Sweet Miracles

Been sometime since i mentioned EFT and how i have been using it in my life, personal and professional. I recently realised that i don’t have to formally do the Set Up when tapping on my own, as in, even though blah blah, i blah blah. The Set Up actually sets ME up, when i’m self-tapping, because once i say even though, i get dumbfounded, and then i get annoyed when i catch myself mindlessly repeating, even though, even though, even though… with not much else in between cos i don’t know what to say!

Well, i remembered that the set up is for those with psychological reversals, or in other words, secondary gains or reasons for wanting to keep the problem, and these usually apply to 50% of the population, esp those with depression, chronic illnesses and addictions. Since i don’t fall into any of the categories, and i know that i’m quite motivated in the arena of self-improvement, i could just skip this part of the process.

And that basically cleared an apparently huge hurdle for me in doing self-tapping. Now, whenever i’m nursing little boy and thinking about things that bothers me, i just tap, the way that Gary immediately taps on clients who are crying or evidently emotional without doing the set up, taking advantage of the fact that the person is already attuned to the problem. Tapping can straight away clear whatever energetic blocks that exist in the system that is related to that problem. I guess it’s similar to how Bet (if you’re still reading!) sometimes do the TAT pose while letting his mind wander. I am only now realising that i can do the same for EFT too!

Through this method, i think i have done some amt of work on my own resistance to tapping, feeling that i’m quite a boring conversationalist, and not being able to talk to pple. Observations of myself in recent days are that i’m tapping on myself a lot more, and i seem to be slightly more chatty and confident in talking to pple. Today i slightly surprised myself by being very at ease and even joyful with my clients today, which is miles away from the disconnection and aloofness i sometimes seem to have with clients on bad days. Yeh!

Last night i also managed to coerce Mr Gua Gua into an EFT session. Hehe, well, it was quite a twist of events, because we were actually having a serious argument about Mr Gua Gua’s certain actions that indicated to me his disinterest in our relationship and his own healing. Or rather, i was super pissed, and Mr Gua Gua was trying to salvage the situation. In the end, i mentally tapped on myself and i think i calmed down enough to be able to hear him out and attempt to understand his side of things.

Before i forget, here’s a side note on tapping in the midst of anger. I used to feel it doesn’t work very well, and then i read a useful tip from the EFT newsletter about how this person felt the same way, and then discovered a slightly different approach that worked far better. Instead of tapping on the anger with the intention of wanting it to go away (which is quite contradictory to the set up phrase, even though i’m angry, i deeply and completely accept myself), one can instead tap on the anger with the intention of experiencing the anger and just allowing it to be there.

I tried that and interestingly, the anger subsided very quickly after that. This is similar to the mindfulness that Bet mentioned, and that is taught in Buddhist meditaton – the process of simply allowing yourself to feel that unpleasant emotion or sensation, without reacting with aversion. Apparently, this works even better when incorporated with EFT. Probably with mindfulness alone, the emotion will also subside, but i have a feeling that EFT quickens the process. Those of you who know EFT can prob do some experimentation on mindfulness practice with and without EFT!

Back to the story of how Mr Gua Gua got an EFT session. Well, he admitted to me that he was really feeling quite lousy, and he insisted that he wanted healing. Finally, whether it was genuine or just a way of appeasing me, he asked me for help using EFT. Fortunately or UNfortunately, i said ok, let’s do it NOW, which was not what he expected, but given those circumstances, he really had no choice to agree.

When we first started, he asked me how come i sounded so fierce, and my reply was, you are not my client but my husband who was just blah blah blah (whatever he was doing). So he shut up, and i also reminded myself to get into therapist mode, as well as asked the universe to guide me in this so that it’s not me as an angry wife doing this, but a facilitator of Mr Gua Gua’s healing.

Honestly, i think i was in facilitator mode most of the time, though i definitely spoke to Mr Gua Gua in a tone that’s much more commanding than i have with my clients. But i will also admit that at some points, i wld get slightly miffed again, and start thumping Mr Gua Gua’s points perhaps more forcefully than needed. Though i must add, i read an article about someone who found that the extra force actually increased the efficacy of the tapping for him, so all that thumping might have done Mr Gua Gua some good too, despite the red marks and pain (or so he complains!).

