The unseen, inner intelligence that keeps our heart beating is the same intelligence that can restore our health—even if that restoration will take a miracle. But this is not an intelligence that can be forced. It defies our attempts to “fix” and cut corners. In the years that I’ve observed the healing process in myself and in others, I’ve noticed that true healing appears to be a process of allowing.
When we’ve reached a state of readiness to “do what needs to be done,” we often feel impatient. We want to feel good; we really do! But the distance between where we are and where we want to be seems long… too long. We’re sometimes not sure we still have the energy to do it. I’ve been there. It’s both a great place to be and the worst place to be. It’s great because we feel flashes of hope. It is the worst because we still have all the doubts, fears, frustrations, and self-criticism. And we don’t want to fail again. Yet, even with all those fears, it’s an important milestone when we reach the threshhold where we are ready to take effective, persistent action. And one of those actions is to learn the art of allowing.
If you listen to your body, you can learn to notice how really, truly good it can feel… even while you still carry the “label” of your dis-ease. For example, after a session of EFT you might feel peace for three whole minutes! If you have not felt inner peace for many years, three minutes of peace is a BIG DEAL! It should be celebrated! Poems written about it. Family and friends should throw you a party!
Allow yourself to enjoy feeling good! But the feeling will pass. And the habits of thought and mental focus that got you into a desperate place will return and cause pain again. That’s okay! You are learning. You are building emotional resilience. And if you can allow yourself the time to learn the skills of emotional self-management, and let go of your need for immediate, total relief, you will find that the road back to optimal health can be one of the most memorable and inspirational times in your life.
But how do you manage the “down times?” The healing process is not linear, straight to heaven. There will be emotional high and low cycles. (Some people whose cycles are particularly intense might even be labeled “bi-polar.”) As an energy coach, labels don’t mean much to me, and ups and downs are a natural part of life. I work to focus your attention on using EFT on emotions that feel bad, and help you use positive choices and appreciation to focus on allowing YOU to feel GOOD. You deserve to feel GOOD!
I encourage clients to allow the healing process to unfold, according to the pace of their own inner intelligence. I get a lot of resistance to this idea, with good reason. By the time most folks find EFT and or consider using an emotional freedom coach, they have been struggling for a long time. I hear a lot of people say things like, “I am at the end of my rope!” I say, “Well, stop trying to climb the rope! If climbing the rope to the top of the mountain has been too hard, try something easier—like EFT, meditation, prayer, and walking for pleasure. Let go, and relax into well-being. Allow well-being to flow into you and through you once again.” “No! I can’t wait that long! I demand to know the shortcut!” If that is your feeling, consider this story I wrote years ago during a time when I started feeling impatient with myself:
Early one morning a young boy set off on a trip to see his grandmother who lived ten miles away. The road he walked was well worn from 200 years of travel. A few miles into his journey he came to a point where the road took a wide detour. The young boy could see his destination only a short distance away, across a beautiful meadow with flowers and tall green grass. The boy thought how stupid it was that so many people walked miles out of their way rather than just cut across the meadow. He was too smart for that! He set off at a run. “Oh, this is much better!” he thought… right before he tripped and slammed to the ground. The beautiful ground cover was made up of sticky vines covered with thorns. They tore at his hands as he struggled to free his legs. An hour later, exhausted and bloodied, he sat on an old log to catch his breath. Just as he started to relax, the first bee stung him. Within moments, he had been stung a hundred times. He ran screaming, and escaped the angry swarm. He came to a small pond with the most inviting blue water he had ever seen. It smelled lovely, too. He drank deep, only to convulse in pain as his body rejected the poisonous liquid. Many hours later, he found himself slogging through waist deep mud. The flowing green grass that had looked so inviting on the other side of the meadow hid a swamp so putrid and foul that he longed for the smell of a fresh skunk to ease the pain in his nostrils. As night fell, the boy finally emerged from the “beautiful” meadow and walked the short distance along the road to his grandmother’s house. She met him at the door looking quite worried. When she saw his condition, she smiled and said, “Ah! I see you took the shortcut.”
Wanting to feel hope again in the midst of their impatience, clients often ask how long I think the process will take for them. I answer honestly, “A lifetime and beyond.” We are never done. That said, in a few EFT sessions, you can learn how to soothe yourself and even release and heal some old wounds. You can learn to experience the sensations of peace and hope again, even if just for a few moments at a stretch.
Keep it up, and a year or two down the road, you will surprise yourself with how far you’ve come. And as you learn to allow, as you learn to let go and let your inner guidance lead the way back to health, you will realize that you are thriving… even if all the pain isn’t gone… yet!
I’ve been on my conscious healing journey for over 15 years. It has lead me to wonderful people who have become my teachers and lifelong friends. I have no doubt that the process can be faster and less painful for you if you employ EFT (which I did not have until a few years ago). We can now address specific distressing memories in hours with EFT… instead of years of talk therapy or waiting a lifetime to see if it’s true that “time heals all wounds.” EFT certainly makes the journey easier! We can even combine EFT with joyful practices of exercise, massage and bodywork, meditation, prayer, singing, dancing, breathing, visualization, yoga… anything!… to allow us to connect even more strongly with the Source of All Well-Being. It is that Divine Source that restores our body, mind, and spirit to miraculous strength and vibrant health once again. We just need to allow it in. You deserve to feel GOOD! You deserve to feel GOD! And you will.
Originally Published September 2005
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Thank you, nicely put, once again!