Helping Mothers

Simple Things

2010-05-05T00:21:00.000-07:00

During the course of a session or a workshop, my clients (mothers and others) learn how to use Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) to help them in their daily lives.

One of the things I love about EFT is it's simplicity. It is so simple to learn, and easy to use, that my daughter would tap on me for fun when she was about three years old! Yet, despite the profound revelations, relaxations and releases that my clients experienced, a significant number of them were reluctant to use EFT in public.

I can understand this. Although I am very comfortable with tapping now, when I first came across it, I found it difficult, coming from a traditional clinical perspective (I am still a registered nurse), to trust in this faintly peculiar technique. Yet I knew I'd stumbled across something really magical, what felt like the missing link and, time and again, I was amazed by the results.

Nowadays, I let my clients know about Simple Energy Techniques (SET), which was developed by Dr David Lake and Steve Wells. SET involves using the thumb of one hand to tap on the finger points of the same hand.

How wonderful of mother nature to design us so efficiently!

My clients find this simplified form of tapping extremely relaxing and easy to incorporate in their daily lives. They also appreciate that they can use it so discreetly wherever they are, without the need to focus on a specific issue and it takes away the worry of how to word their problems.

Part of my goal as an EFT Practitioner is to make it as simple as possible for people to continue to get the benefits of using these techniques. In addition, clients who tap between sessions, whether they use EFT or SET, tend to heal their hurts and release the blocks and beliefs that are holding them back much more quickly. Part of the process of healing is to make a commitment to yourself. This is why homework (or an interesting experiment) is given to a client at the end of a session.

Recently I have asked clients to write down at least three things they have appreciated each day and tap around the points as they read them aloud afterwards. Even challenging situations can be appreciated if a client notices that they reacted differently, or they learnt something valuable from the interaction.

Sometimes it can be tricky getting used to noticing the magical moments of life, those moments where they are fully present and in the flow, but my clients find this a really helpful way to flip them out of their negative cycles of thought.

The beauty of this is that it has the effect of encouraging our reticular formation (or, in plain speak, our in-built radar) to find more and more things to appreciate in our lives. My clients tend to find that they appreciate the simple things in life much more.

Borrowing Benefits

2010-03-24T12:12:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday night I went to my local monthly EFT swap group. As a self-employed Advanced EFT Practitioner, I really cherish the opportunity to meet up with colleagues.

For me, it is an important part of my continuing professional development and a safe, supportive place in which to:

exchange ideas about what works with our clients,

gain a fresh perspective on how to move forward with a client,

clarify the EFT Principles,

discuss other Energy Techniques,

refine our personal approach and philosophy of practice,

and clear our own emotional clutter.

I find it beneficial and a lot of fun. Sometimes we pair off to do one to one work, but on this occasion we did whole group tapping utilising the EFT principle of Borrowing Benefits.

Borrowing Benefits is a way of working within a group setting that allows us to gain resolution of our own issues, even though we are tapping along with someone else on their issue. So essentially, we focus on one person’s issue at a time, whilst holding our own specific issues in the back of our minds.

This allows our unconscious minds to find parallels with our own life experiences and other people’s stories, enabling us to find the inner resources required to solve our problems. It sounds quite unbelievable, but I have witnessed and experienced this phenomenon many, many times, and, whilst it might seem as if the issues presented have no relevance, I have always found that there are common threads woven through these narratives that we can all identify with.

On this occasion, some of the the themes were as follows:

I'm not good enough

I can't get started

I have to be perfect

I'm so confused

Being authentic

I'm stuck

They won't accept me unless

I'm scared to

As I held my own particular story in the back of my mind and fully focused my attention and energy on someone else's struggle, I recognised that things were shifting for me during this process. I couldn't stop yawning! I wasn't bored or tired or too hot, that's just the way my energy releases itself.

I realised, when I got home later that evening, the extent of the benefits that I had borrowed.

I had been thoroughly stuck with a piece of work, and had been putting it off for some time, because I wasn't clear about how I could say what I needed to say in a way that was true to me, in a way that was authentic. I was going round in circles of confusion and disappointment.

After this session, I sat down and wrote the first draft!

I knew what I wanted to say, it was suddenly so clear to me

I knew how to write it in my own true voice

I knew that it didn't have to be perfect - it was just a draft

I just started writing.

I was thrilled with this breakthrough, especially as the deadline for this piece of work is fast approaching.

I find this technique an extraordinary way of working. It seems to be a really generous gift, a cost effective and immensely efficient way to dissolve our issues.

Maybe some of its power lies in being fully present with someone and really supporting them on their healing journey. Whatever, it is magic to witness and experience.

Releasing the Fear

2010-03-22T13:34:00.000-07:00

I love the film Strictly Ballroom. Time after time I go back to it and am always warmly greeted. It makes me grin and cheers my heart, but, being bittersweet and tinged with regret, it also tugs at its strings.

