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Deepak Chopra, MD
"EFT offers great healing benefits."
EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques®) Where emotional relief brings physical health
Self help method often works where nothing else will No Drugs Involved ~ High Success Rate
EFT Resources
The Palace of Possibilities
Using EFT to achieve one's potential
In this Section 5...
- The Palace of Possibilities 11--Ideas & inspiration from Members
- The Palace of Possibilities 12--The River of Money
The Palace of Possibilities 11--Ideas & inspiration from Members
Hi Everyone,
Here are some inspirational thoughts, ideas and questions from some of our list Members.
Hugs, Gary
FROM STEVE WELLS (IN AUSTRALIA)
I have found two ways of dealing with the negative beliefs and "tail enders" that you describe.
The first is that I use Provocative Therapy anyway, so am skilled at picking up on irrational beliefs and negative thought forms and exaggerating them. It is not difficult to postulate opposing thoughts for any particular positive affirmation. What is challenging is to find the ones that this particular client is affected by. I immediately start thinking of possible limiting and negative thoughts when clients start talking - and usually the ones that are provoked in my mind as they speak are right on the money. However, when this is not the case, you can just think of typical ones such as those on your list for weight problems and run them up the flag pole in turn to see if the client salutes them so to speak. (Letting the client know that it is important to identify these and eliminate their negative charge of course).
In recent times, apart from identifying the negative blocking statements and having the client tap on those, I have also been having them tap on the positive affirmation, particularly if it is one which they do not hold strongly. This is because just saying the affirmation will bring up their negative reaction and thus tapping on it can eliminate some of this charge. It can also bring the tail enders as you have called them or competing thought forms into consciousness.
Usually, I have the client say the positive affirmation and rate how much it is true for them on a scale of 1 to 10. If less than 10, I'll have them tap whilst saying the affirmation. Invariably afterwards it is more strongly held - or we are able to identify negative blocking statements to tap on.
This two-pronged approach is working brilliantly. As an example, I recently worked with a professional baseball player using this particular combination of provocative therapy and EFT (with a bit of NLP anchoring thrown in). He was able to apply these techniques to achieve a league record for number of innings pitched without a hit from the opposing team, and also ended up winning the Australian Baseball Leagues pitcher of the year award. He is very excited and intends taking these techniques back to the states with him where he will make another assault on the major leagues. (He has given me permission to share this with you).
GC: This is a superb example of installing the positive while using EFT as an eraser for the negative blocks to our true potential. I just completed a lengthy phone conversation with this baseball pitcher (currently in Australia) who informs me that his Earned Run Average or ERA (the most often used "efficiency rating" for baseball pitchers) went from 3.3 *before* Steve worked with him to under 1.0 afterwards. If you are into baseball, this is an eye popping improvement. It is the equivalent of a golf score going from 90 to 78. I have stated many times that using EFT for performance related issues is one of EFT's most underrated features. One reason I am doing this Palace of Possibilities series is to emphasize the upside potentials that many practitioners are ignoring.
STEVE CONTINUES: Enjoying your series immensely Gary, keep it coming.
FROM DEBORAH MITNICK
Gary, My client from yesterday and today just wrote to me....
"This may be putting the cart before the horse, but here's my proposal...In a telephone session, I would like to work on affirmations to start creating the next chapter of my life. Enough "stuff" got cleared up yesterday and today that I feel like I'm ready for that. I would like to address the other agenda items soon. Would you have any available time slots March 1-4?"
So, I think I have a Personal Performance client here.
GC: Here's a prime example of moving with a client into the Personal Performance arena. This client cleared up enough issues with EFT so that goals, affirmations and the like now have appeal. As new consistent thoughts are installed, the competing tail enders will continue to show up. More to work on, of course. Only this time the client is being taken from the "whew, I'm glad that problem is over" stage to the "wow, look at me fly" stage. Pursuing possibilities is a lot more fun than purging problems.
AUTHOR'S NAME WITHHELD BY REQUEST
Firstly, just to let you know that I'm continuing to feel inspired by the "Palace" series.
I remember you mentioning something about Adrienne's mother and singing. I used to be a songwriter, and played in bands when I was younger. I have been blessed with a good singing voice but never fully realised my potential due to a general lack of confidence and stage fright. The easy option for me was to have a few drinks before performing. This turned into a habit (which is fortunately now absent) which spilled over into other areas of my life and resulted in a lot of upset for my wife and I. Now when I sing or play guitar, my wife gets triggered and remembers those times. We are working on that with EFT.
Your series has re-awakened the desire in me to follow my dreams and to utilise *all* my God-given talents knowing that any fears that are blocking the way can be addressed by tapping.
