I recently had the unexpected and unpleasant experience of being betrayed by someone I thought was a friend. This was not a close friend but someone with whom I was on friendly terms, and with whom I thought there was mutual respect. Sometimes people are just not who you think they are.

I think anyone would feel upset by this and experience some hurt and anger. EFT has helped a lot as I’ve been working through my feelings. A few days ago, I began to have a sharp pain under my right shoulder blade. This is a vulnerable area where I had pulled a muscle exercising some weeks back, but this was a new and much sharper pain. Of course, I immediately thought, “my body is expressing this feeling of being stabbed in the back!” So I did lots of tapping around that idea. But to my surprise, there was no movement in the pain. No results. Zero change. It was at an 8 and stayed stubbornly at an 8. It was the kind of pain that only showed up when I made certain movements or took a deep breath. A half hour of tapping and the stabbing pain had not changed at all.

That night, it was hard to sleep because any wrong position brought up the sharp stabbing pain, and it was so severe that it would jolt me awake. The next day brought no change despite more tapping. It really did feel like a knife in the back, over and over. Whenever I made a wrong move, I would wince with pain. It was only during journaling on the third day that I realized maybe something else was involved as well.

Sometimes It’s Not What You Think

As I journaled, I was trying to trace exactly when the pain had started. It occurred to me that I had not felt it until after a walk in the woods on the day that it started. I’m keeping a friend’s dog for a few weeks and so we walk a lot in the nearby woods. This is a very sweet dog but he can be a little threatened by other dogs, so when we come across others walking their dogs, I simply ask them to keep their dog at a distance. (I’m quite close to my friend’s dog, so I will call him “my dog” in the rest of this article.)

That day in the woods, we had encountered a woman with two huge dogs, and she had them off-leash. I immediately leashed my dog and held him close and asked her politely to please keep her dogs at a distance. She refused and said nastily, “if you don’t get upset, there won’t be a problem.” By this time, her two huge dogs were all over my smaller dog, sniffing and nosing, and my dog was growling threateningly. I finally just pulled on the leash and started running away with my dog, narrowly avoiding a dogfight as they all broke into barking and snapping. I was angry and told the woman, “You asked for that!” She had the nerve to shoot back, “You should keep your dog under control!” Yet she had never leashed her own dogs or made the least effort to control them, despite my respectful request for that.

I remembered that I was seething with anger as we ran in the other direction, and that my back had been wrenched a bit as I tried to maneuver my dog out of there fast. It wasn’t long after that encounter that the stabbing pain had begun.

Just thinking about the incident made me feel really angry, so I decided to take a walk (in some different woods!) so I could “tap and rant.”

Tapping and Ranting

I’ve found this to be a great way to get anger out of my system. As I was walking and continuously tapping, I let that woman have it verbally:

How self-centered! How entitled!

I can’t believe some people!

Who does she think she is that she lets her dogs run roughshod over everyone else?

What a nasty person!

(and many words and expressions not suitable for printing!)

The great thing about tapping and ranting is that you can do this while walking outside and thus have the privacy to express whatever you need to and it does no harm. It doesn’t have to be noisy. I was almost whispering some of the words and, oh, did they feel good to say! Personally, I find that it helps to give my anger full expression in a way that hurts no one, with continuous tapping to release it fully from my system.

When I felt done, I moved my body in the way that had been bringing on the stabbing pain — and the pain was so much lighter! I took the first really deep breath in days. Only a small discomfort! Thank goodness. Finally, the sharp pain in my back had softened and was down to a 3 or so. Success! (Since that day it has continued to improve and is only a slight discomfort now.)

Reflections

I found it fascinating that my body could not seem to release the pain until I tapped for the specific incident that was locked up there. And yet my emotions about that were, I believe, very related to the bigger issue I was dealing with. These are pointers I gleaned from this experience:

- Trace puzzling physical effects to exactly when they began.

In this case, being very literally specific was what made the difference. Even though the dog incident was much less important to me than the betrayal I was dealing with, the emotions around it had really gotten stuck and were causing me physical distress.

- Be aware of synchronicity.

The Jungian concept of “synchronicity” is that of meaningful coincidences. The woman with the dogs “betrayed” my expectation that neighbors would be courteous and helpful. The “how could she do that to me?” feeling was just the way I was feeling about the other person. Somehow, that small incident seemed to mirror the larger one.

- Realize that an on-going stress can make you physically vulnerable.

