Articles on EFT/PET for Personal Growth and Development

• Seeking Complete Freedom: Settle for Nothing Less

• Addressing Self Acceptance Issues

• EFT and Manifestation

• Validating Yourself

• Tap and Be Rich

Seeking Complete Freedom: Settle for Nothing Less

By Steve Wells

Many people approach EFT with a limited understanding of it's potential, and use it in a limited way - and therefore limit the benefits they can achieve from using it. I'd like to encourage you to expand your vision of the freedom you can achieve using these wonderful techniques.

I believe we should settle for nothing less than complete freedom. I mean this not only in terms of how we progress through each problem we work on but also the number and type of problems we choose to work on AND the goals we set for ourselves in life.

I believe we limit our freedom when:

We don't consider using EFT on every problem we have.
We don't continue with the process until absolutely all of the remaining intensity is completely cleared.
We don't test our changes out in the real world - or ensure that we have tested all possible provocations for the problem returning.
We only use EFT in a remedial fashion to eradicate existing problems rather than using it to help us create new futures and achieve our ultimate goals.

Some people assume that because they have seen EFT used to cure fears and phobias that fears and phobias are all it can be applied to. Others gain relief using EFT on one problem but don't realise they could apply it to other problems.

How often do we have other issues in our life to which we could apply EFT but we "just don't think" to do it. Let's do as Gary recommends and "try it on everything." When you do you may be surprised just how much you can achieve.

How many problems do we wallow in when we really could be treating them? And how often do we work on a problem for a time and get some success, but then allow the issue to build up again in our lives? Persistence in treating all the aspects in the early days may mean we no longer have to deal with the problem at a later stage. I have witnessed this with numerous clients who have diligently applied the technique to their physical issues over time, gaining progressively more and more relief. Their example now inspires me to continue until I too am completely free.

Test Your Results

When we work on a particular problem let's continue until we are completely free. Let's not assume that just because we can think about it in one way and it doesn't affect us that the treatment is complete. Let's test it in as many ways as we can - and especially, where possible, in the real world.

It is important to test completely - to see if there is any way of thinking about the problem or any manifestation or part of the problem that CAN upset us. If so, there is more to treat.

I first saw the true importance of aspects when I did a public demonstration of EFT soon after learning these techniques. A woman who had a phobia of birds was able to go from a position of absolute fear to thinking about a bird without a shred of fear. For some reason, the image of a flock of birds came into my mind while talking with her so I asked her "What if it was a whole flock of birds?" She instantly jumped back and her fear rose to an even higher level than before. Once we treated this aspect her fear was fully resolved and she was able to go outside looking for birds (she counted 24). I saw her some months later and she informed me she had gone for a walk through the aviary at the zoo without any problems at all.

In our group treatments for phobia sufferers we worked with people who had small animal phobias, and everyone in the group did rounds of EFT in unison whilst focusing on their particular problem. During this process I was astounded by how often the following scene would unfold. We would do a round of EFT and then I would check how intense people felt when they thought about their feared animal. As we went around the group there would be someone who would say for example, "It doesn't affect me at all now. I think I'm cured!" My response was to test this and ask then to search for any aspect of the problem that was still upsetting to them. In a number of instances, however, the person would reply that they weren't able to find anything else, and they were unable to bring up any intensity at all. However, as we proceeded around the group there would be another person who would say something like "I was feeling ok but then I started to think about a spider being on me and now I feel worse!" At this point the previous person would anxiously exclaim "Oh yeah!" as they were put in touch with another aspect of their fear.

We had examples of this with such issues as the spiders' furry legs, the mouse's tail, and the way the mouse moves, darting around rapidly. In each case a person in the group who thought they had either partly or fully resolved their problem was put in touch with another aspect which truly bothered them when these issues were raised by someone else in the group. I saw the value of group treatment in helping people to have a more complete healing by revealing specific aspects to work on. Since that time I have also conducted more extensive testing of treatments I have done with clients in order to ensure that all aspects of the problem that we can possibly think of together have been treated. I also like where possible to have proof in the real world that the change will stand up - And even then I'm not fully convinced. When they are in the problem place, I like to get the person to manipulate the situation in as many ways as possible to try to find something that provokes them. If nothing does I am more convinced, however I believe it is always important to realise that additional aspects may come to light. This is not a failure in the technique - just another part of the problem which requires treatment. Treat it and increase the range of your freedom even further.

I have formed the opinion that many of the treatments I conducted in the first few years of using these techniques were perhaps not the complete "cures" that I thought they were. And now I encourage my clients - as I encourage you now - to go for the complete change. Diligently search for things that upset you and treat them all. Go for complete freedom. Settle for nothing less.

