According to Transactional Analysis theory, I’m not ok, you are ok is one of the four life positions that a person can have in relation to oneself and others. In this position a person feels he is not good but the others are good and better than him. He compares himself with others and finds himself inferior to them. He feels the constant need to be recognized and loved by others. He/she does things to gain others’ approval and is eager and compliant to the demands of others. This can happen if as a child the person has been subjected to constant reprimands, rejection, unnecessary punishment and blaming by parents. He may not have felt loved and did things to get the love and approval from his parents.

As an adult this can lead to chronic self blame and the need to always please others.
Some of the symptoms of Chronic Self-Blame are :

Inability to forgive oneself for any mistake
Recurring negative thoughts about the self
Engaging in self sabotaging behavior
Suicidal Thoughts
Constant unfavorable comparisons with others
Anger and Hatred towards self
Tremendous guilt feelings for for mistakes made by others
Regarding others as superior than self
Constant need to please others
Inability to say ‘No’ to anyone

Consequences could be one or more of the following:

Depression
Inflicting pain or harming oneself deliberately
Psycho-somatic problems
Inability to handle relationships
Difficulty in performing tasks
Social Phobia
Addiction to alcohol, drugs, gambling etc.
Getting into abusive relationships

Doing Personal Peace Procedure on early life experiences would be very helpful to uncover some of the core reasons behind self blame.

Make a list of all the negative life events and choose ten most negative life events (memories from your past which still bother you when you think of them vividly). Take each one up and tap on it until it stops bothering you.

Letting go of this tendency towards self blame is not an easy process but it can be achieved by daily EFT application on the following:

Even though I hate my “self,” I deeply and completely love and accept msyelf.
Reminder Phrase (RP): This hatred for my “self”

Even though I am not successful/rich/beautiful/… I deeply and completely love and accept myself the way I am.
RP: I am not successful/rich/beautiful/…

Even though I\’m always finding faults with myself, I deeply and completely love and FORGIVE myself.
RP: I’m always finding faults with myself

Even though I compare myself with everyone and find myself lacking, I deeply and completely love and FORGIVE myself.
RP: I compare myself with everyone and find myself lacking

Even though I blame myself all the time for ….(not being successful/not being pretty/ not being good enough), I choose to appreciate my ….(replace with one positive attribute that you have)
RP: I choose to appreciate my ….(replace with one positive attribute that you have)

Even though I feel guilty even when its not my mistake, I deeply and completely love and FORGIVE myself.
RP: I feel guilty even when its not my mistake

Even though I have this constant need to please others, seek their approval, I deeply and completely love and Accept myself.
RP: this constant need to please others, seek their approval

Even though I find it hard to love myself, I choose to love myself.
RP: I choose to love myself.

Puja Kanth Alfred
www.emofreetherapy.com

This article is available in Spanish. Go to the Spanish translation.

I recently did a weight loss class for a group of elementary school teachers in which I taught them EFT. The next week, one of them reported to us on how she had been using tapping with her kindergartners. Each morning the children have a sharing circle to start their day, and their teacher helps them focus on good thoughts and positive feelings. Now she is incorporating a simple version of tapping.

In their sharing circle, the teacher tells the children, “Let’s tell your body to have a peaceful day.” Then she has them tap on the Karate Chop spot and say three times, “I’m going to have a peaceful day.”

Then she tells them, “Let’s tell your mind to have a peaceful day.” She has them tap on the Top of Head and say three times, “I’m going to have a peaceful day.”

The teacher told me she is not sure the whole tapping procedure would be an easy sell to parents or administrators, so she prefers to keep it simple. The version she has created is easy to blend into their morning ritual. She thinks it is releasing stress and helping the kids get a good start to the day. And now they are all familiar with tapping so that if she needs to calm a child, she can say, “let’s tap again to get rid of that anger so you can have a peaceful day.” Then she can guide the upset child in some tapping.

One of the wonderful features of EFT is its flexibility. I often tell people that EFT can be woven seamlessly into whatever approach we already have and that it will simply enhance whatever we are already doing. This teacher seems to have a very gentle and supportive approach in her kindergarten class. It is beautiful to see how she found a way to creatively bring in some EFT, and how this daily dose of tapping is supporting their classroom goal of everyone being able to have a peaceful day.

“Claire” is tormented by the belief that she is always the outsider in groups. Even if everything seems to be fine, she has this unsettling feeling, that, out of the blue, she can be kicked out. And if a group does not work for whatever reason, she feels devastated, rejected, and abandoned. She has no idea where these very intense emotions are coming from; there is no memory that could account for that.

Do you have a recurring theme or issue in your life, something that happens in variations over and over again? Let’s say you have done EFT on it, and that helped somewhat, but the issue is still present with this strangely intense emotional charge you cannot account for. It could be some specific fear, a stubborn belief, or repeating a painful situation.

Maybe you could benefit from a method that can be woven beautifully into EFT sessions: Events Psychology, developed by Silvia Hartmann, works with event (and only events) in order to evolve and integrate them in a healing and uplifting way into your life.

Events are highly charged, one time experiences that change a person’s energy system forever. We are most familiar with trauma, but there are two other significant types of events. One of them is the Guiding Star which is a stuck peak experience. For example, no man could ever live up to the way your first love kissed you at the beach that summer night….Guiding Stars can be as devastating to the emotional health of a person as trauma since they don’t allow us to move on. The other significant type is the Missing Event. This is en event, we feel, should have happened but did not, and it leaves us with a deep feeling of emptiness and deprivation. For example, your mother never telling you that she loved you.

The beauty of Events Psychology is that it provides a given structure, but within this structure, it is method and content free. This means that you can work on the problem with EFT, creative imagination, Emotrance, Reiki, Art Therapy, NLP, breath work, hypnotherapy — whatever way relieves stress and brings about change.

Let’s look at Claire. Why did she always end up feeling abandoned and rejected or even threatened and scared by groups?

We started with tapping on all the feelings and body sensations that came up around this subject:

Even though I am always the outsider in groups, and that makes me feel unsafe…
Even though they can kick me out at any time, and I feel powerless to prevent that…
Even though there is this intense fear flaming up in my solar plexus when I think of joining a group…

In an Events Psychology session, it is essential to monitor and treat stress levels at all times. It is an integral part of the process. EFT is an excellent tool to do that, but any other stress relief technique like Emotrance or Guided Imagery can be used. Sometimes all it takes are a few words of reassurance by the practitioner, or taking a slow, deep breath.

When Claire’s general stress level came down from an 8 to a 3, I asked her if she could remember a specific situation in her childhood or teenager years where she had been kicked out or treated in a cruel way by a group. Absolutely nothing came to mind. She had been a hyper-sensitive, shy kid who did not socialize easily, but she had never been treated in that way by any group.

This is the situation where Events Psychology can be very helpful. Since there was no appropriate memory to work with, I decided to build an “Events Model” with her.

