I certainly have my issues.  There are many unresolved issues in my life, and yet as I reflect, there are not that many actual events that I can think of from my life that still hold a negative charge for me...EXCEPT that there are patterns that I can reflect on that I've learned from family, friends, culture, media, etc.  For example, I perceive my father to be someone who has a lot of doubt and fear which I have internalized over the years.  And yet, I can't pinpoint specific moment from my life where I can say, "Ah!  That's the (or one of the) moment(s) that I'm still hanging on to that is related to my present doubtfulness and fear.  

I don't recall a lot of those moments.  So how do I go about "chopping down my "doubt and fear trees" when I have a hard time accessing the myriad specific events that may be causing it?  Are there any tapping techniques for addressing these kinds of issues?

Thanks for your suggestions!

Jonathan

Jonathan

There are many different ways we can access the necessary information for change and many are in your situation, with no real clear conscious idea of why, even seasoned EFTers need expert help from others to get to the root of their problem.  The most successful of us are those who realise that we are good at hiding from our own issues, from either necessity because its to painful, or just because it can often be dismissed as not that big of a deal so we miss the importance.

Working with body feelings, or creative visualisation can be an effective way to access specifics.  Once we clear the fear away of remembering or just give our subconcious permission to access the information the memories often bubble to the surface. 

One way to address a problem is to think about what we do want. I am not sure what you feel your specific suffering is so perhaps if you could share a little more we can give you some tips on how to get started.

Gill 

Thanks for this Gill.

Well, part of what I'm wanting to do is maintain a regular practice on my self, with myself.  But I often feel frustrated because even my attempts as using the Personal Peace Procedure don't yield much in the way of issues with emotional charge at this point.

The things that do bother my these days have to do with impatience around getting clear on my purpose, fears and doubts and confidence issues around creating work for myself, deciding if I should stay in my relationship my present relationship, where I should settle and build my life.  You see, there are significant issues, most dealing with lack of clarity, confidence, fears and doubt about the future, and indecisiveness.

 Is that helpful in understanding a bit more of what I mean?

Thanks again!

Jonathan

Jonathon - I've been offline for a month or so so this reply is somewhat belated, but I thought I'd throw it in in case there is anything in it that is useful to wherever you are at with this now.

There could be a key to what is going on in how you titled you posting "what if I can THINK of specific causes of my suffering?"  From my own experience with EFT for myself and in supporting others, I find that our progress is often held up by thinking that we need to be able to consciously come up with the causes of what is happening for us.  This is a hole I fell in regularly at the start, and sometimes still fall in these days after a lot of tapping.

I've found that the key to healing is for us to engage the feelings we had when the patterns were first established.  What happened isn't nearly as important as how we felt about it and the beliefs that we came up with as a result of our feelings.  Most human beings are bought up in a way that we are taught from a very early age to suppress how we are feeling - to the point where it is instinctive and below our conscious radar.  This is why it's very difficult for us to "think" of specific causes of our suffering - to our conscious mind things aren't an issue because we suppressed the feelings associated with them in order to get on with life.

When I find myself trying to think my way to solution, I know that I've slipped back into the realm of the left brain, which while a magnificient part of my anatomy and fabulous at achieving many things in my life, is utterly useless to me in getting back to core events and issues!  When this happens I remind myself that I do not have the answers, but that someone inside me does.  The me I was back then has been holding onto the feelings all her life, and given the right encouragement, space and nurturing, she will be able to help me to access them and to heal.

So to make it more practical and useable, this is what I do in any situation where I'm frustrated with where I'm at, or can't make a decision on the way forward etc:

* Do a little tapping to honour that I DO NOT know what is causing how I'm feeling.  Something like "ET I'm so frustrated that I still have this pattern, I honour how frustrating it is for me and how frustrating it is that I don't know why I haven't been able to change this pattern, and I love and accept myself anyway."

* Then I turn my tapping to my inner child, and tap with something like "ET this situation is making you feel uncomfortable and I would like to understand why, I want you to know that even though I don't understand yet how things are for you, I really do want to be able to.  I wonder if you are scared and might need some help, perhaps you could let me know how you are feeling."

Cathryn Taylor has a 7 step process which I personally find a bit cumbersome, but the way I work is based on a shortcut of her layers, and her process is really useful for someone who hasn't developed their own way of accessing the inner child feelings.  If you are interested in finding out more about this, there is an article about it here. 

Best wishes,

Jo