Beliefs are simply thought patterns. Thought patterns are created from thinking the same thought over and over again. That’s it! That’s all that beliefs consist of.

However, the consequences of beliefs are far from simple. Beliefs drive our behavior, our actions and our decisions. They are powerful and ultimately determine our level of happiness, effectiveness and satisfaction.

The good news is that beliefs aren’t permanent. They are changeable. They are disposable. You CAN let go of them – no matter how long you’ve held them.

Powerful Beliefs

When beliefs get really strong is when they’re anchored by emotion. They get embedded at a deep level – especially when we’re young. It’s just the mechanics of how our brains and energy systems work.

So if your belief arose from a teaching by someone you felt strong emotion towards – good or bad — that belief can be solidly entrenched. It can seem like the truth, not just a belief.

If your belief comes from a thought pattern about an event hooked to big emotions, the same thing can happen. For example, if you were razzed when you flubbed your speech in 7th grade, you probably hold the belief that public speaking is humiliating. The shame and embarrassment you felt was a strong emotional link to your thoughts about the event (the speech). The resulting belief can feel like absolute fact.

A strong belief can also grow out of lots of repetition of the same thought, too — even if there wasn’t a big emotional connection. So if you hear “Our people don’t dress like that” enough times, it can feel like the undisputable truth. Even when logic tells you something different.

But no matter how strong the anchor, or how powerful the belief, it CAN be released. If a belief is not serving you, and you don’t want it driving your life anymore, you can let go of it. There are various ways to do this, but I recommend EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques). It’s the fastest, most effective tool I know of to eliminate unwanted beliefs.

You Don’t Need To Replace Beliefs

And you don’t have to replace one belief with another one. Many people get stuck here. They think they first have to come up with a new belief system. They need a new ideology, or another person whose belief system they can adopt before they’re willing to release their old one.

It’s just not necessary. There’s a myth that before you can let go of an old belief, you must have a new one lined up to plug into that spot. But the truth is, left to your own true essential heart self, you would always choose good thoughts. You would choose the positive choice every time. So you don’t have to shop for a new belief to guide your behavior.

Look at innocent little kids. They always go for the good stuff. They’re attracted to it. And YOU would go for the good stuff naturally, too — once your limiting beliefs are out of the way. That’s what your true nature is. Don’t let that belief replacement myth stop you from releasing beliefs that don’t serve you.

If you want some help letting go of beliefs that are keeping you stuck, that’s my specialty. Give me a call at 805-835-5566 or email me at janet [at] janethilts.com and we’ll discuss how we can move you forward.

Sometimes when you tap you don’t make much progress with releasing your issue. There’s some inner resistance to letting go. In EFT jargon, the resistance is called a reversal or energy reversal. When you tap, the energy is not going in the direction you want (releasing), but is stuck in reverse (holding on).

What It Means

Resistance is not uncommon. It doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you. It really just means your system is doing a good job of protecting you.

Our body-minds are set up to do what it takes to maintain balance. Any change upsets the balance. Whatever ways you’ve managed to carry around that problem and still function has worked – to some degree. So your system says, “I’m not changing that. I’m not letting go. Better stick with what we know.”

Not A Surprise

Any issue we’ve had for more than a day or two likely has resistance attached to it. Not on a conscious level probably, but on a subconscious level. It’s a natural defense mechanism that kicks in so we can keep on functioning. Think about it: If you had no resistance to letting it go, you would have already let it go. Right? You wouldn’t even need to be doing EFT on the problem in the first place!

Don’t Fight It

Resisting resistance doesn’t help. You’ve already got a little tug-of-war going on. There’s a part of you that wants to let go. And another part that’s holding on. Don’t add a third part to the mix by being mad at yourself or feeling ashamed. Denying the resistance won’t help either. Your best choice is to relax – if you can – and accept the resistance.

What To Do About It

Use EFT to eliminate the resistance. There are a few different ways to do this. Try them out and see what works for you.

• Stop tapping on your original issue. Treat your resistance as a separate issue and use EFT on it. Then come back to your original issue.
• Work it into your setup statements like this: “Even though I have this (problem) and I’m resisting letting go of it, I love and accept myself anyway.”
• Sometimes you need an outside perspective. You might need to work with a practitioner to clear that resistance. It can be hard to get around our own blind spots well enough to really see the problem.

What’s your experience with resistance? Leave a comment below so we can all keep learning.

Did you know that you can use EFT to help your pets? It’s very effective and fast and can bring great relief to your animals AND your checkbook.

Essential: First Calm Yourself

Unless it’s such an emergency that there’s no time to do this, take a minute to use EFT on yourself first. Clear (or at least reduce) your issues about your pet’s problem. These might include:

• Worry or anxiety about your pet’s injury or condition
• Anger at a person or circumstance contributing to the problem
• Guilt that you contributed to it or didn’t notice it sooner
• Doubt that tapping can help

In my experience, if you’re too upset, that negative energy can block the success of EFT healing for your pet.