An Events Model is a deliberately constructed, hypothetical event with a purpose. Since the storage of events is entirely intrapersonal anyway, and a past memory is nothing but energy at this moment, it is as “real” to the brain as any remembered memory. It is a clear and vivid situation a person creates that would account for any and all of his problems.

So I asked a basic Events Psychology question: “What specific event would have caused these feelings?” This or a similar question has to be asked repeatedly to keep a laser sharp focus on the problem.

Then I guided Claire, step by step, through the experience asking questions like:

How old are you?
Where are you?
What people are with you?
What is happening?
What happens next?
What are you feelings about that?

When the basic model has evolved, additional questions are asked:

What would you like to add to this model to refine it?
What else needs to be there to create the problem we see today?
Is it complete now?

Once the situation or story is complete with all necessary details, we extract the main event from it: the exact moment that carries the most charge. Then we ask for the body sensations that go with this event, and we ask for the “metacomments” which are general conclusions we have drawn from an experience, like “I am stupid”, “men (women) cannot be trusted,” or “I never get what I want.” They often influence our whole life.

A Summary of Claire’s Events Model:

She is somewhere in the Southwest as a member of a Native American community where she was a highly respected, young medicine woman. No man was allowed to touch her. However, there was one young man who could not leave her alone, and when she rejected him, he thrust a poisonous arrow into his arm. Before he died he told the tribe that she had killed him. She was shunned and cast away into the wilderness. Besides the physical death sentence, it was the emotional agony that killed her. She expected until the last moment that they would come and take her back. But they didn’t, and she died alone.

The actual event was the moment she realized that they would not come back for her.

Would that have caused the feelings with groups she is experiencing now?

Yes!

Was this a past life regression? Maybe. It doesn’t matter. It was a very specific creation of her energy mind (subconscious) that explained her highly charged feelings about groups completely.

Claire’s stress level was up, so we started tapping on her body sensations and metacomments:

Even though it literally broke my heart when they did not come back…
Even though it is not safe to belong to groups, something bad always happens…
Even though I cannot rely on anybody, nobody supports and protects me…

We went through several rounds of this and similar phrases until her stress level subsided. She felt OK and the thought of being with groups did not upset or frighten her anymore.

Now, this is where an EFT session could end. And that’s fine. With Events Psychology, however, we go a step further (the whole process of working with a single event can take 1 to 3 sessions). We want the client not only to release the issue, but to feel great, to be uplifted, to have what we call an emotional threshold shift. It is up to the practitioner to find a change method to accomplish that — and she can bring in any healing modality she is trained in, or whatever her intuition tells her to do.

Memory Enrichment

Enriching a memory means adding components and points of view to the original memory (or events model) that were not a part of it before. Some people will choose to have spirit guides present, some will step into the memory as their current selves, some take the practitioner with them, or a dead family member. Some will take a completely different perspective of another person involved. There is always a supernatural or metaphysical component present. In any case, a memory enrichment needs to answer the question: How can we make it a deeply satisfying, happy event?

Again, I guided Claire step by step through this process.

This was her enriched Events Model:

It starts at the moment the young man thrusts the poisoned arrow into his arm, accuses her of killing him and dies. As before, she is cast away into the wilderness. However, in this model, she has a complete different experience. For the first time in her life, she is actually alone, and that is mind blowing for the young medicine woman. She connects with the plants and animals, and the elements around her in a blissful, empowering way. Her skills are lifted onto a whole new level.

One day, a group from her old tribe arrives to take her back home. They say that the young man had appeared in their dreams and told them the truth. Claire knows that he has sacrificed himself out of love to give her this growth experience. She goes back and becomes a mature, much revered medicine woman with amazing healing skills.

Her new metacomments are:

I can trust my spiritual guidance.
It is safe and joyful to be with others.
I am here to serve my community.

Claire was very excited and happy after her session. Threshold shift! Shortly after that, she joined a new professional group and is feeling completely safe and spiritually uplifted with it.

Now, building Events Models and enriching memories is an exciting way to work with Events Psychology. However, it is not necessary to engage in any kind of metaphor work.

Core Structure of an “EvP” Session

• Consider the topic under investigation with the client (or with yourself)
• Find one single memory (trauma, Guiding Star, Missing Event) that has strong emotional intensity. Work exclusively with this memory. If there is a story, extract the moment or detail with the most charge, which is the actual event.
• Be very aware of the client’s (or your) stress levels. Reduce the stress immediately when it comes up during the session, using EFT or other stress relief techniques. Repeat if needed.
• Access the event fully and completely. Describe in detail what was heard, seen, felt, sensed, etc.
• Find the physical sensation that occurred at the time of the event.
• Discover the metacomments that arose immediately after the physical sensation – at the time of the event. Ask: Can you understand why you would have thought that back then?
• Change and evolve this event in any way you are trained to do, or your intuition tells you until a full threshold shift is achieved. In the case described above, I used EFT, building an Events Model since there was no memory present and evolving it with a memory enrichment. Events Psychology gives you the freedom to use any healing modality of your choice

The combination of EFT and Event Psychology is a powerful tool to heal the past and unlock the future.

Carna Zacharias-Miller
www.emotionalwellnesscoach.net

This article is available in Spanish. Go to the Spanish translation.

When people come to work with us on abundance issues in our Emotional Freedom Techniques practices we introduce them to a powerful way of thinking that we’ve called the Incremental Approach.

In our exploration of the Law of Attraction combined with tapping, we have sought to help ourselves and our clients create success in many areas of our lives, i.e. money, career progression, relationships, and health. Time and again we have come back to how for most people abundance is not found at the end of a leprechaun’s rainbow in one skip. Instead it grows cumulatively, rather in the way we as individuals progress through life step by step. In this way, there is no limit to our success, we just keep climbing new ladders of possibility without the risk of falling to the ground.

In this article we’d like to explain:

Why would anyone want to bother with this?
What do we mean by the Incremental Approach?
How do we effectively measure our incremental growth in using the Law of Attraction?
What are the pitfalls that come up when using EFT in this way?
What are the benefits of this approach?

Why would anyone want to bother with this?

Around the world, there is a growing interest in manifesting abundance. Many people have heard about the Law of Attraction. Some are able to learn a few attraction principles in a short amount of time and see big changes in their money reality. In our experience, this is a small minority of people.

Instead, most people who learn about the Law of Attraction find that the idea intuitively makes sense. Yet when it comes to increasing their income, most people do not see the kind of changes that they are wanting. Why?

There are two main reasons for this. First, many people do not understand what limiting beliefs are or know how to clear them. Many readers of this article know about “core issues” and “tail enders” (the hidden, “yeah but” part of an affirmation statement). And, we have a marvelous tool to clear them—EFT.

The second block to progress is that many people try to make changes in steps that are too large. For instance, Paul had a client who was making about $30,000 per year who set the goal of becoming a billionaire within 12 months. She wasn’t making any progress. In fact, her income was actually going down. It was too big a leap and therefore too much stress for her system. In the sessions, we identified more incremental steps ($45,000 per year was the first goal) and she is seeing much better progress.

