EFT/Tapping Q and A with Gene Monterastelli - Emotional Freedom Techniques

Pod #394: 12 Lessons From Doing EFT With A Total Stranger On A Flight

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In my early years of tapping I was super eager to share tapping with everyone I possibly could.

Over time I learned that it was best to share tapping (or anything for that matter) only with people who are actually open to learning something new.

A number of years ago I was on a flight from Los Angeles to Chicago and ended up in a conversation with a fellow passenger that led to us doing a tapping session right there on the flight.

Here are the twelve lessons I took away from the experience that might help you when you are tapping on your own, tapping with others, or are in a situation where you might be able to share tapping with others.

You will find a written version of the twelve lessons below the player.

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I was recently on a flight from LA to Chicago. For the last 45 minutes of the flight I ended up tapping with the woman seated next to me. I think there are a number of lessons that can be learned from this session.

Here is what happened and what I noticed:

What lead to this encounter?
When I boarded the flight, both of my seatmates were already seated. I was on the aisle. The woman in the middle seat, “Rachel”, didn’t even look up to make eye contact when I sat down. For most of the first three and half hours of the flight she slept and in the moments she was awake she didn’t say a single word to anyone.

When I left my seat to use the restroom I tossed my notebook on to my seat. The front of the notebook has the crest of the “National Guild of Hypnotists” on it and I noticed that Rachel read it when it hit the seat.

When I returned to my seat she asked, “Are you a hypnotist?” I told her I was and she asked if I could use hypnosis to get people to stop smoking. I told her that I had done lots of work with smoking cessation in the past. She asked, “Can you hypnotize me right now so I can stop smoking?”

  • Lesson 1: Rachel was obviously very serious about quitting smoking. She wanted change right away and was willing to try something that many might find embarrassing (being hypnotized) in a public place. When we encounter people who want change this desperately, we don’t need to spend a great deal of time trying to convince them that we can help them. If they are ready to go, we should be ready to go. Don’t waste time, just cut to the chase.
  • Lesson 2: The reason that I carry around my National Guild of Hypnotists notebook is because I know it is a conversation starter. Most people don’t know about tapping, but they do know about hypnosis. By doing this I can easily open up the possibility of talking about health and healing, which is a great way to open the door to a conversation about tapping without running the person over (which I was once known to do from time-to-time in my excitement about tapping).

What she knew?
I told her that this wasn’t the ideal situation to hypnotize someone. It would be possible, but there was a much easier way for us to create change. I told her there was this odd tapping thing we could do.

She said, “Oh yeah, my mom does that and she has tried to get me to do it in the past.” She then demonstrated tapping on a number the tapping points.

I simply asked if she wanted to give it a try and she readily agreed.

  • Lesson 3: Early in my practice I would have spent a lot of time explaining how tapping works, what points we needed to use, and what to expect. Rachel didn’t need to know any of these things. She was ready to try it. I have found that when I explain too much, I sometimes talk people out of tapping. She didn’t need any more information, explanation, or proof. If she had questions, she would have asked. It was time to work.

What might have felt unsafe?

Obviously this was not like my normal client sessions. Instead of being in the comfort of my office, or working over the phone with a client who is in familiar surroundings, we were in a very public place. As many as fifteen people could very easily have overheard our conversation if they wanted to listen in. Also, because I had no history with Rachel, no intake information, and no rapport built, I knew that I needed to tread gingerly.

It was obvious she was very motivated to do work, but I didn’t want to put her in an uncomfortable position of saying something that might make her feel unsafe with me or in this public place. As much as I would have liked to have done some regression work to get back to early memories that were at the root of the issue, I needed to make sure that I kept her comfortable and safe. Also, I didn’t want to put her off tapping. If she had an uncomfortable experience, then she might not come back to it ever again.

  • Lesson 4: It is very important that we understand where our clients are emotionally and what is safe and healthy for them. This does not mean that I don’t challenge or push my clients to go beyond their comfort zone, but neither does it mean that I have permission to run them over with my agenda. Sometimes success in a tapping session can be judged in the client’s willingness to tap again in the future on the issue.

What did she notice?
To start with I had Rachel tune into the sense of craving. For someone who normally smokes a cigarette every fifteen minutes, it was easy to find the craving after being on the flight for over three hours.

