Our healing was mostly centered around pretty core issues of self acceptance, and at times it seemed there were just so many issues to tackle, we couldn't see our way through them. The job we were doing in the garden felt a bit the same at the start. In fact, the story started several months earlier really, when I finally acknowledged that the blackberries' threats to take over the property were getting serious. Like I do sometimes with healing big issues, denial kicked in and it took several months before I managed to get myself motivated on the job. A while later, I went great guns at clearing away some of the blackberry for a while, but then got fed up with being scratched and caught up in it, and somehow managed to forget all about the job for several weeks! Then my friend arrived, and we decided to tackle it together.

These are the things that became clear to us with our healing, through clearing away the blackberry:

* Denying that the plants needed clearing away for several months didn't make the job any easier! Not healing our issues as they come up means they can grow from a small plant easily pulled out, into a tangled web that's hard to remove.

* This sort of work is much easier with a friend to motivate you, share successes and laughs and learning along the way.

* At first the job seems huge, like there's no way you will be able to get it all finished, and it's easy to become disillusioned. But just chipping away, 1/2 an hour at a time, sees the job done much quicker than you realise.

* You often get to a stage where the vines grab you and get caught in your clothes one too many times, and you get fed up and just don't want to do any more. You pack it in for the day, and start again feeling much fresher and ready to deal with it the next day. And you know that if you don't, there will just be more to clear when you do finally get back to the job.

* At times it seems impossible to see how to cut the vine out at the bottom, it's such a tangle you can only work on the edge, snipping way what you can. But then all of a sudden, after snipping enough away, the bottom comes into view, and it's easy to reach through and snip it, and pull out a huge mass all caught up in it.

Fortunately there is one difference between the two jobs though - I can't see that it could be at all possible to pull all the roots of the blackberries out and stop them regrowing, but with the fantastic tools that we have for our healing, like EFT & Focusing, we really can get our issues out by the roots, with persistence!

So if anyone out there is feeling like your issues are just too big and you'll never be able to clear them, draw on the motivation and support of a group or a friend, or just someone who can listen, and think blackberries!!!  It didn't take that long until we couldsee the whole wall, and it looks fantastic!! And because were were working at the core of our issues, we are both starting to really see that self acceptance is becoming a real goal, rather than a hazy concept that we can intellectually buy into but can't really see ourselves achieving.

Jill spoke about how when the left side of her brain shut down in the minutes and hours following the stroke, the feeling of separation and logic so familiar to that side of the brain receded, and allowed the expansive feeling of belonging and being connected to all, that the right side of the brain knows, to come to a fore. She concluded her passionate presentation with an urge for all of us to make the choice to live more from the right side of the brain.

Reflecting on her presentation later that day, I realised how powerful a metaphor Jill had shared with those of us walking the path of self healing. We live in a world dominated by the left brain, and yet the left brain is simply not equipped to heal most of our physical and emotional issues, if any. If we could heal based on logic and reasoning alone, none of the fabulous tools available for self healing today would ever have emerged. Their strength, both individually and collectively, lies in their ability to help us to tap into the right side of the brain, where I believe all true healing occurs.

And yet it’s still so tempting for a lot of us to analyse and try to reason our way out of our issues! We think if we can only figure it out, we’ll be free from the emotional highs and lows we are experiencing, and live happier lives. I feel that the key to our healing lies in the times that we make the choice that Jill was talking about – making the choice to maximise the times where we are living out of the right side of our brain, and allow that part of our brain to resolve our issues based on it’s own wisdom.

I’ve had a couple of wonderful experiences of this recently in my own healing journey. Travelling through my home country of New Zealand over the last couple of months, I’ve noticed a couple of issues creep in. Trying to “figure them out” netted no change at all, so I sat down to do some EFT to see if I could get to the bottom of what was going on. As I went through the EFT, I became aware of a part of me that I had previously been completely oblivious to, a part that was trying to protect me, based on assumptions left over from an experience so long ago, that I thought was no longer affecting me. I was incredulous to hear that part’s message, to realise that a part of me was still frozen in time, and to experience the integration that followed theEFT session. I would never have figured it out logically, it would simply never have occurred to the left side of my brain that the issue I had was in any way connected to something that I thought I had resolved long ago. I gave thanks for the power ofEFT to help me to get out of my own road, and allow my right brain to go to work.

A month later, during a Focusing session with my new Focusing Partner, I saw this in action again. I was feeling overwhelmed about my inability to shift a long term pattern, one that the logical side of my brain has been ready to trade in for some time, but seems to lack the ability to figure out how! As I Focused, and went into the felt sense that developed in my stomach, I asked the felt sense what it needed. All of a sudden I saw an image of a little plant in a pot, badly wilted with the flower drooping right over. I just knew that the plant represented a part of me that I hadn’t given any energy to for a long time, if ever, and I felt such sadness. My left brain immediately kicked in and demanded to know how the little plant could possibly be saved. I took a breath, put my hand back on the felt sense, and just allowed whatever needed to form the space to do so. The little plant revealed that all it needed was a little water to keep it going, that no great measures or heroic efforts were required, simply a little water, and the energy that went with delivering it. Logically the issue was still as big and impossible to resolve as before, but I had had that shift that all Focusers come to know, that shift that suddenly meant I was no longer in the place of disempowerment that I was, and had instead felt an undeniable forward movement. I smiled and gave thanks for the power of Focusing to help me to get out of my own road, and allow my right brain to go to work.

