By Mair Llewellyn, Master EFT Practitioner
Who is writing on the walls of your mind?
The “writings on our walls” are the beliefs we picked up as children from the people around us. This concept illustrates how our thoughts, words, images, feelings or responses link to early, as well as later, experiences and conditioning. These unconsciously competent responses can be positive or negative drivers in our lives.
Past Writings on Our Walls
A teacher once told me that I was thick and that I would never amount to much. My friends said I was too easily influenced. My mom reacted as if whatever I did was never good enough. My closest friend told me I was too soft.
Why are other’s observations or predictions still happening in my life? Could it possibly be anything to do with me?
Was it what was said or how I perceived life for me that became the mechanism of my self-fulfilling prophecy?
This happened, or is still happening, for me as long as I continue to hold onto these beliefs handed to me by others in my life. This is often an unconscious process that was intended for a positive purpose. My knee-jerk reactions to things can be triggered by my self-talk, the images created in my mind as well as taste, touch, smell, or gut feelings from past writings on my walls by others.
Present Writing on Our Walls
When we think of the here and now, we may well ask who is currently writing on the wall of our mind?
Are we still stuck in the mire of an old self-fulfilling prophecy? Why do we continue to believe what was said to us? Did we just believe negative suggestions or did we also absorb positive messages? From where do the images we keep seeing originate?
What about the feelings in our bodies that seem to connect with our words and images? How is it that we continue to make the same mistakes and tell ourselves what others have told us?
If the saying “You can if you think you can” is true, why is it that we find we really cannot? There must be some fundamental truth we are missing, a puzzle piece that has somehow been mislaid.
We physically walk today because we learned to walk before we can remember. When we dress, we have no need to think about which leg to put into our trousers first or which shoe to put on first. With few exceptions, the routine of our life is more or less identical and unconsciously competent and automatic. There are relatively few responses that no longer serve us well.
Are all of our physical, emotional, spiritual, professional, social, and financial responses similar to this?
Future Writings on Our Walls
When you consider your expectation about tomorrow, what do you see, how do you feel, and what are you saying to yourself?
Many clients who come for therapy, come with what is called “anticipatory anxiety.” Their past experiences are understandably often their possible predictors of what might happen again.
Their future choices and the significant people in their lives can affect the writing on the walls of their mind. Your expectations about your life could be thought of in the same way as a self-fulfilling prophecy or as the often quoted saying, “Be careful what you think of because it will surely be.”
A Magical Eraser for Writings on Our Walls
Fortunately, everything that has been written on walls of our minds can be changed. Our past, present, and future can be sculptured or erased by EFT tapping. When I started my psychotherapy practice in 1980, the past appeared to scar clients seemingly for life. Now, thankfully, that is often not the case.
It may need persistence and lots of detective work to discover the twists and turns of how the clients’ perception colored who they have become because of their experiences and the colors they brought into their lives, but EFT will get to the core aspects.
EFT offers a sense of knowing that true peace of mind and liberation is, indeed, very possible. The steps that I take erase and reframe giving them new perspectives for present and future freedom and joy.
Tapping to neutralize anger, sadness, and trauma enables us genuinely to release past hurts, allow us to be all that we were intended to be. Our own transformation also offers us the opportunity to be the best psychotherapist our children ever had.
More important, though, because our actions speak louder than words, EFT opens the way to a positive present and future. When we embrace this opportunity, it gives us the gift of being exactly the ideal psychotherapist for each and every one of us. We may initially need support or guidance in our early days to establish skill and confidence in using EFT.
In the beginning, I was a reluctant EFT user, even though it had worked so well for me. For some time, my inner saboteur was still running the show. I had spent many years being a credible psychotherapist, or so I thought. Now, I am truly glad that I listened to my intuition because, thanks to EFT, I deeply and completely accept myself anyway.
