“Eileen” is just 19 but she has already been through some challenges in her young life. When she first came to see me, a bout with severe depression had left her shaken. She had also experienced a brief psychosis, which had scared her a lot. Eileen had dropped out of school for a semester and had been getting treatment, hoping to become stable enough to continue her life. I saw my role as helping her process what she had been through using EFT, hypnotherapy, and the combination of the two that I call Inner Theater. I was hopeful that these tools, which engage the body-mind and the subconscious, could release some of the painful feelings and negative beliefs about herself.

In the first session, we primarily used EFT and tapped for various feelings — lack of confidence, hopelessness, sadness, feelings of failure, etc. — by going through specific events that she still felt bad about (things that had happened during her bad time). At the end of the session, her mother picked her up and was astounded to see the change in her. I remember her mother’s words: “I left her in tears and, when I come back, she’s smiling!”

After several sessions, we tried engaging her own inner imagery along with the tapping, which is the Inner Theater process. Eileen settled into my recliner and closed her eyes. I guided her to go within and to find an inner place of healing. I then asked her to get in touch with her depression and see what image might form in the healing place.

She said, “I’m lying down… and the depression is a black dome over me. I can’t see through it. No light comes through. There is beautiful nature all around me, but I can’t enjoy it.” With her permission, I gently tapped on her using her words:

“Even though there’s a black dome completely over me… no light comes through… I deeply and completely accept myself… and I want to bring some healing to this.”

I tapped the points:

“this black dome… completely over me… no light comes through… it’s so black… I can’t see the beauty around me…”

We did many rounds of tapping. Each time we tapped, she would report small changes, so we incorporated those in more rounds of EFT. The image and the energy seemed to be changing.

“Even though there’s still a black dome over me, it seems a little gray now, not so dark…”
“Even though I’m still lying under this black dome, I deeply accept myself, and a little light is filtering through…”

Eileen was feeling calmer, feeling better. Finally, after more rounds of tapping, she reported, “The dome just shattered! It broke into pieces. I can feel the sun and see the sky!”

This inner experience felt transformative to her. I asked what was happening. “I’m getting up now. I feel free. I can walk around. Oh look! The pieces from the black dome are becoming stepping stones!”

This was very moving for us both. Eileen reported that the shattered pieces were aligning themselves to form a series of stepping stones, creating a path. She said, “I know now that everything I’ve been through has taught me something. I think that I can use what I’ve learned to help others. And I want to believe that if I go through the bad times again, that’s just another stepping stone… I’ll learn even more and then get better and use that too.”

Eileen did have further ups and downs in her path of recovery, but the stepping stone imagery really sustained her. It gave her a great deal of hope to believe that her journey had meaning and could be used to help others. She has thought about a career in the healing arts or perhaps writing a book. She is a very creative, sensitive, and gifted person and I believe she will find her path.

One’s own inner imagery is often very meaningful and becomes a part of one’s inner world, like a personal healing vocabulary, or an inner refuge and source of inspiration. The Inner Theater approach, a simple process of using the EFT tapping with the imagination, can open us to finding meaningful personal images and transformative inner experiences.

Editor’s Note: We discovered this article on TomsTapping, a group on Facebook. It is republished here with permission of the author.

Some of the most commonly reported symptoms of depression include lack of energy, feeling low, unable to muster energy to get on with the business of life and sometimes a sense that there is no sparkle or light to life.

We are beings of light, in the sense that we are, at our core, vibrating energy. When we, or our client, is experiencing depression there is a feeling that this light has been shut off, that we are living in a dull, slow, muggy darkness.

As practitioners we use the classic EFT protocols to look for the cause of the depression in beliefs, past conditioning, traumatic residue in the energy system, energetic toxins and so on.

We can also encourage our clients to raise their own inner light level, energy level and therefore change their feeling state through tapping by using an exercise such as the one outlined below. It’s a simple meditation that can be very useful for you or your client during the difficult low trough that very often accompanies a depressive episode.

Enjoy and feel free to copy and paste!

Awareness Of Your Breath

First of all take a seat on a comfortable chair. Find your feet on the floor and close your eyes. Gently put your awareness on your breath following the breath as you inhale and exhale. Do this for a few minutes.

After a few minutes allow the awareness of the breath to slowly expand becoming aware of your physical body. How you are feeling in this body at this moment? Make note of any areas of tightness, pain, fatigue, lethargy and gently scan the body from head to toe with this awareness as you continue breathing. Allow yourself to become aware of external sounds, smells, letting the attention expand naturally.

After a few minutes allow the awareness to go deeper into the muscles, tissues, organs and blood stream. You may see feel or know that your awareness is going deeper. Keep anchored in the breath and let your awareness sweep deeper and deeper into your body. Do this for a few minutes, relaxing into the exercise and giving up any sense of wanting to accomplish anything during the exercise.

Into The Cells

Now let your attention drop into the cells of your body. You may see an image of these cells, your light cells, your body of light. If you don’t see an image or feel anything, just allow yourself to know that there are billions of cells all with your unique DNA, blinking in and out of existence every second, all for your benefit, working on your behalf, all without question, this web of interconnected cells, this matrix of light energy.

Tapping and Focusing

Focus on the image of one cell, one in a billion. Make the image large and resonant, this building block of your life. Now gently begin tapping on yourself, Karate Chop (KC) first then following on with the other points.

Infuse this one cell with as much light, warmth, energy and love as feels right for you now. Take your time, tapping each of the points, turning on the Inner Sun, in this one cell, your inner light.

When you feel ready, let yourself imagine the infused light of love and harmony moving to your other cells. Use an image, feel it, or just know it. Let this image gently expand through your whole body, this whole body of pulsing light. Keep tapping as you keep with the image, allowing it to get as bright as feels right for you here in this moment. Allow yourself to feel that warmth, that love, that effortless light.

Stay with the breath and the image for a few more moments. As you come back to yourself in the present moment let yourself thank the light within. Take a few deep breaths and open your eyes.

Do this exercise once daily, preferably in the morning, as this helps you to attune your energy field to the light of day.

We encourage you to learn more about Thomas on his website: www.eftforyou.ie.