In Search of Total Emotional Freedom

An issue that concerns me is when we assume that because the intensity of the problem we are working on is at a manageable level that this is "good enough". If we have been living with a very intense problem it might seem very freeing to have a problem we previously experienced as 10 out of 10 on the intensity scale to now be at a level 2 out of 10. However, a little bondage can be just as troublesome in the long term as a lot of bondage. Once we have achieved a low level, let's not limit what we can achieve. Let's settle for nothing less than complete freedom.

I once worked with a client diagnosed Agoraphobic who could not go into grocery stores. We worked in the office to bring her fear down to zero then we went down to the shopping centre in her car. Along the way I kept checking how she felt and she kept telling me she felt fine. In the shopping centre car park I asked one more time. Again she said she felt fine. Being cautious I challenged her. She reported that the fear was only about a level 2 or 3 on a 10-point scale. She felt this was fine - a very manageable level. I said to her "If your fear is at a level 2 or 3 when you enter the shops and when you are in there something happens which brings up your fear by say 5 points you will then be at a level 7 or 8 which is quite unmanageable. If you are at a level zero when you enter the shops and something comes up it is unlikely your fear will rise to the same level - and if it did rise 5 points then this is still a much more manageable level from which to make decisions than a level 7 or 8.

We sat in the car and continued to work on aspects until her fear came down to a level zero. Then she was able to go into the store on her own. In fact, she spent so long in there that I became concerned and went searching for her, only to find that she was enjoying being completely free of her fear.

There can be a tendency to assume that we need to retain some of our intense feelings for a variety of reasons. Typical examples are guilt feelings, safety fears, and feelings of non-deservingness, among others. For example, many people believe that they need to keep some of their fear in order to stay safe - that without it they will lose their ability to be cautious. This is a false belief that can leave us with unnecessary suffering. Others have an underlying belief that they do not deserve to get over this problem completely, or that to do so would be bad for them in some way.

The way to treat blocks such as these is to identify any beliefs you have that cause you to feel like you need - or deserve - to keep some (or all) of your problem and insert these negative belief statements into the set-up statement. For example:

Even though I think I need to keep some of this problem in order to stay safe I fully and completely accept myself.

"Even though I don't deserve to get over this problem..." Then,
"Even though I do not deserve to get completely over this problem ..."

There are many more blocking beliefs such as these, that can be responsible for our failure to achieve a more complete result. Many authors (including myself and Dr David Lake in our books New Energy Therapies, and Pocket Guide to Emotional Freedom, and Fred Gallo in Energy Psychology) provide examples of typical blocking beliefs for you to work on. However, the simplest way forward is to ask yourself what are the reasons why you can't get over your problem completely - or why it might not be good to do so. The answers to this question will reveal your underlying beliefs and you can then apply the EFT process to these. Having done so, you may find that your continued tapping on "the problem" now bears more fruit.

Beyond Problem Resolution - Using EFT to create new futures and new ways of being:

I believe we need to look beyond just using EFT to solve problems - although there are plenty of problems that will enter into each of our lives and getting them out of the way is a worthwhile initial goal. I think we need to consider what we are aiming to produce in our lives and in the world ultimately - and then look at how we can use these techniques to facilitate bringing ourselves into more positive ways of being.

I am interested in generative change rather than just remedial change. This is about creating small changes that build on each other exponentially until our whole life is turned around.

I believe when we consider questions such as the following we tap into a whole new direction for using these techniques:

What would be good to create in my life?
What would be worthwhile to do with the rest of my life?
What would I like to do?
What would be fun to do?
What sort of person would I like to become ultimately?

The moment you ask these questions, there will be blocks. This is good and is one of the reasons I believe we have been given EFT - to help us move beyond the points at which we become stuck. If we have used EFT to resolve some problems but have not extended our goals out even further until we feel some resistance I believe we are not tapping into the full power of these techniques. EFT in this sense can become a tool to be used for personal evolution by getting in touch with the possible human and clearing the pathway to becoming.

What is one method of doing this?

I like to start by having people identify how they would like to be as a person. I believe if we work on changing our identity we can change our whole life. As Zig Ziglar says "You will never perform consistently in a manner that is inconsistent with how you define yourself."

In a corporate group I worked with a lady who said she did not really have any goals. She said she was quite happy with her life and being the way she was. I am always on the lookout to find a person who, when they say this, I can truly believe. That person I am sure will have achieved true victory over self. Until I see total congruency in the person making these statements I tend to see them as a cover for fear and a limiting way of thinking about self.

