Knowing what to say with EFT - Using Intuition

By Rue Hass, EFT Master

Part 1: What is Intuition? How do I find mine? 

At the EFT Master Class “Boot Camp,” Gary invited the EFT Masters who were present to come up on stage with him, three at a time, to offer a panel discussion on various topics of interest to EFT practitioners.  One of the topics was intuition – how to recognize it, how to access it, how to use it.  I am very interested in intuition, and I was glad I was in that particular time slot. I wanted to share some ideas about intuition here for the rest of you as well.

I think of myself as very intuitive, but I have had to learn how it works for me.  I have often been around people who “get guidance,” “hear an inner voice,” talk to the angels,” or “have visions.”    I am in no way detracting from the reality of those people’s experience – I have heard about it often enough that I know it is true.  It just doesn’t happen that way for me. 

There was a time when I finally said to myself, “Either I am really slow, spiritually, or there is a way that intuition happens for me that I haven’t known how to pay attention to.”  I determined to learn how it works for me.

These articles arise from an exploration into “my way” that has gone on for decades and continues today.  There are some tapping routines here, but mostly these are stories about how I have learned to use my intuition in my work with clients even, and maybe especially, when we seem to be at an impasse and I have no idea what to do next. I am hoping that these ideas will spark some insights for you in your work, whether you are using EFT for yourself, for family members, or as a practice.

For me, intuition is about being in a kind of “holding the space” function in myself.  This is an inner state of being in which, using my imagination, I intentionally connect through the spirit of my heart with the spirit of the heart of the client.  Whatever happens between us transpires within the energy field of this relationship. 

While I am holding that space, my attention is on the other person, aware of their physiology, voice tone, and something else a =psychic might call “aura,” though I don’t think of myself as someone who can see auras.   I am literally feeling into the person, feeling/imagining what it is like to be them, with their experience. Questions come to me, arising from my natural curiosity about what it is like for this person to be in this state or have this condition or this belief. 

I almost always ask the client questions that come to me.  I always (always!) preface what I say in a situation like this with a statement like, “This is what is coming to my mind.  If it doesn’t fit for you, disregard it.  Replace it if you want to, with your own words, your own thoughts and feelings.”

 At the same time I am holding my own inner awareness open to thoughts, words, images, sensations, impressions.  Some of those impressions arise from the interconnections that some part of me is making as it assesses all the information that my awareness is picking up.  Other impressions I believe come to me from beyond me, or deeper within me. 

For me an intuitive impression usually arrives feeling kind of like a short, direct thought, by itself, as if it were surrounded by open space.  It doesn’t appear to come from “somewhere else.”  Or if it is “someone else” speaking, it arrives well disguised as my own thought. 

The whole “through me not by me” idea only makes sense to me if I get to be included in the formula.  I like the image of being a portal better. I think of it this way:  there is wisdom needed here, and right at this moment in this situation I am the doorway it needs to come through.  It is “by me.”  If I weren’t here it might not find an entry point into the world. I want to take responsibility for what I know and sense.

I experience the language of my own intuition as auditory and verbal. Dawna Markova, among others, has suggested that we each have a language of the soul, or spirit (insert words here that make sense to you) that comes through a body sense and is our deepest truest voice.  So for some people that would mean inner pictures or colors, or body sensations, or even smells. Or sometimes intuition might mean just a sudden knowing. 

We have words for all this already:

"Suddenly the big picture flashes before my eyes".

"I feel a sense of sureness in my stomach - a 'grounded' feeling."

"I hear my own voice inside my head."

"I literally feel pulled in one direction."

"I get a feeling in my chest that something 'wants out'."

I also always hold the intention to work with whatever inner allies might be available to me. Over the years I have developed a sense of trust that help is always there. I often have the experience that when my awareness is open, clear and uncluttered with my own thoughts or feelings or pre-conceptions, and when I ask in an inner way for help, suggestions or questions to ask or directions to explore slip into my mind.   Never answers, just suggestions. 

These are the internal set-ups I use to make sure my intuition has what it needs to work well:

• I keep my attention totally focused on my client
• I pay close attention to changes in my client’s
• • body language
  • breathing rate (many people stop breathing under stress)
  • eyes
  • skin tone
  • words

Whenever I notice a change, even if it is slight, I might stop and ask, “What are you feeling just now?  What were you thinking about right then when I said that?”

• I do my best to put any doubts and worries about my skills and self worth aside for the moment, so that nothing is cluttering up the space in my head
• I am listening for the different inner voices in a person that take different positions on an issue.   Often the client is unaware that they even have different internal opinions, but their internal incongruity is evident to a keen observer. 
• I internally ask for help, and just pay attention to what comes  
• I am endlessly deeply curious, willing to explore “doorways” until one opens 
• I stay open to my imagination
• I invent some way to use the symptom as a metaphor
• I use humor!

I am continually bringing my attention back to these points.  Doing my work this way is like a meditation. I come out of a session feeling energized and flowing, instead of burned out.  I think “burn-out” comes when we are trying too hard.

When I don’t have to worry about whether I am going to be any good at this, and when I am not worrying about what they think about me, I can just follow along with the client.  We are wandering down the path of their issue together, peering under boulders and into caves, rearranging obstructions, clearing a path.  It is a partnership.

This is my particular way of doing EFT.  As you have probably noticed, if you have observed other practitioners, each person evolves his or her own style.  When I first learned EFT I thought it would be too mechanical for me.  But when I first watched Gary work in person, doing his elegant, imaginative and humorous approach, clearly leaping off the cliff to see if he could fly without worrying about falling, I thought, “Oh! Doing EFT intuitively and creatively could be so much fun!”  

