Talking and Tapping Helps Transform Anger

by Brenda Strausz
www.brendastrausz.com

I met my friend Joel (not his real name) in a coffee shop a few weeks ago. Having grown up in an alcoholic family, he has a lot of anger. He started to talk about his sister and his anger towards her. He got more and more enraged as he spoke about her. She is bipolar and has had problems holding jobs in the past. She has a job now that she really likes but she doesn’t make enough to support herself. He was going to be meeting with her the next day and was ranting and raving about how much she is draining their parents, how stupid she is, what a mess she is, etc. He was going to set her straight! He was really stuck in this story about her. I told him I had a technique that could release him from this anger. I briefly described it to him and he agreed to try it. We went into his car so we would have some privacy. I knew there would be some yelling.

Having known Joel since his birth, I knew that this was not going to be easy. He could be a pretty angry guy and had pretty black and white thinking. Luckily, he was open to trying to heal this. He seemed eager to begin the tapping. And so we began.

We started by allowing him to get his anger out, and I encouraged him to tap and talk at the same time, which I often do.

I am so mad at her!
My parents don’t need this aggravation!
She should be responsible for herself.
She is a drain on my parents!
She needs to pick herself up by her bootstraps!
She is a spoiled brat!

I allowed him to rant for awhile (while tapping). He really needed to get a lot out.

After he a few rounds of ranting, I watched as his face began to change. His eyes looked softer, his face muscles more relaxed. I could see he was beginning to open up.

I began to gently guide him to “see it differently”. As we continued to tap and talk, I asked him to focus on why he was reacting so strongly to Lori’s behaviors.

He said he hated people who are helpless and needy.

Yes, I said, you grew up with a very helpless and needy mother. You could never fix her. Now you can’t fix Lori.
I am wondering if it brings up all the helpless and needy feelings in you. You had to be the strong one . . . you were the family clown…

It was so painful for me.
I didn’t have a good mother role model.
I had to take care of her.
I know that I am able to be a much different parent to my kids.
I am so proud of that.
Lori suffered too.
Maybe she didn’t have the wherewithal to pull herself up as you did.
She is bi-polar. It is not easy.
She was a vulnerable little girl.
I remember her at my wedding . . . her eyes was so sad.
She was hurting even then.
A little girl needs a mother.
Her mother was not there.
She was often locked out of the house while her mother drank.
She had no one too teach her the things a little girl needs to know.
It was too much for such a sensitive soul.
She got so little nurturing.
She had a mental illness.
She needed love and support.

Look at Lori now . . . she is working. She is good at what she does.
She keeps looking for more work She is really quite amazing.
She takes her medicine. She has friends.
It is not my job to fix her.
I cannot control her.
I can only control myself and my actions and behaviors.
I wonder if you could open to the possibility that you can love her just as she is.
I choose to see her through the eyes of love and compassion.
If I stop seeing her as “bad” I can see the goodness in her.
It is time to let go of all the shoulds I put on her.
I can even tell her how proud I am of her for living on her own, and how good she is at her job.
I am open to being a love-finder instead of a fault-finder.

I watched as this guy who seemed so hard-hearted start to melt before my eyes. He cried and cried. When we stopped tapping he said, “Oh my God! I had all these expectations of her but I never took into account all the pain she endured. I do not have to fix her. I just need to love her and accept her as she is.” He sighed deeply and then he said, “I feel so free!” (Note to myself: Gary knew what he was doing when he called it Emotional Freedom Techniques.)

Joel called me the next day:

“The visit with Lori went great!” he exclaimed, “This stuff really works . . .thank you Brenda for giving me my sister back.”

I was thrilled that Joel was able to shift his attitude in less than an hour. In traditional therapy, it would have taken him many sessions to understand that we need to get clarity about what is being triggered in us when we have strong reactions to other people. Then we can more easily see that it is not our job to “fix” the other person — it is our job to heal the hurt part of ourselves — then we are more able to see the hurt part of the other person and choose to view them with love, compassion and forgiveness.

I have talked to Joel a couple of times since our work together and he says he continues to use EFT daily. He spoke of how good he feels when he uses it and how much it has improved his life.

I am so very grateful to be an EFT practitioner. What better work is there than this?