We looked at the first statement she came up with "I'm just an ordinary person" as a current belief. Without objecting to this or passing judgment, I then had her consider the opposite belief "I'm an extraordinary person". I had her say this alternative belief aloud, which to her felt totally untrue, not even desirable. Then I had her do three rounds of EFT. The first round she focused on the current belief (Even though I'm just an ordinary person). The second round she focused on the alternative belief (Even though I am an extraordinary person). And the third round she focused on each belief interchangeably (I'm an ordinary person / I'm an extraordinary person).

After these three rounds she brightened considerably (Previously when she described herself as an ordinary person her jaw was set and her face was dark). She excitedly stated "I guess I really AM an extraordinary person." Not only that, her previous way of thinking about herself and her life no longer had any appeal - it was dull and unattractive to her now. Lifeless. It didn't feel true at all. And her goals had changed. She was now able to look in directions that she was previously unable to consider - and felt optimistic towards changing her life.

If you want to really change your life, consider how you define yourself to yourself. Think of how you would like to be. And then apply EFT to the internal objections which arise to the idea of being that NOW. Continue until you get a real feeling of congruency ('thou art that'). What usually follows is a real feeling of excitement and unleashing of personal power and positive potential. This is just one of the many ways we can use EFT to assist us in the process of building new futures.

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EFT and Manifestation

By Steve Wells

If you only look at what is, you might never attain what could be.
--- Source Unknown

How can EFT help us in manifesting the life of our dreams, in making our dreams come true, in obtaining our heart's desire, in becoming the type of person we want to be? This is a huge topic and one I cannot pretend to do justice to here. However, I want to share some of the ideas that have been working for me, for my clients and for participants in the EFT and Transformation workshops I've been conducting with Dr David Lake.

The reality is that everyone manifests all the time - We are constantly creating our own reality, bringing ideas into form. The trouble is that most of us are doing this on autopilot, manifesting negatively. I want to focus here on the process of conscious creation, where we decide to bring into form some new, more positive ways of being and create richer, more meaningful, positive outcomes in our lives. These are some of the most exciting applications of EFT in my opinion, requiring us to break through our old, limiting beliefs of possibility and allowing us to expand and realise more of our true potential.

Not everyone sets goals in the formal sense, however the act of consciously deciding to create a new future is one of the most empowering actions we can take. It is also one of the most challenging because we are instantly confronted by our limitations. If we don't treat ourselves for these limitations I believe we risk remaining prisoners of our own version of "what is", or our current reality. I'm particularly interested in those wild ideas about "what could be" that leap into our minds and crash up against our beliefs about what is possible for us. These are the big, hairy audacious goals that both excite and scare us at the same time. If you have one of those goals in your heart, I am talking to you today.

So what is your biggest dream, wish or goal? Accept that it is there for a reason and decide you are going to make it real. A crucial step in this process is to begin to put it outside yourself, begin to bring a representation of it into the world. There are many ways of doing this, all of which work differently for different individuals (First thing to treat yourself for is the belief that you need to set goals according to someone else's formula - even mine!). Some examples are writing it down, drawing or painting a picture of it, saying you will do it or have it, making a 3-dimensional representation of it like a sculpture, and so on. Or taking some physical action towards it.

Putting your ultimate goal out into the world - even just to acknowledge that you wish it - can itself be a scary proposition if the goal is big enough and crazy enough. We ask ourselves (a la Marianne Williamson and Nelson Mandela), "Who am I to think I can be/do/have this?" This thought - and the attendant feelings and associations that come with it - are what we first need to tap on. Apply EFT to any and all thoughts that achieving this is not possible for you, that you are not good enough to have it, and that - for whatever reason - you cannot or will not be able to bring it into being. Example set up statements here include:

"Even though I'm not good enough to ... I fully and completely accept myself"
"Even though I don't have what it takes to ... I fully and completely accept myself"

"Even though I'm (state your own limitation here - e.g. too old, too young, not smart enough, etc) to ... I fully and completely accept myself"

The next thing to do is to begin to think about your goal from the perspective of being in it, having already achieved it. Inside the picture - being it, having it, doing it. It isn't necessary to have an actual mental picture here however if you're good at visualising this step is about seeing what you desire to achieve as you would if you were there now having already achieved it. The challenge is to capture the real feeling of how this will be - that's where the power lies. Even seconds per day spent in accessing the feelings of a new reality can pay off in incredible ways.

