The secret to self loving

From http://thinksimplenow.com/happiness/the-secret-to-self-loving/

This past year, I have come to appreciate the power of truly loving myself. Most of my life, being alone was one of my biggest fears. I found myself in numerous relationships for the wrong reasons and ended up settling in ill-fitting ‘partnerships’. This deeply rooted fear and lack of understanding of myself caused the relationships to become my whole world; my focus of attention; my center. I would sacrifice my own goals for the other person. And, when the relationship collapsed, so did my sense of self.

Through much introspection, I realized the source of these failed relationships was myself. I realized that I didn’t truly love or appreciate myself and had relied on external sources for love and approval. I decided to change. I had to overcome my fear of loneliness by finding independence and personal freedom. Even since I found true appreciation for myself, the quality of relationships I have attracted has been phenomenal. I have discovered that the more I loved and understood myself, the less I feared being by myself, and the more healthier relationships I was able to attract into my life.

I started doing what I called “Dates with myself“. Regardless my external relationship status, I would schedule time with myself. I would literally take myself out on a date and spend that time totally focused on myself. It’s my time. We spend so much time and energy focused on others that we forget to recharge the source of that energy. It is only when you are well that you can have the energy and internal resources to make a positive difference and help others. This is a simple, yet powerful concept that can dramatically improve your wellbeing, effectiveness and mental health.

Before attempting a ‘date with yourself’, Here are a few things to keep in mind:
Remove Disturbances – unplug your phone, power down the cell phone and blackberry, shut down the computer, turn off the tv. Do not let your mind get distracted during your self-date. This is your time to just be with yourself.

Being Solo – It’s important that you are on your own. You can talk to strangers, and make new friends, but you are on the self-date to get acquainted with yourself, no one else. If you live with a partner, schedule it so he/she isn’t home, or just take yourself out of the house. If you have kids, find a sitter, or plan around when your kids are not at home. It’s also important to realize that this time is a gift for yourself, and you should only be focused on your well-being.

Schedule - Plan how long you would like your dates to last. Set a minimum time, and commit to focus on yourself for at least that time. I typically schedule 2-4 hour dates with myself.

Communicate - if you are in a relationship, it’s important to communicate what you are doing and it’s benefits clearly with your partner. Not only do we get their support, but also avoid any misunderstandings or neglect.

Here are some ideas for ‘dates with yourself’. You can intermix several activities below into one date:

Reading Date – Go to a trendy café or find a comfortable place at home and read something inspirational for an hour or more. Have some hot herbal tea, cut up some fruits or crackers with cheese. Fully enjoy the experience.

Forgiveness & Gratitude Date – Find a comfortable spot. I like to sit on a bench overlooking the water at sunset, or curled up on the couch in my living room table surrounded by candles.

Forgive – Write on a journal or loose paper all the things you forgive yourself for. We tend to be very harsh on ourselves, and voluntarily blame ourselves internally for failures, failures of achievement, failures to action, etc. Take this time to forgive yourself for all the harsh things said, for mistreatment of your health, etc.
Gratitude – List out all the things in your life you are thankful for. This is my favorite thing to do.

Admiration - List out all the things that others admire about you. What are some things they’d say that you are good at or have natural abilities towards? Notice that I wanted you to pretend to be another person looking at yourself. We tend to blank on this question when asking ourselves directly.

Musical Date – Take in a live concert after treating yourself to a healthy and satisfying meal. For example, every Thursday, I used to make myself a great raw vegetarian meal and then go to the Symphony. Did you know that you could get cheap single tickets in the first 4 rows? In Seattle, it’s $15 at Seattle Symphony. Most people are not aware of this. It’s not advertised.
Another idea is going to a jazz club or a show. Talk to strangers when you are there. You’ll find the experience much more rewarding.

Yoga or Meditation Date – Take a group yoga or meditation class at a local gym, community center, or temple. I used to do drop in classes at YMCA. They are $10 a class for non-members. After class, jump into the Jacuzzi if there is one. Come home, enjoy a light meal and relax for the evening.

Outdoors Date – Go for a long walk in an area that interests you. Go to a park, go camping, go for a long drive. I like to spend an hour on Sundays walking through the ‘pike place’ market (local farmer’s market) with my dog, Tommy. I enjoy seeing all the tourists, fresh produce and the energy in the market. I also like to walk along the waterfront. It’s a good idea to bring a book and some water with you. Wander without rushing.

Art & Culture - Go to an art gallery opening or a local museum. In Seattle, we have the art walk the first Thursday of every month where many galleries are open into the night. It’s very festive and inspiring, and I especially enjoy the people watching.