GC: This is the type of message that inspires me because it is evidence that this series is pointing us toward our dreams. We can all sit at our computers and talk indefinitely about our "could be's." But until we take action, we will continue to experience possibilities paralysis. We are a mere affirmation away from beginning our own journeys. We need to unload our own limits so that we can lead by example. It moves me when I read that these writings are awakening the desires in others. Talk about awesome! Can you imagine what we could achieve as a group if all 930 on this list began reaching for their own stars? I can't wait to teach this live in Las Vegas on April 23. Please be there. We are going to bring the "Palace" to life.
FROM NANCY (LAST NAME NOT GIVEN)
May I assume that using positive affirmations is different than what one normally does in the EFT technique? I was taught to tap while speaking out what I was worried about and then see if the worry was reduced in intensity when I was finished. Is the positive affirmation something you do AFTER EFT?
GC: Good question. I know there is some confusion over this, especially with EFT newcomers. The positive affirmations that are part of the Palace of Possibilities are NOT a part of the EFT procedures. EFT is designed to eliminate negative emotions and thus the EFT affirmations aim in those negative directions. By contrast, the Palace of Possibilities procedures are designed to install positive thoughts and aim in positive directions. While we are using them together in this series, they have separate goals. EFT eliminates the negative. The "Palace" accentuates the positive.
FINALLY, SOME WELL THOUGHT OUT IDEAS FROM PAT CARRINGTON ON DOING AFFIRMATIONS
Hi Gary,
I’m so excited about the way you’re using affirmations. This will, I think, in itself make 'The Palace’ a major contribution. I’m thrilled to think we will all be part of it, building a solid structure with you which can change the tenor of many therapists’ work.
Let me share some things that are dear to my heart. They are about the extraordinary effects I have gotten from using affirmations in my own work and life since I discovered their value in 1986. To be practical, I’m going to "chunk down" (NLP term) what I have to say and send my thoughts on this to you in a series of short manageable segments. Here goes:
Slightly altered in format and called by another name than "affirmations", which I find to be a big turnoff for many people, affirmations have been a cornerstone of my psychotherapy practice for the past 13 years. It has been my experience, but may not be yours, that the traditional format for affirmations is less effective than the "Choice" method I am going to describe. This may be because the absolute declaration in the conventional affirmation (that something is "so" in present time which another part of the same person perceives as being NOT so) tends, in my opinion, to invite the very tail-enders you have been talking about. Of course this is not the ONLY reason or even the primary reason for having tail-enders, you have outlined beautifully many other and deeper reasons for them, but my thinking goes like this -- Why invite trouble? If we can make "affirmations" more palatable -- let’s do it!
I’ve used the type of affirmations I refer to as "Choices" ever since I took Robert Fritz’s stunning DMA course in the 1980’s and then went on to become one of the "advanced" teachers of that method, running many DMA workshops in which I taught hundreds of people this method over a period of 5 years -- one of my favorite memories in the world. Unfortunately, the DMA course as such no longer exits. It folded (as far as I know) after it was "de-mystified" (my term) about 8 years ago. The de-mystification had been done to strengthen its appeal to business and industry. The result? The DMA organization lost its best teachers, we resigned by the droves nationwide when the course lost its spiritual power, and the shorn sheep that became "Technologies for Creating" was ironically not accepted by business and industry. The course had lost its wonder as soon as it denied its spiritual connection.
After that, instead of teaching workshop participants how to make "Choices", I began to use this tool in my private practice. It has been a pillar of my practice ever since, often enabling me to help my clients bring about transformations in their lives, not just symptom alleviation, and enabling them to "nail down" and make permanent some magnificent insights that have appeared in the course of psychotherapy. I am estimating that about 65% of my sessions with clients at the present time end up with us formulating some new "Personal Choices" which the client then takes home and uses according to the DMA formula. This procedure facilitates the psychotherapy by a multiple I can only guess at -- DOUBLES its effectiveness perhaps? It is a superb aid to healing.
Let me tell you what "Choices" are and how I personally formulate them. A "Choice" differs from a traditional affirmation in that it purposely introduces INTENTION into the equation. An example:
Instead of a traditional affirmation concerning the attainment of a new and desirable apartment, which might go something like "I live in a beautiful, sunny, spacious apartment.", a corresponding Choice might be: "I CHOOSE to live in a beautiful, sunny, spacious apartment." . The words "I CHOOSE" always precede the affirmation phrase proper.
