The cause of all negative emotions is a disruption in the body’s energy system — Gary Craig

When I was teaching my last EFT Fundamentals seminar and sharing this definition with the students, it got me wondering about how we might describe positive emotions with respect to our energy system. It is one thing to remove a “disruption in our energy system” to clear a negative emotion but what does our energy system have to do with positive emotions?

I posted this question for discussion on the EFT Community Forums and also on Facebook to see what others thought about this seeming limitation with the EFT Discovery statement to describe how positive emotions are experienced.

Some of the responses suggest that we could tap in positive emotions after we had cleared the negative which I certainly have found is true (see Dr. Patricia Carrington’s Choices Method). But this did not give me an explanation for what caused the positive emotions in the first place.

Others suggested that the only requirement to feel positive emotions was to clear all negative emotions, all disruptions in our energy system, and then we would naturally feel positive emotions. This highlighted an assumption of mine which is that there is something extra we need to do to feel good beyond just clearing all the negative stuff.

Getting closer to what I wanted, which is a working definition that I can use to explain both positive and negative emotions, was the idea that we feel negative emotions when our energies aren’t flowing well and feel positive emotions when our energies flow freely. So positive emotions could be explained as free flowing energies.

So can you suggest a replacement for the EFT Discovery Statement which explains both positive and negative emotions? Maybe EFT is the best tool for clearing negative emotions, events, and experiences, but others tools are more suited to create positive emotions. Share your thoughts in the comments.Related Posts:

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And some of us, me included, bottle it up until it bursts out like a volcano surprising everyone around us with the intensity because we had not even given a hint that anything was wrong.

I’m going to focus on the last pattern as this is one that I can speak about from personal experience. As a child, I had been labelled as having “a bad temper” at times but, if I accept this label, then I give away my responsibility for control of my behaviour. We are not the victim of our emotions. There are patterns to every emotion that, if we can identify them, we can interrupt the pattern and change our behaviour before it causes the damage we so fear.

So how does your pattern of anger develop?

I delivered an outburst of anger one evening with my family that stunned everyone. But it wasn’t as instantaneous as it may have seemed. The anger had been brewing throughout the day from one incident early in the day which annoyed me. Another a little later on that added to the fire. And from then on I was looking for an excuse to unload at the slightest further provocation. So when I received one further barb, an oh so minor one, I unloaded with full power that was equivalent to swatting a fly with a barbell.

Had I taken the time to apply EFT at the first perceived slight and got deep into and under the anger then I may have been able to voice my concerns with out the associated outburst.

Here I present a longer EFT script that I hope will help you as it did me to change your anger pattern. I spent at least half an hour using the various parts of this to work on my anger pattern.

First you need to start with how you feel in yourself about the anger. Start and continue tapping on the EFT tapping points while saying the phrases:

Continue to tap for a few rounds to cover everything you feel and say about and to yourself about how you behaved.

Now we will use EFT to work on the pattern around the anger.

Noticing how your anger builds helps unravel the mystery of full blown explosions that nobody sees coming. You then have the ability to notice what is triggering your anger and clear those individual triggers. Maybe it’s a tone of voice or a look you receive which starts to get you angry. So do some tapping on the trigger e.g.

There may be more than one trigger to your anger so continue to tap on each trigger that contributes to your anger pattern.

You may still have shame, guilt, and regret about what happened so here is a final round to do some more clearing.

We cannot deny our emotions as they are part of what makes us human but we can change the patterns, triggers and ways that we express them.Related Posts:

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Money Beyond Belief

Brad Yates has created an outstanding audio program called Money Beyond Belief. Brad takes you though clearing all your existing limiting beliefs about money, even if you don’t know what they are, and then helps you raise your level of vibration to attract wealth and abundance into your life. He also offers programs on Success Beyond Belief, Body Beyond Belief, and Love Beyond Belief. Subscribing to Brad’s newsletter is definitely worthwhile.

While the web site is heavy on marketing hype, the product does live up to it and is still at an amazing price of US$49 and a 100% money back guarantee.