Learning Focusing has completely changed the way I approach my own healing, and the way I work with others. It has helped me to realise that there is no definitive “I” who is feeling something, but rather “I” am a collection of feelings, thoughts and beliefs, some of which are completely inconsistent with each other.   I have come to realise that it isn't helpful to see myself as being reversed on healing an issue, or as if a part of me is sabotaging myself, and that instead, it is far more supportive if whenever I feel stuck in any healing that I’m doing, I acknowledge that it's probably simply a result of there being a belief, emotion, or thought inside of me that needs to be heard.

I have learnt a lot in this regard from Ann Weiser Cornell’s writing. I highly recommend reading Ann’s writing on The Radical Acceptance of Everything , Radical Gentleness Transformation of the Inner Critic, and Releasing Action Blocks, and also the article by Ann’s colleague Barbara McGavin on Focusing with the Inner Critic and Victim. Whether you are using Focusing as a skill in your healing consciously or not, the concepts can easily be incorporated into your healing practice, no matter what methods you use.

After working with the ideas in Ann’s writing about using Focusing with action blocks, I realised that what she was talking about extends far beyond dealing with action blocks themselves. Ann writes that any time there is something that you want to do in your life that you don’t, you need to be aware that there is also a part of you that doesn’t want to do the action. I have found that this also applies to things that you want to do that you actually do. Here’s an example that may help explain this:

I have made the decision to move back to New Zealand, and to build an eco-home and create a large permaculture garden with my partner. I’m really excited about the upcoming move and the whole project, even though I know it’s going to be a huge amount of work. I’m also aware of some thoughts that in the past I would have pushed out of my awareness, because they would have seemed too difficult to deal with. These thoughts are along the line of the fact that I love living by myself, I love having all the time I do to do the healing and learning that I’m doing, and I’m not going to have the luxury of all that time once building our own home. By sitting with these thoughts, I am able to acknowledge them as real. With what I’ve learnt with Focusing over the last few months, I know that it’s not a matter of having to convince that part of me that it is wrong and that it needs to change it’s mind, but rather all I need to do is simply hear it’s concerns. I’ve experienced the forward movement that comes with this so many times, I know it’s a safe thing to do, and that I’m not going to end up feeling like I have to negotiate with someone holding me hostage, which is how I would have felt in the past if I had seen this as resistance or self-sabotage or psychological reversal.

If you are feeling stuck in some area of your life, or things just aren’t flowing in the direction you want to go in some aspect, consider looking at the language you are using, when you talk about the problem, or simply when you are ‘talking’ to yourself with your thinking. You may find that there are aspects of yourself that you are denying the right to be heard, who are, for good reasons, pulling in a different direction to where you want to go. If you are using EFT, consider tapping for these thoughts in a way that you acknowledge that this part of you has a right to feel the way it is, and try finding ways to listen to it, rather than simply tapping to ‘remove the resistance’. You may find that your relationship with yourself changes radically, and moves you towards true self-acceptance.

A Powerful Method for clearing Writing off the Wall

I have been experimenting with some ideas that EFT expert Silvia Hartmann wrote about in a recent EFT Newsletter, and have found this to be very effective. Silvia talks about the idea of proxy tapping for our past selves, and healing across the different time periods of our early life. You can read the Silvia’s article on the emofree site.

A really powerful use for this that I have discovered is working with really key writing on our walls (key messages we took on board that dictate how we behave now). I recently had something happen that caused me to worry intensely about something, and when I felt the worry as tightness in my chest I realised that I really needed to sit down and do something about it. I’ve been trying to break my worry pattern for years and while it has improved a lot, the tightness was letting me know I had some way to go!

I started by pulling out a copy of Silvia’s article, and thinking about events that could have resulted in writing on my walls to do with worry in the different time periods she suggests (pre-birth, birth, first 6 months, 6 months to 2 years, 2 to 6 years), and came up with the following list (note that the items on the list are of course based on my own perception as I grew up, and may bear little resemblance to reality in some cases. When we are working with healing, it’s our perceptions that matter, not what was in actual fact the case):

• My mother was worried that some medication she took while pregnant with me would affect me
• My mother was quite isolated during the pregnancy and my early years, and had a lot of worries
• As a first time Mum, my mother was probably worried about the birth
• I was born two weeks late and there may have been a link with that and being worried about the birth
• I was born very stressed and malnourished with the umbilical cord wrapped three times around my neck
• I was taught by my mother’s actions that the natural first response to anything upsetting was to worry

I also made a list of conclusions I had drawn about worry as a result of my upbringing and came up with:

• I considered my parents to be very responsible people
• My parents first response to any uncertainty was to worry
• Therefore “Responsible people worry, that’s what they do”

I then used another method I sometimes use to flush out additional writing on the walls – thinking about how a person without your writing on the walls handles a similar situation. This led to me thinking about how my partner was handling the same situation, and flushed out the writing on the walls that:

• It’s irresponsible not to worry! (While intellectually I was appalled at my conclusion, emotionally I was convinced that I was in the right and my partner was indeed being completely irresponsible trusting that it would all work out in the end!)