"Well", you may think, "what difference does that make?" and here is my answer:
It puts the person making the affirmation in the Driver’s Seat. His / her volition is brought into play. The person has a sense of exercising their own will, of deciding and COMMITTING to a course of action. I believe this freely entered into commitment traps the ego, so to speak, in the act of affirming the Self (what a contradiction and what a coup!) rather than, as the traditional affirmation does, simply by-passing the ego and the "reality sense" as expressed in one’s awareness of present reality which may be quite
in contrast to the affirmation (i.e. one may live in a miserable, dingy, dark apartment at the moment!). Cognitive dissonance is often created by attempting to do this, and if so the affirmation is usually rejected.
This is not to say that traditional affirmations may not be a vehicle of choice in many THERAPEUTIC situations, particularly if the client is in semi-trance (as they are when they are undergoing most energy techniques -- check it out!) -- but in many instances I have found making a Choice to be MORE effective for ordinary (i.e. non-trance) therapeutic purposes.
Another advantage is that the "tail-enders", and they almost always exist. You’re so right Gary !, can often be handled by the wording of the Choice itself, built into it so to speak, providing we know what they are (we don’t always as you point out and finding out may take some detective work). For example, suppose on inquiry you and the client discover that she is afraid to move into a beautiful, sunny apartment because then someone extremely important to her a (family member perhaps?) might not love her anymore because they would be envious and resentful. In this event, you could build-in a neutralization for that particular tail-ender by wording the Choice along these lines:
"I choose to feel totally loved while living in a beautiful, sunny, spacious apartment."
If, after this alteration of the phrase, it remains difficult for this person to use the Choice because it’s very difficult for them to feel loved under ANY circumstances, there’s where EFT (or some other energy technique) comes in to remove the blocks. We might then formulate some additional Choices after doing the energy work, such as:
"I choose to find it easy and natural to feel lovable." or "I choose to feel loved", or with a Choice addressing any of the deservedness issues. The Choice which the client takes home on a (usually blue for my clients) 3 x 5 card (a "gift" from the therapist) is then used to reinforce whatever work has been done in the therapy.
An occasional person might experience the Choice phraseology as setting the goal off in the future and thus as less compelling than the direct traditional forms of affirmation. I have not found this to be the case, however. My experience has been that the unconscious does not "read" the words of the Choice in this manner, and I can’t count the number of times a Choice made by a workshop participant, client, one of my friends, or me, has "come true" -- whether 2 hours from the moment they conceived of the choice, or three weeks from the date it was first used daily, or a year later.
I remember one time when a DMA class of mine decided to meet for a one-year reunion. Everyone brought to that meeting their original list of DMA Choices, made one year ago, and shared them and the outcomes with the rest of the group. What we found out is that, although many of these Choices had called for major life changes in these person’s lives, upon calculating the percentage of Choices realized by the whole group, these people had received 70% of the "things" (new attitudes, relationships, career changes, behaviors, material possessions, success, love etc.) that they had asked for -- SEVENTY PERCENT! And we didn’t even count the already PARTIALLY realized Choices, those which were clearly "on the way", or for that matter take into account those that were still to materialize with future persistent use of the Choices. It was mind blowing -- and it tallies with my own personal experience. Recently I sorted through a set of my 3’ by 5’ cards upon which my CURRENT Choices are written (some 30 or so Choices -- I usually do things thoroughly!) and I counted the number that were either already realized or thoroughly on the way to being so -- it amounted to 60% of the total choices on my list - and that was for a period of only 4 months. Results like this suggest that making a Choice effects a true connection between our little "selves" and the Universe, that they are, in a sense, messengers from us to God.
What I am saying here applies to all affirmations, be they couched as Choices or as direct reframes of present reality as in the traditional affirmation. I personally find that the traditional form of affirmation can be superbly effective in a therapeutic context and the method of choice for that purpose. For example, when I use your (Gary’s) Advanced EFT Intuiting Technique, I find that by using direct statements and affirmations, with no frills, no "Choices" or anything else to impede the process, I can go right to the heart of the matter and join with the person I am working with in a deep and complete sense -- and Larry Nims’ affirmations in BSFF, just as they are, seem to work perfectly -- it would be quite inappropriate to water any of these powerful statements down in any way, shape, manner or form. Choices are simply another option, a way to extend our effectiveness in those situations where the client’s belief in the affirmation process needs all the help it can get.
Enough of this "chunk" on affirmations. There are a number of things I regularly do with Choices to make them more compelling and magnetic for the person, but I’ll leave these for another time.
It feels so good to have somewhere to SAY all this. The ‘Palace’ is going to be so liberating for all of us!
