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Why Does Tapping On the Side of the Hand Work?
Tapping Into Your Ancestral History

Open Your Intuition with EFT

Good Results with EFT for Everyone But Me

Healing the "Were-ies" of the Past

How to Have a Happy New Year (Start Today)

EFT for WOE is ME

It wasn't safe to be happy

Healing the Heart of the World

EFT and a Neurobiological Model for Fibromyalgia

Breaking the Cycle of Self-Created Stress

I Thought I Had to Tough It Out and Soldier On

Dark Angel

What Did You Want to Say that You Couldn't Say?

Mend Your Broken Heart

Old Story: Scold Story. New Story? True Story!

Listen to Yourself

Step Off the Beaten Path of Pain

Too Big for Your Britches?

Is Your Heart the Right Size?

Great Expectations

Why Does Tapping on the Side of the Hand Work?

This question was posed to me by a participant in my EFT Circle class recently , and as a question-loving person myself, it sent me off on a research project. I knew that the side of the hand is the place in EFT that we tap for what is called Psychological Reversal. What captured me in the question was the "Why." I realized that I had some knowledge but not enough for a complete answer.

Even though it is a little scary to be asked a question that I can't automatically shine at answering, especially when there are lots of people listening, I actually like the experience. I reframe it to mean an opportunity to learn something, and then share what I have learned. And I love learning and sharing.

I will give you the direct answer, first. Then later I will probably offer some more articles on Psychological Reversal, a term first introduced by Roger Callahan. When EFT "doesn't work," it is often a sign that there is a paralyzing conflict held deep within.

The direct answer to the question is about the energy meridian at the side of the hand, the Karate Chop point in EFT, which is the small intestine meridian. Each energy meridian is part of a network that is related to a body organ or function, and each one embodies a way of thinking, a story about what is happening inside us, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, our way of responding to life.

Tapping Into Your Ancestral History

I recently returned from an EFT conference in England, where I taught a class on the highly sensitive temperament.

First I talked about the trait of sensitivity. It is INFP in the Meyers-Briggs temperament types, and the Idealist-Healer in the Keirsey Temperament Sorter. Here is one list of aspects of this trait (sound like anyone you know?):

Abstract in thought and speech
Cooperative
Introverted
Appear reserved and shy
Diplomatic
Empathic
Hunger for deep and meaningful relationships
Value personal growth, authenticity and integrity

Internally deeply caring
Deeply committed to the positive and the good
A mission to bring peace to the world
Strong personal morality
Often make extraordinary sacrifices for someone / something they believe in
Imagination and evolution are the goal.

Seek unity, feel divided inside
Often had an unhappy childhood
May have been raised in a practical, industrious, social family
Didn’t conform to parental expectations
Often feel isolated, “like an alien”
See themselves as ugly ducklings

Rich fantasy world as a child, may have been discouraged or punished for this by parents
Wish to please, try to hide their differences
Believe and are told that their sensitivity is bad

Drawn toward purity but continuously on the lookout for the wickedness they think lurks in them
Self-sacrificing to an extreme, in atonement for their failings
Keep this inner struggle hidden from others

(Resources: David Kiersey, Please Understand Me II; Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator; The Highly Sensitive Person, Elaine Aron)

I asked people to share what they most liked and most disliked about being so sensitive. The answers ranged widely and thoughtfully. On the "like" side, they shared about being grateful for their deep sense of empathy and compassion, their appreciation of beauty, a strong sense of justice, their ability to sense what is going on in another person.

Open Your Intuition with EFT

Someone asked me recently, "What IS intuition?" What I said at the time, while first allowing that we don't really know what intuition is - we can only speculate, is that it is a kind of inner knowing that by-passes our thinking process. It is a teaching from within. In-tuition.

Later I looked up the word "intuition" in my etymological dictionary - the history of the origin and changing meaning of words. This hefty book is one of my favorite sources of wisdom. To my delight, I found that the meaning of "intuition" lies in the origin of "tuition," which carries the sense of "protection, custody, looking after, taking care of." The word didn't take on the meaning of teaching or instruction or teaching until the mid-1800's.

