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Clearing the Limiting Beliefs to Thriving

Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) work beautifully at healing the debilitating memories which could have contributed to a chronic illness, as well as clearing limiting self-beliefs around recovering. However, sometimes, residual fears remain, which can hold us back from moving into good health safely and freely.

In this article, I will introduce you to an advanced emotional freedom technique that quite literally clears any remaining negative memories and beliefs which are preventing you from overcoming chronic illness.

I ended my recent 8-week chronic illness teleclass series, “Tap Into Your Healthy Self!” by using this technique with one of the participants while everyone else in the class tapped along, and the clarity, release and joy that was experienced was very humbling.

I started by asking the participants what their remaining anxieties were around being unwell or in chronic pain. The responses were varied:

?      I feel as though my mind and body have let me down

?      I feel guilty because being ill takes so much away from family life

?      I wear myself out over-compensating because of what my family misses out on

?      I feel helpless

?      I believe other people can recover, but I can’t.

Do you recognise any of these feelings or beliefs? I experienced many of them while I was chronically ill. The challenge is, when the subconscious hears these beliefs, it takes them on as truths, and they become all consuming and powerful. Likewise, the subconscious assumes it is keeping us safe and protected by keeping us where we are: change (in this case, recovery from illness) is not an option because that would mean uncertainty and loss of identity. Therefore, it may be safer to stay where we are, even if it entails living with these ‘truths’.

What I enjoy so much about this particular technique is that it focuses on a positive outcome or goal, rather than dwelling negatively on how life is and how it’s been. It is all about where we want to be and not where we are now.

First of all, create a sentence that represents what you want. Try to structure the sentence positively, for example, instead of saying “I don’t want to feel so limited and sick all the time”, make the sentence positive: “I want to feel free enough to experience those things which bring me pleasure and feel healthy and well”, “I want to fully recover and be energised and motivated”, or “I want to return to work part-time”.

Next, identify why you want to achieve that goal. How will your life be different once you have achieved it? Again, rather than stating what you won’t be doing, for example, “I won’t be in bed for most of the day”, or “I won’t be frightened of planning days out”, state the positive. For example, “I can participate with the outside world even more”, “I can plan days out with the family freely and easily”, or “I enjoy a balance of socialising and working”.

The third step is to describe how you will feel when you have achieved your goal. Examples may be “connected to others”, “energised”, “ engaged with life”, “higher self esteem”, “proud of myself”, and “free”.

Then read the full statement, including each step, aloud and decide how believable the statement is. Use a score of zero to 10: zero is completely unbelievable and 10 is 100% confidence in the believability of the statement. The ideal is 10, so it’s unlikely that anyone would believe the statement 100% at the outset.

It is then important to identify the cause of this disparity between where you are, and your goal, which is a 10. The volunteer I was working with during the teleclass told me she felt her believability was a ‘6’, because she still didn’t trust herself to recover. She worried that if she achieved her goal and experienced a different life, she wouldn’t have an opportunity to look after herself anymore. She believed it was better to stay where she was (namely, chronically unwell) than risk the “gains” she had made since being ill, such as a fuller understanding of her mind-body connection, and allowing herself time out to do the things she loved.

This is a very common belief held by many of the clients I work with whereby recovery and full health can often equal sacrifice. Logically, who would want to give up everything they had positively gained as a result of being unwell? With EFT, we can release that fear and enable a different perspective so that nothing needs to be forfeited.

After determining the reasons behind the disparity in believability, you can use EFT to clear those obstacles. Assign the obstacle an intensity rating, as usual (this is different from the rating you assigned the believability earlier). In my volunteer’s case, the fear she felt was an ‘8’ when she considered “I won’t be able to achieve these goals and look after myself”. Then tap away all that resistance using regular EFT.

Once you have cleared the blocks to achieving your goal, go back to your statement, re-read it and determine if it is more believable now. If it’s still not a ‘10’, then take a moment to see if any other beliefs or feelings have come up which could be preventing you from believing that this goal is achievable. Then tap away anything new that comes up.

It is advisable to work with an experienced practitioner when delving deeply into long-term debilitating beliefs, since they can offer objective suggestions and guide you through the process easily and painlessly. However this technique is excellent for illustrating the ongoing blocks which could be preventing us from reaching full health and with the foregoing in mind, I encourage you to explore its use.

About the Author

Annabel leads regular EFT workshops and teleseminars, plus training programmes which qualify individuals to become EFT Practitioners. She specialises in: * Coping with serious illness and chronic pain * Overcoming stress and overwhelm * Increasing self worth, confidence and the motivation to recover * Reaching your fullest potential * Leading EFT Workshops and Practitioner Training Discover the power of EFT with The Essentials of EFT Guide and a one-hour EFT Q&A audio recording, all yours absolutely free by visiting our website or calling 1-888-206-8426 (toll free)

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