Sweet Miracles

I definitely have some blocks to success as can be seen from a couple of instances.

First, i received 2 requests to do talks at external organisations, including hospital. When i delayed on an immediate response cos of not knowing how much to charge, the requests never came back, at least till this point. Second, i received a HUGE cheque couple days of ago (alas it belonged to my aunt cos she put something in my name) and after the initial thrill, i actually sat there looking at the cheque for a few moments, in complete confusion and almost distress. Apparently, having this huge sum of money in my hands was not something i felt comfortable with, and right now, i had no idea why. It was almost as if the present me preferred to struggle with meagre wages and always waiting for the next paycheck, rather than have so much money that i didn’t know what to do with it, which seems to be a source of anxiety for me.

So today (i relly shld be doing this everyday), it’s time to tap on my tail-enders (Gary’s term) for success. Those of you who know EFT might wanna tap on these statements if they seem to apply to you too. And do take note that they are irrational statements (usually tail enders are!) but for me, emotionally, they seem like the truth to me. Here goes…

I want to be so successful that i’m constantly being called to give talks and have more clients than i can handle as well as earn $X a year… BUT:

1) I would be in the limelight and it’s not a gd thing for me when young cos it means i get ridiculed, teased, critiqued, etc (my relatives love their “harmless jokes” which unfortunately, as i came to realise in my line of work, is not exactly harmless for young children who tend to be sensitive to everything).

2) Already i feel like my colleagues are jealous in some way for doing something different that earns lots of money, and even if they are not showing it, i’m sure they definitely are jealous (i know that i have an issue abt jealousy too, hence this kind of projection… but then, this logical analysis doesn’t neutralise the issue for me, which basically points to the redunduncy in most cases of using logic to make one feel better).

3) Pple will have higher expectations of me, like i wld need to be a perfect human being who is always wise and kind and confident.

4) I like to see myself as a down-to-earth and back-to-basics kind of person, and being successful would mean that i have to dress up better and i hate shopping!

5) Related to previous point, i don’t like to see myself as a vain, materialistic, high-fashion person, and i’m afraid success will make me become such a person cos i’ll get addicted to buying expensive brands.

6) Pple will expect me to give them treats, and while i don’t mind the expense, i don’t like to hang out with big groups of people, and then face the awkwardness of receiving thanks or the feeling of being unappreciated when not receiving thanks.

7) Mr Gua Gua will expect me to pay a larger portion of the bills, which means he get to spend a larger portion of his money on collecting more stuff which means the house gets to be even messier!

8.) I like to be taken care of, and i like to receive things, and having bigger earnings may mean that i get less of both.

9) Just like how i judge successful pple for being petty and money-minded, i am afraid that i will also become petty and money-minded, or be judged as so.

10) I will feel guilty for spending an inproportionate amt of time in my career than on family, which i’m already feeling guilty for, and i promised myself that i will balance my family and work life well, and that was my original intention for going part-time - now, even with my part-time, seems like i am spending even less time with little boy.

11) I have to get busy doing a lot of stuff i don’t like e.g. doing PR, admin work, holding meetings

12) Pple who see themselves as unsuccessful may want to distance themselves away from me and i’m going to be a lot less popular.

13) My mum who is always uptight about my money situation may become even more uptight, and she may get the urge to control my money, now that i have more of it.

14) It’s more relaxing to let pple think that i’m poor so they will naturally exclude me from certain things, and i can just live in my little shell.

15) Pple will assume that i’m proud, just because i’m rich, and i’m really tired of getting these kind of comments even right now.

16) I will have to reject those requests that i cannot handle and contrary to popular belief, i really don’t like to reject pple (though i have no prob doing it!).

17) Everybody will want a piece of me! (which basically sums up what i see, when i see myself as successful)

18.) My relatives expect me to be poor because of my profession, and sometimes it’s hard not to conform to expectations.

19) It’s easy to get tempted by success and wealth, and i’m afraid my spiritual growth will be compromised.

20) I may start spending lavishly, and that’s a big no no, cos of my mum’s conditioning on scrimping and saving every penny (which i don’t, but sometimes try to) - to her, spending money, PERIOD, is BAD… and if i get rich, i’m likely to spend even more which is of cos, BAD-der.

Okie, 20 items for now, and certainly a more detailed list than my first one. Time for some gd ol’ EFT!