Without the stress I was already feeling, the incident with the dogs would have been upsetting but probably without such a strong physical impact. I was already feeling “stabbed in the back” — how easy it was for my body to lock up around my anger and outrage at that moment.

By the way, healing the emotions for the dog incident seemed to go a long way towards releasing my anger about the other situation as well. It is almost as if the seemingly unrelated incident allowed me to bring these emotions into sharp focus so that the tapping could clear them. I love the way healing sometimes comes to us in mysterious and unexpected ways.

Today was rather interesting. I am an elementary school counselor, and I have a student who comes to me because he has difficulty controlling his anger. He often yells that he has anger problems. He also hates the tapping. He thinks it is dumb.

So today he came again and was talking about how everybody else makes him mad, that he can’t help it, that his body just takes over, that he is just so mad!

This time, I decided to try things a little differently. I told him that he did not have to tap, but he did have to pay attention. I would just tap on myself, if that would be ok with him. It was. I also asked if I could be him. He agreed.

So I began with,

Even though I’m so mad that I can hardly stand it, I’m still ok. All this anger. I deserve to be angry. I should be, with all of the garbage that I put up with. I probably should be even more angry than I already am.

All the while, he is playing with toys. I remind him that his part is to pay attention. He agrees. So while I am going through this anger protocol, he begins to add to it, little things like. “Yup, that’s right.” “Yah, I should be.” “You know what else they did to me?”

After about 5 minutes of this at the most, he has a shift. He starts telling me how good he is feeling. Then he tells me what a great counselor I am and how he has told his brother, who he says has the same problems, that I really help him. I incorporate into my tapping that “I am a great kid, and I really like this nice feeling.” “Maybe I can choose to have a good rest of the day.”

He left me with a completely different demeanor.

Talk about surrogate tapping!

Monica Broadfoot Johnson
www.eftgetsubetter1.com

I want to share some new wording I’ve been getting good results with. It’s really very simple, but it seems to hit the spot with certain clients, possibly neutralizing issues of fairness, justification and righteous indignation.

As we tap through a negative emotion, anger for example, we’ll use something very basic for the reminder phrase: “This anger…..this anger……this anger….” while tapping through the points. Just when the client’s energy seems to be shifting, I’ll add in the following words:

I have every right to feel this anger
What happened to me/what they did was not okay
I have every right to feel even more anger than I’m feeling
And I have every right to stop feeling this anger and to let it go

This simple phrasing often allows for a nice, quick release accompanied by a sigh. Sometimes I’ll add Gary’s wonderful line “because holding on to this is costing me dearly.” I may even put in the bit about how holding on to anger is like drinking poison and hoping the person you’re angry at gets sick!

Keep up the great work!

Rob Nelson
www.taprootsenergypsychology.com

The client’s name has been changed to insure privacy.

Susan came to see me because she was not pregnant yet. She had been trying for a long time and was very frustrated. She was feeling many negative emotions and feeling “like a freak” for having all these negative emotions. I reassured her that all of these feelings were normal and very common with women with fertility issues. There was a bit of relief when she heard this. We used EFT on the fact that she felt like a freak for feeling these emotions as well as tapping on all the negative emotions.

At the beginning of the session, Susan declared herself a worrier, “stress head” and said that she was a very negative person.

We started tapping on her strongest emotions which were jealousy and envy – these rated 9 or 10 on the SUDS level.

Even though I feel so jealous of my neighbour because she’s got a baby and I haven’t, I’m open to accepting myself and my feelings

Even though I feel envious and I don’t want to think about my neighbour because it’s so unfair that she’s got a baby and I haven’t, I accept how I feel about this

Even though I feel jealous of my neighbour – she’s a lucky cow and it’s so unfair that she’s got a baby and I haven’t, I’m open to accepting myself

Even though I’m not happy with myself and I constantly wish I was someone else, I accept all my feelings about this

After several rounds the jealousy and envious feelings had subsided to 0. To test this I got Susan to visualise her neighbour again. She laughed and said – I could visualise her no problem, whereas in the past I wouldn’t have wanted to think about her. She said she felt less nasty towards her neighbour and could feel a shift had taken place.

Next we addressed her “I shoulds”. I should be grateful for everything I do have. I should have children by now, it’s not fair, my brother and sister have children, why haven’t I? We tapped on:

Even though I should be grateful for everything I do have, I don’t feel grateful, I feel life isn’t fair and I’m open to accepting myself

Even though I should be grateful for everything I do have, I feel what have I done to deserve this and I’m open to accepting myself

Even though it’s not fair, my brother and sister have children, what makes me different, what have I done that means I haven’t got children yet, I accept my feelings about this.