Money Beyond Belief

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The six human needs identified by Robbins are:

Need #1 Certainty/Comfort

This is the ability to produce, eliminate, or avoid stress; or create, increase, or intensify pleasure. It’s also about security and survival. To know what’s going to happen.

Need #2 Uncertainty/Variety

The need to experience diversity, excitement, differences, challenge. Notice how this is the opposite of Need #1 and contributes to our sometimes paradoxical behaviour e.g. People with too much certainty and no variety in their relationships may look outside the relationship for it.

Need #3 Significance

This is the need to experience a sense of being needed, feeling important, sense of meaning, sense of purpose, uniqueness, etc.

Need #4 Connection/Love

The feeling of bonding, oneness with something, sharing, intimacy, feeling a part of something, having a sense of meaning. Again this need seems to be a paradox to Need #3.

The following two needs are pursued when the first 4 are being met at some level. These needs are:

Need #5 Growth

The need to improve our lives, become more of who we are, to learn something new, to build something.

Need #6 Contribution

To make a difference beyond ourselves; to leave a legacy, to help others.

We all meet these needs by using different vehicles. Some of these vehicles are empowering such as meeting our needs for significance and love and connection by helping others. Other vehicles are disempowering such as drugs and alcohol.

Now think about a serious disease in terms of meeting these 6 Human Needs. With a long-term serious disease the person is certain of what they can and can’t do. They are certain of how people will treat them. They are certain of how most of each day will continue. They are certain of the progress of the disease because an authority figure, a doctor/specialist, told them what would happen.

Serious diseases, especially ones with long hard to understand names, meet the need for significance. People get treated special if they have a significant problem. The amount of specialists and doctors they have seen who haven’t been able to fix the problem makes it even more significant. They can tell everyone that they have this significant disease and get a feeling of importance from this. They also get variety by visiting the different specialist and doctors for yet another opinion or treatment.

Then there is love and connection. Basically, with a serious disease, they get connection or the poor substitute for it, that of pity from people. They will always be able to connect with others who have this disease in support groups.

Anthony Robbins defines something as an addiction if it meets 3 or more of the 6 Human Needs. As outlined above a serious disease may do this. Because the serious disease is the only vehicle the patient currently has for getting their needs met they will not persist with any form of treatment which would remove or reduce the disease.

So how can we use EFT to handle these aspects? After handling any emotional source for the disease, be it stress, a relationship, grief etc. we can look at each of the 6 Human Needs. For the need for certainty, the setup phrase might be:

• Even though the Doctors are certain there is no cure for this disease, I choose to be whole, healthy and healed.
• Even though I’m certain my condition will only worsen, I choose to be open to my health improving somehow.
• Even though I am certain that I’ll always have this condition, I deeply love and accept myself.

You might also ask questions such as “What about this disease are you sure of?” and then clear these responses.

For the need for significance, this would have to be explored with rapport and in some cases maybe some humor mixed in:

• Even though I like the way I get special attention because of this disease, I deeply love and accept that I’m special even without this disease.
• Even though none of the doctors I’ve seen can figure out what is wrong with me, I choose to be whole, healthy and healed.
• Even though I’ve stumped the whole of Western Medicine with this condition, I deeply love and accept myself.

You might also ask questions such as: “What about this disease makes you feel important?”

And, for love and connection, again this would have to be approached with rapport and caring. Setup phrases such as:

• Even though my family might not take care of me if I was fit and strong, I deeply love and accept myself.
• Even though I’d miss going to the support group each week, I love and accept that I can make even more friends.
• Even though nobody would care for me if I didn’t have this disease, I deeply love and accept myself.

After handling these aspects, there may be some lingering guilt for being a burden on others so watch out for this and include phrases such as:

• Even though I’ve been a burden on my family for all these years, I am deeply grateful for their love, I completely forgive myself and I choose to get on with my life.

Remember, we all have and meet these needs but we do have a choice how we meet them. Applying EFT to the way serious issues meet our needs frees us up to find new more empowering ways to meet these needs.

Originally published in Gary Craig’s EFT Insights Newsletter.
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