At the same time, the basic recipe works just fine.  Also, there are some highly accomplished practitioners, including EFT Masters, who use a much shorter more direct approach, and they also get exceptional results.  Some say that when they work really quickly they are more intuitive, maybe because there is less space for internal chatter. A big part of being intuitive in tuning into what YOUR style is.

Rue Hass

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Part 2: Be Guided by Your Body: 
Pay Close Attention to What Your Body is Telling You 

Recently I got an email from an EFT Practitioner with a question (I have changed some of the details in the email, but kept the main ideas of it).

I am an EFT Practitioner and I have run into a situation that I cannot figure out. I am working with a woman 52 years old who has deep abandonment issues. Her son, husband and father have all abandoned her. This started when she was 5. She also always wants to be in control even if we are having an EFT session.  

The problem is that we were progressing along fine with her father leaving at age 5. We were tapping for this "remaining father leaving pain" which was down to a 1 on the SUDS scale. During, what I thought would be the last round of this issue, when I tapped her chin and collar bone the SUDS shot back over 10 and she wanted to curl up and cry.  

From then on I could not tap the chin or collar bone without another out-break. I calmed her down with out the use of those spots and we called it a day...we had been in session for more than an hour and a half at this point and she was worn out.  

Do you have any suggestions why these points were so hot and what I can do to make this work? I will be seeing her again in a week.  

Thank you for any suggestions that you can pass on to me!!

I used my imagination and my curiosity to put myself in this woman’s position. I imagined what might be happening for her and how she might feel in those moments in the session.  There were the footprints of some kind of trauma here.  I thought about what the points and their locations might be metaphors for. I wrote these initial thoughts back to him (the practitioner):

“Did you ask her if there were any memories associated with her chin, the whole mouth area, or her chest?  Things that occur to me are trauma there, like surgery, being hit in that area, or touched inappropriately there or in that area.  The fact that you were tapping on her may have triggered some unconscious body memory. 

Also anything with the mouth can have to do with expressing yourself, saying what you think and feel.  Maybe that has been blocked for her?   

You could also just tap for ‘whatever is going on in my chin point/collarbone point.’  

Or you could ask, ‘If these tears had a voice, what would they say?’  

‘Curling up and crying’ is a very young child response.  Perhaps her memories that are associated with these points are pre-verbal.  You could tap for ‘these tears and this anguish in my chin...’ 

You could also tap for the feeling of wanting to curl up and cry, and accepting herself and her feelings anyway.  

Or possibly the curling up and crying may be the attempt by some inner part of her to divert your attention.  Gain rapport with this part, let it know that yo are not a threat to it.

Sometimes the chin point has to do with shame, guilt and embarrassment.  You could ask about that.  The collarbone point may be about worry and fear.”

There are many other responses possible here.  You probably have thought of some yourself.  The point is to try everything you can think of, and pay close attention to the client’s responses.  You are looking and sensing for small shifts, a widening of the eyes, a slight tearing up, staring unfocussed off into the distance, a softening of the expression, a slight body movement — anything that indicates that there is been an inner shift. 

We think with our bodies! 

People often say to me — “You are so intuitive!  How did you know I was thinking/feeling that?!!”  But actually, quite a lot of intuition is just keen observation and putting myself in the other person’s position.

I also sent this practitioner a protocol along these lines that I wrote for a client about how to work with her pain when she was on her own.  Here it is for you readers of the newsletter:

                                                                     ****

“One of my fibromyalgia clients told me that the EFT work we did together in my office works really well for her, but when she gets home and tries to do EFT she can't figure out what to say.  So we did a session on the pain she was feeling in her legs, and I tracked the questions I asked her and how we used her answers.  Of course this doesn't cover everything possible to ask or say, but it might help guide someone else with the same puzzlements.

                                                                     ****

Ask yourself these questions, and any others that occur to you.  Listen inside.  Pay attention to thoughts, worries, images, physical sensations, feelings that arise.  Tap for your answers!  The phrases that we tapped for in this session are in italics.

•Where specifically do you experience the pain?

            Tops of my thighs, knees  (“Even though I have pain in …”)

•What is the worst part?

            My knees are weak, I can’t trust them  (Even though my knees are             weak,,,Even though I feel like I can’t trust my knees...)

•How would you describe it?

            Soreness   (“Even though I have soreness in…”)

•Like what?

            Like an ache

            Knees ache   (“Even though my knees ache…”)

Like my muscles are not toned  (“Even though it feels like my muscles are not toned…”)  

 (Continue to use each phrase in italics in this way, sometimes as a set up statement – “Even though…”,  and sometimes as phrases to say while tapping on each point)  

(Note:  there is no way to do this “wrong!”  You can’t do any harm, only good.)

•When do you feel it?  What triggers it?

           When I am stressed and worried 

•When did it start?

            Exhausted from exercise

            Tension in my body 

•When was the first time you felt something like this pain?

           Some time after that auto accident ten years ago  (work with all the aspects of the incident)

•Make a metaphor – what do your legs feel like?

As if they are waking up from hibernation,

Like they haven’t been used, no strength in them,

like a bear coming out in spring

(I wove some imagery in later in the process:  bears are powerful…  feels so good to come out of that cave… the fierce protectiveness and will to survive and thrive of the mother bear for her cubs)

•How do you feel about your legs hurting?

              It’s embarrassing

  •What specifically is embarrassing?

