In the future, we will offer a series of videos featuring Paula guiding you through the process of the basic EFT instructions and later other key tapping themes. Due to certain priorities at present she requests you in the meantime to avail yourself of the many free illustrated instructions online and also Stacey Vornbrock’s site breakthroughperformance.net Or Click here for simple verbal instructions at the bottom of the page.
Strange as it may seem, one of the most powerful human addictions is to emotional suffering. When you consider that the ego’s habit patterns of suffering are what incarnate in each body life after life, in the form of our mental clinging to all of our incomplete desires and the previous experiences we have resisted, (which act to magnetize the same sort of experiences in this life until we transcend them), it becomes easier to understand why we tend to attract the same mistakes over and over again.
Due to our automatic resistance to suffering, it tends to persist. We have lived with emotional suffering for so long, it has become almost like a second skin, and for most people it has become a part of their character and it is difficult for many to consider being without it.
The truth is, suffering makes the ego feel alive, and even though in reality, the ego is an imaginary conglomeration of a number of thoughts of who you think you are, and thus has no real substance. As a mere thought, which has gained tremendous power due to our belief in it over time and space, you could almost say that each one of us is possessed by our ego and its own unique proclivities. In other words, the ego (or our attachment to it),holds a far more dangerous hold over the mind than any “ghostly” possession ever could.
Although it is true that we resist suffering on a surface level as we try to make our life comfortable and go after goals that we think will make us happy, underneath it all, our ego secretly craves whatever suffering pattern we have become addicted to, and as we will explore further on, our body even becomes chemically addicted to it. .
Our biggest resistance is actually to bliss (because the ego is not present when we are in this state). The ego will do anything to stay in control, and any form of suffering will support this control. Bliss puts us in touch with the awesomeness, the unlimitedness of who we truly are: the emptiness and simultaneous fullness of awareness itself. But to the ego, this is quite scary….and ultimately unacceptable.
Suffering takes on different appearances in different people. Sometimes it is very subtle. The one common denominator in all people however, is identification with some form of negative emotion. In Gnana Yoga, we learn how to dissipate this with simple noticing. Sometimes however, with strong patterns of negative emotions which arise due to karmic circumstances it is difficult to let them go.
Some years ago, I attended an EFT conference on line. The jewel of the conference for me, was the insight provided by Stacey Vornbrock, an EFT practitioner who specializes with helping athletes increase sports performance. Stacey discovered certain scientific studies which show how when human beings are confronted with a difficult situation which evokes a repeated negative emotional reaction, this creates in the body an actual physical craving for the chemical produced by that emotion. This gives us a clue as to why it is the emotion which needs to be tapped, sometimes even more than the particular issue which set it off.
As Stacey points out in her interview on line, we actually develop a cellular addiction to repeated emotions. It seems that after enough repetition of a particular emotion, our cell receptors adapt and begin to crave the same chemical of the emotion, especially the negative ones like anger, fear and guilt.
The body has fifty to one hundred trillion cells. Each cell can have up to one million receptors. You can almost imagine that with repetitive emotions, these become like mini drug addicts in our body. As different circumstances occur in our life, which evoke certain emotional reactions to repeat themselves, the cell receptors become addicted to the specific chemicals of the emotions which are provoked.
People you know who are always angry, who are always consumed with some victim complex, are suffering from this kind of addiction. When you tap on the particular addiction, you begin to increase the time span when you are free of these emotions.
Tapping on the actual addiction to the emotion, rather than the issue which first evoked it (you can do this later), is paramount, because the body will actually find a way to have your brain fire off negative thoughts so that the body then reacts and produces the corresponding chemical so that it gets its “fix”. In other words, the cells in your body will cause the brain to fire off neuronets of negative thoughts which will in turn release the negative emotion so that the body gets its chemical high.
From this you can see the critical importance that you recognize that it is the physical addiction to the emotion which must be tapped to interrupt the process, not only the specific issue causing the negative emotion.
Because of this crucial insight, I am inspired to feature the following slightly edited version of Stacey’s EFT rundowns on anger, the fear to taking action in regard to the anger and the often hidden hurt behind the anger.
Karate Chop Point:Even though my cells are addicted to the chemical of anger, and I can’t get enough of this chemical, I totally and completely accept myself. Even though my cells are addicted to the chemical of anger and I have to have my fix of anger on a regular basis, I totally and completely accept myself. Even though my cells are addicted to the chemical of anger, every cell is addicted and my body feels uncomfortable if I don’t get a regular fix of anger, and even so, I totally and completely accept myself.
Take a deep breath and exhale slowly...
Karate Chop: Even though my anger is trying to tell me to take action, and it is safer to stay angry than take action, I totally and completely accept myself. Even though it is easier to stay angry at this person, than take the action I need to take, I totally and completely accept myself. Even though my anger is trying to tell me to take action, and I keep ignoring it, because I don’t want to confront change, I totally and completely accept myself.
Take a deep breath and exhale slowly...
Clearing the Hurt (Behind Anger) This next rundown can also be used with fear and projected anger by changing the wording appropriately. For hurt: Karate Chop: Even though I’m really hurt but I don’t want to admit it, I totally and completely accept myself. Even though I’m feeling so hurt but I don’t want to
Take a deep breath and exhale slowly...