Hello everyone

This month we have four new articles on the Self Healing Portal – an example of the Focusing Method in action, an example of the power of using imagery with our healing, a link to a great new article with lots of tapping statement ideas, and a brief article introducing yet another great free resource available on the internet.

Example Focusing Session

The method of Focusing is difficult to describe to someone who hasn’t experienced it, because it’s very much an experience rather than a process. This article is a write up of a Focusing experience I had to give an insight into how a Focusing session can unfold.

Accessing the Subconscious with EFT and Imagery

This article shows how powerful using imagery to get in touch with the subconscious is. The old saying “A picture is worth a thousand words” holds just as true for the healing process as anything else. When we are able to listen to our subconscious through it’s language of imagery, things are really able to open up in our lives.

36 EFT Affirmations - Improve Your Tapping Results with these ‘Best Ever’ EFT Statements!

EFT practitioner Karen Nauman has posted a great new page on her website that I highly recommend you bookmark so you can go back to it time and time again. Karen has brought together 36 great phrases that you can use in the place of the standard setup statement, and she has grouped them into three different categories which can really help when we are feeling stuck on an issue and just not knowing which is the most effective way to proceed. The page is going to be updated regularly with new phrases that Karen discovers and learns, so it will prove to be a fabulous resource for any of use using EFT to heal.

Inner Child Healing and the Five Stages of Grief

This brief article introduces a series of short videos that EFT practitioner Cathryn Taylor has posted on Youtube. These videos bring together Cathryn’s approach with Inner Child Healing, Addictions work, and EFT, together with Elisabeth Kubler Ross’ Five Stages of Grief Model to give us a powerful framework for our healing.

Very best wishes all,

Sometimes people ask me what it’s like to do Focusing, and it’s so hard to really explain it with words.  I thought perhaps typing up a recent Focusing session might give a flavour of Focusing for those who are interested and haven’t tried it.  This is a description of a Focusing session I did with a partner reflecting for me.  It’s not complete as when you are Focusing you are very much working in the right brain hemisphere and as the memory and detailed record keeping are in the left brain, it’s hard to remember exactly what happened!

I started the session speaking rapidly, aware I was very wound up.  I told my Focusing Partner how frustrated I was about my perceived inability to take something from an intellectual concept to actually living it in my life.  I told her how I was very aware that all my stress is coming from the gap between what I perceive should be happening and what is actually happening (i.e. reality).  I said that a part of me was incredibly frustrated that another part of me seemed to just keep running on autopilot, driving my behaviour, even though it wasn’t congruent with how I consciously want to run my life.  I knew on an intellectual level that trying to control things and make things happen according to my own schedule was causing all of my stress with our housebuilding project, but my natural tendency to get stroppy when things weren’t unfolding according to plan seemed to continue despite this understanding, and it was causing me endless frustration (not to mention some for my partner with whom I am undertaking this project!)

Then I took a breath and settled into the Focusing session, by bringing my attention to my body and breathing.  I yawned a few times and felt like the hectic pace in my mind was starting to slow for a bit.  Normally I start my Focusing session by simply inviting “What most needs my attention now?”, but on this occasion I wanted to do something more specific.  I had become aware that a part of me was extremely frustrated with another part of me, and that I was siding with the frustrated part and finding it incredibly difficult to direct any empathy at all to the other part.  I knew from past experience that the magic of the Focusing Partnership space might make it easier to bring empathy to this part of me.

So I told my Focusing Partner that I was going to try to bring empathy to both these parts of me, and settled into my body, intending to direct empathy to both aspects of me.  As I did so I started yawning more and more and felt a further slowing of the story that had been incessantly being told in my mind over the last few days.  I asked where in my body I felt this part and had a tight feeling in the region of my heart.  Then I saw an image (for the sake of understanding I feel the need to clarify that I’m not the slightest bit visual and never actually “see” images, I just have a strong sense of something that I can described as a visual image) of a person sheltering under a ledge created by a large rock.  Tears came to my eyes as I realised this image represented the part of me that I had been having trouble bringing empathy to.  With the tears came the sign that the tide was turning and instead of directing animosity towards this part, I was instead holding it with empathy. 

