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Article : Why Focusing On Negativity Works With EFT
 
Jodi
Name : Jodi McDonald
City: New Braunfels
State : Texas
Country : United States
   
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WHY FOCUSING ON NEGATIVITY WORKS WITH EFT
By
Jodi A. McDonald
www.godisaverb.com


I find there is still a lot of confusion about focusing on negativity when using Emotional Freedom Techniques. People who have been told, for the past couple of decades, to focus only on positive things have a hard time thinking about all those bad things in life. It just doesn’t seem right. If it is true that “what you think about, you bring about,” then the last thing we want to do is to think about negative experiences, right? Maybe not.

Just because you are not consciously aware of a bad experience from the past doesn’t mean the memory of it is gone. In fact, your subconscious or unconscious mind stores every single thing that has ever been observed, heard, experienced, felt, tasted, smelled, or registered with any part of your nervous system. Every second, millions upon millions of bits of information are recorded in your mind. The brain cleverly sorts through those, and places a tiny fraction of that information into conscious awareness. The vast majority is stored in the unconscious mind. Additionally, as time passes, many things in present awareness are also relocated into the unconscious mind, as well, as new information “bumps” the former ideas into files called “Past Memories.” In other words, the brain can only tolerate a certain amount of information in present awareness.

Imagine this. If you were aware of everything that is happening around you in every second of every day, the chaos would probably drive you mad! Right now, your body is unconsciously doing all sorts of wondrous things on automatic pilot. Your digestive system is secreting fluids and contracting/relaxing muscles. Each cell of your body has its own particular task it is performing whether it be providing you with energy or fighting off an infection or one of the countless other tasks they continuously tackle. Electrical impulses are moving from one neuron to another in the brain. Your ears are taking in all types of sounds and your eyes are seeing far more than you know. You are blinking your eyes, breathing, and your heart is pumping. There are literally millions of things going on in your life in each second of every day. Fortunately, we don’t have to consciously choose to do each of them. The brain handles that for us. It also does us a huge favor by sorting through the things we need to know versus that which can just be stored in our unconscious awareness. My brain allows me to remember my name, but decides it doesn’t really serve me to know about the cell that just divided in my arm.

While many people are able to acknowledge that thoughts have a biological aspect due to the functioning of the brain, they have difficulty accepting that emotions are physiological in nature, as well. I often demonstrate how emotions are connected to the body with this exercise.

Close your eyes. Bring up some memory that makes you feel very, very good. This experience brings a huge smile to your face. It is a wonderful feeling of bliss, peace and love. You are very grateful for having this in your life. The gratitude expands and seems to fill the space around you as you think of this event. While in that state of gratitude and love, point to the place on your body where you feel those emotions. To date, in every case, I find people point directly to the heart. Good. Now you know where positive emotions are stored in the body.

Close your eyes again. This time, think of something or someone who makes you very, very angry! This event is not pleasant and you are infuriated when you remember it. You can’t believe this happened to you, and you certainly didn’t deserve to be treated this way. How dare they!?!! When you find yourself feeling very angry, point to the place in your body where you feel this emotion. If you were in a large group of people, and had them do this, when you opened your eyes you would be surprised to see people pointing to many different parts of the body. Negative emotions, you see, are stored in many places in the body. Where do you store your anger?

After doing this exercise a few times, I discovered something amazing! Positive emotions are always felt in the heart. The only negative emotion associated with the heart is sorrow. All other negative emotions are stored in many places of the body. I see people pointing to their head, their shoulders, the solar plexus, the chest, and even their knees.

This is where EFT comes in. EFT accesses two primary systems--the psychological and the physiological. Let’s look at both of these systems as they work together.

Good feelings/emotions do not cause any harm to your body. The only chemicals emitted in conjunction with a positive experience are good ones. They are beneficial to the body. Good memories make us feel good and they flow through us with no resistance. They energize us and make us feel lighter and healthier. Negative experiences, on the other hand, cause all kinds of unhealthy repercussions.

If you had a stored memory in your unconscious mind that was reinforced with a strong negative emotion, then it became a powerful toxin to your body’s system. The intensity of the emotion played a key role in the body’s physiology and psychology. For example, if you checked your mail today and there was nothing particularly interesting there, you most likely had no physical response to that. The energy of that event simply flowed through you with no resistance. However, if you are deep in debt and you opened mail telling you your home is going into foreclosure, you probably had a strong emotional response (and therefore a chemical reaction in the body). Worse yet, if you had that same feeling of anxiety on numerous occasions, your body found a place to store those toxins and that energy, and as the energy was compounded, it acted the same as a clogged artery. It gradually blocked the flow of positive energy in that area. This is your physiological connection to the negative energy. Many doctors, today, will state all disease comes from stress. What is stress? Resistance.

Looking at the psychology of a bad experience, we quickly recognize the emotional connection. If you had that same experience I described above say 20 years ago, it may no longer be in your conscious awareness, but it is still carried in your unconscious mind. Remember…thoughts are energy which cannot be destroyed. They can, however, be altered. Often, when we try to remember something from the past, we have trouble with all the details. However, if there is a strong emotion attached to that experience, we are able to remember it with great clarity. The psychological energy of it is still registered in your body along with the physiological damage you received from the toxic chemicals that were released into your system at that time. You might not be aware of it…but it is very much still a part of you! That is why I remind my clients that just because you are no longer thinking about a bad experience does not mean the energy of it is no longer with you. In fact, if you start to recount a bad experience from your past and you notice any type of resistance in your body, you know it is still there!

As this resistance increases, over time, the body finally cannot contain any additional pressure. The energy of it explodes as a problem or disease in the body, often damaging the area of the body surrounding it. You might suddenly experience an ulcer, cancer, arthritis or a collapsed vertebrae. At the very least, you will, at last, become very aware of where you stored that particular emotional memory! There is no need to wait for this to happen, however. You can collapse these blocks, using EFT, long before they manifest as a problem or disease. How? By focusing on those negative emotions you’ve been trying to avoid.

When using EFT, you are trying to find the emotion that is attached to your particular problem/disease. The momentary focus on a negative feeling results in an amazing and positive outcome. EFT looks at the effect to locate the cause. It is not treatment for the symptoms, because it goes much deeper. It finds the source of the symptoms and collapses it. We ask clients to focus on the issue and then describe what emotion comes up for them when they think about that problem. Does the pain in your knee make you sad? Are you angry because you have cancer? Do you feel guilt about your addiction? When you can’t sleep at night, how does that make you feel? What emotion is attached to your pain, discomfort, problem or disease? I can promise you this…it won’t be a positive one.

Focusing on the part of the body that is problematic while bringing up a negative memory associated with it causes the person to uncover energy’s location. As the location and the emotion are defined, we then add the tapping on the energy meridians. Tapping sends an electrical impulse to the area on which we are focused. The electrical impulse now knows its target. It blasts the block, dispersing the resistance that was withholding the healthy flow of positive energy. At long last, your mind and your body are free from the energy of resistance.

The end result of EFT is found in the first two words of its name--emotional freedom. When we are free of the negative emotions lurking in our unconscious mind, we allow and accept all the good God offers. Ignoring resistance will never work. It will persist. If you still believe focusing on a negative event is dangerous, I only have three words of advice. Tap on it.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
   
 
 
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