I recently asked some of my favorite tappers “What are the biggest mistakes made by beginning tappers?” Below you will find their answers. When everyone answered they didn't know what anyone else was saying. I found it very instructive to see the number of similar answers that were given by many people.
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Did You Know You Aren’t Trying To Get Rid Of Emotions With EFT?
 photo by Kerr Photography |
A recent conversation with my client went like this…
Client: I am really sad because I am never going to get to see him again.
Me: Good!
Client: What do you mean good?
Me: It is good that you are mourning the loss of the friendship. It is important to mourn that loss. It’s healthy to recognize that the relationship was important to you, recognize the positive things it gave you, and acknowledge you are going to be missing something.
Client: I didn’t know it was OK to feel this way.
If you search the internet you will find thousands of articles and videos on how to get rid of emotions. When we are working on a negative emotion our the goal is often to get that emotion down to a zero on the SUD scale.
Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) is a great tool to use in responding to emotions.
BUT our goal with tapping is not to be emotionless!
Our emotions serve us. They give us information about how we are responding to what is going on around us.
When we feel angry it is because we perceive that we are under attack. When we feel frustrated it is because we feel like we want or need better. When we feel sad we are recognizing that we are missing something that is important to us.
The emotions themselves are not the problem. Emotions are only a problem when they spring from misinformation, or are disproportionate to the circumstance.
An example of a misinformed emotion would be when we get really mad at someone for not showing up to dinner when we didn't know they were involved in an accident on the way.
An example of a disproportionate emotion would be pulling over and crying for 45 minutes after we were cut off by another driver.
In both examples we experience the emotion because it is trying to convey information about our experience. The anger is there because we feel attacked because we were stood up. The overwhelm on the road came because there was a part of us that feared for our life. In both cases the emotion went too far and was too big.
We don't tap to get rid of our emotions, but instead to achieve balance and have them respond accurately and in proportion to our experience.
Many times when we tap we do release emotion completely because it has done its job and passed along the information needed.
At other times we will not get the emotion all the way to a zero and that is perfect because there are emotions we need to feel.
What are your thoughts on tapping for emotions and getting them all the way to a zero? I would love to hear about your experiences below.
Why Do I Always Make Change So Hard? How To Make It Easier With EFT!
 photo by mjzitek |
Why do I always make it so hard for myself to change? I know there is an easier way, but I always choose the hard way. Why am I doing that?
That is a direct quote from one of my clients this week. (Did you know you can work with Gene too?)
In my experience, there are two main reasons why my clients make things harder for themselves: value and worth.
Making Our Work Valuable
As a culture we attribute value to hard work to the point of making it a virtue. Whenever we talk about someone who is hard worker it is almost always a compliment.
“He is someone you want on your team. He is such a hard worker.”
“Wow! That was so well done. You must have worked really hard at it.”
There is nothing wrong with hard work. Working hard is a good thing, but it is easy for us to turn working hard into an end in itself. When this happens it becomes distorted from, “It is good to work hard,” into “It is only good if I work hard.”
When this happens we will intentionally choose the harder path because there is a part of us that now believes that only hard work is valuable. To address this we can tap to something like this:
I want to be a hard worker…I want to pull my own weight…I want to make sure I am contributing…But the best way to contribute is to add something that is valuable…Value is calculated by what I add…Or by what I receive…My value is not in how hard I work…There is an easier way…I am allowed to choose the easier way…Even when I do things the easy way…I am contributing…And my work has value…When I do things the easy way it takes less time…And that makes it possible for me to do more…When I have more time I can contribute in more ways…I can add more to my life…And I can take time to enjoy my success…It doesn't have to be hard to be good…It doesn't have to be hard to be valuable…
Making Myself Worthy
In addition to making our work feel more valuable we can also make ourselves feel more valuable by doing something that is hard.
We might think on a subconscious level, “Look at how worthy I am! I am struggling therefore I deserve to be here and to be noticed.”
If we think the only way we are worthy is if we work hard, then we will make sure that our work is hard in order to feel more valuable. When this happens we can tap to something like this:
I want to be seen as valuable…I want to be seen as worthy…There is a part of me that believes that if I am working hard…I have a reason to be here…I have a reason to be seen…I have value…There is a part of me that thinks…”Look at me…I am working so hard…I am struggling…Therefore I am carrying my weight…And I am valuable…I am worthy”…I am glad there is a part of me that wants to be seen as valuable and worthy…But I don't have to work hard…To be valuable…Or to be worthy…I don't have to work hard…I don't have to struggle…I can be good and do things the easy way…I am not cheating by doing them the easy way…I am not a cheater by doing it the easy way…I am making the best choice for me…
Conclusion
We don't have to make it harder than it need be. When we are able to transform the thought that things have to be hard then we can start to make it easier for ourselves. This will allow us to move forward more quickly and with less effort.
A final note: Often the idea that we have to work hard is given to us by other people, such as our parents and teachers. When working with this issue you might also want to look at how to let go the beliefs we have picked up from loved ones. These can be particularly hard to change because it might feel like we are disrespecting or letting our loved ones go when we let go their beliefs. Here is a simple process to release beliefs given to us by others.
3 Things You Need To Keep In Mind Before You Start An EFT Session
 photo by The Happy Rower |
Often, in advance of working with someone one-on-one, we will have short conversation to see if we will be a good fit to work together. (If you are interested in working with me one-on-one visit WorkWithGene.com.) Recently, during one of these consultations, I was asked this thoughtful question:
“I have never worked with a practitioner before, is there anything I should know or keep in mind as we start to do this work?”
I have a pre-session audio [link] which helps clients to prepare for the mechanics of the session, but I had never given much thought to what should be kept in mind to get the most out of tapping.
Here are the 3 things that I think will help you to be more efficient with your Emotional Freedom Technique(EFT)/tapping sessions.
Be Willing To Let Go Of Your Story
When I first work with a client on an issue I ask them to give me its history. This includes how the issue is impacting their life, what they have tried (tapping or otherwise) to deal with the issue, and how they think it started.
As they are telling their story one thing I always keep in mind is that most people (myself included) are notoriously bad at accurately reporting what is going in their lives. When a client is talking about their life I treat everything they say the same way eyewitness testimony is treated in a court of law.
Eyewitness testimony is helpful, and a great place to start an investigation. Eyewitness testimony is not a record of facts but an interpretation of what happened from one point of view.
This doesn’t mean that I don’t believe my client or that I think they are consciously trying to mislead me (or themselves). It is just a fact that we are biased when it comes to our perceptions of our own lives.
Many times when a client comes to me they have already been working on an issue for years. I have lots of thoughtful clients who have done a great deal of work on understanding how the issue they are addressing has come to be. Because of this they will often have a story of why they are the way they are.
- “When I was a child everyone thought my sister was amazing. Everything she did was perfect. She was good in school, she was popular, and she was a great athlete. I was always compared to her and I never matched up. The reason I have such low self-esteem is because I always feel like I am never going to match up to the people around me.”
There is an interesting phenomenon that happens when someone starts to tell the story of why they are the way the are when they have been telling that same story for a long time. It is like they have hit the play button in their head and the story they have told many times before starts. You can almost feel them not paying attention to the story any more because they have told it so often that they are on autopilot in the telling of it.
I want to be very clear that I am not criticizing this. I do the same thing. What I am pointing out is how it’s possible for us to become attached to a reasonable story for why we are the way we are.
This story can be a useful jumping off point, but just because it is reasonable does not mean that it is true. If we cling to our story as true, then that is the only avenue we will investigate in our tapping and we may never find the root cause and succeed in getting past this issue.
When we are tapping (with a practitioner or alone) we need to be willing to give up our story of why we are the way we are. This can be difficult because the story we have been telling is reasonable. Look at the example above. That is a perfectly logical reason why someone might struggle with self-esteem, but if we are married to that as the reason we may never move on.
One of the ways I like to deal with this is to tap to something like this:
I would like to heal this issue…I know my life will be better when I resolve this…I have spent a lot of time thinking about the issue…And why I have this issue…The reasons I have come up with are reasonable…And they very likely could be the reason why I am experiencing what I am experiencing…But I also know that I might be wrong…There could be a completely different reason for why I am the way I am…Even though I have invested a lot of time and energy into my story…I give myself permission to let my story go…I give myself permission to be open to other possibilities…In the end it doesn’t matter if I am right about why I am the way I am…What is most important is my healing.
If you take just a moment to tap to this idea before you start your session it will help you to see fresh ways of approaching your problem and open you up to new healing possibilities.
Don’t Need To Know Why In Order To Heal
One of the reasons that we come up with a story to why we are experiencing an issue is because it makes it understandable. When understand something it give us more control over the situation. When something is understandable then we are able to prevent it from happening again.
So the desire to understand why something happens is helpful, but at the same time it can be a hinderance to the healing process. If there is a part of us that needs to understand why something happens it can prevent us from healing.
The logic is this:
- I don’t like what is happening.
- I don’t want it to happen again.
- Therefore, I am going to put all my energy into understanding why.
If we find ourselves in this place it will be difficult to move forward. Clear this idea by tapping to this:
I have had this issue for a while…And I really don’t like how it feels…And I don’t want to experience this ever again…There is a part of me that wants to understand how this happened…If I knew how or why this happened then I could prevent it from happening again…As important as it is to understand why this happened…It is more important to heal and move beyond it…There will be times when I understand exactly what the root cause of an issue is…There will be other times when I will have no idea why this happened…As nice as it would be to understand why…It is much more important to heal…I give myself permission to heal this issue without ever knowing why or how it happened…It would nice to know that…but it is not necessary.
It Is A Process
It is easy to be seduced with stories of and personal experience with “one minute miracles.” I have seen people go from total scepticism about tapping, to frustration that tapping isn’t fixing everything in their lives in one session.
It is good to understand the power of tapping, but it is also important that we keep it in perspective. If it took a lifetime for an issue to take root, it also makes sense that will take time to unroot it.
Healing is a process and it is important we bear this in mind or we will miss the progress we are making (see “The 10% Solution”), get frustrated, and quit. To help keep this in mind I like to start (and end) sessions with tapping something like this:
I know that healing is a process…There is a part of me that would like this healing to happen right now…And it is good that I am motivated to have healing happen sooner rather than later…But it is a process…Each time I tap I will make progress…Each time I tap I will get closer to my goal…But I choose to be easy with myself…And be easy with the process…As it unfolds…Healing is happening…At a rate that will help ensure that the effects are lasting.
Conclusion
One of the fastest ways for us to give up on tapping is to experience ineffective tapping sessions. If you give yourself permission to surrender your own story, release the need to know why you are the way you are, and give up the need to heal right now, you will set yourself up for a useful and successful tapping session.
