Monday, March 09, 2009

The OSI Interview: Rod Sherwin

Rod Sherwin, known as "the tapping man", is an Energy Therapist from Melbourne, Australia. Rod runs the Tap4Health EFT Practice and works with clients all over the world on issues such as stress, anxiety, trauma, abuse, anger management, depression, weight loss, public speaking and presenting. His approach is an unconventional and original combination of warmth, humour, respect, intuition, and skill. Rod speaks frequently on mental health and emotional well being with a genuine and authentic style. Rod's primary tool for helping others is the Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) which he combines with his experience in Energy Medicine, Solutions-Focus Brief Therapy, 6-Human Needs Psychology, and Neuro-Associative Conditioning. Rod's original qualifications are in Computer System Engineering and Computer Science which gives him a very grounded and practical approach that's focused on achieving real results for his clients.

I must admit to having scoffed the first time I came across the notion of EFT. It seemed to me on par with saying that I'd thrown a ball into the air to resolve my outstanding emotional issues, or that by rolling my eyes counterclockwise eight times I had been able to stop smoking or something. I suppose this is why it's important to keep my words soft and sweet: I've been eating them now for weeks. Hit with a particularly nasty allergy attack last month, I decided to try tapping (I'd read about it over at iCiNG). It was sheer desperation; if nothing else, I thought, tapping would temporarily distract me from the nonstop sneezing, itchiness, coughing, near-hysteria and other gross things that come with extreme seasonal allergies.

Less than an hour later the allergies were almost completely gone; all that remained was a slight itchy sensation in my nose. Leaving me--ahem!--something like completely astonished. There's something to this, I thought, feeling like a jerk for all of my scoffing. Fast-forward a few days, and I'm tapping, via telephone, with Rod. (But first he was treated to a fine cross-examination, which he very admirably took in stride.) He's deeply intelligent, kind, intuitive and earnest, and didn't seem to mind my smartass jokes. I loved working with him and would absolutely recommend him to anyone who's interested.

1. In the context of your work, which bits of minutiae matter most?
When working with a client I find using their exact words and phrases is so important. There are layers of meaning behind the words we choose and changing a person's words I feel is disrespectful and invalidates their feelings. Have you ever said "I feel sad" and had someone reply "You should feel angry"? Does that feel like they are empathising with you or presenting their point of view? Sometimes you need to help people clarify the words to describe what they're feeling but there is a difference between helping them find the words to describe an emotion and another of running rough-shod over the words they have chosen. The subtlety of the words is so important.

2. Which bits matter least?
This is where my tendency to perfection gets in the way. Most of the time it all feels important to me. I feel pressure to get everything right and do even the smallest things perfectly. What I tend to pay least attention to is how I dress. While people do judge me by what I wear in the first few moments of meeting me, once they start working with me or hearing me speak they see past the clothing to who I am as a person.

3. In the context of your life, what types of minutiae once seemed important, but have since fallen by the wayside? Why?
There are only 24 hours in a day so you are never going to have more time than you do today. As you grow a business, to take on some new project you also need to decide what you are going to stop doing. It used to be important to me to keep up with all the blogs that I read but now days I may get to them every second day and am happy to mark a lot of stuff as read even if I haven't read it. It's just not that important in the bigger picture.

4. What types of minutiae, if any, have you had to train yourself to pay closer attention to?
Given I work from a home office, clients come through my home so I've had to learn to pay attention to how tidy it looks when someone walks in. I have developed the habit of washing up after every meal because dirty plates on the sink are not a good thing for people to see when they enter.

5. Just for kicks -- what are your favorite bits of minutiae (personal, from a book, a piece of music, moment in a movie, etc.)?
One thing is my sun alarm clock radio. Instead of waking up to a in shock to an alarm, my sun alarm gets brighter over 30 minutes and simulates the sun rising and I find it such a gentler way to come to consciousness. Another thing would be my Timex watch that is more than 15 years old. I always have it with me when I travel and deliver training as it has two time zones, stop watch, and count down timer, and alarm. All valuable things to have on hand (or on wrist as the case may be). I've travelled with it all over the world.

While I have lived in a lot of different places, I grew up in a small country town in North Queensland, Australia called Charters Towers, population about 8,000-10,000 people. Charters Towers at the peak of a gold rush was known as "The World" and had a population closer to 100,000 which, at that time in Australia, was the same as the nearest capital city. Now days, Charters Towers is the home of the Gold Field Ashes which is the largest amateur cricket carnival in the Southern Hemisphere.

***
Thanks so much, Rod!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Having seen Rod in action with his EFT and as a speaker, I can highly recommend him.

Good interview!

Warwick Merry
The Get More Guy
www.warwickmerry.com

Emma said...

Thanks, Warwick!

michael.offworld said...

Nice job Emma. Great connection.

M