Rumi

Is it possible for the bodily eyes to see You?
Can thought comprehend Your laughter or grief?
Tell me now, can it possibly see You at all?
Such a heart has only borrowed things to live with


I am an atom;
you are like the countenance of the Sun for me.
I am a patient of Love
you are like medicine for me.
Without wings, without feathers,
I fly about looking for you.
I have become a rose petal
and you are like the wind for me.
Take me for a ride



Love came,
and became like blood in my body.
It rushed through my veins and
encircled my heart.
Everywhere I looked,
I saw one thing.
Love's name written
on my limbs,
on my left palm,
on my forehead,
on the back of my neck,
on my right big toe…
Oh, my friend,
all that you see of me
is just a shell,
and the rest belongs to love.~ Rumi

Sneaking up on the problem when you do EFT

Part 1 of 2: From the General to the Specific

One of the distinguishing features of EFT is its gentle nature when used correctly. This is In sharp contrast to the harshness of such behavioral techniques as Exposure Therapy or Flooding, which expose a person to unbearably intense levels of the very thing that they fear in an attempt to numb them, or immune them, to their feared “object”. The latter techniques are all too often of little use at best, and at worst can severely retraumatize a vulnerable person.

By contrast, EFT intentionally seeks to minimize anxiety while at the same time helping the person to neutralize disturbing experiences so that these become manageable and hopefully no longer exert a negative effect upon the person.

EFT’s founder, Gary Craig, has consistently worked hard to minimize the risk of creating trauma through the EFT process, and for the most part he has succeeded splendidly in this. One thing he advises to minimize risk it so use the Tearless Trauma technique, a method whereby the person working on an overwhelming trauma in their life is advised not to “get into” and relive that trauma, but is encouraged to actively not think much about it as they repeat the EFT tapping sequence, and in particular not to re-experience it. They are asked to disassociate from the memory until their intensity level, when “guessed at” (but not actually experienced) has come way down. Only then is the person encouraged to think about the traumatic experience, if they want to.

This is an extremely effective method that I have often used with clients. I have found that it greatly minimizes the risk of seriously upsetting the person I am working with during the process.

Today, however, I want to talk about another technique of Gary’s which he describes as. “Sneaking up on the problem in EFT”. It is a close relative to the Tearless Trauma technique and has the same goal .. to minimize the amount of distress the person might go through when doing EFT. The way this method works is to have the person be very general (nonspecific, almost vague in fact) in the way they refer to the trauma within their EFT Statement.

You will notice that doing this seems to contradict Gary’s oft-repeated advice to be extremely specific when doing EFT. It is not a contradiction however. The specificity which Gary advocates under ordinary conditions is intended to make the memory of the anticipated problem more real and thereby assist the process of EFT. However, when there is a devastating personal experience that one doesn’t want a client to relive, or which you yourself don’t want to relive, then “sneaking up on the problem” is an excellent approach.

For example, I have often used Gary’s suggested general phrase, “this terrible thing happened”, when a trauma was so severe that I had to protect my client from the intensity of their memory. I first began to use this phrase following the 9/11 tragedy, when there were many people in such a state of shock at that time that they could hardly bear tapping on that trauma at all because of the fear of bringing back terrible images and feelings.

In order to avoid too much distress, I would regularly have the person tap on “Even though that terrible thing happened…” rather than asking them to talk about or tap on the specifics of a particular traumatic experience they had suffered during that disaster. This phrase was often all the person could take at this point, but even that general rather abstract phrase had a powerful effect upon people who had been severely traumatized. Several rounds of tapping on these quite indefinite words would usually calm them down to a point where they could begin to be more specific in their next rounds of tapping.

The next step was to have the person introduce more specific language into their EFT statements, such as “Even though 9/11 was devastating…etc.” This would be a big step for them because this new phrase is more specific than the first general statement in more than one respect. The date of the tragedy and its official “name” are now used and these triggers resonate in all our minds and often call forth that clearly identified traumatic event. In addition, a strong emotion is implied by the word “devastating” ─ the event has therefore become more real

The next stage of the EFT treatment, only permitted after the person feels calmer and more at ease (relatively speaking) with the phrase they have been tapping on, is to try touching on a specific sensory memory of the event, one that was particularly traumatizing to the person, as in “Even though I heard that terrible sound!” The person might, for example, have been walking in downtown Manhattan at the moment that the plane crashed into the first building. If they were now ready for the recall of this powerful sensory experience, one which shook them to their core, they could then try tapping directly on it.

If, after several rounds of tapping on this, their Intensity Level had come down considerably, then even more specificity could be introduced. For example, they might now be able to say something like, “Even though I was terrified by the sound”, admitting fully the feeling of panic they had experienced. The admission of a state of overwhelming panic and terror could now occur because the person had been prepared, through using the first more generalized tapping sequences, to recall that terrible emotion and actually re-experience it. It would now no longer be as strong an emotion as before their previous tapping.

I have been able to take clients from an experience of unspeakable horror at the thought of a certain event to a point where they were able to face this event with relative ease, all by systematically “sneaking up on” the problem. I have never regretted moving slowly through the EFT process in this way when necessary. It can make all the difference when we are dealing with an extremely traumatic event.

In the second article in this series I will talk about another facet of the “Sneaking up on the problem” approach –– a way in which we can break up a traumatic response into tiny segments that are much easier to deal with by EFT.

