I recently discovered EFT and recognize the benefits that it has brought to many people. I started reading and tapping but, like many other times (eg meditation, visualization etc)  in my life I have lost the motivation to continue on with something that could be answer to the issues in my life. I keep stalling doing anything myself and keep saying I need to find a practitioner who will help me go through the process.

I have been contemplating seriously why I'm like this. I've also realized that I have always been the 'assistant to the person doing the job' and never the 'doer' myself. I have always needed to be motivated by my teachers and never been able to BE like my teachers. I have been a secretary/admin person all my life and was recently offered the opportunity to move into a self-starter/doer role and I went into terror. I believe this may have its origins in my birth. I was a forceps delivery and never made the entire journey on my own and this has set me up for life - never starting and finishing anything, never leading in anything and not able to motivate myself. I'm rather apalled to finally admit that I'm never going to amount to anything more than a support person.

How do I tackle something from such an early point that I don't have any memories of? There is much more I am realizing about myself but this would seem to be a very fundamental part of my makeup and releasing it would have a tremendous flow over effect in my life. I would appreciate any suggestions that anyone may have.

 Thanks

Joanne

Joanne - It's great that you've seen the possible parallel with your birth experience and what is going on in your life.  I was sick for years and years and it was only when I did healing with EFT around my birth trauma that I was able to heal - I had no memory of events at the time, but as I started tapping on my birth all sorts of emotion came up, and the beliefs that I seemed to take on as a result of the trauma, and clearing them has resulted in enormous changes in my life.

I suggest you set the intention to heal whatever needs healing around your birth, then simply start tapping with what it is that you do know about it.  If you can, see if you can tune into the baby you being born and tap into her feelings - it's not always necessary to do this, but if you can often speeds up the process of getting to the core issues.  There is a great framework that Sylvia Hartmann has that might help you to do the healing, see: http://www.emofree.com/articles/prebirthtopresent.htm

One thing to be aware of - when we are working on events that were very traumatic to us we can sometimes find it difficult to access the emotions on our own.  I've found that when I work on birth trauma (because to a baby it's life threatening), I've needed to have someone with me supporting me, otherwise I simply can't access the emotions at all.  It might pay to consider having a trusted friend with you, or if you are new to EFT a really good EFT practitioner, to help you to relax enough to allow the emotions to surface.

Very best wishes with your tapping,

Jo

 Dear Jo

Thank you for your lovely reply – I am in awe at the kindness and concern of every reply in this forum.

I have just woken from a three hour sleep. I read your reply this morning and while reading it got a surge of heat in my body and started to cry – what you said struck a deep cord in me. I clicked on the link you gave me and started to read the inner child/EFT guidelines and started crying even harder. As I felt it was SO ready to be released I pressed on. What should one do when you’re crying so hard – wait to finish to continue tapping through it?

I tapped the entire procedure taught in the free instruction manual:

Even though this baby is a burden, I now deeply and profoundly love, accept and welcome this baby.

Even though this baby is unwanted, I now deeply and profoundly love accept and welcome this baby.

I now deeply and completely heal this  baby.

I felt so drained that I couldn’t go on. My body feels 1000 years old and feels is creaky and shivery, like I have the flu – hence the nap. I don’t have any emotion at the moment and am unsure if there is any residual from the conception phase of my birth. Should I go back and tap on more sentences? I am not familiar with the saying the positive side of things to implant them. (I’m hoping there’s more on this on the first set of DVDs that I’ve ordered.)

There is only one person in the country town that I live who does EFT/NLP and he is a bit creepy. I went to him once. He has long stringy dirty hair and was extremely nervous with sweaty palms. He even said at one point in the session that he found EFT was not always successful which I didn’t need to hear from someone whom I am trying to trust. What should I do? (The session was marginally successful.) Be honest with him or travel to the closest city and try and find someone else. My reaction to him - may it be something I could tap on?

Being unwanted is just the tip of the iceberg – in the first 6mths of my life I was nearly a cot death – my mother found me blue and gave me mouth to mouth and I got sunburned over my entire face and it turned into one big blister after baby oil was put on it. I have just an inkling of the feelings that I felt as a baby and it scares me.  Even at two I was still trying to get out of this life – I drank bleach and had to get my stomach pumped. I know these things have formed my opinion of life and affected my experiences in it.

Any encouragement would be appreciated!

Thanks

Joanne

Joanne - it sounds like you are touching upon something core to a lot of patterns in your life, which will inevitably mean that parts of you are frightened of letting go of it because anything long term like this inevitably has identity issues wrapped up with it.  The exhaustion when you hit really big and really early stuff is common, as are the tears.  When the tears really start flowing, just stop talking or saying any phrases and keep tapping and breathing until the emotion subsides.  It can be scary as we aren't used to dealing with so much emotion, but if you can remind yourself that it's just old stuff that's been stuck a long time coming up to be released and keep tapping, you will unload a heap of stuff you don't need any more.

Tapping in the positive is an addition to the original EFT, Patricia Carrington introduced it with her Choices Method.  It's a nice way to work but not at all essential.  When you get to learning it if it resonates you'll be able to introduce it into your tapping, but if it doesn't flow naturally right now don't worry about it.  You are touching upon feelings that have been buried for many years and just acknowledging that they are there and allowing them to be is hugely healing.

EFT can be done very effectively by phone, so if you feel that working with an experienced practitioner might be beneficial (it could make things easier), you could work with someone in any country by phone or Skype.  Continuing with someone local who makes you feel uncomfortable would definately be unproductive. It could be that he bought up some issues in you that need addressing, so if there is something there you feel you could tap on that might be another door in for you. If you don't know of anyone to contact, feel free to drop me an email and I can give you a couple of recommendations - practitioners who have lot of experience with this sort of healing and who work via Skype.

My feeling is that you would be best to work through the early childhood things (not being wanted, cot death, sunburn, bleach etc) with someone very experienced who is able to hold a space and help you to journey through this in a gentle way.  I know from my own experience that working on this formative stuff can be life changing.  I was fortunate that my partner was able to hold a very safe space for me to process in, he was learning EFT with me at the time.  If you are in a position that you can't afford to work with a practitioner, working with a trusted friend would be another option, but I suspect that with the depth of stuff coming up, it might be easier for you to have the support of someone who has personally experienced this sort of processing themselves.

You are doing some amazing healing - I know it feels like hell when all sorts of emotions that you didn't even know were there come up - but those emotions stuck inside you are what has been driving your patterns, and once released you will have the freedom to create new patterns and it will feel incredible. :0)

With very best wishes on your healing journey.

Jo