So Much Happier Blog
The Way, Way Back
“We will be more successful in all our endeavors if we can let go of the habit of running all the time, and take little pauses to relax and re-center ourselves. And we’ll also have a lot more joy in living.”
Last week we looked at how much we tend to avoid how we actually feel at any point in time, how this tends to create a life of stress and panic, and what we can start doing to turn that around. It’s true that learning to notice the signals from our bodies and emotions, and building nuanced language skills to describe them specifically, are building blocks in creating a happier, more peaceful experience. And these skills will serve us well for a lifetime in dealing with what’s happening in our internal worlds. This week, I want to add a dimension to the discussion that makes things more complicated, but also increases our chances of success in getting to that happier place.
Being able to tune into how you feel and work with it is tremendously helpful in empowering you to live a better day-to-day experience. On the other hand, Gary Craig, the founder of EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques), used to say, “The problem is never the problem.” In other words, the reason we react the way we do to current events in our lives usually goes back much farther than the event we’re dealing with now, usually to old patterns and traumas, sometimes from the very distant past. Being able to do something about those, then, is like finding the map to where all the treasure is buried!
Lucky for us, Tapping has been shown through both extensive use and scientific studies to be effective in dealing with old traumas as well as beliefs that result from patterns of experience. These are two areas in which it is generally most difficult for people to create lasting change. Before I mention some ideas on how to work at this deeper level, please note that big traumas are not generally something you should tackle on your own. Though Tapping can be used as a self-help tool in many cases, if something feels too big or scary for you to confront on your own, then don’t! Get help, and you’ll get faster, more comfortable results, feel supported, and deepen your skills with Tapping as you go.
If you find that you’re Tapping on something that isn’t reducing past a certain point, or that you seem to be working on very similar things over and over, chances are that you need to look to previous events for the foundation of your current problem. Here are some approaches that may help:
When you’re clear on your current issue, and you’ve gotten specific about the associated emotions you’re experiencing and how your body feels in response to those, ask yourself one of these questions:
What does this remind me of?
Who does this remind me of?
When have I felt this specific mix of emotions and sensations before? (If it’s all very familiar, when was the first time you can remember feeling like this, or the worst time?)
What does this seem like a metaphor for (as in, if your neck hurts, what in your life is a pain in the neck?)
In asking these questions, you may find more layers of your issue becoming clear to you. If you do realize new connections, your next step will be to Tap on the original event/cause and all the little pieces of your memory that bother you. These might be sounds, images, smells, words that were said, decisions you made about life as a result, or beliefs you took away from the event, as well as many other aspects. Try working on each aspect of what comes up for you one at a time until how you feel about it plummets in intensity, and when it doesn’t bother you much anymore, move on to the next. By targeting the root causes of your current issues this way with patience and attention to detail, you have a much better chance of feeling better about where you are in the present.
As you go about this kind of work, remember that we all have many, many distressing memories of varying intensity left over from past experiences, so you’re not going to clean them all up in a day! Even if what you’re working on feels thoroughly manageable, don’t go overboard and push yourself to take on too much all at once. We all have at least hundreds of unpleasant recollections that would probably benefit from Tapping. With the time you have, work with whatever seems most appropriate in the moment, celebrate whatever gains you’ve made in how you feel about the past, including any helpful realizations you’ve had, and come back to the rest at a later date. Any progress you can get to is valuable. If you get a sense that you’ve done enough for the day, or that today is not the right time to work on something specific, honor that intuition and make a note to come back to it later. It’s also helpful to keep notes on what you’ve worked on, since it’s easy to forget, and having a record is a way to be able to look back and appreciate yourself for all the good work you’ve done.
The more you address older patterns and root causes of why you feel and react the way you do, the more you’ll find that you can maintain a sense of calm as you go through your life, which will always include daily ups and downs. It’s hard to communicate just how much of a difference doing this kind of work can make over time, but if you give it a try, you’ll quickly start to see what I mean. Having the courage to get real about how you really feel and do something about it can be a challenge at first, but you will also find that as you practice, it becomes a tremendous relief to know that you have the opportunity to bring improvement to your emotional world, and to feel that happening every time you spend a few minutes Tapping.