These books and experts don’t explain the loopholes that make this relatively simple way of thinking and acting flawed. This is not to say that the role of positive thinking doesn’t have a place and that it can completely transform a situation. It’s just that the first step has been overlooked.

All of the core negative components that orbit around the desired positive outcome need to be worked on first. As the layers of core negative beliefs unfold, the smaller difficulties fall away, leaving room for the desired positive results to come to fruition.

Here are some of the factors as to why positive thoughts/affirmations refuse to manifest:

The Underlying Unconscious Mind

The unconscious contains all the thoughts and beliefs that we are not aware of. Even though we may want to be in a long-term relationship, there is a part of the unconscious mind that may be sabotaging that.

A positive affirmation is repeatedly stated and is derailed by the unconscious mind. A good test is to state an outrageous positive affirmation such as “I make five trillion dollars a year with ease” and see how you feel after you say it. If it doesn’t seem credible then it probably isn’t. However even the things that we do truly want, that are genuinely attainable, can have undercurrents that anchor us from moving forward in the direction we want to go.

Habitual Patterns

Our family systems and socialization through schooling and other activities provide us with key ways in which we view the world. Through these interactions we discover how we are a blend of personality, ego, genetics and learned behavior to name a few.

Habitual patterns can be both positive and negative. Say there is a belief in your family that you can’t get through life without a spouse, that you will become isolated and lonely. From that inherent belief you may force your intimate relationships to be your only solace and foundation. You may stay in long-term relationships that aren’t necessarily nurturing or loving so that you aren’t alone. This pattern can extend to staying in a job that is below you skill level or maintaining friendships that never go beyond surface level conversations.

Cellular Memory

Humans will always be superior to any external technology that is developed. We are able to track everything that has ever occurred to us on a cellular level. While we may not be able to recall everything through our memory, our cells sift and organize all that information. So if an event or situation contains data that works against our highest good, it can cause us to make choices that subvert what would truly be good for us in the long run.

Our cells don’t see a difference between good and bad. They simply work with what is there and provide layers of specific data that show why we operate the way we do.

Using EFT to Get Underneath Negative Aspects

Now to the healing and balancing of these three areas. There are many ways to help clear the system of unconscious rhetoric, habitual patterns and difficulties that cause pain on a cellular level. One way is using Emotional Freedom techniques (EFT). EFT has been incredible in the transformation of these negative qualities.

By stating a specific negative experience/ emotion/ difficulty in relation to the fact that you still love and accept yourself despite this obstacle you create room for the imbalance to transform.  While tapping on points that go directly to the unconscious mind, you open the pathways of the energy system to be rebalanced.

The more specific you are the more EFT deals directly with the core source of the negative issues. You open to understanding why these negative influences created roadblocks to what you truly want and desire in your life.  Once the emotional charge of the negative influence are balanced out then the positive affirmation can be instilled.

This way the positive desire won’t have to rub up against the unconscious patterns that consistently say the direct opposite of your true wish. The ego can stop fighting to protect that which no longer needs protection and your essence can come forward to connect with your highest purpose with ease.

What’s next?

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There are a couple schools of thought on healing that are misleading:

1.    You can quickly move through your issues and difficulties just by thinking it. Healing can be instantaneous.
2.    Healing will take an incredibly long time and you will have to talk about the same issues over and over again for years to even get through a tiny piece.

Both beliefs are set-ups for expectations that the western mind clings to. We live in a go go go culture, so working on healing can seem like a to do list:

“Let go of what Dad said to me about being tone deaf.” CHECK!
“Finally feeling a semblance of forgiveness toward that jerk that constantly teased me in the first grade.” CHECK!
“Self-esteem seems to be increasing when I don’t eat as much chocolate.” CHECK!

Not Too Fast, Not Too Slow

Accomplishments are fine and all, but speeding to the finishing line is not the point, nor is thinking that getting through a particular trauma will take a decade. There is a balance between the two. When you slow down, taking your time to get to the heart of what’s troubling you, the shifts can be profound. So it’s a combination: going slowly so that the healing can happen with ease, depth and resolution.

