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Tap Into Emotional Freedom: Donald Grothoff on EFT & Mindset Mastery

Tap Into Emotional Freedom: Donald Grothoff on EFT & Mindset Mastery

Julia Ward, MD with Donald Grothoff

About the Expert

Julia Ward, MD

Dr. Julia Ward

Dr. Julia Ward is a compassionate and forward-thinking physician with over a decade of experience in functional medicine, known for her systems-based approach to healing chronic illness. She is the founder of Balanced Body Functional Medicine, where she helps patients uncover the deeper drivers of disease and restore health by addressing the body as an interconnected whole.
After earning her medical degree from the University of Southern California, Dr. Ward served in the U.S. Navy, practicing general, urgent, and emergency medicine both domestically and abroad. Her own personal struggle with unexplained fatigue led her to question the limitations of conventional medicine and ultimately guided her toward functional medicine.
While she initially focused on identifying root causes, Dr. Ward’s approach has continued to evolve. She now emphasizes the importance of how and when the body is treated—not just what is treated. Through her Balanced Body System Reset™ framework, she focuses on restoring nervous system balance, improving mitochondrial function, reducing inflammation, and addressing root causes in the right sequence to create lasting and meaningful healing.
Dr. Ward integrates advanced diagnostics, personalized care plans, and innovative therapies such as hyperbaric oxygen and ozone therapy, while also emphasizing foundational elements like nervous system regulation, lifestyle, and patient engagement. She believes that healing is not a one-size-fits-all process, but a guided journey that requires both strategy and active participation.
A lifelong learner, Dr. Ward continues to expand her expertise in areas such as precision genomics, brain health, and complex chronic illness. She is deeply committed to helping her patients not only feel better, but truly understand their bodies and take ownership of their health.
A devoted wife and mother of five, Dr. Ward brings both clinical expertise and personal insight to her work, with a mission to transform the way chronic illness is understood and treated.

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Guest

Donald Grothoff

Donald Grothoff

As the Mindset Coach he helps patients going through healing process to get past the anxiety, stress, emotional blocks, or traumas that stop them from getting the full potential of their healing.

He has one-on-one sessions where he uses his skills in Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) tapping, breath work, mindfulness practices and much more. His work nurtures each patient to the next level in their healing process.

Beyond is his ability to be a Mindset Coach, he is a EFT Practitioner, Speaker, Podcaster and a father of three wonderful children along with his wife Gina.
Donald is passionate about helping patients and client reach their best health level.

"It's not just about healing the body, it's a path to a more conscious life!"

More from Donald Grothoff on DrTalks

We have it within us. I call them invisible wires. They're called meridian pathways, and they're helping to flow that energy to the cells, to the organs, to the brain, everywhere in our body.

And when we get into a negative situation, whether it's anxiety, it can be a lot of different things. Those pathways get messed up. So what we're what we're literally doing is tapping on the endpoints of those pathways to get them back into alignment.

You know, if you've ever had acupuncture, they're doing a lot of the same thing. They're tissue. They're using needles in putting those pathways back together.

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Welcome to the functional edge. I'm Doctor Julia Ward, and this is where science meets real world strategies for living healthier, sharper and stronger.

Today we have Donald brought off mind coach, mindset coach and he is with focused family health. As the mindset coach, he helps patients going through the healing process to get past anxiety, stress, emotional blocks or trauma that stop them from getting the full potential of their healing.

He has one on one sessions where he uses his skills in emotional freedom techniques or EFT tapping breathwork, mindfulness practices and much more. His work nurtures each patient to the next level of their healing process.

Beyond his ability to be a mindset coach, he is an EFT practitioner, speaker, podcaster, and father of three wonderful children along with his wife, Gina.

Donald is passionate about helping patients and clients reach their best health level. It's not just about healing the body, it's a path to more a more conscious life.

All right. So what inspired you to specialize in emotional freedom techniques and mindset coaching? Well, it did started out not as well. I originally kind of took it as kind of a an issue I had with my own family, and what I had to deal with, with my parents made my and all that.

And so I was this kind of take is a side issue for a while, you know, just something to kind of help me out. And I had to kind of be dragged to it as it was, because I thought it was kind of like this kind of seemed like voodoo to me, you know, in a way.