Reprinted from the Emofree Newsletter, April 2009

“Bonnie” came to me with a complex trauma history. In our intake call, she reported having experienced almost every type of therapy available over her lifetime. She indicated that despite the many tools in her healing toolbox, she had recently become aware of a severe physical abuse memory. She knew it was negatively affecting her (giving her symptoms of heightened anxiety and fear, for example), but she did not know what to do with it.

From the beginning, Bonnie was very clear that she was fearful of re-traumatizing herself (this had happened before), although she did surprise me by outlining this trauma on her intake form. Even so, I wanted to honor her wishes by “sneaking up” however we could. After some gentle questioning, which led to some tapping and establishing a rapport together, it was clear that she was experiencing many intense aspects (body shame, feeling unsafe, anger, sadness) which all required slow, systematic attention with EFT.

While we were having good results removing the charge from Bonnie’s many intense feelings (and there were many of these, including newly emerging ones like feeling vulnerable, ungrounded, blowing any direction in the wind, angry, “I lost my childhood” etc.), I intuitively felt that we were ‘dancing’ around something deeper. At this point, I felt that a gentle visual approach may help cut through the Gordian knot or tangle of intense feelings she was presenting and help us get to the core.

A Guided Visualization

When the right moment presented itself, I decided to ask Bonnie if she considered herself to be a highly visual person. She said yes, and I then asked if she would like to do a guided visualization to a safe place – her very own sacred space where she could trust that everything that happened would be for the purposes of gently healing her deepest emotional wounds. She liked this idea, so I asked her to close her eyes and with her “mind’s eye” imagine a hidden doorway located somewhere in her office — a doorway that would lead her to her very own personal healing space.

She immediately described a door that existed very clearly for her in the back of her closet. As she described the door in enthusiastic detail, it became clear that she was truly ready to take a visual healing journey. At this point, I asked her to tap very gently through The Sequence (starting at the Eyebrow Point) as she entered the doorway.

Without hesitation she began describing a patio garden “like Mexico, but different” with a portico and high ivy-covered walls.

The scene was appearing to her without any direction from me, other than my checking in with “what’s happening now?” Or ”What are you feeling now?”

A wrought iron table and and two chairs clearly existed for her in the middle of the room and on the table was a candle surrounded by hurricane glass. She noted that the walls were high enough to allow her to feel protected and private, but also open enough to afford her a clear view of the sky and a Volcano in the distance!

Her mind had now created a scenario where she felt absolutely safe.

The Wobbly Angel

After some gentle tapping around her feelings about being in the garden, I asked her how she felt about inviting the most wounded part of her to join us there in some way. She indicated comfort with this idea and was soon describing a “giant black wobbly angel” moving closer to her through the trees. We tapped specifically (using just the Setup/Sequence shortcut) on her feelings about the angel (sadness, loss) and also for the angel’s feelings. She again brought up ‘blowing any direction in the wind’ and began quoting the angel, saying,

“Do you like me? Is it all right to be here? Have I broken a rule?”

She described that the angel’s form was changing as we were tapping. During this exchange, I was asking that she tune in to both her personal feelings and those of the angel, while tapping both globally and specifically and doing full rounds of EFT (minus the 9-Gamut).

I asked her where the angel was now. She said it was sitting across the table from her. I asked her what it looked like now. She described that it was an outline of herself, but like “Casper the Friendly Ghost” without much definition.

I have found that I can introduce something new to the scene sometimes to help move things along. In this case, I felt a version of the Movie Technique might be of assistance, so I suggested that there might be a giant magic telescreen available across the garden for them both to watch something healing.

Bonnie then indicated that she could see the screen, but there was nothing showing. I took a chance and again did what I call “making an offer,” asking her to notice if there was a remote control nearby. She told me there was. I asked which person was closest to it. She now indicated that it was sitting in front of her on the table “on her side of the candle.” Since I could sense intuitively that she was ok doing this, I asked her to turn on the TV. If she had indicated reluctance, we would have tapped on that!

Bonnie now described a scene on the screen slowly coming to life. Long story short, the scene reminded her of a loving uncle who had passed away. She felt intense sadness mixed with gratitude at this scene. She expressed (while doing a continuous, gentle tapping) that she was experiencing a profound feeling that both she and her daughters had been truly loved by this person in her life, and that a tender gratitude was flooding over her. Once we had tapped through and acknowledged all her feelings around this man (very specifically), the screen went dark, and she indicated that there was nothing to see anymore.

Exploring and Responding

I asked her now to turn and look at the “angel” part of her. As she did so, she reported that the “ghost” had morphed into a black and white vision of herself around the age of 5 years old — surrounded by a green aura. The interplay here becomes very important. I asked her to tell me how the little girl was feeling. Again the quotes “Do you like me? Is it all right to be here? Have I broken a rule?” came back, although I could tell from her voice that the feelings behind the words had become less intense. We did several full rounds of tapping just repeating those words, until the emotion subsided and more information bubbled into her awareness. [Note: I’ve found that tapping with these visuals in the narrative seldom requires me to take any kind of Intensity level and that ‘jumping aspects’ seems to slow down. In my experience, the next part of the journey will not be easily apparent if there is too much intensity remaining.] At this point, the black and white girl became a real little girl, in full color. This realization prompted Bonnie to break down in tears of appreciation mixed with a tender sadness for how beautiful this child part of her appeared.

I assume she was continuing to gently tap. The scene was so moving; I had forgotten to remind her to do so!

I’ve noticed in other sessions that as the child part becomes heard (and cleared of negative feelings with EFT), the child can tap for the adult and each can heal the other as if both are agreeing to naturally work towards wholeness and resolution.

Making Peace

Long story short, Bonnie was able to make peace with that “little girl” part of her during the next 15 minutes of taking turns tapping back and forth. As we were winding things down, I asked her if she would feel comfortable leaving behind a gift of some kind in appreciation of her sacred space and all that had happened. She decided to leave behind a small, white handkerchief, which she left deliberately folded on her chair. It was clear to both of us that Bonnie had made peace with a part of herself here in the garden.

A few days later, Bonnie reported that she had listened to the whole session and could not find “much intensity at all” around anything we had covered. Six weeks later, she reports that she remains “a lot better” than before our session:

“Before our session I could not leave the house. I was embarrassed. Now I am no longer stuck on just remembering. I am much more able to be functional. That session helped me put myself back together.”