What stumbling blocks have you run into when tapping? I would love to hear about them in the comments below.
Is It OK To Say “Not” While Doing EFT?
In a number of your EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) scripts you use the words “not” and “does not” For example in your forgiveness tapping script, “When I choose to forgive John, what I'm choosing to do is to no longer be emotionally tied up in this past instance…More than likely, John doesn't give this transgression any thought at all…It doesn't do me any good to keep re-living this wound over and over again…” I have heard that the subconscious mind ignores the word “not” and every time we say we don't want something we are really telling the subconscious we want it. Do you think this is true and how should it impact our tapping?
 photo by Nathan Gibbs |
It is really interesting that when we hear something said over and over again from a source that we deem credible, we take it as the truth. It would be too time consuming to question everything that we hear throughout the day, but a healthy sense of questioning is important, especially when what is said is contrary to our own experience.
Here are my thoughts on the matter.
1) How Is It Working For You?
Before I share my thoughts on what I think about what should be said with tapping we need to keep in mind the most important question when it comes to all types of tapping:
“How is it working for you?”
The nice thing about tapping is that it only takes a few moments to try something new. Assuming you are taking total responsibility for your health and your actions, give it a try.
This goes for the phrases you use, the places you tap, how long you tap on each point, and the order in which you tap on the points. If it works for you, keep doing it. If it doesn't, try something new.
2) We Aren't Tapping Anything In
EFT isn't about tapping the good things in and tapping the bad things out. EFT is about bringing the system back to balance. The words we use aren't magic and there are no right or wrong words. There are only useful and un-useful tapping phrases.
The tapping phrases we use are different from a daily affirmation or mantra. It is possible (and encouraged) to tap to these if you have found ones that are powerful and meaningful to you. It is important to remember that EFT is a very different process than changing your beliefs through exposure to new ideas in a cognitive way.
The goal of a tapping phrase is to help us to tune into the emotion around an issue and to get us in touch with the pain, misinformation, or limiting belief. It really doesn't matter what those words are.
If saying, “I will never be a success” helps you to tune into the hopelessness you are feeling, then that is a perfect tapping phrase. You might want to add, “and I give myself permission to believe it will not always be this way” to expand the tapping experience.
With EFT finding a way to the emotion is more important than the words we choose to say while tapping.
3) Needing To Know What We Don't Want
When we are in pain the thing we think most about is the pain. Because we are in pain it is hard to see past it so we often have to start with what we don't want to be able to name what we do want.
For someone who wants to release weight they often need to tune into all the things they don't like and are painful about carrying extra weight (physical pain, poor health, low self esteem, and/or shame of losing control) before they can name the things they do want.
All they can think of is what is wrong.
But we can build on these NOT statements.
- I do not want to be overweight, but instead I want to have a healthy body.
- I do not want to be ashamed of the way I look, but instead I want to be comfortable in my own body.
- I do not want people to see me as someone who has lost control of simple daily choices, but instead I want to be a model of self control for my children so they learn to feel empowered in their own lives.
The second half of these statements are powerful things to tap on, but I have found that tapping both the negative and positive can also be very powerful.
4) Is It Really True?
The most common place to hear people talk about “the subconscious mind ignoring the word not” is from the law of attraction community. Their thinking is not so much that the subconscious ignores the word “not,” but more the idea that when I think of the things I don't want then I am giving them energy, which will in turn bring more of them into my life.
In the last few years scientists and social scientists have used a rigorous, repeatable methodology to test how visualizing the things we want relate to us getting what we want. The findings point to the fact that simply focusing on what we want is a demotivating factor and the more time we spend emotionally experiencing what we want in our minds, the less likely we are to take action.
Visualization is most powerful is when we tune into what we don't want AND see ourselves solving the problems around it to achieve to what we do want.
[For full details on this research please see “The Great Visualization Hoax”)
If this were the case statements like, “I don't want to be late” and “I don't want to be in a car accident” would compel us to make choices to make us late and involved in accidents. Further studies have shown that by thinking about what we don't want and creating a plan (like a fire escape route) we are much more likely to not get swept up in emotion, but instead make good choices that lead us to safety.
I will admit that I only did a cursory search, but I was not able to find any evidence supporting the claim that the subconscious ignores the word “not.” I was only able to find many sources stating it as fact.
As always, I am trying to learn more and would love to hear your thoughts. Please let me know in the comment section below if your experience is different, and if you can point me to any studies or research which give this idea credence.
This Is Just Like My Mother/Father
 photo by sean dreilinger |
I've noticed a pattern in my life that is just like my parents and I can't seem to tap it away. Is there something special I need to do when dealing with issues that I have picked up from my parents?
It makes perfect sense that we pick up the patterns, traits, and beliefs from our parents. They are the ones who cared for us and taught us during our most formative years. Not all of these patterns and beliefs are helpful. Tapping/Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) is great for dealing with issues, but I have found in my work with clients it can be particularly hard to deal with beliefs that have been passed on to us by people we love and respect.
It is possible for us to feel that when we are letting go of these beliefs we are also dismissing, letting go, or disrespecting the people who gave us them to us.
The subconscious can think:
- If I let go of this I am saying I don't love my mother
- If I let go of this I am saying that I am letting go of my father
- If I let go of this I am saying that my mother was wrong
- If I let go of this I am saying that my father is not worth anything to me
When we believe any of these things it makes it difficult for us to release those beliefs that are no longer serving us, and to heal and move forward. In order to heal we need to recognize that it is possible to let go of the beliefs held by people who are very important to us, without dismissing or diminishing our relationship with them.
In this example we will assume that we’re working on a money issue passed on to us by our father. Tapping might look like this:
I know that I am approaching money just like my father…and I know that this approach is not serving me…but there is a part of me that doesn't want to let go this belief…there is a part of me that believes that if I let this belief go then I am also letting go my father…I am saying that my father was wrong…I am saying that I don't love my father…I am saying that I am not grateful for what my father has done for me…but I know this isn’t true…I can let go of beliefs that my father had without letting go of my father…I can know that I love my father and that my father loves but and not hold everything he said or did as true…my father was imperfect…and it is OK to say that he was and is imperfect…and there are many beliefs that served him in a time and place that don't serve me…parents want what is best for us…and they might think that one way is right…but even when they want things for us that aren't perfect for us…they do this because they want what is best for us…I can do what is best for me and still love my father…I can do what is best for me and still appreciate everything my father has done for me…I can do what is best for me and keep the relationship strong…letting go of something my father has given me is not the same as letting go of him
Helping Someone With EFT Right Now!
I recently had a chance to do EFT with someone who was having a really bad day. I didn’t have a lot of time to explain what we were doing and I didn’t know how to start. Because I wasn’t sure how to explain what we were going to do, I didn’t do anything. Do you have any suggestions on how to share EFT when you don’t have time to explain what you are doing?
 photo by eyesplash Mikul |
Here’s a story about using EFT when the person didn’t even know she was doing EFT.
I am part of a team which works in a school system to provide aid and support to faculties and staff in the first 72 hours of an emergency situation. We provide emotional support, debriefing opportunities, and response activities to help begin the healing process.
Recently we were called into a middle school on a Monday morning after one of the seventh grade teachers, “Jane”, had committed suicide over the weekend. By 11am much of our work was done. The students had had a chance to respond, we had identified the students and faculty who would need special attention, and the students were ready to get back to the school day.
Most of the team was debriefing in a hallway as we were waiting for one final class to finish. The vice-principal approached us to ask if one of us would be willing to talk with a second grade teacher who was having a particularly hard time.
I went downstairs to talk to the second grade teacher, “Sally”.
The teacher who had died had only been in the school a year and didn’t particularly get along with the rest of the staff. Sally had been one of Jane’s few confidants at the school. Sally was struggling with two issues.
First, she knew how hard Jane’s situation had been and was feeling guilty that she didn’t do more to help her. Second, she was mad because Jane had left behind a 13-year-old daughter.
I asked her if she wanted to try a relaxation technique that might help a little. I asked her to show me by holding her hands apart how big these emotions were. She held her hands about 2 feet apart.
So I said:
“Place both of your hands on your temples like this,” which I demonstrated by touching both of my temples with my fingertips, “take a few deep breaths and just listen to my voice”:
How could she have left her daughter like this…I should have done more…I knew it was coming and did nothing…her husband has to raise a child on his own.
“Now touch just below your nose like this,” as I demonstrated pressing above the upper lip, “take a few more deep breaths and just listen to my voice”:
Guilty I didn’t do more…mad she left them behind
I repeated this for the chin and collarbone points. I then checked in to see what was left, knowing we had made progress just by looking at her face. She showed her hands 4 inches apart, so we did one more round with just the four points.
I asked if she needed anything else.
She just wanted to give me a hug of thanks and headed back into her classroom.
There are a few things I learned or were reinforced from this experience:
- Not all the points are always necessary. We have seen this as the basic protocol has moved from 14 to 7 points. Sometimes we don’t need more than one point. Use what is useful.
- Client don’t have to say anything to tune into the issue. If the issue is intense enough they are fully tuned in and words are unnecessary. Also, the practitioner can provide the words of focus when the client can’t. In this case it was easiest for me to do it, since I didn’t have time to explain what we were doing.
- Sometimes it’s easiest just to do the work, rather than explain what you’re doing. I know in the past I have talked people out of EFT by trying to talk them into it. People don’t want EFT (or any other tool or protocol), they just want to feel better. By asking, “You want to try something that helps?” they say yes to meet a need. But if I were to say, “Do you want to try a meridian-based psychotherapy that works with the energy of the body to heal at the cellular level?”, I’d be likely to encounter some resistance because I then have to explain every part of the question I just asked.
- ALSO, because I didn’t feel that I had a lot of time to explain what we were doing, I had her use the touch and breathe method instead of tapping. I figured if I was going to have her tap it was a chance to place one more question in her mind. Keeping it as simple as possible removed all resistance to trying something new.
- It’s not the best option, but it is possible to work with two issues at once. I have seen in my own practice how dealing with one small piece at a time can resolve bigger things, often collapsing more than just the particular issue we are working on. In this case I didn’t have a lot of time. I had pulled a second grade teacher out of a full class. I took a chance on a super shortcut. I only used four points for two issues at once. It worked. If it hadn’t, I would have moved to more points and dealt with one issue at a time. Since the first round of tapping took less than 60 seconds it was a chance worth taking.
I would love to hear about your experiences of working with others at short notice, please add them to the comment box below.
