Exploring How EFT Works With an NLP Presupposition

          I was reading some NLP (Neuro-linguistic Programming) material the other day, and came across the NLP Presuppositions.  These are the foundational assumptions or premises that NLP operates with.  One of them is: "The Map is Not the Territory."  This one has far reaching implications. In essence, it means that what a person experiences is not the actual world, but rather, their perception of it that colors their experience.  It is a very powerful and useful assumption to use.

         Now, the question then becomes, how are these "maps" created, and then, how can they be changed?  These "maps" are created by what we experience, and how these experiences are perceived. Over time, these become references in support of our perceptual filters.  This organic whole becomes our "map".  So how can these be changed?  Enter the power of EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques).  EFT can be aimed at clearing the charge of these reference experiences.  Once that happens, there is a freedom to be able to create a new map.  At this point I would then add an EFT variation called the Choices method.  It is a very effective way to creates new choices of experience, essentially, creating a new map.

        There is a symbiotic relationship between the two methods, NLP and EFT.  When combined properly, the changes that can be produced can be staggering.  Imagine what your life would be like if the overall "map" of perception was completely changed.  What if you swapped out you "map of lack" for a "map of abundance"?  You would then see opportunity and abundance everywhere. Yes, it can be that easy.  After all, the power has always been yours, to create the life you wish.  With these tools, you can now experience a new reality.

For more information, visit my website at: www.breakfreewithease.com

The Pizza Man

   Sometimes you just never know when that miracle will come, or  what form it will take.  That's what is was tonight.  Friday night, who wants to cook, so the family is off for pizza. We went to a place I went to for the first time a few weeks ago.  It was the first time in a long time I had real New York style pizza.  There was something about it, delicious for sure, and yet, something more.  Tonight, I was going to find out what that was.

    I gave my order to the owner, and after I did so, he gives me two small slices for free, asking me to taste them and tell him what I thought. "It's a new crust I'm trying, let me know".   I thanked him and tried the slices. I didnt notice much of a difference, other than they were delicious as usual.  Before we knew it, the pizza came out to the table, and as before, I thoroughly enjoyed it, not knowing what I was about to experience.

  As the last slices were being finished, the owner made his way to our table.  "How was the pizza?' he asked.  "Delicious as always", I replied.  "Good, I'm glad you liked it."  He then asked some general questions, like if it was the first time we were, there, and other small talk.

  Then, however, the miracle started to happen.  The past few days had taken an emotional toll, and doubts about my private practice were swirling in my mind.  As he spoke, I got the overwhelming feeling I was in the presence of someone who has mastered "The Secret", you remember, the DVD and book sensation.  He spoke of his passion for his pizzeria, the opportunities he gives his workers, but most of all, how he manifests things. For example, how once one of his pizza makers left, and instead of panicking, he went home to take a nap.  As he was leaving the pizzeria, he bumps into someone who asks for a job, as, you guessed it, a pizza maker.  "I can't explain how it happens", he said, "but it always does.  My father was the same way. He could tell things about people."

   He went on.  "I know there is a God, I dont go to church or anything, but I just know.  I dont pray or anything, I dont ask for money or things.  I just ask for health, and to be able to give to people.  The rest, the money, it just comes, it always does."  I was mesmerized, literally hanging on every word.  It was probably all of twenty minutes, but it felt like time didnt pass at all. "I don't worry or ask why when things happen. I just stay calm, because I know."

  It was all exactly what I needed to hear. It resonated in my very soul.  I couldn't have scripted it better myself.  He talked of his success, his plans for other restaurants, his welcoming of competition opening nearby, knowing they wont make pizza like he does, with knowledge, of the old ways, from the old country.

  As my spirit received the balm it needed, he said, "It was nice talking to you". I introduced myself and shook his hand.   As he shook my hand, I swear he somehow knew the effect he had on me.  I knew he did, I saw it in the twinkle in his eye, and in his smile, as he walked to the next table.  Perhaps, I thought, God sent him to that table too.

 

Looking Deep

     Ever been stuck?  Have you tried to accomplish something, and it just never seems to work out?  We are human, and we all experience that to some degree, at some point, but are you just at a point where you are over it?  Done?   I've been at this point this week, and wanted to share it here, in hopes that it will be of help to those readers who are going through the same thing.