When we forget that we all just want to be loved and experience joy in our body and mind, we loose sight of why we started to work through the layers of muck in the first place. It isn’t anyone’s fault either. The amount of information and theories about how to heal and what is most effective is exhaustive.

Returning to a Sense of Playfulness

How do we return to a sense of playfulness in healing our most difficult issues and traumas? For one thing it must be done carefully, keeping in mind that pain is pain and is often not a laughing matter. It isn’t about poking fun at our tragedies. It is about being more light-hearted in being able to go deeply to the core of a problem and seeing the divine joke that exists within that framework.

In other words we need to laugh and play. It’s an imperative part of our make-up. Children long to play despite any kind of external environment that may say otherwise. So much can be learned by watching children interact a playground. How each one shares, includes or excludes others, how they develop rules for games that don’t even exist yet.

They will make a game out of kicking a can, run forever playing tag. Playing is how we first understand how to be with others and understand ourselves within those relationships.

Compartmentalizing Life

We can quickly forget this as adults, compressing our life into boxes: the parts that work, the parts that are broken. The parts we’re not sure are ours, the parts we strongly protect and defend. We create goals to achieve, desires to accomplish and impacts we want to make. We can easily forget our playfulness under these circumstances, especially when the problems we have don’t feel like they can be resolved.

Yet we are not alone. Even in the darkest night of the soul there is a light that flickers and can help us to remember who we are on a fundamental level. Who are we without the title we have at work, the degrees we have on our walls, the status of our family and who we know?

Play as a Divine Activity

One thing is for sure: we are still human. Our grasping to identify who we are in the world and make a mark can lock us out of the Divine Playground  (and it doesn’t even have a fence around it).

The point is that playing is a divine activity. It is very real and provides a bridge between difficulty and transformation. There are times when I have worked with a client on a very intense issue that is completely overwhelming when we begin, and as resolution takes place laughter starts to happen spontaneously. I see it as a sign of relief from the burden that holding that issue carried. The more trust that develops in healing, the more room there is for that playfulness to be a part of the process.

We can return to remembering what playing (for no specific reason) is like. We can tap into that place within us that is free to look like a fool and just express ourselves without reservation. The power of playfulness is an extraordinary gift.

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Within all of these structures one may feel that they have to play certain role(s) in order to get by or get through difficult dilemmas.

“Chris is very sensitive so I better make sure I say this gently.”

“My boss is overbearing and needs to feel like she’s in the position of power, so it’s best to let her believe she’s got the upper hand.”

“Ginger always takes up so much space when she enters a room. Even if I don’t want to be invisible I will still end up feeling that way.”

“I’m really angry at Bill for saying that off-handed comment, but if I confront him he’ll probably make me pay for it later.”

As aware human beings, we do need to make a concerted effort to be kind and compassionate in our communications with others. However, when we begin to loose who we are (sacrificing our highest good for the sake of not going outside our comfort zone) we do a disservice to our loved ones and ourselves. Many times we fear being completely authentic because we don’t want to overwhelm, unnecessarily push away or hurt another person or ourselves in the process.

Being Yourself. What Exactly Does That Mean?

So what does it mean to be yourself? So many times the phrase “just be yourself” is used to comfort another person when we’re not sure what else to say. Most of us don’t know what it means. There are aspects of ourselves we don’t feel comfortable with, that we fear others won’t like or take advantage of. “Being yourself” can put you in a vulnerable position rather than a state of inner power.

Yup. It’s All About Love.

We just want to be loved. It’s pretty simple when it comes down to it. Love is all that matters. Our accomplishments, successes and victories can never truly fulfill us if we do not feel that we are loved. Many times we are seeking this love from an external source whether it be the love of a spouse, the approval of our boss or parents or the adoration of our peers.