Trying On The Old Positive Feeling
Things in my life have gone all pear-shaped lately. About three years ago life was going great and then everything seemed to fall apart. I started to have health issues, I ended a long-term relationship, and I just didn't have the same energy when I got up in the morning. Is there a way that I can use Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) to make my way back to feeling good?
 photo by Maria Morr |
I love synchronicity in life. I received this email the same day I worked with a client for a very similar issue. The client call was with “Betty” who wanted to do some work because she was physically exhausted all the time and life seemed like a real chore.
At the beginning of our call Betty shared that in the last six years two of her loved ones had died, she had gained weight, and she was feeling very disconnected from a job she used to enjoy.
To start with we spent some time on her emotional state and how she felt in the immediate moment. I have found when working with a multifaceted issue that it is best to start with how we feel about all the issues and how they are affecting our lives today.
I do this because it can be hard to focus on any one aspect of our issues when we feel overwhelmed by the amount of work that needs to be done. By taking time to do just a few rounds of tapping to deal with the current emotional state we will gain clarity around the larger issues that need our attention.
Betty and I spent about 15 minutes just working with how overwhelming it felt to be dealing with so many issues. We also spent some time on how overwhelming life felt because of her lack of energy. After doing this work she felt much more at peace. Life wasn't perfect, but she was ready for the next step.
Without being asked she started talking about what life was like six years ago. She talked about how she felt like she used to “spark” back then and that she really wanted to experience that again. Her goal was not to somehow achieve an issue-free life, but she really wanted have energy for life again.
I had her start tapping again and asked her to take a few deep breaths and tune into the feeling she felt six years ago when she felt the “spark.” After a few seconds she said that she could, and I could hear a little more energy in her voice.
I asked her, figuratively speaking, to “try on” the old feeling of that spark, energy, and zest for life, as if it were a new outfit that she was trying on at a store. She reported that it felt really good. I followed up by asking, “What doesn't fit quite right? Is it too small, too big, or does it feel uncomfortable in any way?”
Betty then described that it didn't fit right because some of the relationships at work had changed. A good friend had been promoted and she felt it would change their relationship. We then did some tapping around that issue and very quickly she said that she felt at peace about this relationship.
Again, I had her “try on” the outfit of feeling that old spark for life. It felt even better, but this time she was worried because of her health. She was afraid that she wasn't going to be able to do as much at work as she did before and since she was doing less work she was concerned that it would be less enjoyable. We spent some time tapping on having balance at work and not doing too much. We also did some tapping around the idea that good work is judged by the quality of work, how we are challenged, and being able to contribute. Good work is not judged by the quantity of work that is done.
We repeated this process three or four more times. Each time Betty tried the outfit of spark on again. We found the parts that didn't fit right and by doing this each time the feeling of spark became more and more possible.
Obviously this won’t work in every situation but if you are struggling to find a place to start tapping think about how it would feel to be back to your old self. Try that feeling on. Doing this will help you to find the parts that don't “fit” right and are a little off and that will provide you with a great place to start tapping.
Transforming Our Critical Voice Into Something Helpful With Tapping and EFT In 8 Easy Steps
[Note: In this article I am going to be addressing the role of the critical voice. I am going to speak as if the critical voice has a personality and motives. I am not saying the critical voice is a distinct personality or that it is separate from us in any way. But by speaking of it as if it is distinct it will give us the ability to deal effectively with only one part of our personality, helping us to get some perspective on what is going on and enabling faster transformation.]
One of the reasons that I love EFT/tapping is because it is very effective in dealing with our critical voice. The critical voice is nothing more than that little nagging voice that is always pointing out everything we have done wrong, everything we are going to do wrong, and everything we are never going to be.
Sometimes this voice is nothing more than a simple annoyance, while at other times it can be so crippling that it prevents us from getting out of bed in the morning.
Because of this most of us don’t have a very good relationship with our critical voice. Many of us resent it and even hate it. One of the underlying themes of my work is to transform the relationship we have with ourselves and with parts of our personality in order to facilitate lasting change. Working with our critical voice is a perfect example of a place where we can apply this principle.
It is very difficult for us to transform our critical voice when we are angry at it. When we are angry at a part of our personality it will entrench itself and fight back. If we are willing to change our attitude toward this part of our personality then we can get it to work with us to create lasting and deep transformation.
Before we can begin the process we need to understand why the critical voice exists.
And the reason might surprise you.
The Critical Voice Exists To Make Our Life Better
I know that statement is very hard to believe. I would even be willing to bet that when you read that statement there was a strong emotional reaction against it, but it’s true.
All parts of our personality exist because they are trying to bring us to our higher good. Just because a part’s motivation is for higher good does NOT mean that it is leading us to our higher good. In this example the critical voice is not pointing things out to make us feel bad or to punish us, but instead is doing so to help us see the errors of our ways so that we will make better choices in the future.
And yes, I know, it doesn’t feel that way. It feels like it is just judging and criticizing.
But, when we are able to recognize that it is trying to help us, it will make it easier for us to transform it into something that is truly helpful. As you will see in this process we do not need to celebrate what the critical voice has done to us to recognize its motivation.
The Process For Transforming Your Critical Voice with Tapping and EFT
One of the nice things about the EFT/tapping protocols is that they are very short and give us the chance to try something out for a few minutes. If it doesn’t work then we can return to what we were doing before. This process is no different. You should be able to complete this process in under 10 minutes.
If you don't buy my “The critical voice is here to help you, but is just doing it in the wrong way”, I would encourage you to give this process a try. If it doesn't work out for you then go back to being mad at the critical voice. The only thing you will have lost is a few minutes tapping on something new.
1) Tune in and connect with the critical voice.
In this step all we need to do is connect with the critical voice. Just close your eyes, take a deep breath, and listen for the voice. It will not be hard to find. Pay attention to where the voice is coming from.
- Is it something that is internal or external?
- Is it the voice of someone you know, does it sound like your speaking voice, or is it some other voice?
- If you were to imagine that the voice belonged to a body, what would that body look like?
The specific answers to these questions aren't important, but by asking them it will be easier for us to connect with the critical part of ourselves, allowing us to do healing work.
2) Affirm the critical voice.
This is going to be the most difficult step of the process because of the hurt and harm we associate with the critical voice. It is important to note that when doing this step we are NOT affirming the tactics of the critical voice and we are NOT affirming the way we feel after we encounter our critical voice. What we are affirming is that it is a part of us that is willing to work very hard to move us to a better life. To do this we would tap on something like:
I would like to give thanks for my critical voice…I am NOT thankful for the tactic that it is using…I am NOT thankful for the way I feel after I experience the critical voice…I am thankful for the fact that there is a part of me that is willing to work so hard…I know that even though it is not doing this…it is trying to make my life better…my critical voice thinks it is making my life better…it thinks that if it berates me…or if it points out everything that is going wrong…that it is going make me make better choices in the future…the critical voice is a very powerful part of me…even if it is not working in a productive way…I know it is working for my betterment…I am thankful that there is a part of me that is willing to work day and night…thinking it is doing what is best for me.
After doing a round of tapping like this we will take some of the edge off. We might not be super-happy with the critical voice, but there is less animosity towards it. At this point that is all we are trying to achieve. When we move from a state of animosity then we are no longer fighting a part of ourselves, and we can now start to work with it.
3) Explain to the critical voice what it is really doing.
As stated above the critical voice in most cases believes that if it is constantly pointing out every flaw and fault, it will motivate us to make better choices. Its motives are either “You don't know you are doing something wrong?” and/or “You don't realize the consequences of these choices?”
In almost every case we are fully aware of the information that the critical voice is providing. In many cases the critical voice is actually over-stating and/or over-reacting to the situation around us. Because we have taken the last step and created a bit of a truce with the critical voice, we can now speak to it with new information.
In this step we are simply going let the critical voice know the consequences of its actions. Try tapping like this:
I know the critical voice is trying to be helpful…but it isn’t…the critical voice is pointing out things I already know…and many times is it pointing out things in a way that is much worse that it really is…the critical voice thinks it is going to encourage me by pointing out my failings…instead I find having every flaw and failing being pointed out to be disheartening…debilitating…I find it very hurtful…I find that it makes it very difficult to believe in myself…it is not pushing me to be better…but instead it is sucking my ability to try right out of my system…I know the critical voice believes it is being helpful…it is not…it is not creating a feeling of encouragement for better…it is creating a feeling of shame…shame is not an emotion of achievement and growth…shame is a feeling of not wanting to try.
4) Show the critical voice proof of its past tactics.
At this point it is very helpful to show the critical voice the proof of what we have just been tapping on. Again, just tune into the critical voice, begin to tap from point to point, and show the critical voice proof of all the ways it has been hurtful and debilitating.
5) Transforming the critical voice into something helpful.
When doing the process with clients there is something very interesting that happens. Clients describe the fact that they can feel the critical voice feeling bad that it has not done its job. I have even had clients describe their critical voice as feeling bad because it feels it is about to be eliminated from the system.
Because we are not fighting with the critical voice (like we were in the beginning), but instead have a relationship with it, we can now guide it to a resource that his helpful. The tapping for this transformation might look like this:
I know the critical voice is very powerful…I have felt the force of its power…but instead of pointing out all of the things I have done wrong…there is a way this voice can be more helpful…I want to harness the power of the voice to be used for my higher good…because I know this voice wants my higher good…I want this voice to stop being a critical voice and become an encouraging voice…because I respond so much better to encouragement…I want this encouraging voice to pick me up when I am down …I want this encouraging voice to push me on to take those last few hard steps…I want the encouraging voice to help me to get started when I can’t quite focus on the task at hand…I want the encouraging voice to use the power it had to see my faults in the past to start to look forward to the opportunities in my future…I want this encouraging voice to move me forward…not keep me stuck in the past…when it does this I will move forward and heal.
This is a very empowering step.
6) Giving the encouraging voice the resources and tools to do its new job.
Just because we want the voice to change (and just because the critical voice wants to become the encouraging voice) doesn't mean the change is going to happen. I have had many clients describe the feeling of having the critical voice being on board with the change but not know what to do next.
I have found the easiest way to complete the change is to ask the critical/encouraging voice what it needs for transformation. The process for this is simple. First, start tapping from point to point. Second, tune back into the critical/encouraging voice. Third, ask it one of the following questions. Fourth, if it states a need based on the questions simply imagine that need being fulfilled.
For example, if it needs permission to change, give it permission. If it needs to know how to encourage you, show it.
Here is a list of sample questions you can ask the voice to help it transform from critical to encouraging.
- Do you need permission to transform?
- Do you need training to transform? If so what type?
- Do you energy to transform? If so what type?
- Do you need to be connected to other parts of the system? What type of connections need to be made?
- What do you need from me to make the transformation?