Next I realised that in the image there was a person hurling large stones at the person who was sheltering under the rock, and with that image I realised just how I’d been behaving towards the part of me that was driving the behaviour I have long wanted to let go of.  I made a conscious decision to now direct empathy to both parts of me and really realised how much energy had been taken up in what had essentially been a war between these two parts inside me.  Something softened inside me.

I felt that as I’d been hearing so much from the part throwing the stones, and so little from the part sheltering under the rock, that asking the part doing the throwing if it would be OK if it stepped aside for a moment so I could find out how the other part felt would be a good move forward.  Often this brings resistance but on this particular occasion the stone thrower seemed to sense that what it was doing wasn’t working so maybe another approach might be more effective.  It put down the stones!

As I brought my attention back to the part under the rock, I placed my hand over the felt sense near my heart and intended to bring empathy to this part.  As I did this tears started to flow, not tears of upset but rather tears of gratitude for all this part had done for me.  I grew up in a family where getting things done was very important, and I realised that this part of me had done a great job of making sure I fitted into the family and got the approval I sought from getting things done.  I felt overwhelming gratitude for this part of me, and a voice in my head also noted how amazing Focusing is for in just a few minutes I’d gone from being at war with it to feeling gratitude to it for all it was doing in my life.

After sitting with the gratitude for a while, I then brought my attention back to the felt sense in my heart and as I did the image changed and the part came out from under the rock.  Then the image changed again and it turned into a little man with glasses and a clipboard with 100’s of pages of items – all headed “To Do List.”  I had the sense that this little man’s sole function in life was to record all the actions I’d ever decided to do, follow me around nagging to try to get them done, then crossing them off when they were done, but that the little man had no actual power to get any of the actions done.  I felt even more empathy for this part of me as I realised how frustrating it must be to be charged with recording all the action points and trying to get to being able to cross them off, with having no ability to actually influence whether or not the tasks are done.

There was however something missing in what I was seeing so I just sat with the image for a while and then some ideas started to form in my mind.  I suddenly realised that the To Do Lists had been rather like the Ten Commandments, the list could have been headed “THOU SHALT DO”.  At the same time I had a sense that perhaps there was another way to approach To Do Lists, that instead it could be more guidelines to help me to decide which of the things I was intending to do would be something I’d want to do today.  That then brought in the element of time and I saw an image of the To Do Lists with the heading “To DO NOW”.  I suddenly realised that the stress wasn’t coming from the number of items on the To Do List, but rather the urgency the little man had for me to get them done NOW.  This felt huge, it felt like this was largely responsible for the sense of overwhelm I’d been feeling recently, with us being at a stage in our housebuilding project that we seem to have hundreds of decisions to make and things to do.  I was amused to then find the To Do Lists headed “To Do (Or Not To Do!)”

I then said to my Focusing Partner that I was seeing the image of a jigsaw puzzle, that was nearly complete but had a gaping hole – one big piece completely missing.  I didn’t have a sense what it was, so just sat with it for a bit.  Then came to mind a story that I’d read in one of Rue Hass’ newsletters – a story about Japanese soldiers that were found many years after the war had finished, alone in their tattered uniforms on pacific islands, still valiantly holding the fort and doing their bit for the war.  The story said that instead of ridiculing the soldiers for not having realised that the war had been over for years, the Japanese government sent down a high ranking official in uniform and he would spend time listening to and talking with the soldier, thanking him for all he’d done and really honouring him, before gently letting him know the war was over.  The soldier would be flown back to Japan and greeted with a warm welcome honouring all he’d done for the war.

As I recalled this story, tears came to my eyes and I started crying, as I realised that I’d been treating the little man with the clipboard in a ridiculing way, rather than honouring all he’d done and gently letting him know he didn’t need to do that any more.  As I type this it seems the words do not do justice at all to how enormous this felt, what a huge shift it was for me.

After some time of sitting with this, the stone throwing part that I had got in touch with earlier started feeling concerned that the Focusing session was just giving all this warm and fuzzy attention to the “culprit” and not getting anywhere.  All of a sudden the part that had been under the rock and I both burst into laughter and saw the irony of how unhelpful it was to push to cross something off the To Do list – it was like a role reversal where the part that had wanted the clipboard to be put down was now acting like it had to be done now.  It’s difficult to express how this was in words, because it was all in my imagination, but felt like a really big shift inside me.

