By Marta Bonilla Hidalgo
“All my life I have been choosing darkness over light.” This breakthrough came up for Claire at the end of a coaching session, four days ago. She could not work further on it, as the session came to an end.
A picture in Claire’s mind captured the idea: a class photograph with all the children gathered in a group in the limelight, while Claire sat in a dark corner.
Claire knew EFT well and had been able to work by herself on most of the events related to her belief of feeling left out and not having best friends.
Her older memories dated from school, but she was convinced that the pattern started even before that, maybe in kindergarten. “It has always been there,” she said, though she was unable to recall any event related to it.
I asked, “Would it make sense to you if it was an inherited belief and might not have any kindergarten event related to this?”
Her eyes filled with tears. Given the emotion, we agreed on exploring this option.
We started our talk around her grandmothers. She felt more connected to Mamie, her mother’s mother, a warm and loving woman, who loved spending time playing with her grandchildren. Born and raised in the North, she would always talk about WWII as “the best years of my life.” A social and outgoing person, she had joined a girl’s association which made her feel fulfilled and contributing to society.
All that changed after the war. When she moved to the South, she could hardly understand the strong dialect, felt isolated, and did not have any friends or social life. Therafter, Mamie never felt one with her community.
When I asked Claire how closely she identified with Mamie, she started seeing similitudes. “She lived in darkness, always longing to go back to the North,” she said. Claire’s dreams included buying a house in the North.
It did not matter that Claire was unable to remember a single event that could have made her mamie feel left out because her perception of the situation was obvious.
With no specific events to work on, we decided to have an Unfinished Conversation. Claire chose to meet her mamie in the living room of her old house.
Mamie was sitting on the coach reading newspapers and magazines. The room was hot, as the heater was always on, and Mamie was wearing her big eyeglasses. She was happy to see Claire again–just a bit surprised to see her so grown up.
As most of this conversation took place in her mother tongue, Claire translated it for me.
Claire told Mamie how she felt left out and in darkness and asked if Mamie knew anything that could help her with that.
Mamie looked uncomfortable with the topic, would rather skip it. (We tapped on that for one round of the Basic Recipe.)
Mamie expressed pain and regret for the choices she made in life: “I have tried so hard to participate and be part of the community.” She couldn’t understand why she could not be part.
When tapping on Mamie’s pain, Claire had an insight related to her strong personality: Claire was opinionated and harsh at times with other children and this had prevented her from making friends and getting close to them. Some beliefs she remembered having as a child were “I am not part of them” and “I do not have real friends” (Validity of Cognition, or VOC, 80%).
Claire told Mamie about her childhood beliefs. Mamie was evasive and Claire felt that she had many regrets, frustrations and, especially, bitterness about life. She rated Mamie’s bitterness at SUD 9.
Claire realized that the same bitterness was in the way Claire had talked to the other children at school (“The same bitchy tone”).
We tapped on:
Even though we talked with the same bitchy tone, full of bitterness, I love and accept you the way you are, and I love and accept myself the way I am and the way I have been.
Claire tapped for both Mamie and herself using the Basic Recipe plus the 9 Gamut. We did “infinite” movements with the eyes.
Mamie looked relaxed then, with a friendlier face and her eyes were full of tears.
Claire asked her about the bitterness and Mamie felt sad (SUD 9) and sorry for herself (SUD 9) . Claire shared the same strong feelings and we tapped on that with the Basic Recipe plus the 9 Gamut and infinite eye movements.
Mamie’s sadness went down to 6, but she still felt sorry for herself (SUD 8). The feeling was like a stone in her chest and she told Claire that she couldn’t feel relief with that. Claire could see the stone and asked Mamie if Mamie could just remove it and hand it over to Claire. But the stone was so much part of Mamie that she wouldn’t feel safe without it, she said. We tapped on “not knowing who I would be without the stone.”
Mamie showed Claire how the stone was intertwined with her heart; it was part of her heart and she couldn’t get rid of it.
I suggested that Claire go to the Invisible Counselor and take Mamie along. Claire invited her on a healing journey and Mamie accepted, excited and skeptical at the same time.
I guided Claire through Ecomeditation and she chose to sit under a huge tree where she could lean back on it. She could smell and taste the fresh grass, hear the birds, feel the breeze and the warmness of the sun. The being that came was not defined, neither person nor object. It was translucent and long shaped. It could be human, but Claire could only see the edges of it–flowing edges. She felt relaxed and comfortable in front of that being.
Claire was able to draw out of her body the “feeling sorry about her life” in the shape of a black crow made of tar. She offered it to the being with her right hand. On her left hand, the being offered Claire a hand–human and “friendly”–which took the crow away and the crow started disintegrating. The hand disappeared and the being offered Claire a green grass ball on her left hand.
Mamie also offered her stone-heart on her right hand and was given a green object, shaped like the stone-heart but warm and filled with love. Mamie showed the stone to the green object and the stone became sand and disappeared. The green object grew and shone full of energy.
Claire put her green ball where the crow was sitting before–in the middle of her chest. Mamie put the green object where the stone was before–in her heart.
The being left and Claire and Mamie came back to Mamie’s living room. Mamie was laughing and said, “All is well!”
We did a long round of tapping in which Claire said goodbye to Mamie, thanking her for all she inherited from her and for her help in clearing this “darkness” belief. She wished a “happy life in the light” to both of them.
We ended the session with Happy Tappy, integrating all the cognitive shifts and feeling grateful for being able to clear even the memories inherited from the ancestors.
Claire started to connect the dots between situations and thoughts in her life–like talking to her sister that very same afternoon about “always choosing darkness” and her sister feeling the same.
The first time Claire felt the crow in her chest was in one of the EFT training workshops and now she felt relieved at having released it.
Her jaw, which used to be sore and tense all the time, has now relaxed and she can breathe deeply. At that workshop, she had felt that she had to work with her inner child and tell her, “You don’t need to chew on that any longer.” Now she felt that her inner child was relieved.
The next day, Claire wrote to me in an email:
“It took me a while to find sleep. I was so excited and amazed about this session. I called my mother to share the experience with her and she was so amazed she couldn’t find words. After a while, her mother said: “That’s exactly how it was. She couldn’t take that stone out of her heart, even if she would have wanted to.”
Follow-up
Two weeks later, Claire wrote:
“I thought this session was great and I really felt the transformation clearly and strong. But what’s all this transformation about if there’s no change in my real life? It took me almost two weeks to realize the change. I was sitting in an EFT seminar listening to the trainer as the change became totally clear. The previous week had severe back pain. And there was the difference. I hadn’t been suffering, I noticed that the back pain was there and that I needed a break. There you go. My former me would have suffered, a lot. I feel blessed and happy and grateful….
“If you hand in the session, maybe you can add a bit of the following weeks. I think that’s important because in most inspiring stories I read, there’s not so much said about the time after the session. And it’s part of my story.”
