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Other Ways to Use EFT
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Using EFT for Gratitude Page 2
To handle
this, you might formulate an EFT Choices statement that went something like
this: “Even though I’m disappointed at how I felt at that
party yesterday, I’m grateful for the way I handled myself by not
overeating when I easily could have.”
This
statement would be appropriate, for example, if you had managed to eat
sensibly and stick to a healthy diet despite the many food temptations that
can present themselves at a party, and especially when that party had not
been congenial to you. Genuine self appreciation and gratitude for your
own behavior under pressure is certainly justified here –– you
handled something ordinarily difficult for you (an uncomfortable social
situation) constructively, and overcame an old habit.
In using
EFT for this issue you may be more comfortable using a more moderate and
objective phrase such as “I appreciate” rather than
saying, “I’m grateful for”, but both will bring you to the
same experience ─ that of genuine gratitude.
Tapping on
positive moments that have occurred during a negative experience (almost any
negative experience has those moments) can bring to your attention these
moments in a very special fashion. You may well find that if you tap
for one or two rounds of EFT using a positive statement of appreciation
(repeated at each EFT point) that you will spontaneously begin to remember
other moments that occurred during that party (or whatever your negative
situation happens to be) when something went right for you. It is
instructive to watch how our minds, once turned in a positive direction, will
tend to remember more and more positive aspects of an originally negative
situation; those moments that caused us to feel a sense of relief, gratitude,
and possibly even pleasure.
One small
moment of gratefulness that is “tapped in” using EFT, can begin
to create a mood of appreciation, and by will then automatically call to mind
other aspects of the same situation that will now bring forth even more
appreciation in you, a vicious cycle has been reversed.
The trick
is to identify the fleeting positive memories in the situation and then to
tap on them. In the instance I have just described about a
disappointing party, it would be natural to thin first of a flood of negative
things about the party. You might have been disappointed by the people
and their reactions to you, or by the general atmosphere, or by the fact that
you didn’t say or do something you would have liked to have said or
done. However, as you begin to tap on the remembered positive moments
(however brief and fleeting they may be) you will be starting your positive
cycle.
One
positive thought then leads to another so that before you have finished
tapping on your appreciation for the way you handled your eating behavior at
the party, you may well now remember a moment during it when you had a brief
but enjoyable exchange with someone else. You might recall that someone
smiled briefly but delightedly at you as the two of you passed in the hall,
or maybe did so just as they were leaving the house, or you were. After
that more brief positive moments may start to return to your mind, moments
during which the party was momentarily satisfying.
When this
happens, return to doing EFT and do another round of all-positive tapping to
consolidate your gains and solidify these positive memories. This is
done by tapping on just the positive, not using any negative “Even
though” statements at all.
For
example, you might say at each tapping point something like: “Even
though I was disappointed by the party, I remember that moment when (insert
person’s name) and I exchanged those nice remarks that we really meant.”
If you do
this, other thoughts of a positive nature will probably emerge. You may
suddenly remember how you found an easy parking place right in front of the
house when you arrived at the party, or how your gift of a small food
contribution to the dinner disappeared rapidly as guests gobbled it up
delightedly, and other events of a positive nature may now come to your mind,
ones that were initially obscured by your feelings of disappointment.
Such small
specific events, now appreciated, constitute the essence of true
gratitude. They are not just lip service to the concept because now
there is concrete evidence in your memory that there WAS good in this
situation.
Similarly,
appreciation for another person can emerge when you identify your own
positive response to something specific that they did, perhaps yesterday,
perhaps last week, or maybe when you last saw them. This will be some
moment when you were delighted with what they were saying or doing, a moment
which added something to your life.
You can
“tap in” positive memories of fleeting moments with another
person at a time when you are feeling annoyed at, disappointed in, or upset
with that other person. In such a situation you might make use of an
EFT statement such as:
“Even
though (name of person) infuriates me when they start criticizing everybody,
I choose to remember the way they shared with me that important piece of
information they had come across last week that I would never have known
about.” Or, to shorten that statement for the sake of tapping, you
might use this variation:
“Even
though I’m annoyed at (name of person) for their criticism of everyone
around them, I’m grateful for those gems of information they shared
with me.”
The point
is that, by isolating the positive fleeting moments of GOOD you may have
experienced in a particular situation or with a specific person, you will be
able to create an entirely different energy within you by “tapping
in” the genuine appreciation you now feel. This can lead to a
gratefulness that is spontaneous and unforced. It is the gratefulness
for life when it is truly good.
In my next
article in this series, I will discuss the difficulties that people so often
have experiencing the emotion of forgiveness, and suggest how EFT can be very
useful to deal with this.
EFT Master, Dr. Patricia Carrington
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