And so my, my wife got me to, to go to one of these sessions. And so I got involved with the the lady that did it was a master of it, and she kind of pulled me into it.

And, and what, what she did with me was so wonderful. And it really helped me out a lot. But then I end up, I had three kids, and two of those kids have severe OCD.

And when we got into that and we had to start dealing with that, that that led me to using this to help us both us, the ourselves and the child that was going through it, to kind of get through this and to help ease the stress, because it was a very, very stressful time.

So it was it was a matter of that getting that going. In the middle of that, I had a heart attack. So that changed everything. When I decided with the heart attack that it was time to do something different.

I it was almost like the the heart attack was my, I call it my two by four to the head that said, enough with doing what you're doing. You need to do what you want, what you really want to do, what what you're passionate about.

And so that's what kind of got me into getting into the training of it, going through the all the different trainings for it and getting into it. So yeah, it was kind of a a slow start, but a quick, quick finish when that when the heart attack you.

And what were you doing before this all started? Well, I don't even like to mention it because it's like totally off. You know, I was in I had my own web design company.

Okay. So I, you know, I don't have them, I don't have this master's degree in psychology or anything like that. And it's I don't always like to mention that.

But what I have learned through through the training I went through, but also through the work I've done with my kids and, and now I've been doing this now as a practice for over 13 years.

So I've, I've learned a lot. I've worked with a lot of different doctors, holistic doctors that and, and it's really taught me a lot about what, what's what goes on up here.

Yeah. Well, I think that's a huge testament to this technique that you, you know, you're not in the medical, you weren't in the medical field and you did this technique and you found it's so effective both for you and your kids that you decide to get trained in it.

Yeah. That's that's pretty amazing. Yeah. Can you share a defining moment or success story from your career that solidified your passion for EFT? Well, I mean, you know, working with my own kids started some of that because I saw I saw my my first both the two kids that I that had they didn't go together.

It wasn't together. That one did it. And then years later, the second one did it. And okay, so watching my first child go through what she had, it was not a fun time and helping her to ease that down and also to ease my family down, you know, that that's the other big part of it, that I work a lot with the family to get the the tensions down and their side.

That and so that was my first one. And and then as I was, I started doing these different techniques and, and doing presentations on it, I would see some pretty amazing stuff go go through, you know, people that it literally changed their life, you know, and that was amazing to me.

I still sometimes went into shock when I really did that. I not that I did it, but EFT did it, you know. But it yeah, I've had quite a few, different stories that that really helped the change it.

That's great. That's great. So for listeners unfamiliar with EFT, how would you describe the technique and its foundational principles? Well, the the principle is working on.

Well, you're tapping on the, the meridian points of the body. And the way I like to describe it to, to clients is to talk about if you think about energy coming into a house, it comes into a big wire that's outside and it has to come inside and then be distributed out to all the different lamps and computers and all that stuff.

And it's run through the wires that are in the wall. And our bodies really all very similar to that. You know, what's going on up here is I think it's somewhere around 85 to 90% is, is electrical stuff going on.

And we have it within us I call them invisible wires. They're called Meridian pathways. And they're helping to flow that energy to the cells, to the organs, to the brain, everywhere in our body.

And when we get into a negative situation, whether it's anxiety, it can be a lot of different things. Those pathways get messed up. So what we're what we're literally doing is tapping on the endpoints of those pathways to get them back into alignment.

You know, if you've ever had acupuncture, they're doing a lot of the same thing. They're tissue. They're using needles in putting those pathways back together.

Okay. And what we do a little differently in it, we we do the tapping part, but we also add the words in the negative words that people are talking that are that are stopping us from getting where we want to get to.

Yeah. And we don't. It's kind of funny because I don't think people think about what they talk about, what they say to themselves and how deep some of it goes and how much that affects them. Yeah.

And that that's like I said, that's what I did. Amazed by watching it change it. You know, we delve a lot of times into the childhood issues that go on and, and then work through them just so that we, you know, I, we, I don't believe well, let's say we don't let light work on the energy, the positive right off the bat.

We really want to get the negatives down. And then we work on the positive. So we really want to get those negative stuff down. Okay. So how does, breath work and mindfulness complement EFT in the healing process?

