"But what if I DON'T accept myself completely?"

The effectiveness of EFT heavily relies on the words that we use while we tap on energy meridian end points. The very first phrase we use is called a "Set up statement" and involves what I call the "ugly truth" and a "positive truth affirmation" and is quite possibly the most powerful part of the EFT process. SO powerful that when I considered going back to school for my psyche degree I met too many psychologists, psychotherapists, nurses and other professionals who said, "Don't go back to school, now that I have EFT, it's my primary tool, just go this route, it's what people need". So, I did a small jump for joy and began my certification process!

Lets thank them for me being here with you instead of in class!

If you aren't familiar with the set up statement already, check out my previous post by clicking here.

Lets use " social anxiety" as our topic, your set up might sound like this:

"Even though when I walk into a crowded room I feel anxious, I accept myself".

or

"Even though I feel anxious I deeply and completely love and accept myself".

WOAH!!! Hold up. Doesn't that cause a whole new problem for many of us? It's hard enough to feel anxious, and now I want you to go ahead and proclaim that you accept yourself too? Or worse off, DEEPLY & COMPLETELY?

Great question, and often a wonderful excuse to dismiss yet another incredible healing opportunity.

Let me help.

We're dealing with two different parts of our brain and while I could bore you with bucket loads of science and words, my mission is to keep is simple and get to the point (which is hard enough for me) so I'm going to refer to these two parts as:

-What we KNOW to be true-your conscious brain.

-What we FEEL-the subconscious brain.

This is why we can KNOW our partner loves us but we don't FEEL love from them.

We're one person, but the tug of war because of how our mind and body is made can cause disagreement and EFT helps to align what we know and feel. (See my testimony link for more.)

The subconscious feeling part of our brain can be considered "non-verbal", so it doesn't hear or translate things the way we do in our knowing brain and it's our feeling brain that holds the ability to trigger our fight or flight response that keeps us feeling emotionally stuck. So just because we KNOW something, doesn't mean our subconscious FEELS that or agrees and unfortunately, it's running the program which is why I say, "Feelings are facts". Lets play with some words.

If you were feeling anxious and I asked you if you accept yourself, you might say "No, not with this anxiety." If I asked you if you feel safe, you'd probably laugh. When we feel anxious it's because we don't feel safe. When we don't feel safe, we don't accept ourselves. We don't feel SAFE to ACCEPT ourselves with this ANXIETY problem. (Or pain, or injury, or divorce, or illness or....fill in the blank.)

Sorry, I forgot to give you a blank to fill in... Here you go. _____________________

So we need to get clever and speak to our subconscious controlling feeling center in a way that will help it feel SAFE. If it feels safe, then it won't trip our fight or flight response. Without that tripped, we get to walk into a crowded room with ALL the blood in our brain and stomach and do you know what that means? We are our full, complete, aware selves. When we have blood in our brain, we USUALLY act like the composed adults that we are. Without that blood, we act like children who say and do silly things (and therefore can't accept ourselves.. am I bringing this full circle yet?)

(If you don't know the correlation between current anxiety and why it probably has something to do with childhood, be sure to check out my video and explanation here)

To feel safe feels acceptable. To accept feels safe.

Let me remind you of our set up statement: "Even though I feel anxious, I accept myself."

Normally when you walk into a crowded room your subconscious KNOWS what to do, protect you from your anxiety. It does this because it knows you don't feel safe, and it's the one that constantly reminds you that it's not safe, so it helps you run. Again.

When you tap on our EFT points while using the proper phrase something totally different takes place. The set up statement used properly brings that blood back to your brain and stomach. Your cortisol (stress hormone) can drop up to 80% and you help calm your fight or flight which breaks an old agreement, allowing new neuro-pathways to be created around social events.

If your brain didn't believe you felt safe/acceptable before, when you tap and talk this is what you have the power to finally communicate to your fight or flight:

"Hey brain, normally when I walk into a crowded room, I don't feel safe and you think you're helping me by giving me anxiety. But right now I'm telling you that I FEEL this anxiety and I'm safe to feel it. I accept myself right now in this moment for the first time, even with this anxiety."

Bam. You just tried something new and you tripped a new wire. Your subconscious controlling feeling fight or flight center was just told that you didn't need it in order to feel safe anymore!! If you don't need it, then IT doesn't need to inject you with shaky hands and the need to run. If you can understand that it's important to YOUR emotional health and well-being, that YOU accept yourself, even with this problem, even if just for a second, even if just to trick your brain into believing you're now safe, then you give yourself the gift of feeling free emotionally in a crowded room and I wonder if your body wasn't shaking, if your hands weren't sweating, if you we able to make eye contact and feel present, if you could actually, honestly, and truly, ACCEPT yourself.

So, maybe normally it feels uncomfortable to accept yourself, especially with whatever problem you face daily, but it's first accepting yourself, even with that problem, that changes EVERYTHING.

It's why after 20 years of chronic anxiety, I'm not medicated, or anxious.

It's why a 15 year old stopped cutting herself.

It's why SO MANY PEOPLE AND SO MANY EXPERIENCES but there's more... without this problem, the space inside you that it was taking up-the energy it was draining... is now able to be filled with something new and it'll naturally fill itself with helping you be more present, aware, calm, collected, but you also get to chose what to fill it with. Healthy stuff.

I dare you.