|
Picking Effective EFT Tapping Phrases
When first learning EFT, one of the most common questions is "what
words do I use for the reminder (problem) phrase"? I know that this
was confusing for me when I was first learning. There are a number of
elements to coming up with good tapping phrases, but I would like to
share a
key principle with you that will help make selecting good tapping
phrases much easier.
The first thing that we hear about when picking reminder phrases is to
be as specific as possible. This is very true but as specific as possible about what?
The most common mistake that I find that people make is to pick a
reminder phrase that describes their problem as a concept rather
than their direct experience of the problem.
Remember:
"The cause of all negative emotions is a disturbance in
our body's energy system."
The purpose of the reminder phrase is to help activate the energy
disturbance so that we can clear it out through tapping. We do
this by getting clearly in touch with our experience of the problem.
For instance, let's say that your problem is that you procrastinate.
New tappers might be tempted to say:
"Even though I procrastinate, I deeply and profoundly accept myself."
The problem with the phrase "I procrastinate" is that it is a mental
concept; it is not your actual experience
of your procrastination
problem.
So, what is your experience of procrastinating?
The
easiest way to get in
touch with this is to think about some task about which you are
procrastinating. You will probably feel some kind of aversion to doing
that task with an accompanying sensation in your body. The body
sensation may be something like a tightness in your stomach or chest.
Your aversion and bodily sensations are your initial experience of the problem.
Now,
let's get more specific.
What is your experience of the aversion specifically
about? You tune into your aversion and bodily sensations and wait to
see what comes up for you. Eventually, you get in touch with feeling
afraid
that you might not do the task perfectly, so you are having an
aversion to getting started.
A possible tapping phrase could now be:
"Even though I am afraid to start because I might not do it perfectly"
Do you see how this is very different from: "Even though I procrastinate"?
The prior phrase describes your actual experience of the problem. The
second one describes your problem as a mental concept.
Descriptions of your experience of a problem will tend to include
bodily sensations, emotions and thoughts/beliefs related to the
emotions, as in our example above. If you use this principle of
describing your experience of your
problem rather than the concept of it, you'll find that you will come
up with much more effective tapping phrases.
Going Deeper
Now, in the procrastination example, you may want to delve deeper.
Why is doing something imperfectly a painful prospect? What early
experiences led to this feeling? Ideally, you will want to tap on
those painful memories to really heal this issue. (I cover how to
work with painful memories in my newsletter.)
Hugs to all,
Stefan Gonick, EFT Practitioner, Trainer and Mentor to EFT Practitioners
Note: Procrastination can actually be a complex issue. We just looked at
one common potential source of procrastination for this example. There
can be many others as well.
|