What do we mean by the Incremental Approach?

Let’s be clear as to what we mean. The Incremental Approach isn’t a new technique or method within EFT. Instead it’s an attitude towards success that is likely to help many newcomers to EFT. Sometimes people are drawn to explore EFT because of the wealth of one-session wonders they first hear of. We’ve come across some of these people in our wanderings with EFT and we hear how they got disenchanted when they didn’t experience their own white unicorn tapping resolution. On forums and in our therapy practices they ask the same question: where are we going wrong?

We too have experienced awe-filled quick clearings individually and with our clients. However, ask any experienced EFTer and they will confirm that in practice these are limited occurrences. After all, human beings are complicated creatures! We build up problems over several years if not a lifetime. In our experience, the “flash in the pan” success that some see with EFT is a wonderful starting point. However, huge sustained success for most EFTers is best fostered by taking a step-by-step approach.

The Incremental Approach is the most convincing way we have found to help our clients achieve significant practical success with the Law of Attraction and EFT, whilst minimizing distress and upheaval.

How do we measure our progress?

The first step is to clarify what the current situation is. Often, there are negative feelings about this. In fact, feelings like worry, shame, and overwhelm are common. These are often some of the first things to tap on.
Then look for goals that feel exciting and achievable. Some recent examples are:

Increase my monthly income by 33% in the next 6 months.
Increase the number of prospects in my business by 100%.
Increase the number of clients paying my full fee by 50%.

Notice that these goals are specific and measurable, and so we’re already clear on the direction we’re going. Once we have a goal, we use EFT to clear negative feelings and limiting beliefs that are blocking progress. And, we use positive tapping techniques to reinforce new patterns that are aligned with the goal.

Jennifer had tried EFT, the Law of Attraction and many other energy tools to improve her real estate business—with no success. When she contacted Paul, they found that she had 1) never been specific about what she was trying to accomplish and 2) never found the core issues that were keeping her stuck. Jennifer identified increasing prospects as her initial goal. She also found that she had internalized many limiting beliefs about women and money from her father. Over several months, Jennifer and Paul cleared these limiting beliefs and aligned Jennifer’s energy with having a more successful business. The first month, her prospects increased 33%, the second month they were up 100% and by the third month Jennifer’s prospects were up over 150%. She then closed the biggest sale of her career – over 3 times bigger than her previous largest sale.

What are the pitfalls that come up when using EFT in this way?

So this step-by-step approach we’ve spoken of seems pretty simple, doesn’t it? In theory it should be. What we have seen in working with individuals who are willing to go down this road of sustained abundance is that there are some pitfalls that require careful handling. We list these pitfalls here. Be aware of what specific events from the past come to mind whilst reading through. You may uncover key incidents from the past to clear and so start getting results in boosting your prosperity levels.

The need for honesty

When people first start this work they normally feel at their lowest ebb. They have tried many ways to resolve their situation but problems like self-sabotage and years of negative thinking mean they feel their problems are insurmountable. It might feel contrary to conventional wisdom to “say it as it is” However, being honest allows you to start clearing the worst of the emotional debris that’s holding you back from feeling better. As we know, with the Law of Attraction it is our feelings that generate what we attract into our lives. After clearing the worst of these negative emotions and events related to abundance, you’re likely to start seeing an improvement.

Sejual worked with “Daniel” who had read countless books on the Law of Attraction. He wondered what he was missing as his results didn’t tally up with how the Law of Attraction was meant to work. He had tried various techniques all aimed at commanding his mind to stay on a positive track. He would achieve some success, but in the end the self-sabotage would trip him up. In a game of snakes (chutes) and ladders he would end up back at square one.

We looked at the negative thoughts and feelings he had been suppressing for more than a decade. Over several sessions we EFTed how he felt about his divorce and a former business partner cheating him. He then started to experience a permanent change in his finances for the better. From these two biggies, Daniel was able to tap on lesser events from his life both with Sejual and by himself to then focus on bringing in an income that would secure his retirement.

Vibrational whiplash

Have you ever been to a weekend workshop where you felt great while you were there but the feeling didn’t last? We have noticed something similar that many people experience when first approaching abundance work.

Fred tried EFT after years of struggling in his bodywork practice. In two sessions, he cleared many limiting beliefs about money learned from his highly religious family. Trying to run a business with these beliefs was like trying to swim with a lead-flotation device. Within a short time, Fred saw a job he was excited about and applied for. He got the job. In fact, he so impressed his interviewers that they hired him for thousands of dollars more than the job had been advertised for. After the first week at the new job, Fred’s energy started to waffle. One day he would show up confident and enthusiastic, the next he felt worried and like an impostor. Soon his new employer let him go.

We developed the term “vibrational whiplash” to describe this phenomenon of feeling a new possibility without being able to consistently live it.

A whiplash is a neck sprain that occurs when your head is suddenly jolted backwards and forwards in a whip-like movement. They are common in car accidents. Trying to jump from a negative state of mind to an extremely positive one is a common mistake in abundance work. It gives a whiplash-like jolt to the emotional self. Going through this cycle again and again is demoralizing. It often leaves people confused, hurting and wondering if the whole idea of using EFT and the Law of Attraction for increasing abundance is just a gimmick. The reason for this shock is that the change in emotion is too drastic to be sustained by your emotional self. How can a person easily go from feeling disempowered to positive eagerness and authentically maintain that? Most people can’t. The contrast is too strong to be easily adjusted to.

An important goal of the Incremental Approach is to avoid this unnecessary pain.

Having a diffused focus

When an outcome really matters to us we get caught up in the story. This is the story of how we have suffered, why we’ve carried this pain, and how we’ve been cheated by possibilities that were out of our hands. When we start tapping on the negative story we can weave in and out of issues without fully clearing anything and that lack of focus means we don’t raise our vibrational level to attract something better. The solution is to work on the specifics to make sure you’re clearing at a deep enough level to stop your focus being too vague.

“Denise” couldn’t leave behind the distress her past brought up and found her emotional chaos was affecting her career progression. She belonged to a social scene of young executives where cocaine use at weekends was the norm. For her, quitting her addiction didn’t require any tapping. However, maintaining her composure was difficult and the hurt she had buried for years came up at work in the shape of panic attacks and crying fits. With the emotional overwhelm coming up Denise couldn’t focus on sorting herself out.

Sejual worked with Denise over 4 sessions to clear specific upsets from her past connected with her relationship with her father and bad treatment from a ex-boyfriend. By identifying the key incidents that were crippling her confidence Denise was able to change the story that was running her life. She was able to deliver great performances in job interviews. Despite problems in her field, with lay offs as a result of the global recession, she secured not one but two offers of work that helped her move up the career ladder.

Getting too caught up in the “formula/process”

When learning to use EFT for abundance, people often get very focused on the wording. In fact, one of the top three most common questions people ask is “What words do I use?”