With many thanks,
Pat
The Palace of Possibilities 12--The River of Money
Hi Everyone,
We are going to devote the next few "Palace" installments to the subject of money and our "abundance awareness." The writing on our walls is loaded with fiscal limits, all of which can be erased and replaced. Financial abundance is everyone's right. It is only our consistent thoughts about it that have limited our access to money. We are not denied money by "other people," the "system" or anything like that (even though it seems that way--a major illusion). Along these lines, Pat Esborg wrote the following to me...
"Dear Gary, I'm enjoying your Palace of Possibilities papers so much. Thank you! You mentioned how the "writing on the walls" keeps us from our goals when doing affirmations (and other times). So true! The one I've found present (in capital letters) for us "helpers and healers" is: "If I get what I want (particularly money, recognition and ease of living), I can't be truly helpful/spiritual" or some such variation. Seems it's an either/or choice, so people stay stuck. You seem to be a living, breathing, writing example of how money and recognition need not negate "spiritual/helping" goals, but can potentiate them. Perhaps you could say more about how you came to this place in a future paper?"
With a thank you to Pat for her queries and supporting words, I submit below the following excerpt from the How to Drive Your Own Bus transcript. After that I develop what I call The River of Money. These articles should answer Pat's query and shed much light on money and how our perception of it "rules" our accumulation and use of it.
FROM THE HOW TO DRIVE YOUR OWN BUS TRANSCRIPT
GARY: Look at the box below "My mother and father always said." There you'll see four sentences with blanks. The first one says, "Rich people are.........." Please replace that line with, "People who earn a lot of money are............" [Note: this has been done for you in the manual.]
This exercise is similar to "My mother always said...." in that we need your spontaneous responses. So please complete each of those four sentences with the first word or phrase that comes to mind. This will point the way to some of your hidden passengers. I'm only going to give you 20 seconds to do all four of them. Ready...Go. [Audience writes for 20 seconds]
Now tell me what you wrote down for the first sentence and I'll write your responses here on the board. What did you write for "Wealthy people are.....?" Who's first?
AUDIENCE: Stressed out.
GARY: Stressed out. Wealthy people are stressed out.
AUDIENCE: It's supposed to be "People who earn a lot of money are...."
GARY: You are right. I'm sorry. Let's do it this way. [Gary puts a $ sign at the top of the board] Now.... "People who earn a lot of money are......." stressed out. What's next?
AUDIENCE: [Responds with many words and phrases while Gary writes them on the board]]
GARY: "Spoiled." What's next? "Holier than thou." I hear "Lucky." What did I hear back there? "Weird." "Freer." "Giving." I hear "Worthy." I heard some other ones. "Dishonest." "Successful." "Ambitious," I hear. "Work hard." "Pushy." "Powerful." "Selfish." Okay, that'll do it for now.
Why do you suppose I had you do this? Who could guess for me?
LADY: I can't believe the people in this room.
GARY: Why not?
LADY: Everything put up there was negative. And I kept saying focused and you didn't even put that up there.
GARY: Yes, I did. I just didn't finish it. I put "focused" right there, okay? "Ambitious" isn't bad. "Worthy," which somebody said, isn't bad. You are right, however. There are many negative responses.
[To audience] Please pay attention to the words you wrote down for each of those sentences. They are clues to your own barriers in those areas of your life.
Here's what I mean by that. If to earn a lot of money is to be "stressed out," then what is going to happen when a new job opportunity comes your way that could result in your earning a lot of money? If being stressed out is a piece of your belief about that new job your passengers are likely to say, "Oh! Look out, you don't want to be stressed out! People have heart attacks, you know!" Is that going to be an influence?
AUDIENCE: Yes.
GARY: Is it true that people who earn a lot of money are stressed out?
AUDIENCE: [Some say yes, some say no]
GARY: Are some people who earn a lot of money stressed out?
AUDIENCE: Yes.
GARY: Are some people who are poor stressed out?
AUDIENCE: Yes.
GARY: Well, make up your mind. [Laughter]
As long as you have the view that to make a lot of money means you need to be stressed out, then you are attempting a journey towards becoming wealthy with your brakes on. Whether or not that is your major belief, I suggest that if it came out of you then it's at least a piece of your belief system. It serves as a limit when you start to think in that direction.
[Reading from the board] "Spoiled." "Holier than thou." How many here would like to be judged by the rest of the world as "Holier than thou." [No hands raised] Yet, if a piece of your belief system links "Holier than thou" with earning a lot of money, is that going to be a brake on getting wealthy?
AUDIENCE: Yes.
GARY: Are there some poor people who are "holier than thou?"