            I feel out of shape

            Walking that short distance should not be an issue

    Frustrated with my body

            Mad at my body 

(Note:   “What, specifically…?  is an excellent question to ask to get deeper into vague answers.  In EFT the more specific you can get, the better it works.)

•If there were a deeper emotion under the pain, what would it be?

Worry that if I don’t overcome this, pain in activity will get progressively worse. 

Worry that the cycle of pain will get worse every time.

Worried what the future will be. 

Anger — it’s not fair!

•What will that be like?

My physical abilities will be further limited

Physically I am not as strong as I want to be

I think of myself as strong, but my body is keeping me back from that

•When you worry how do you do that?  (literally HOW)

            Vicious mental circle:

                        worry—exercise—pain­­­––worry—stop exercise—worry   

            …a gerbil wheel of worry 

(Pain almost gone…  Here are some questions to ask to find new things to add after you say “Even though I have some remaining pain in my legs, I deeply and completely love and accept myself and…”)

•What do you want instead? 

            I want to fix my body, not mask the pain with drugs like my friend does

            I want a strong and healthy body

•What state of being would you have to be in for this to be true?

            Excited about physical activity

            Peace, health and well being

            Knowing that I am enabling my body to feel good for my future 

•If you were no longer worrying, what would you do instead?

            Having new adventures, appreciating my body 

•I  Choose:

            To appreciate my health, my body

            (“Even though I only have a little pain left in my legs, I choose…”) 

What specifically do you want to appreciate about your health and your body?

              •I Choose to appreciate:

              my legs -- that I can still walk

              my legs for holding me up all these years

              my legs for helping me to stand up for myself

              my arms, that they can give people hugs

              my body, that it can feel joy

•I Choose:       

           To look forward to each new adventure

            To look forward to the future

            To put my attention toward what I want, not what I fear 

                                    **** 

Use your imagination and curiosity and associative thinking and especially your humor to come up with images and phrases about the use and purpose, even the spiritual purpose, of “legs,” in this case.  Of course you can do this with any subject, and this is what makes EFT so fun, I think!  Be as wild and dramatic in your imagination as you can.  Let healing be joyful!

 For example… legs support you, they are your greatest friends, legs allow you to stand tall, to stand up for yourself, to take a stand, to stand out, to take you places, to get you where you want to go, to take you away from what you want to avoid, jump for joy, run away, run to what you want, kick things out of the way, kick a path open for you, legs allow you to be flexible, be as short as you want or as tall as you are -- in side and out….  etc. etc. etc.   

Use your own imagination, let it RUN free!  Give your imagination its own legs!

Then sprinkle all these phrases in as you tap along.”

Rue Hass

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Part 3: The body is intuition personified 

Like many of us, Chandra had the idea that if she was not perfect she was useless und unworthy.  She said she knew that “perfect” was not a good word, or even a good expectation of her self, maybe “successful” was better?  I asked how she would know when she was successful. 

“When I am being responsible, taking care of myself, doing what I need to do, being independent,” she said.  I was hearing the echoes of a lot of implied “should’s” in there, so I pushed her gently.

“What lets you know that you are being responsible and doing what you need to do?”  I asked. 

“When everyone is pleased with me,” she said.  (Hmmm...speaking of should’s...)

We talked about what an unreliable measure the opinion of “everyone” was, and how trying all the time to meet Everyone’s expectations creates a huge level of stress. 

We all have a sort of unspecified “everyone” inside who seems to have a lot of effect on the choices we make.  This is the other inner voice that speaks up when there is something that you want to do.  It says things like, “What would people think if I did that?”

To learn more about your own “everyone,” and to invite your clients into a deeper understanding of what may be blocking their intuition, try answering these questions:

1. People judge me because...
2. Everyone loves it when I...
3. When I do well, people feel...
4. Nobody will let me...
5. Everybody always tells me to...
6. People just can’t accept the fact that I...
7. When I fail, everyone thinks...
8. Nobody cares when I...
9. Society keeps telling me I have to...
10. Everyone expects me to...

The answers to these questions make great EFT set up statements!  Just add “Even though...”

It is easy to know what Everyone wants of us.  We have heard that all our lives.  But how are we supposed to know what WE want? 

I asked Chandra this question, and she was nonplussed (Thesaurus entry for “nonplussed”: “stunned, dumbfounded, confounded, taken aback, disconcerted, thrown, thrown off balance; puzzled, perplexed, mystified, baffled, bemused, bewildered; informalfazed, flummoxed, stumped, bamboozled, discombobulated.”)

We have the best possible guide to what is best for us right here in our own bodies.  Our bodies are intuition, personified.  A simple but profound statement. 

Let me say that again: Our bodies are intuition, personified.

I took Chandra through an exercise that has become central to the health and well-being of my intuition.  I teach it to many of the people I work with. 

It starts with this thought: Everything in life pretty much comes down to Yum and Yuck.  We just need to learn how to know which is which.   

Here is the exercise: 

Find Yum and Yuck in your body

Begin by sitting quietly for just a moment, with your eyes closed.  

Notice what happens inside when you say, “The world is an unfriendly place.”

Pay attention to thoughts, images that come up, and especially pay attention to how your body feels.  Do you get tense?  Where specifically in your body do you feel this question?  What happens to your breathing?

Now shift your position (when you change your position you change your mind) and take some deep breaths. 

Say inside, “The world is a friendly place.”  Again, notice thoughts, images, and especially notice, very specifically, what happens in your body.  Where do you feel this statement?  What happens to your breathing?

