, I don’t know what you did to my wife, but thank you so much. These women are in some of my high end coaching programs that I know their husbands have paid for, and it’s not cheap. And they are like, oh, my God, I want. I will. Whatever she costs, I will pay it well. So, uh, yeah, it’s just. It’s incredible. And I. Yeah, m. It’s like this.

Wendy Valentine: Nice, like, ripple effect in the rest of. In your life and then other lives. You know what I mean? Like, it goes into your relationship.

Brittany Watkins: Do you know the David Hawkins scale of consciousness? Yes.

Wendy Valentine: The map of consciousness. Yeah, I was just writing about this the other day. Like, the level, like. Because, yeah, you can. You can measure emotions in Hertz.

Brittany Watkins: So when you get so. So think about those lower levels of consciousness, right? It’s like shame, fear, guilt. So when you start to tap and you start to heal these wounds that are really at the core of why we overeat or why we have, um, addiction disorders. Um, you. You remove those. So those are. Those are living with you. Those are living vibrations in your consciousness. That are living with you all the time, whether you’re aware of them, whether you’re currently feeling them or not. And what’s really interesting is that as you move up the scale, actually, anger is like, not as. It’s like a higher vibration than shame is. And I know.

Wendy Valentine: Isn’t that interesting? Yeah.

Brittany Watkins: Right. And so what I noticed, we have a. I have this. This, um, uh, whole practice where we deal with anger. And what I found over the years was that, that people, women that dealt with their anger were the ones that were getting rapid results really quickly if they didn’t, because anger is really scary. Like, the way that I teach it and the way that I heal it is a. Is a really rapid result, but it’s still really hard to do. Yeah. Um, so these women were making such radical progress, and it just came to me a couple years ago, and somebody brought that book around to me. I was looking at the scale. I’m like, oh, my God. Anger is on the cusp of the lower vibrations, to the higher vibrational. M. Uh, uh, to the higher vibrations. So what I found is that the women, once they got themselves to the point in the program where they were ready to face the anger part of it, they were able to move through that and then live in the higher vibrational states, which makes everything in your life better. Right? Like, that just makes sense to, like, you know? Yeah, I know.

Wendy Valentine: It’s been interesting, though. Like, and I’ve thought about that over the years, like, when I learned about the map of consciousness. Um, and with anger, it’s like, you can. Anger can be really motivating though, too. Like, if I look back through my life and then times where I’m, like, doing it, you know, like, get really pissed about something, like, ooh, no, more like, I am standing up for myself. Like, anger can be a good thing if you allow it to. And just like you said, it can. Like, it’s like this nice boost it takes you.

Brittany Watkins: It’s a gateway emotion.

Wendy Valentine: Higher levels of consciousness.

Brittany Watkins: It’s fascinating. It is, it is. But, like, living in the anger state is not comfortable.

Wendy Valentine: Nobody wants.

Brittany Watkins: Living in the lower vibrational states is also not comfortable. So once you get yourself to the point where you’re. You’ve. You’ve dealt with your anger, you are actually able to be motivated by love or bye, uh, excitement, or by joy or by moving towards things instead of moving away from things.

Wendy Valentine: Yes.

Brittany Watkins: And that’s such a better strategy in life. And if you think about law of attraction as well, like, being in higher states of vibrations attracts better things to you, attracts higher vibrational things to you. And so, anyway, this all kind of came to me in like, this map, this visual map. Like, maybe like when I moved back to the states, actually came to me. And so I’ve just started to teach this recently. And it’s just a theory that I have. I can’t prove any of this, but, I mean, I’ve been doing this for 13 years, and I see that the women who get into anger work are like, make massive progress in their, in their whole area of their lives. So, yeah, that was a really long answer to your question, but, yes.

Wendy Valentine: Well, and I love that whole time I’ve been writing and thinking a lot about that whole thing about the, I mean, as we know, everything is energy, and including our emotions. We don’t think about that. I think of, I think of emotions, uh, like, emotion as energy in motion. And that’s moving through you and around you and within you. And it’s like once you, like, really tap into that, but on, boom, tap into that, then it really, like, it clicks. It’s like, oh, you feel like you can take back control of yourself, right, of your, your thoughts, your feelings, your emotions, your behaviors and. Yeah, I can totally see now that you said that with, with tapping, how that can help to raise that vibration.

Brittany Watkins: Yeah.

Wendy Valentine: In record time.

Brittany Watkins: Record time. It’s like that. Yeah, it’s one of the easiest ways, like, it’s one of the easiest ways to attract what you want into your life to be, to feel happier. Um, I just write down positive affirmations now, and I tap on those. I just use regular tapping. That’s something that anybody can start doing right away. That instead of, you know, using the law of attraction and just repeating the words, if you tap and say the words, I’ve noticed that I can manifest what I want in, um, um, about half, like, half as quickly. So if it takes me two years to manifest, like, a whole new life, it can take, it’ll only take me one if I’m, if I’m tapping and thinking about the things that I want to attract and manifest.