Once she was tuned into the craving I had her spend a few moments offering some thanks for the craving. The craving itself wasn’t good for her, but there was a reason the craving was there.

I had her tap on:

Even though I can’t see why the craving is helping…and I know the smoking isn’t good for me…there is a reason my system has the craving…and the system thinks it has a good reason for this craving…I am glad the system is trying to care for me in this way…even if I don’t like the way it is doing it.

I then asked her how the craving felt. Rachel reported that it was a little calmer and she felt much less frustrated with her craving for cigarettes. I then had her ask of the craving sensation, “Now that you recognize that it might be trying to help you, why is it trying to help you?”

She said it was like comfort food.

I then had her ask it, “In what way is this craving trying to comfort you?” She said it was to stop the anxiety.

  • Lesson 5: Often it is a revelation to clients that there could be a logical reason for their issue. This does not mean it is a beneficial reason for the issue, but just one that might make sense from a particular point of view. Once we are able to recognize this fact, it makes it possible for us to stop fighting with the issue. When we see the issue is trying to work for us, it is much easier to gather information that might be helpful in the healing process.

The Solar Plexus
Once we had tuned into the fact that the smoking was creating a sense of comfort from anxiety, I had Rachel tune into where that anxiety lived in her body. She said, “Here in my stomach” and pointed. She didn’t point to her stomach, but to her solar plexus.

  • Lesson 6: It is important that we understand what a client means, not what they say. Most of our clients don’t normally talk about their emotions or their physical bodies, so because of this they have a tendency to use imprecise language to describe what they are dealing with. It is really good as a practitioner to keep asking, “What I think you said is… Am I right about that?” In this case I didn’t need to do that because Rachel’s physical gesture provided the accurate information.

The Color Yellow
Once Rachel had let me know that the emotion was referencing her solar plexus I had her tune into that space and to imagine the color yellow filling the space. When an issue is located in the solar plexus, it often has a lot to do with self-esteem issues and this is the location of the third chakra, which is associated with the color yellow.

I had Rachel tap until she felt the space had enough yellow. When she reported there was enough yellow for now she also said that she was feeling much calmer.

  • Lesson 7: There are two things going on in this step. First, I am drawing on years of experience when it comes to issues of craving and self-esteem. If this were a normal client session, I would have asked more questions and wouldn’t have made the assumption so rapidly that yellow was the right way to go. But in this case since time was limited, I decided to go with my experience and instinct, but I was careful to keep checking in to see that this was the appropriate approach. If it weren’t, I could quickly have changed direction.
  • Lesson 8: You will notice that I didn’t bring up what I thought the issue was. I simply had her bring some yellow into the space. It was still early in the session. We had just met and she was still getting comfortable with working with me. If all of a sudden I revealed that I thought her smoking was because of self-esteem issues, it might have shut her down right way. She did not ask for help with her self-esteem. She had asked for help with her smoking and it might have been disconcerting to have a total stranger start talking about an issue she had not mentioned. It is OK not to reveal everything you think about an issue. Doing so might create problems for your client in moving forward, or you might be wrong, making it harder for your client to trust you.

Repeat, Repeat, Repeat
For the next twenty minutes I had her imagine smoking again and again. First, I had her just think about a cigarette. Once we tapped away all the symptoms and emotions I had her do it again. Each time she thought of smoking I had her think about smoking a little more and a little more, such as adding in lighting a cigarette and taking a drag. I had her imagine she was walking off the flight and going to the smoking lounge. I had her imagine the smell of the smoke coming from the lounge and seeing the other smokers.

Each time we added a new detail I would get Rachel to tune into the emotions and physical sensations again. We would tap on what was happening until it was gone and then repeated the process.

  • Lesson 9: Most tappers know this, but it is important to stress going back to an issue repeatedly. Just because you get something to a 0 on the SUD scale does not mean you have finished. Keep testing again and again.

“I don’t believe you!”
The process of repeating again and again can get a little boring for a client. It can be frustrating to see the same symptoms continue to pop up. From my point of view I could see we were making progress because it was taking longer and longer with each image before the symptoms would appear, but to the client it could look very much the same: think of smoking and feel a craving.