Next the image changed again and there was a sense of total bewilderment – total confusion at what to do with the To List.  It was like the little man had realised that he didn’t need to do it anymore, but it had been his sole function in life and he had no idea what to do.  Sitting with this resulted in the thought “I don’t have to put the To Do list down, I just have to stop obsessing about it as if it’s reality.”  Wow, that felt HUGE.

The session felt complete, but as is my habit I went back to the felt sense to check in whether there was anything more to be said.  The part that had been under the rock thanked me for having put down the stones and truly listened.  Tears came to my eyes as the other part stood in awe of how putting the stones down and listening had resulted in such huge shifts, none of which happened when it had been throwing stones.  I once again felt the overwhelming gratitude that I do at the end of a Focusing session.

After my Focusing Partner and I had put down the phone, I went out to catch up with my partner.  We were both surprised to hear me say “What’s the plan for the afternoon, or shall we take the afternoon off?”  Later as we were moving some timber I said to my partner “We’ve got a lot of work to do there”, referring to another task we needed to do, and instantly there was a thought in my head that said “and we can do it over time.”  Later on I heard myself saying “Which of the items on our To Do list do we feel like doing now?” 

This single Focusing session left me feeling light and bubbly and on a real high and feeling like something had really shifted.  In the month since the session I (and my partner!) have been continually amazed to see my whole change in approach with the To Do List.  While we are getting lots done, I am now quite relaxed about all the items still on the list and work far more on a basis of “what do we feel like doing today?” rather than feeling a sense of urgency due to all the items on the list.  It’s been a very nice change and all from spending about 40 minutes listening inside.

In Betty Moore-Hafter’s Tapping Secrets teleclass Betty introduced the idea that the imagination is the language of the subconscious, and how imagination can give the subconscious an opportunity to work things through that were stuck.  While Betty teaches this process with EFT, her words came to mind as I was reflecting on the power of Focusing – it really does get us in touch with the subconscious in a truly powerful way, enabling the subconscious to communicate with us in imagery and in doing so have powerful shifts forwards.

I have so much gratitude to Eugene Gendlin who discovered Focusing, my Focusing teacher Suzanne*, my first Focusing Partner Chris with whom I practiced and learnt more about this amazing skill, and my current Focusing Partner with whom I am growing so much every week.  And to Betty who is helping me to understand why this process is so powerful. :0)

* Note:

A friend called me recently to ask for my help with EFT.  She had hurt her back and had been trying to tap but hadn’t been getting anywhere.  My friend would agree with me if I said that she isn’t the easiest of people to assist with EFT, she is very much in her left brain and finds it difficult to tune into sensations in her physical body.  So inspired by recent learnings from Betty Moore-Hafter’s Tapping Secrets teleclass* I decided to try something new with her.  In the past I have tapped on visual images when they have spontaneously arisen during EFT, but I haven’t actually created an image to work with.  My friend kindly agreed to me writing the session up because we both learnt something important about accessing the subconscious from doing the tapping together in this way.

Before starting we established that the pain was in her lower back, had started when she bent over to pick something quite light up, and was at about a 5 on the 0 – 10 SUDs scale.  Next I asked my friend to close her eyes and take three deep breaths, breathing out through her mouth and letting go of any thoughts or expectations, just settling into her body.  I then asked her to imagine into her spine and see if she call up any images that would represent the pain in her spine.  She couldn’t get anything that way so I suggested she try making the pain into a cartoon character.  I heard a little nervous laugh on the line which indicated something might have come up so gently enquired, and she said that she could see a lumberjack with a saw, but she didn’t know what it meant.  We tapped a round on “ET I have this lumberjack with a saw in my spine and I don’t know why he’s there, I deeply and completely love and accept this lumberjack with kindness and compassion” (thanks to Betty for the great addition to the standard setup phrase! 

Next we checked in with the back pain and my friend was surprised to find it had reduced a bit.  We went back to the image and my friend again mentioned her confusion about what the lumberjack represented.  I then suggested that she ask the lumberjack if he had a message for her, and the reply was “You will be sore as long as you keep cutting.”  We tapped on “ET he says I’ll be sore as long as I keep cutting, I deeply and completely love and accept myself and him.”