I was not surprised to hear of her progress – the quality and breadth of emotional content that surfaced in the visual part of our session was pretty phenomenal. Thank you Bonnie for allowing me to assist you and to share this amazing session.

Somebody once observed that 90% of our problems talk back. Because of our histories with people we are easily triggered by their expressions, body language, tone of voice and the ideas we have about what they are thinking. Sometimes these reactions can be a very painful and tangled knot to unravel.

The 3 Perspective Tapping Process gives a step by step method for untying those knots and taking the sting out of difficult interactions and this gives you a chance to change the way you interact with people at a very deep level. It is useful for working out conflicts and misunderstandings between partners and friends and within families and work teams. It is also very useful for therapists, counselors and coaches to understand what is going on in difficult interactions with clients

The process is a blend of EFT and NLP. It is unusual in that it involves moving around to access the different parts of an experience rather than sitting in one place. If you are used to tapping while sitting down this might seem to be an unusual approach. If you try it, I think you will find it is a very powerful way of accessing information you wouldn’t otherwise be able to get at.

The NLP part of this technique is taken from an excellent article Gaining Additional Perspectives In Relationships by respected NLP trainer Steve Andreas. In his process, just gaining the understanding of what was going on was a powerful way of changing your experience and improving the way you interact with others. I have added the specific EFT routines to this process to boost the power of an already powerful technique.

The 3 Perspectives

In any interaction between people there are at least three perspectives, three points of view that you can take:

1st Perspective – Self: This is what is going on from your own perspective. It’s what you are seeing, hearing, feeling and thinking during this encounter with the other person (or people). This is the perspective we usually operate from, it’s our default world view.

2nd Perspective – Other: This is the point of view of the other person (or people). It’s what they are seeing, hearing, feeling and thinking during this encounter with you. From this position we can understand the world from their point of view. If you are very empathic this will be a familiar perspective to you.

3rd Perspective – Observer: This is the point of view of a dispassionate observer, someone who has nothing invested in the outcome but who is interested in both parties and how they interact. From this perspective they can see what is going on with a clarity that is denied to you or the other person. It’s from this perspective that we can see what is going on between other people, the patterns of interactions are blindingly obvious to us (because we are on the outside of the problem), but completely invisible to them (because they are on the inside of a problem).

These perspectives can be very different, and it can be quite difficult to separate these perspectives because the mix of perspectives in our mind can get quite tangled up. We need to use a specific technique to hold the three perspectives separate from one another, so that we can explore them, one at a time and do some tapping on each of them.

In everyday life we use the word ‘viewpoint’ to mean a place on the ground from where we can see things of interest. To separate out these inner perspectives we create three distinct ‘mental viewpoints’ marked out in physical space by marking spots on the floor in the form of a triangle.

Placing each of these perspectives on a position on the floor allows us to move between them sorting out the different thoughts and feelings that go with different points of view. It’s a physical way of separating out what is usually jumbled together.

Tips

If this is the first time you have used this process I recommend that you go through the steps without tapping to get a sense of how these three perspectives feel and get some practice in the mechanics of the process. Refer to the Steve Andreas article for more information.

This process just needs awareness and simple tapping. You don’t need to use any reframing or install positive feelings. In fact, that will probably get in the way of a thorough piece of work. The best mindset for this technique is mindfulness, awareness and the ability to tap on what you notice without wanting it to turn out in any particular way. If you adopt this approach you may be surprised by the insights you gain into yourself and others.

Allow yourself to notice whatever arises no matter how unpleasant or judgmental, we all experience such thoughts and feelings, this is what we are seeking to clear with the tapping.

Some people find it easier than others to visualise, you don’t need to be an expert visualizer to make this process work, you just need a sense of what is going on with the imagined other however you conceive that to be.

Important: You must not use this process to work on your interactions with a person who has been, or still is, associated with traumas and abuse in your life. You need to take care of those memories and their aftermath before using this approach, supported by a suitably trained professional if possible.

Instructions

1. Mark out three positions on the floor. Each position should be about two paces apart, in the form of an equal sided triangle. If you need to you can mark out the positions with index cards or post it notes.

The lower left hand point of the triangle marks the Self (1st Perspective) position, the lower right hand point of the triangle marks out the Other (2nd Perspective position), the point of the triangle marks the Observer (3rd Perspective) position.

2. Think of the person you have difficulties dealing with.

3. Step onto the Self position and imagine the difficult person standing in front of you in the Other position.

4. Notice all the reactions in you and about them that come to mind. Tap on the following aspects:

All the things they do that provoke a judgement or reaction (The first line is the form of the set-up statement followed by a few examples.)

Even though they / he / she … I accept myself and how I feel
Even though he is so annoying I accept myself and how I feel – Reminder phrase – he is so annoying
Even though she is always causing trouble I accept myself and how I feel – Reminder – she is always causing trouble
All the feelings that you experience when faced with this person, all the things you feel about the situation and them.
Even though I feel guilty about hurting her I accept myself and how I feel
Even though I feel angry I accept myself and how I feel
Even though I mess it up every time, I accept myself and how I feel.

Typically, each round of tapping will bring new aspects to light as you peel back all the layers of reaction and response. Be as thorough as you can be. The ideal is to be calm and neutral before moving onto the next step.

5. When the intensity of your reactions have subsided, step from the Self position to the Observer position. Imagine leaving yourself behind (it might even help to give your body a little shake to dispel any residual feelings). Put your self in the frame of mind of a kind observer of the human situation and look back at how those two individuals interact.

Tap on the interactions that you notice until the charge on each observation is reduced:

Even though they … I accept myself and how I feel
Even though they are always arguing I accept myself and how I feel – Reminder phrase – they are always arguing
Even though he is bullying her I accept myself and how I feel – Reminder phrase – he is bullying her
Even though she is being a doormat I accept myself and how I feel – Reminder phrase – she is being a doormat.

Tap on how you react (as the observer) to these interactions:

Even though it makes me sad, I accept myself and how I feel
Even though I feel angry about this, I accept myself and how I feel

6. When the intensity of the interactions and the observer’s feelings about them have calmed, step from the Observer position into the Other position.