It was only a half hour session, much less than i wanted of cos as i was enjoying myself tremendously thumping him (hiak hiak!), but very long to Mr Gua Gua cos his reactions to the tapping were pretty extreme, ranging from heaviness, aches, feeling of being drained, and towards the end, extreme all over the body itching. He complained and complained, and i was thinking, geez, maybe he shld see a healer who is not his wife, cos then he might be too embarassed to complain THIS much. And unfortunately for him, because i’m his wife and not a healer, his complaints only irked me and i started scolding him, under the guise of EFT statements, about complaining about all these discomforts, which came about only because of his great indulgence into the dark and negative. And I thumped him pretty hard as i was scolding him. Moral of the story: don’t ask your wife for EFT!

Nevertheless, i think it was a pretty gd session cos of all the discomfort Mr Gua Gua was experiencing, which prob shows that the EFT is working well. He was still moaning and groaning about his itchiness (as well as the red marks and apparently cracked ribs from the tapping… what a drama king!) so i went to check up Louise Hay’s list of physical ailments and their associated metaphysical causes. I was both amazed and thrilled to see that skin problems were related to “old, buried guck” which i think described Mr Gua Gua’s situation quite aptly. In fact, during the session, i was inspired i think to reframe the itchiness as ants of darkness and negativity crawling out of his body, and it is better for them to crawl out by the herds than for them to stay inside. Not sure if that helped at all cos i never asked Mr Gua Gua, but i think this correlated nicely with the old buried guck that is mentioned by Louise Hay.

Today i also had fun doing surrogate tapping with a client for her mum who was complaining about insomnia. I asked her to imagine how true certain statements relevant to her mum’s situation, would feel from 0 to 10, if she were to be her mum. Thank gdness this is a very nice and easy going client who was open to surrogate tapping, and she was pleasantly surprised by how the numbers (rating from 0 to 10) just popped into her mind without any effort on her part. I assured her that this should be what’s happening, as opposed to using the logical brain to figure out what number her mum would give. We had a really fun session cos i felt comfortable deducing all kinds of possible beliefs her mum might have, since her mum wasn’t present and i don’t have to worry about offending her, and it turns out that her daughter feedbacked to me that my insights were more often than not on the right track. In fact, she shared with me that some of the things we tapped on are even relevant to her as well, as she’s her mother’s daughter after all, and she had this new insight that her mother could be very well her future self. All in all, it was a terrific session, and she was quite keen on coming back to do more of the same. Geez, if only all of my clients are like her, then i’ll have a real blast with EFT! I told her to go back and subtly give pertinent remarks to her mum, that were based on what we tapped today, and observe her reactions. My feeling is that we did actual healing work today, and sure looking forward to hearing updates from this client!

A less positive side issue: my dad is missing. He has dementia and recently had the habit of running away from home. He left the house yesterday morning while my mum was bathing and has no money at all. This has happened before, and he had always come back on his own, and those were when he had money on him, so i seriously thought he would come back on his own soon enough, since he didn’t have the money to travel too far. But he has been missing till now, and even i, the cock eyed optimist, am starting to get worried.

My mum has made a police report since yesterday, and my sis has just sent out an sms describing his details, hoping that this will help in the search. I might as well put it out here too. His name is Albert, and he is 1.68 m tall, wears specs, is tanned and skinny. He wears a pink t-shirt, black shorts and slippers. If you happen to see anyone like that, please bring him to the nearest police station, or if that’s inconvenient, perhaps ask him to sit somewhere and call the police to pick him up.

My mum is getting scolded by everyone for allowing my dad to go missing yet again. Sigh, it’s really not her fault, and it is tough caring for a dementia person. Her patience can def be improved, but i guess she is also having a hard time, and she can be stubborn… i got my stubbornness from her, haha, so it’s hard for her to change her attitude towards my dad. Whenever i think of them, i would feel helpless and also somewhat guilty and ashamed, cos i don’t know what to do to help.

Whatever it is, i hope that my dad will come home safely, and may it be his very last signal for help, cos i am going to make it one of my top priorities to get more actively involved in his caregiving/healing. May the universe guide me in knowing what to do for my family so that everyone is happier and stronger.