Think of some of the experiences that irritate you or leave a bad taste in your mouth.  (Don’t do major traumas here.)  Again, notice where and how you experience these very different states of being in your body.

Shift your physical position.  (When you change your position you change your mind, and vice versa)

Think of some of your very favorite or peak experiences.  They can be big or little, it doesn’t matter.  What counts is noticing how you felt at the time, in your body.

Say the word NO, and feel it inside.  Again, notice where and how you experience this word in your body. 

Shift your position.

Do the same for the word YES.

Take a moment to gather all the impressions that your body has given you.   Sort them into Yum and Yuck.

Now you have a fail-safe way to make choices about what is right for you from the inside out.  

One note to pay attention to: 

I have found that, for many people, the only way they have known how to say YES to themselves is by saying NO to what was in their environment.  So when they first try this exercise, the feeling for “yes” is actually the feeling for “no.”  This can be very confusing.

Pay close attention to your inner experience when you do this exercise.  Make sure you recognize this reversal, and get a real actual bona fide YES in your body. 

You, especially, deserve YUM!

When Chandra did this exercise, the Yuck feelings were:

a piercing in my heart, a pain

feeling socked in the stomach

a feeling of recoiling

I stop breathing

The muscles in my shoulders and stomach get tight

The Yum feelings were:

I relax, all over

I breathe easy

I feel an expansion in my chest

I feel an opening in my whole being

It is an “at ease” feeling

I asked her to think of the things she did routinely in her life that brought a Yuck feeling.  It was no surprise that they were some of the activities she did for the approval of some particular “Everyone.”

Helping my son with his homework and getting over-involved

Making dinner

Feeling like “If I don’t do this task (job, project, volunteer activity, saving the world...) no one else will and it won’t get done” 

What made her feel Yum?

When someone understands

When I have “drive time” and can be all by myself

The closeness I feel when I tuck my kids in bed at night

When I am recognized for doing something

When I am outside, feeling thee breeze and the sun

Chandra was surprised to see that she had choices, and that she had a way to evaluate them based on what was truly important to her.  All she had to do was to check inside.  There her intuition was, on the job in her body.

Interestingly, I got this email from her a couple of weeks after this Yum and Yuck session:

I wanted to share with you what happened after our last session.  I like

to write in my journal after our sessions so I can look back later and

remember what we talked about.  I'm usually in the habit of drawing a

Grace Card (Deck of 50 cards put out by Cheryl Richardson) before I

write in my journal, just to get divine guidance.  I then record which

card I drew at the start of my journal entry.   

This time I wanted to get my own thoughts down in my journal first though.  So I wrote about it and ended the journal entry with, "It's all about choices."  

I then decided to draw my Grace card.  Guess what card I drew???  I drew the "Choice" card, which reads, "For every action there is a reaction.  Choose wisely."   

How cool is that??!!  I believe it was a real sign for me.

Rue Hass, EFT Master

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Part 4: Use your imagination when you don't know where to start

I tell people that in some ways it doesn’t matter where we start on an issue.  Each aspect of the issue is like a corner of a net.  It doesn’t matter where on the net you pick it up.  When you start hauling it in from that point, the whole rest of the net comes, along with whatever is caught in it.  In some way all of it is connected. 

However, sometimes the client doesn’t know what is wrong, or what is causing the way they feel, and so being more general might be a way of beginning in this case.  If you are alert you will pick up all the cues and clues you need to begin to narrow the focus of the work.  Often during the tapping something will pop into the person’s head, to their surprise and maybe astonishment – buried memories, insights, beliefs, as if some inner part has relaxed enough to offer up something that is caught in the web.

An imaginative way to begin when the client doesn’t know where to start is to ask him or her to make up a story about a little boy/girl who had a similar sort of problem/feeling, and just let the story tell itself with whatever comes into their mind. The story usually has some relevance to the person’s life and the issue. It can be a good source of EFT tapping phrases.

Another way of beginning generally that elicits specifics that I like to use is a template that I have adapted from NLP trainer Michael Banks.  I call it “Creating a Map of the History of Your Future.”

It involves beginning with listing a general array of concerns.  Then I ask the question, “Imagine that we have been working together for three months or so.  Put yourself into that time frame and notice: what are you doing, what are you saying to yourself, how are you holding your body, etc. that lets you know that you are changing in ways that feel good to you?”  

Next I fast forward the client to imagine herself being an old person, who has had these changes in place for many decades, and ask, “Who are you now, now that you have been doing these new behaviors for all these years?”  And, “What is the legacy that your life is leaving?  How have you being here made the earth a better place?”  There is more, but this is the general framework. 

I end up with lots of specific issues and areas to focus on. In the process I have become aware of what is most sticky for the client, and I can proceed to get even more specific about that.  I have also generated a list of what goals and directions are really important to the client that I can weave into subsequent EFT sessions.

An example:  I had a first telephone session with a 79 year-old woman who has had a long history of severe chronic conditions, including arthritis and Parkinson’s Disease.  Her voice was low and saturated with sadness.  She has seen many practitioners of all kinds over the years, as have most people with long standing pain who go from doctor to doctor, healer to healer.  Eve had been referred to me by a massage therapist who had heard of EFT and thought it might be an option for her.

In the course of our initial conversation, I heard her say, “I don’t feel I have a future.”   Instead of going right to EFT I thought we would begin with this belief. It contained such a profound sense of hopelessness and worthlessness.  I was thinking that our efforts to make a difference in what hurts for her would not get very far if our work was taking place within this frame.  She needed to know the truth about herself!