AUDIENCE: Yes.
GARY: How about this one. They are "lucky." What does that say?
MAN: If you say someone is lucky, sometimes the inference is that they just walked into what they got.
GARY: You're right. I don't want to be a mind reader to anyone here because we all have different ideas on what these words mean. But one thing lucky could mean is that someone needs to be lucky to earn a lot of money. And if someone believes they must be lucky to earn a lot of money they may also believe that they don't have the skills to do it on their own.
They may say to themselves... "I'm going to have to inherit it or win the lottery. Otherwise, I'll never get it because I don't have what it takes. I have to be lucky in order to earn a lot of money." Is that a barrier?
AUDIENCE: Yes.
GARY: Oh, let me tell you that's a barrier. That's a big wide one that says "I really don't have what it takes. I can only go so far. I don't deserve it."
Now let me tell you what I rarely hear in this exercise. I've done this many times with many audiences and I rarely hear something like this...."People who earn a lot of money are the cornerstones of our society. They create jobs. They are innovators that create the products we have that make our life so easy."
I do see the word "Giving" up here on the board but I rarely hear anything as glowing as what I just said.
What would happen if your vision of a wealthy person shifted towards being someone who is a contributor and to be admired? What would happen to your own goals in that direction? What would happen to your own thoughts in that direction if that's what it was to be a wealthy person?
AUDIENCE: More motivation.
GARY: That's right. Because it will become more attractive to be wealthy, won't it? But so long as we have these kinds of passengers [pointing to list on board] kicking around inside our bus, we are not likely to make much progress in that direction.
By the way, this list of negatives is not your fault. We've been given this stuff by a society that tends to feed us negatives. Shad Helmstetter authored one of the tape sets in the back called "What To Say When You Talk To Yourself." He points out in there that by the time we are age 18, we have received 140,000 "no's."
THE RIVER OF MONEY
Money is neither good nor evil. Our perception of it is simply a belief that has taken up residence in our minds. Money is a form of energy that can finance everything from heavenly pursuits to holocausts. If we equate money with greed we will stifle its flow in our direction. If we equate it with free flowing abundance, it will find its way to us much more easily.
Money is abundant. It is all around us. Imagine, for a moment, the amount of money that flows into and out of your hands in a year's time. Most of it you didn't keep, did you? You only used it to buy food, clothing, etc. and pay your rent or mortgage. Your money was turned into goods and services for your use but continued to circulate from your hands to the hands of others. Even the money you put in the bank was loaned out to others for other purposes.
Now imagine the amount of money that flows into and out of the hands of everyone in your family and in your neighborhood and in your workplace. That's a lot of money, isn't it? It just keeps flowing, something like a stream. Now imagine all the money that flows into and out of the hands of your grocery store and the bank you do business with. Include your automobile company, power company and telephone company. Now we are talking about a River of Money that is flowing everywhere. Sit back and observe this someday. You can scarcely make a move anywhere where money isn't flowing from one set of hands to another. And no one really keeps it. They just use it and put it in places that have their name on it. Bank accounts are like that. So are real estate, stocks, mutual funds and the like.
Now imagine all the money that goes into and out of the hands of your state or local government. More additions to the River. What about all the money that goes into and out of the hands of the U.S. Federal Government? Include Japan, Canada, Australia, the Middle East and all the European countries. Huge amounts of money. Now include the rest of the world. Trillions of dollars per day change hands all over the globe and a plethora of goods & services are created in the process. The River of Money, like spiritual abundance, is unlimited. There is no way to measure how big it really is.
You and I are standing beside the River of Money watching it flow right on by. It is so wide that we cannot see the other side. It is so deep that no one can find the bottom. And it is ours to use, right along with everyone else. Some of us approach the River of Money with scarcity thinking. We come with a teaspoon to take barely enough for our perceived needs. We somehow think that the more we "take" the more we are into greed and the less there is for others. We don't realize that the more we use the more we create. The more we use, the more we generate abundance for others through the things we buy. The more we use, the more freedom we have to extend love into the world.
Some people come to the River of Money with a teacup. That's better than a teaspoon. Others come with a 5 gallon container. I come to it with a swimming pool. Ross Perot comes to it with a lake bed and Bill Gates comes to it with the Grand Canyon. None of us, however, has even dented the size of the River. The money flows through us and creates everything from jobs to software that transforms the world to low cost EFT videos (that also transform the world).
As I said, money is neither good nor evil. It is abundant energy that flows in a River and is available to us all. It's "goodness" or "evilness" resides only in the perceptions that are written on our walls. Our consistent thoughts become our reality.
Hugs, Gary
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