When you do this imagine that you are stepping into the other person’s skin, so that you can see what they see, hear what they hear and feel what they feel. From this perspective look back at the Self position and see yourself as they see you. Notice how that you looks, sounds and feels to the person whose space you are occupying. Notice how you feel about that ‘other person’ (the imagined you), and what they do.

Tap on your thoughts and judgements (as the other person) about you ‘standing’ in the Self position:

Even though ‘he’ is being aggressive, I accept myself and how I feel – Reminder phrase: He is being aggressive.
Even though ‘she’ looks pitiful, I accept myself and how I feel. – Reminder phrase: She looks pitiful

Tap on your feelings (as the other person) as you are looking back at yourself:

Even though I am disappointed, I accept myself and how I feel
Even though I feel annoyed, I accept myself and how I feel.
Continue tapping until your feelings (as the other person) have settled down.

7. When the intensity of those feelings have gone down, step from the Other position (shaking off any residual feelings if you need to) back to the Observer position. How does the interaction between those two people appear now? If there are any other issues that need tapping for, take care of them now as in step 5.

8. When you are satisfied with what you are noticing from the Observer position, step back into the Self position. Take a few moments to settle back into yourself and be aware of what it is like to face this person now.

If there is still work to do with your reactions to that person you can repeat the process, either immediately, or from time to time when needed. It is possible to learn from and have more things to tap on if you go through the process a couple of times.
Notice what is different when you are next in the presence of this person.

3 Perspectives Tapping can undo very deep patterns of interaction with other people, not only do your responses change without making any conscious changes but their responses to you may also change without any effort from you.

Andy Hunt is an EFT & NLP Trainer and Practitioner living in the North East of England. He works with people who give themselves a hard time, judge themselves harshly, feel bad about themselves and spend far more time beating themselves up than living the life they would want. Visit him online at www.practicalwellbeing.co.uk.

As a part of growing up we create a number of beliefs or ideas about ourselves. If we are fortunate enough to grow up in a loving and supportive environment we will build a constructive identity; we might think or say to ourselves – I am a good person, I am capable, I am confident, I am worthy, etc.

Many of us however, have managed to learn some unhelpful ideas about ourselves into our own thought processes so that we feel badly about ourselves, limit ourselves and give ourselves a hard time. We might think about ourselves: I am a bad person, I am a failure, I am a disappointment, etc

This extract from a client session demonstrates the Identity Relief process that I use as part of my work to help them free themselves from old identities.

During one of our sessions a client said, in passing, “I am a failure”. I am always on the look out for people’s identity beliefs which often start with “I am … ”

I asked him to say out loud “I am a failure” and give it a score from 0-10 where 0 is false and 10 is as true as it could be.

He told me it scored 8, describing the feeling that went with this belief as dull, and heavy.

Then I asked him: “How old is the ‘I’ in ‘I am a failure?’” This question helps someone identify the time in their life when this identity belief was formed.

He told me that 4 years old popped into his head.

I asked him to imagine that he could see that ’4 year old’ younger self out in front of him and tell me what he noticed about him.

Putting the younger self on “the outside” makes it easier to identify the feelings and thoughts that are going on in that very young self and allows us to tap for them.

His first impression was that ‘this younger self’ was upset and crying. So we used that as the first set-up statement and round of tapping.

Even though he is upset and crying, I accept him and how he feels

Reminder phrase: “he is upset and crying”

As that emotional charge settled he heard his mother’s voice saying “he has disgraced himself” which had quite a lot of emotion attached to it.

Even though ‘he has disgraced himself’, I accept him and how he feels.

Reminder phrase: “he has disgraced himself”

Then he heard his mother saying “he let me down”

Even though ‘he let me down’, I accept myself and how I feel.

Reminder phrase: “He let me down.”

I only use the words that the client gives me to tap on, no clever reframing is required – just respect for the client’s experience and tapping to take care of the emotion.

After a few rounds of tapping I asked about what was going on in that younger self.

He replied that his younger self felt ‘bad’, as in: he is a bad boy.

Even though he feels bad, I accept him and how he feels.

Reminder phrase: “He feels bad.”

After a few rounds of tapping I asked him what was going on now. He told me that his younger self was completely calm.

Now we added the compassionate acceptance to that younger self which was missing when he had those original experiences. Distress not a good state to be in if you want to make accurate assessments of what’s going on. Compassionate acceptance at the time would have soothed that stress and allowed a more balanced view of his experience.

I invited my client to remember a time when he felt compassionate acceptance for another person or animal. When he had the memory I invited him to settle into it and tune into the feeling of compassionate acceptance that went with it.

When he had that feeling I invited him to let the feeling flow down his arm into an upturned palm. He opened his right hand palm up.

I asked him to imagine that feeling of compassionate acceptance pooling in the palm of his hand.

I said “If that compassionate acceptance had a colour what would it be?”

“Blue”

I said “Great! Imagine that pool of blue compassionate acceptance grows into and forms a bubble of compassionate acceptance.”

I gave him a few moments to do that.

“When that bubble of blue compassionate acceptance is just the right size allow it to float off your hand and over to that younger you so that it completely covers and surrounds him in blue compassionate acceptance.”

I gave him a few moments to do that.

“Imagine that the blue compassionate acceptance is completely surrounding and bathing that younger you, washing through him and doing what compassionate acceptance does … and even if you don’t know what it is doing you will know when it is done … “

After a little while, where he was obviously processing, he told me that his younger self was laughing, smiling and giggling within this blue bubble. A very different picture from when we started.

I invited my client to bring this younger self back into himself. He imagined that younger self moving back into himself and settling in. Since we externalised that younger self for the tapping and compassion bubble we needed to bring that younger self back in.

When he had done that, I said:

“Invite that younger you to grow up taking advantage of all the wisdom and experience he has had since he was 4 years old. Since the repertoire of a 4 year old for handling the vicissitudes of life is somewhat limited, we need to give the younger self the opportunity to take advantage of everything they had learned since the age of 4.”

He took a few moments to do that.

I then asked him to say out loud “I am a failure” – it had no charge for him at all, it just sounded like a collection of words.