******

45 min later (including couple of nursing needs from little boy), here’s a report. Firstly, i’m pretty proud that i managed to tap this long, cos i can count the no. of times i tap this long on one hand (shame on me! <- need tapping on that as well!). Secondly, when i got to point 17, i couldn’t help but laugh in my head and i conjured up an image of me being attacked by several pple, while another group of pple are shunning me cos of my success.

Interestingly, in less than a min of tapping on pt 17, the image fizzed out… i couldn’t hold on to it even when i tried, and replacing it, was an image of me looking happy, with Mr Gua Gua and little boy beside me, also looking happy, and i felt a supportive group of friends standing close by. Geez, now that’s a GREAT pic of success for me! Guess what? I was in decent clothes too…

Well, it was still a session of tapping on global issues, but for a DIY job, i think that’s as far as i can go, which is why i’m looking forward to my Borrowing Benefits sessions! Maybe i shld tap on abundance issues in another entry… my workshop profits are already half-gone, even before i received them. In fact, i shld tap on that thief in my bank account (as mentioned by the Zi Wei Dou Shu shifu) and see if that helps him to curb his inclination towards taking all my money away!

May try this one of these days…

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/01/how-to-discover-your-life-purpose-in-about-20-minutes/

I am definitely losing the enthusiasm of a freshly graduated social worker/counsellor who wishes to help everyone she encounters, regardless of their background and circumstances and etc. When i was still in that wanting-to-help-everyone mode, i would read or hear about other experienced practitioners who speak of “enthusiastic newbies” and wonder what’s wrong with that, and how can they possibly be effective if they are sounding so cynical and world-weary, or should i say, client-weary.

Well, maybe i’m entering that more cynical stage now, even though i have only been in this line for 2 over years. Then again, having a honeymoon period that lasted 2 over years may be longer than what some of my colleagues in this field have. I have been noticing that my KIV cases seem to be proportionately greater than my colleagues of this centre, so it would appear that i am holding onto cases even though those clients have not been coming for a long time. From my survey, it seems like other colleagues don’t have much of a problem keeping their cases active or closing those inactive ones.

I did some reflection on it, and to cut the long story short, i guess i was hoping to be there for them when they were ready to come back for counselling and i didn’t want to be another person in their lives who left them in the lurch.

But now that seems really laughable and naive. In a way, it’s also doubting my clients’ own resourcefulness and elevating my own ego by allowing it to think that i am the only person who can help them. Now that i’m very much into learning about the energetic connection that we have with everyone who crosses our path, it finally just occurred to me moments ago as i’m writing this, that maybe my keeping the case file open creates some kind of energetic connection that keeps them in a victim mentality. Perhaps knowing consciously or unconsciously that they are still a client of my centre, it gives them an excuse to continue staying in their comfort zone. It’s very much like a teenager who will just sit there if the parent keeps nagging at them to do something, and once the parent goes on holiday, the teenager somehow manages to get off his butt and get things done.

In any case, i have been closing cases actively all the while. It’s just that i do have a higher no. of cases and there are incoming cases too, so the KIV ones start piling up. There are probably skills i need to develop to ensure a gd start, to reduce probability of client becoming KIV, and i will be looking in to that. But i also acknowledge the fact that client motivation is not something i am able to influence totally. And maybe this is a professionally-limiting belief. Hmm… i’m starting to confuse myself here!

Why i am blogging about this today is cos today for the first time, i found myself getting quite pissed by a client. Everytime i call him, he has lots to complain about his wife, and he expected me to be able to change her somehow - and they only came for 1 session! Today it was the same thing, and i found myself having a hard time empathizing with him because he was really critical towards his wife and while he says that he knows he has contributed to the problem, the fact is that he spends the majority of the time talking about his wife’s flaws and how things would be much better once SHE changes.

So i completely lost my patience with him and did the one thing that you do NOT do with clients - argue with them. Yup, and i was still struggling with wanting to be polite and tactful and professional, yet also feeling like i have to speak the truth that i was seeing (MY truth obviously, not his), so i couldn’t even get my words out smoothly, and they came out pretty untactful i think. Finally, even he gave up on talking to me and i basically apologised for being unhelpful and told him to look for another counsellor/therapist - one whom HE thinks would be THE one to successfully change his wife in one session. Geez… i think i actually used those words on him, which was very unprofessional, but i just couldn’t help myself. I guess my intention was really to encourage him to get further help, cos every therapist has their own style and techniques and i don’t mind if he thinks mine is unsuitable for him… but i guess my underlying message, my REAL message for him, was, get real - if you can’t bring yourself to counselling without your wife, because you don’t want to change before she does, don’t waste my time.

