Getting Yourself out of the Way
So how do you develop the ability to do this really well? Is it a new skill which you need to learn to do? Or more of a process of unlearning, or releasing the blocks to your inherent ability? Well probably both but beware of thinking this is just about getting clever with language: getting to do this really well starts with attitude, or a particular state of mind.
My experience from learning and teaching others is that it is more about mindset than anything else – the words you need will come to you. Seeing or experiencing this done masterfully – witnessing the connection and harmony between client and therapist is a beautiful and powerful thing. Sometimes its hilarious, often deeply moving.
This is what we mean by the art of delivery and it takes time to develop this to a high level. However you can start learning the attitude of mind from the start, alongside learning the basics of EFT. Cultivate this right from the start and you will get much more out of this than a new skill, or a new tool to add to your kit. With EFT we are exploring possibilities hardly dreamt of as yet.
“We are on the ground floor of a healing high-rise” Gary Craig
- Begin today!
One of the obvious benefits of EFT is that you can use it to work on yourself. And this is where you need to begin – right now! By realising how vital it is that you understand that many opportunities for personal growth are in the every day stuff, stuff we can overlook as unimportant, too low level. EFT will clear all the ‘little irritations’ – and some of these will be hiding immense fury; our unhealed, unconscious pain shows up in the everyday. Seek the sacred in the apparently trivial. It is a gift to you seen correctly.
Think of yourself as a work in progress – you are your own life’s work – if you want to be truly helpful to others and the planet. You are your own gift. In the process of this you will remember to love yourself and as you see yourself will be how you see others, and ultimately God or Source. The more you clear your negative stuff, all your resentments, anger, guilt, irritation the clearer a channel you become for the Beloved in you to recognise the Beloved in the other. Clear your mind! Get in the zone! Lighten up!
“You add suffering to the world just as much when you take offense as when you give offense” A Course in Miracles
Once you grasp the idea that in being truly helpful to your clients your own state of mind is so important and begin to practise it, you will realise that is effectively a way of setting your intention for the highest good of the client. The rest… is easy!
- Trust yourself
You have set your intention and now your job is to get really practical, everything else will happen through you when you really tune in to the client. You have to have rapport first of all or you are going nowhere – getting rapport and tuning in are actually the same thing. Observe your client minutely, with all your senses, without judgement or interpretation.
If you are serious about mastering EFT you can and must learn to really fine tune your sensory perception (it is the basis of intuition). Focus on conscious observation and your unconscious will connect you and guide you – really notice changes in breathing, skin tone, voice tonality, shifts in temperature, perspiration expression etc.
It is through cultivating these very practical abilities that you allow yourself to get out of the way. As Gary often says, this happens through you not by you.
Guidance comes through when you clear your thinking, judging, interpreting mind out of the way. The irony is that you have to get really practical to be highly intuitive.
- Review your work
Where were you in the way and how do you tell?
Think of every session as a holy encounter, and after each session take advantage of hindsight to fully appreciate the gifts offered to you.
Replay the session in your mind as if it is happening now, and ask yourself…
- Is the clients issue triggering me in any way?
- Do I feel uncomfortable, under pressure?
- Am I anxious to move away from the negative?
- Do I need to fix this?
- Am I doubting myself, the process?
- Am I laying my own stuff on the client?
Tap to clear any of your own limiting responses to these questions.
Be really honest. By making the effort to do this you will clear your own limitations, and very soon you will find you can run this movie- review in a flash and then its only a small step to having it happen simultaneously as you work, without you consciously attending to it, like a dance between you and your client. And your work will be beautiful.
Look out for the pitfalls
Cultivating your ability to really get out of the way takes practice. Be very aware that without rapport you cannot go anywhere. The foundation for Reframing is always connection with the client at conscious and unconscious levels. It’s a form of getting permission.
You cannot change someone else’s mind. You can only create conditions whereby they have the experience of seeing something differently. You do not have the power to ‘reframe’ someone else, it happens internally.
If you get too hung up on the power of your own words and ideas you will be persuading rather than truly connecting at the level where healing happens. For instance you may believe your reframe is the best ever and yet it may not work for the other person simply because they have a different model of the world than you do – and it’s not your job to convince the client, just to be the means through which a bridge to understanding is offered and he or she comes to see differently.
Trying to persuade or lead the client towards your way of thinking (albeit from the best of intentions) is a common pitfall. But if you are willing to see when you are doing this it becomes another great learning opportunity.
You are likely to be ‘leading’ the client whenever you pick up on the clients pain – or it matches your own, and you want to ’save ‘ them from it, or persuade them out of it – and as quickly as possible! Whenever this happens you have really lost your connection to the client and are getting in your own way. And although something may be happening, it is not EFT at its best, as you are now giving conflicting messages through demonstrating that certain beliefs or painful feelings are not ok. This, of course, runs counter to the power behind “I deeply and completely accept myself “ (which is the intention for complete acceptance, whatever, and which the therapist needs to hold for the client when they are not able to for themselves).
Taking it further
Since developing the art of reframing is more about mindset rather than a particular technique it is a great opportunity to keep on going beyond your own limits. If you focus on working on yourself, mastering practical observation skills with clients and learning to trust, the rest will take care of itself.
Another way to help yourself is to go over the DVDs looking for examples, really study them. Truly elegant work like Gary’s looks deceptively simple. Think about what you see and how he is doing it. Every time you go back to them you will see more, and realise how much you have grown.
Sue Beer
www.theeftcentre.com theeftcentre@googlemail.com