Andy Hunt is an EFT & NLP Trainer and Practitioner living in the North East of England. He works with people who give themselves a hard time, judge themselves harshly, feel bad about themselves and spend far more time beating themselves up than living the life they would want. Visit him online at www.practicalwellbeing.co.uk.

Up until now, energy psychology in business has focused on just “fixing” the problem. So we clear the fears and worries that get in way of success. While this is important, it misses out the part about feeling aligned with our vision for business growth.

“Vanessa” came to me with the problem that she couldn’t focus on the vision of growing her communications business. Diligent and pro-active by nature, she wasn’t getting results to match the effort she was putting in. As a spiritually focused businesswoman, she sensed something else was happening. She couldn’t see what it was.

She used a telling image to describe how she felt running her business. In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was forced to endlessly push a boulder up the summit of a hill, only for it to roll back down again. Curiously enough, she felt the pain of pushing her business along in her shoulders. Vanessa had tapped and tapped by herself on these ideas, but wasn’t seeing any improvements. We decided to use Business Energetics to draw on her inner wisdom and find out what was happening.

Over the last 2 years, Paul Zelizer and I have co-created a tool to help people move forward with their careers and businesses with ease and sustained momentum. Business Energetics draws on an adaptation of psychotherapy tool Family Constellations and joins it with EFT. It is easy to use by yourself or in a session with another.

We draw a simple map of relationships involving you and others. By looking at the map we can identify where a relationship is tangled. It is then easy to use ordinary EFT to evolve this situation. Doing well in business rests so much on having healthy relationships. In Business Energetics we also let your inner wisdom speak up to guide you in your business or career. This wisdom comes from the client, rather than the therapist.

Vanessa and I talked a little about significant events in her parents’ work lives. Within days of her birth, her father experienced an astounding level of success in business. Much as he wanted to, he couldn’t be present at her birth because he was opening his first shop in a distant city. Within weeks of her birth came his first car ever. A couple of years later he bought a beautiful home for his family. Those first few years of business were some of his best. He would speak proudly about how Vanessa had brought with her new wealth. She was his lucky charm until the day he died.

We looked at Vanessa’s relationship with her dad in a constellation. In a constellation we can better understand the dynamics to important relationships with relevant people, dead or alive. In the constellation it became clear to her that she was standing behind her dad holding him up. All her strength was going to him. Usually in a constellation, it’s a parent’s role to support their child and they do this out of love. In Vanessa’s case the natural order was reversed. We tapped to smooth out this tangled up relationship.

Even though I thought I had to support him, and I did this out of love for my dad, I soothe and comfort myself
Even though I thought I was responsible for him, and forgot I was the child, I love and accept myself
Even though I’ve not had much energy for growing my business, I now choose to let my passion for my work show up in my life.

Vanessa left feeling like she’d shifted a major issue. What happened after was startling. A week after her session she was invited by a major media company to work with their team as a consultant to develop a product launch. She’d been seeking work with this company for a couple of years. Her previous attempts had come to nothing. Moreover, she was working more smartly, choosing projects that felt like the right match for her vision for her business.

Vanessa accessed the power of her inner wisdom using Business Energetics. She’d tried tapping on the pain in her shoulders and the story from Greek mythology, but hadn’t seen any results. When we found the deeper insight about her relationship with her dad she connected with an entanglement she’d not noticed before. Then it made sense to her why she was behaving as she was. After that one session she experienced a deeper level of ease and momentum in her business that let her move forward from merely surviving.

This is an example of how Business Energetics can help us find the deeper truths behind a problem, and empower us to find a healing solution that delivers an exciting result.

Kieron Devlin’s recent article, Using EFT in Dreams, got me thinking: When I remember to acknowledge and remember my dreams, they can become powerful personal resources for me. This morning I found myself tapping intentionally around some dream scenes, which at first didn’t seem like a big deal. However, as I trusted, tapped and worked through each of them, I began to get some surprising perspective shifts and relief around stuff that had been bothering me…

Remembering Dream Images and Feelings

This morning I awoke with a memory of some very specific dream images and feelings. At first, they were unclear, only a few moments strewn together. Because the people in the scenes were familiar enough, it would have been easy to dismiss the memories casually as, “just a dream,” which I had often done. Today, however, I felt a little differently, because I was keenly aware that there was soreness in my jaw – a clear sign from my body that something was bothering me. Could the dream be worth exploring? Since I was already awake, I decided to sit on the edge of the bed and try to recall (and tap on) whatever feelings and scenes I could remember, even if they didn’t seem immediately important. As I began to follow and describe to myself the seemingly disparate images and feelings, several parts became more vivid (as they often do when I give small pieces of a dream my immediate attention). Soon I began to realize that the scenes and emotions involved were very significant for me.

The image I kept coming back to from the dream was the image of a former roommate, whom I’ll call Rachel. In the dream, Rachel and I were in a garage that I remembered from earlier in my life, and she was attempting to convince me to clean it out, which she had already started to do. As I looked around, I could see the garage becoming highly organized, almost like an art exhibit. I also noticed that being in there with her was very uncomfortable for me – and that I was quite irritated with her.

Give the Scene a Name

It is no secret to me that my memory of Rachel in real life is still highly charged. While it has been several years since we lived together, I still find it difficult to think about her, and picturing her still brings up intense negative thoughts and feelings. In this dream, I felt angry that she had somehow been “right” and also that she was being so presumptuous as to tell me what to do with the garage.

Thinking of Rachel in this way also reminded me of another part of my dream – a part where I was angry at my brother for trying to “force the issue” on something. So I made note of this to tap on later.

The more I returned my focus to the Rachel dream scene, the more details began to surface. Instead of just tapping all over what was happening in my mind, I decided to give the scene with her a title, which is an empowering and highly effective way to work with EFT. From my barely half-awake state, I decided to title the whole Rachel episode: Rachel Was Right. (Note: Like a version of the Movie Technique or Tell the Story, it is beneficial to give a painful memory or group of feelings a name. As part of this process, it also helps to rate the Intensity Level so we can test our progress later.) The intensity of this “title” was about an 8 out of 10, and I was aware that I had chosen a fairly provocative title for myself – but I decided to go with it. I also could recall a clear visual of Rachel moving boxes around and generally acting in what I considered to be her typically grandiose fashion – so I decided to use that too.