So as i was mentioning to Efrain in my reply to his recent comment, maybe i have a tappable issue here… and maybe not. Maybe not, because that might actually be a right, or at least, not uncommon attitude out there in this field. My hypnotherapy teacher does screen her clients before she accepts them as clients, and i think one of the major criteria is that they actually are motivated to change the problem i.e. themselves. Those who come only because they are sent by another family member are, i think, rejected by her.

And i’m starting to see the wisdom of that. It may sound rude, but truly, if you have no intentions of changing yourself, then coming for counselling is only a waste of time for yourself and the counsellor. Perhaps some counsellors are fine with just giving empathy i.e. a listening ear, and of cos, there is great value in that, IF it is seen as a means to an end. But if the client just wants empathy and nothing else, then might as well call SOS or a good friend, and don’t waste money on counselling.

Of cos, i have to admit that i was a lil too impatient with this fella - maybe if i had pretended to sympathise more with his situation, he would be more willing to come and see me by himself. But nahhhh…. i hate pretending, and i’m a bad pretender anyway. My faking would be so fake that anyone would have seen through it. Better that i tell him exactly what i think, so that he can find someone else who can truly sympathise with him, and at the same time, make him feel that yesss, he is right, and his wife is wrong, and he can continue being the same old same old without feeling like he needs to change!

It’s rare that i get this frustrated by a client so i sat at my desk not doing anything, except tapping, for a few moments, also kinda surprised by my own frustration and wondering if it’s some kind of transference. Just now it occurred to me, this feeling is rather similar to the feeling i had when i made that “oh poor sick me” remark in my last entry about Mr Gua Gua. Guess i do have very limited patience with people who only complain and do not want to move their butts. I’m still deciding what i want to do about this awareness, whether i think it’s something i want to change. Right now, i’m more inclined towards not changing. I can probably develop my patience, just for the sake of developing a virtue, but if that means allowing a person to continue ranting about why everyone else is wrong and he may be wrong too but other pple shld change FIRST, i don’t know how helpful is that going to be. If i do that, then i’m going to need to learn how to respond to the person so he/she realises that change starts from him/herself. Geez… actually, it’s as simple as saying that right? And if the person agrees, good, and if the person responds with a yes, but, then i can simply state that i only work with pple who want to change themselves, and happily end the conversation without feeling like i owe the other person anything.

Thank gdness, i had another encounter with a new client who was the direct opposite of this man. She have seen many previous counsellors before and my initial thought that she was one of those people who continue counselling because they keep going in circles due to not wanting to change. Yet, there was a glow about her, and i felt that she looked extraordinarily radiant for a person who have been abused since young and been in and out of abusive relationships.

Still, her unexpected healthful look didn’t prepare me for the speed with which we tapped on her issues. It was like zoom, zoom, zoom! She was so coorporative and open with using EFT that we fleshed out issues and neutralised them in a way that i have NEVER done before with any other client, and not only did she feel a whole lot better about certain stuff that used to be very painful for her, she also received a realisation that was so powerful for her that she was speechless for a few moments.

At the end, i told her that she’s a really gd client and she laughed, telling me that everyone seems to think so. Apparently, other counsellors and psychiatrists have told her the same thing (and i joked, maybe she shld do this for a career - being a professional client!). She added, that actually it’s because she really wants to change, and she revealed that aside from the issue that she brought to counselling today, she had a larger motivation, which was to clear her own issues sufficiently so that she can fulfill her goal of opening an orphanage.

At this point, i paused my writing for a while because… well, i’m not sure why either. First, i think i’m really touched by this lady who went through the session with me with such openness and courage, and finally, i could see how EFT can be that powerful with pple who really want to change. Second, i am in awe of her aspiration, and how she is fiercely determined to heal herself so that she can achieve this aspiration. She is, with no doubt, a lightworker - as one of the “criteria” Doreen Virtue states for being a lightworker - one who wishes to heal oneself so that one can help to heal the world. At the same time, i’m sincerely grateful for the opportunity to be a part of her healing journey with EFT. She did tell me that i’m good too, and we laughed together at the fact that she has enough experience with counsellors and other kinds of practitioners to know what she is saying, and i told her i will definitely take her feedback seriously! I was indeed grateful to her for affirming me, because i did need it today in particular, after the previous frustration. She requested to come next week, as she thinks weekly sessions will help her to change more quickly and guess what, i can’t wait for her to come back!

