By O. Beauvoisin
For someone unable to listen to “our favorite tune” years after a deep loss, close death, or rejection, I have found that EFT tapping whilst deliberately listening to such songs or music relieves the overwhelming grief, and reaches a cognitive shift, in shorter time than standard talk therapy.
I suspect that tapping along with the music accesses subconscious aspects.
The sound of the music keeps the focus on the negative disruption until the disruption is smoothed out. Testing the EFT work is so easy here. You are done when it becomes possible to hear the tune, song, or music with the original joy and with appreciation of all its personal meaning.
I began using CDs of such music for myself in the second year following a deep personal bereavement (a loss that was all the more intense because it was almost identical to one from 16 years previously).
The pre-EFT self-help therapies meant “steel yourself, feel the fear, face up to it,” causing much pain (emotional and physical), little progress, and weariness from the effort. It was my attempt to come to terms with the loss, and dull its effects if I could. Forcing myself to be aware of what I should be grateful for, made me feel better for a short while, but only briefly. The best I could generate in myself was a resignation to “That’s life,” and a commitment to keep on living.
I have been using tapping on me and for my clients ever since I was introduced to EFT, but I only got “so far” with my personal grief by using verbal expressions, a variety of Setup Statements, and a multitude of specific events. Then I went back to my music CDs. The use of personally emotive music, with good, intense-but-now-sad memories embedded in it, seems to have bypassed the need for full conscious awareness of exactly what issue I was tapping on.
Occasionally, a verbalization came to mind, and I used it:
Even though you made that promise, and didn’t keep it, I deeply and completely accept myself.
Even though I was a mug to believe it, I deeply and completely accept myself.
This progressed to:
Even though you couldn’t keep that promise, I deeply and completely accept myself.
which became:
Even though you did your best, and I love you anyway, as well as I deeply and completely accept myself.
I used to have to leave any public place that began playing “that music” in the background. You’d be amazed how often that happened; there were times it felt like a sabotage conspiracy.
Public displays of personal sadness are an anathema in Britain. Eruptions of private grief are generally treated as glitches in self-control, and meet with bewilderment and embarrassment, sometimes with hostility, and an apparent desire that the problem will evaporate of its own accord. Brits just don’t know how to handle grief supportively.
And now, it has become possible to hear tunes, songs, and music and to access the original joy and appreciation of their personal meaning, alongside a “normal” sense of loss. Listening to music has regained its life-enhancing quality for me.
