As easy as EFT is to do, despite its utter simplicity of concept, many people–myself included–are often stymied by the question of just what they’re supposed to say during the first part, the part where you say, “even though I have this
Even though I do know that it’s not necessary to get hung up on the words, it’s easy to get pulled into an overly analytical mindset, especially if you are working on a long chain of issues, where you start to clear one thing, only to realize its true cause is some other factor, which you begin to work on, only to find a deeper problem. It doesn’t take very long for this to seem threatening and confusing. When it happens to me, sometimes I find myself wanting to phrase the issue just right.
In one way, the words really do matter, because if we misrepresent the issue, the EFT feels “off.” It just doesn’t seem to address the problem, or does so only partially. Also, if we are untruthful with ourselves, our minds know this. For example, that “I deeply and completely accept myself.” part can be a real stumbling block for many people who might not accept themselves just then, or at all.
In dealing with issues which are subtle and complex, especially physical symptoms which change frequently, you might find yourself going in circles, and feeling very confused about which thing to address or how to describe your problem.
Fortunately, there is a way to cut through the confusion, and that is simply to forget words for a while and just focus strongly on the problematic feeling while you tap. You can do this both with a physical sensation or with an emotion. What’s so great about this is that feelings are the real issue we’re dealing with all along. After all, if you didn’t have a bad feeling, you wouldn’t have a problem, would you? (We might have to think about that one for a while. Please feel free to challenge me on this point if you don’t agree!)
Also, feelings are the native language of our minds and bodies. Every time we put something into words, we’re translating, and not always successfully. But it takes no special thinking to just focus on whatever we’re feeling, though we may have to keep reminding ourselves to do so while tapping, as the mind can tend to wander.
What about that “deeply accept myself” part, though? Will EFT still work if we leave it out? I’ve given this some thought and what I’ve finally decided is that this phrase is sometimes more problematic than helpful to begin with. See the above paragraphs about how people often don’t feel this statement is true. I think it is a good thing for some people, some of the time, but perhaps is just as often problematical as helpful.
Let’s think about what that statement is supposed to do for us. It’s there to remind us that we have an intention, that we’re not just dwelling on our misery here–we’re deliberately invoking our problem in order to resolve it and feel better. We already know this is what we’re doing. So in a way, that statement is kind of redundant. If we’re having to translate our feelings into words, that statement can be very helpful, since it’s more easy to get distracted then, but when we’re focusing on a feeling and tapping, we’re well aware of our intent to shift the feeling because the feeling will be so much more unpleasant than whatever words we can dress it up in.
Let me stress this point. The feelings probably hurt. The feelings are a bugger. They’re so awful that we’d do almost anything to avoid feeling them, so when we go to the trouble of forcing ourselves to feel them while we tap on these silly points, there’s no way we’re going to forget why we’re doing it! We know we’re trying to heal.
As I mentioned earlier, there is one pitfall to “tapping on the feeling,” especially if it is an emotional feeling rather than a physical one, and that is that our minds can wander and then we may have a hard time returning to that feeling. So what you need to do is to keep reminding yourself to come back to it, and to keep breathing. You can use your words for this.
When I do it, it goes