I could tell Rachel was starting to get bored with the process. When I asked her to tune in one more time and asked her if she noticed the craving she said, “No”, but right before she said it she did something interesting: she licked her lips. It was a physical sign that the craving was coming up.

So I simply said, “I don’t believe you. What symptoms do you notice now?” She laughed and shared what she was feeling.

  • Lesson 10: It is OK not to believe what a client is saying. You will notice that I didn’t say, “I DON’T BELIEVE YOU!” When I said it I looked her straight in the eyes with a big smile on my face. She knew I wasn’t being accusatory, but being gentle in wanting her to be better. Sometimes it’s good gently to challenge your clients when you are showing them you want what is best for them.

“What if I smoke a cigarette today…does that mean I failed?”
After doing 45 minutes of work she had made some great progress. We weren’t finished, but considering the magnitude of the work and the very public setting, we had done some amazing work. As we walked off the flight I asked her how she was doing.

She said, “I feel great. Normally after a long flight like this I would be in a cold sweat. But I have one question…if I smoke a cigarette later today does it mean I have failed?”

I explained, “No, you would not have failed!” and we then had a longer conversation about how the chemicals from the cigarettes were working as a way of taking the edge off her emotional state. More work might be needed, but she now had a tool to deal with the cravings when they came up. I reassured her that even if she only remembered to tap for one out of every four cigarettes, then she would be smoking twelve to sixteen few less cigarettes a day. That is huge.

  • Lesson 11: Our clients want so badly to be successful. When someone comes to me for help with cigarettes it is because they have already tried everything in the world. I am normally a last ditch effort. Because of this, there are already lots of emotions around feeling like a failure in the past. Addiction can be really hard emotionally because we hate the feeling of not having control of our actions. Also, if I really am a last ditch effort, there is the thought of “If this doesn’t work, I am stuck with this forever.”
  • In a normal client session I would have spent a little time tapping on “being easy with self” before we ended. I also would have done a few rounds of tapping on what we learned in the session to put her mind more at ease. We would have tapped on things like, “I can now see why I crave cigarettes,” “I can see my system is really working for me even if it isn’t choosing the best way to do this,” “I now have a toolset to deal with my cravings when they come up,” and “It is OK if this work isn’t done all at once. I have time.”

Staying Connected
Right before Rachel left the airport to meet her ride, I gave her my email address and told her, “I have a number of scripts and audios that you can tap along to for smoking. If you send me an email I will send you all these resources.”

She smiled knowing that she had support in this and went on her way.

  • Lesson 12: The reason I helped Rachel was because she asked. I love sharing the good word about EFT, but I also didn’t want to miss this opportunity. Even though Rachel probably understands much less about EFT than most of my regular readers, she knows a lot more about me. She knows about my working style and my personality. She also knows that I understand her and where she is coming from. As a professional practitioner this is a very valuable to me.

She might become a reader of my blog, she might refer a friend to me, she might become a client in the future, or I might never hear from her again. The act of offering her some free resources was intended to help her with no strings attached, but it could turn into something else. If we want to help more people and grow our practice, we must be willing to reach out to people so they know how to find us in the future.

Knowing Good Enough Is Good Enough OR The Myth Of Excellence

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I have been spending a lot of time working with the idea of perfectionism lately. We all want to be the best, but sometimes that can get the better of us. Recently one of my clients, “Jane”, bumped into this issue when building a website for her business and she was unsure how she wanted it to look.

She was building her website with WordPress which allows users to change the look and feel of the entire website quickly and easily with the click of a button by switching from one theme to another. If you do a search online there are thousands of free WordPress themes and in just a few seconds you can update your site by using one of them.

Jane had become overwhelmed with the choices. She wanted the website to be just perfect.

What Is “Just Perfect”?

I find the concept of “just perfect” interesting. What exactly does that mean?

Often we believe that “just perfect” means that it has to be top of the line. It means that it needs to be in the top one percent. It needs to be better than everyone else.

But is that really the case?

I don’t think it is.

Often “just perfect” means that it is doing its job. In the case of building a new website in order to provide information to a possible client base “just perfect” means that the site is easy to navigate, easy to understand, and isn’t distracting in the way it looks.

It is perfectly acceptable to have a logo that only cost $40 vs. $4000.

It is perfectly acceptable to have everything in easy-to-read plain text and not some super-fancy Flash animation.