I began by asking Eve to imagine that there was a path that started right from her feet, and she could make it look and feel however she wanted to.  Her path was sand, she said right away, and it followed the edge of the sea.  I asked her to imagine it stretching ahead, and she found it went on until she could no longer see it. 

She was clearly good at imagining, and nothing was blocking her ability to do that, so we spent a little time creating beauty along her path, to let her know that good things were there for her.  I didn’t specifically say that this path led to her future; I just let the imagery speak to the part of Eve that was walking this path.

As our connection was becoming more established, and I could feel Eve warming to possibility, we began to do a process I call “Creating the Map of the History of Your Future.”

I asked, “If your childhood were a story, what would the title be?”  She said promptly, “The Little Match Girl.”  Perhaps you remember this Hans Christian Anderson story, written in 1846, which begins:

Most terribly cold it was; it snowed, and was nearly quite dark, and evening – the last evening of the year. In this cold and darkness there went along the street a poor little girl, bareheaded, and with naked feet. When she left home she had slippers on, it is true; but what was the good of that? They were very large slippers, which her mother had hitherto worn; so large were they; and the poor little thing lost them as she scuffled away across the street, because of two carriages that rolled by dreadfully fast. 

One slipper was nowhere to be found; the other had been laid hold of by an urchin, and off he ran with it; he thought it would do capitally for a cradle when he some day or other should have children himself. So the little maiden walked on with her tiny naked feet, which were quite red and blue from cold. She carried a quantity of matches in an old apron, and she held a bundle of them in her hand. Nobody had bought anything of her the whole livelong day; no one had given her a single farthing. 

She crept along trembling with cold and hunger – a very picture of sorrow, the poor little thing!

I asked Eve what were the themes of this story.  She said, “Hopeless. Naïve.  Wishful.  Stupid.  Gullible.” 

I was guessing that she was not thinking of the end of the story about the little match-seller.  True, in the actual story, the little girl dies, but what if we think of this story as a metaphor? She uses her own light (her matches) to become transported by her inner guardian in the form of her grandmother, to an inner place where she can see herself in the warmth and richness and value and vitality of a greater light. 

(Please, always replace my words and concepts about spiritual matters with your own ways of describing such transformations so that it is congruent with YOUR beliefs.  Don’t let yourself be put off by my way of describing things!  Find your way.)

As a path toward discovering her own “Self-light,” I asked Eve what had she loved to do as a child?  She said she loved to swing slowly on the swings, daydreaming, imagining herself becoming a famous violinist, or a beautiful figure skater, or becoming rich and giving away millions.

In her actual childhood life, Eve was being raised by a single mother who was emotionally disturbed and depressed, who valued only hard work, and who required that Eve take care of her.   Eve had had to leave school at 16 to support her mother.  She had to give her mother all her earnings.

List and title your current concerns

I asked Eve to list her current concerns.  They centered around not having a future, never feeling smart enough or worth anything, and feeling that she didn’t ever deserve even the little that she was getting.  Her biggest concern was that she wanted to take care of herself – she didn’t want to have to go into a nursing home.  Her children had offered to take her in, but she felt they were so busy with young families and problems of their own – she didn’t want to burden them.

The title for her list of present concerns was “Zero.” 

It’s 3-6 months from now, and you are noticing good changes

The next question asked Eve to imagine that she and I had been working together for a few months, and that she was noticing changes in herself that felt good to her.  What new behaviors, self-talk, different feelings in her body were letting her know, in this near-future time now, that she was changing in ways that were right for her?

This was hard for her to imagine. As I was searching for a way to engage Eve’s imagination on her own behalf, something she said prompted me to ask her what she had done for her work in her life.  She said she had been a teacher.  Over the years she had taught the whole gamut, from kindergarten through high school.  

Following my intuition, I said something like, “Well, you know that in any classroom there is a range of students, from the ones who are positive and easy to work with, to the ones whose actions and words create major challenges for you and everyone else?”  She chuckled and agreed. 

And, I went on, “The best teachers are always talking about being on the lookout for the ‘teachable moment’ and ‘catching them being good’ when they have difficult students.  When you were a teacher, what would you want those difficult kids to notice about themselves?” 

“I wanted them to notice and believe that they could do anything.” Eve said, passionately.

I continued, thinking aloud, “What if you imagine all those voices in you as a classroom full of different kinds of students, both positive and negative.  If you set yourself in the direction of ‘catching yourself being good,’ what would you find yourself noticing about you?” 

Somehow she began to talk about her love for and from her favorite granddaughter, a four-year-old named Grace.  “I can feel her love all over.” Eve said. 

Since she was talking about feeling something positive in her body, I wanted to amplify this, so I asked her to describe where in her body she felt this, and what it felt like.

Imagine that you are someone who is noticing and honoring these changes.

Then I asked Eve to imagine she could float over and down into Grace, imagine that she was Grace, imagine that she was feeling and thinking and seeing as Grace.  I thanked “Grace” for being here, and I said, “Grace, I know that since you are such a smart girl, and you love your grandma so much, you have probably noticed that your grandma has been feeling a lot better than she used to.  Tell me, what do you notice about her?”

As Grace, Eve said, “Grandma can walk!  She is doing more things.  She is very pretty. She shines!  I feel how happy she is.  When my Grandma holds my hand she is magic!  She is happy and light and sparkly, and she looks like God!”  Eve’s voice was alight with love.

I thanked Grace (thinking, really good job, Grace!), and invited Eve to thank her too.  I told Eve to float out of Grace’s little body (and big awareness!), sending Grace gently back to where she was, and for Eve to come back into her own body bringing with her all of Grace’s knowing about who Eve really was. 