I decided to combine the sort of tapping and phrases that Silvia suggested in her article, with doing the 9 gamut process very slowly for each trauma, something else I have been experimenting with and finding very powerful. Sometimes I type up the starting statements that I am going to tap on, in order to allow myself to just “follow along”instead of having to think up the words as I’m tapping. This is the process I mapped out:

1. Start by tapping on the top of the head and talking to the baby and young child inside of me to let them know what I would be doing, and thanking the parts of me who have been keeping me worrying to ensure that I’m a responsible person. (To start with acceptance and make sure all parts of me realised this was a team thing, rather than something I was trying to “get rid of.”)
   
2. Even though this baby was bathed in worry while in the womb, from when her Mum was worried about the affect on her of the medication she was taking for a short time,from all the things her Mum worried about while pregnant with her, I now deeply and profoundly love and accept and heal this baby. (Setup on karate point then rambling through the points with the various parts.)
   
3. 9 Gamut process for worry in the womb
   
4. Tapping through all points with the phrase “I now deeply and completely HEAL this baby of all effects of worry sustained while in the womb”
   
5. Even though this baby was affected by all her Mum’s worries leading up to, during and after the birth, and was so worried about being born that she was two weeks late, I now deeply and profoundly love and accept and heal this baby. (+ Rambling through the points including statements like “born into worry and stress”)
   
6. 9 Gamut process for worry about being born and associating life with worry because I was born into worry and stress
   
7. Tapping through all the points with the phrase “I now deeply and completely HEAL this baby of all the effects of worry sustained leading up to, during and after her birth.”
   
8. Even though this child was taught to worry and not to trust, I now deeply and profoundly love and encourage this child to trust(+ rambling through points)
   
9. 9 Gamut process for being taught to worry as first response
   
10. Tapping through all the points with “I now deeply and completely HEAL this baby of all effects of being taught to worry as the first response to anything upsetting and let her know that it’s safe to trust.”
    
11. Even though this child was taught that it is responsible to worry, I now deeply and profoundly love and encourage this child to know that trusting in the responsible choice. (+ Rambling through points)
    
12. Tapping through all the points with “I now deeply and completely HEAL this baby and this little girl of all the effects of being taught to worry as the first response to anything upsetting and let her know that the responsible choice is to trust.”
    
13. Even though as a baby and a child I was taught that responsible people worry, I now choose to know that the responsible choice is to trust. (Tapped this with three rounds: 1 - Taught that responsible people worry, 2 - The responsible choice is to trust, 3 - Alternating the two
    
14. 9 Gamut process for all remaining effects of being taught to worry

As I tapped the following additional things came to mind which I addressed as they came up:

• My mother was my protector and her response to anything upsetting was to worry, so I associated worry with protection.There was writing on my wall that said that the best way to protect myself from something was to worry.
• There was a part of me that felt it was not safe to stop worrying – I had pain all up the back of my neck that I needed to tap on before I could continue.
• I was born into worry and had a belief that you are only really alive if you are worrying about something.
• I realised that the writing on the walls was more specific than I had first thought, and that it was that the natural response to uncertainty was to worry.
• I was unable to tap on the part that it’s safe to trust and had to take a detour and deal with early events that had resulted in me taking on the belief that trusting someone results in you getting hurt. There were two key events that came up with this.

By the time I had finished half of this tapping I had burped and yawned so much,and accessed so many previously unknown feelings that I had to stop for the day. By this time I had completely stopped worrying about the previously “major” situation, and had realised that my partner’s approach was the responsible one.The following day I finished off the tapping to be sure.

While I won’t know whether or not this has really made a dent in my lifelong tendency to worry for a while, I know that I cleared a heck of a lot of writing from my walls that I didn’t even know I had and I have had an number of occasions since where I would normally have worried, which haven’t resulted in any worrying at all. I was also totally at peace with the situation that had caused so much worry that my chest had been tight, and surprise, surprise – it resolved itself the following day and it turned out my partner’s approach was the only sensible option! I have also had a marked absence of the voice in my head who is usually giving a running commentary on things to worry about which has taken me rather by surprise!