Wendy Valentine: Silly, silly analogy. But it would be like, as if you’re, you’re planting those seeds and you’re putting like, miracle grow.

Brittany Watkins: It’s going like, yes, that’s a great analogy.

Wendy Valentine: That gonna grow super fast.

Brittany Watkins: Yeah, it’s a great analogy. Love it.

Wendy Valentine: Oh, I can talk about this stuff all day. Oh, God, I love it. You’ve inspired me to start tapping again.

Brittany Watkins: Good. Uh, yay.

Wendy Valentine: Tapping and listening and drumstick.

Brittany Watkins: Like, two minutes a day. In the morning, when you’re thinking about your day, you know, I think a lot of us wake up and we’re like, oh, my God, I have so many things to do. And you, like, we’re women and we overthink, and we have way more access to our brains than men do. And so we’re just like. We get stuck in this pattern of overthinking. If you just spend two minutes, ah, thinking about and feeling those emotions of being overwhelmed and saying out loud whatever it is you hear yourself saying because you’re doing it in your head, you might as well just say it out loud. Right? You don’t have to know what to say because you know what to say. You’re saying it.

Wendy Valentine: Yep.

Brittany Watkins: You give yourself two minutes to just tap on that and clear that those negative thoughts out of your. Out of your brain. And then spend another just minute thinking about moving through your day with grace and ease. Or just think. And actually, you don’t even have to do this part. You can just do the two minutes of the bad stuff, and then your whole your day will actually flow much better. But I like to supercharge it and imagine how I want things to go instead. Um, but you don’t have to do that part. Just tap on two minutes. Just spend two minutes tapping on the bad feeling. Notice how much more grounded you feel. Notice how, um. Like, I used to. I used to explain it. Like, it’s almost like a samurai. You know how, like, a samurai is like, his sword. Like, you kind of just. Even though shit’s coming at you, you’re just like, whoa. Like, you’re able to just. With this, like, presence and this grace that normally makes you frazzled. And so that’s what I recommend people start doing right away every day, and it just literally takes two minutes. You’re laying there thinking those feelings anyway. You might as well start tapping your face.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah, don’t worry.

Brittany Watkins: If somebody thinks you’re crazy, your husband will notice the difference.

Wendy Valentine: When in doubt, tap it out.

Brittany Watkins: Yes, exactly.

Wendy Valentine: So where can we find you?

Brittany Watkins: Um, okay, so I have, uh, Britney Watkins is my main website, but I have, um, access to that free challenge. It has its own unique link that I’d like to give your. Your audience. Um, so it’s echotapping.com. forward slash midlife.

Wendy Valentine: Nice.

Brittany Watkins: Yeah. So they’ll get access to that free seven day challenge. They can have, um, they will have an experience of using the echo tapping methods for food cravings, for emotional eating, self sabotage, all the things that we’ve been talking about today. Um, I actually go much deeper into that, and then they’ll learn how to apply it. They’ll do it along with me. They’ll see me work with other people, and they’ll have a shift just, you know, just by going to those days. So, um. Um, yeah, so that’s probably the best thing to do. And then once you’re on my way, uh, once you’re on my email list, if you want, you can respond to one of the emails and let us know that you want access to that webinar that heals the. The clean your plate, um, that we were talking about today. And then one of somebody on my team will send you that webinar, because that one’s really powerful, too. But I don’t do it in the challenge, so. So that’s just something special that I wanted to offer your audience because we were talking about that, and I normally don’t talk about that weight loss blocker, but I just thought it would be good for, yes, this audience, you know.

Wendy Valentine: Interestingly, um, when I look back through all my episodes, my number one downloads are always about weight loss.

Brittany Watkins: Oh, wow.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah. Number two is divorce, but number one is weight loss. So, I mean, it’s. Obviously it’s needed and in better solutions.

Brittany Watkins: Yeah, totally. Better solutions that actually work, that are permanent work. It’s not like a diet where you have to keep doing it. The. The solution, the. The changes stay in place. You don’t even have to keep tapping on it. Once you tap on it and you find solute, you find resolution with that thing, it never comes back.

Wendy Valentine: So you’re literally, like, creating a new woman.

Brittany Watkins: Yes. Yeah. So cool.

Wendy Valentine: Thank you, Brittany.

Brittany Watkins: You’re so welcome. Thanks for having me.

Wendy Valentine: Thank you for all that you’re doing. Uh, great. 100,000 women. We need to. We need to quadruple that.

Brittany Watkins: Yeah.

Wendy Valentine: Make more changes.

Brittany Watkins: Yeah. That’s the goal.

Wendy Valentine: Thank you so much, everyone. Have a great day. Start tapping. Did this podcast inspire you? Challenge you? Trigger you to make a change or spit out your coffee? Laughing. Good. Then there are three ways you can thank me. Number one, you can leave a written review of this podcast on Apple iTunes. Number two, you can take a screenshot of the episode and share it on social media and tag me Wendy Valentine. Number three, share it with another midlife expert, Anita Makeover. You know who I’m talking about. Thank you so much for listening to the show. Get out there and be bold, be free, be.