7) Reassure the encouraging voice.
Even when we choose to make this type of transformation it doesn't always take place all at once. And that is ok. The transformation process can take time. We want the healing to happen in a fashion that is long lasting. We are not looking for a short-term quick fix.
The last part of the process is to reassure the encouraging voice that this is going to take time and that we are willing to help it through the transformation.
Try tapping like this:
I am very happy that my internal voice is willing to become an encouraging voice…I know this process is going to take a little time…which is ok because I want lasting change…not a quick fix…I want my encouraging voice to know that I don’t expect it to be perfect right way…I know it is going to need to learn its way into this new role…I commit to check in regularly with the encouraging voice…making sure it has everything it needs to complete this transformation…I give the encouraging voice permission to ask for help from me…even when I am not checking in with it…this is a change that is good for me now…and for the future.
8) Check back regularly.
If this is a process that is helpful for you I would encourage you to do it two or three times a month for a few months to help this transformation process along. I think it is obvious how making the small change of changing one aspect of our personality will cascade into many radical changes in our lives.
I Can’t Do It Unless I Do It Perfectly – One Of The Most Common Reasons We Don’t Take Action
There are lots of things that motivate us to do well. We all want to be successful. We want to be proud of our work and we want others to recognize our good work.
Sometimes there is an even more powerful driver to success itself: the worry that others will criticize our work.
When we are working from this fear we are coming from a place where everything has to be perfect. The problem is that we are rarely perfect. Since we are rarely perfect we don’t try because we are afraid of the criticism that will result from our imperfection.
Recently I was working with a client named “Brian” who was having a hard time taking action because he needed things to be perfect. During our session we found that he believed the following:
- I have to be perfect at everything.
- When I am not perfect it feels horrible.
- I am not living up to what I should live up to.
- Others will look down on me.
- I am going to let myself down.
- I am going to feel foolish when I fail.
- Therefore, I am only going to attempt things I know I can do perfectly.
These beliefs were serving Brian well. They spared him the misery of feeling foolish by avoiding the conditions that required him to be perfect.
The problem was that everything didn’t really need to be perfect. The consequences he feared were not real but because of this fear of what would go wrong if he wasn’t perfect, he wasn’t trying anything at all.
So we tapped:
I don’t have to be perfect at everything…there are lots of things where I just need to do well enough…I don’t have to tie my shoes perfectly…I don’t need to make a sandwich perfectly…I don’t have to make the bed perfectly…there are lots of things in my life where all I need is to do them well enough…this doesn’t mean that I will stop striving…this doesn’t mean that I will stop striving for excellence…but I am going to keep everything in perspective…I am going to give myself permission to know that I can do some things well enough without having to do them perfectly.
This round of tapping created a greater sense of peace for Brian, but he could still feel some resistance. For some reason it was still a standard he felt he needed to live up to so we continued the work by going after the definition of perfect:
It is good that I am trying to be perfect…this is rooted in wanting to do my best…this is rooted in wanting to become my best self…but perfect isn’t about getting everything right…perfect is about doing the best that I can…perfect is about living in this moment…perfect is being able to be thankful for this moment…perfect is being able to recognize that in this moment I get to choose who I am…in this moment I get to learn more about myself in the world…perfect is being easy enough with myself that I know I will get another chance…perfect is striving to be my better self…I am always going to be a work in progress…I am never going to do everything perfectly…but I can live this moment as perfect…by striving to be my best…this moment can be perfect because I can learn from the things I am not doing perfectly
This created more peace and relief for Brian. It also created a belief that he could move forward without having to be perfect. As we were doing the tapping described above, Brian remembered his father’s need for perfection from Brian, even when he was a young child. We then tapped to clean up the emotions in those memories.
The need to be perfect, or the fear of what will happen if we aren’t, is one of the most common reasons we don’t take action. Tapping is great for working on that part of you that needs to be perfect.
[Note: Are you looking for tools to help you get out of your own way and achieve what you really want? Check this out]
Overwhelmed By Emotions While Doing EFT: Preventing It From Happening And Dealing With It If It Does
When I tap I find that I have so many emotions and memories coming up all at once that I feel overwhelmed. It is like they are queuing up to be fixed! Yes, I’m glad this stuff comes up and I deal with it as it comes, but issues are tumbling out so fast they are landing on top of each other. I can’t spend all day in the bathroom at work, how do I deal with all these emotions without feeling overwhelmed?
 photo by Ashley Pollak |
I have heard of this experience from a number of my clients. It is much like stirring up pond water, the moment you start poking around in it the sediment from the bottom is disturbed and clouds the water.
We can be quite unaware of all the emotions and memories we are carrying around. When we start doing healing work we can stir up the pond and find much more than we bargained for.
I have two recommendations that will help you to not be overcome with emotions when you are tapping. One is for before you dive in, and the other is for when you’ve stirred up more than you bargained for.
Preventing Feeling Emotionally Overwhelmed While Doing EFT By Creeping Up On The Issue
One of the benefits of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) is that we are able to creep up on a problem slowly while still doing effective work. Some techniques and therapies require you to dive into intense pain around an issue before you can start healing. It is possible to use EFT in this fashion, but I don’t recommend this approach when doing work alone without the guidance of a skilled practitioner.
I’m not a fan of feeling pain for the sake of pain. Why do healing work in a way that causes a lot of discomfort and distress when you can do it much more gently? A perfect example of this is how we can use EFT to deal with a fear of heights.
We could blindfold someone, take them to the top of a high building, let them freak out on realising where they are, and then start to do EFT.
Is it possible to be successful like this? Maybe, but we’d cause a lot of unnecessary pain in the process.
When I work with someone with this type of fear we start in the suburbs. I tell them that in a while we’ll be going downtown to the top of the tallest building. For someone who fears heights this will cause their anxiety level to rise sharply and we deal with this anxiety by using EFT.
When they are at ease with the thought of heading downtown, we move to the car. In most cases their level of anxiety again rises as the journey to the top of a high building approaches. Again, we do EFT to deal with the anxiety. Once the anxiety is gone we start to drive downtown.
We repeat the process as many times as necessary, stopping to use EFT every time the level of anxiety goes above a 5 until we reach the top of the building. If this means we have to stop the car every 10 minutes and do EFT with each step we take toward the elevator, we do it.
Can this take a great deal of time? Yes. Is it a safe way to heal? In my mind it clearly is.
I recommend that whatever issue you are working on you creep up on it as gently as possible. By doing this you will prevent yourself from becoming overwhelmed. I am in favor of erring on the side of caution even if it means that the healing takes a little more time.
If you think there is a large emotional core to an issue you want to work on I encourage you to take your time. Even when you are doing EFT in a way that feels very slow, it is still a much faster path to healing than most other approaches.
When The Overwhelming Emotions Come Out Of Nowhere While Doing EFT
Sometimes we can’t prevent the flood of emotions and memories. When we started we thought we were working with on an easy, straightforward issue but then something much bigger is uncovered.
We know that EFT is most effective when we can take memories and the emotions associated with them one at a time. It can be difficult to do this when we feel unexpectedly overwhelmed by a group of emotions or memories coming to the surface all at once. Trying to separate them is like trying to separate raindrops in a rainstorm.
When this happens I run through a few steps to calm the storm.
1) Deal with any emotion that you have about being overwhelmed.
We know that we are supposed to break down memories and emotions to clear them effectively and it can be frustrating when we aren’t able to do so. This also produces anxiety that tapping won’t work.
If there is any frustration about being overwhelmed with emotions and memories then that feeling of frustration is the best place to start tapping. The more frustrated you are, the less clearly you’ll see the issues at hand. As you tap give yourself permission to take this slowly. Remember it’s OK not to know everything at once.
Tap on:
I know EFT works better when I can break things down…right now the emotions are coming all at once…I don’t know where to begin…and I feel like I am never going to be able to clear of all of this…but I don’t need to be frustrated or overwhelmed…I will be able to use EFT to take it apart a bit at a time…and by taking it apart little by little it will be manageable…as I break it into pieces it will be easier and easier to manage…I give myself permission to take this slowly…it’s OK that right now I don’t know everything that is going on…[How to use these tapping phrases]
[Side Note: You might also want to take a look at this article on the fear of fear. Sometime we feel overwhelmed because we are afraid of what we will find. If that is the case I think this is a very helpful approach: Fear of Fear]
2) Paint a picture of all the emotions at once
Since we are unable to deal with the emotions one at a time we might as well go after them all at once. Again, this is going to be a somewhat imprecise approach, but the goal of this step is to help us to achieve some clarity so that we can start picking the emotions apart.
In this step tune into all the emotions you are feeling at once. Create a picture in your mind’s eye. Is it something inside of you, or surrounding you? Is it a weight pressing on you or something swirling around you? Is it a mist, a fog, or a storm? Or is it something completely different?
It doesn’t matter what your mind’s eye leads you to, just tune into that image. What color is it? What shape is it? How much does it weigh? What is it made of? Treat this image in exactly the same way you would tune into physical pain.
Now start to tap. At first, just tune into all the characteristics of the image you have just created. As you move from tapping point to point move to a different characteristic — the color, shape, size, weight, where it is located in your body. Keep tuning in and keep tapping.
As you do this you will notice the storm of emotion losing its intensity.
3) Change the image into what needs to happen next
After spending a little time tapping with the image you have in mind, it’s time to change that image. You will either turn it into something new, get rid of it, or destroy it.
If it’s a tornado, see it move off into the distance. If it’s a fog or mist, see the warm morning sun melt it away. If it’s a haze hanging in the air, see environmental engineers with air filters suck away the polluted air, leaving only pure air. If it’s green toxic goo in your chest, see a team of street cleaners work the area over and clean it up. If it’s a heavy metal weight on your chest or shoulders, see little workmen with jackhammers breaking it up.
While doing this, just keep tapping. How you change the image doesn’t matter, but change it for the better. Ask yourself the question, “How could I make this feel better?” and see it happen.
As you do this you will find that you are more relaxed, your issues seem smaller, and you can start to pick the individual emotions apart.
4) Tap on the individual emotions and memories
As the whirlwind of emotions and memories calm you will begin to see each part separately. Now that you can see each part, take them one at a time and tap for them.
Conclusions
The beauty of EFT is we don’t have to feel a great deal of pain for it to be effective. We can work gently on any issue by creeping up on it. There will be times when we become overwhelmed with emotions. When this happens we can still do work by:
- dealing with the frustration of feeling overwhelmed
- grouping all the emotions together
- bringing their intensity down as a group, giving us the space we need to break the emotions apart into manageable pieces
It is important to have a plan when it comes to dealing with feeling emotionally overwhelmed. When you were in grade school your teachers had you practice how to get out of the school if there was a fire. If something did happen then you knew the plan. By having a plan for unexpectedly feeling emotionally overwhelmed you will be able to handle it if it shows up.