So take a few moments now to think yourself into this new future where you have already achieved your goal. Here's where you will almost certainly need to do several rounds of tapping to assist your visualization and affirmation processes, and this is something that - for really big goals - I recommend you repeat daily. The more you do it, the more your images of future possibility will start to feel more real. Not only will they begin to feel more achievable, but they will also start to become the reality by which you run your life.

So focus on that big, hairy audacious goal of yours. Bring it into your mind. Now do another round of tapping on your doubts:

E.g. "Even though I doubt I can (state your goal - whether it be a goal about what you will be, a goal about what you will do or a goal about what you will have) I fully and completely accept myself"

Now do a round of tapping on the opposite idea - that you can and will make this real.

E.g. "Even though I can (state your goal) and I will (state your goal) I fully and completely accept myself."

Note that at this point you may not know exactly how you are going to achieve your goal. Although planning is important and necessary it is in no way as important as gaining clarity on what you want and getting in touch with the feeling of how it will really be owning it, doing it, having it, and/or being it!

Objections will come up in your mind and your body and it is important to sort these out using EFT. Many of these objections relate to values conflicts. Frequently we have developed false associations towards what we think we might have to do or become in order to achieve our goals. So get these doubts and apprehensions out - preferably onto paper where you can see them - and start to apply EFT to them.

As an example, I had a strong belief that if I became really rich I would become less spiritual. A single-round of tapping on that negative belief statement at Gary Craig's Ultimate Therapist Seminar 6 years ago enabled me to more than double my income in the following year! From that moment on I began to understand the power this process could unleash if we managed to identify the right beliefs to tap on.

Begin to identify your own negative beliefs about what achieving your ultimate goal could lead to, or what it might require you to do or become. Then treat yourself for these beliefs by inserting the belief statements into the set up and also repeating the belief statement at each tapping point. For example, in my case the statement was something like "Even though if I become rich I will be less spiritual..." In recent times, I've discovered some other related beliefs, and tapping on these has created a further shift. Do this process yourself for every negative belief you can identify and be prepared to persist in treating them - Some beliefs are much tougher to shift than others, but each round of tapping you do will move you closer to releasing the emotional attachment.

For a more complete treatment, see if you can identify where in the past you learned these beliefs and associations, and go back over those experiences, treating yourself as you go for any intense memories that come up. Often you will find that to do so leads to a complete restructuring of the early experience, allowing you to see it from a more empowering perspective and creating a profound shift in the related beliefs.

As important as this removing past blocks process is, it's crucial to keep coming back to your goal and mentally and emotionally going there NOW. Don't spend all of your time on wiping out past negatives - Ensure you spend at least equal time associating to new positives.

In my experience, there is at least as much work required in treating your fear of success as there is in treating your fear of failure. If your goal is big enough, thinking of yourself in it (having it, doing it, being it) will bring up some pretty challenging feelings. In treating these fears of success you'll again be targeting EFT at the negatives - however these are the negatives which prevent us from being comfortable with the idea of having or achieving our goal, the tail-enders to our positive affirmations. When we can see ourselves achieving our goal, say it without fear to ourself and others, and feel 100% congruent positive feelings about it, then we can know that the realisation of the goal is a mere formality.

So let's do it again now - describe the territory of success. Write it down, draw it, say it, do whatever you need to do to get that blueprint and start to lay down some new physical (neural) and emotional and energetic pathways. Complete several rounds of tapping on the idea and feeling of being there, doing that, having that, being that kind of person. ("Even though I have this...", "Even though I am this kind of person...", "Even though I have achieved x...") As you tap, mentally step into the future image and focus on it from within the experience looking out, feeling how it will feel when it is real. If you want to repeat something to yourself, have your words be a description of what it looks and feels like being there - what life is like in that future reality - and describe it exactly how you want it to be as you tap on each of the points. As you do so, you'll be treating your attachment to a previous reality in which this goal did not exist, and making it easier for yourself to feel comfortable in a new reality which you are consciously bringing into form.

Eventually, the world always becomes "as you see it". As you treat yourself for seeing the world anew, and as you start to live in that place, the world will quite literally transform before your eyes.

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Validating Your Self

By David Lake

"We do not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious."
--- (C.G.Jung)

This article is about accepting our 'dark side' using paradoxical methods (PET).

Validate means to confirm or corroborate. {Valid: having some foundation, based on truth. The archaic meaning is robust, well (Collins English Dictionary)}. It means affirming a sense of self-personally, and for others.

It is our work on ourselves that makes the difference in relationship with another. This work is the only area in which we have the healthy illusion of control.

We have huge problems in relationship accepting all the human qualities of another but these are insignificant to the struggle in accepting ourselves as we truly are.

Are you accusing your close friends of having poor judgement in liking you?

How can we extend compassion to others if we blame ourselves?

"Nothing human is foreign to me"
--- Oscar Wilde

EFT is for connection: "I accept myself..." Yet I have noticed very consistently that people hesitate when saying the reminder phrase for the first time when this word appears. Obviously a part of them does not accept themselves, as Steve Wells has recently explored in his posts on self-acceptance. They cannot validate their self and being-it would not seem to be real or true-if it includes all the disowned and awful stuff.

This moment of awareness in the EFT session calls for a balanced and practical approach, because I think it represents the problem of human suffering-the underlying contracted, disconnected, life-denying state.

"Well, on the day I was born, God was sick"
--- (poet Cesar Vallejo)

This "dark side" is a paradox. It has its own weird logic. If you say that you do accept-then because this includes the unacceptable parts of you, you are a hypocrite...you must have poor standards and don't try hard enough. If you say that you don't accept -then you are stuck with the hopelessness of being your fault-ridden self, and closing the door to change. It is a double bind of monstrous proportions.

Of course the mind thinks about this in black/white and good/bad terms, but I feel certain that a dark truth is waiting for healing in this situation. Right at the start of learning EFT people encounter their own invalidation. And it fits! In this "relationship" with ourselves we are not together-we are separated.

The resistance is not logical, or rational, or intellectual-it is emotional and part of a negative belief.

Of course we were trained and conditioned over years to think and feel that something was wrong with us-because of our behaviour. "You're a bad boy!" instead of "What you did was bad!"

This is the essential invalidation. "Familiar" comes from the word for family. We hold on to these learnings (and often generalise significant ones to all people) for life in some cases. These are our good and bad "rules". Psychotherapy books written on this subject are a 2-man lift.

Getting rapport with your disowned part

Why are therapists and friends in such a hurry with us to validate the positive, and sidestep or deny the negative? I think the great challenge is in validating the "dark side": recognising what it means, and acknowledging its legitimate presence and linked suffering.

Few people consider that their mistakes are what they can truly call their own! And these are not necessarily "learning experiences" either-just mistakes. A friend of mine says wryly: "I don't know how many more of these learning experiences I can handle..."

We mistakenly conclude that our mistakes and faults should never exist. That they could never be part of wholeness.

When a couple fights in the counselling room, I don't stop them! I merely enquire after a lull if this is the nature of their relationship? I tell them I don't want to interfere with a finely-tuned system that might be working just fine in a way I can't understand. Usually they are evenly matched. Of course the other partner blames them and is impossible to live with. This is the relationship! So, "What's the problem?"

I accept their "fault" while I tacitly encourage them to change. But if they don't or won't-that's life. {Who am I to impose my beliefs about friendship and companionship on a couple who so obviously are saving two other people from such relationship misery?}

The first key to change is awareness.

"The FOCUSING approach with it's total acceptance of everything, no judgment, no fixing, but BEING PRESENT to everything that comes is the crucial factor for me, and that's what I try to bring to my clients"
--- (Christel Kraft)

Most suffering in relationship is caused by the triggering of toxic feelings of disconnection. Where is it written that those we love will never hurt us? It happens. We cause it to others too.

People hate being criticized-especially in relationship- because this intrudes into their existing self-doubt at once.

The second key is allowing the awareness to be.

We can say "yes" to this part of our being instead of "no" to the trauma it represents (thanks to Tapas Fleming for the beginning of this idea). This does not mean agreement, or capitulation.

We bring it out into this light-the front of the thought field-where it withers. Only secrecy, fear, shame and hurt will feed it. There is the universal fear that our dark side will prevail-will drown us. With the thoughtful and persistent use of EFT I have never seen this happen.

The third key is using EFT to sneak up on your dark side

This is like using psychological aikido. Fancy being cheerful with all those faults...

"I'm not OK and you're not OK-but, hey, that's OK!"
--- (Mafia Self-Help Manual)

In the clinical work Steve Wells and I have been doing, to "stimulate" negative beliefs with humour and paradox (while assiduously using EFT), we have noticed disproportionate benefits and results, particularly the relief from a subtle pressure to think in only one way (i.e. positive) about the world, and a delightful irony in attitude-the very opposite of cynicism-which manifests as a healthy respect for personal faults and limitations. This leads toward self-reconciliation and wholeness.

"I'm a work in progress", said one bemused workshopper.

