Santa Incident and Uncontrollable Blushing

Childhood conditioning

By Rehana Webster

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A young woman came to see me a few years ago regarding a problem she had since she was a child.  Every year when it is the Christmas season and there are lots of Santa’s around on the streets and shopping malls, my client blushes uncontrollably.  She would literally go red from her neck upwards and her face would light up like Rudolph the reindeer.  Sure, it was something that only occurred once a year for a month or so, but embarrassing for Jan.

I did some ‘data gathering’ and discovered that when Jan was a young child growing up in the Australian outback (desert town)  an embarrassing event had occurred when she first ‘met’ a Santa around age six.  Santa’s were not part of the tradition 30 years ago in Australia as they are in North America so when it was announced in the little town that Santa would visit, all the kids were really excited to meet him.  Of course he would be dispensing ‘goodies’ as well and all the children were really excited.

On the appointed day all the town children and the parents gathered at the little schoolyard.  There was an air of excitement and in the distance they saw this camel sauntering towards them (of course).  Seated atop was this fat man in a red suit!  As the camel got closer the level of excitement rose higher and all the kids rushed to see what this strange man in the red suit had in his bag.  The camel came to a halt and knelt forward to sit down with Santa balancing his large bag and bamboo staff.  The kids were rushing forward and my client got the full force of the bamboo staff on her head.  Not only did she get whacked by Santa, all the kids and adults started laughing at her.  She was shocked by the smack in the head, even though it didn’t hurt, as it was a thin length of bamboo.   It was the humiliation she felt at being the laughing stock of the town.

We tapped continuously while she repeated the story several times.  I asked her to rate it incident each time and the SUDs came down each time.  I asked if it was possible for her to make the incident into a little cartoon movie.  Santa was to be larger and redder, the camel to be more ungainly and the bamboo staff like a fishing pole.

After we had brought down the SUDs to 1, we then used the following statements to further reduce any other associated distress:

Santa didn’t mean to whack me, I was at the wrong place….
I was only a little kid and I thought Santa was picking on me….
The kids didn’t mean to laugh at me but they were so excited…
The adults didn’t mean to laugh at me but they were embarrassed as well…
Santa didn’t single me out to whack me, it was his fishing rod….
Santa didn’t’ mean to whack me, it was his ungainly camel…..
Santa didn’t mean to whack me…he just couldn’t ride a camel…


Santa couldn’t ride a bike if he tried cause he was too fat, how was he expected to ride a camel without an accident….
I was really embarrassed and felt a sense of shame when everyone laughed but I realize it was a ‘funny’ incident and not about me.
People laughed at the incident and not at me personally.

Jan has had the opportunity to test out her ‘blushing’ around Santa’s for the past few years and confirmed that she does not have the same feelings of ‘shame’ and in fact no more blushing as well. 

Another success with the use of EFT!

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