In our six month Re-Imagine Your Life program teleclass, I had asked for participants’ feelings and beliefs about “wanting.”

This is some of Sheryl’s response:

Wanting seems to be less painful than it is numbing. I have wants now, but thinking back to childhood, I hardly remember any of my wants/wishes/dreams. Most of the time when I wanted something, I either didn’t get it or got a poor substitute.

I hear all the limiting language when I start listing wants… “You should be satisfied with what you have,” “We can’t afford that,” “What do you want that for,” “Money doesn’t grow on trees,” “That’s impossible.”

So, it’s better to feel numb and shut down than to feel the let down and disappointment of not getting what I wanted. Speaking out and speaking up wasn’t safe…I learned that at a very young age. Someone else’s wants were always more important than mine.  If I got sick and wanted care and attention, someone else—usually my mother—got sicker or had something going on that took the attention away from me.

I didn’t learn how to want. Well, maybe I learned how to want…but not how to manifest those wants. I can’t seem to access the blueprint inside for trusting in the process…I don’t trust that wanting will lead to fulfillment of desires.

I find myself thinking that I must be bad, I’m being punished, otherwise I’d get what I want and not what I deserve. I’m not supposed to want for more…that’s not okay…and there’s something wrong with me if I want more than I have…I should be grateful for what I have. Being grateful means not wanting more.

I learned it was better not to ask…not risking disappointment/rejection/failure. Having a voice isn’t safe…wanting isn’t safe.

In a situation like this, Sheryl might have made a list of all the experiences that triggering that old pain around wanting, and tapped on each incident.  This was our first session though, and I felt drawn to working with the deep essence of the issue of wanting itself.

I had marked three basic beliefs in the statement above that she sent me, that seemed to be keys to what she was experiencing:

I can’t seem to access the blueprint inside for trusting in the process
I’m being punished, otherwise I’d get what I want and not what I deserve
I’m not supposed to want for more…and there’s something wrong with me if I want more than I have

What also captured my attention was her comment that she had all these issues around “wanting,” and clearly a lot of pain, but all she could feel was numbness.  Starting with the feeling, even if it feels like the absence of feeling, it always a good choice in an EFT session. We started with the numbness, and as you will see, the session bloomed gracefully from there.

We began with talking about her being unaware of her feelings, (even though she used the word “feeling” a lot, as in “ I feel numb in response to wanting”).

Sheryl said, “When I feel visible, somehow it is OK to speak up.  But when I feel invisible, the safety issue comes up, and it is not OK for me to have a voice. I don’t seem to have a good radar until afterwards.  Afterwards, I realize that it wasn’t safe for me to speak up, but I didn’t know it at the time.”

She spoke about being confused and disoriented when she feels invisible.
I asked her to sense into her body—where in her body did she feel those confused, disoriented, invisible feelings?  “In my solar plexus,” she said, “and they feel like ‘still, heavy butterflies.’  There are a lot in there. They can’t move around very well.”  At the base of her skull there was an empty feeling, “as if I am out of my body, and I am observing over my right shoulder.”  She also felt breathless and light-headed.  These sensations were at the level of a 8 out of 10 in intensity.

Then we began to tap:

Even though it is not safe to speak up and out, I accept myself anyway.

Even though I have this feeling of confusion and disorientation when I am speaking up for myself, and I feel it right now in the heavy butterflies in my solar plexus, I accept that there is something in me that is feeling this way, and I want to bring healing to it.

Even though, when I think about wanting, it brings up all those times when speaking up for myself wasn’t safe, and I can’t seem to access the blueprint inside for trusting in the process, I accept those parts of me that are having those feelings, and I honor myself for how hard this has been. I wonder if there are different ways I can think about this.

Even though wanting seems to be less painful than it is numbing, and I am feeling this breathless lightheaded disorientation as I talk about what I wanted… I am not supposed to talk about what I want… I am supposed to be satisfied with what I get… and getting what I want is not possible anyway… I accept that I learned this at a very young age….

We began tapping through the points:

these heavy butterflies in my solar plexus
these heavy butterflies in my solar plexus

these heavy butterflies can’t move, they are stuck, they are trying to move, but can’t

these heavy stuck butterflies…they are trying!
heavy butterflies when I think about wanting

I listen carefully to what people say, and I often repeat what they say literally and then let my imagination play with the images that their words evoke.  That is what I started to do here, and it had interesting results!  I always tell the person that I am “just making this up, this is what is coming to me, and you can embroider or delete and replace anything that I say with what is coming up in you.”

So we tapped some more:

Even though I feel disconnected and disoriented, as if I am out of my body, and I am observing over my right shoulder, I accept myself anyway, and I wonder how I can bring healing to this feeling?

As we tapped through the points, I was making suggestions, listening/sensing/asking to learn if they felt right to Sheryl or not (I don’t want her to just say what I am saying, I want it to be right for her):

…I feel like I am out of my body
…I am observing over my right shoulder
…maybe the part of me that is wanting is the part that is out of my body
…the part of me that is wanting is out of my body
…the part of me that is wanting was never honored or recognized
…the part of me that is wanting was never heard
…the part of me that is wanting felt it had to separate from me to keep itself safe
…and ever since it has been looking over my shoulder, observing what is happening,
but it is disconnected
…my wanting self is disconnected from me
…and that is making me feel breathless and lightheaded
…making feel confusion
…making me feel disoriented
…no wonder!
…the captain is not in the ship!
…the pilot is not in the airplane
…the driver is not in the car
…no wonder I feel disoriented
…my want-er is separated from my knower

I talked a little bit about how the body is the knower, the feeler, and the do-er.  Nothing can happen if the “knower” is not being guided. The guide would be the “wanter,” the visionary, the one who can see the big picture, the part of us that makes manifest the dreams of the “wanter.”

