Emotional Freedom Techniquestm

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Thought for the day..."War does not determine who is right--only who is left."  Bertrand Russell

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Helping clients with their 0-10 accuracy--Part 4

Hi Everyone,

This final installment in our recent series demonstrates a highly sophisticated use of EFT and should be studied in detail by serious students.

It centers around "Jane" who reported making no progress upon using EFT for a SPECIFIC EVENT at a Borrowing Benefits workshop .  She said she went from a "10 to a 10" and immediately burst into tears.

I become suspicious when I hear reports like this because of the nearly 100% success we get when we apply EFT to appropriately reduced SPECIFIC EVENTS.  "Why", I ask myself, "does this one fall flat when the rest of them resolve so easily?" 

Thus, instead of concluding that "EFT doesn't work here", I explored behind the scenes to seek out the details.  I started with the logical premise that Jane's SPECIFIC EVENT was either....

1.  A SYMPTOM of a much deeper CORE ISSUE

OR

2.  It was too broad and/or too long and thus had many pieces to it.  This often results in clients shifting from piece to piece (aspect to aspect) without realizing the important relief they are getting along the way.  They usually report their 0-10 rating on the most recently accessed UNRESOLVED piece which, of course, is likely to be intense.

To assist with this exploration I submit below a re-creation of my conversation with Jane.  Please note that we did some tapping along the way to resolve her problem.  However, I'm leaving those details out because the real message in this article involves the detective work that was used to find the real issue.

Gary:  What was your SPECIFIC EVENT?

Jane:  My brother committed suicide by shooting himself.  He didn't die right away and must have suffered for hours. His friends were in the next room and heard a noise but didn't realize it was a gunshot.  They didn't try to help him.

Note: While this SPECIFIC EVENT could have had many aspects, I didn't go there because something else jumped out at me .... namely .... that she wasn't involved in this SPECIFIC EVENT.

Gary:  Where were you at the time?

Jane:  At home.

Gary:  So, you weren't present at this event?

Jane:  No.

Gary:  Well, correct me if I'm wrong but it appears to me that this SPECIFIC EVENT wasn't about you.  You weren't even there.  True?

Jane:  Well....that's right.  But, nonetheless, I have strong emotions about it.  It's like it happened yesterday.

Gary:  How long ago did it happen?

Jane:  It's been 3 years and 2 months.

Gary:  Wouldn't that normally be enough time for your intensity to have subsided to an easier-to-handle level?

Jane:  (crying) You would think so...but this haunts me almost daily.

Note:  We now have 2 big clues pointing to an unresolved CORE ISSUE.  They are (1) Jane's SPECIFIC EVENT did not reduce at all (even though, typically, it should have) and (2) the normal passage of time did not diminished her intensity.  So, I asked my favorite "get to the core issue" question.....

Gary:  What does your brother's suicide remind you of?

Jane:  (after a pause).  My own suffering from a car accident 10 years ago.  It was very serious and I was in the hospital for several months.

Gary:  It was the suffering after the event that bothers you, rather than the actual accident?

Jane:  Yes.  It was agonizing pain.  Nobody should have to go through that.

Gary:  Including your brother?

Jane:  Yes, he must have suffered terribly.

Gary:  However, you weren't there during your brother's incident.  You don't really know how much, if at all, he suffered.  True?

Jane:  You're right.  I guess I'm assuming he had the same kind of pain I had.

Gary:  So are you having all this current intensity because of suffering that you are not even sure existed?

Jane:  (with a quizzical look)  Apparently so.  But now that I think about it, the real issue was that he was alone.  No one was there to help him.  He was abandoned!

Gary:  Were you abandoned 10 years ago in the hospital?

Jane:  Well my family came from miles around to spend 10 days with me at the hospital.

Gary:  Maybe I should ask the question differently.  Did you FEEL abandoned in the hospital?

Jane:  (with tears)  Yes, because after 10 days the doctors said I would recover.  So my family, knowing I would eventually be OK, all went home to resume their jobs and home lives.  I was left for weeks in the hospital and continued to suffer.

Gary:  And you felt abandoned?

Jane:  (big tears)  Yes.

Gary:  And what did THAT remind you of?

Jane:  (long pause)  The times my mother left me alone as a child.  It is an awful feeling.

Note:  Her language is important here.  She said "It IS an awful feeling", not it WAS an awful feeling.  This suggested that she was still carrying around this feeling of abandonment.  It also indicates that the real problem here was NOT her brother's suicide.  The circumstances of the suicide apparently triggered her feelings of abandonment (which was the real issue).

Final Comment:  As it turns out, Jane's feeling of abandonment from childhood experiences were, indeed, overlaid on her brother's suicide. This was the real issue and was the reason why her original tapping on the SPECIFIC EVENT of her brother's suicide wasn't going anywhere.  We were tapping on a SYMPTOM and not on the real cause.

How do I know this?  Because we spent some time with EFT giving this abandonment issue some relief (ignoring the suicide altogether).  Once this CORE ISSUE was out of the way, she was able to discuss her brother's suicide, and other events related to this issue, with no intensity whatsoever.

Hugs to all, Gary