So my answer now to the question, "What is intuition?" would be this: It is our inner knowing about how to honor our own truth and take care of ourselves

I believe that we are embodied intuition.

On the other hand, I notice that people tend to believe that intuition comes from "out there somewhere." We think of it as an external presence speaking to us: God, angels, a channeled source, our "Higher Self," a guide.

I do support the possibility of gaining wisdom and other perspectives from other realms of beingness. But I think that we have an innate wisdom within our own embodied spiritual presence. We are like lighthouses, showing ourselves the way. But we block our knowing with beliefs and critical judgments carried into our lives from the emotional inheritance of our ancestors.

Dave offered himself as a tapping volunteer for the weekly EFT Circle teleclass. He began with a belief that is probably familiar to all of us: "EFT doesn't work for me." Dave acknowledged that he had been able to help lots of other people, but was help-less when it came to "fixing" himself.

This is what he had written to me before the class:

I have only been practicing as a recent EFT-ADV for a few weeks, but to my wonder and immense gratification have had a dozen or so clients all of whom have had dramatic, lasting results. 30 years of clinical depression lifted; 3+ year chronic sides-of-the-head pain to zero in one round, etc.

Then there’s me. Using the very same protocols, procedures, “detective work”, etc., I am FAR from a one-minute wonder. It is not just disappointing, it is frustrating. DRAT! Why doesn’t it work for me? It sometimes makes me wonder “what’s wrong with me”? and I get discouraged. Even though I know that the driving issues for problems I want to ease are subconscious, and that my conscious flashlight won’t penetrate the basement door of the unconscious, so is everyone else’s, yet THEY get results.

I understand from Rue and other EFT practitioners that I’m not alone with this phenomenon—it is pretty typical. But still it's frustrating.

Healing the "Were-ies" of the Past

I have a deep interest in how we hold the story of our personal and our ancestral past in our bodies and our lives.

Also, I have questions. What leads us to make the choices we do? And especially: as ancestors ourselves, how can we change the story of the future?

I watched the PBS documentary "African American Lives," initiated and hosted by Harvard professor Louis Gates. It is about "the poetry of history, the magic of science and the allure of the family trees" as one reviewer put it, of Morgan Freeman, Chris Rock, Tina Turner, Don Cheadle, Tom Joyner, Maya Angelou and several other well known African Americans. I was moved again and again as each person discovered their roots through genealogical and DNA research.

Comedian Chris Rock was teary eyed to learn that his great-great-grandfather fought in the Civil War, served in the South Carolina Legislature, and died owning dozens of acres of land. He had never known any of that history. He talked about growing up in a working-class Brooklyn neighborhood and being bussed to a white school, where he was bullied.

He said, “Until I lucked into a comedy club at, you know, age 20, just on a whim, I assumed I would pick up things for white people for the rest of my life. If I’d known this about my family's history, it would have taken away the inevitability that I was going to be nothing.”

Read More...

How to Have a Happy New Year (Start Today)

Every January we so earnestly resolve to "be better." Lose weight. Stop smoking. Be a nicer person. We tell a well worn story about ourselves that is full of our flaws and failures, and we make New Year's resolutions. Again.

The problem with New Year's resolutions is that we always start with wanting to be different. By "different" we probably mean "less bad."

We may not stop to think about how it makes us feel to tell ourselves how bad we are. In fact, isn't that negative self talk possibly what drove us to smoking or over-eating or workaholism in the first place? Trying to cover up and numb out those old painful feelings?

I want us to use EFT to help ourselves to be better at being more of who we already are - that is, more of the evolving goodness inside us, right here in each moment.

I loved how Liz Gilbert, in her recent book "Eat, Pray, Love," described finding help. She was lying on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night, yet again in the depths of despair about her failed life, asking for inner help, maybe for the first time.