In this case the website is a delivery system of really good content. Jane’s readers will come to the site because of what they want to learn, not because it is designed beautifully.

This is not to say that beautiful design is bad or that no thought needs to be given to the look and feel of the web site. What is important is to understand what good enough is. Especially when we are starting out, good enough is what we are shooting for.

When Not Perfect = Failing

It is amazing that many of us feel like we have failed when something is just good enough.

We have been taught to strive for better. We have been encouraged to dream. We long for a richer life. Because of this we believe that if it is not perfect then it is bad.

But this is not the case. Many times good enough is good enough.

My father is a perfect example of understanding this. In order to sell a new product at work he needed to pass a test. Over the course of a number of weeks he studied a great deal. To pass the test he needed a 70. When get got home from the test I asked him how he did. He said, “I received a 74…I studied too hard.”

He knew exactly what good enough was. He wasn’t looking for an ego boost of getting the best score in the region. He wasn’t thinking he needed to prove anything to himself (or anyone else). He just needed to pass the test so that he could move on to the next thing.

Being Perfect At Being Good Enough

I was talking about the idea of “good enough is good enough” with another client. She said, “How do I master the idea of ‘knowing good enough is good enough’?”

I paused for a moment.

And then she laughed at herself as she understood how ridiculous her statement was.

The key to transforming our sense of perfectionism is first to be easy with ourselves, and to be easy with the process of not being so hard on ourselves.

When struggling with the need to be perfect when good enough is just that, we can tap on something like this:

It is important that I continue to strive in my life…There are parts of my life that I would like to be richer…There are relationships that I would like that are fuller…I have gifts and talents that I want to share with the world…But this doesn’t mean that everything has to be the very best…It is important that I keep all of my goals in perspective…Just because something can be done better doesn’t mean that it has to be done better…My laundry needs to be folded well enough…My bed needs to be made well enough…My car needs to be parallel parked well enough…It is possible for me to do all these things better…But nothing would be achieved by the extra effort…There are so many things I would like to grow into…That I need only spend as much time as is necessary on each task…I don’t want to do less than is necessary…But it is important that I keep everything in perspective…What is essential is the final goal…Not each of the pieces…I give myself permission to be comfortable with good enough…And know that good enough isn’t settling…But instead by achieving good enough I am giving myself time and resources to do other parts of what I am trying to achieve…I am going to keep the big picture in mind to understand what is good enough in each situation…Good enough is not failing…It is good enough…And that is just perfect.

Click here to Read what others have to say or add your own thoughts and comments. I would really love to hear what you think!

Helping Someone With EFT Right Now!

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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.

It’s Gone . . . For Now – Taking The Final Step

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photo by Susan NYC

I was working with a client this week and we were dealing with the emotional charge around a relationship with a family member. “Jackie” felt like her mother was demeaning her. Jackie’s mother always had nice things to say about all of her other adult children, but for some reason she was just really hard on Jackie.

After about 15 minutes of tapping on lots of issues Jackie was feeling much better. She was no longer worried about her mother’s unrealistic expectations, she was no longer frustrated at the injustice, and she was no longer disappointed in herself for not being who her mother thought she should be.

I had Jackie take a deep breath and a drink of water. I asked her how the issue felt over all. She said, “It feels great. I am not worried about my mother at all. It is all gone.” She then paused for just a half of a heartbeat and then added sheepishly, ” . . . for now.”

If I were to have her tune-in to the situation and use every trick in my practitioner arsenal it would have been very hard for me to get her to feel worried, frustrated, or disappointed to a number higher than a 1 on the SUDs scale. It was a really successful piece of tapping.

But, while we were clearing those emotions, very quietly, a new emotion crept in. The emotion of doubt that the results of this work were going to last in the long term could be heard in her very simple, ” . . . for now.”

We then spent a few minutes cleaning up this last emotion. We tapped on:

  • Knowing the work doesn’t have to be permanent and we can work on it in the future.
  • The fact that she is worried is a sign that a part of her really wants to be free of this and that is a good thing.
  • That a healthy sense of skepticism is a good thing because it helps us to keep our eyes open to new issues as they arise.
  • We won’t know for sure how this worked until she had spent time with her mother and her mother’s catty comments. Once she has spent more time with her mother she will have learned about specific areas still requiring more work.