Although we do need external support we will never find the love that we must find ourselves and that is available to us from Universal Energy. There is an unending supply of this love that is based in wisdom, strength and authenticity. How we open to receiving that love is an individual process, one that is a combination of deep inner work and letting go.

Expectations of the Healing Process

Many times when we finish an intense inner process we want an automatic result, a long-lasting relief from our pain and burdens. However in that expectation we set ourselves up for disappointment. To open to the full experience, we must accept the healing as it is and be willing to let go of the result. In this way we can open ourselves up to the duality that self-love is an acceptance of the fact that the work is never done, never complete, just another step.

In this understanding, the deep knowing in the body and feelings of this concept, we can finally relax and accept ourselves as is. Not broken, not fixed. Just human. We can be ourselves knowing that not everyone will like or accept us. That can be ok. By loving ourselves we are being ourselves unapologetically.

Being the Example of Self-Acceptance

We are opening the pathway for others to love themselves through this skillfulness. Our example of self-acceptance does not even have to be spoken. By radiating this vibration others around us can find their own way to the same sense of ongoing resolution and forgiveness.

We internally shift, let go, and offer ourselves to the world. Life happens. We look inward again, are honest with all that is happening, laugh at the absurdity of how we make ourselves suffer and heal for the benefit of all beings. It may not always be easy but it doesn’t have to be difficult either.

What’s Next?

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For some abandonment is clearly felt through the lens of divorce, death or neglect. Others, even under the best circumstances of being nurtured, will at some point along the way become disillusioned by the fact that our parents will die as will we.

Viewing Our Parents as God

Regardless of how we are raised when we are little we view our parents as God, even if this is far from true. They are perfect beings that seem to perform magical acts continually. Our parents take on the roles of best friend, confidant, protector, hero or that of an indestructible force. “My Dad can lift two cars by himself!” “My Mommy can fly!”

Our exaggerations are living truth at this stage of development. The parental figure is powerful, strong, vital and literally much bigger than us. We look up to our parents as the measure of how to behave and function in the world.

So when we first become aware of any disappointment we are having with our caregivers it also transfers over to our view of God or Source. If we grow up with the understanding that we should be fearful of our parents, we fear the idea of God as well.  The disappointment we feel becomes internalized and we set out to alleviate ourselves of that pain; that fear of abandonment. Whatever survival tactic we have used that seems to work (whether or not that has negative implications) we stick to.

Religion Instills This View of God Deeper

If our parents recognize that we will grapple with this feeling of abandonment they will help us to understand the deeper aspects of who we are. Our autonomy and individuality will be celebrated and nurtured. This, however, is not always the case. Many (not all) organized religious systems are based in shame and guilt where a judgmental God watches our every move and for whom we must consistently ask forgiveness for our “sins”.

In Michael Lerner’s book, The Left Hand of God, he repeatedly demonstrates the difference between the judgmental, wrathful and punishing God (The Right Hand) that is the foundation of the conservative movement against the kind, compassionate and empathetic God (The Left Hand) that gets lost in the shadows (especially in times of war).

If we are to understand our own unique relationship with God (or whatever word feels appropriate) we may feel that the Left Hand version is much more our cup of tea. The conservative, all-fear-the-wrath-of-God system has seeped into our culture and society as a whole.

To turn the tide and create a new conscious understanding of our individual relationship to our spirituality is necessary. It is at the core of transcending the negative connotations of God having to be one specific way, or of being left for dead if you question or disagree with a particular system of belief.

Returning to Childhood…

We enter this world with our essence in totality. Nothing is left behind. Our soul’s work is within us and our work is to discover what that work consists of while making many mistakes along the way. Regardless of our upbringing that essence does not leave us or cease to exist. We simply need ways to remember what it is.

Reclaiming The Soul

There may be pieces of our soul that get lost, trapped in moments of trauma or difficulty from the past but we can retrieve them. That is the purpose of a soul retrieval, an internal journey to call back to us the aspects that feel lost or abandoned.