     Waking up one morning, I was thinking of a particular goal I have been working on for YEARS, and it just hasn't come to fruition.  As I thought more and more about it, the more I felt "over it".  I was done, tired.  Why should I continue to pursue it?  So I "decided" that I was going to let that goal go, finally.  

    Of course, with my personality, I can't just let it go. I HAVE to know why.  Why did all the opportunities fall apart?  So I decided to tap with EFT, and work through the levels of it.  What was causing what I thought I wanted to be pushed away from me so often?

    The beauty of EFT lies in how it evolves what is happening at the deepest levels, and leads to new insights and understandings.  As I tapped, I could feel my energy begin to shift.  At this point, allow me to digress for a moment.  I believe in the law of attraction, and that we attract what we resonate with.  Now, to me, I always wanted to be a big success, especially in this particular goal.  So why was I attracting such failure? I knew that, somehow, there had to be an answer.  The Law ALWAYS works, without exception.  This was where EFT's gift was given to me.

    As I continued to tap, to go "free flow", the understanding, the insight, came to me.  The Law WAS working!  At a deep part of myself, there was an aspect that remembered being made fun of so often as a kid.  That aspect, after years of emotional ups and downs, decided that there was something wrong with him. After all, if there wasn't, why would so many make fun of me?  Besides, that aspect took in his environment. Being born and raised in a lower middle class neighborhood in Brooklyn, this aspect saw how those around him lived, from his family, to his neighbors.  They were the "lunch pail" crowd. They simply went to work, came home, had a beer or two, watched TV, then went to bed, only to do it all again the next day.  There was a comfort in that predictability, a safety, and that aspect was so central, so core, that it exuded this resonance.  I was resonating with the "Brooklyn lunch pail" !   The Law was working!  That part of me decided to just go along, to actually fear success, with the background energy always being, "There has to be something wrong with me anyway."  

    THAT explained it!  THAT explained the ups and downs, and the countless opportunities that would come and go, always leading to nothing.   I was on the trail of it now.  So I continued to tap.  Then another aspect revealed itself.  The one who knew of all the gifts I had been given by my Creator. My intellect, my intuition, my caring, my ability to quickly read and understand people, my desire to help people.  That aspect DID want to succeed, and knew it was entitled to.  The tapping went on, going deeper.  As I worked, that enlightened aspect shined so brightly, it could no longer be ignored.  "Why do you hide in the shadows? In fear?  Do you really think God would have given you all these gifts just to be average and hide?"  Talk about an evolution of all of this!   Of course, as I tapped, I knew more and more the answer to those questions.  I wasn't to hide, I wasn't to fear, and most of all, there was NOTHING wrong or unworthy about me.  

    Success really doesn't have to be difficult, I came to start to understand. I don't have to be "someone else" to attain it, either.  Maybe, just maybe, I could hope one more time.  Maybe, just maybe, now that my deepest core is beginning to resonate at a different energy vibration, that the opportunities could actually work out.  Maybe I could continue to share, and see what happens.....

    How about you?   

To learn more about EFT/Tapping and other techniques, go to:  www.selflovealchemist.com

Welcome to YOU!

  

   I have come to really think that often times, the emotional troubles that plague us are because we forget who we really are, our true selves.  We accept negative judgements of ourselves way too easily.  We see limitations to what we can accomplish, what we can have, and who we can be, and we take this as truth.  Our negative beliefs and limitations become our reality, and it seems as if these things are real, and permanent.  Indeed, we fall asleep to our true selves.  

     I have been trying a new EFT (tapping) version called Positive EFT, which is part of a version called Energy EFT, for a couple of weeks.  The results in such a short amount of time have been nothing short of miraculous, and this is a term I dont use lightly.  The main result I have experienced is a deepened understanding and acceptance of the Truth, that we create our experience, that the True Self is in the Divine Image, , and has no limits other than those self-imposed.  We can experience ANYTHING we want, whenever we want.  This knowing has been very liberating, and the joy is now almost constant.  