EFT for WOE is ME

My own words in this issue will be limited by the fact that I am typing with one finger of my non-dominant hand. A few days ago I slipped on the ice here in the frozen north of Wisconsin, fell hard, and broke my wrist.

I began tapping within seconds of falling. I lay on the path in shock and pain under the falling snow in the deserted park, alone except for my two dogs that were milling helpfully around. Once I could tell that at least I hadn't broken a leg or a hip, and that my arm that wasn't holding the dog leash could move, I just tapped and tapped through the most basic points on my face and on top of my head. I was using the tip of the thumb of the glove on my only available hand, the hurt hand. (The other hand had to hold the dog leash, which fortunately is one leash with an attachment for each dog. It was new - I was so glad I had it!
http://www.extremeleash.com/ if you are interested)

I was in shock and not too coherent, so I didn't bother with setup phrases. I just repeated whatever words came to me, mostly what I was feeling. Over and over as I tapped, I said, "this pain,"" I fell," "in shock," "hurt my hand," "don't know if I can get up," "please help, (generic prayer)," "please help," this pain," "glad I didn't hit my head," "everything hurts," body in shock," "please help..."

I tapped like this until I was ready to try sitting up, and tapped some more until I was ready to try standing, and tapped some more as I tried to take small shuffling steps. I wasn't close to home, so I kept up this patter of saying the tapping phrases mentally, cradling my hurting free hand at my chest, shuffling along gingerly through the snow while restraining excited dogs.

It Wasn't Safe to be Happy

In the EFT Circle teleclass we regularly experience remarkable deep work, as members of the group take on and transform deep seated beliefs which have caused ongoing physical and emotional pain. This was the case recently for Christine, a 40 year old woman of Chinese ancestry.

Christine worked gracefully with a constricting belief from her ancient cultural tradition about the role of women in maintaining family harmony and (therefore) national harmony. With EFT she found a way to step in a new healing direction as an individual woman, while maintaining honor and respect for her group heritage.

Tap along as you read, and borrow her benefits like the rest of us did during the class! This is almost the transcript of the whole session, so you can see how it evolved. It is long for a newsletter article, but full of useful ideas for the practitioner and for anyone who has a limiting belief. (Know anybody like that??)

In this session, we used the Take a Stand process. I have developed this powerful and innovative protocol for using EFT to help people to transform old, no longer useful beliefs that are in conflict with other, expanding parts of us.

Healing the Heart of the World

The word trauma means “wound.” It is only in the last 115 years or so that “trauma” has been used in the sense of psychic wound. Psychic wound – a wounding of the soul. In healing the wounds of our beliefs about our sensitivity, we heal our souls, we heal the soul of the earth.

What a blessing we have in EFT, and the other Energy Psychology techniques. In the use of this blessing for ourselves and others, we can touch the space in each of us where we become a blessing, just by being. No expectations to meet, nothing we have to do to become worthy.

I believe that each of us is called to the earth, by the earth itself, to offer the blessing of our personal transformation. I have heard so many people lament that their lives have been wasted, trying in vain to deal with all the pain. But I truly believe that what is asked of us is our actual healing process. It is not that we “get healed” and then we go out into the world to “save it” or do “good works.”

It is our very healing process itself that is the blessing. All we have to do is intend it. When we live the questions, as the German poet Rilke said, rather than struggle to find answers, we find ourselves living into the answers. And there, in that flow, lies the healing. Every one of our moments counts.

Jennifer Anderson, a charter boat dive leader in Maui, describes her magic breathtaking moment in the ocean off Maui with a wounded giant 15 foot Manta ray ~ which touched her heart forever. She gave me generous permission to reprint it. Her story lives in my heart as an example of healing the heart of the world, just by being where you are, being who you are, doing what is given to you to do in the moment.

Presently, the conventional medical model frames fibromyalgia as a syndrome diagnosis. As such, it is simply a name applied to a set of symptoms, primarily pain, and the finding of tender spots on examination occurring in a patient for whom no other explanation exists for this state of being.