General EFT

Sometimes you can approach the main event directly, using EFT (with the reminder phrase underlined):

"I accept myself with all my faults and failings"

"I accept myself even though I don't accept myself
"I accept myself even though nothing works out"
"I know I'm not good enough even if others say I am"

Reworking The Problem

I use the set-up in EFT for the creative reworking of the problem, followed by interweaving paradoxical suggestions-as variations on a theme-while tapping the points.

"Even if I am a slow learner...looking through rose-coloured glasses...stumbling down the road of life..."

"It wasn't me-it was my evil identical twin who did it"

Exaggeration & Irony

In a light-hearted way I use the words awful, terrible and horrible as adjectives to 'pile up the problem' and seemingly turn a molehill into a mountain.

"Although I have such an awful partner...really terrible to me...I'm doing my best"

"It's probably too hard for me to get over this...

"This could be worse than I thought..."

"The first 40 years is the hardest..."

The paradoxical approach to the paradoxical problem

"Even though I can't accept myself, I accept that I cannot accept myself, and at least I can accept I can't accept myself."
--- Dr Alexander Lees (EFT Contributing Editor) {D.L. This is brilliant phrasing-I wish I had thought of this.}

This statement shows the truth and validation of allowing the negative and the positive to co-exist. There is a difference between being balanced and being perfect

"I blame myself for wanting to blame myself-which I'm not doing"

"I'm the only one allowed to talk to me like that!"

Re husbands:

"He may not be much-but he's mine!"
--- (Frank Farrelly)

Polarity phrasing

I suggest you take advantage of the way the mind works by stating the negative ideas you perceive, and adding in the positive opposite, when using EFT paradoxically:

Reminder Phrase: "I don't accept myself at all...for lots of reasons...but I do!"

Or the other way round (positive to negative):

Reminder Phrase: "I'm a really good person...kind to animals...but not myself!"

Alternate tapping on opposites

First point:	"I'm a good person"
Second Point:	"Not all the time"
Third Point:	"I do my best"
Fourth Point:	"Which isn't really good enough"
Fifth Point	" But I keep going" ... etc

The negative

This phrasing consistently brings up the negative directly, or the positive you wish for (and can't seem to have) and I find gives "leverage" in EFT. I place a large emphasis on the negative statements in the context of working with someone, and doing a great deal of tapping on the associations and experiences that arise. For the client I "speak the unspeakable" and "think the unthinkable" (from the tenets of Provocative Therapy) if I have excellent rapport. The effect of stimulating the negative is intense and constructive-the paradoxical miracle of the energy therapies. I prefer continual tapping on several accessible points when working in this way.

So often there are no words, but much hurt feeling, from lack of validation in the past. Work with this in the body (e.g. "this stomach emotion") if you can discover it ("Where do you imagine this might be in your body if you had to name a place?"), and if it is easier that way.

Memories, experiences and impressions are linked to these core beliefs: use EFT persistently with them all to be thorough. Healing the effects of certain incidents can be life-changing! Although I think the effects of the life-denying part of any person can never be completely eliminated, with the right approach they shall not dominate. It's lonely being your own therapist, so if you find you are climbing a personal Mt Everest-get some help.

Larry Nims says that, according to our training, conditioning and early life experiences, we are "doing the best we can". EFT and the energy therapies have the potential to distort and shatter our invalidating perceptions permanently.

EFT is for discovering your true self.

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Tap and be rich

By Steve Wells

"Riches begin with a state of mind, with definiteness of purpose, with little or no hard work. You and every other person ought to be interested in knowing how to acquire that state of mind which will attract riches."
- Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich

EFT and Simple Energy Techniques (SET) can help us to acquire this state of mind, to overcome our own internal barriers to becoming rich and to realize the abundant riches that exist within us and around us. In this post I would like to discuss some of the ways I have learned to apply EFT and SET to overcome emotional barriers to financial success and prosperity. Although I know I am still in third grade in terms of my progress in this area, my mentor Frank Farrelly taught me that those in third grade can help those in the lower grades. So if you feel you are in lower elementary school or even kindergarten in terms of your financial development and success, you will very likely benefit from this post.

The starting point for this work is to identify any negative and blocking beliefs you have about riches and do some tapping on those beliefs. The easiest way to do this is to simply insert the belief statement into the set-up statement and then repeat that belief statement mentally or out loud as you tap on each of the EFT points.

Way back in February 1998 at Gary Craig's Ultimate Therapist workshop, Gary took us through some general tapping on financial blocks. I volunteered one of mine at that time, which was that I felt I would be unspiritual if I were to become rich. Just a few rounds of tapping on that belief in the seminar and a bit of follow up tapping later, and I was able to double my income in the next year. That's how helpful identifying and tapping on a specific blocking belief can be.