So, while picturing whatever images showed up, I began speaking and tapping on the Karate Chop point:

Even though Rachel was right, and that makes me mad, I am ok anyway.
Even though Rachel was right, and it burns me up, and I see her moving things around, I accept how I feel anyway.
Even though Rachel was right, and I hate that I’m dreaming about her, and I hate that she’s somehow right, I can see she’s helping me to make progress on this garage, I am open to acknowledging my conflicting emotions about her.

Tapping through the Sequence:

Top of the Head: Rachel was right

New Realizations Emerge

As I began tapping on each point in the sequence, some new realizations began to dawn on me, so I intuitively began to say whatever came to mind on each of the points. I knew I was on the right track because (1) I began feeling better and (2) my eyes and nose began watering like crazy:

Eyebrow: I was right too, she was taking over and that felt wrong to me
Side of the Eye: Rachel was right, and I was right too
Under the Eye: Our communication was poor, I never told her how much I appreciated her cleaning the basement (Note: this never happened in real life, but there were both conscious and unconscious parallels I was peripherally aware of)
Under Nose: I can’t stand that she was right! I hated that she was right…
Chin: Her grandiose behavior drives me nuts, but what she is doing is making a difference and making the garage a more special place

Weaving in Other Related Parts of the Dream

Collar Bone: I see the other neighbors across the street are appreciating our work. One guy across the street wants us to put his tree in our garage, and this feels good (Note: This is the dream folks, I’m just calling it as I remember it!)
Under Arm: Rachel’s work took us to a new level, I guess
Top of the Hand: It feels good to be have this level of communication with the neighbors, I’m in their garage now, looking at a big tree.

Going Back to the Original Title and Intensity

Inside Wrist: Rachel was right, seeing her face
Top of Wrist: Rachel was right, picturing her moving things around
Inside Wrist: Rachel was right, powerless, angry with myself, irritated at her
Top of Hand: Rachel was right and I am angry because I am powerless
Top of Head: Rachel was right, and I’m angry I never spoke up
Eyebrow: I never spoke up because I didn’t want to hurt her, I was protecting her
Side of the Eye: I never spoke up, because I was protecting myself from her defensiveness
Under Eye: Rachel was right, and so was I
Under Nose: Rachel was just being Rachel
Chin: This Rachel scene (Note: I notice the provocative title is naturally changing to a more neutral one)
Collar Bone: This Rachel scene
Top of Hand: This Rachel scene, and what it means to me

At this point in the tapping process, I notice there is not much charge left on the Rachel part of the dream. In fact, when I think of my relationship with Rachel in real life, my thoughts of her do not hold much intensity at all. While I don’t particularly want to meet her for tea, the anger and shame has dissipated greatly – which is a huge relief. Also, I notice that my jaw is no longer sore, which feels awesome! Next I move on to describing the dream images I have involving anger towards my brother, which I handle in similar way, tapping for “this brother anger,” while acknowledging the visual impressions I’m getting.

Other Dream Scenes

At this point I am aware of another component to the dream – an element of danger and a feeling of “unsafe.” I know I feel this, because when I picture one of the dream scenes involving one of the neighbors across the street, I get a distinctly familiar feeling in my stomach – one having to do with a significant traumatic group of events in my life. During other EFT explorations of these events in the past, I had given them the descriptive and somewhat innocuous name, “The Puppet Show.” I know what this title means to me, so I decide to give this lingering part of my dream the name: “This Remaining Puppet Show.”

I gently tap my Karate Chop point as I describe the scene and the title:

Even though I have this remaining Puppet Show, and all it means to me, I am slowly working through this…
Even though I see that man across the street, he’s involved in some dangerous stuff, some Puppet Show stuff, I accept myself anyway.
Even though I feel this Puppet Show in my body, in my stomach, and it obviously still bothers me, I love and accept all of me and all the parts of me…

Through the Sequence:

Top of the Head: This Remaining Puppet Show
Eyebrow Point: Seeing that man work on his car
Side of Eye: Seeing that man from across the street and remembering danger
Under Eye: This Remaining Puppet Show and it’s effect on my body and my life
Under Nose: All this fear in my stomach that still belongs to this Puppet Show – this tired old Puppet Show!
Chin: This lingering Puppet Show and all it has meant…
Collar Bone Point: This lingering Puppet Show
Under Arm: This lingering Puppet Show and the sense of danger
Top of Hand: This remaining Puppet Show and the sense of danger and fear
Inside Wrist Point: This remaining Puppet Show and the havoc it has wreaked on my body
Top of Wrist: This old, tired Puppet Show, I’m ready to move on from this!

Replaying the Dream

Just to test, I began to replay each part of the dream I could remember – everything from Rachel’s activities to the conversation with my brother to the man who brought up the feeling of “unsafe.” Nothing carried a charge anymore. My jaw, which is always my barometer for stress, felt relaxed and nothing, not even “The Puppet Show,” could dampen the lightness I was feeling.

Tonight, as I write this and recall this morning’s session – it feels empowering to know that as my body speaks, I might be able to learn to translate its signals more effectively. This process has also made me resolve to pay more mindful attention to the thoughts and feelings present in my dreams from now on.

This article is about an innovative technique — using EFT in dreams. It explains the theoretical background in why EFT combined with Lucid Dreaming can have a major impact on people’s lives, and how to do it. Anxiety can be defused if we become conscious in our dreams. Part 2 will go into the background with more techniques.

Combining EFT with Lucid Dreaming: Part 1

EFT is a feast – a gift to all who use it. It can instantly dispel the toxic waste that accumulates around negative feelings. But just consider how doubly effective it might be when you do it while you are dreaming. Many of us have the ultimate goal of finally ridding ourselves of anxieties, and with EFT this is attainable. Yet, Adults spend 25% of their lives in sleep — for babies it’s 50% — time which might be wasted for self-development, if sleep is only used to recharge batteries. We are often plagued by unknown anxieties in dreams. If we can learn to do EFT while the brain is in lower frequency brain wave patterns, it could impact directly on these anxieties, stimulating, clearing and realigning the meridian energy flow of the sleeping body.