A big part of the incremental approach is getting the feel of steadily increasing your ability to succeed. The words we use in the EFT sequence are tools to allow us to relax, become more centered and begin to take inspired actions that will increase our success. From this place, the “right” words are different for each person. If you are finding yourself able to better see your situation in a neutral light and can begin to see opportunities for investing your energy in new ways, what you are doing is working.

“Isn’t there a magic wand you can show me?”

From time to time, both Sejual and Paul get contacted from someone who wants to change their financial situation immediately and wonders what the magic bullet option is. In our experience, it doesn’t work this way. Changing your money-reality takes time.

How long does it take? There are four contributing factors to how long it can take:

The amount of negative energy about money and success one has

If we have held limiting beliefs about money for a long time and they are deeply held, it often takes longer for things to change. The approach is the same, it just takes a bit of patience.

The amount of skill the person applying EFT to the situation has

Mechanical EFT does not seem to work well for most people when it comes to abundance issues. In order to achieve success with using EFT for abundance, it’s important to invest some time in learning EFT skills like finding the core issues, understanding how aspects work and learning how to incorporate your intuition into EFT work.

The amount of light-heartedness the person applying EFT can bring

One of the most consistent blocks to abundance are low vibration feelings like worry, despair and fear. If the person applying EFT for abundance has these low vibrations in her or his system, the process doesn’t seem to go well. One of the things we find helps with this is to bring a light heart and a sense of humor to our abundance work. It’s quite remarkable how far a smile can go.

The consistency with which EFT is applied

It’s very tempting to approach EFT for abundance likes it’s a magic wand. While it would be nice if it worked like that, this is not most people’s experience. Instead, we encourage people to keep tapping. In addition to tapping on the limiting beliefs, we also like to have clients use positive forms of tapping to reinforce new patterns of thinking about money and abundance. For example, this can involve positive images of abundance that add to that state of mind. Relaxed, daily tapping 1-3 times a day works best for most people.

What are the benefits of this approach?

There are several benefits to this approach. The first benefit is that it is effective for many people. While we may not always know the how, it’s easier for most people to believe at a deep level that it’s possible to increase their income in a steady manner. Because they can believe it’s possible, they commit to the Incremental Approach and apply EFT in a consistent way.

Second, there is a relief in finding out there is nothing wrong with you if have not had instant success with other abundance programs. Many clients contact us feeling shame and despair after unsuccessfully trying affirmations, vision boards, and other manifesting tools. This approach clears these negative feelings by allowing the understanding that it takes some time to change persistent beliefs and feelings.

Third, it’s fun and healing. Sejual and Paul are believers in having fun throughout the process and successful abundance journeys usually include humor. And, because money comes to us through our relationships with other people, we find that abundance is about more than money. The Incremental Approach to Abundance almost always includes learnings about service, love, and connections with other people.

This article is about using EFT creatively to assist spiritual shifts in a series of five phone sessions I facilitated with fellow a EFT practitioner, we will call her “Lisa.” Lisa and I met in 2007 and have traded EFT sessions fairly consistently since that time. The idea for this series of five sessions came from Lisa who wanted to use EFT to help her remove the blocks to “Love’s Presence” inside her as part of her spiritual work, specifically related to a spiritual book and path she has been on for 3 years.

Here are some of the elements present that I believe made this series of sessions successful:

Firstly, Lisa and I have developed a strong trust and rapport, largely within the EFT process, over a significant amount of time. We also both deeply know and trust EFT. Secondly, Lisa and I share the belief that every human being ultimately has connection to the truth of their being – to who they really are (not to be confused with intellectual or factual truth). EFT is simply a tool to assist the natural intelligence of a person’s system to remove the blocks, patterns and false mind structures layer by layer that hinder their connection to that truth. Thirdly, while Lisa explained to me some of the focus and principles of her spiritual path, I am not a follower of it – and didn’t need to be. As long as the practitioner is willing to “meet the person where they are,” not imposing their personal beliefs on the client, much is possible. As Gary Craig says, “through you rather than by you.”

Below are the essential details of the 5th phone session which lasted about 80 minutes.

At the beginning of the session Lisa presented two main issues:


Issue 1: A family situation, ongoing for a long time, which will impact her life in a big way. She has tapped on this issue on her own as it has unfolded since ‘06. The day before the session she met with some family members on a conference call and many feelings, thoughts and judgments were stirred up in her and she quickly became “lost in them.” Lisa’s two main beliefs/judgments of herself that came out of the family situation were that she was both a “guilty perpetrator and sinner” and an “innocent victim of blame contaminated by family circumstances.” Her SUDS levels on these feelings were 5-8.

Issue 2: Lisa saw her reactiveness to the family issue as, “a way that my ego mind caught me
up in an old familiar web of anguish and anxiety. I became upset because my ego mind wanted to play with the event in order to drag me back into the seductive drama of my life story and keep me distracted from my spiritual connection to Love’s Presence within myself.”

For my part I kept myself present and non-judgmental as she told me her issues and feelings. I knew that once the emotional charge was lowered using EFT and once we tapped into the conflicting aspects a resolution was very possible that would transcend her current feelings and beliefs in a way we could not sift through logically. In addition I knew it would not help for me to insert my ideas about how she “should” feel or what she “should” do about the situation, nor did I try to decide if I believed her ego was reacting to the family issue in order to “keep her from the Love of God” or not. My philosophical beliefs were not needed here.

As we tap, Lisa’s system seems to naturally integrate itself as the emotional stress leaves her system, in a way that goes beyond theory, dogma or belief. This is because EFT brings out the natural intelligence of her system, as long as there is no forcing or unneeded manipulation of the process on my part. I do admit there is some alchemy here around when to give my perspective and see if its helpful, or to just keep my mouth shut and let the process bring out of her what is needed. Trust the process. If you have good intentions and respect for the client you’ll be fine.

Although the setup phrases we used may sound extreme, Lisa chose these to enhance the depth of emotion making the clearing process deeper and more complete. In this session we used the entire basic EFT recipe, including the 9-gamut sequence. 


Set up phrases for round 1 of tapping:

Even though I am a guilty, complicit, perpetrator sinner and a victim contaminated by the circumstances of my family, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
Even though I am afraid that if I don’t stay on top of my ego, I am going to become a wreck and
succumb to this seductive story it is telling me, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

After round one of tapping, Lisa’s SUDS (intensity) went down several points. She then reported two fearful beliefs that had come to her while we were tapping:

Belief 1: “I need to keep my guilt about the family situation to hide how bad I am from others and to keep me from doing monstrous things. Guilt will make me appear good even though I’m bad.”

Belief 2: “It is so hard to go against the tide of collective egoic human consciousness that has been going on for thousands of years. I feel the weight of the consciousness of the people around me and of history that keeps reinforcing that I Am this story in my egoic mind thoughts.”

As we discussed these two beliefs, Lisa began to connect with a deep sadness (an 8 SUDS level) about how, “my ego has tricked me into keeping out the Love from Divine Source.”