In many ways, fibromyalgia is like so many other diseases in our Western medical history. Our understanding of the pathophysiology of this disorder is reliant on an exquisite understanding of the physiology of pain and pain perception, the effects of trauma and stress on the brain, and the ways the emotions are translated into the physiology of symptoms.

In fact, we are still in the infancy of exploration of these complex processes and, therefore, a complete understanding of how someone with FM gets sick and stays sick eludes us.

I recently worked with a young friend who just opened her first acupuncture clinic with another young woman. When they were setting up their business bank account, and the personal banker found out that yes, in fact, acupuncture was useful for headaches, she became a good referral source for them.

Now she has invited Joan to a bank-sponsored golf outing for small businesses. Joan is feeling terrified! For one thing, she is not a golfer. And, she hates going to a group of people where she knows no one. Plus, her mind is throwing up all the self doubts she has ever collected about self-worth and inadequacy.

She said, "When I was in acupuncture school I felt competent and I did a good job (except when I froze on exams!). Now, with my business, I have a hard time putting myself out there. I have trouble initiating conversations about what I do. I find myself assuming that people aren't interested in listening to me. I feel like they are just humoring me when I talk.

I feel so inexperienced, and it brings up all my feelings of not being as good as other people. My mind disconnects from my mouth and I begin to feel like I am talking gibberish. And then I start thinking, how can I feel justified in even asking for money for what I do? It is one thing to work with family and friends for free, but I fall into doubting that my services are worth what I am charging.

Help! How can I truly believe in the value of what I have to offer? And I don't even know how to play golf!!"

I am sure that at least one or two of you reading this have had similar feelings...

This was the theme for the most recent Complimentary EFT Circle class, and it was very popular! It seemed to touch a nerve for lots of people.

I have heard a version of this phrase so often. We are all so good at being the strong one, the competent one, the dependable and reliable one. We have had to learn how to do that because in the past, it may not have been possible or safe or appropriate to express what we were actually feeling. Or maybe being the "go to" person seemed like the only way to get some approval. We try so hard.

So many of us have just learned to swallow what was really inside us, stuffing down the words or the tears or maybe even the joy and excitement. It was all too much. We locked up whatever we wanted for ourselves. We taught ourselves not to want. We taught ourselves to think that what we wanted was what They wanted us to want.

Now we are stuck in a grey world of "should" and "have to" and "better not" and "I am all alone here." We think we have no choices.

Dark Angel

No matter what issues we are dealing with, learning to elicit the positive intention in a person or a situation is about the most powerful, heartening spiritual practice I can think of.

You probably have heard about "psychological reversals," or "emotional saboteurs." Maybe you know that the beginning set-up statement in EFT is designed to treat these reversals. They tend to show up disguised as the problems in our lives.

At some point in our personal history, a particular behavior, symptom, or belief system appeared to be the best or safest or maybe the only option available to us. It may still be operating in us now. It feels like who we are now, our identity. We don't question it. We soldier on with it. Maybe we got so used to doing/seeing/feeling that way that we didn't even notice when the saboteur began to cause more trouble than it solved.

But deep inside this behavior or thought or pain, there still glows the need and desire and deserving of the safety and fostering that we are still trying to get for ourselves. It is showing up distorted into a problem now, but there is goodness at its center.

Recently I have found myself in EFT sessions asking people the question, "What did you want to say that you couldn't?" Here are five examples of tapping sessions that dealt with this question.

#1
I was listening as someone was telling me how much better she was doing since our last session. The pain and cramping that had made her hands "stuck closed" had loosened up now. But then she began to describe how the pain seemed to be "moving up my arms into my neck, where it used to be, a sharp, burning pain." (I always ask, "Pain like what?")

I asked her when she first started noticing pain like this, and she began talking about thirty years earlier when she had such terrible tension in her jaw.

I imagined her jaw clenched closed... and the question popped out. "What did you want to say back then, or even earlier in your childhood, but couldn't?"

Mend Your Broken Heart

In several recent issues of this newsletter I have asked this question:

As a sensitive person what concerns and issues do you want help with resolving?

