“I will not forgive them,” my client blurted out as soon as she entered my office, “I am going to give them a piece of my mind one day!” Tina [name changed] was extremely angry with her relatives. Eight years ago, her mother had gone abroad for a holiday all alone and fallen seriously ill. Tina rushed to her mother’s rescue and spent two harrowing weeks in a foreign country trying to get her mother treated and bring her back home. During that time, she had expected more support from the rest of her family but it never came.
“They knew how serious our mother’s condition was, they knew I was all alone there and in need of help. They should have come to help us. They didn’t even pick up the phone and call!” Tina said angrily. She had always helped them when they were in need, and when it was their turn, they had forgotten her. She felt betrayed.
She was so traumatised by this dreadful experience that she hasn’t left her mother and grandmother’s side since—not taking a single vacation in eight years. Instead, Tina has lived with a constant fear of either of them getting sick again, and has taken on a lot of their responsibility by herself.
Our emotional baggage becomes heavier as we get older and we are able to do and be less than when we were younger
Because of all this, she also hasn’t been able to tie the knot. Well-educated, successful, pretty and young, there has been no shortage of suitors for Tina. But her fear of living away from her mother and grandmother has sabotaged her attempts to commit to a relationship. This intense internal conflict between her desires and equally intense fears have added to her high levels of frustration. In a way, Tina has been stuck in a prison of her own making for eight long years.
Voluntary confinement
Each one of us has a self-made prison that limits our life experiences. The walls of this prison are made of painful memories, fears, feelings of inadequacy and ignorance. Sometimes we are unable to express ourselves because of bad memories or fears. For example, why do we say ”yes” when we really want to say “no”? We do that usually when we are afraid, perhaps, of confrontation. We are often unable to even try to grab an opportunity because we are trapped in our prison. Our emotional baggage becomes heavier as we get older and we are able to do and be less than when we were younger.
Let us say that we are all born with an empty trunk or box on our heads [I know that seems bizarre, but humour me for a minute]. These trunks collect our emotional baggage in the form of rocks. Over time we unknowingly collect more and more emotional baggage and our trunks get heavier. As children, with empty trunks, we have so much energy that it is hard for us to sit still. The heavier our trunk gets, the slower we can run, the lesser we can walk, the lesser we can remember—a time comes when we get tired even when we aren’t doing anything at all.
Imagine what would happen if, while you were walking with your heavy trunk, a few big rocks fell out. Wouldn’t you automatically start walking faster? Imagine waking up every morning with more energy than you have had in years! You will be able to effortlessly do more, you will feel more capable and confident, your focus will be sharper, and you will be more alert and less fearful – just like you were a decade or two ago. That is what Emotional Freedom Techniques [EFT] can do for you.
Imagine what would happen if, while you were walking with your heavy trunk, a few big rocks fell out
Keep that energy flowing
EFT is an easy-to-use technique that clears away blocked energy in your body. It is based on the discovery that all painful emotions are a result of energy blocks. Every painful emotion is an indicator of an energy block. EFT heals pain by clearing these energy blocks. It therefore always works at the root cause of the pain. The clearer your energy is, the better your perspective and the more empowered you feel. Healing through EFT is done by tapping with one’s fingers on the energy points on the body. These exact points are also used in acupressure and acupuncture. Acupressure and acupuncture work mainly on physical issues but EFT’s transformative power lies in its ability to erase emotional and mental pain. When there’s no pain left, there’s nothing left to manage!
EFT works faster than most forms of healing available to us currently, and is certainly much faster than counselling. There are profound benefits to clearing blocked emotions—illnesses heal, mysterious aches and pains vanish, weight loss occurs, relationships improve, and so do bank balances. Now you’re really interested, aren’t you?
Setting yourself free
My client Tina was sceptical of EFT at first but became eager when we finally started tapping for her emotional pain. Twenty minutes into the healing she looked up at me and said “You know… in the past eight years all that those guys [her relatives] have done is collect rent on the property I set up for them, and get drunk every evening. They haven’t done anything with their lives in these past eight years. How could I have expected anything more from them?” This seemed to me like she was, in her own way, starting to let go.
“I am not wasting another minute of my life thinking about my relatives. I am going on a holiday!” A few sessions later, she took a two-week holiday with her old friends in Mumbai. A year later she had made it as far as London. She had even managed to find love. In her words, she was in an “amazing relationship with an amazing guy”.
Spiritual revival
In Tina’s case, we could identify her painful emotions around an incident and permanently ‘erased’ them with EFT. This clearly released a lot of blocked energy within her and re-awakened a sense of well-being within her—a feeling important for any healthy, happy adult.
EFT can free you of just about everything you want freedom from, whether you learn it yourself or seek the help of an experienced EFT practitioner. In the meantime, you can stop adding new rocks to your trunk by feeling your pain, instead of suppressing it. The next time you feel anger or hurt well up within you, just close your eyes and go into your body. You will be able to feel this pain in your body. Focus on it until it dissipates. And when it does, you would have successfully destroyed the new rock before it gets stored in your trunk forever!
To know more, watch this talk I have at a TEDx Delhi event.
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