The other week I was part of organizing a Level 1 EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) course locally. It was a wonderful day of learning, sharing and revision. It also felt great knowing that more people were learning this amazing tool to clear issues. There is nothing nicer, to me at least, than learning with others and touching base with those more skilled that I to confirm that what I’m doing is on track. 🙂
Tapping points (karate chop point and wrist not shown)
While the course covered material I already knew it was a good reminder of certain things and watching a more experienced ‘tapper’ dealing with issues as they arose was priceless. One of the most important reminders I took from the day however was the importance of getting to zero. When we begin tapping we check in with ourselves as to the intensity of the issue and give it a SUD rating. SUD stands for Subjective Units of Distress and it is rated between 0-10 at the start and end of a round. A SUD rating of 0 being no emotional charge around the topic and 10 being highly emotionally charged. When I first learnt EFT I was shown to keep going to zero (which is why it was so effective) and then somehow over the years of forgetting it, re-finding it and listening to many different speakers I began to focus on just getting to around a 3 in my SUD rating. Getting to around a 3 meant that I was able to begin looking at the issue a bit more objectively. Getting to around a 3 also meant that the pain was less and most importantly only getting to a 3 meant that it often didn’t take that long and I didn’t have to dig that deep. The thing is that often the same issue re-surfaces for me later on down the track and I have to tap around it all over again. Oh the ways we think we are protecting ourselves 🙂
On the workshop Liz Hart talked about the importance of taking it down to zero and then checking it again by repaying the ‘movie’ of the event in your head to see if anything else comes up. I won’t kid you this is not a quick process (well at least not so far for me) but it is so, so, so much more effective. While on the workshop I decided to began tapping on a topic which I kept thinking about even though it was 30 years ago!! It was around a 5-6 so it wasn’t that emotionally charged yet I couldn’t seem to let the memory go. I still felt odd around the people involved and still wanted to blame this one woman (then girl) however it all felt wrong and petty so hoped that tapping on it would help. As I tapped I quickly got down to a zero using the ‘movie’ technique. Yay, I thought…. sorted. That is until I began playing the movie back and realised that I couldn’t even get past the first scene!
To make a long (I had to repeat the process a few times and keep tapping for a good 30 mins solid after my initial 10 mins tapping) and old story short I realised that it wasn’t even anything to do with ‘that girl’ and I had simply used her as a scape goat to cover what was really the issue…….. the stress I felt before the event and the argument I had with my mother after the event when I blamed ‘that girl’ for everything as a way to get out trouble. Without getting to zero, re-playing the movie (and replaying it again several times) then stopping to tap as soon as emotions came up I would never have got to the root cause of my seemingly lack of forgiveness of certain events and people.
It was a great eye-opener and one that has made me change my actions. I now record issues I begin tapping on and don’t have enough time to clear fully by simply write the ‘movie’ name in a notebook and the SUD rating I left it at and then returning to it when I have time. Gary Craig suggests the same thing in his Personal Peace Procedure and it is so worth it. Give it a go…. what do you have to loss except negative feelings!
Hope this finds you creating your own personal peace.
Arohanui
Y
Becoming Healthy 