     We often force ourselves to forget who we are, for a variety of reasons, (to fit in, to look away from pain, etc).  The Truth is, we don't have to be afraid to let the world see who we are.  When the knowing happens, we realizes there is nothing to be defensive about, nothing to fear. We then come to know ourselves, and what a beautiful person that is!  

 I am often asked why I do what I do.  So here is my "why"....

     I HATED school.  Oh, K-2 were kind of ok, but after that, it was all downhill.  Middle school was awful, High school was even worse.  Math was torture. The system did a great job on slamming my self-image into the ground.  Even in college, I found it tedious at best.  I was a "C" student in high school, barely.  Yet, when I got to college for my A.A.S. degree, I was on the Dean's list my first semester.  I always kept in the back of my mind the question.."Why was I able to do that in college, and not in high school? After all, it's the same brain!"  More on that in a minute.

     Fast forward....I'm teaching PE in a Catholic school in Brooklyn, NY, and LOVING IT!  The energy from the kids, it was awesome. The sense of fulfillment was amazing!  I did that for 4 years before I moved into sales work for the next 12 years.  Eventually, I came back to it, in a public school setting, and that's when it really hit me.

     My memories of how traumatic school was for me were triggered by seeing it in student after student.  I began by substituting with ESE (Exceptional Student Education) classes. These were special diploma students in a high school, the group noone really wanted to deal with. I found I had an almost instant rapport with them.  I have stayed in this niche in the high school setting ever since.

     What really hit me was how these student suffered so much in the system.  Angry and over the whole school thing.  It touched me, motivated me to pour out my heart for them, to learn ways to help them as much as I could.

     My biggest challenge, and it still is, is to keep my balance, when I see the system trying to be more important than the child.  Yet, day after day, I fight for them. Both in the system, and in my private coaching practice, I fight for them.  I delight in the possibilities of changing the world, one student at a time.

     My second niche was a natural offshoot of the academic one, self-image work.  It came from the repeated work I had to do with these students because of the harm the system and their labels did to their self-esteem.  I then extrapolated that to work with adults, and again, using my own "suffering" how much I was was held back in life due to my own low self-image.  I couldn't let that happen to others if I had the tools and skill to prevent it.  So I launched into it with the same passion I has with the kids.  Accepting second best is so unnecessary.  Being sad or anxious all the time isn't what we are created for.

     My purpose is to change the world, to contribute to it wonderful becoming. My purpose is to save as many students as I can from the pain of school.  There shouldn't be any, nor does it have to stay that way for students of ALL ages who are experiencing it.  There are easier ways to learn. There is an amazing person that is YOU.  There is no higher purpose to suffering with a low self-image. Nothing meritorious about it.  Every day, I rise with joy and anticipation of who I will help that day.  To that, gratitude is always added.  Gratitude that I was able to find my way out.  Gratitude that I learned tools so effective, I wish I knew them when I was a kid.

     I know this may seem a bit like rambling, but it is my hope it gives a glimpse into my heart, and into my "why".

Why the ups and downs?

You know the story. You are moving toward a goal, and all of a sudden, it all bottoms out.  What's more, this pattern repeats over and over, in many areas of your life.  Why?  The answer may be clearer than you think.

What do you think of yourself? Really, no masks.  Do you think you are worthy of the goal you are seeking, whether financial, or a relationship, etc.?  Well, if not, maybe your thermostat is set too low.

Thermostat? Yes, your self-image.  It dictates how high you can fly, how much good you will really accept. More importantly, it will dictate how much you will self-sabotage yourself when things are going well.  The truth is, it doesn't have to be this way.  You can clear the thoughts and feeling that have created a low self-image and create a new one.  You can, really.  Life is not supposed to be painful.  I know this might fly in the face of what some religious paths may teach, and I'm not going to debate the theology of those here. I will say, however, and I stand solidly on this, that that view is false, a deception.  You have a right, a Divine right, to be happy. You do.  Just accepting that fact alone will start you on your way.

Set the intention that you want to finally stop the roller coaster, that you want what you want and deserve to have it.  Then, the clearing needs to start. That is a topic for another post.  

Effects on Self Image

I came across this article this morning, and found it very insightful...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323623304579055302147114522.html