You're Not Crazy - It's Your Mother (18 page)

Note: EFT is very good to use ourselves, and I offer this here. But often there are issues or experiences that are too big for you to deal with by yourself with simple EFT, and so if the EFT does not work for you, then I do recommend that you work with an EFT practitioner. There is a lot more that can be done than I can share here. It’s the difference between first aid, which we can do ourselves and which is very effective as far as it goes, and major surgery which is sometimes needed and which takes an expert. Having said that, it is well worth you trying EFT for yourself as it will work for most people most of the time.

Also, EFT is safe and comparatively very gentle, but even so I need to stress that you take responsibility for your use of this process. The process can involve tears and emotional pain, just as the lancing of a boil involves pus and mess. In both cases, the poison existed anyway; it was only exposed by the treatment, and the mess is temporary as, once exposed, it can be easily cleaned up. In EFT terms, ‘cleaning up’ means erasing that hurt and pain until only peace remains.

EFT involves nothing more than simple tapping on acupuncture points on the face, hands and torso whilst speaking of your issue.

I understand that you might be sceptical; I was too, when I first heard of it. But I do invite you to reserve judgment and try it for yourself before deciding. It is not faith healing; you do not have to believe in it for it to work. You need only try it with an open mind and see what happens. There are many studies too, proving its efficacy. If you do a search for ‘EFT research’ you will find links to the latest.

EFT INSTRUCTIONS

If the issue is immediate and you are feeling the emotion right now – for example, if you just got off the phone after a frustrating and upsetting conversation with your mother (i.e. a typical conversation!), and you are all wound up – then what you do is to just tap on the points in order. You don’t have to say anything – although you can if you feel moved to do so – just tap the points in order over and over.

Remember, too, to breathe as you do this – try to breathe from your diaphragm and not from the top of your chest as we’re prone to do when stressed. After a few minutes you will find yourself calming, your upset evaporating until your equanimity is restored and you are not bothered any more by the conversation. You might even be mildly amused by it.

In fact, you can use EFT whenever you are upset about anything, in fact. It is an incredible tool. So if you have a near-miss in the car, or are stressed about a forthcoming job interview – use EFT. Also you can use it on children, just tap on
them
on the relevant points, if they’re upset.

However, most of the work we will be doing will be on old issues. Memories, events that still hold trauma for us, and so on. In this case we have to identify the issue first. And so, pick an event to work on.

EFT works best with specific events, such as, ‘The time my mother slapped me on my 6
th
birthday’, rather than global events such as, ‘My mother was always mean to me”. Or rather, it
does
work on the global events, but obviously progress is slow and imperceptible on such a large issue, such that you would give up doing the work long before you saw any benefit. The old phrase about eating an elephant one bite at a time applies here.

This specific event should also still upset you when you think of it. If it doesn’t upset you, it doesn’t need healing, after all. Give that upset a score, where 0 is ‘this event doesn’t bother me at all’ and 10 is the highest level of upset you can possibly think of.

For the purposes of this exercise pick an event which has a score of at least 8. EFT works on upsets no matter how small, but to practise and test the process, choose one with a high score.

Here are the tapping points. Note that you can tap either side of the body even though the diagram just shows one side.

So, you have picked your issue, and you are referring to the Tapping Diagram.

Next, tap on the Karate Chop point, stating out loud three times (obviously, substitute your own issue for my example): ‘Even though she slapped me at my 6
th
birthday party, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.’

I know it might be hard to say you deeply and completely love and accept yourself, but do say it anyway. You don’t have to believe it; just say it.

Then tap on each of the remaining points about 7 - 9 times (just guesstimate, don’t count, as you want to be thinking about the issue, not about counting), stating just the issue, e.g.: “She slapped me on my 6
th
birthday party”.

At its simplest, just keep repeating the issue statement. But it can be helpful to expand on that as new awarenesses come to you, as they will. So you can go into kind of freeform statements: ‘She slapped me at my 6
th
birthday party – that wasn’t fair – I didn’t deserve that – it ruined the day for me – it was so unfair – how dare she do that – I’m so angry about that.’

Definitely don’t fret over this freeform stuff. The EFT process will work just by repeating the issue statement. This is just a suggestion.

One you have tapped each of the points, that is one complete ‘round’ of EFT. So do this again, twice, for a total of three rounds.