When we are young, we are not capable of being able to work with the extremity of certain situations. We get overwhelmed and dissociate, a piece of who we are may leave to protect us from the damage. Our body and soul are incredibly intelligent and our always working on our behalf even if it means “checking out” in order to prevent us from experiencing the full brunt of the pain.

Being Ready to Re-Parent Ourselves

When we are ready (and I want to emphasize ready) we can then find the objective conditions to call these pieces of ourselves back, reclaiming them. We re-parent these childhood injuries, nurturing and befriending these hurts back to health. We can then start to understand our abandonment issues from a subjective and objective place while also unapologetically restructuring our relationship to the Divine.

What’s Next?

You can subscribe to my free newsletter for more perspectives on Energy Psychology, EFT and holistic healing. If you are ready to set up an individual session go here to find out how.

With EFT it is important to be as specific as possible when determining what it is you’re working on. There are very different kinds of anxiety. Work anxiety, family anxiety, money anxiety and future-related anxiety to name a few. Generally all anxiety stems from a past event that was either difficult or traumatic. However, sometimes you can have a hard time pinpointing the exact circumstance. That’s ok. You can still work on the anxiety as you are currently feeling it.

Coming up with the set-up phrase is a key component of relieving yourself of the effect anxiety can have on your life. (For how EFT works in a nutshell go to How to Do EFT). If you simply state “I feel so anxious” it isn’t specific enough about the kind of anxiety you are experiencing.

Some examples of specific set-up statements:

“Even though I am anxious about interacting with Uncle Mike at the family reunion…”
“Even though I would get anxious every time I took a math test in Ms. Grady’s class…”
“Even though this anxiety feels like two bags of bricks on my chest…”

If you are having a difficult time getting specific just go with the feelings you are having in your body associated with the anxiety. “My head feels like it’s going to explode…My legs are shaking with anticipation…These butterflies in my stomach…” Sometimes dealing directly with the body sensations can help take the level of anxiety down so that you can then see what’s underneath.

When you are feeling anxious it can feel like too much to identify specific circumstances. Another phrase that can help clear the pathway is:

“Even though I feel too much anxiety to get specific about the cause of this feeling…”

Rate it on the 1-10 scale and try several rounds until you get down to a two or three. Then re-investigate the anxiety. Once you have gotten a chance to take the charge down, being able to observe it may give you deeper insight into the underlying core issue.

The key is to feel into the anxiety and meet it where it’s at. Once you can minimize any sensations in your body that are uncomfortable you can then get more specific. Do you have any memories of when you felt this anxiety before? If you were to give this anxiety three descriptive adjectives what would they be?

You don’t need the set-up phrase to be perfect but you do want the impact of its language to feel true and accurate. Something else to note is that anxiety may feel different than worry or nervousness. How I define anxiety may be oppositional to how my best friend views the feeling. It is a subjective experience for a general feeling state we all go through.

Take a moment to note what makes you anxious in the present moment. What feels the biggest, the most true or intense? Work on that first.

When we are able to identify and name our emotional states with specific set-up phrases the process of EFT goes a lot smoother. For a reminder of how to do the Basics of EFT go here.

What’s Next?

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Learned helplessness can be the result of socialization, schooling or through generational patterns.  Some examples:

•    A child who has undiagnosed dyslexia consistently struggles with reading comprehension in school.  When he is called on to read out loud the other children laugh and mock his mistakes. He continues to have nightmares of reading out loud in class throughout his adult life.  Although his dyslexia was recognized and treated early on, he still fears speaking publicly and feels a huge amount of shame when people talk about the books they are reading.

•    Lucy has never had a drink in her life.  There is a long family history of alcoholism, something that almost killed her mother.  Whenever she goes out with her friends, she fears that if they drink something horrible will happen to them.  She keeps coming up with excuses to not be as social, preferring to limit her social obligations to “dry” occasions to feel safe.