Tapping through the points using:

Why me?
What have I done to deserve this
It’s not fair
Life isn’t fair
My brother and sister have children
Why haven’t I got children
What’s so different about me
I should feel grateful for everything I do have, but I just don’t
I wish I was someone else
Everyone else is much happier than me

The feeling “what have I done” dropped from a 10 to a 0 after a few rounds. There was also a cognitive shift about “everyone is much happier than me”. This had transformed to “I don’t really know that other people are happy – it could just be a front! I don’t know what goes on in other people’s lives.”

We also tapped on the physical issue of the cysts on her ovaries, using:

Even though I have these cysts on my ovaries and it’s so unfair, I accept how I feel about them

Even though these cysts on my ovaries are stopping me from getting pregnant, I wish they weren’t there and I accept the message they are trying to give me

Even though I hate having these cysts, I thank them for giving me this message even though I don’t know what that message is yet

Susan wasn’t experiencing any physical problems from having these cysts, so we continued to focus on the emotions she felt about having them. For those with pain or discomfort, I’d recommend tapping on that too.

Checking in with Susan towards the end of the session, most of her negative emotions were down to 1 or 0. She was feeling more “normal” about having these feelings, the guilt had really reduced even though we hadn’t specifically tapped on it. Susan felt different now and could no longer relate to some of the statements she had previously stated. We stopped there because at the end of the session, I like to tap on positives statements.

We used:

Maybe I can see the glass as half full
What if the glass was half full
What if I could be more positive
Maybe I can try to see things more positively
What if I could be a more positive person
What if I could believe I will get pregnant
Maybe I will have a baby
What if I could be positive and imagine I am going to be a Mother

Susan felt her head was “less messy” than it was at the beginning when there were so many emotions. She felt a lot calmer and also no longer felt like she was alone in this situation. She had a good cognitive shift as she was able to feel like there were other women in her situation who were worse off than she was – after all there was nothing wrong with her fallopian tubes. Susan was able to laugh at the end of the session and was keen to tap on herself everyday to keep clearing her negative emotions and focus on being more positive.

Louise Woods, UK
www.freeflowingenergy.co.uk

I was working with Helen (not her real name) on the issue of anger and hatred towards ex-husband. She has been divorced over 25 years ago and she wanted to be over this old anger.

While she is not in touch with her ex anymore, her children as well as some of her friends and family members still are. She has found herself quite upset whenever his name was mentioned in her conversations with friends, family or her children, or when people asked her how her ex was doing. She wished to be neutral whenever his name was said aloud by anyone. She thought that the only way she could be free from this annoying situation was if the ex-husband died, because then people would stop asking her about him.

We have worked on releasing the anger towards her ex in previous EFT sessions where we worked on many specific events. But, obviously, here’s a new aspect and there’s more work to do.

So, we tapped:

“Even though I should be over this anger, and yet I am not, I forgive and accept myself right now.”
“Even though I am so angry at ___(name of husband), I want to be neutral when I heard his name.”
“Even though it is impossible to get over this hatred and anger towards him, I accept myself anyway. I did the best I could.”
“Even though I am guilty of wishing him dead, because I don’t think I can feel free until then, I accept myself anyway.”

Then as we tapped the various EFT points, I was just rambling on: “So angry at (ex-husband’s name)”, “Wish he were dead,” “No, I don’t wish he were dead! I don’t want to wish anyone that!”, “This (ex-husband’s name) hatred,” “This unfinished ever-present anger…” Helen suddenly exclaimed, “I feel guilty releasing this anger!”

We were both a little confused with this new information. In a flash of clarity, I saw that the anger and hatred she was feeling towards her ex was not hers. It was as if a part of her was “bullied” into carrying and holding onto this anger and hatred. Bullying was her ex’s habit in their marriage. Maybe the energy of anger and hatred was her ex’s and not hers? I mentioned this intuitive information to her.

Helen decided that she was no longer going to feel guilty letting go of this negativity towards her ex. So, as we tapped all over the EFT points on her, she envisioned letting the energy of anger and hatred flow out and off her. She saw, in her mind’s eye, a big huge round of energy-blob leaving her solar plexus.

After that round, she was amazed at how differently she felt. She felt open, neutral and free!

When I mentioned the ex-husband’s name in many different ways to test how she would react, and asked her to imagine her friends or families mentioning his name. She just burst out laughing!

Christine Metawati
www.mettacenter.com

We were excited to move onto our new property, where we plan to grow the bulk of our own food and restore some areas to native forest, two months ago. Just before we found and bought the property I had an accident that resulted in damage to a disc in my back and to my left shoulder. The accident has meant that in the last two months I have not been able to garden at all on our new property, instead having to ask my partner and our guests (we belong to an organic hosting scheme and have guests from overseas who work and learn with us in the garden) to implement all of my plans for the garden. In addition, the accident has meant I can’t do yoga and a whole bunch of other things I love to do. Yesterday morning this situation resulted in a great example of how EFT can lead us to emotional freedom in our daily lives.

We had some new guests through the organic scheme and I had designed a new kitchen garden, and my partner and our guests were keen to implement it. We started with laying it out and as my partner and I discussed how to do that, I felt my frustration building. My partner made a couple of comments to me which I accused him of being defensive and blaming and I stormed into the house saying that I wasn’t adding any value and he didn’t want my input anyway so they would be better off doing it all without me!

I headed for my bedroom and started tapping:

Even though he gets defensive whenever I suggest another way, and that makes me so angry, I deeply and completely love and accept myself

Even though he doesn’t want me to be involved, he always thinks he knows best…

Even though I’m fed up with him not listening to me…

A couple of rounds of tapping led to the inevitable shift from focusing on it being “all his fault” to what I was actually feeling. Beneath what was presenting was an incredibly strong feeling of frustration:

Even though I’m so frustrated that I couldn’t just take the sticks and string and show them what I wanted to do, instead I had to try to explain everything in the limited container of words which is all I can use these days since I can’t bend, and it’s just sooooo frustrating…

Even though it’s driving me nuts being in the garden and not being able to do anything but stand and watch…

Even though I feel so useless because I can’t do a single thing in the garden…

A few rounds of tapping through the feelings of frustration, and the frustration gave way to sobs and an enormous pool of grief. I cried and cried and tapped on the feelings of grief, not being able to be the physical part of the garden we are creating, not being able to be a part of the team, all the things I can’t do at the moment because of the physical limitations I have while not being able to bend to allow the disc to heal, etc.

Half an hour after my little tantrum, I was back in the garden. Having accepted and truly acknowledged the deep well of grief (aided by my partner and our guests also compassionately witnessing and accepting my deep emotions), I was able to realise that I am a part of the team. I had done the whole design for the garden and was key in coming up with the whole concept and communicating what we want to achieve to our guests. I spent the rest of the day enjoying simply being in the garden with the others as they turned my plans on paper into a reality on the ground. Nothing had changed on the outer – I still couldn’t bend over or do anything to create the garden physically, but I had accepted my role in it and could enjoy the others creating it. That’s emotional freedom!

I am so very thankful for EFT, which allows me to turn towards my emotions, instead of pushing them down without even realising that I’m doing it. Here’s to us all finding our way towards true emotional freedom.

Jo Hainsworth
www.selfheal4me.com

“Margaret” (not her real name) is a transgender person. She is a male to female non-operative transsexual (a transsexual who undergoes hormonal treatments but does not have the surgery). This case also illustrates that EFT sometimes “kicks in” with stunning delay.

Margaret, 65 years old, was sent to me by her nurse practitioner. She suffered from a host of debilitating diseases and intense, chronic anger. She was not really interested in this weird stuff called EFT and probed into my transgender/transsexual attitude before she made an appointment. She said, “You wouldn’t believe what I hear, even from doctors.” (And she is right about that, as it turned out).

In our first session, I taught her how to do EFT, and then asked if she felt any physical pain right now. She said that she had no energy and launched into a somewhat confrontational, very angry tirade about the government. It was a definite 10 on our scale of discomfort, her body got tense, and her face was red and hot. So we tapped:

Even though the government is waging a bio warfare against its citizens.

Even though the government cost me 5 to 6 years of my life…

Even though the government is killing people, it takes out whole families…

A slap in my face … disabling me … the government poisons us … does not care … nobody cares … you can’t defend yourself … you think it’s a blue sky but it’s all poison …

After several rounds of tapping, the intensity was still at a solid 10. “What’s this gonna do”, Margaret said (meaning EFT), “my anger is justified, why should I let go of it?”

I decided not to bang my head against that wall and opened a different door instead. I inquired about the transgender issue. Immediately, intense fear surfaced. She talked about how many transgender people are humiliated, physically attacked, and even killed. “Society does not accept us, we are considered worthless and threatening. Any redneck can kill us at any moment.” I asked who represented this view of society first in her life.