Now, tune into how upset you are about the issue and see what your score is now. Most likely the upset about the issue will have lessened. Maybe instead of being an 8 as it was when you started, it is now a 7 or even a 6. If this is so, you are on the right track. Do another 3 or 4 rounds, and check your progress. It might be at a score of 3 after that. Simply keep going until your score is a 0.

It is very possible that as you are tapping on the birthday party issue, other memories will come up. If so, just pause in the tapping to write them down, and then continue with the original issue until it’s sorted. You can work on the other issue(s) next.

Another possibility is that your score has actually gone up. This is not a problem at all. It is just that as you tune into the issue you are accessing more of the original upset, which was buried and suppressed. Keep tapping and the score should start to come down.

The other possibility is that no matter how much you tap, the issue will not shift at all. I suggest not tapping any more than 5 rounds – if it has not shifted at all in that time, then you need to look further. There are several things you can try.

The first, and easiest, is to drink some water and make sure you are well-hydrated as that is essential for EFT to work. Also, move around physically a bit, and stretch. Then try again – in a good number of cases that will solve the problem.

If not, there may be something blocking the healing. And so, try doing the script for ‘Blocks To Healing’. Using EFT to help you successfully do EFT might seem counter-productive, but that is one of its strengths, that we can use it to use it!

If it still does not work, then it might well be worth getting in touch with a local EFT practitioner as they will have skills to dig out the blocks to healing. In most cases, however, it will not come to that.

Be aware too that you can stop EFT before the issue is completely sorted – if you run out of time for example. Just make sure you don’t stop while you are upset in any way  - it can be tempting to avoid the pain by suppressing it again and distracting ourselves. Try not to fall into that trap. And don’t put yourself through the trauma of leaving yourself upset. But if your score went from an 8 to a 4, and you had to stop then, that’s fine. You can pick it up again, still at a 4, the next time.

You can even use EFT to deal with very traumatic stuff. (Although, again, you do this at your own risk. But this process is very gentle and should not cause you any problems.)

The trick with traumatic issues is to work through metaphor, as our subconscious works very well with metaphor.

What you do is this: in your imagination, place the traumatic incident in a sturdy wooden box and cover with a wooden lid. Nail that lid down. Then put that box into another box, this one made of steel. Close the steel lid and lock it with a strong padlock. Then place that steel box into a concrete casing and seal it shut.

Then, look up and you will see that in the far distance there is a mountain. Using the power of magic (or binoculars if you prefer!) you can see the top of that mountain. There is a cave there with a huge stone in front of it. Using more magic, move the concrete case into the cave and roll the big stone over the mouth of the cave.

Now, we work in reverse. Picture the concrete case safe in that cave, and check in with yourself to see how upset you are about it. Do
not
think of the incident in detail, or at all. Think only of the concrete case. Your subconscious knows what it represents. If the score is greater than 0, start tapping using this phrase: ‘Even though this concrete case, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.”

I know this makes no sense, but it will work. What you are really saying is, ‘Even though I have this major trauma represented by this concrete case, I deeply and completely love and accept myself’, but the subconscious will be well able to work with the short version.

So, use the EFT process on that phrase, until when you think of the concrete case in the cave, there is a 0 of upset.

Now, consider the prospect of rolling back the stone. Do not actually do that yet. Just consider the idea. How do you feel about that? Does your stress level go up? To what number? With this process, ideally the upset will only go up to a 3 or 4 each time. We are aiming to keep this gentle and un-traumatic. But if it does go up higher than that, reverse the story-line, e.g. stop considering the prospect of rolling the stone back, and go back to tapping on the previous statement about the concrete case for a few minutes, before testing again.

And then, when you have established the score at the prospect of rolling back the stone, use the EFT procedure on the statement, ‘Even though it’s not safe for me to roll the stone back, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.’

Continue tapping, using that statement, until you feel total peace, a Level-0 of upset, at the prospect of rolling the stone back. And then, do that very thing – roll the stone back now. But by the power of magic you are still at the bottom of the mountain, far away, and very safe.

So, the stone is rolled back. How do you feel now? There might be a twinge of stress as the concrete case is now more accessible. If so, tap on that: ‘Even though the cave is now open, I deeply, etc’, and work on that until you are a Level-0 of distress about the concrete case being in the open cave.