Today I’d like to share with you a short excerpt from my NY Times bestselling book, “The Tapping Solution…”
“Lauren, a mother of two from Colorado, was struggling with some issues around her marriage, her weight, and generally feeling overwhelmed and depressed. She began our session together by telling me what was going on in her life.
For 20 minutes straight, with barely a pause to catch a breath, she told me her story, focusing on a big, dramatic situation around work. I tried to interrupt her a few times to ask her how she felt, but I could barely get a word in.
Eventually, I put my hand up like a stop sign. That got a pause, and I lovingly but firmly said, “Lauren, no more stories. This is all one big, dramatic story, and it’s not you.”
She instantly got it. She stopped, took a deep breath, and said, “Oh, my God . . . all I do is tell these stories.”
The issue wasn’t what she was sharing with me; it was that she was so invested in her story. She had told it again and again—had thought about it over and over—and was replaying the same scenarios each time. She was not connecting with her feelings about the situation, and she was telling the story not from a place of analyzing it or looking for a solution, but rather for the sake of the story itself.
We all get caught up in our own personal soap operas, with their characters, drama, and rights and wrongs. We tell stories where other people have “done things” to us. Where the world is treating us harshly and no justice seems to be served. We tell stories that are full of anger, heartache, jealousy, fear, and every other negative emotion. We tell these stories to validate what we’ve done and what other people have done to us.
But after we’ve told these stories, what do we have? What have we gained?
Things have to change…
Lauren’s life wasn’t going to change unless she stopped telling those same stories again and again. Now that she recognized that, we went on to tap on her habit of telling stories—rather than the issue about work, which is what she’d originally come to me about. We used these statements:
Even though I keep telling these stories, and I’m all caught up in the drama, I deeply and completely accept myself.
Even though I keep running the same patterns again and again, I deeply and completely accept myself.
We then focused the tapping on her emotions about the story. It’s not about ignoring the story altogether, it’s about processing it in a positive direction. So when I asked Lauren how she felt about what was going on, she was able to slow down, connect with her heart, and say, “I feel like all this drama is about other people, the things I do for them. I feel resentful. I never put myself first.”
This was a big life issue for Lauren, and we explored other places in her life where she wasn’t taking care of herself, where she was putting others first and both parties were suffering for it. You know how when on a plane, you’re told to put on your own oxygen mask before helping someone else? It was true in Lauren’s life. She recognized she needed to prioritize herself before giving to others. But would she actually do it?
Putting other people first
One of the exciting things about EFT is its flexibility. It can be very successfully combined with other systems and processes, including guided visualization. I decided to try a combination with Lauren.
I told her that it sounded like she was running a computer program called Putting Other People First, and asked her if she would like to install a new program called Putting Lauren First. She instantly connected to the analogy and agreed she was running the wrong program and was ready to try something new.
Through a guided, closed-eye visualization, where she continued to tap through all the points, I took her through “uninstalling” her old program and “installing” the new program. The mind works in mysterious ways; I don’t know why, but again and again, I’ve seen great results from walking a client through such a process. Step by step, Lauren removed all the old files—her old habits—and installed new, healthier ones.
Did it work? We had met on a Friday, and here’s a portion of the e-mail I got from her on Monday:
It was a great weekend. . . . The coaching session helped catapult me into a new place! I have a new perspective on myself and others around me. It’s like what I know in my mind “meshed with” what I feel in my heart. Some kind of true aligning. Before, I knew a lot in my mind, and I knew what I wanted to feel in my heart, but had a hard time bringing the two together. Now . . . there is no gap between what I know is right for me and feel it is right for me. The emotion aligns with the decisions in my head!
Looks like Lauren is telling a different story!
Ask Questions About Your Story
What are the stories you’re telling that you want to let go of?
What’s the new story you want to tell about yourself and your life?
What are the old programs you’re running that you want to delete?
What are the new programs you want to install?”
Until next time…
Keep Tapping!
Nick Ortner
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