•    Tony never liked sports, either playing or watching them.  His brothers and father bonded over sports and Tony continually felt left out.  He tried for years to pretend he enjoyed them.  H even made self-inflicting jokes about how uncoordinated he was which his brothers would howl over.  Tony feels like there is something inherently wrong with him for not being able to be more like the other men in his family.

Learned helplessness does not look one particular way but has many different manifestations.  Emotions such as shame, guilt, fear, terror, anger, rage and embarrassment are but a few of the ways learned helplessness is felt.

And Then We Become Adults…

As this learned helplessness gets transferred from difficult childhood situations onto our adult life we come up against a series of self-defeating behavior.  We may implicate ourselves before a false judge for something we haven’t done, creating a prison of our own making.  Although we may not like the prison, we’re used to it.  Leaving it does not seem like an option.

Within the learned helpfulness is a survival technique, a strategy that despite all circumstances allowed us to make our way through it.  If we have never learned an alternative to that strategy then we may use it over and over again.  As the saying goes, “The definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and expecting different results”.

Finding the Seeds of Wisdom

One thing to recognize is that there is wisdom in this survival strategy.  If you imagined this wisdom to be a seed that you planted and tended to it would eventually grow and become a flower or some other form of nourishment. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche once said that our neurosis is like manure.  We have enough shit, so we may as well use it to grow something beautiful. Being able to sift through and find the wisdom can be the tricky part but it can also be a fun investigation into how we operate.

Our helpless feeling states are opportunities to see how we can befriend the current emotion so that we gain insight, harness and cultivate the wisdom and compost the crap for a future garden.  Our individual helplessness could probably feed a family of four for a year. That’s a big harvest.

It’s also an indicator that we may need to reach out to others without an agenda.  Just by sharing the experience of being human and all of its implications we can see that our helplessness is not felt in solitude.  Each one of us has all been through difficulties and being able to witness and be witnessed in that process creates a more ordinary, objective viewpoint. In other words, our suffering is not felt in isolation although our experience is our own.

What’s Next?

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The idea of that can seem preposterous at first glance but from an observational viewpoint it is profound. One of the aspects of being human we battle with most is feeling out of control of our own circumstances. Things don’t go our way, disaster strikes, someone we love dies or abandons us or a relationship we’ve invested so much of ourselves in falls apart. What’s so perfect about that?

An important healer in my life used to say to me “The slower you go, the faster you get there.” We can only heal at the pace that our body and mind are ready for. Trying to plow through our biggest issues can only lead to a chasm too wide and deep to cross. We are taught in this culture that “doing” is necessary above all else, being productive and “making things happen” will bring satisfaction. Healing cannot work within this paradigm. Healing is about letting each moment inform you of the next step to take, which can sometimes be very different than where you think you were headed.

Everything Happens for a Reason? Yuck…

I’m not harping this sense of perfection on the back of “everything happens for a reason”. Often that phrase is used to avoid a painful state of being, while trying to take refuge in new age rhetoric. This serves no one well. Rather, we have choices in how to heal what seems “imperfect” so that we can understand ourselves better and have compassion for our situation. We can use practical, intuitive methods to relieve ourselves of the emotional charge and disabling qualities that we feel as a result of difficult circumstances and past hurts.

To honor that state of perfection is about coming to terms with the fact that you are fallible, you are human and therefore limited in certain ways. This is not a bad thing, you are not wrong somehow because of it. In a culture that promises us security and prosperity through material wealth, we must question our motivations to find peace through external means.

Being in that state of perfection is about accepting all of the challenges and hardships you’ve had up until this point in your existence. You can commit to shift your perspective so that you aren’t bound by the negative implications of past situations.

Back to Forgiveness

Seeing our imperfect perfection allows us to forgive ourselves first. We start with our own inability to forgive ourselves and simply give ourselves a break. As we slowly release the burdens we carry, we are able to see why others have a hard time letting go and a natural sense of understanding the human condition can develop. We can bask in the knowledge that we are powerful creators who have a tremendous capacity to heal ourselves at our own unique pace. Nothing to prove, nothing to do, just being is enough.

What’s Next?