Since that time the ongoing work I've done with EFT and SET has enabled me to continue to increase my income every year, to both spendand save, to both save and invest, and more importantly to realize the true riches I am surrounded by every day (such as the love of my family), and the wealth that resides within me. Most importantly, I've come to see my finances in perspective as only a small part of my true wealth.

Along the way, I've realized that the issues I was having with money also reflected how I approached many areas in my life, which was with a sense of scarcity and lack. My feelings of not having enough and not being (good) enough permeated every aspect of my being. Now, a few years and many rounds of tapping down the track, I realize that everything I really need I already have (thanks Roy McDonald).

Here are some of the more important things I've learned about how to apply EFT and SET to resolve financial blocks:

The information on how to become financially rich is freely available in books, seminars, tapes, and people who have been there and done that who will freely share this information (and some who will share it for a fee). The challenge is taking advantage of this information, being able to accept it, assimilate it and act upon it. While your mind/body is full of blocking beliefs around money and financial success it won't matter how much information you cram into it, you won't be able to translate that into action because the emotionally connected blocks will drive it away - or get in the way of your being able to even see how it can manifest in your life.

In my experience, the reason most people don't attract riches is because they have both a positive and a negative associated to the idea of being rich, and/or to the process of becoming rich - and this negative association has a repellant effect which manifests as self-sabotage, procrastination and inertia!

When treating the belief barriers which are behind our lack of progress, it will often be necessary to identify specific events where we learned these beliefs and apply EFT/SET to those memories. When we do so, tapping often allows us to reprocess those memories, allowing us to move beyond the original association and towards more expansive ways of thinking and being. When we release the blocks that are holding us back, energy is freely available, and our progress towards our goals undergoes an incredible acceleration.

In my workshops and in my one-on-one sessions with clients I like to work on several different types of beliefs. Three that are relevant to this discussion are:

1. Specific beliefs, in this case beliefs around money and financial success.

2. Identity beliefs, which are your beliefs about yourself, what you are capable of, and what you feel you deserve based on who you think (know) you are.

3. Values beliefs, which are your beliefs about what is most important to have, do, be and experience in life.

To significantly improve your progress in the financial area, I strongly suggest you start by identifying the specific beliefs you currently have about financial success and abundance. The following steps will be useful:

• Identify your significant childhood experiences around money and what you learned from them (Many of these now inform your current money beliefs).

• Identify all the things your parents and significant others said about money that affected you, and all the things that you observed them doing (These have also influenced your current beliefs around money)

Once you have identified these beliefs and memories, you can go through a two-step process. Firstly, apply EFT/SET to the things you were taught about money by repeating the belief statement or simply remembering what was said/taught as you tap on each of the EFT/SET points. Secondly, go back through the memory of each of the key experiences, and apply EFT to any intense parts of those memories, using the "Run the Movie" or "Tell the story" technique. This very simple but powerfully effective technique is outlined on Gary Craig's website at:http://www.emofree.com/tutorial/tutorltwelve.htm)

An example from my own life was the statement "Money doesn't grow on trees" which I recalled being said often by my parents in exasperation when I asked for things. After tapping repeatedly on this statement and the memory of my parents saying it (and in particular the way they often said it!), my beliefs shifted such that I now believe money is freely available to me, that by generating money-making ideas I am willing to act upon I can ultimately have as much money as I want, and Ican also grow as many money trees as I want by planting money that I earn to invest to grow more money.

When I began this work, I noticed that whenever I thought about money I came up with feelings of lack and not having enough. When I looked at where these feelings came from, they were rooted in past experiences of not feeling loved, of not feeling like there was enough of most things, including food, such that I never felt full - and which lead to (among other things) stuffing myself with food whenever it was available, and spending all the money I earned as soon as I earned it. My memories of money were that money was easily spent and there was never enough to go around. One specific memory that came up was of my sister and I having to raid our (almost empty) money boxes so that Mum would have enough money to take us into town on the bus. Tapping on memories such as this and in particular on the feeling of lack which accompanied them has enabled me to now feel (and be) less needy, more satisfied with the life I have and the life I had, less worried about my money and finances, far less anxious generally, and overall much happier being in my own skin.