"A life lived in fear is a life half lived" is fired out in passionate Spanish staccato fairly early on in the movie and sets the scene for really living from the heart, taking a risk and daring to be different, daring to be uniquely you. But it's the father's haunting cry of "we lived our lives in fear", towards the end of the film, that gets me every time. It speaks to something within me,of my own regrets and coulda woulda shouldas, and, invariably, I get a little misty eyed and tight of throat.

I watched this film again recently (my six year old has developed a penchant for it) and found that those words didn't touch me in the same way. They barely registered.

I must admit, I was a little surprised by this, though really I shouldn't have been. I've been using EFT sporadically for many years, and much more consistently for the last couple, so I am more at peace with myself and my life and the choices that I have made.

It's funny to recognise elements of myself in that film, because I never considered myself to be cautious. And yet...

I sometimes have really compelling reasons not to do something and I really believe my own stories, but, if I'm honest, quite often, the real truth is that I am afraid. Afraid to be me, to be free, to let myself shine. Afraid of stepping into the unknown, of being in my power. I don't struggle with these fears so much now. I see them for what they are. Stories I am telling myself about myself. And I can choose to tell another story.

Fear keeps us caged. When we are free of fear, we can be clear. Clear about who we are and what we truly want. Free to trust in our inner knowing.

It is no surprise to me that I am drawn to help women Release the Fears as they approach childbirth for the first time. When we have a baby, everything changes. It is such a leap of faith into an unknown world, one fraught with potential dangers at every stage of our baby's development, or so the story goes...

How wonderful to learn a tool that can help you to really enjoy the last few weeks of your pregnancy and approach your due date feeling clearer, calmer and much more confident. How wonderful to be able to tell a different story about the birth of your baby.

Connections

2010-03-14T10:02:00.000-07:00

All that we are and all that we will be is connected to our unconscious thoughts and beliefs that we have acquired through our perception of our life experiences. I believe that we are born with a life purpose, with a unique ability to do something better than anyone else in the whole of the world, and yet, unless we address these underlying negative thought processes, these entrenched unconscious inner beliefs and these traumatic memories, we are destined for disappointment.

I had an illuminating Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) session the other day, which reminded me of the interconnectedness of present emotions and past experiences. I saw how beliefs acquired, and emotions experienced when I was a small girl, played out in the drama of my present day life. Prior to the session, I had found it difficult to connect with those past experiences. I had few clear images of my younger self, indeed my past was distant and hazy.

I realised that sometimes my daughter triggers in me the uncomfortable feelings of my inner little girl, in this case, feelings of abandonment, of not being good enough and of being fearful of change.
My daughter illustrates to me, as clearly as a mirror, those areas in which, as a child, I felt that my needs weren't met. In turn, I mother her, at times, the way my mother mothered me and her mother mothered her, which feeds the negative feelings and helps them grow bigger. My emotional needs were not always met in the past, so if I behave the same way in the present, so too will her needs be unmet.
As children, we are as sponges, drinking up the life lessons from the important people around us; people with their own unresolved conflicts, their own histories of unmet needs.
It pays to remind ourselves that everything is as it should be. The universe provides and we all make the best choices and behave in the only way we know how at the time, given our own life experiences and resources. If you look with your heart, you can find the keys to open the doors of healing.
The other day I went some ways along the path of making peace with my inner little girl. There is more work to be done, soothing her and balming her from her past hurts, which echo in my present life. The beliefs I formed then, and the feelings that I felt, no longer serve me, so it is time to give her the things she felt she missed out on.

It is never too late to change your mind and transform your life.
It is never too late to have a happy childhood.

Surrender

2010-03-11T13:50:00.000-08:00

There is always a darker side to life. Without the darkness it is impossible to distinguish the light. Both are a vital part of the human spirit, the cycle of life. With birth comes the inevitability of death.
Today, I have yelled when kind words and a bit of imagination could have helped both myself and my daughter solve a situation. In between perfectly happy moments have come times of tension and thinly veiled threats and counter threats designed to softly wound in the face of feelings of powerlessness. And then....
...When the day is almost done comes surrender. A time of truly being present and resourceful and aware. A time of reconnection. The bonds of light and love are healed once more and all is well in the world.
As a mother, I feel that it is my duty to try to be the best me I can be and to allow the light to shine brightly as often as is possible. I am human and fallible and the darkness is always part of the cycle. I have tools which support me on this journey of motherhood and I share these with my children so that they may learn that, though the dark is ever present, some things help the heart feel a little brighter. These friends that nurture and sustain me, and those which I share, I am eternally grateful to...so thanks to Reiki and to EFT. I trust these friends to help the hurts to heal. I trust these friends to guide me to what needs to be healed within me to enable me to mother my children in the way they most need and I surrender to the cycle, knowing that with awareness comes truth and wisdom.