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Closing your eyes and tapping into that deep wisdom to gain insight can be just as effective. One of the reasons we feel disconnected from our relationship to nature is simply because we are being infiltrated by the shoulds, to-do lists and general have-tos of life.

Of course things need to get done. The laundry has to be folded. To realize that you can simply return to that simple state of being with your favorite aspect of nature can assist in reminding you of the essence of who you are without having to be “somebody”.

Nature is consistently managing to be with all different types of weather, disruption, erratic temperatures, deficit and excess that comes its way. This is a reflection of how to be patient with the worst and best of circumstances. All that encompasses nature and comes from the earth is our teacher. From the majestic redwoods to the disruptive power of a volcano simply being with each force is a medicinal blessing.

What’s Next?

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“The cause of all negative emotions is a disruption in the body’s energy system.”

When asked about a particular cause of any emotion that is not well received such as anxiety, depression or fear, people will retort with all sorts of answers.  “It’s genetic.”  “It’s chemical.”  “My family has a history of depression.” “Some people are more sensitive than others.”  “I’ve always been this stressed out.”  “I was in an horrible accident, therefore I’m scared of cars.”

We are programmed to make sense of things.  However, emotions can be quite complex and not easily controlled by reason or logic.  EFT asks that you put this way of thinking aside with the Discovery Statement, “The cause of all negative emotions is a disruption in the body’s energy system.”

A Radical Idea

To simply state that all negative emotions stem from a disruption in the body’s energy system is quite radical.  I, myself, had been working on some particular traumatic events in both therapy and through energy healing for years and had peeled back many layers of difficulty when EFT was brought to my attention.

Through the continual practice of EFT, the sources of the pain that were extremely hard to even ponder were suddenly not as charged.  The intensity of the emotion had gone down significantly, if not altogether.  This is not to say that every aspect of the particular trauma was dealt with but the major stumbling block had been significantly cut down.

Re-Balancing the Energy System

This relief was due to the re-balancing of the energy system through identifying the core issue, getting specific about the effect of that issue on an emotional level, and then tapping on the points that EFT requires.  So, in essence, the trauma I experienced caused a disruption in the energy system.  That disruption never had a chance to sequence through my body so that I could return to the state prior to the trauma. The trauma was stuck, continually playing itself out when something similar triggered the response.

This is can be why the most inane situation can suddenly bring a flood of emotions that doesn’t necessarily correlate to the event. Our body and emotions know the landscape of what triggers us all too well, while our logical mind can’t comprehend the feeling in the same manner. This can lead to repetitive suffering even if that suffering seems normalized and accepted as unchangeable.

The Compounding of Negative Stressors

Imagine all the little and major stressors one can experience in the course of a given day.  From the annoyance of being stuck in traffic, to almost getting side swiped, to a report that is a day late through a miscommunication, to getting a flat tire and being late to pick up your kids.  Each of these stressors can compound and /or trigger previous stressors that cause a disruption in the body’s energy system.

The whole point of EFT, on the most fundamental level, is to simply and specifically eradicate that which does not serve you.  Anything that causes ill states whether it is emotional, physical, and/or psychological.  It may be but one tool in the field of Energy Psychology or personal development but its direct impact can be nothing short of profound.

A Simple Approach to Complex Issues

It is hard for us to think that healing can be easy or efficient, especially if years of therapy or other methods instill the belief that you must work on an issue for an elongated period of time in order to see any results.  I’m not saying that EFT can solve everything in a short span of a time, or that talk therapy doesn’t have break through results.  What I am saying is that EFT can create a new foundation of positive change upon which all that has been difficult or harmful in your life can be transformed towards ease, clarity and resolved awakenings.

Another saying in EFT is “Try it on Everything”. Although there isn’t a promise that it will work it doesn’t hurt to give it a shot.

What’s Next?

You can subscribe to my free newsletter for more perspectives on Energy Psychology, EFT and holistic healing. If you are ready to set up an individual session go here to find out how.