In some way dreams help regulate and control how effective we are in life. Yet many people experience what Freud called “free floating anxiety.” This often manifests in dreams with tense experiences that bleed into our waking lives, causing untold confusion, weakness, procrastination and fear. The anxious dream can be a bumpy ride filled with horrors. You wake up feeling jittery, and that carries into the day, triggering habitually ineffective reactions and responses. Now techniques developed by lucid dream experts can help you develop greater flexibility in your approach to waking life. It involves becoming conscious in your dreams. While this may not seem easy to control, people report having spontaneous lucid dreams and feeling elated at the memory. Surely, being lucid in any state of consciousness is desirable?

EFT and Lucid Dreaming

One day I started mental tapping while in this half-awake state, while immersed in my worries. It felt different. Tapping at this deep level of mind worked away at the underlying physiological roots. The brain makes no distinction between imagination and the real thing as many studies have shown. My worries were stripped away in layers. So I wondered — what if conscious dreamers could tap on issues during their dreams? This innovative combination of techniques has rarely been tried outside psychotherapeutic practices. Be among the first to consciously tap while encountering a dream figure that seems threatening. It might just change your life.

Dreams occur in REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep which has a 90-minute cycle throughout the night. Admittedly, this might be tricky to pull off, like trying to see the end of your nose while tight-rope walking. As soon as you realise you are doing it, you are likely to wake up. Some theories suggest that lucidity is itself adrenaline-fueled, the energy we need to become awake and get up.

Lucid dreaming expert, Stephen LaBerge, recommends that you should just slip back into the dreamscape. It’s easy enough to do EFT with eyes closed, mentally, developing strong inner visualisation of the meridian points. Imagine tapping them. This works rapidly to counter negative thoughts that sprout habitually from patterns woven into the fabric of the subconscious. Perhaps results won’t manifest immediately, as to do it while asleep may take some time to achieve. While this practice requires strong intention, plenty of patience, good timing, awareness and skill, everyone should be able to do. You might just find that you have a knack for it.

Using EFT in Dreams

Bad dreams are good opportunities to practice EFT to re-balance and re-harmonize internally. Carlos Castaneda even suggests that these dreams stem from ‘inorganic entities’ (The Art of Dreams, 1994).

Imagine the scenario: you’re about to open a door; there is darkness, shadows; you feel threatened, in grave danger. What’s behind the door? Maybe nothing, but that does not help you when you are there. It is survival mechanics. We are prone to such experiences in dreams as the dream body is separated from sensations so has free reign to create phantoms and bogey men. The subconscious mind is at large and completely unedited. This gnawing feeling of disquiet may appear as someone chasing you, or as standing on a cliff, or a high building. You are teetering on the edge, falling or running away from a demon tiger that hasn’t had lunch yet. It is not enough to know this might be a projection of your own fears. We need to take action there and then. The fear works so fast, we have such little control that it may already have triggered the molecules of emotion that create our reality, and pumped adrenaline into your system, leaving you exhausted and full of inexplicable tensions when you wake up. This cycle could continue for years without our realising.

EFT Tapping While Dreaming

Here’s what you can do: When you catch yourself dozing, and running through nightmare scenarios, with free floating anxiety, mentally do EFT on them. Fully imagine yourself tapping eyebrows, side of the eyes, under the nose, chin and collar bone and mentally repeat the phrases. The power of intention is undisputed. This is not just mental tapping which you can do any time of the day, but goes deeper into slower delta and theta brain wave patterns. Observe any dream phantoms melt away.

1) Karate Point/Sore Point: Even though I’m feeling anxious I love and accept myself completely.
Eyebrow: This anxiety
Side of Eye: This fear,
Under the Nose: this trembling, …… this horrible feeling…. this weakness, this enemy within.. etc.

2) Karate Point/Sore Point: Even though I’m being chased by a monster round the house, I love and accept myself completely. This beastly face. .. this demon.. this shadow self.. this mirror of myself.. this un-integrated part… this thing that chases me

3) Karate Point/Sore Point: Even though I’m paralysed with fear, I love and accept myself completely and profoundly.
Meridian points: This fear.. this petrified state.. this impasse .. this stalemate…. this blockage.. this sign I need to change… this inflexibility.. feeling paralysed etc

Breathe and even drink an imaginary glass of water to aid the flow of energy. The effect of repeating these words in this way is like a mantra. It helps increase greater awareness in dreams, and sharpens the experience of everyday life. A bonus is that it provides the groundwork for expanding the mind’s capacity to be flexible and supple, just as in yoga practice. You need never become fixated on anything if it is “just a dream” dredged up by the layer of your own attitudes, assumptions and beliefs.

Kieron Devlin is a hypnotherapist, NLP and EFT practitioner and writer, working in Islington, London. He aids clients in developing their creativity and offers regular workshops in Healing Through Writing. He can be reached at www.kierondevlin.com

I have a client, I will call her Megan, who had a very hard childhood with severe abuse and neglect. We have had many, many sessions focusing on different issues.

One of her main problems has been Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. Especially “smelly” people, means people using ordinary soap, shower gel, deodorant, shampoo, or perfume plunged her into severe physical discomfort and instant panic attacks. When I started working with her, she was practically housebound and feeling hopeless.

After our work together, she now drives everywhere, goes to her daughter’s extremely “smelly” school, talks to her son’s baseball coach right after he took a shower, visits her “smelly” siblings’ homes – and feels o.k. She still doesn’t like the scents, but she does not go into a panic attack and can handle it.

How Did That Happen?

Well, it happened in one session, actually within minutes in that session. (I will get to the “however” later).

She had told me (and other practitioners), that when the smell hits her, it is like a switch in her brain that is being turned on. She feels the panic attack coming on, and then she is physically sick for hours or even days. We had tapped on, “Even though I have this switch in my brain,” repeatedly, but it didn’t have much effect.

One day, it came to me to ask her:

“How exactly does this switch look like?”

Megan said: “Like an ordinary light switch, light beige. It is flipped up when it is on.”

“Well,” I said. “Why don’t we just fixate on it in the ‘off’ position? How can we do that?”