What is the title for the story of your near future?

What was the title of this story, I asked?   It was, “I Thought I Couldn’t Do It, But I Can Do Anything!”

Completing the legacy of your life

Next I asked Grace to imagine herself as really old, not as dying but as completing the leaving of the legacy of her life on the earth.  How old would she be?

“100!”  was the instant reply. 

So, what did she look like now at 100, where did she live, with whom?  And more importantly, what was she like now?  I asked her to imagine that she had now had 21 years – a long time! – to live into and deepen all those lovely images that Grace had offered of who Eve really was inside, once she began to change into the realization of it.

I loved her reply.  It flowed slowly and thoughtfully from her heart right into words:

I wear what I like.  I am not influenced or required by anyone but me.  These are God’s rules.  They are good rules.  I do not have to speak to people for them to know that I love them.   I have taught this to Grace.  She is beautiful and creative.  I don’t need anyone, but I have everyone.  I have gotten much better at asking for help.

When I asked her about the legacy that her life is leaving on the earth, how the earth is a better place for her life having been part of it, she said:

My children and my grandchildren and my great grandchildren will ask themselves when they make a major decision, “Would Grandma feel good about this?”  They will want to live lives that better the world.  They will want and know how to do this because of me. 

Title your legacy

Her title for “Eve at 100 years old” was “I Am Making a Difference.” 

What are you doing right now that is leading to your legacy?

For the last step in this process, I asked Eve to come all the way back to the present moment.   As she looked forward in her life toward her future and  “I Am Making a Difference,” what was she doing right now that was leading to this future?  Little things...big things...thoughts.  I reminded her what I knew she knew already, that every single thought we have and action that we take creates our future.

She said, “I am always looking at what I do to see if it is fitting into the idea that I am making a difference.  I am thinking healing, loving, giving thoughts.   I am calling you.   I am re-reading healing messages.  I am listening to my positive thinking tapes.  I am following my intuition.  And I am having a lot of communication with Grace!  Maybe I am even going to visit her!   I am taking care of myself.“ 

(Mmmm, better than thinking you have no future, was the thought in my mind!) 

Her title for this present time of initiating positive actions and thoughts to build her future with was “Every Little Bit Helps.”

Title the whole saga of your life

Finally, the last title I asked Eve for was a title for the whole saga, that began with “The Little Match Girl,” went to “Zero,” and then to “Every Little Bit Helps,” and then to “I Thought I Couldn’t Do It But I Can Do Anything!” and finished with “I Am Making a Difference.” 

The title of Eve’s saga was: “A Good Life.”

As we completed our session, I thanked Eve for the privilege of working with God!

I had a great list of phrases to work into our tapping sessions, and our doing the process itself had become a transformative intervention for her.

Rue Hass

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Part 5: Invite Your Intuition to Speak in Metaphors 

The Cage of My Awakening.

I have been trapped inside a cage since high school. A cage of retarded emotional development, locked, frozen.  

Unable to cope in my relations with other humans. Unable to appropriately process the feelings and emotions that naturally occur during the course of those relations. Unable to appreciate the good feelings. Unable to let go of the bad feelings and move on.  

As the bad feelings have accumulated it has been harder and harder to feel any good feelings and harder yet to let go of the bad feelings.  

I have drifted from shallow friendship to shallow friendship to the point where the comfort of strangers is more rewarding than that of close friends, for each of my friends has been the source of a hurt that I have stored up inside.  

To the point now where the bars of this cage have become so solid and rigid and the keys of the door thrown away and lost forever.  

It has taken pain and grief on a scale as great as the pain and grief that I experienced in high school to give me the impetus and strength to get up off the floor and throw my weight against that door. And throw it I will. Again and again until it shatters beneath my weight and I break out into the light to enjoy life once more a free man.  

The freedom I have been seeking all these years has been misnamed and misunderstood by me. It is not freedom from responsibility but freedom from the oppressive emotional burden that I have carried around all these years.  

In fact freedom IS responsibility.  

And thus I have reached my time of awakening. 

I believe that any chronic condition is a reflection of a sadness that is deep in us.  It comes as a reaction to experiences that have befallen us.  Our physical and emotional reaction to those experiences is a message to ourselves that we are not caring for ourselves as fully, as deeply, as profoundly as we deserve.

These early experiences led us to believe that we were not worthy of attention and caring, even our own.  We began to form limiting beliefs about our selves that slowly receded into our unconscious minds, and eventually felt so familiar that we think this is actually who we are. 

But our bodies carry for us all those thoughts and feelings that we couldn’t, maybe still can’t, speak or act upon, have never forgotten.  We are contained in our own belief system. 

As neurologist Bessel van der Kolk says, “The body keeps the score.”  Or this from Carolyn Myss: ”Our biology is our biography.”

Gary Craig frames working with EFT to deal with limiting beliefs as “cutting off the table legs” that hold up these beliefs, or cutting down the trees in the forest.  Being a sensitive person, I was always a little bit disturbed by the idea of cutting forests down or chopping off table legs, so I’ve created a metaphor that works better for me.   

I like to use the metaphor of a cage for what holds a memory in place.  The cage could be the traumatizing incident, or the limiting belief that resulted from it.  The bars are the aspects of the incident, or the ongoing incidents over time that hold the belief in place. Our limiting beliefs keep us caged in a smaller space that we can move comfortably in—but it is dangerously, comfortably familiar. “Being specific” means to me dissolving each of the bars of the cage, until there is a space big enough to step out of the cage into freedom. 