“My mother”, Margaret said (her father had not come home from World War II). The fear and anger was at a 10, and so we tapped many rounds.

My mother did not believe me when I said, “I’m a girl” at the age of three … She did not let me play with the girls in the sandbox and said: “Get over it, this can’t be.” She forced me to behave like a boy..She put my cot on the porch when I was bedwetting and rubbed my face into the soiled sheets … She beat me with a belt almost every day … This belt on the door … this reign of terror, and my sister was always on her side … I was the underdog, they ruled … eat what’s on your plate, do or die … this unfairness and injustice.. I am totally on my own … this fear and intimidation … she would not even consider that I knew what I was feeling … this fear, this rage, this terror … .

Afterwards, it was still at a solid 10, and the session was over. It seemed as if we had made no progress whatsoever. Margaret was not sure if she wanted to come back, and, at that point, I wasn’t sure either if I could help her. However, five minutes after she had left me, she called on her cell and made an appointment for a second session.

Five days later, she came back, a totally changed person. She was relaxed, smiling, and very open.

“I don’t know what happened, but there is no anger”, she said, stunned. “No anger, I cannot believe it!” I asked about the viciousness of the government, but she just shrugged it off. “For the first time, I felt hurt, and not angry when I thought of my mother. This has never, ever happened in my whole life!”

Now I was smiling too, and explained that EFT sometimes works with delay, although I had never experienced it in this dramatic way.

We decided to take on her driver’s license. Since Margaret did not have the sex change surgery, she is, legally, considered a male. The big “M” in her driver’s license is a daily source of anxiety, fear, and terror for her (a 10 on a scale of 0 to 10).

Even though my driver’s license is a real threat, like a Grizzly bear in the woods, waiting to pounce…

Even though I am in serious danger as soon as somebody sees this “M”…

Even though I feel this immediate physical threat when somebody sees this “M” , it’s a matter of life and death…

Even though it is so humiliating when people call me “Sir” as soon as they see the “M”…

After just a few rounds of tapping, I asked Margaret to take the driver’s license into her hands and look at it. She did – and there was silence. “Look at the “M”, I said.”What do you feel?”

Margaret laughed. “I don’t feel anything about it, nothing. It’s just a letter, like a P, or an L…” What a relief!

However, a different aspect came up: Margaret’s concern that she would lose her alertness to real danger if she wasn’t angry anymore. I suggested that she could be even more alert if these angry feelings didn’t cloud her judgment, and reminded her that masters in the martial arts, who are extremely alert at all times, are never angry. Margaret liked that idea, and so we tapped on this concern until it dropped way down.

Recently, Margaret came to see me again. She just had gone to the Emergency Room with symptoms of a heart attack. Fortunately, her heart was o.k. However, the whole hospital experience had been extremely scary for her; the feelings of fear and terror were so intense that I calmed her down by holding her forehead and the back of her head between the palms of my hands, and then I tapped on her.

Margaret reported that the staff in the hospital had been unbelievably insensitive or even downright hostile towards her as a transgendered person. There was only one nurse who was nice and understanding – she had assisted in transgender surgery. Talking about that, Margret’s feelings turned into intense anger.

Even though these highly trained doctors don’t even know that people like me exist, and that ignorance is outrageous…

Even though the nurse from hell taking my blood pressure hurt me intentionally..

Even though they parked me in a hall way and left me there for hours, and all the men passing by gave me hostile looks…

Even though my anger at these “trained professionals” is like a black vampire…

It took many rounds, but slowly Margret relaxed, and we even started to joke about the hospital. However, Margaret is very aware that there is no lasting peace for her and other transgenders in an intolerant world. Thank God she now has EFT to ease the pressure and pain.

A few years ago, I found a creative way to use EFT to help a client who had some “bones to pick” with several people at his workplace but knew it would be unwise to really confront them. It was a work situation in which he (we’ll call him Paul) had been treated unfairly by several colleagues. Due to the dynamics of the workplace, it would have only made things worse to have it out with them, but Paul was still seething with anger and resentment . Here’s what we did.

I had Paul sit in my recliner, which made it easy for me to tap for him. As he thought about his feelings concerning each of the three people who had wronged him, we tapped like this:

Karate Chop point:

Even though I’m still angry at them, I deeply accept myself.
Even though I’m still angry and hurt, too… they really betrayed me… I accept myself with kindness and compassion.
And even though I can’t say this to her face, this is what I would tell “Kelly” if I could….