Well, you know, when I'm working with somebody, the first thing I do with them before we even get into that is I want you. I want you to take a moment here.

I want you to really take in a good deep breath, and I tell them to hold it in a little bit. Yeah. There's a method I used to use that's called four, seven, eight method that you may be familiar with. It.

I don't push people on that right off the bat, because that the especially the eight let go is the toughest part, you know, so I get people to hold it in for maybe 4 or 5 seconds now and then just telling them let it out really slow, okay.

And and so I always start with that because I think one, you know, we talking about settling the mind down and, and just as much as the if he brings down the amygdala and brings down the fight or flight that.

Well, breathwork does that to say the, you know, the work we do. So the two combine together. You know, I think, you know, getting that deep breath in also opens up passageways and gets oxygen to the brain, which is, you know, part of what we're working on.

So yeah, I think it works very, very closely with it and, and use it all the time. That's great. Are there particular conditions or situations where EFT is especially effective?

Well, you know that it goes for a lot of things. The big big ones are fears and phobias are the biggest part. But you know, it even works on on physical things, you know, especially when I'm dealing with somebody has chronic issues, you know, a back that's been out for five years or ten years.

It's like, you know, the body heals itself much faster than than, you know, 5 or 10 years. So when I when I see that, that tells me there's, there's something emotional that's, that's holding them up, you know, that's that's not letting them let go of what's going on for them.

So yeah, it can. Yeah, yeah. You break your arm, I can't go to and put it back together again. Right, right, right. But I can I can relieve the some of the pressure of it.

You know, I can, I can help them maybe sleep better at night. I can help them get their stress down so that they can, you know, when you're in fight or flight, you're pulling up stress, you're pulling up the cortisol and things like that that are that are pumping them up.

And you want to bring that down. So if I can help bring down the anxiety, it can help heal it, heal them a lot faster. Oh that's great. So could you walk us through a basic EFT tapping session and what might a first time client expect?

Well, you know, first time I talk a little bit about what I do and get get even used to that. And then I introduce the different tapping points that they they're going to be using while we're doing it.

And then we really the, the big part of what we have to do is we have to get them to talk and get out. What's what's the negative stuff that they're doing with, and that some people can get it out right away and I'd say probably a lesser amount is going to get it out right away.

The the other ones, you have to kind of dig some into it and kind of and I have some different techniques and helping them kind of first getting them listen to what they're saying.

You know, it's about awareness. You know, when I right now I work with one of the doctors here in Charlotte and that people come in and they become aware of what's going on here, that there's something physical that they want to change.

They want to, you know, and so it's about awareness. Well, my job is to get them aware here and start really listening to what they're saying. What's the negative words they're using and spitting out that that's really could be causing the problem, causing some of the problem, not all the problem.

But you know. Yeah. And so we really work on digging at it. And once we once we start getting some of the words down, you know what the words are. I write them down.

Then we work on, we literally start tapping on them and we literally get the word, you know, have them spit out the words, talk about the words and just tap through it until until we get it to a place where.

And that doesn't mean the first session, but it they'll get it to a place where it starts to come down. And then and then we can bring in some positives on top of that.

But it just really works on getting that negative stuff down and getting them comfortable. Yeah. Oh great. It's a way of handling, you know it's it's the long term of it is that they start to learn to handle their their anxiety better.

Yeah. Yeah. You, you don't get a you don't get away from anxiety. It's part of a nature. Right. But you get away from the extremes and the, the over the tops or the or the depression, the other side of it, you know, and so we really want to get them past that.

Yeah. I think for me this technique is so appealing because it's non-pharmaceutical. It's something that everybody can do at any time. Yeah. I mean once you once you have it down, once you kind of have the basics obviously. And you've been. Yeah.

Yeah. It well and what I've also found is that, you know, there are other modalities. I mean there's Reiki, there's all these other modalities, but not many of them are touch type things.

You know, the Reiki is holding their hands over the power of the of the person. You know, these different touch type and not touch, but you know, those type I like I get people that they, they like the physical back of doing something to themselves.

Yeah. And like I say, you could take it anywhere for that, but. Right, right. So how do you adapt your techniques to suit individual clients with unique needs and challenges?

