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So, you have anxiety. You use EFT on the anxiety over and over again, and it keeps returning. Is EFT not working, or is there something else going on?
Consider this: would it make sense for your inner guidance to leave you feeling relaxed if you were headed the wrong way, away from where you really intend to go? If your answer is, “I’d prefer to know I was headed in the wrong direction,” let’s look at how you might discern between body sensations that are guiding you and emotions that are disruptions in your energy system that you can soothe with EFT.
When Feeling Anxiety
First, allow yourself to pause for a moment. If you are going in the right direction, a short pause to rest can refresh you. If you are headed in the wrong direction, pausing will help you get your bearings. The best way I have found to “pause” is simply to breathe mindfully for a few minutes. “Breathing in, I calm my body. Breathing out, I smile.” Slow, deep breaths. You might tap the acupoints while you breathe, particularly the collarbone points. (Listen also to the audio Anxiety Constricted Breathing for some other tips).
Next, tune into your body. What part of you is speaking up with tension or alarm? Do a round or two of EFT on this sensation and the word that best describes the emotion (e.g., fear, terror, impatience, frustration, overwhelm, or just pressure). Here are some example EFT setup statements. Remember, there are no wrong words.
“Even though I feel this overwhelm in my throat, I choose to be calm and relaxed anyway.”
“Even though I feel this wrenching tightness in my gut, I’ve decided to be cool and comfortable.”
“Even though I am scared to death in my heart, I deeply and completely accept all of my feelings.”
The intensity of the anxiety will typically lessen with some tapping. That’s good! The noise of anxiety makes it difficult to hear our intuition.
Tuning Into Intuition
Now, the interesting part. We are going to ask your body (not your head) whether this is a fear energy from past experience or a guidance sensation in the present. You may find it helpful to put your left hand over your heart. Then ask in a way that feels best to you:
“Is this feeling coming from a memory of a past experience? And if so, what does it remind me of?”
If the answer is yes, a past experience, you will usually get a vision, thought, or clear body sensation that opens the door to this disruption of your energy system… the one that is causing unhelpful anxiety. Make note of what your body tells you! You will want to use EFT on these specific events. By doing so, you will find fewer and fewer situations trigger anxiety tied to past events.
If the answer is no (it’s not a past event), ask your heart, your center, your inner being, your divine guidance:
“If this feeling is re-directing me, how can I change from my current direction towards one that will give me some relief?”
That works if you are in a pretty calm state. Most of us plead a bit more directly when we’re still full of anxiety: “God, PLEASE help me see this differently!!” And God will.
Forks in the Road
My sense is that we’re not supposed to feel calm and confident if we’re focusing our intention in ways that are not helpful or consistent with Who We Really Are. For example, let’s say you’ve started a new project. Many aspects are coming together miraculously. Then, when you’re tired (or a bill arrives), you have the thought: “This is taking too long! I need to work harder!”
Bang! Anxiety arrives. Like a flashing red light with a siren on top, it is saying to you, “Whoa! This is evolving beautifully. Working HARDER and driving yourself FASTER are not only not going to help, you’ll end up in the ditch. Pause. Relax. Allow.”
In this example, your thoughts took a fork in the road that brought the pain of anxiety. However, what I see is that sometimes, people will use EFT with the hope of having it help them drive harder and faster when their inner guidance is in no such rush! If they don’t get results, they are misinterpreting the message. Understandable, isn’t it? Most of us were not raised to trust inner wisdom and be free to follow it. It’s a new skill (and one worth mastering).
This is where coaching is so handy. When I am listening to a client, the “missed turn” in the road is SO clear to me! You can hear it and feel it, too.
“I’m really excited about this project. So many people are just showing up at the perfect time. My ideas keep getting clearer. It seems to be going so well.” (Can you feel how this is the right road?)
“But the money is getting tight.” (Ooops, wrong turn.) “My Dad says if I don’t start selling soon, I’ll be broke.” (Feeling worse, another wrong turn.) “I am not sure what to do now.” (Opportunity to pause. Will he take it?) “I just don’t think this going to happen. Things never work out for me!” (In the ditch. Call the tow truck.)
Guidance speaks through our emotions! Negative emotions are not, in my opinion, a disruption that is without intelligence. In this example, if the person was sensitive to the connection between Thought and body sensations, as soon as he focused on, “But the money is getting tight” and felt the anxiety, he’d make a U-turn to a thought that felt better. It’s that simple.
And It’s NOT Simple….
…because for most of our lives, we’ve had fear used as a stick to get us to do what someone else wanted. And we’ve picked up the stick and whack ourselves when we feel the need to be motivated to act “so something bad doesn’t happen.” Such negative focus really, truly causes dis-ease in the body. We get so upside down and inside out that true guidance is mistaken for fear and fear is mistaken for guidance.
That is why I teach, “There is nothing more important than that you feel good.” Without a practical and consistent connection to personal inner guidance, we are lost without the map. Because… my map isn’t your map. My entire focus as an emotional freedom coach is to guide you to guidance… to teach you how to discern inner wisdom from inner criticism by how it feels to you… and to learn through experience that YOU know what is best for YOU right now… so you can Thrive… right NOW.