Setup phrases for rounds 2 and 3 of tapping:

Even though I still have some of this story that I am a guilty complicit perpetrating sinner and a victim contaminated by circumstances, and it’s sad, I deeply…
Even though I feel the need to keep my guilt in order to hide how bad I am and to keep myself from doing monstrous things, I deeply…
Even though it is so hard to go against the tide of collective egoic human consciousness and I feel sad, I deeply…

Lisa’s SUDS (intensity) levels went down further and then she expressed a newly arising feeling of, “deep compassion for all people who are living in suffering, especially mental suffering, because of their blocks to Love.” I saw this as a good sign because she was moving from being overwhelmed by her personal situation, to a larger perspective. I think it also shows a softening towards herself, knowing her emotional suffering is part of the human condition and not so much something wrong with her.

As we further discussed her sadness and compassion for all those who are suffering a big shift started happening. Lisa reported a, “flood of feelings of Love and gratitude inside”. All her SUDS were now down to 2’s and 3’s, and some were down to 0.

Setup phrases for round 4 of tapping:

Even though I still have some of this sadness that I was seduced by the story and that kept me from the Love from Source, I deeply and completely love and forgive myself.
Even though it still feels a little hard to go against the tide of collective egoic human consciousness, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
Even though I still have a little need to hang on to this guilt, in order to appear good, I deeply and completely love and forgive myself.

At this point, Lisa shifted more and reported that, “I am feeling the Love pouring in from inside myself.” She then created affirmations that connected to her feelings and to concepts she has learned from her spiritual teachings. For round 5 we tapped on these affirmations, which Lisa created herself.

Round 5 alternating points, we tapped on these affirmations:

I can stay on top of this with the help from Holy Spirit.
I let go of this struggle with the transformative power of the Holy Spirit beside me.
I let go of guilt and remember the innocence of all my brothers. We are invulnerable.
Nothing can keep the power of the Love from Source away, not even my egoic self.

During this tapping round Lisa began to weep out of, “overwhelming gratitude, awe and humility.” She then said she felt guided to keep the tapping words sparse for the next round with one short phrase which she again created.


Final round of the session:

This awe, this Love, this gratitude…

Lisa and I then sat together (although 500 miles apart) in silence for a little while, being present with the moment. We then checked her SUDS levels, which had ranged from 5 to 8, all were now at a 0. The original judgments and beliefs about her family now felt, “totally irrelevant and absurd to me now. Simply silly egoic thoughts, signifying nothing, next to the powerful feeling of connection to Source.”

After this session Lisa wrote the following testimonial about her experience:

“I felt a profound and dramatic shift into feeling/being that divine Love that I was longing for. I shifted over into deep and global mind states of surrender, peace and communion with Loving Presence, in the eternal ‘Now’ moment. This shift was deeper and felt truer than my past experiences with Divine Presence. Fear dissolved. Worry vanished. I came to recognize the old familiar, habitual and negative egoic mind chatter as just flimsily that–nothing more than mind chatter, instead of identifying with or getting lost in it. I now have confidence that I can return to those places, with the focus of EFT. There is less fear, less resistance and more ease in clearing the seeming egoic obstacles that arise in my mind as I move forward in life day to day. I firmly believe that all disease begins in the mind, and that is where the true healing lies–in the mind.”

I would like to emphasize these sessions were not done on a whim, nor did we merely tap a few light rounds and get to this “end result.” At times in these five sessions Lisa felt some very intense, frightening or dark feelings and in many prior EFT sessions with me. Lisa was willing to look at these difficult places and acknowledge them, to herself and to me, sometimes with overwhelming shame and fear, in order to clear and heal them.

For myself as a result of the use of EFT and other Energy Psychology techniques I often feel happy for “no reason.” I often feel surrounded and pervaded by a subtle feeling of love and connection. This did not happen all at once but it did happen relatively quickly once I really set my mind to using these techniques combined with other teachings and learning. EFT is an invaluable and very practical, “where the rubber meets the road,” kind of tool on my personal spiritual path as well, which I am still on.

EFT founder Gary Craig, in a recent retirement interview, said that EFT is pointing to something much larger and more spiritual in nature than what it is often used for. I agree and believe we can use EFT to entertain and explore the frontiers of who we really are. For serious students of EFT, I recommend exploring the reaches of human consciousness, using EFT to release emotional as well as spiritual blocks, and to open to who and what you are in the deepest sense of being using the terminology, inspiration and teachings that resonate with you. Inner peace and liberation is really where it’s at in my opinion and EFT is a profound tool for that journey.

Fraeda Scholz
www.emowell-being.com

Being highly sensitive has its blessings and its drawbacks, sometimes both, simultaneously. Much of my work has been about how to use EFT to heal the wounds of the sensitive nature so that we are empowered to use our gifts in the service of ourselves, our families, our communities and the world itself.

Here are some ways to gather information for tapping with a sensitive person. A highly sensitive person might want to learn more about their trait, and perhaps even tap for the feelings that being “so sensitive” have brought up in them. Keep in mind that everything for a sensitive person will be more vivid, more intense, a deeper experience of pain or maybe even a richer experience of joy.

One place to begin is by defining what it means to be highly sensitive.

Tap on the Definitions

Does this describe you, or anyone you know?

You feel emotions deeply, and you can’t hide what you feel.

You are always aware of what people around you are feeling.

Your feelings are easily hurt by criticism or even a look, and you keep thinking about what happened, and what you might have done wrong, and what you should have done instead.

You feel deeply for other peoples’ suffering. It is difficult to watch the news, or to see sad movies.

Sometimes you can slip easily into feeling anxious or depressed, and once caught in the feeling it is hard for you to move out of it.

You are not comfortable in large crowds, hectic environments, or around loud music. You get easily overwhelmed when there is a lot going on.

You are a perfectionist, and you want to be helpful – so much so that you put other peoples’ needs ahead of your own.

You do your best to avoid conflicts.

You might feel like an alien in your own family. They are practical, industrious, social, while you are quiet, imaginative, thoughtful and creative.

You have a mission to bring peace to the world. You want to save the world from itself. You can see how good things could be, if only…

Tap on “Lists”

Ask people to make “positive” and “negative” lists about their sensitivity, and tap on the lists. When I have asked groups of sensitive people what they like best and least about their sensitive trait, I have gotten answers that reflect these qualities:

Drawbacks to being so sensitive:

I notice more details, and when I comment on them people think I am weird
I am too attuned to what feels like impending criticism or disapproval
I feel socially awkward because I am not good at small talk
I am too empathic – I feel what everyone else is feeling
Being so sensitive makes me fearful
I seem to vibrate with the energy around me
I don’t have good boundaries—I seem to become the other person
I lose myself
Every nuance of a situation penetrates me
I get nervous easily
I try to protect everyone
I worry about being a victim
I put other peoples’ needs before mine

Blessings of being sensitive:

I am intuitively aware of what another person may be thinking or feeling
Being sensitive is a great early warning system
Being so empathic makes me very understanding
I can “step into another’s shoes”
I am able to see/sense to the heart of a matter
I am deeply attuned to beauty
The “poetry” of everything comes through
I have a deep connection with spirit
I have a richer set of experiences that some others might
I have a different more finely tuned sense of humor that is deeper, and more readily available
I can see the beauty in almost anything
I see wholeness, always, everywhere

You might begin later rounds of tapping with “Especially because…” and follow that with some of the positive phrases in their list.