Well, again, it goes into the fact of, you know, as I said, I don't I don't really plan out anybody's their schedule. I don't I don't figure we're going to we're going to work this way, we're going to go down this path.

I really wait for them to come in and sit down and talk to me because that's, you know, that's the part we're really trying to work on is what their words are, what their things are.

So I really wait for them to come in to me. You know, we have some techniques that we use. In fact, one of my, the neat ones I always love to use is called the movie technique, which we we take them through a series of steps in the process, but that that depends on the person, that depends on the, you know, what's going on from it may not work for everybody.

And, you know, so I really wait for them to come in to me and talk to me about it. And and of course, like I say, once we start getting into it, then of course, I go back and we talk about, okay, this is where we were last week.

And let's talk about is there anything there? I mean, have you worked on it, have you done this, that kind of thing. And then we kind of go from there.

Did that did that answer that question? Yeah, yeah. And then have you noticed any trends or commonalities amongst the patients that you work with in terms of emotional blocks or trauma?

Oh, well, it's funny because it's what is I tend to I tend to lead people to do me that, that are doing the same things I'm doing, you know, as far as trends, it's not so much that there's this, there's certain trends, but I see a lot of the same things over and over.

One one of the big things I get a lot is I get what I call the the fixer, the the pleasers in life, that are there, you know, they're they like most of the time they grew up with it.

You know, their, their parents kind of let them this place of having to please them or to feel like they feel like they need to please them. And then that just kind of builds through the through the time.

And so that's probably one of the big ones I get a lot of is the pleasers. And then of course fears and phobias and things like that. Okay a big too. So yeah. Great.

And how do you empower your clients to continue using EFT and mindfulness practices in their everyday lives? Well, you know, you can you can lead the horse to water.

Yeah. And you can tell them other things. Right? I you know, I what I, I send them after the first session, I send them, I have a guide that it put together for them.

And then I explore with them as we're going along with it is to. Okay. Are you following it? What what's going on when you're doing it, you know, are you finding the right words?

All that kind of like, I'll work with them and and see what if they've worked with it and I, I don't like to push people to say, you've got to do this every day.

But I tell them, you know, there's a long term effect to this that they don't really realize. We can see instantaneously that they're that things are dropping down some or they're, you know, they're coming down.

And but it's the long term to me that makes the huge difference. And so I really try to impart that on them. The longer you do it, the more it kind of builds.

Kind of a I call it like a shield for you, that the things that came at you before don't hit you the same way. Okay. And the more you do it like I do it, I try to do it every day and I really try to work through it.

So I, I really let them think about that fact. You, you want to, you know, go down the road and have less things happen to you. You know, and so I, you know, and I what I also do is I do what I call a check in.

I do it for myself in the morning. I do a usually it's about anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes depending on how I do it, but it's just where I do the deep breathing.

I do some simple tapping and I have them check in with themselves. How are you feeling? How are the emotions feeling? How's the physical side even feeling?

And try to get them to do that on a regular basis so that they can, you know, because I think it starts the day out better. If you can start your day out and you've brought some of that, if there's anxiety stressing you out the morning, you don't start out with the rest of the day with it.

Yeah. That's great. What role do you think emotional health plays in overall physical healing and well-being? I, I have learned that through my well, I've been doing this for 20 years myself and 13.

And in practice I have seen it how it's helped me. You know, especially like I said, I've been to the heart attack thing. It's been like a a real constant with me.

It almost it feels like, but I, I've been doing it since my first heart attack back in 2011. I have used it every day since then, and I really feel like because when I came off my heart attack, it was like that.

The first month was just every every little thing that happened in my body. I was worried about being another heart attack, you know? Yeah. And I use the I use the tapping to kind of help keep that down.

Yeah. Really try to work, you know. So yeah, I, I think the if we can get this opened up because you think about the fight or flight thing and when we get into fight or flight, we're doing things, chemicals, things through our body, you know, the adrenaline and all that kind of stuff start pumping up.

And up here it literally shuts down parts of the brain. Yeah. And two big parts that I, I have seen are that I, I think are out there is the kind of the upper thinking part of the brain.