Part 2 of 2: Divide and Conquer

In this series we are looking at ways in which trauma can be reduced by EFT to very manageable proportions, or eliminated altogether, without in any way re-traumatizing a person. In the first article of this series I discussed Gary Craig's important recommendation that when there has been an extremely severe trauma such as a disaster or personal attack, that one “sneak up on the problem” by starting off with EFT statements that are purposely very general in nature so that the vivid details are not imagined at first. Only when the person has become more at ease with the issue can more and more specific and emotionally loaded words and phrases be introduced into the EFT statements.

This technique is of course related to the Tearless Trauma Technique which also aims at reducing possible retraumatization of a person during EFT.

Today I’m going to talk about another method which I’ve often used to help someone face a severely traumatizing experience gradually, step-by-step, when doing EFT. I find it extremely valuable. Here’s how it works:

First, I help the person to break up the memory of their traumatic experience into very small pieces. Each of these pieces may be time related in that the first one may occur before the trauma begins, or they can involve a relatively neutral detail of the traumatic scene itself. After the intensity of the first small, relatively neutral detail has been tapped down and the person’s distress about it sufficiently lessened, we then move on to the next point in time, or to the next small detail of the scene, until it too has been reduced markedly in intensity. This way the person becomes gradually immunized to the more shocking aspects of the trauma and gathers enough strength to handle the more devastating moments of the experience.

In order to show you how this works out in practice, let me give you an example of a client of mine who lost her beloved sister in an accident in which a car swerved off the curb, mortally wounding her sister who died a few hours later, and then drove away –– it was a hit and run driver.

My client, “Diane”, had been so deeply affected by this tragedy that occurred two years previously, that during that entire time she had been, in effect, emotionally numb and strangely unable to cry for her adored her sister. The whole incident, and her entire life from that point on, seemed “unreal” to her because she had disassociated from the trauma so completely. After two years had passed she finally decided that she was ready to seek work with EFT to clear the issue, and she consulted me to help her, knowing that I had helped other members of her family to deal with this same tragedy.

We started by tapping on the general issue of "Even though this terrible thing happened", Gary’s recommended way of “sneaking up on the problem”, then I asked her to recall exactly where she had been when she received the initial phone call telling her that her sister had been in an accident. She said she had been in a coffee shop with a friend, but before she had a chance to tell me about the phone call I stopped her and asked her to describe instead what the coffee shop had looked like on that day. She quickly said, "I don't want to think about it."

I then told her not to think about the incident at all but to concentrate on a relatively neutral detail of the coffee shop. She was to imagine what the tabletop looked like in front of her, how her cup of coffee looked sitting on it, and see in her mind the sandwich on its plate.

She tapped on, “Even though this terrible thing happened that day, I remember having coffee and a sandwich before the call.” I had asked her to do this because I wanted her to be aware that there was a "before”, a time that had been relatively neutral and normal before she had heard the terrible news. When she had tapped down her intensity around being in the coffee shop, and could calmly visualize sitting at the table with her friend, we then went on to the next detail.

I asked her to imagine the sound of the cell phone ringing in her handbag. It frightened her to think about it but she tapped on, “Even though I heard it ring, I choose to remember that I handled that day well."

When she had reduced her intensity around the sound of the phone I then asked her to remember her brother’s voice at the other end saying to her “Diane, something bad has happened."

It took several rounds of tapping to bring her reaction to his words down to manageable proportions, but she was able to do so by tapping on, “Even though he said something bad had happened, I deeply and completely accept myself."

We then went on to tap on detail after detail –– driving her car out of the parking lot and heading toward the hospital; being stopped at the tunnel by an officer who told her she had gone through a light; having him listen to her plea that her sister was in great danger and letting her to continue; arriving at the hospital and her shock when she saw the faces of the nurses when she told them the name of her sister –– she could see the doom in their eyes.

This first session of EFT ended with Diane remembering going up to the hospital room where her family members were assembled. She couldn't handle any more memories at this point so we scheduled another session two days later, to give her a chance to assimilate what she had already faced.

After four sessions, during which she unearthed memory after memory surrounding the incident and her relationship with her sister, Diane had moved to a point where she could now experience her outrage at what had happened to her sister, her feeling of desertion when her sister had suddenly disappeared from her life, and all the other deep emotions she had been hiding from herself for two years. At that point, an emotional healing occurred. She felt she was “herself” again after these strange years, now she was able to mourn her sister in a normal, appropriate manner, and the tears she shed at last were healing.

Diane had come through this terrible memory and reached an acceptance of what had happened because she had been able to use EFT in a step by step fashion that allowed her to neutralize the impact of each detail of her memory before moving on to the next. I am certain that there would have been no possibility of her having been able to face such powerful feelings had we not crept up on this whole problem, gradually, in a step by step fashion.

This is an extremely important way of dealing with trauma. I call it the Divide and Conquer technique. In my mind, it should be part of the repertoire of anyone who might ever face a trauma, their own or that of another person.

Pat Carrington, PhD

398 I am justified in my anger

Amazing video :)

Neale Donald Walsch

You are never who you were in the last moment. You are continually creating yourself from the field of infinite possibilities. You are, in every moment, born again. And so is everyone else.