Ask Evocative Questions, and Tap on the Responses

Ask about heart-breaking experiences:

Question: What broke your heart?

Painful experiences are felt more deeply by a sensitive person, especially as a child:

Experiences lead to beliefs:

Question: What did this experience lead you to believe about yourself, or what it is like to be in the world?

Those heart-breaking experiences, large and small, can lead to beliefs about who we are and what is possible for us in life.

We Had to “Stuff Our Feelings”

It may not be possible or safe to express the powerful anger, sadness, and fear, and shame that we feel during and after these painful experiences. Those feelings get “stuffed” or swallowed. Stuffed feelings show up later in our lives as physical and emotional pain and illness. Most people with chronic physical an emotional pain are highly sensitive. The fear of confronting powerful feelings can stop us from beginning a healing journey.

Question: What emotions and feelings does this experience bring up in you?

Family Connections

Our families had beliefs and feelings about being so sensitive, toughing it out, not standing out, or “making you strong in a hard world.” The people in our families who mistreated us did so because this is how they had been treated, and these were the beliefs and feelings they themselves took on from their own family experience. The tendency to replicate these misunderstandings and illnesses gets passed on down through the generations of a family.

Question: What did your family believe about you being “so sensitive?” Were they trying to “toughen you up for a tough world?” Did your sensitivity threaten their own carefully covered up or denied sensitivity?

Our Personal Healing Can Heal the Whole Family History

Healing our family’s history—this is on the way to healing the world! We just thought we had to start with healing the whole world, so that it would be a safe place for us. That was pretty exhausting. We left ourselves off our own to-do list!

Question: How can you take care of yourself and your needs without thinking that you are selfish? How could taking care of yourself first be a GOOD thing?

(Hint: I like to think of selfish as spelled “Self-ish,” meaning “care of your spirit,” or “self care.”)

EFT is the perfect tool for a sensitive person to learn how to “deeply and completely love and accept myself.”

I’m not “introverted,” I am reserved, self contained, independent. I am not “shy,” I intend to create deep and meaningful interaction.

It is remarkable that when we change our perception of ourselves we automatically change our perception of the the world. And then the world changes!

Rue Anne Hass
www.intuitivementoring.com

Gary Craig’s early experience with psychology included becoming an NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) Master, and he incorporated many NLP concepts into his development of EFT. Many EFT practitioners feel that having a working knowledge of NLP enhances the “Art of EFT.”

I have studied Gary Craig’s videos for hundreds of hours and am still amazed at the simplicity of his brilliant successes. Something I have noticed, but it is not often mentioned, is the constant succession of trans-derivational searches that Gary encourages. He is having the person do these inner searches all the time.

Trans-derivational Search (TDS) Definition: “the process of searching back through one’s stored memories and mental representations to find the reference experience from which a current behavior or response was derived.” (Dilts, 1990).

These ‘Gary Craig Questions’ lead to trans-derivational searches:

What is the intensity on a scale of 1 to 10? (Every time he asks about intensity, that’s another search.)

How is the pain now?

Gary repeats the description, using many of the same words, and asks if that is correct.

He gives a choice of emotions for the person to choose.

He says that he wants to be accurate in describing the emotional discomfort, and confirms that he is accurate.

Gary often touches or points to the part of the body that is described.

Movie technique….
How long would the movie be?
Give it a title
Imagine sitting in a movie theater and watching it
If you had to tell the story, what do you think your intensity would be?
Imagine it brighter, in other colors, sizes, etc.
Try to get your emotion up.

He says something, and then asks, “Is that accurate?”

He repeats the exact words the person used, many times. (Causes a TDS each time.)

He tests for a reaction many times. (Try it again. Is it different now? )

He pauses and hesitates often.

He shows that he is thinking about the next thing to try.

He gives the option of what to work on next to the person.
“We can work on whichever memory you choose.”
“Which foot should we concentrate on?”

He is constantly asking about the changes in emotional and physical pain, and he asks for a description and for intensity levels after most rounds of tapping.

I welcome all comments and remarks about the above movie approach or about the concept of TDS. EFT does owe a lot to NLP, and knowledge of some NLP concepts can enhance our work with EFT.

Ruthi Backenroth utilizes results-oriented EFT techniques. She helps executives, professionals, and homemakers find lasting relief from stress, anxiety, and pain. She offers sessions by phone and can be reached at www.EFTAction.com.

Recently, I saw a man who had been suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD as the fascinating acronym may be, and it turned out that the reason he got sad every October was nothing to do with our planet turning merrily through its seasons, as it does, but in fact with a severe trauma that had happened to him as a teenager and the date it happened was October 11th. That was the day when “the lights went out “.

“Aha! ” I hear the psychologists cry. “Anniversary disturbance! ” Right. Like people sinking into depression on any date if it was the date their husband died, or their child, or it was the last time they ever saw a lover, or the day they retired from their beloved work.

There may or may not be a host of biochemical reasons for people becoming unwell when the weather changes, when there is a specific season, or a date, or a public holiday, but as I always say, why don’t we take the psychosomatics out first of all, and then we can see what’s left, and treat THAT with pills if necessary.

So this made me think of a lovely simple but very mindful, revealing and releasing EFT protocol – EFT Through The Seasons.

We are going to go through the months of the year, one by one, with the following opening statement, borrowed in parts from BSFF (a technique called Be Set Free Fast):

I want to heal all January disturbances to their deepest roots and I deeply and profoundly love and accept myself – NOW.

As you are tapping through the sequence of points, and as this isn’t a trauma treatment but more of an overall energy system cleaner, reversal remover, and also acts as a “cutting the energetic ties that bind us to events from the past ” exercise, I would recommend to tap as many points as you want to, including collar bone, all the finger points, third eye, both bilateral occurrences of a point and any other points or places on your body you feel needs to take part in the treatment.

The reminder phrase would be the name of the month you are treating, so in this case, January.

Keep breathing deeply and stay relaxed.

Let memories flash up and pass by as you tap gently and rhythmically, trust in the process and tap as long as you want to on a single point until it runs clear and you can feel there’s nothing left but peace and Even Flow there.

Let your intuition and feelings guide you to how many months you want to treat in a single session; one month a day for 12 days, done mindfully and well, is probably going to have the best results all over.

If you come across a major trauma along the way, don’t worry about it. Keep the round going, keep breathing deeply, stay relaxed, let it all flow along to the next memory, the next point, to the end of the session.

I personally like to end a long round of this kind of self treatment in the heart healing posture (both hands flat on the center of the chest, breathing deeply 3x, focusing on your heart center to bring the entire treatment together and have an elegant exist point.

Take a moment to reflect; if you remember a particular trauma and you feel it needs to be treated separately, make a note to give it its own session at another time, where you can give it your full attention.