Tapping some more:

Even though my wanter is disconnected from my knower, and that is making me feel light-headed and disoriented and confused, I accept that I had to create this separation to survive in my family.  It created a huge conflict for me.  I had to say NO to my wholeness in order to say YES to living.  No wonder I am confused!  I am literally dis-oriented from myself.

Whenever a powerful conflict is present, I like to tap with the Nine Gamut process.  It is very helpful in guiding the brain to re-prioritize and shift the patterns in how we think and remember.

(If you are new to EFT, download the free manual from www.emofree.com and follow along with the part about doing the “Nine Gamut” process.  Also see my Newsletter #35, “My Voice Got Lopped Off at the Bootstraps” at  http://www.intuitivementoring.com/voice-cut-off/ for more about how to resolve inner conflicts about expressing yourself by tapping on the Nine Gamut point.)

I suggested that Sheryl tap on the back of her hand, on the Nine Gamut point, while she considered the terrible conflict that she had been put into as a child.

Think about the part of you that wants, that knows what she wants.  When we want, our desires are glowing and radiant, vibrating with our human power to make choices and changes.  Wanting is the vital energy that moves us toward the creativity and imagination that change our world, that changes the whole world. It is a magical power. Wanting is the mover and shaker, wanting is the driver.

When the wanter, in order to survive, has to separate from the knower—your body, your feelings—and all its wisdom about how to make things happen… well, no wonder you are feeling numb, disoriented and light-headed.

So one part of you feels like you don’t deserve to get what you want.  The other part of you knows absolutely that you deserve beauty, joy, expansion.

…All these old conflicts…
…My wanter having to separate from my inside knower in my body
…I wonder if my wanter would like to come home now
…I want my wanter to know that I can take good care of her now
…I work with children and younger people…I know what they need…
…I am grown up now and I know how to take care of my wanter
…I invite her to come home now… (We paused, for this homecoming to take place)

We stopped tapping to breathe, and check in to what was happening inside.
I asked, “How is it now, inside you?  How is your solar plexus feeling?”

Sheryl responded:
That part of me that we have been calling the ‘wanter’ is now where the heavy butterflies were in my solar plexus. When we were tapping and inviting my “wanter” to come home, that it would be safe to be there now because I know how to take care of her safe to come home, I could feel that energy move from over my right shoulder…I could feel it just move right into my solar plexus.  It melted in like a warm, soft, settled feeling.

“Are there butterflies still?” I asked. “No,” she said, “there is just a settled, contented feeing in my solar plexus now.  No butterflies.”

“So, feel into the base of your skull now.  What do you notice there now?”

Whatever disorientation lightheadedness I had before we did the tapping, when I thought about wanting, is gone now. When we were tapping, it started getting tight and tense there, and I felt a dull ache, but it went away!

“How about your breathlessness?”
I can breathe! I can take easy deep breaths….
(I could even hear her breathing deeply over the phone)

“So, now, think about what you want. What are you oriented toward in taking this program—what happens when you think about wanting to re-imagine your life, to change yourself, to point yourself in a healing direction…. wanting whatever it is that you want.  Go ahead and WANT…and notice what happens inside.”

“I thought I would feel the same old impossibility, the same old doubt. I thought surely this can’t really happen for me. I had doubt that I would figure it out, it felt huge to me.

“But now… Oh, I get this!  The direction I want to go in was answering the question, ‘ How would I live my life if I knew I was loved?  How will I know when I am loved?

“Now it seems possible because this process is all about self love and self acceptance!  This is the piece.  Coming home to this soft warm place inside me reminds me of those times when I am loved, and when I feel good about myself, when I am loving and accepting  myself.  Also, it is a familiar place!

“The exciting, amazing sense of this is that I DO know when I am loved.  I have this same physical, warm sensation, this feeling of acceptance, deservability, possibility.”

We were out of time for the session.  But I wanted to add this last idea.

I said: “What is wonderful and lovely is that this feeling of being loved, this warm, settled, contented but vibrant feeling, is coming from you to you. It is a cycle within you.
You are not trying to go out to get it from someone outside yourself. You are creating love and acceptance for yourself, and that is what you deserve, have always deserved.

“Now, invite your body to memorize that warm, soft, settled, content sensation.  Feel that sensation as your blueprint.  You do have a blueprint inside for trusting in the process. You said earlier that you “couldn’t seem to access the blueprint.” Even saying that suggests that it has been there all along. You just hadn’t reached into it yet…

“This feeling is who you really are.  There will be times that throw you off, dislodge you from this place, remind you of the disoriented feeling. I want your body to remember how to get back here to the blueprint.  It has always been here. You have always known how to be here. The part of you that wanted this connection has been outside of you trying to stay safe.  Now this wanter in you knows that she can be safe inside.”

With my love and blessings,

Rue