Understanding The Healing Process With EFT – Keeping the Long View
photo by Wally Gobetz |
I have started using EFT on a big issue. Some days it is really easy for me to tap. Other days I feels so hard to tap because I feel a million miles away from my goal. Am I doing something wrong? Should I be doing something differently?
I hear this all the time from clients. They find it hard to stay focused on an issue when it takes more than one session. It is easy to feel frustrated with tapping when we hear stories of one minute or one session miracles all the time.
There are good reasons why it takes time with many issues, but it can be difficult.
When we are in the middle of an emotion, such as feeling overwhelmed, all we can feel is overwhelmed and we lose track of all the progress we have made on the issue in previous sessions.
Here are a few things to keep in mind that will keep you on track when working on larger issues.
Healing Has Ups And Downs As We Get Better And Better
One of my favorite analogies of healing is of a stretched spring. Imagine a long spring in front of you. It is stretched from the floor to the ceiling at a 45 degree angle. Imagine that it is going from the lower left to the upper right.
If we trace the spring we will be going up and down with each spiral, but as we move along the length of the whole spring we will be moving in an upward direction in the long term.
This is what our healing experience is like. As we are tapping on our issues we are slowly moving up, but there will be daily up and down moments.
The problem comes when we are having a down moment. The problem is not that we are down, but when we are down we are so completely caught in that negative emotion that we lose track of the progress we’re making. We forget all that we achieved on the way to that point.
This doesn’t negate or explain away the negative emotion we are feeling in the moment, but it does give us some perspective. Healing seems more attainable when we have this perspective.
Almost without exception, when I’m working with a client over six weeks I expect that I’ll need to point out that they really have made a great deal of progress, even though they can’t feel it right now.
It Is Easy To Miss Our Progress
Here is a perfect example of one of my clients “Debbie” who didn’t see how much progress she had made.
Here is a little background on what Debbie was dealing with: Debbie’s mom has battled with cancer on and off for years and has been in hospital frequently in the last two years. Debbie’s sister is currently pregnant with twins. Debbie had made a change to who was providing the daily care for her mother and she called her sister to explain the new arrangement.
For some reason as Debbie was explaining the changes her sister started screaming and yelling. Her sister was yelling in such a ferocious way that Debbie couldn’t understand a word she was saying.
Debbie calmly explained she was sorry her sister was so mad at her, but Debbie was happy with the choices she had made. She offered her sister a chance to have a reasonable conversation about what had transpired, but it was not acceptable for her to be spoken to in that way.
Her sister hung up!
It was quite amazing that Debbie had responded so calmly. I know I might not have done so well.
What was even more amazing was her response considering her history. I’d worked with Debbie intermittently over eighteen months. When I first met her she would have flown off the handle if her sister had spoken to her in that way. Then she would have cried. Then she would have called a friend and cried to her friend. Then she would have felt bad for burdening her friend with her issues.
What Debbie understood was that her sister might be over-emotional because of her pregnancy and their mother’s illness. She saw that it might not have anything to do with what she had done, but this was the place her sister was choosing to lash out.
Debbie was able to react in this way because she was much more comfortable in her own skin. Eighteen months ago she would have taken the attack personally. Her fragile self-esteem would have been bruised by the experience. She would have responded in anger (which is the body’s way of protecting itself from an attack).
This is not to say that Debbie shouldn’t protect herself, or that responding in anger is always bad. Instead, in this situation Debbie identified the situation for what it was and realized that she wasn’t IN FACT being attacked but was the chosen recipient for some misguided rage.
The most amazing about the whole instance was that Debbie didn’t even realize she was responding differently than she would have done in the past.
As her sister was yelling at her she didn’t think, “I am choosing not to take this attack personally. I am going to be calm.” She was just calm. It was only when I pointed out to her that she had responded differently that she realized the extent of her own transformation.
Taking A Moment To See Our Transformation
The reason the change was less obvious to Debbie was because she was not making a new choice. Instead, she has transformed how she sees herself. Between the work we had done together and the work she has done on her own, Debbie transformed her understanding of her own worth.
Debbie is not “doing” anything differently. She is “being” someone different. Because she is comfortable in her own skin it is natural for her not to overreact to the attack, because there is no good reason for the attack.
It is just as important for us to recognize this type of transformation as it is to recognize that when we are down in the moment we are still moving upwards over the long haul. When we recognize this sort of transformation it benefits us in two ways. First, we can celebrate that we are doing better than before. Second, it encourages us to progress further.
Debbie’s experience is a perfect example of The Stages Awareness. I encourage you to read that piece to help you see where you are on the path to healing, showing you that you are on the right path and what further steps can be taken.
It is natural and common to be caught up in where we are in this moment.
If you are feeling like you aren’t making progress with an issue take a step back and ask yourself, “In the last few weeks, how far have I come with this issue?”
You will be surprised and feel re-energized to keep working on it.
5 Things You Must Know Before Doing EFT With Children and Teens
photo by Fine Shots |
Tapping with children can be a very rewarding experience. In many cases children take to tapping much faster than adults because they are more willing to try new things and aren’t hung up on why something is working. They just want to feel better.
Here are five things to keep in mind when teaching kids to tap. (Note: All five lessons below are hard won. I know them to be true because I have done the opposite of all five at one point.)
1) They Are Smarter Than You Think
I recently spoke to 600 middle school students about bullying. To start the presentation I talked about why bullies bully. I talked about what happens on an emotional level and how that affects our choices. At the end of the presentation the children broke up into to small groups with their adults to talk about what they can do to stop bullying in their schools. After the small group time a number of the adults walked up to me to express how surprised they were with the complexity of thoughts the kids had, the emotions they experienced, and how overall thoughtful they were.
Kids don't have the vocabulary to express their emotions and thoughts the way adults do, but they are thinking real thoughts about their lives, their emotions, and who they are. Give them space to talk about their emotions, teach them how to talk about them, and they will surprise you (in really good ways).
2) You Must Be Authentic Or They Will Tune You Out
Kids today are very savvy because of their access to information and technology. They are treated by big business as a market place and they are constantly sold to through television and online. Because of this they have very sophisticated BS detectors and they can tell when someone is not being authentic with them.
It is so tempting to want to be cool and hip when talking with kids (especially teens), thinking you are “speaking their language”. It is just the opposite. They don't want some line or for you to talk like them. They want someone who is just being who they are, even if that means being your dorky self.
You can’t ask a child to honest with their emotions and be comfortable inside their own skin unless you are willing to try to do the same.
3) Your Job Is To Love Them, Not Be Loved By Them
When we are working with teens or children we are doing it because we want better for them. That is the goal. Nothing more. Nothing less. We are not trying to be their friend and we are not trying to gain their admiration. We have our own friends and peers for that. This doesn't mean that we act like jerks or that we don't care, forgetting to treat them with respect. Sometimes wanting the best for someone is asking them to do difficult things and things they might not enjoy.
To help them heal we need their respect, not their love and affection. It is OK to be comfortable with that notion.
4) Teach Them Tools
Children (and most people) don't care how or why tapping works. They are just looking for something that makes them feel better. When working with kids and teens give them tools. They don't need theory. They want to be better, happier, and healthier. Once they know the tool works they might ask you how it works and why.
I love coming up with little processes that are easy to follow.
For example, a great way for parents to teach kids to tap for themselves is have them tap and explain four things whilst they are tapping.
- What was the best part of the day?
- What was the worst part of the day?
- What are they looking forward to tomorrow?
- What are they worried about tomorrow?
Very simple. It is easy to remember and easy to do. Once they have the tools they can take care of themselves.
5) Start With How The Emotions Feel In The Body
As I said above, children (and many adults) don't have the skill or vocabulary to talk about their emotions as emotions. I like to have them talk about how the emotions feel in the body to help them to tune in.
They might not have the vocabulary to talk about the disappointment that comes with poor grades vs. fighting with a friend. They might call both of these emotions “mad”. But if you get them to talk about how it feels in the body they will be able to be more specific. By describing where the emotion is in the body (head, throat, stomach…) and how it feels in these places (heavy, tight, hot…) they will be much more successful with their tapping.
Go For It
You don't have to be perfect when working with teens or children. They are looking for adults who care about them and care about their wellbeing. Show up from a place of love, treat them with respect, be ready for lots of questions and you will be a great tapping teacher and tapping role model for them.
What have you found works well when tapping with kids? What mistakes have you made from which you have learned? Click here to add your own thoughts and comments or read what others have to say. I would really love to know what you think!
How To Use EFT When A Problem Feels Too Big Or Too Painful To Tackle
I want to use EFT to work on a major issue in my life, but somehow I always find an excuse not to do it. I know it will help me. I do want to get over this, but it just doesn’t happen. What can I do?
 photo by (Erik) |
I’ve noticed an interesting pattern when it comes to tapping on big issues. Certain people learn to use EFT, see the benefit of it in their lives, and yet still decide it’s not for them.
I was given new insight into this type of avoidance when I was tapping with a close friend “Sandy” recently.
Someone in Sandy’s life, who lived hundreds of miles away, had been hurt in a very violent physical attack.
Sandy was disappointed in herself for not being able to stop the attack from happening, she was sad about the attack, she was scared that her loved one wouldn’t seek the attention she needed out of fear, she felt helpless from such a great distance, and she worried that it would happen again. These were just a few of the emotions racing through her mind.
We agreed that I would come over to her place so that we could tap together. When I arrived at her home we talked about everything in the world… except what I had come for. This continued for almost an hour. Finally I asked, “Do you want to tap or not?”
I wasn’t frustrated or angry; I was giving her an out. Sometimes people feel safer having this type of conversation with a paid professional rather than a close friend.
She hemmed and hawed as she tried not to answer.
So I asked, “Why are you afraid to do the work?”
“Because it’s going to hurt. I know how raw my emotions are right now. I feel like I’ve let my loved one down. I don’t want to wander into that pain.”
All of that was fair. I asked her, “How large are all the emotions you’re feeling?” (This was for the emotions around her loved one plus the emotions around her fear of having to wade into the problem.)
With her hands she showed something about the size of a beach ball.
We did some work on her fear of what we might uncover and how much it would hurt to dive into the emotions around this incident. I then asked her how much emotion was left (in all areas). She indicated something about 30% of the size of the original.
This was a useful insight for me. She was more emotional about her reaction to the incident than she was about the incident itself.