And the immune system. And so you going through all of this, all this chemical stuff maybe happening in the body and you know, and you're starting to get the, the, the nervous feelings and stuff like that.

And your immune system's up there going, I can't do anything about it. You know, I'm stuck you know. Yeah. And so you got to get it opened up. And so yeah, I think it's it's vitally important.

Yeah. Yeah. So how do you approach skeptics or those who might be hesitant to try tapping or mindset coaching? Well, there's certain ones that that just aren't going to do it.

You know, it's just voodoo or whatever, you know, what I the way I just try to work with them is just take it slow. You know, I don't I don't push too much on them right off the bat.

And I just, I let the FDA do its work. You know, that's, that's the other part about you know you asked about my, my history and all that. I think the biggest part of this is that if he does a lot of the work for me.

You know it, it it's the one that really helps to kind bring out things which I'm, I'm amazed at, at how it kind of brings stuff out. So I really let it do the work.

So if they're willing to sit down in front of me. There's a good chance that I can, I can convince them to you know, to work with this. Oh yeah. And I've, I've had, I've had quite a few people that come, I had one woman that he came to this session and he kind of sat like this the first day, you know, and, and his I don't believe in this stuff, you know.

And I said, well, why did you come? And he said, well, I thought it would be interesting to see what you can do. You know. And so and so I just slowly worked with her.

And by the end of that very first session, she went, wow, I, I didn't realize what this could do for me. And so it's that I'm really glad that I came to it, you know, and that that really felt good, you know?

Yeah. That's great. It's just a slow process of trying with somebody. And if they're not into it, I don't ever push anybody. Because sure, everybody can find different modalities that fit them better than the nurse.

Yeah. It's not the cure all for everything here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, what are some simple practical tips you'd recommend for someone dealing with daily stress or anxiety?

Who wants to explore EFT? Well, I mean, you know, of course, coming to me would be great. Yeah, but if they're not, you know, going to something like YouTube and finding a some videos on it, finding, you know, a book, maybe a manual of some sort that could help you out with it just to, to try it.

The, the tough part about it when you, when somebody is trying to do it on their own, it takes a little bit. It's not this is not rocket science, but it does take a little bit to understand the right words, find how to get to them.

And and a lot of times the first oh, I remember the first when I was in my session with my, my mentor, everything was working great, you know, and I felt the change changes the I got home and if it got the first couple actually first probably month or so, I just I wasn't feeling anything.

I wasn't seeing that the action to it. And I remember calling her up about second week into a good this isn't working. You know, I don't get this, you know, do I have to come in to you every time, you know?

And she said, you know, you just gotta bear with it. You know, what's going on up here is fully entrenched a lot of times. Yeah. And when you're trying to change it, it's, you know, fight you and it'll, it'll send out messages to tell you not to do it.

And you know, you're screwing with yourself. Don't do it. All that kind of stuff. Right. And you, you really gotta let it let it keep working at it, all right?

It's sort of like you have these ingrained patterns of how you think, and it's hard to change those. Yeah, because been telling yourself the same thing for so long.

Yeah. What's your vision for the future of integrating practices like EFT into mainstream health and wellness? Well, we I mean, we're starting to kind of see some of that.

I mean, Reiki has come in to some some medical, you know, practices. I'm, you know, my my work is trying to find different doctors that are willing to, to be able to see the benefit of this, see what it can do for them and things like that.

Get into the practice with it. It's I would love to say, you know, my, my vision is to try to get these integrated, but I don't know, it's the medical world is not going the best way it can.

And but more I see more and more people that are saying, you know, the drugs just aren't doing it right. You know, try something else. Yeah. Yeah. And so yeah, so they're they're trying other things, you know, the, the, the tough part a little bit is sometimes the cost is, is high a little higher.

And so they're a little bit right away with that. Yeah. But I think the more and more we get that this kind of balance out some. It could be a really good thing.

Yeah. Yeah I don't know. That's a tough question and answer. But I would love to see them blended and the more I can do about it. But I'm I'm working kind of one person at a time kind of thing.

You know I think that's great. That's awesome. Well I really appreciate your time today. And going over all this I think is so fascinating. And thank you everyone for joining me on the functional Edge.

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