Reality Sucks! I struggle with the reality that as humans we will always have “issues.” I don’t want to have “issues.” When my issues are painful I want it fixed NOW – I sure do! I want it easy and quick. EFT often does that, which is what makes it so seductive. And I want to tap for a short time and have long term issues disappear – just like I read in some of the articles. I’m disappointed when they don’t – I want what I want when I want it!! We learn as adults to temper this desire with knowledge but we never totally get over wanting what we want now. I remember many years ago a conversation I had with Gary Craig. I’d been tapping for a couple of years and I asked if in his experience he’d noticed any average length of time that it took people to work through all their issues. Gary laughed. “We never are through,” he said.
We begin developing ways of responding to life very early. We are born with certain predispositions. Stress happens and we revert. It doesn’t have to be a major stress, just a minor trigger, and we are back. I often forget to tap – yes really – even me! I’ve noticed too that my clients, if they tap on their own at all, tend to just tap a short time until “I feel better.” Rarely does someone go for “total resolution” of their issue. And, when they do, they can find that it can still take a long, long time.
I remember being surprised as I listened to Steve Wells talk about his anxiety. Now I have seen Steve in action on stage and in social settings. Steve is a competent, self-confident, able therapist and speaker. He and often co presenter David Lake are proponents of “continual tapping,” a process that simply involves tapping the finger points most of the day. Steve’s talk clearly reinforced the concept of continuing to tap very often throughout the day. Tapping consistently can keep us calm. And when we are calm we are able to deal with the new stresses, usual triggers and challenges of our day without reverting back to our older and now less useful “solutions” such as anxiety or OCD or anger or whatever we have used to deal with life in the past. Are we ever totally over our strongly reinforced outdated “solutions” such as anxiety? Maybe, maybe not. What we can be totally over is our tendency to blame ourselves and feel badly that we are “doing it wrong” or worse, that “something is wrong with me.” Perfection is not a destination, it is a journey.