I do recommend working a friend or an EFT practitioner for major trauma clearance; operating on yourself is a tricky thing and with 8 billion people on the planet, it’s really not necessary, either.

Gently work your way through all the months of the year. Some will take longer, some will be shorter to work with because nothing much significant happened that got tied into that stretch of the calendar.

It’s a truly fascinating exercise, because you get to take a look at your life in a totally different way, from a different viewpoint; and the trick with this particular protocol is to stay very relaxed, and just to observe, as the treatment does the magic at the energy levels for you.

This protocol also has another very important side effect.

Traumas, disturbances and energetic injuries that are tied to a certain time (of the year) and produce symptoms THERE, but not at any other time, by their very nature are a long time apart. Because of that, cause and effect become difficult to recognise and calculate.

I likened this to going into a wood just once a year, and striking a tree with an axe – just once.

For twenty years or so, this makes little difference; but the more often this happens, and of course, the older we get, the more Octobers there would have been, the more the tree is damaged; and eventually it will fall.

Taking out these “once a year ” reversals and injuries is a powerful prophylactic that will prevent stress disorders which can become real diseases if they go on for long enough.

This is a very intriguing, very personal protocol that can do a lot of things for you on many different levels; and it doesn’t matter if you are the owner of 20 Augusts in your time bag so far, or of 78 or more.

The EFT Through The Seasons protocol frees up your time, and your movement through time in a very interesting way. It gives you a bigger picture on your life from a new perspective, and with the disturbances cleared and hurtful ties dissolved, offers us an easy way to get back into the natural flow of the seasons more easily – and that can only be good for mind, body AND spirit.

Wishing you good health on all levels, and through the seasons.

Silvia Hartmann
www.1-eft.com

This account is not a success story. I offer it as an example of how EFT might inadvertently conflict with pharmaceutical treatment, and as a cautionary tale for taking responsibility to understand the medications your clients are taking.

Recently I began working with a client “Dave” on anxiety issues. Dave had been struggling with anxiety for forty years. All that time he had carefully structured and limited his life to manage his stress levels without using medication.

This all changed about a month ago when he decided, at the urging of his wife, to take on a rather stressful, full time job. Dave was very reluctant to take the job, fearing the stress would trigger his anxiety and cause panic attacks. He felt pressured into the decision, and was harboring some resentment against his wife, although he admitted she was right about their financial needs.

Dave had mentioned when we began that his doctor had prescribed an anti-anxiety medication. Dave wanted to eliminate the root causes of his anxiety so that he would no longer need the drug. I was supportive of that goal but stressed the fact that I am not a doctor or medically trained. In fact, I had very little knowledge of prescription drugs and made this clear. In hindsight I should have taken the responsibility to do some research.

All seemed well at first. Dave had a fairly clear idea of how his problems began and the tapping seemed to be working, however the results never seemed to last. After a session Dave might have a great day, but the next day would be really awful. Or we might collapse and clear a traumatic memory only to have intense free-floating anxiety show up a short time later.

After a few sessions it became clear that something was interfering with what I would expect to be normal progress. Something was “off” and it soon became clear it was the influence of the drug.

The medication Dave was taking is called Ativan. This is actually the brand name for a type of drug called benzodiazepine. It is very powerful and highly addictive and trying to get off of it cold turkey, as Dave was hoping to do, is actually dangerous.

Because Dave would feel so much better and hopeful after our sessions, he would stop taking his Ativan. This would lead to intense withdrawal symptoms, which just happened to include extreme anxiety.

I had given Dave “homework” to tap on the physical symptoms of his anxiety—cold, clammy hands, pressure in his forehead, fluttering heart and shortness of breath. Because he was fairly successful with this, he was able to forestall taking the Ativan even longer, which only ended up intensifying his withdrawal symptoms. Dave was caught in a terrible vicious circle.

I had assumed that Dave was receiving sound medical advice and actually following it. In reality, he often had to wait for days just to talk with a nurse, or get an email from a doctor, and the advice he was getting was incomplete and possibly contradictory. Despite telling his doctor that he wanted to stop taking it, he had no idea about the dangers of trying to quit Ativan “cold turkey”. He learned this from me, and I from Google.

At this point, for Dave the Ativan problem is eclipsing all else, as he feels the drug is “destroying his life”. I have encouraged him to do his own research and not rely entirely on any one doctor or nurse for his information. Dave was also beginning to look into drug rehab programs for support.

I believe that we succeeded in collapsing most of the traumatic memories contributing to his long standing anxiety problem, however at this point it’s very hard to say what real progress has been made and whether it will be permanent. Although I’m making myself available for support, we’ve decided to stop tapping for root causes until his drug problem has resolved.

This case has been a real education for me. I don’t know if powerful drugs qualify as “energy toxins” but from now on I’ll be paying more attention when a client is taking medications. I hope this helps.

Rob Nelson
www.TaprootsEnergyPsychology.com

Have you ever counseled a client only to find that an issue of theirs suddenly opens a door to a deeper understanding of your own issues? I’ve always known about the Enneagram (a system of nine personalities) but never really considered using it with EFT until someone came along that very neatly fitted into one of these categories, and made me take a hard look at the foundations of my own self-sabotage.

This Enneagram is not just about understanding yourself, it is also about learning about others. A lot of unnecessary suffering is caused simply because we cannot see anyone’s point of view other than our own. Furthermore, in becoming willing to explore our own personality, we will be closer to the place of the original connections with our planet, and not behind the protection of our neurosis.

Outlined here are the personalities. They are grouped into three categories of their dominant emotion:

A: ANGER

Type 1: The Perfectionist
Type 8: The Boss
Type 9: The Mediator

B: FEELING

Type 2: The Giver
Type 3: The Performer
Type 4: The Tragic Romantic (this is the personality we are looking at). Attracted to the unavailable; the ideal is never here and now. Artistic, sensitive, focused on what is missing. Addicted to suffering. Dramatization of feelings.
Evolved Fours are creative and can help other people through their pain. They are committed to the intensity of life

C: FEAR

Type 5: The Observer
Type 6: The Devil’s Advocate
Type 7: The Epicure

Now that I have revealed the types, you may investigate which you feel is closest to you.

In working with these aspects of your personality you have two options: to dig further into what this personality means or learn how to detach from these neurosis and let them go. Ultimately it is probably best to do both.

I will now share with you an example of using EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) with this personality system. Here we tried to work out why she was attracted to the suffering and also did letting go exercises (tapping the index finger) in order to detach from it. The reason I found this instance to be quite easy to identify was because this particular lady had the same personality as me (a Four). Already using EFT, she contacted me primary because of self-sabotage problems:

“I have very intense psychological reversals, and it really, really upsets me to think and know that I am working against myself so much.

One of the rounds I did that I had a lot of release with was:

“Even though I choose to suffer for the rest of my life, I don’t know why I would choose to suffer, and I am so scared that that exists inside of me, and I don’t know where along the way I picked that up or decided that, but I know I do feel that way. I really do want to heal, at least consciously, but I know that I have had my issues for quite some time and depend on them in some ways.”