I seriously encourage anyone who is dealing with core writing on the walls to consider using the tapping in this way that Silvia suggests, and incorporating a slow and mindful version of the 9 gamut process each step of the way if it feels supportive to you. This sort of tapping on early messages is so incredibly powerful, it’s really getting to the root of so many of our current issues. If you would like to try this, here is a summary of how you could approach it:

1. Read Silvia Hartmann’s article to get an overview of the approach.
   
2. Brainstorm events that could have resulted in the writing on your walls for each of the age groups: (pre-birth, birth, first 6 months, 6 months to 2 years, 2 to 6 years)
   
3. Write down a list of conclusions that you may have formed about the topic you are working on as a result of your upbringing. If you would like to, also consider the view point of someone who doesn’t share the writing on your walls to see if you can find more writing on your walls to list down.
   
4. Create a tapping script to start the process, with:
   
   1. Set an intention while tapping on the top of your head. Let the baby and young you know what you are doing. Tap to thank the part of you that drives the behaviour for doing what it has been to help you and invite it to work with you.
      
   2. For each setup statement also create the words to ramble through with, note that you will do the 9 gamut process and use Silvia’s statement “I now deeply and completely HEAL this baby/young child of all effects of ….”
      
   3. Finish with a Choices Statement that reflects where you would like to be now with the issue.
      
5. Incorporate new items that come to mind into the tapping as you tap through the script.  If more specific thoughts come to mind, modify the script to also incorporate them.
   
6. If there is any blame or resentment for you with those who contributed to the writing on the walls, tap to clear these as well as this can reveal other issues standing between you and peace.
   
7. Enjoy your new found freedom from the lifelong writing on your walls!

Dear Friends,

As I begin to write this letter to you, I am surprised that though I’ve been thinking about writing this for more than a month, I still do not know where to begin.  I normally try to tell my story chronologically and in context, but I feel now I want to start simply by trying to describe today.

Today is sunny, warm, and early autumn in my neck of the woods.  Today is deep breaths and expansiveness in my chest.  Today is joy and confidence and simple ok-ness that I haven’t always known.  And really, today is not so very different from a lot of days I’ve been living recently.

I have not always described today this way.  I have not always felt the electricity that flows through all of life or marvelled at what my body can do.  I have not always differentiated between my mind, my body, and “me” – that is, the “I” that in English claims possession of that mind and body.  I have not always known my own power.  I have not always felt frequent bursts of uncontrollable gratitude.  And I have not always been free to take good care of myself.  But today, I am.

My journey to today has felt long at times, though today, it looks so short.  My journey to today has been full of tears and pain and fun and games and fear and gnashing of teeth.  My journey to today has encompassed more self-help stress and boom-bust (hope-depression) cycles than I care to remember.  My journey to today has been ugly and beautiful and strange, and I am crazy grateful it has brought me to today.

I don’t quite know if it would be responsible of me to encourage you all to run right out and start learning Focusing tomorrow on the promise of wild freedom, though I think that’s a pretty accurate description of my Focusing Partnership experience.   I want to acknowledge the power Focusing has given me to consciously create the life I want.  I also want to acknowledge that my Focusing does not stand in isolation; I cannot separate it from all my life experiences or from the myriad other healing tools I’ve utilized (and dabbled in) along my way to today. 

While I can’t know to what degree my today has been created by Focusing as opposed to any other means of bringing about the good, I do know I have watched myself change exponentially since beginning Focusing Partnership.  It is exciting to see such positive growth build on itself so rapidly after years of feeling the steps were slow and hard-won.

I also know how I feel when I Focus.  Suzanne Noel (Focusing Teacher) likened Focusing to a dream in which one can move around while awake.  This is the best description I’ve heard of my experience of Focusing.  In short, Focusing is fun.  Like a dream, it opens up images and sensations I’ve never allowed myself in my “real world” life.  And like a dream, it’s temporary; even stressful nightmares fade in the light of day.  Similarly, the most painful, tear-stained of Focusing sessions ends (intentionally) with a softening or lightening of some kind and an awareness that the experience was distinct from (even if related to) the external reality of my day-to-day life.  It is wonderfully freeing to find this kind of distinction.  It allows each reality (internal/Focusing and external/regular life) a safe space in which to fulfill its function without getting mired up in the “stuff” of the other world.  This quality has made Focusing the safest emotional tool I’ve ever used.

Focusing seems to provide me access – a window – to the often confused and juxtaposed multi-emotional busy-ness that overwhelmed me so often in my past.  I essentially had 31 years of disowned, ignored, subconscious, or unacknowledged emotional-spiritual messages whirling around inside me with no outlet.  No wonder I was overwhelmed, and no wonder I didn’t exactly want to ever deal with all those emotional messengers! 

Interestingly, I learned I don’t have to “deal” with them. 

Amazingly, Focusing allows me to properly hear the messages as what they are – messages, not “me.” 

Happily, as I no longer spend my energy trying to avoid the messages, I now have energy to create myself anew.

And that brings me to today.  I am someone new today.  I am a dancer (though I never have been before).  I am a joyous, positive person (and no number of bouts with depression in my past can confuse me about that).  I am someone who loves and marvels and feels gratitude toward her body (huge for me!  I wish you could know just how unbelievable that is for me to feel).  I am someone who finally can agree with the compliments given to her (I always said thank you, but now, I actually can nod my head in simple, comfortable, non-arrogant agreement when someone tells me I am a ray of light). 

And I am changing the world – my world – your world – today because I am changing.

Most of us go through life taking on points of view as a result of the experiences we’ve had, then collecting evidence over the years that support our points of view.  Healing requires us to allow the points of view to change as we clear the emotional trauma associated with the experiences that result in us taking on the beliefs and perspectives that we did.  With the assistance of wonderful tools like EFT and Focusing we are able to let go of the comfort of “being right” and instead experience the joy that comes from having the freedom to see things in a new way.

Years ago someone shared a great analogy with me to help me with this.  Imagine that there are two men standing on opposite ends of a football field, talking to each other on cellphones.  Jim and Bob don’t know where each other are, and Jim says to Bob, “Have you seen the new hot air balloon in town?”  Bob replies, “Yeah it’s pretty cool.  I’ve never see a black hot air balloon before.”  Jim says, “Surely there can’t be two hot air balloons in town, but the one I’m looking at is white.”  “Where are you?” asks Bob.  “Down at the football field.” replies Jim.  Bob shakes his head and says “That’s where I am, and the balloon is definitely black.”  Both men shake their heads as they wonder if their friend is losing it, Jim can clearly see that the hot air balloon is white and Bob can clearly see that it is black.  Eventually Bob realises that if Jim is at the football field too, if he goes for a wander he and Jim could talk in person and resolve the mystery.  As he walks around the hot air balloon and looks up, he can see that in actual fact the hot air balloon is white on one side and black on the other…

When something traumatic happens to us, it’s easy to take on a point of view as if the event was solely how we experienced it and that there is no other way to see it.  Like with the hot air balloon, if we are able to shift our perspective a little, we will be able to see more of the situation and see if from other angles.  We weren’t wrong in how we saw it, we simply had a limited perspective and couldn’t see the whole picture.

One area where remembering this can be very useful is if we are struggling to forgive someone for something that they did that caused us to be hurt.  If we can use EFT or Focusing or another method that works well for us to raise our perspective and see it from another angle, we may find it easier to forgive the person for their involvement, without having to make ourselves wrong.  Life really isn’t black and white, just like the hot air balloon, even though it can feel that way when we are convinced there is no way we can forgive someone.

Another area I find this helps is when I’m stuck in some strong emotions that just aren’t shifting when I’m tapping with EFT.  A good example of this is an experience I had where my partner and I were taking our cat on a long trip to his new home.   I was very upset by Monty’s meows and it wasn’t until I asked my partner how he saw it that I was able to see that I was stuck in my own perspective of Monty’s suffering, which was quite different to my partners’.  You can read about this at <insert link to Monty article>.  Asking someone else how they view a situation can be a wonderful way to help us to reframe our point of view and find the emotional relief that comes from doing so.

There is no doubt that it can be uncomfortable coming face to face with points of view that we have taken on that are no longer supporting us.  I experienced this in a graphic way when I realised while doing some EFT that I had taken on the belief that the world is an unsafe place and that I was vulnerable due to birth trauma.  When I realised that a part of me was causing me to react to foods that aren’t in fact harmful because its perspective was that the foods were dangerous, I went through an uncomfortable few moments realising that my years of illness were rested on a point of view I took on that was not actually true.  Initially it felt like my whole illness would be invalidated if I was to heal as a result of discovering this, there was real resistance to accepting that in actual fact, my beliefs were wrong!  Fortunately EFT got me past that resistance and my years and years of seriously poor health are now becoming distant memories.

I recently had a physical issue that no amount of tapping was shifting, so decided to find a new way to approach it.  It is a good example of how we often need to look at an issue from different angles, as described in article The Blind Spot.

For several nights I had been kept awake part or most of the night with intense itching in my hands.  There were small red blisters developing and patches of what I suspected might be eczema.  I tapped on the physical symptoms and how I felt about them but the itching didn’t lessen at all.  I had skimmed through the ideas in Lise Bourbeau’s book Your Body is Telling You: Love Yourself and hadn’t been able to relate to anything she had written as useful.  I suspected that I might have a blind spot on this issue, given that I’d tapped and tapped and got nowhere.

I was feeling very frustrated by my inability to resolve this issue and the itching was driving me crazy, so I decided to sit down with Lise’s book again and make notes from each section that could be relevant and see if a theme developed.  I felt it was likely that there were clues in what she had written that I had discounted because I didn’t want to see the issue.  These are some of the notes I made:

• Eczema = lack of confidence or inner balance
• Hands = a person who wants to know how he sees himself can simply take a look at his skin (I tried this and the word that came was “blemished”).  Also pain in the hands may be linked to your attitude about work.
• Skin = closely linked to self image and difficulty loving/accepting yourself as you are (as a result of this I decided to try a process described in an article in the EFT newsletter and quickly finished the sentence “In order to accept myself I need to…” and the words that came were “get things done”.  This also led to the thought “I have no merit in my own right, my worth comes only from what I do” coming out of nowhere and resulting in tears suggesting this was a key subconscious belief that I had been previously unaware of.) 
• I then tried the Key Questions process in Lise’s book, a process I find to be excellent to find the meanings for physical symptoms relevant to my own case.  This resulted in me realising that my itching hands were preventing me from relaxing and being rejuvenated, and that this meant I was on edge when I was trying to relax.  That led to “If I relaxed I would be lazy” and the key thought “I have to get things done.”  This was soon followed by the thought “I have to earn the lifestyle I have, I can’t just enjoy it.”

At this point I realised it that time was marching on and I hadn’t had any lunch so I decided to stop for a bite to eat and continue after lunch.  An hour later after doing all sorts of things I found myself hanging out the washing and realising that I had real resistance to sitting down and tapping.  I assumed there must be something in me that needed addressing so guessed at what it could be.  The first tapping statement below is a result of that guess.

Here is the rough process that I followed with the tapping.

• Even though a part of me is afraid that if I resolve this issue I will become lazy and I won’t get enough done, I deeply and completely love and accept that part of me, and I honour it for all it has been doing for me keeping me safe over the years by keeping me busy.
• At this point I sensed a real tension between part of me wanting to resolve the issue and part of me wanting to leave it alone, so I did some tapping as suggested in EFT Master Jacqui Crook’s article about Self Sabotage (if you haven’t yet read this article, it is included as Appendix J in “You CAN Heal with EFT”, available to download free of charge from www.selfheal4me.com).  I find this to be a very powerful way to clear blocks to moving forward with the tapping and often use it when I’m stuck with an issue.  The tapping started with Even though part of me wants to resolve this issue and part of me doesn’t, I deeply and completely accept both those parts.
• Even though I have this itching and these marks on my hands and it’s worse at night and it’s not letting me relax and sleep, I …
• Even though I see my hands as blemished and maybe this reflects how I see myself because I believe that in order to accept myself I have to get things done and we still have so much to do, I …
• Even though my self image is all tied up with how much I get done, I ….
• Even though I don’t love and accept myself unconditionally, and I believe that in order to love and accept myself I have to get things done, I accept that that’s how I feel right now (This modified form of the setup is used because the standard setup phrase is not applicable here.)
• Even though I have no merit in my own right, my worth comes only from what I do, I accept that this is how I feel right now and I open myself to the possibility of this changing one day in the future.
• Even though I have to earn time off, I can only relax if I’ve got lots done or it’s too wet to be planting or weeding or building, I accept that this is how I feel right now.
• While tapping on this last statement I realised that there was a connection between something I’d written down looking through Lise Bourbeau’s book in relation to this issue, and how I was feeling as I was tapping.  I’d started to notice nervous type pain in my teeth and face as I tapped and I realised that the feeling in the skin on my hands was very much one of being on edge.  I suspected that the itching in my hands was to keep me on edge and alert so that I was awake to get lots done.  So I tried tapping with Even though I’m feeling on edge because we have so much to get done during spring, so my hands are itching and keeping me awake so that I can work all the time, I thank my hands and skin for all they are doing for me.  I let my hands and skin know that I can be far more productive and get more done if I take time out to sleep and relax.  I thank that part of me that is driving me to get more done because I know it’s working hard to keep me safe, and I ask it to know that I am more productive and get more done when I’m relaxed and refreshed.
• At this point I recognised that “I have no merit in my own right” was core writing on my walls and that the tapping I was doing just wasn’t getting through the writing on my walls because it was directly in conflict with it, so I decided to use a process that I find very effective in dealing with these sorts of key beliefs.  You can read about this in A Powerful Method for Clearing Writing off the Wall.
• I tapped through the writing on the wall process and discovered the origins of beliefs I had and cleared a lot of emotion along the way.

That night my hands were still itchy and I thought perhaps the tapping had had no effect.  The next day however I noticed a real change in my attitude towards the work we were doing.  I found myself doing jobs that I had been avoiding because I felt like doing them, and because they no longer felt like work, but rather simply an activity I had always enjoyed doing.  I realised that I had really been driven by my beliefs about work and getting things done, and had been letting that erode my enjoyment in activities I had found enjoyable in the past.  That afternoon I also suddenly realised that I had been wearing gloves that weren’t allowing my skin to breath and that perhaps the sheer number of hours with the gloves on was what was causing the eczema.  I did a quick search on the net and it revealed that there are two types of eczema – immune related and contact.  A change to cotton gloves resulted in the itching and eczema clearing rapidly. 

A.H. Almaas writes a lot about what he calls “basic trust”.  In simple terms this is something that we have when we trust that what appears to be a separate ego self is in actual fact not separate from the whole at all.  In practical terms that means that few, if any, of us have this basic trust by the time we are more than a few hours old, if not a lot earlier.  When I first encountered Almaas’ ideas about basic trust I was intrigued, fascinated… and couldn’t really see how they related to my healing journey on a day to day basis.  I’ve recently had some insight into how this key concept can underlie some of the healing that many of us who are unwell or dealing with destructive behaviours can benefit from doing.

My life circumstances have changed hugely over the last couple of months.  I’m now living in a caravan on a small block of land where my partner and I plan to build our own natural home (with our own hands), and establish extensive native and food forest plantings.  I’m learning so many new skills and working so hard physically that I’m almost constantly outside my comfort zone, and I’m regularly grappling with the enormity of going from a bare block of land with three trees on it to implementing our vision.  I’m also too busy most of the time to take much time to tap (EFT), but I’ve found that hasn’t slowed down my healing journey at all, because working with planting trees and bagging mulch and building bridges etc all gives a chance for reflection and to watch my thoughts.  What comes up provides rich material for further observation, and for my EFT tapping when I do get the chance.

Today it’s pouring with rain and too wet to work outside and I’ve run out of productive inside jobs that need doing.  So I finally sat down to do some tapping.  I started by writing down what I’ve been observing in myself lately as I work:  I seem to have an innate tendency to assume that things will not turn out the way I want them to, that something will go wrong and that there is something wrong with our plans that is waiting like a huge hole for us to fall in.  I’ve always thought I was quite an optimistic person but confronted with so much change and so much manual work over the last month and a bit, I’ve seen that there are a lot of negative thoughts running through my mind on a regular basis.  So I start tapping with a question that comes up for me as I reflect – “Why don’t I trust life?”  Immediately the tears start flowing and I know I’ve hit onto something big.

I’ve found that when I hit something that likely has origins early in my life that proxy tapping seems to be the most powerful way forward.  I wrote about this in an earlier article and highly recommend this to anyone working on long term patterns or illnesses that they want to heal.  I use a three step process based on what Silvia Hartmann described in her article about proxy tapping, with the addition of the gamut process.  (For the detailed steps see further on in this article.)  I often find that as I do this process I end up going back to earlier in time.  In this particular case the phrase that came to mind was “she was deprived of the chance to trust in life before she was even born”, so I did some proxy tapping for “This unborn baby girl” and then once that had cleared came back to doing the same tapping for “This young girl” and then “This teenage girl.”  For each I did the three step process described below and it was amazing how much emotion came up, and how much relief I felt as I tapped through each step.

I have come to believe that healing is a matter of listening to the pain inside us that is as yet unheard.  I believe it is that unheard pain that subconsciously drives our behaviour now, and why many of us can tap a lot with EFT without getting results on the big issues.  Until that pain is accessed and heard it stands in the way of our healing.  Once heard it no longer drives our behaviour or our feelings – it no longer runs our life by determining our reactions to all that happens without us even realising it.

The more I work with EFT the more I realise the depths that it can take us to.  I’ve found that the key to this is gaining the trust of the hurting parts inside of us.  One of the most effective ways I’ve found to do this is Silvia’s proxy tapping.  As we tap for the younger parts of us we let them know that we care and that we are willing to hear their stories.  As we do this we gradually gain their trust so that they open up more and more and share their pain and stories, making them accessible for us to work with and heal.  I suspect that when we have tapped and tapped and still not found relief on the issues we are working on, it is quite possible that we have some major underlying trust issues that are resulting in the parts of us that hold the key to healing not being ready to lend their vital support to our healing process.  If you find yourself in this situation perhaps some proxy tapping for the younger parts of you around the theme of trust would be useful.

1. Start with the premise that something might have happened early in your life, perhaps even before you were born, that eroded your ability to trust in the goodness of life.  You don’t need to have any “evidence” to prove this, just be open to it being a possibility.
2. Tap with the following three step process, based on Silvia Hartmann’s proxy tapping, with the addition of the 9 gamut process.  Run the process first for “this unborn baby girl/boy”, then move on to “this newborn baby girl/boy”, then repeat for “this young girl/boy” then “this teenage girl/boy”:
   1. Tap with the setup statement as Silvia uses it.  For example, “Even though this young girl has no trust that life will turn out OK, I now deeply and profoundly love, accept and heal this young girl.”  Tap through the points for the younger part of you, “this young girl has no trust”.  Follow any feelings or thoughts that come up in the usual way of working with EFT but using Silvia’s phrasing.
   2. Do the 9 gamut process very slowly linking it with the issue at hand each step of the way.  For example with each step of the process think “Everything that has resulted in this young girl not trusting that life will work out OK”.
   3. Tap a round through all the points as Silvia suggests in her article, but for all the effects of whatever happened.  For example, “I now deeply and profoundly heal this young girl of all effects of everything that resulted in her not trusting that life will work out OK.”
3. All the while that you are tapping ensure that you follow the trail of any thoughts or feelings that come up, incorporating them into the tapping.  As you are proxy tapping, the thoughts and emotions quite likely belong to the earlier you, so make sure that you use the proxy tapping wording and the intention to be tapping on behalf of the younger you.
4. Remember to go on and work with “this newborn baby girl/boy” then “this young girl/boy”, then “this teenage boy/girl” once you have run through the three steps for “this unborn baby girl/boy”.  Do each step whether you consciously think that trust was an issue for you at that point in your life or not.
5. Remember that this sort of work can run deeper than you realise.  If you feel tired you may need to stop for a while and give yourself a break before carrying on.  Respect those inner parts of you that have carried this pain for so long – you may feel enormous relief on their behalf or tremendous sadness that they have been carrying this pain for so long.  Tap on whatever comes up and respect the inner parts need for time to process if you feel tired.

Andrea spent years looking for an answer to the debilitating symptoms that she had.  As part of her healing journey she discovered the importance to her of trust and faith and she devoted herself to setting up a website to inspire others called Heal with Hope.  In this article Andrea shares with Self Healing Portal readers some of the elements of her healing journey that made a big difference for her.  Many thanks to Andrea for sharing this inspiring article.

My journey began over 12 years ago when an illness with no known cause or cure left me in a state of exhaustion – too weak and dizzy to get out of bed.  I met with a multitude of doctors who were either unable to provide an explanation as to how a vibrant, active, healthy person was suddenly unable to function, or offered a vague diagnosis like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, but little else in terms of treatment or guidance.  I spent years seeking help from alternative health practitioners, as well as doing extensive research on my own.

Although the quality of my life would improve on occasion, in 2006 I had a set-back that left me feeling desperate and wondering if I would ever be well again.  This dire time in my life proved to be a turning point and provided the impetus that allowed me to find the courage to step outside of my comfort zone, and to approach healing from a different perspective.

An alternative practitioner I was working with asked about my relationship with God, which I explained was non-existent as I wasn’t sure God even existed.  His reply planted a seed that was about to change my life when he suggested that faith was a choice – all it takes is the willingness to choose to believe.  I found the idea that one could choose to think anything and it would be so, particularly something as immense as putting one’s trust and faith in God, intriguing.  A few days later my path crossed with another person who also had a deep faith and gave me some tips for how I could use faith to heal:

I was desperate and so I decided to take her advice, though I didn’t really think it would work.  What happened is God heard me and decided that I was ready to move forward to a place of enlightenment and awareness, and He was going to show me the way.  I discovered Dr. Wayne Dyer,  Eckhart Tolle, and other spiritual teachers whose wisdom changed everything – from how I viewed myself and the world around me to understanding that what I attract into my life is a reflection of how I live my life, in action and indeed .  New and wonderful healers came into my life that guided me to expand my awareness and spirituality, and helped me to grow and see the world through new eyes. I discovered techniques such as EFT that enabled me to release and let go of the negative emotions locked deep within that were a block to my healing.

My life has taken a most dramatic turn these last two years. I am stronger, more balanced, more energized and confident than I have been in years, perhaps more than I have been in my entire life.  Because doors have opened that I didn’t know existed.  My physical body is stronger, my spirit has been awakened, and I am more grounded and balanced than ever before.

I do not view this as the end of my story, but rather the beginning.  I know that anything is possible, that the only thing that really matters is that you somehow find the courage to try again one more time, to continue on despite the obstacles, and to have faith that your answers are out there and when the time is right, you will find them. 

For more information about natural health and healing visit my website, www.HealWithHope.com. You will also find details about my new book, Heal With Hope A Healing Handbook  Journal , a complete guide to living a happy, healthy life.  It has everything from philosophical wisdom to exercises and techniques, alternative treatment ideas, resources, inspiration and a journal!   

This article in our series of articles by people who have found something that really helps them on their healing journey is by a woman who has shown enormous persistence with her healing.  Arum has reached out to the EFT Forums for help, and has had major benefit from doing so.  Many thanks to Arum for taking the time to share her healing journey with the Self Healing Portal readers.

The main challenge I faced in using EFT was just believing it would work, and continuing to tap while I was in such a depressed state.  I was so depressed I felt like the grim reaper had me in his embrace, hovering over my head, with his arms around me.  The first thing I felt in the morning when I woke up was a terrible feeling of dread, and the thought, “Oh God, not another day, and how will I ever live through it?”  It even scares me now to remember what it was like, in fact tears are coming to my eyes.

The fear I experienced at that time was so consuming, I would be lying on the couch, and my eyes would momentarily close, and I would open them with a start feeling deep intense fear.  It was an AWFUL fear. At night I would wake up and feel this fear, and stay awake for hours terrified, and wonder how it would all end.  While sitting in my spare room I would cry and cry while tapping, hoping that when I stopped there would be some kind of change in my mood.

One day I went to the pa