Identity Beliefs

Once you have identified and treated your own specific beliefs about money and finances, another important type of belief to work on is your identity beliefs. These are your beliefs about yourself which usually begin with "I am..." and "I am not..." Social Psychologist Robert Cialdini says, "The strongest need in the human personality is our need to act consistently with how we define ourselves." This is why your identity beliefs are such an important area to change if you want to effect positive change in your life. You can do a lot of work on your specific beliefs about money but if you believe that you are "undeserving" or "lazy" or "a stupid person" or worse, then you'll continue to unconsciously sabotage any progress you make and continue to feel miserable.

The challenge with our beliefs is that some of them are unconscious and we may ultimately need to work with others to identify and deal with them, however for those identity beliefs that you can identify, simply treat them in the same manner as outlined above for specific beliefs. That is, apply EFT/SET to the identity belief itself (eg "I am stupid"), and to those specific events where you learned this belief, in particular to the emotionally intense parts of the memories which support the belief.

Values

Another big area to work on is your values beliefs. These are your beliefs about importance, and this is one of the key areas I work on in my peak performance workshops, because your values ultimately control your decision making process. A conflict between two values (such as security versus freedom) will leave you constantly pulled this way and that. In my experience, everyone has these internal conflicts. Churchill called it "internal civil war".

In working on my own values issues I uncovered a core belief that I would lose my family if I became successful, and also identified a conflict I had between my wanting to make a difference in the world and wanting to be present for my family. I have previously written about how I applied EFT to these values conflicts and the process I used for resolving seemingly irreconcilable differences such as these - To read about this, please visit part 2 of that article at:http://www.emofree.com/articles/peak-performance-series.htm

After you have done some important work on clearing your blocking beliefs and internal conflicts around abundance and success, your ability to clearly define what you really want, and to manifest what you truly desire will be much stronger. In tandem with the process of clearing your internal blocks and belief barriers, I recommend you use EFT/SET to connect with your goals and manifest success. Before I explain how to go about this however, I want to caution you against a tendency I see for people to "rush to the positive". Beware. Leaving the negative beliefs untreated only means these same negative emotional attachments may rise up to "bite" you at a later time. Make sure you continue to work on applying EFT to these negative beliefs, associations and memories until you can go back to them and they no longer have the same power over you. Typically, as you apply EFT/SET to the negative beliefs, more positive beliefs and feelings arise naturally, without prompting.

It is worth putting in the time for this work - and again you may need to do so with someone else, particularly if your tendency is to avoid doing work which may be painful (Not saying it has to be, just that this is our perception). We have been taught to "look on the bright side" and we want to be as positive as we know we should be... However... I strongly advise against doing such a bypass. At least initially I recommend that you conduct separate sessions of tapping on negative belief blocks and alternate sessions where you tap for positive creation and manifestation.

Positive Creation

The process of moving to positive creation is quite simple. Let me illustrate with an example. I recently worked with a business owner who expressed a desire to make $40 million. This goal may seem ridiculously high for some, however there are many business owners who have achieved this goal and many who are well on the way to achieving it. That it can be achieved in the world with the right business plan and application is not in question. Whether this gentleman will be able to achieve that and manifest that sort of value is the only question - In fact the main question for him to answer is "How?" not "whether?"... Not knowing how stops many people but not as many as not knowing whether, believing that they might not be able to do this. This is where I started with this gentleman, having him tap on the belief that he couldn't do this, didn't deserve this, that it would be too hard for him to achieve this, all beliefs that held him back. Once we had created some shifts in these negative beliefs, we moved to the manifestation process.

What I had him do next was to visualize having already achieved the goal and being inside the picture of success experiencing the feelings of having achieved it, and to simply tap on the EFT points while he did so. After doing this for just a little while he was astounded when he suddenly felt a flash of realization that it could actually happen, for a few brief moments he was able to connect with how it would really feel being there and having manifested that. Having felt this success he accessed a great deal of energy and began to get many good ideas on how he could take action to facilitate progress towards his ultimate goal from his current position.

This is a simple process I call connecting with success. In the moment that you connect with the feeling of having already achieved your goal, you realize that success is possible, and in that instant it actually starts to manifest in your life. The more you do this and the more often you do this, the stronger the attractive process becomes. The tapping helps to settle down the barriers and blocks to believing in the positive possibility. And often, just tapping whilst holding the intention in mind is all that is required to get into this state...

As we progress towards the goal - and for many people at the moment of setting a goal - tapping on blocking beliefs will continue to be required. Some people have a huge amount of trouble visualizing success and putting themselves in the picture. The resistance and the objections that arise when we try to do this then become the target for our ongoing EFT/SET work. As we continually tap on and progressively release these attachments, we begin to feel freer to allow our own abundance to manifest in the world. And ultimately, EFT and SET become tools we can use to help us manifest our positive intentions.

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