Sometimes, my jaw still drops (figuratively speaking!) at the thought of how some clients can achieve changes so quickly just within 2 or 3 sessions, and i can end counselling with them with both of us feeling that meaningful changes have been accomplished, as compared to other clients where things just get stagnant and neither of us really know where else to go. I’m still wondering, who is truly the one taking the lead in the counselling room. My skills and use of EFT are pretty standard with each client i see, yet the results i get vary from client to client.

I think this is why during the past life regression workshop, another coursemate who is a channeller and received messages for everyone, gave me the following message from the universe. “Counselling is a passive act. The counsellor cannot learn or do on behalf of the client and the counsellor must be careful not to let her ego get in the way, for that may interfere with the client’s healing process.” I left my file in the office and couldn’t copy the message directly from there, but i believe the essence of the message is there. This message is indeed very timely for me, and even up till now, i’m still absorbing it so that it becomes my truth as well. I think it answers all the questions i have in this entry, and confirms that i am on the right track, at least in knowing that i cannot do anything for the client until he or she takes the first step.

Okie… now i have renewed zeal to close the remaining KIV cases and make sure i only spend time on clients who are committed to healing themselves. Another part of the channeled message said that my current counselling is not helping me to maximise my abilities fully, and i will be getting more difficult clients soon, which will help to do that. Well, i’m definitely ready for the challenge, though i wish to send a request to the universe, please send to me only the ones who want to make the change and not know how to!

A lil more reflection before i end this pretty long entry. I just met a friend who is a very strong Christan and was giving me marital advice and suggesting that i pray about making changes. I have nothing against Christianity - in fact, i love Conversations with God, though not all Christians agree with the kind of God that is portrayed in there. While i admire this friend a lot for many reasons, i was rather thrown off by her passionate sharing about God as well as her advice on marriage. In fact, i was still nodding my head slowly, trying my best to absorb what she is saying, and when she brightly asked, so what change do you wish to begin with from today onwards, i was temporarily speechless. Finally i mumbled, i am going to think about it, and tried to lighten things up by saying, now i know how my clients feel!

I really did mean that as i was saying it. While i appreciated her good intentions and bubbling enthusiasm in trying to help me, it was all coming at a wrong time. First of all, i didn’t ask for any advice about my marriage. Maybe i was interested to listen about how she handled her marriage, but that didn’t mean i wanted to change how i handled mine! Secondly, i think it was totally inappropriate for her to ask me to pray to God when she knows i’m a Buddhist… and again, i appreciate and admire her good intentions, but surely, she could have been more subtle in her approach.

Geez, now i really do know how my clients feel, when i get all chirpy and eager to dispense advice and expect them to get right down to making changes straight after. Hopefully i don’t do that too often at all, and will not be doing that from now on. In fact, now i don’t feel like meeting that friend at least in the near future, until i have recovered from that blast of enthusiasm that felt a little traumatic! Oh dear… i feel a lil bad for even saying that even though it’s true, and i can’t believe that i actually did the exact same thing to a client today who was also a KIV case, and i was blabbing on and on about how i can definitely help her and won’t be forcing her to do anything she is not ready for, even though i was in a way forcing her to come for counselling. No wonder she sounded like she wanted to end the call as quickly as possible! Haha…it can be so easy to think we know it all huh! Sigh… i guess this is a lesson i’m going to have to learn over and over again, until i finally get that we all have our OWN timing, and no one can bring us to a different stage until we ourselves decide we want to. Ok…i think i get it now… hopefully!

Geez, now i understand better why Jeffrey Zeig, trainer of Master Class that i attended in May this year, in one of the role plays, gave a client a really hard time. She wanted to make more time for herself and Jeffreg was basically sneering at her and being very skeptical about her being able to make the change. The more persistent she was, the more bored and skeptical he became; and the more bored and skeptical he was, the more desperate she was in trying to convince him. Even in the thank you card we signed at the end of the course, she was promising him that she’s going to do something about her issue after the course.

That time i felt he was being unkind and really felt sorry for her. Now I see the wisdom of this kind of therapy. Talk about reverse psychology! Hmm…maybe i have to learn how to be compassionately unkind from now on.