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EFT for Sleep Issues
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When
Single Parenting Worries Keep You Awake
When Single Parenting Worries Keep You Awake
By Dr. Patricia Carrington
Some time
ago, a single mother wrote me. She said, “I can go to bed and be
extremely tired, but I lay there, and my brain does not shut down, and I
cannot get to sleep for hours. I have been this way most of my life,
but especially the last 12 years as a single parent. Now with a 16 year
old boy and a 19 year old daughter, I find I lay there playing back things said,
or things thought about, or the possibilities of what could or could not
happen. Meanwhile, I am not getting the sleep I need and therefore am
not much help to my children because I am often exhausted. Is there a
way I can use EFT to shut down my thinking patterns at night?”
There are
a number of ways EFT can be used to induce pleasant sleep and you may have
tried using EFT in its most obvious form already to counteract your
wakefulness. Apparently you have not found this successful. For
example, you may have tapped for:
"Even
though I can't get to sleep (don't let myself get to sleep etc.) I deeply and
completely accept myself."
This would
be an obvious first move and there are some even more effective maneuvers you
can use for this purpose, which I discuss in “How
to Use EFT to Get to Sleep Easily.” However, I will first suggest that
you explore the underlying issues in your life that may be causing such a
consistent pattern of wakeful concern about your teenage children.
Here are a
few of these possible scenarios and some EFT Choices that might be useful for
dealing with whatever issues come up. (For complete details on using the
Choices Method see "The Choices Manual -- How To Create Positive Choices
In Energy Psychology"). The following list of suggestions is not
exhaustive and may be more of a jumping off place for you than a definitive
direction.
I suggest
that you read over the following with an open mind, and if any of the phrases
fit, try that one on for size by tapping using the setup phrase suggested or
some variation of it that applies more closely to your own situation
My first
suggestion is to use the EFT Choice:
"Even
though I feel great responsibility for the welfare of my children in their
teenage years, I choose to recognize that they are growing into adults and
that my responsibility for them is growing less by the day."
If you
find the above phrase, or some version of it, applicable to your situation as
a single parent of teenagers, then you might shorten the phrase for purposes
of tapping, so that it would read:
"Even
though I feel great responsibility for (insert your children's names), I
choose to recognize that they are growing into responsible adults."
By the
way, tapping on this will NOT make you an irresponsible mother ––
far from it. What it would do is allow you to begin to hand over the reins
even more to your children, these new "becoming adults", so that
you could discriminate better between the times when they genuinely still
need your guidance and those times when they are increasingly able to make
their own decisions. As you point out, you will do this even better if you
are a rested parent instead of a sleep deprived one.
If you
find the concept of your children actually being able to, some time soon,
handle their own lives and make their own decisions (right or wrong), then
you might continue by tapping on the following Choice:
"Even
though it seems impossible that they can do this, I choose to have confidence
in my children's ability to grow and handle their own lives successfully."
Obviously,
safety is a major concern of yours, as it often is for parents of teenagers.
To handle this you might tap on:
"Even
though I fear for their safety in today's world, I choose to have confidence
that they will be protected and grow into fulfilled adults.”
Also, if
the familiar contest of wills between teenagers and parents -- sometimes
exaggerated when there is only one parent in the household -- is a
source of discomfort or, as often happens, of anger at your difficult
position (perhaps as the children's only disciplinarian in the house) then you
might try tapping on — YOUR ANGER!
If you do
so, be totally honest with yourself. Bring out all your resentment at the
position you may find yourself in, or at the children for not appreciating
the sacrifices you are making in assuming so much responsibility for much of
their lives, or whatever. You could tap openly and vigorously on such an
issue as:
"Even
though they haven't a clue how hard this is for me (don't appreciate what I
do etc.) I choose to be aware of the many ways that I am a good mother."
You don't
have to be a perfect mother, and if this is an issue for you, you can use EFT
very effectively to support your own deep appreciation of yourself and how
you are managing an often difficult situation. To do this, you might want to
use the following highly effective routine.
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