NOTE: If there’s no time to do EFT on yourself, at least take a deep breath and visualize setting your own concerns on a shelf until later. It works!

If Your Pet Lets You Tap

Some animals have no resistance to your tapping on them. If that’s the case, do it! Some people tap on points equivalent to our own points. That’s not always possible, however. Most pets respond to gentle tapping up and down their spine, so you can try that. The top of the head is another place that’s generally easy to get to and is effective.

When You Can’t Tap On Them

There are reasons why it won’t work to tap on your pet. For example:

• You can’t dive into the fish tank.
• Your pet is too upset (or stuck in a tree).
• You’re already at the vet and can’t physically tap on your pet.

Now What?

Now you can tap on yourself on behalf of your pet. It’s called surrogate tapping or proxy tapping. You just pretend you’re the animal and tap on yourself, saying what the animal might say.

Here’s a sample of how I helped my cat who was hiding in a corner with a large cactus thorn in his mouth, and a piece of cactus stuck to his inner thigh. I skipped the setup.
Then I just tapped around the points on my own face and body, saying:

This really hurts and I don’t know what’s going on. Mom loves me and she’s helping me now. I can trust Mom to help me. I’m feeling calm now and my breathing is slowing down. It’s safe for me to let Mom help me. I know she loves me. I can feel all the love right now. It’s OK for me to let Mom come close [he can be very stand-offish}. I can relax now and let Mom help me. It’s OK for Mom to tap on my head. It will feel really good to let Mom tap on my back.

He calmed down and let me remove the cactus without resisting — amazing for his personality! And he allowed me to tap a little bit up and down his spine. Then he walked away, breathing much more slowly than before and appearing normal.

I went back to tapping on myself as if I were him, saying:
I ask my body to heal itself quickly. I don’t need any reaction, so I let go of any swelling. I ask my body to easily let go of any thorns that might be left. I feel like my old self, and I’m ready to enjoy life again. I love being tapped on and I love Mom to help me if I’m hurt. I’ll remember this next time I get myself into trouble.

Who knows? Maybe he will!

Other Animal Examples

Some other ways I’ve used it are:

• To help a cat heal from a coyote bite wound on his leg
• To calm an old dog who freaks out when her owner leaves the house
• To clear some unknown obstruction in the throat of a coughing cat
• To calm a lizard down so I could catch it to put it outside
• To get a yellow jacket to leave our picnic table!

Animal EFT Experts

There are tapping practitioners that specialize in working with animals, who go far beyond these simple guidelines. You can easily find them online through Google or at emofree.com.

In the meantime, this is a great way to help your pets when they’re in trouble — and to enjoy your picnics more. Just trust yourself, knowing you have the animal’s best interest at heart. Say whatever comes to mind. Give it a try and let us know how it goes by posting a comment below.

To read about surrogate tapping for other people, check out Tapping For Others – What’s The Deal?

Do you ever feel like you’ve opened a Pandora’s box by starting to tap on your issues? Do you get discouraged when a new issue pops up? Here you were – excited to get rid of some old inner junk, only to uncover another layer or a related problem. Sometimes it can feel overwhelming – like this is going to go on forever. Like, what’s the point of clearing one thing if it’s just going to stir up something new?

Not Really New

In reality, your challenge isn’t new. Maybe it hasn’t been in the forefront of your consciousness for awhile, but it’s not new. It’s just that its priority in your psyche and energy system has shifted so now it has come to your attention.

The healing and clearing from tapping is a marvelous phenomenon. And sometimes that clearing reveals some issue that’s been hidden from view – maybe not forever, but for awhile anyway.

There were excellent reasons for that “new” issue to remain out of sight up til now. Here are some possibilities:

• Maybe you didn’t have the inner strength to face it before.
• Maybe you didn’t have the certainty that you could do anything about it. But now that you’ve had some tapping success, you know that healing is possible.
• Maybe it’s too big to deal with on your own and until now you hadn’t found anyone to help you with it.

You can be sure of this: Your highest, wisest self takes really good care of you at all times. What’s the point of allowing an issue to surface if you aren’t able to do something about it? It makes sense that the issue would stay out of view, doesn’t it? So honor your self-protective skills for taking good care of your heart and spirit by revealing things to you in a sensible, timely way.

It’s Good News

Your “new” issue shows up now because it’s time for it to be healed. That’s GOOD news. It’s been my experience that problems reveal themselves at the perfect time on your healing path:

• Time when you’ve already released other issues that could cause resistance to releasing this one.
• Time when you’ve built a solid enough foundation to trust the process of tapping – you KNOW it works for you.
• Time when you have inner strength enough to be the new person you’ll be without that problem.

By the time an issue shows up, it’s ready to go! It is SO ready to be released. Often these issues are eliminated really quickly once you start tapping on them. I hope you’ll start seeing new issues in a different and hopeful light. Maybe you could even welcome them – imagine the possibilities on the other side of letting them go!

And let us all know how it goes by leaving a comment here.