Later, as I reflected on this, it brought to mind all of the people — me included — who avoid doing work in some area of our lives because we are afraid of what we’d uncover about ourselves.
The belief is, “The crap I know right now is better than the crap around the corner. Sure, my life isn’t perfect right now, but I can manage my present pain and disappointment. If I go looking to change my life, who knows what I’ll stir up.”
This is not an indictment for not wanting to look under the bed to see what’s really under there. The beauty of free will is that we choose who we want to be. There are outcomes and consequences to those choices. Our decision is to face or not face the ideas we have about ourselves and the world, that hold us back and determine whether or not our lives change.
In my own life I have found that in the long run it’s better to get out the flashlight and face whatever is hiding under the bed, no matter how scary it feels at the time.
Next Steps
When you are facing something that feels too big to tap on try tapping like this:
Right now I have a really big issue to tap on…I know the tapping for the issue will be helpful in the long term…but I am worried that if I tap for this issue it will be too much…I will uncover things I don’t want to experience…I will find painful past memories…I will have to relive it all over again…and I don’t want to do that…It is good that I am trying to take care of myself…It is good that I am trying to avoid the pain of reliving this…And I know that with tapping I don’t have to dive all the way into an issue to make a difference…I can spend a little time tapping on how I feel right now…without having to go all the way to the root…It might be better to go all the way to the root…but that can wait…Sometimes it is healthier for me to just do a little at a time…so that when I am ready to do the deep work I will already have cleared a path…I give myself permission to be easy with myself…I give myself permission to be easy with the healing process…Knowing I don’t have to do it all at once…Knowing that if I do a little at a time I can feel safe and still make progress.
Why Didn’t Surrogate EFT Stop The Cancer?
In the newsletter a few weeks ago I shared the story of visiting my much too young friend as her body was losing its battle with cancer. (You can read the full story: With A Heavy Heart)
In addition to many heartfelt responses of concern to my note, I received a number of questions about what I did while she was sick tapping-wise, and how I felt after the fact. For clarity I have summarized the questions (with answers) below.
I would love to hear your thoughts on these questions in the comments below.
After spending what could be many hours of tapping for your friend and her condition, were you ever hopeful that they would overcome this partially or totally?
When I am tapping for someone else I am always working from the starting point that the only thing that I can truly change in the world is me. When I am tuned into what I think others are feeling or experiencing physically I am paying attention to how I am reacting to these thoughts. I am paying attention to any emotion I feel and any physical sensation that I am having. Those are the things I am tapping on.
At the same time I believe that we are all connected in some way. When I transform myself I transform the world. Did I think by tapping in this way that my friend would be cured? I was open to that possibility. I have seen many things come from tapping that in my limited experience I never would have thought were possible.
I have come to a place in my life where I am no longer surprised by grace. When things happen outside my expectation I just think, “Of course that is possible. How could my thinking been so limited?”
When I was tapping I had no expectation of what the outcome was going to be.
Since she wasn’t healed do you feel like you failed (and did you tap for that feeling of failure)?
The feelings of failure I felt were around missing opportunities to be close to my friend sooner. I am sure I am not alone in feeling regret in filling my life with things that in retrospect weren't nearly as important as being with friends and loved ones.
The only thought I had as I sat at the airport on Sunday night waiting to fly home was, “We need to do better for those we love sooner.”
Based on how things turned out, would you tap in the same fashion for someone else who might be in the same situation?
As far as tapping goes I don’t know if there is anything I would have done differently.
Even if the tapping I did wasn’t “effective” or wasn’t done “the right way” for the situation. I sat thinking loving and caring thoughts for a friend. Nothing bad can come from that.
Is it really possible to tap to change someone else’s life or is it really up to them and what they choose to think, do, and believe?
This is really the core question about surrogate tapping.
To be honest: I HAVE NO IDEA!
I know that my thoughts, feelings, and emotions impact the people around me. They are responsible for their own choices, but I know they will respond differently to me showing up in a state of love versus a state of fear. If I tap for myself I will respond to others differently, which will give them opportunities to respond differently to situations.
Every relationship I have is a co-creation. When I transform myself I am transforming the nature of my relationships. It is possible that when I am healing something in myself for me to hold space for someone else to believe new thoughts about themselves.
If I show up in a spirit of love I make it easier for someone else to choose to believe they are worthy of love. I don’t make that choice for them. I am not responsible for them making that choice. But I can make it easier for them.
In the end when I am tapping surrogately for someone what I am doing is spending time thinking loving thoughts about them (good!) and healing the emotions I am feeling (also good!). Whatever comes of that is still beyond my limited understanding of the universe.
Will Saying Negative Phrases While Doing EFT Manifest Bad Things In My Life?
Q: I am worried that if I say negative phrases I will bring negative things into my life. How can I use EFT without having to use negative phrases?
I receive this question a lot. To answer it we need to look at what is happening when we are tapping and how the words we say impact our success while tapping.
It is important to remember that what we are saying is much less important than what we are feeling when we tap.
The words we say while tapping are not magic.
What is important is where our focus and attention is when we are tapping. If we say, “this pain in my knee…this pain in my knee…” over and over again when we tap but we are thinking about everything that needs to be done once we finish tapping, then the knee isn’t going to feel better.
It is not the words but the focus.
This plays itself out in some interesting ways when we say both positive and negative phrases. To understand this let’s look at a weight release example. Let’s say the client wants to lose 40 pounds but is stuck because of the fact he has failed before and is worried that he will lose the weight only to gain it back again.
Positive v Negative Phrases
There are two ways to approach tapping on this issue.
First, we could address the fear of losing weight only to gain it back again head on. We would tap saying something like:
I have failed before at losing weight…and I’m worried that I will fail again…every time I lose the weight it creeps back…this time will be different…not only do I have a plan to lose the weight…but I have a support system in place…to help me keep it off.
Second, we could decide that we are only going to tap on the positive:
I am going to lose weight…I am going keep the weight off…I am going to look awesome…I am going to feel so much better.
All of these statements are great things to be tapping on, but what is being said is not all that is going on. Every time one of those phrases is said out loud if there is any part of the system that doesn’t believe the phrase to be true, the critical voice will speak up to voice its objections. It might go something like this:
What is said out loud: I am going to lose weight.
What the internal critical voice says in response: And then gain it right back.
Out loud: I am going keep the weight off.
Critical voice: No you aren’t. You failed before and you will fail again.
Out loud: I am going to look awesome.
Critical voice: Only for a short period of time.
Out loud: I am going to feel so much better.
Critical voice: And then the weight will come back and you will feel like crap.
You can see that when we only focus only on the positive and there is a part of us that doesn’t believe the positive statement, the negative will show up.
The good news about this that it doesn’t matter if we use positive or negative phrases because either way we will find our way to tapping on the issues needing attention.
Which Should I Tap On?
The question becomes “Should I use positive or negative phrases while tapping?” For me, the answer is both.
If I recognize a specific limiting belief or block, like the fear of gaining the weight back, my tapping will be most effective if I go right at that issue.
At the same time when I state the goal I want to achieve in the positive I will find my way to self talk and limiting beliefs that I didn’t know existed.
I recommend when tapping to alternate between both positive and negative phrases so that you get both of these benefits.
What To Do When You Feel Like You Have Stopped Moving Forward With An Issue
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My client was so frustrated!
We had been working on an issue for a number of sessions and he felt like we were dealing with the same issues, with the same complaints, with the same outcomes.
The truth was that he had made a lot of progress AND he was getting the same outcome.
When this happens it can be so frustrating because we have put in the work, we know we have healed many issues, but it doesn’t feel like it is bearing any fruit.
I’m Stuck In Quicksand!
Sometimes making progress feels like trying to get out of quicksand.
There is a huge difference between being in quicksand up to your neck and being in quicksand up to your knees. When you are in quicksand up to your neck you are only 10% free and when you are in up to your knees you are 75% free.
But there is a problem. Even though being in quicksand up to your knees is much better than being in quicksand up to your neck, you are still stuck.
The same thing can happen when we are working on a persistent issue. We can spend time (even a great deal of time) working on an issue. Although we have released a great deal around the issue we are still stuck because the part that is left continues to have a grip on us.
It is easy to feel discouraged and like we are failing in the healing process because we are not reaping the rewards of our progress. The good news is that it’s much easier to get out of quicksand when we are only up to our knees, and we truly are much closer to freedom and healing, but we may fail to notice this because we are focusing on still being stuck.
If you feel like you are spinning your wheels with your tapping here is a tapping script you can use:
I have been working on this issue for a very long time…I want to be free of this issue…I know tapping has worked for me in the past…and I want it to work now…the fact that I have done so much work…and not seen any real progress is frustrating…I feel like giving up on this issue…I feel like giving up on tapping…but I choose to know that tapping is a process…I know healing is a process…there are times when I will make progress with an issue…and still not be free of the issue…sometimes healing an issue is like getting out of quicksand…I can make progress when I am working my way towards freedom…but I am still stuck…it is possible to recognize that even when I am not completely free of an issue…I am closer to being free of the issue…with each round of tapping I become a little clearer…with each tapping session I become a little clearer…even if I am not completely out of the quicksand on this issue…I am more free than I was before…I am closer to being free of this…I give myself permission to keep moving forward…knowing that with each moment of healing I experience…I am that much closer to being free of this issue…it is ok that I get frustrated at the fact that it doesn’t feel like I am making progress…it is ok that I feel this isn’t working as fast as I would like…this is because there is a part of me that wants better…I am glad there is a part of me that wants better…and I want this part of me to keep working for better…as bit-by-bit I clear this issue.
Working With An EFT Practitioner Is Not Right For Everyone. Is It Right For You?
photo by geek calendar |
I recently received an email from Kevin in Ireland asking a number of really good questions about reaching out for help with an issue. Not everyone needs to be working with a practitioner.
Have you ever considered working with a practitioner?
Here are my thoughts on working with someone.
If tapping is such a ‘do it yourself’ protocol, why would I bother working with a practitioner?
There are a number of issues that tapping is great for where you can use it on your own without needing any help. As a practitioner I provide four things for my clients: distance, experience, expertise, and encouragement/accountability.
Distance: Sometimes it is hard to see the forest for the trees. When we are in the middle of something emotional it is very difficult to see it clearly. Because I am not experiencing the emotions being felt by my client myself, I can often see an issue more clearly. This is true for anyone we share with, not just practitioners. We can regularly find insight into what is going on in our lives by seeking the outside point of view of a trusted friend. Sometimes it is helpful to share this with people we don’t see frequently.
Experience: Having worked with many clients I recognize patterns and root causes that a client would not be able to see on their own. This experience allows me to help clients to move forward much more quickly than they would working alone.
Expertise: EFT is a very simple thing that be done by anyone. It is possible to use the basic recipe and tap on most issues. Even though this works, it is not always the fastest way to relief. With my my training I am able to combine tapping with many other tools that speed the healing process in a way a client could not do on their own.
Encouragement/Accountability: It is easy to feel overwhelmed by our own issues. They don’t feel good and the last thing we want is to stay stuck in the middle of them. Sometimes it is easier just to run and hide instead of engage. As a practitioner I help my clients to stay focused and support them as they are going through difficult issues, helping them to get to the other side.
Why should I pay so much money to someone I don’t know to work with them over the phone or Skype?
You need to be careful with any buying decision. I wouldn’t just pay anyone I found online to work with one-on-one. It is important that you are making the right choice for you.
Here are a few things I would consider before hiring anyone:
- What type of training do they have?
- How long have they been a practitioner?
- Do they have experience with my particular issue?
- Do they work with someone for their own issues?
- Have they created resources that I can look at to gauge if they are a good fit for me?
It is easy to get answers to these questions. Just ask. Any practitioner worth their salt will happily provide answers.
You can also look at their website. What have they created? Does it fit with who you are and what you are looking for?
One of the main reasons that I have over 500 free resources on my website is so that potential clients can get a sense of who I am, what I believe, and how I work. For example, if you took a few minutes to “Recovering Self – A Healing Manifesto” you would have a good idea if we were a good fit.
I couldn’t get EFT to work with my issue while tapping on my own. Is a practitioner going to guarantee me success?
The short answer is: NO.
Tapping is a wonderful tool that works for many things. Just because it is a wonderful tool that is easy and quick to use, it is not the best tool for every situation. (For example: If you have be stabbed, go to the emergency room. Don’t tap!)
Also, there are issues that tapping will not going to work for, or at least not in a timely way. Know that even when you work with someone who is very skilled with your issue success is still not guaranteed.
If you are going to work with someone it is advisable to ask them about the types of success they have with clients and with your particular issue.
Are there any professional associations for tapping where I can check on the certification of particular practitioners?
Right now there isn’t one centralized organization (even though many would claim to be). Tapping and EFT are relatively new and because of this there is no real standardization of training. Some trainings will give a certificate if you show up to all the classes, some will give a certificate if you pass a test after the class work, and some will give a certificate after class attendance, passing a test, and supervised work with clients.
When someone says they are a certified EFT practitioner it is important that you gain an understanding of what that really means.
Do You Still Have Questions Or Are Thinking Of Working With A Practitioner?
If you are interested in working with someone one-on-one to get past an issue that is holding you back but still aren’t sure, let me know. We can set up a free consultation to answer all your questions and relieve your fears. You might just need some encouragement or instruction to start heading in the right direction. You can reach me directly on the contact page.
EFT For Stress That Leads To Overeating
photo by zigazou76 |
I was recently working with a client on the issue of mindless eating.
When I use the term “mindless eating” I mean any eating that we are doing without thinking “I would like to eat this right now”. This can include eating prompted by cravings, emotional eating, unconscious habitual eating, eating when we are not hungry and eating more than we intended.
Over the course of a one hour session we touched on lots of smaller issues which were all connected to what was behind the mindless eating. Below you will find a transcript of the tapping scripts we used during the session.
These transcripts do not constitute the entire session. It just the tapping phrases between the conversation investigation.
Please let me know if you find these types of scripts helpful and if you would like me to do something like this again in the future. If you would like to work with me one-on-one visit WorkWithGene.com for details.
I Can’t Stop! I Must Stop!
Sometimes we find ourselves being pulled in two different directions. One part of us wants us to stop and another part must keep making the same bad choice again and again. Here we tapped for the inner conflict:
There’s a part of me that just keeps reaching for food…It’s almost something I can’t control…Even when I’m doing that, I know I shouldn’t be doing it…There’s a part of me that just can’t stop…There’s this odd dichotomy in it…There’s a part of me that knows it’s a bad choice…There’s a part of me that knows that I don’t enjoy it…There’s a part of me that knows that I’m just going to feel gross afterwards…Even as I’m moving the bread to my mouth, I can say, “This is really bad choice.”…There’s a part of me that still makes that choice…It thinks it’s the best…Something in the short term to make me feel better…To distract me from the things I don’t want to do…To give me something to do so I’m not bored…To fill some space that feels empty…And all of those are good things to want…This is just the absolute wrong way to do it…And I know it’s the wrong way to do it…While I’m doing it I know it’s the wrong way to do it…And it just stinks when I’m doing it…Because I know it’s not what I want…But there’s a part of me that just doesn’t get that…It’s stuck in the old ways…It’s more than stuck in the old ways…Almost as if the old way is all there is…And it can’t see any other alternative…And I appreciate the fact that it wants me to be healthier…And I appreciate the fact it wants me to feel comfortable…But this has nothing to do with being healthy…In the long term…It’s filling up some small need…I appreciate the fact it’s trying to do something…But it needs to be something that’s healthier.
I Always Need To Be Doing Something
We live in a world where we are always doing something, sometimes even multi-tasking. We don’t deal with idle time well. Sometime we just have to do something, even if it is mindless eating, to fill that time. Here we tapped for eating to fill idle time.
There’s a part of me that knows I need to be doing something…That I should never be doing nothing…That I need to be moving forward…And I need to be productive…There are things that need to be done…And I don’t want to do them…So I just choose to do something…So I’m productive…So I’m filling the time…So I’m doing something…I have a clear idea of what needs to get done…I could tell you the ten things I need to get done very soon…And when I’m really stressed…The last thing I wanna do…Is fight with some task…And add more stress…And I don’t wanna sit still…And just do it and not being stressed…So it makes perfect sense…That a part of me…Is going to wanna move away from being stressed…And move away from the things I don’t wanna do…It would be one thing to take a vacation…Because I’m choosing to leave things behind…And I’m planning for it…And it’s another thing to be idle…I know things need to get done…I give myself permission to know…I’m allowed to take little mini vacations…During my day…Even if it’s just for five or 10 minutes…Where I step away from the task…And I step away from the stress…And I don’t have to choose something to fill that space…If I do choose to fill that space…I wanna choose something healthy…Like a little fresh air…Or to tap a little bit…But I choose to know…I recognize the fact…My system is just trying to avoid that gross stress…And I don’t blame it for doing that…Because it’s no fun just being stressed.
I Don’t Have To Do Everything On My To-Do List At Once
There is a lot that we need to get done on any given day. Each of these tasks are manageable, but if we look at everything at once it can feel very overwhelming. Here we tapped to help relieve the feeling of overwhelm.
I recognize there’s a lot that needs to get done…But it doesn’t need to get done all at once…That it’s good to appreciate all the work that needs to happen…But if I put myself in a space…Where I think it emotionally needs to be done all at once…Of course it’s going to feel overwhelming…If something is going to take multiple hours…And I think about it all right now…Of course it’s going to be overwhelming…I give myself permission…To focus on these things one at a time…And only worry about one of the things that I’m going to do right now…I can be aware of the other tasks that need to be done…But I can give myself permission…To be in a circumstance where I don’t have to do them all at once…If I take them one at a time…They’re less big…And they’re much more manageable…None of the tasks are super hard…They’re just impossible to do them all at once.
There Is Just So Much To Do
There are time where there is just too much. Even when we break it down into small steps if feels like to much. Here we tapped for dealing with too much to do.
Just repeat after me. There’s so much that needs to get done…There’s stuff that needs to get done for work…There’s stuff that needs to get done to help the family…There’s stuff that needs to get done for me…And with a full house, it seems like it’s all happening at once…And those quiet moments are few and far between…And it feels like I have to get everything done in that short amount of time…Because I know what happens when these things don’t get done…And each day it’s a different task…Or a different list of tasks…And a whole bunch of outcomes that could happen from that…And I’m really worried they’re not all going to get done…And I really don’t wanna have to deal with when they don’t all get done…Because I can see what can go wrong…I can see it really clearly…And I don’t want to be caught in the middle of that…And I just get overwhelmed…Because I wanna do it all at once…Because I need it all done…I don’t wanna deal with all those other things…But I choose to know…If I do each task one at a time…If I don’t try and bite off too much all at once…It’s possible for me…To get everything done….And be okay with getting everything done…And I can feel the resistance inside of me…When I’d make a simple statement like that…Because it just never feels like it’s all going to get done…Every single time something gets crossed off the list…It feels like four more things had been added…And I always feel like I’m behind…Which means I’m always going to feel overwhelmed…And as long as I feel overwhelmed…It’s really easy to make poor eating choices.
I Don’t Trust Myself To Take Short Breaks
It is good to take breaks throughout the day so that we can stay sharp. The problem with taking a short break is it can quickly turn into spending 90 minutes on facebook or cleaning up the living room. Here we tapped for not being able to trust ourselves to take a short break.
There’s a part of me that doesn’t trust me…That if I go and take a little bitty break…It’s going to turn into a giant break…It’s going to go from releasing a little stress…To being another avoidance technique…It won’t be that I’m blowing off steam…It’ll be that I’m just escaping…It’s really no different than eating a bunch of bread…I’m just filling time with something…So I don’t have to face the tasks at hand…So it’s really important…I find a way to manage my day…Where I understand that it’s achievable and doable…That I carve out specific times to take care of myself…And I create boundaries to make sure that they don’t bleed over and take over the day…It’s good to release some steam…And let go of the overwhelm…But it doesn’t do me any good…If I end up wasting an hour and a half…Because that’s just going to make the day much worse…Because I’m going to be even farther behind…So I need to find a way…To keep myself accountable…That isn’t going to take the whole day…Because all of a sudden eating makes more sense…All of a sudden eating makes more sense…Because I can’t get lost to it for an hour and a half…But there’s a physical limitation that I could eat…Even when I’m eating mindlessly…There’s a stop point…So it becomes a good distraction…And it doesn’t consume 90 minutes…So it’s really important I find a way…To be able to release the stress…To be able to take care of myself…And do it in a way that allows me to still be productive…Without getting distracted.
Not Doing Anything Makes It Worse
There are times that when we take a break to think about what is going on it becomes very easy to be overwhelmed with every thing. In these cases it makes sense that we are going to do something to discract ourselves. In this case we tapped for needing to do anything to block out the stress of what needs to be done.
It makes sense that if I’m not doing work…That the pile is going to get deeper and deeper…But it’s possible for me to work…It’s possible for me to work…In a more efficient way…When I’m sitting really idle…Not only am I not getting anything done…It’s also really easy…To recognize all the things that aren’t done…And that makes the feeling even worse…So the goal is not to be stuck in an idle place…And not to be stuck in an overwhelmed place…Because when I’m really overwhelmed…I’m going to make choices that are me trying to escape…Me trying to escape…And when I feel really idle…I’m going to recognize all that needs to get done…And feel even more overwhelmed…And want to escape again…So the goal is…To put myself in a circumstance…Where I’m doing the things that need to get done…But I’m not getting caught in all of them at once…Because if I take the task one at a time…Each task is going to be manageable…In which each task is manageable…It’s going to get done as quickly as possible…And I can move on to the next thing…And that will make a more peaceful process…I feel less stressed…And I’ll get everything done…And I won’t have to escape…Because I’m going to be efficient…And things aren’t going to be building up…And I’m not going to be overwhelmed…Because I’m not doing everything all at once…
I Can’t Control Everything
It is one thing to have control over the choices we are making. That is manageable. What is hard is the fact that there are things we don’t control that can add stress to out live. Here we tapped for being overwhelmed and stressed by the things we can’t control.
And that makes it hard…To get everything done I wanna get done…Because as new things show up…It makes things get harder…When things show up…That feel like they specifically make it more complicated…Which makes it really easy to get overwhelmed…But I choose to know…That the less stressed I am…That the less overwhelmed that I am…The easier it is to respond…When unexpected things show up… Because often times unexpected things show up…And I deal with them with no problem…And I don’t remember those times…Because they didn’t cause me a problem…I only remember…The times that things show up…That are overwhelming…Or too much…And the more calm I get…The more I take tasks one at a time….The less overwhelmed I become…So even when unexpected shows up…It’s easier for me to respond…Because it’s not too much.
If I Could Just Get A Little Organized
Most of the time, no one thing causes us stress. Most of the time it is a combination of many things stacking up. When we are able to get organized then the small things are less likely to get stacked up. He we tap on getting organized.
I always feel like I’m trying to catch up…I always feel like I’m behind…And when I’m behind, it means I have to hurry…That I don’t do as good a job as I’d like…That just adds more stress and anxiety…That adds more overwhelm…Which adds more to the desire to escape…I choose to know…It’s important that I get my time organized…It doesn’t have to be organized perfectly…I don’t have to schedule every second of the day but I know when I make the time to organize…Even though that takes time…It pays off in the long term…And I – it’s important that I invest that time…And the more times that I invest that time…The more organized I get…And the less time I have to spend organizing…And the easier it is to get organized…And I just need to step into that space…To give myself permission to spend the time it takes…To get organized…Because if I don’t take the time to set it up right…It take time to do it over again…Which I don’t have…Which adds to the overwhelm…Which adds to the needing to escape.
Little Changes Add Up
Sometimes the change we make happens in lots of small steps. It becomes very easy to feel like progress is not happening in small steps because the change is hardly noticeable. Here we tap for recognizing that small steps add up to big things.
There’s lots of ways that I can reduce stress…Because there’s lots of things that cause stress…. So it’s not that I have to do one thing to eliminate all the stress…It’s not that I have to do one thing to stop the eating…Each thing that I do…That chips away at the stress…Makes it so I have to escape less…Which means I’m going to do the eating less…And there’s lots of things I can do…That start to reduce the stress…One of them is getting a little more organized… But that’s not the only thing…That’s not the lynch pin… It’s just one more thing…And I give myself permission to know…That as I keep chipping away at this…And make transformation to lots of little bits…It’s going to make a difference…And it’s short and long term…And I’m going to do this eating less and less…And it’s going to slowly fade away… It’s not, I have to change and fix everything…Which creates an immediate stop…Instead it’s slowly chipping away…And lots of little easy steps…That leads to the whole thing being transformed…Transformed in a lasting way…I give myself permission…To recognize that I can have progress…Without have to fixing all of it…And without having to fix one part completely…But doing it step by step.
There Is Always Going To Be Stress
Stress is a fact of life. It is always going to be there, but it is not always going to be there in the same amount. We need to recognize that we have some control over the amount of stress in our lives. Here we tap for knowing that we can control some of the stress in our lives.
It feels like stress is inevitable… There are things that are going to catch me off guard… And there are things that are going to feel overwhelming… But most of the time when I feel stressed…It’s because lots of things have been combined together… But most of those things….Are really big deal by themselves…what we’re trying to do…Is move to the place… Where the small things don’t add up into big stress… So that the times when real stress shows up… We can take those choices…They are the quick fix… It’s not that big of a deal if once a month I have a little bread when I feel stressed…It is a big deal if I’m doing it every single day…There are going to be times of stress…There’s going to times of overwhelm… But that isn’t something I have to experience every single day… I can put myself in a position… Where I manage the stress in such a way…The feelings of overwhelm… The feelings of too much…Are few and far between…And when that happens…That I can respond to that stress in lots of ways…But I don’t have to make those choices… Every single day… If I don’t feel stressed and overwhelmed every single day…
This Habit Is Never Going To Change
There are times when we change the underlying issue but the habit persists because it has been the way we have operated for so long. Here we tap for changing old habits that have been here forever.
There’s a part of me that sees this as a habit… The choice I’m always going to make… The choice that I make every single time… And part of the work that needs to happen…Is enrooting this as the choice I make every single time… It’s almost as if…I’m pulling out the big guns…To deal with a little bitty mosquito…Because that’s the tool I always use… And each time I make a choice… Where I don’t reach for the food… When I’m feeling a little stressed…I’m reinforcing… And making it easier…For me to make good choices in the future…I wanna do things to reduce my stress…And I wanna do things where I’m making better choices when I am stressed… I wanna make good choices for the long term… And I wanna make good choices that are proportional… Where I’m choosing a response…In an appropriate way… Based on how big the stress is…And that’s something that’ll happen step by step…Because when I feel less stressed…There will be less moments where I need to let go the stress… And each time I make a better choice… I’m going to put myself in a position where I reinforce that
The Old Choices Seem To Be The Easiest
Sometimes our old habits are what we choose because they are so easy. Eating is much easier than taking a short walk or taking time to tap. Here we tap for knowing that it is possible choose the slightly harder response because it has lasting benefits.
Food feels like the easiest choice… Because it’s always at hand… Because it’s so effective… In muting the stress feeling…And it takes so little effort… For it to work…I don’t have to do any tapping…I don’t have to go for a walk…I can keep doing what I’m doing most times… And eat at the same time… Or scarf it down really, really quick… So it doesn’t take a lot of effort…And it doesn’t take a lot of time… So it makes lots of sense…That that’s what I keep reaching for…But I choose to know… It’s important that I make good long term choices… As well as good short term choices… And I need to break the habit…Of reaching for the easiest thing… And that takes little work…That takes a little planning…That takes knowing what I would choose otherwise…And spending the energy… To make the right good choice… And that’s work… And that’s no fun…But I’d rather make… Good long term choices…Than the easy choice…That isn’t good for the long term…And if I have a plan of attack… And if I look out for these things coming… It’s going to be a little easier… To make a good choice…In the moment… Which is going to create a circumstance…Where I have a habit…Of making lasting good choices…
9 Websites, Newsletters And Podcasts That I Always Read AND You Should Too!
While writing the first draft of this article I typed “EFT” into Google and it returned 49,600,000 results. When there is that much information it is really hard to find what is useful.
I read everything I can get my hands on because I am always trying to learn and always on the lookout for guest posts and podcast guests. Even with this desire to read it all, there are times that I have too much on my plate and can’t get through everything. When this happens I need to make choices about what will get my time and attention.
Here is a list of 9 online resources where I read or listen to everything they produce, even if I am busy. If you are are not already reading some of these then you are missing out on great opportunities to learn.
Note: These are not affiliate links. I am not getting anything from sharing these. I just want you to find the good stuff!
 Deborah Miller’s Newsletter – Deborah is probably best known for her work with children with cancer. She has a wonderful newsletter from which I have re-published many of her articles. To subscribe scroll down to the bottom of this page: FindTheLightWithin.com |
 Karen Nueman’s Newsletter – Sadly Karen passed away in Feb. 2013. She is greatly missed! |
 Practical Wellbeing – Practical Wellbeing is written by England based practitioner Andy Hunt. One mistake I think a lot of sites make is that they produce lots of very average material. Andy puts up a new article every few weeks which is always thoughtful, well-written, and informative. PracticalWellbeing.com |
 Sarah Holland Twitter Feed – Sarah is a practitioner who specializes in fertility issues. Her Twitter feed is often filled with great framing questions as well as awesome set-up phrases to tap to, all in 140 characters. Find her (even if you don’t have Twitter) @SarahEFT |
 You Are Not So Smart – The motto of You Are Not So Smart is “A Celebration of Self Delusion”. In each article and podcast David McRaney looks at a new piece of research about the mind in an irreverent and funny way to see how delusional we are about the way we see ourselves and the world. There are many things from this site that have transformed the way I work with clients and how I do my own tapping work. Articles and podcast: YouAreNotSoSmart.com |
 PsyBlog – Jeremy Dean’s PsyBlog is devoted to the most recent interesting (!) developments in psychology. When working with clients it is really important to understand where people are coming from and why they make the choices they make. As a bonus Jeremy also shares offbeat studies that will make you smile even if you don’t learn anything new. Read more: Spring.org.uk |
 Radiolab – Radiolab is the happy marriage of science, art, day-to-day life, and the choices we make. I always learn something from Radiolab. The show has transformed my understanding of how the brain works and how scientific concepts meet daily life. If I were to create a university degree program I would want this show to be in the core curriculum. Radio show and podcast home: Radiolab.org |
 Marc and Angel Hack Life – I am not the biggest fan of the self-help industry (though it would be very easy to argue I am part of it). I am suspicious of platitudes and affirmations. Marc and Angel Hack Life is a total revelation in the self-help blog world. Each post is to the point and immediately useful. I have written many tapping scripts inspired by their work and point of view. Website: MarcAndAngel.com |
 Get Bullish – Jen Dziura writes two weekly columns for the b5media network of blogs. It is best described as life and career advice for kick-ass women. Jen doesn’t pull punches, doesn’t get caught up in fluffy cuteness, and is all about moving forward. Transformation work is about being able to level with yourself about what is really going on. Whether you want to or not, Jen is going to make you do that. Jen’s work can be found at Bullish and Bullish Life
(PS: Be warned, at some point Jen is probably going to make fun of part of your world view, tip a sacred cow, or mock someone you think is a guru. I’m sure she would make fun of my point of view from time-to-time. You don’t have to agree with everything she says, but she will challenge you to see your world and choices in new ways.) |
What Are You Reading?
I am always on the lookout for great resources. Please add the stuff you can’t wait to read or listen to in the comment section.