Then I tapped on all the points (eyebrow, side of eye, etc) as Paul expressed all his hurt and anger:

“How could you do this to me? I thought you were my friend. And I’ve bailed you out in the past. Is this the thanks I get? You’re so intent on getting ahead, you don’t care who you step on. You’d better not expect any favors from me, I’ve had it with you. You’re not my friend. You went behind my back. How unprofessional and how low.” (etc.)

I kept tapping until he couldn’t think of anything else to say to her. He took a bit sigh and said he felt a lot better.

Then we tackled the other two people involved in the same way. We stated in the Set-up:

“Even though I can’t say this to his/her face, if I could tell this person off, this is what I would say…”

And then Paul expressed his anger and hurt and disappointment in every way he could think of. It began to get silly and even funny. Soon he felt extremely calm and free of all the anger. He could breathe deeply for the first time in days.

I often use a little inner imagery to finish up. We finished with a brief visualization in which Paul imagined a courtroom and put them all on trial before a judge and jury. We went right to the outcome and he felt deep satisfaction as they all were found guilty. I asked him what they’d be sentenced to. “A year of community service. That way, they’ll have to think of someone besides themselves.”

UPDATE: Recently, I received this update from Paul: “I just thought that I would share with you that I have been promoted! I would not have been able to keep a positive attitude if it had not been for the sessions we had and all of your help through this difficult time.”

How good to know that, because he tended to his angry feelings with EFT, he was able to maintain a professional attitude despite the difficulties –and eventually it really paid off.

I know a young couple, we’ll call Mike & Sarah, that are open minded, funny, connected and generally happy. Lately, Mike has been experiencing lots of problems with Sarah. He said, “I am a nice guy, I do my job, more than expected, and still, she gets angry, moody and ignores me and my needs. She has so many issues and she should tap with you, but she doesn’t want to. She doesn’t think tapping is what she needs… how do I make her come and tap?”

I smiled and invited him to come without her and do his own tapping. When Sarah is ready she will join too.

Mike came for a session and for the first 10 minutes he spoke about her problems, her stress, her attitude and her rage. He gave me so much valuable information in those first few minutes. He basically shared all of the problems he has with her. Sarah’s problems were actually “owned” by Mike.

He felt it everywhere that even if Sarah were to show him love, he wouldn’t be able to see it. He was looking at what he was focusing on. In his mind, he was a victim of her emotional swings. In his mind, he always gave and never got anything back — just like his memories from childhood.

He was unaware of where that came from, so we started with tapping and NLP combined. I didn’t use the karate chop point at all, since he was already in the “trance.”

We first tapped on “I do so much for her” and when he was deeply convinced that that is the source of the problem, I got him out of trance with “She does so much for me.” He got quiet and nodded his head in a surprise.

We went back to the “I do so much for her” trance. We got him out with “I don’t do anything for her, anything that she really needs.” He nodded again.

When I attempted to get him back to the place of “I do so much for her,” Mike smiled and humbly said, “You know, that’s not true, I do all of that for me, because I love doing the things I do! I just tell her that I am doing it for her.”

Layer by layer, we were cleaning up his firm beliefs. The biggest surprise came when he suddenly remembered that he is actually the angry and the moody one. Then he remembered that once he got so angry that he broke everything that was breakable in the house. When I asked him how come he forgot about it, he said, “Oh, that was long time ago, last year.”

His subconscious mind tricked him in the most elegant way. Mike was projecting his internal chatter, his own beliefs on Sarah. And that was just a beginning of our work: As we tapped, he was releasing and letting go of the deep, strong emotions and finally discovered how it all begun – from the experiences his absent mother. His subconscious mind got the message that if a woman loves you, she would leave you. Because Sarah was not leaving, he was desperately re-creating situations that could potentially lead to the end. Because of intense yelling in his childhood, he felt alive when someone yell at him. Since Sarah was not a yeller, he made powerful projections that were true to him. It was a double edged sword.

A few days later, I called to check in on him. Mike said that they were both so busy and he didn’t have time to think about our session. When I asked if they’d had time to fight, he smiled and said, “No, not yet!” I invited him to make time for some good yelling fun, but he just ignored my invitation. I wonder why…

The moral of the story is… when we point our finger outward we often project our own insecurities on to the people we love. When we have inner conflict the place to start is with ourselves. When we balance our own emotions our situation becomes much more clear. Then we can respond in a loving and supportive way.

Next time when you are convinced that your spouse really needs to tap, remember your power and that you can help your spouse by tapping on yourself!

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?