Hope for the Future

For some reason I have very little hope for the future.  I just can see anything working out.  I think EFT can be helpful, but there is so much going on I can’t seem to find the core issues.  Do you have any suggests on where to start?

photo by bass_nroll

Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) is a great tool for clearing out the sense of gloom and doom that we can have for our future.  The obvious problem with dealing with these feelings is they are often very general.  They are feelings of “no opportunity” “no hope” or “only going to get worse”.  Because of these feelings it is hard for us to think in the specific.

When I am feeling hopeless, I don’t think “I am hopeless because…” I just feel hopeless.

Whenever I am I have problems with coming up with why I am feeling an emotion I have found it very helpful to make statement that is opposite of the feeling.  When I make this opposite statements, my self-talk is able to tell my why part of me thinks that is not true, which leads me to the root beliefs.

For example, let’s pretend that I am feeling hopeless about finding a better, higher paying job.  My general mood, “I am going to be stuck in this bad job forever.”  Since I don’t know why I feel this way, I make a statement that is the exact opposite of how I see my situation.

As a side note, when we are using opposite statements it is important that we say them with as much energy as possible.  The reason we are doing this is because we are trying to activate as much self-talk as we can.  The self-talk we are looking for is the self-talk that tells us why we are never going to have this.

In this example I would say, “I am going to find the perfect job, that I enjoy and pays me $120,000 a year.”

When I do this every part of me that is hopeless because it doesn’t believe it is true will say:

• There are no jobs like that
• You don’t have enough education
• You will have to move to get a job like that
• If you got a job like they would fire you because you are not talented enough

I now have very clear information of what is at the root of my hopelessness about getting a better job.

When I do this I make sure I write down all of the negative self-talk that comes up.  I might come up with so many issues that I am not able to deal with them in this tapping session and I don’t want to lose all of this great information.

Lately I have being doing this is a really unusual way, but it has been really powerful.  I was introduced recently to a poem from the 1920′s.

Promise yourself to be strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.
To talk health, happiness and prosperity to every person you meet.
To make all your friends feel that there is something in them.
To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.
To think only the best, to work only for the best and expect only the best.
To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.
To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
To wear a cheerful countenance at all times and give every living creature you meet a smile.
To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others.
To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.
Author: Christian D. Larson

The way I use it is like this.  I take each line of the poem add “I promise myself” to the beginning of the poem and then change all the “you” to “I”.  Like this…

I promise myself to be strong that nothing can disturb my peace of mind.
I promise myself to talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person I meet.
I promise myself to make all my friend feel that there is something in them.
[How to use these tapping phrases]

And so on…

For each line I do a full round of tapping and pay attention to any self-talk that comes up.  I write that self-talk down, so I don’t lose any of this great information to tap on it in the future.

I have been doing this every morning for a number of weeks and it has really gotten my day off to a great start.

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About Gene Monterastelli
Gene is a Baltimore, MD based EFT practitioner, the editor of Tapping Q & A, and the host of the Tapping Q & A Podcast (archive | iTunes). Learn more about Gene here or find out how to work with Gene here. You can connect with Gene on his personal twitter, his tapping twitter or on facebook.