I immediately knew that this was typical of a “Four;” the addiction to suffering and hurting oneself. And yes, these do serve some kind of purpose. I think in any personality we do come to depend on our “wounds” instead of looking to healing, which, in itself, can be pretty daunting when it involves changing our ways.

In the first session, after giving me some background information about events that had taken place, we began tapping on these reversals:

“Even though I’m having all these psychological reversals, I deeply and completely love and accept myself”

“Even though I seem to be sabotaging myself the whole time, I deeply and completely love and accept myself. And I realise that there is something inside of me that wants to stop myself being successful. I am just accepting myself where I am right now.”

“Even though it seems like such a mountain, because every time I take a few steps forward, I take some back, I still deeply and completely love and accept myself”

We also tapped on her vertigo and fear of falling off her horse in this session. We tapped that fear was something you could not get around; you had to go through, “feel the fear and do it anyway.” Other issues of loss (a common theme for Fours) emerged in her having to leave her country, and other losses, and we tapped on that too. I asked her just to tap on the loss of her dog, for starters.

I gave her the following phrases for homework:

Even though I’ve experienced all this loss – I deeply love and accept myself
Even though I lost my dog, I choose to remember the good times I had with him/her/name
Even though I feel stuck sabotaging myself, I choose to remember those times when I did take one step forward
Even though I am stuck in the past, on regrets, I’m choosing to live in the here and now.

Session Two brought the news of a death of man she was close to:

“Even though this terrible thing had happened, which brought up a lot of memories from the past, I tried to steer the focus on the present.”

(Fours tend to focus on the past and the future, on what is missing), so we tapped on gratitude for her mom, her friend and even her lecturer giving her support this week. We tapped on gratitude for the time she had had with this man:

“Even though quite a lot has happened this week, I’m so deeply grateful for my friend and my mom being there with lots of support, and I deeply love and accept myself for getting through all of this.”

She also brought up an issue about statements that her aunt had made about her in the past, and also negative declarations she had made. Again, we centred things in the present:

“Even though this event that happened in the past, when I made all these declarations, seems to have all this power over me, I deeply and completely love and accept myself. Even though those things happened, I’m choosing to take back my power. Even though I said all those things, I’m choosing to unsay them now. I’m choosing to replace them with different statements.”

“Even though I said that I was taking on all the fears so that I could be free, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

Here we made a new statement:

“Even though that’s what I said in the past, I’m choosing to release all my fears. I realise that fear does come along, but at that time I’m choosing to feel the fear and do it anyway.”

For her homework I asked her to do alternate tapping on these phrases:

releasing, letting go/ holding, gripping on…
(pieces) falling apart/ (all the parts of me) coming together in balance

In Session Three we talked about how she was attracting suffering, particularly in the past where there was a benefit to being sick (which involved getting back at her mom for moving and avoiding the social anxiety at school):

“Even though there seems to be a lot of benefits to being sick, I deeply and completely love and accept myself. I understand that was where I was back then; I just wanted to punish my mom. I just didn’t want to go to school. That was where I was back then, and I accept that.”

“Even though there was all this benefit of not going to school when I was sick, I deeply and completely love and accept myself. It was so hard to fit in, and I had a bit of social anxiety, but I accept those feelings that I had back then.”

“Even though there were all these benefits of getting sick, there was definitely a side effect. My body was suffering. It was protesting. It was getting out of balance. It was feeling weak and tired. And I’m going to change that. I’m choosing to change that.”

Top of head: “I am choosing to remember the benefits of health”
Top of eyebrow: “I don’t need to punish my mother anymore”
Side of eye: “I did that, and it’s over”
Under eye: “And I don’t need to skip school anymore”
Under nose: “I’m a different person now”
Chin:” I’m in control of my life”
Collarbone: “I’m in control of my body”
Under arm: “I’m listening to what my body’s trying to say to me”
Under breast: “I’m getting back into balance”

The most amazing conversation to come out of all of this however, which really made me look at myself, was the issue that she had to suffer in order to understand what others were going through in order to heal them. It may seem obvious to others, but for those inside this personality, to whom suffering is some kind of “higher calling” it was as if a light bulb had gone on to know that I didn’t have to suffer to help others, and that more importantly, how was I going to heal others if I could not heal myself?

“Even though I know that I wanted to deeply understand suffering, and I seem to take it out on myself, I deeply and completely love and accept myself. I know why I wanted to do it. It was because I wanted to help people. But I didn’t see the effect on myself until I was so deeply into it.”

“Even though I’m drawn to all this suffering, I am choosing to stop suffering. I am choosing health.”

“Even though I have this healing gift and I’m so drawn to learning more about how to heal people, and part of that seems to be that I want to go through what they’ve been through, I deeply and completely accept that decision that I made.”

Top of the head: “I just thought that was the way to go about it”
Top of eyebrow: “I wanted to suffer everything that they had been through”
Side of eye: “It just seemed the most authentic way to help them”
Under eye: “Just to be with them in their suffering”
Under nose: “Because I had suffered too”
Chin: “And continued to suffer”
Collarbone: “It just seemed right to me”
Under arm: “that I just wanted to carry on suffering to help others”
Under breast: “And I was just carrying on doing that”

“Even though I thought that suffering was going to help, I’m choosing to look at other ways to learn how to help people” – and then we tapped on other possibilities, such as reading books, going online, doing courses and talking to people.

We then did alternate tapping (which I had learned from Carol Look) where you alternate positive and negative phrases. This is in order to convince yourself of the positive by acknowledging the negative: suffering, difficulties, complicated vs. calm, peace, letting it be easy (for the “letting it be easy” phrase I have to give credit to Rebecca Marina).

We then tapped on the things she was excited about, in her plans for the future, in that even though we did not know how it was going to come together, we were trusting, in faith, that the universe would “line it up” for her. We also did more on her “vertigo” or balance problem, where she would choose to be healthy.

The sessions with this lady were very meaningful because they helped me take a hard look at myself and my own motives for being “sick” in certain situations, and how not healing was not helping anyone else, least of all me…

A while after these sessions I received the following feedback from this lady:

“Heather! Thank you again for everything. It felt amazing to open up and be so honest with you about everything right off the bat! I was able to tell you things I was never able to even confess to myself. That being said, these sessions with you have been a blessing. It really clicked with me the other day how you said that we must accept and then ultimately, love, these seemingly negative parts of ourselves. Even when I would say the end phrase ‘I still deeply love and accept myself’ I was still doing it with the underlying intention of ‘getting rid’ of these aspects and changing them, because we are aware that is what happens once we do truly love and forgive ourselves (or more so it seems that our attention is just taken away from these things). But thanks to you, and your emphasizing acceptance of one’s self, it finally clicked that no – we love ourselves even with these things, and we can even love these parts of ourselves as well.. What a relief that has been!”

Heather Step
www.healwithheather.com