Thank you to the hundreds of people who have responded! Here is what one person said:

Oh Lord, this is where I need the help. I have all of the characteristics of Emotional Sensitivity—to the extreme.

I would like to know how to deal with my extreme emotional sensitivity. My mother always says, "don't cry, it doesn't do any good; I could be crying all of the time...." I have been unemployed since August (due mostly to my sensitivity of one particular person's comments and actions and things she did behind my back...I would complain to the interim CEO and ended up being terminated.)

I easily attach to people—especially men—and have a hard time letting go.

We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess, but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects.

Alexis de Tocqueville

This quote made me stop and think when I read it recently. How could it be true? The first part made sense, but how could our defects lead us toward excellence?

I got to thinking about some recent EFT sessions I have had, and found this quote a useful way to think about them.

When I first began working with Don, he told me the litany of his woes, which were many. His life has definitely been challenging, and he now experiences many chronic physical ailments and debilitating emotional states of being. Don has spent the last 20 or so years seeking healing from every possible source, traditional to non traditional. I remember thinking several times that he sounded very practiced at telling his story.

Listen to Yourself

Often I will hear, “You are so intuitive! You said just the right words to me.” Yes, I use my intuition, but what I am really doing is paying close attention to what people say, and then reflecting their own words back to them so they can hear them.

We are constantly telling ourselves the old stories about who we are and what is possible for us. Those stories are so old that we think they are the truth about us, and we have stopped questioning it. We have stopped even hearing it.

Read More...

Step off the Beaten Path of Pain

I like to use the fishing net approach for problems like this. The idea is that you can pick up any little corner or part of the net, and start hauling it in, and eventually everything that is caught in it comes too. So you can start with some small incident that left you grumbling, or anxious, or sad.

Whatever it is, whatever happened that day, it is connected to your inner life and your entire history by a fine web of associations that lead right back into your childhood, and beyond. In fact, you could say that this little incident is the latest manifestation of a story that has been repeated in the lives of your ancestors in some way for many generations.

Read More...

Too Big for Your Britches?

How many times have we heard the equivalent of "You are getting too big for your own britches! Who do you think you are? You’ll get the big head! Don’t make waves! Don’t stand out!”

Someone said in an email:
“I realize that I am afraid to take my Power because I would alienate ‘Them’ and ‘They’ would be afraid of me. I would be too big for my britches. There can only be one Cook, one Chief and how dare I think it should be me.

‘They’ are thinking that if I take charge, what will happen to them? It would kill them to have to answer to me. Besides, I may become as tyrannical, bossy, uncaring, bitchy, and controlling as ‘Them.’ I don’t want to be as using, and manipulative as ‘Them’.

Read More...

Is Your Heart the Right Size?

I got a wonderful email recently that set me thinking. It was from a New Zealander named Jo, who is living in France, talking about her Christmas plans with her friend in Canada, sent here to me in the US — we are so global!

The theme is global too. It’s not really about Christmas, but about the spirit of love and appreciation and giving. These are human attributes that we all share and want to deepen in our lives. So fill in any references to Christmas with your own version of how you celebrate the human spirit.

Here is her email:

Inspired by some of the things I’ve learnt this year, I’ve decided to transform my usual Christmas Grinch spirit into a spirit of giving thanks. After reading a fabulous book this year, I realised that grumping about the effect of Christmas on the environment is being part of the problem, rather than the solution. So this year, when my friend in Canada and I were planning our Christmas together, we decided to do something really different.

Read More...

Great Expectations

I am powerfully fascinated by the emotional inheritance from our ancestors, and how that determines who we think we are and what we whink we can expect of life.

Haven't we all heard: 'You get what you expect!' And “Who do you think you are!”

What if we are even addicted to our expectations? There is increasing speculation and even scientific evidence that this is true.

Well, if we are going to be addicted, we might as well choose some good expectations to be stuck to, right? So why don't we just start out with a positive life view? Why do so many of us remember being sad as children, and now are sad—or angry—adults?

Read More...

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