She said: “Duct tape. I am taping it down with multiple layers of duct tape right now. There is no way it can go to the on position.”

From that day on, no panic attacks, only mild to moderate discomfort with those smells. I have checked in repeatedly, and the switch stays securely taped down.

Now, this begs the question: If I had come up earlier with that simple question (duh!), could we have achieved this profound release much earlier?

Actually, I don’t think so.

These were the main people in her childhood who were abusive – and “smelly” (In case you wonder: Her mother was not abusive but weak, sick, and “out of it”).

1. Her father, using lots of aftershave, often flew into a rage and beat his children severely. One of the painful memories was an incident, when Megan witnessed her father beating her 4 year old sister with a belt after she had eaten his jelly.

2. Her much older brother using Irish Spring soap who beat and tortured her for years.

3. Her “smelly” aunt who disliked her and let her know it in many ways. We tapped on one memory when the aunt took her daughter and Megan’s sister to the circus while Megan was not invited to go with them.

4. Cruel, “smelly” foster parents (she lived with several of those) who let her freeze in the cold outside for hours and punished her for things she did not do.

5. Rich “smelly” girls in junior high school who tortured her in the restroom because she was poor and didn’t belong.

We had tapped on these – and more – traumatic memories for many sessions. I do believe that all that work needed to be done before the switch was ready to be taped down.

What do you think?

Carna Zacharias-Miller assists her clients from her private practice in Tallahassee, Florida.

I had been struggling with weight issues and used and worked through umpteen programmes, Energy Psychology ones as well, but still there were theses extra 5 – 7 pounds that seemed to be jumping back onto my body as soon as they were gone – or simply did not want to leave.

With all the EFT et al I had no issues left on body size, protection etc., but still struggled with eating for a couple of specific emotional reasons.

From the newsletter of Gwyneth Moss I learned about the Anxiety Gremlin (www.emotional-health.co.uk/articles.htm) – it was just what I needed.

First step

I turned the Anxiety Gremlin into an Overeating Gremlin and personalised it, using:

My anxiety is like a ____________. She is (was) a sleek, slinky and manipulating temptress, looking quite like one of those beautiful members of Cirque du Soleil. She used to whisper into my ears as soon as one of mainly three different unpleasant feelings seemed to creep up.

And so, using Gwyneth‘s anxiety protocol, I tapped the Karate Chop three times:

“Even though my overeating is a temptress I accept myself anyway…”

Then I went around the tapping points and described the personification of temptress in specific detail as I went.

Eye brow: sleek
Outer eye: slinky
Under eye: smooth soft voice
Under nose: undulating
Chin point: staring hypnotising eyes
Collar bone: multicoloured silky
Under arm: sensual
Liver point: hypnotising voice
Top of head: so sensual

I pictured the gremlin again and notice what had changed; She now looked a lot less colourful and almost stiff. And I tapped another round with the new description, using, “still a little ________” as I pictured her again, she actually looked quite bland and stiff, so I moved to the second step.

Second step

I described to myself the body response to the Overeating Gremlin’s whispers:

My brain/mind gets stiff, my only focus is on food, I feel tenseness in my neck and in the lower jaw; I feel defiant, my eyes become tense, staring, my breath becomes tense and short, there is a knot in the stomach.

Third Step

The Gremlin gets that response in me by whispering to me:

“oh, come on, you deserve it, who cares how you look like, it is not so bad anyway, it’s the insides that are important, do not short change yourself, only this last time, oh, come on, just one more little bit – and another one… and anyway you can drink some digestive tea later.”

I realise that she is actually an ogre in the disguise of a temptress. Now I put the steps together and tapped the karate point three times with:

“Even though the Overeating Gremlin makes my mind/brain focus only on food, my neck, jaw and eyes tense, the knot in my stomach keeps me from breathing deeply, I love and accept myself anyway…”

Eye brow: the overeating gremlin makes me focus only on food
Outer eye: by telling me it‘s not so important how I look
Under eye: that I deserve a little bite and another one
Under nose: she making my neck tense
Chin point: my eyes narrow
Collar bone: the Overeating Gremlin makes me feel defiant
Under arm: makes my breathing short and tense
Liver point: she gives me a knot in my stomach
Top of head: and that‘s how the OG does it

After the second round of tapping my breathing around the midriff has become regular and deeper even than it normally is, my shoulders have relaxed and I hadn’t even noticed that they were tense… I have a feeling that I am in control of deciding, not the temptress, what and how much to eat; I do not feel to be in her grip anymore – all the while she was beguilingly talking to me she had my neck in a firm grip with one hand; interesting I only notice it now, that it is gone.

Step Four

I repeated out loud how the Overeating Gremlin does her tempting: she tells me that I deserve to satisfy my immediate wish to eat and that it does not really make any difference, and that I can always loose weight later on, as I have done before, and I am only slightly overweight. The real truth is that I feel really very well when I eat to nourish myself instead of stuffing myself in order to “follow her temptations,” and I know that it does make a difference to my over all well being, physically, emotionally and mentally, even socially; it makes a difference to how I feel about myself.

And so, tapping the Karate Chop point:

Even though the Overeating Gremlin, the Temptress, tells me that I deserve to fulfill my desire to eat, and makes me feel that this is my own thought, the real truth is that I love to feel light, and that I feel really good when enjoy food to nourish me in just the right amount.

I also used the meridian points with the same ideas until the temptress had morphed into a combination of St. Bernard dog and Golden Retriever.

The St. Golden is soft and caring, “feeding’” me with warmth and tenderness, gets me to drink water and to go outside for long or short walks and to go and meet other people, HE is loving and encouraging…

It really works! I do not own a scale so I do not know how much I have lost in the last 10 days, but my trousers fit easier and I have not binged at all. (I have also not starved myself.) So far, whenever a situation popped up when the Overeating Gremlin would have tempted me into eating or stuffing myself, I felt a tender warmth around my shoulders and neck whispering into my ears:

I love you, you do not need this food… the best about it is that it happens automatically, I do not have to think about it.

With gratitude to all involved, starting with Gary

Christina Hurst-Prager uses EFT in combination with Craniosacral Therapy in her practice near Zurich, Switzerland.