After spending time with these aspects she felt much better. There was no longer that ” . . . for now” feeling.

It is really important that we clear all the issues, emotions, and aspects around what we are tapping on. It is really easy to miss some of these behind-the-scenes issues because they are not as obvious as the issues we originally started tapping on.

There is a very simple way to make sure you are getting all the extra parts. Once you have done the initial tapping just take deep breath, tune-in to the issue from a big-picture or bird’s-eye perspective and just ask yourself, “What is left?” By doing this in a more general way we are giving our mind the chance to find any of these other extra aspects.

If anything other than “I feel GREAT!” comes to mind, it is a really good idea to spend time tapping on these secondary, previously hidden aspects. You are going to be doing important healing work and you are going to ensure you are not giving the issues you just worked on a foothold for working their way back in.

Click here to add your own thoughts and comments or read what others have to say. I would really love to hear what you think!

Keeping the Long View – How To Understand The Healing Process With Tapping/EFT

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photo by Wally Gobetz

Why it is hard to stay focused on one issue over time with Tapping/EFT?

I hear from clients all the time that they have a hard time staying focused on an issue that takes more than one session to knock out, or as they work on a issue for a long period they feel like they are not making any progress and lose their motivation for tapping. This something that happens to everyone who taps and it happens for a good reason.

One of the characteristics of a strong emotional response is the fact that it holds our attention to that response. We are so deep into the emotions we can’t see anything else. This can become a problem when it affects our ability to understand the healing process we are experiencing. When we don’t see the progress we are making because we are caught in the emotion it is easy for us to lose motivation because it feels like a waste of time. When this happens we often stop tapping.

Healing has ups and downs as we get better and better

One of my favorite analogies of healing is of a spring stretched at an upward direction on an angle. 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 are going to be going up and down with each spiral of the spring, but as we move along it we will move in an upward direction over the long haul.

This is similar to our experience of healing. As we are tapping on our issues we are slowly moving upwards, but there will be daily up and down moments.

The difficulty 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 the down emotion that we lose sight of the progress we’re making. We forget everything we’ve achieved on the way to that point.

It really helps to have someone pointing out that we really are making progress, that we are continuing to move in an overall upward direction (tracing the full length of the spring), even though there are small ups and downs along the way (tracing each spiral).

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 natural and common to be caught up in where we are in this moment.

This is one of the reasons we bring our problems to loved ones and professionals alike. Both help us to see the long view and the progress we are making. Not only is it helpful for us to have someone remind us of the long view when we are down, it can also be helpful to have someone show us the long view when we are up.

What the healing process with tapping looks like over time and how we don’t see it in ourselves

I was touching base with one of my clients, “Debbie,” recently. She was telling me about a phone conversation she had just had with her sister. The context for the conversation is Debbie’s mom has suffered an on-and-off battle with cancer for years. For the last few months she has been in and out of the hospital. Debbie’s sister is currently pregnant with twins.

Debbie’s sister called and started screaming and yelling at Debbie and in such a ferocious way that Debbie couldn’t understand a word she was saying. Debbie calmly explained this to her sister, saying that 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 she had responded so calmly, but it was even more amazing considering her history. I’ve worked with Debbie on and off for 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.

All of those responses would have been reasonable. When we are attacked, especially by a loved one during a trying family time, it’s reasonable for us to fight back. Instead, Debbie was able to see through the situation and identify what was really going on.

She saw 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. She realized that she was happy with the choice she had made that her sister was reacting to and wasn’t going to change her decision.

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 from an attack.

This is not to say that Debbie shouldn’t protect herself, or that responding in anger is always bad. In this situation Debbie identified the situation for what it was, understanding that she wasn’t IN FACT being attacked but was the chosen recipient for some misguided rage.

What’s most amazing about this is that Debbie didn’t even realize she was responding differently from how 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 her own transformation.

We need help sometimes to see the change Tapping/EFT has provided

The reason the change wasn’t obvious to Debbie was because she was not making a new choice but she has changed how she sees herself. Between the work we have done together and the work she has done on her own, Debbie has 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 reason to 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 up over the long-term. When we recognize this sort of transformation it does a few things for us. 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 article 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.