I think of the story I heard once about a tiger in a zoo.  It has stuck in my mind for years as a wonderful metaphor of how we limit ourselves.  Historically, in zoos, animals were kept in cages. You know old zoos.  Fortunately, they are changing now. 

There was a magnificent white tiger named Mohini who was kept in the Washington D.C. Zoo. There she was, this beautiful tiger in this cage, and she would walk back and forth, back and forth—twelve feet this way, twelve feet that way, twelve feet this way, day after day. 

Eventually a beautiful tiger environment was built around Mohini’s cage, which had hills and valleys and water and greenery and all good things that tigers like. (Except freedom…)

When the environment was complete, the zookeepers dismantled the cage around her.  To their dismay she continued to pace twelve feet this way, twelve feet that way, twelve feet this way, measuring out with her steps what she believed was her limitation.

I don’t know if she was ever able to expand into the space that was available to her.  She was caged by her experience, the habit of her belief that the cage was still around her.

I think that we are like that.  We all have limiting beliefs that imprison us, cage us.   Each of the bars of the cage has been created by an experience in our lives, usually early in life, when we don’t have the experience or ability to think about what it really means. 

We may decide that that look, or that tone of voice, or how he treated me, or what she did (or didn’t) do means that we are “bad,” or not lovable, or not enough.  When experiences like this become more and more familiar, we begin to think that they are the truth about us. 

The bars begin to come up all around us, and soon we can only pace back and forth within our limiting beliefs.  Like a magnet we attract to ourselves more experiences like those early painful ones, experiences that just reinforce what we fear is true about us.

When the human spirit is caged or limited or obstructed or blocked, it suffers.  I believe that there is in all of us a deep knowing of our worth and value, and a deep love of freedom and choice, possibility, of creative expression. We all have adopted, probably unconsciously, a cage or two to live in. It has become familiar and even sort of comfortable, in the way that something unknown is more scary than what is known, even if what is known is awful.

Now there is a conflict inside us.  There is a difference of opinion between what we think is true, and what REALLY is true about us that we no longer remember, or maybe never even knew because the people around us didn’t know it about themselves, and so weren’t able to mirror it back to us. 

The inner conflict generates emotions of anger, fear, sadness.

Why would great powerful tigers like ourselves stay in a cage?

We stay there, in our cages, pacing nervously back and forth, filled with repressed rage and grief, for lots of reasons. The cage is familiar, all we have known.  It is safe.  It is at least safer, we think, than venturing into the unknown.

And often, we forget how to know who we really are and how to choose what is right for ourselves. 

I worked with a man, now in his 40’s, whom I have seen over the course of several years off and on. He first came to me years ago for troubles with his learning style, which was making it hard for him to complete college and go on to find work that really nourished him.  He is what they call ADD.  I think of this learning style as bright, even gifted, sensitive, intuitive, perceptive, an associations/connections/Big Picture thinker who has trouble showing up smart in a logical linear system.  

I had used lots of different modalities with this man over the years, as I learned and practiced them. When he came again recently, I was surprised that he is STILL trying to pass his Latin class which is all that separates him from graduating now.  I wasn’t surprised that in working with him this time I have had better quicker success with EFT than with anything else I have tried.

Over the course of the session he came to realize that he was using his learning style and his confusion to keep him from succeeding in passing this class, because then he would have to actually test himself in the world.  He was afraid he would find out that he isn’t smart after all.  He would have to take on more responsibility. There were lots of shoulds and have to’s.  

At one point he suddenly burst out “But if I got rid of all that then there would be NO ISSUE!”  

Quickly he began sweeping up around that comment as if to cover it up, but it was out there! I had heard it.  No smoke screen!  “I would have to face myself!  I would have to actually be in the world!”  Sheer terror.  

We tapped on all the statements I had elicited, using them as set up statements. He ended the session in a state of meditation, staring into the flame of the candle on my table, saying quietly, “Whenever this confusion comes up now, I know I have a choice.  I can always choose to honor the flame at the core of my being.” I think there is more to do, but this session was a big step forward for this man.  

I think of each session of EFT as dissolving one of the bars on the cage.  Eventually there is a space there that is big enough for us to step through, and into another way of Being.

Rue Hass

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Part 6: Be Willing to “Not Know,” and Stay Curious 

The following two stories are examples of how I kept trying out different “doors” until one finally opened.

In my experience it is almost always possible to find a door, if you, the practitioner, are paying attention. I often find that even when it turns out that I have gone in a totally irrelevant direction, if I have created rapport, somehow some inner part of the person’s being has made a decision to partner with me, and will turn the conversation in a way that offers me a clue.  Rapport is my first priority, and after that I just trust that this silent partnership is working in its own way, in its own time, to bring healing to the person, using me as its tool. 

Example 1: Working with Deb for the second time (the first time was mostly gathering information).  I was looking for a way to get some change-work started, because she is extremely depressed and anxious.  She was referred to me by a less experienced EFT practitioner who felt she was out of her depth with this lady. 

 So I was casting about, looking for a door that would yield and offer a way of generating some changes within Deb.  I wanted something specific to work with so she could get an immediate sense of success.   Deb presented as SO depressed, SO self critical, and SO out of touch with her body and her real feelings that it was hard to find any way in.

“My mother is a wonderful, warm person,” she said several times, even though it is already clear to me that her mother is highly critical of Deb over the smallest details.