On checking in with the back the pain level had come right down, to a point where my friend felt that it was just a remnant of what was there rather than something we needed to continue to work on.  She again commented that she couldn’t figure out what it meant but felt that the pain had gone enough to stop now.  We hung up after I suggested that if she wanted to call and check in with me later she could.

When she rang back she said the pain was back, not quite at the 5 level it had started at, but pretty close.  I guided her to relax and go to a quiet space, somewhere she would be alone and really comfortable and when she was ready to look around and see there was a bench she could sit down on.  Next I invited her to look out across an open space in front of the bench, and in the distance she would see a figure that represented her back pain coming towards her.  I suggested she let me know when she had someone there, and when she did I asked a few questions to get her to describe the person.  When she said that she was sitting on a bench in front of the ocean and so there was only one person who could have walked across it, I became a little suspicious that her conscious mind had created the image based on reasoning, rather than this being a subconscious representation of the pain.  She felt that the Jesus figure was really a product of reasoning, and I suddenly realised that earlier in the day I had unwittingly thrown her back into her left brain by asking if the lumberjack had a message for her.   So we decided to take another tack, this time with me being more careful with my questioning to keep it entirely in the realm of the right brain.

I started with a few questions to try to get her back out of her conscious mind and into the realm of the subconscious – what colour is the pain, how big is it, if it was an animal what would it be etc.  The answer that came with the first round resulted in us tapping on “ET I have this sad rat knawing away at the bottom of my spine, and I don’t want to have a rat in my spine, I open myself to the possibility of bringing him love and compassion.”  At the end of the tapping round my friend expressed confusion about what the rat represented and I suggested she just let go of needing to understand it with her conscious mind and go back to the image and see if it had changed.  This time the rat had a huge grin on its face, showing its big teeth, and my friend felt it was laughing at her because it was causing her pain.  Being careful not to reason this at all, we tapped on “ET I have this rat with a big toothy grin, happy because he’s causing me pain, I open myself to the possibility that this rat is trying to do something to help me, even though that’s difficult to do.”   My friend added into the tapping that she didn’t want the rat in her spine, and at the end of the round when she checked back in with the image the rat was crying and she said that he was crying because she wanted to get rid of him.  We tapped a round on this and I sensed that something had softened in my friend when I finished the round with “it’s hard to bring him compassion and kindness” and she said that it actually wasn’t difficult any more.

We checked back in with the image and the rat wanted to have its tummy tickled, so I suggested that her friend do that and she did and said it felt good.  Next we checked back into the back pain and my friend moved around to see if she could find it and said that there was a slight feeling there where the pain had been, but really nothing that she could work with it. 

This experience taught me loud and clear that when we are accessing the subconscious we need to be mindful of keeping away from any questions that could cause us to come back into the left brain, where we want explanations and reasoning.  This basically means avoiding any question starting with “Why?” or including “What for?”, and any other questions that the left brain could have a go at answering.  The subconscious really does work in an entirely different way and sticking with imagery as its language is far more effective! 

Cathryn Taylor has put out a series of five short videos on Youtube that might be of interest to anyone serious about their own healing.  Cathryn is a therapist who has been working with the concept of the inner child for many years, and she now incorporates EFT into her work.  In this series of videos Cathryn shows how Elisabeth Kubler Ross’ “Five Stages of Grief” can be used to understand any time we are acting out in a way that we don’t want to, feeling a loss, or resorting to addictive behaviour of any sort (this includes reaching for cookies we don’t need to stuff down our feelings, rather than being limited to the “big” addictions.) 

We often think of grief as only being applicable if we have lost a loved one, but we go through a grief process any time we feel a loss of any sort, including simply feeling a loss of control over some area of our life or how we are feeling.  In the videos Cathryn shows how an understanding of these stages of grief can help us to see when we are feeling a loss, and she gives examples of how we can use EFT within each of the stages to move through to resolution. 

As Cathryn states in the videos, in the limited time she has with each video she has had to compress the tapping statements and just give some ideas of how each stage can be approached.  It’s important to take the information Cathryn shares and apply it in a way that the parts hurting inside you feel heard and understood, rather than specifically using her words from start to finish to push to a neutralising our feelings.  The phrases Cathryn gives are a great starting point, and her approach is really helpful in helping us to understand how we can go through a loss or a need to fix or control with more awareness.

Here are the links to watch the videos in sequence: