Dear EFT Community,Psychologist, Dr. Timothy Hayes offers a very useful tool to use with EFT for quickly uncovering core issues. Sometimes by looking at what is upsetting us in a new way we can see where we remain stuck.
By Timothy J. Hayes, PsyD
I recently listened to a lecture by the founder and director of HeartLand, Dr. Michael Ryce, titled, “Why Is This Happening to Me Again?“
In the lecture, Dr. Ryce suggests that in order to accelerate your growth process, you make a column on a piece of paper and list everyone who has ever offended you. Then make a second column and list what each person did to offend you. Then make a third column and list your advice to the person who offended you.
Once you have completed all three columns go back to the first column and cross out the names of the people listed there and write in your own name. Now follow the advice you wanted them to follow.
Recently, I had a client who had been very upset with someone, for several days.
Discussing the situation and tapping on it were only marginally successful. So I suggested that my client figure out exactly what it was that this other person had done that was so upsetting. We discussed what the traits were that this person displayed that were so upsetting to my client.
My client realized that he was upset because the other person had been so “impatient.” I asked my client to think of a situation in his life where he was impatient. He was shocked that I would suggest such a thing, but quickly realized that there was a major pattern at his work about which he was upset at himself for being so impatient.
I had him tap:
“Even though I am so impatient at work, I deeply and completely accept myself.”
After two rounds of tapping, his SUD disturbance level was at a 0 out of 10. Then when I had my client focus on the other person, whose behavior had been so upsetting to him, he found that he had no negative emotions attached to that person or to the event that had been bothering him for days.
This process helps explicitly acknowledge that every emotion I have is something I am creating and that the various people and situations that I get upset with are simply resonating with unresolved issues inside of me. The other person or situation is not making me feel hurt, angry, sad, or insulted; the other person or situation is simply a stimulus that triggers those emotional energies and thoughts inside of me.
This has worked several times and I find that it gets much quicker and more complete results than tapping on my being angry or hurt because of a situation or something that another person has done. Once I identify the action or trait in another that is upsetting me, and connect that with something I have done, or am doing, that I am not pleased with, I will be in direct contact with the issue, memory, or emotion in myself that I need to release or resolve.
This process has consistently saved several rounds of tapping and, in one case, facilitated resolution in a client who seemed hopelessly stuck.