I tried a lot of different approaches without success.  Deb continued to sit slumped in her chair, her affect a mix of defeat and people pleasing. I eventually asked her what she said to herself inside that was making her so sad.  She haltingly found a few statements, and I chose “I am never strong or decisive.” That was the first answer she gave to my question.

I asked Deb to tell me some specific times when she felt she had not been “strong and decisive.” She couldn’t think of one event. Her answers covered looooong periods of time, several years.  Like all the years she was married  (her husband left her).

I asked her what made her decide to marry him, and she couldn’t even answer that.  “I just couldn’t think of anything else to do,” she said.  She had no other choices.  So I asked her where they were when he asked her (trying to get a three minute movie!).  She told me, but there just wasn’t enough charge there to pursue it. 

So I backed up and started to try to sneak up on something, using EFT with “this anxious feeling.”  There was the tiniest bit of response in her, but what I noticed most was that she seemed irritated at me, as if she was thinking, “Here we go again. This lady isn’t going to be any better than the last one.  I hate this.  I hate myself.”  I am not sure she was even aware of thinking that.  But I could almost hear it!  Clearly we were going nowhere fast.

Finally she stopped and said in an exasperated tone, “I can’t even do THIS right.  I can’t ever do anything right.  Maybe I should just move back to live with my parents!  But I am 37 years old.  That would be such a failure!  I HAVE to make a decision, though.  My lease is up in six months.”  And she gave a big sigh.

Ah ha!

I said, “What do you feel in your body when you think of your lease running out?”   With some coaxing (not leading!) she came up with tight chest and constricted breathing.  So we flowed right into working with constricted breathing. This is a process of using EFT with the breath itself.  (For several good articles about using EFT with constricted breathing do a search on the emofree.com)

She began with a shallow 2 breath, and went deeper to a 4 breath.  Then she jumped to a 7 breath, saying “Oh it is just a little bit better than last time, when it was a 6.”  I pointed out that in fact she had jumped from a 4 to a 7, and she was surprised.  I managed to work in some creative languaging, especially around the word “lease,” “lease on life,” etc.

Then the session was over.  Deb said, taking a deep breath and with some conviction in her voice, “Next time I am going to come with a list of specific things I want to work on!”

“Ahhhh……..oookay!”  I said, smiling on the inside.

Example 2: Georgie (a phone client) and I began to work with her surprisingly increased pain since the last time we worked together.  It was surprising since the last time had been an exceptionally good session dealing with the emotional neglectfulness of her father, and his condescending negativity toward women in general, especially her mother with whom he had an embattled relationship.  He was always belittling her.  We chased the pain with EFT for a bit, but nothing seemed to be changing in her pain level. 

I asked Georgie what had been happening in her life since we last talked.  Not much, except how good she had felt right afterwards. 

That caught my attention, so I suggested that we test our earlier work and see if she could come up with anything else about her father that still needed clearing.  Somehow she started talking about how she had been thinking of finding the picture of her dad that was like the one she had on display of her mother, and putting it out in her home too, but was just feeling “strangely reluctant.”  I asked her if she wanted to go get the picture, thinking that we could do some tapping while she looked at it.  Suddenly she was very nervous, and said. “OH!  I can’t even THINK about his picture.”

So we changed directions, tapped on not thinking about the picture, and then thinking about it, and then thinking about putting it out in her house, and then she did find a snapshot of him that she looked at while she tapped.  She was talking about how he had just neglected her all her life, couldn’t seem to have anything to do with her unless he needed something from her.

I asked her to remember a time when she felt him neglecting her. She talked about when she would call home from college, and her mother would turn to her dad with the phone in her hand saying, “It’s Georgie!” and her dad would say “Georgie who?”  When pressed by his wife, he would say, “Well, I know several people named Georgie.”

Meanwhile Georgie herself was hearing all this over the phone and feeling terrible.  She said when her 3^rd cousin (her emphasis, meaning someone who was surely less important to her dad than his own daughter should be) graduated from college her father wrote him a long letter saying how proud he was of him.  When she graduated from college he wrote three lines to her, with vague words.  That was the only letter he ever wrote to her and she knew her mother had made him write it.  We did some tapping about all that, and I made some good humorous use of her 3^rd cousin.

Something about her college telephone call story was still catching my attention.  I said to Georgie, “I am going to say something to you, and it is ‘just’ my intuition, it just popped into my head, so if it doesn’t fit with you, make sure you let me know.  Don’t take my word for it – only if it resonates with you.” 

When I had her agreement, I said, “What are the chances of your dad using you as a weapon of sorts in his battle with your mom?  What if he knew that it would hurt her if it looked like he didn’t remember or care who Georgie was?”

I could hear that one land even over the phone.  It was something she hadn’t even thought of.  We tapped for all the thoughts and feelings that generated, and Georgie moved through some deep grief, arriving at a deeper understanding of what had been going on inside her dad at the time, and how he had not realized what effect his actions would be having on Georgie herself (duh). 

I suggested during the tapping that she could even put her dad’s picture out with her mom’s picture, not together but on the shelf below her mother, as a silent and kind of humorous reminder of how valuable women were.  Georgie liked that.  And maybe down the road it would be appropriate to place them together, because now (both parents are dead) they have a broader perspective of the mistakes they both made, with each other and with her.

We completed the session with Georgie saying, with interest and curiosity, that she intended to go find that picture of her dad.

(Later I got a note from Georgie, saying, “Dad’s picture is now up in a temporary way [below Mom, of course] and so far I am feeling neutral about it, We’ll see what happens.”)

Rue Hass

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