Sometimes tapping issues can be a little tricky to sort out. There are the feelings you have and the plain old truthful facts about it. If your emotions on the topic are strong, the separation between facts and feelings can be hard to find. Or you may think it’s ALL feelings, or even ALL facts.

Maybe you’re thinking, “So what? I’ll just start tapping and it will all sort itself out.” That is one approach, and it may be successful. But it can help to at least be aware of the facts versus feelings components of your issue.

In The Beginning

Tangling up facts and feelings can cause resistance to tapping on the issue in the first place. Let me give you an example. A client (“Ben”) was extremely uncomfortable at networking events. He mumbled, avoided people and felt nauseous. He felt ashamed that he didn’t know how to clearly describe his coaching practice.

Ben saw no point to tapping on this issue because he was sure he just needed to come up with his perfect 30-second intro speech. But the fact was that his dread of networking came up any time he thought of writing his speech. And that fear stifled his ability to think creatively to write a good intro speech. With this tangled knot, there was no way out of his dilemma.

What’s The Answer?

Here’s what we did: We acknowledged that it is a fact that he could benefit from writing a good intro speech. We acknowledged that he had strong feelings of fear and shame when networking.

We tapped away the fears and shame and limiting beliefs and here’s what happened: He went to a networking event the next day and had fun! He still didn’t have a good intro speech, but he wasn’t concerned about it. He was able to connect with people anyway, which is the whole point of networking.

So the fact that he needed a good speech didn’t change. But we untangled it from the feelings. Now Ben has the confidence that with some focused effort, he can craft a good speech. And it’s still a fact that when he does, his networking will probably produce better results.

Don’t Forget To Check

Self-blame about an issue can be easily overlooked. But it can anchor other emotions so that they’re hard to clear. So when you untangle your own knots of facts and feelings, be sure to check for that. In Ben’s case, the self-blame was strong related to his unwritten intro speech. We cleared the other feelings and beliefs more quickly by starting off with eliminating that blame.

Being specific is a cardinal rule of effective tapping. If you’ve studied EFT, you’ve sure heard that before. So what exactly does that mean?

Choose Your Issue

The first place where it’s important to be specific is in choosing your issue to tap on. For instance, “worthiness” is a very broad topic. Tapping on that probably won’t change it much. You need to narrow it down.

Listen To The Voices

An easy place to start is to listen to your self talk about it. Chances are that the old voices in your head aren’t using the term “worthiness.” What phrases do you hear? OK – I know they’re not too pleasant, which is why some people don’t want to go there. They feel safer with more generic terms or therapy terms. Or maybe with spiritual phrases or metaphysical terms.

But those likely aren’t YOUR terms. That’s not the language your subconscious has linked to the unwanted feelings you’re seeking to change with EFT. In my experience, tapping goes much more quickly when you use your own words and phrases. So take a listen. What’s the old tape that’s playing?

No Need To Suffer

While you’re preparing to tap and investigating the details of your issue, you don’t have to hurt. In fact, you can get more useful details by keeping a little distance. Having the crummy feelings while trying to clarify your issue can create resistance to seeing what’s going on.

So just back off! Pretend you’re a reporter asking yourself questions. Or close your eyes and picture yourself literally stepping back a few steps from the issue — still close enough to see things clearly, but stepping out of the middle of it.

How Specific Language Helps

There are a couple of ways getting to your own words can help:

1. The way you conceptualize the issue gets clear. Maybe the worthiness-related words you hear in your head are “You can’t do anything right. You’ll never amount to anything.” That’s not exactly the same issue as someone else who hears, “Be grateful for what you’ve got. You’re never satisfied, are you?” Can you see how those are distinctly different? So the way you’ll tap on them will be different.
2. The second way your own words can help is that they can be roadsigns for your tapping map. They can point you to the origins of the limiting beliefs and crummy feelings associated with low self-worth. Ask yourself, “Where did I hear those words?” The answer will give you some real specifics to tap on. Now you can pinpoint a person and/or incidents connected to those words. Now you’ve got an effectively tappable issue!

Being specific in these ways can reduce your time, energy and frustration when you tap. Give them a try and let us know how it goes by posting a comment.

EFT is all about balance. It’s a method to bring your system back to the naturally healthy and peaceful emotional state that is true balance. Essentially, EFT clears the excesses, bringing you back to the center.

Keep Your Own Tapping In Balance

Tapping is a terrific way to clear unwanted, negative feelings, events and physical problems. And that’s great. It’s so fast and so effective; what more could you ask for?

But if you use EFT a lot, it’s possible to get your point of view a little lopsided – focused mainly on problems. Even if you’re steadily eliminating those problems, you may be missing out.

You need to have some focus on the good stuff, too. Not just the absence of the negative. If this seems like splitting hairs, think about it a little more.

Musical Variety

What if that unwanted issue were a kind of music that you really dislike? It’s too loud or too sad or too annoying. So the EFT clears out that crummy tune and brings you to silence. Silence is a wonderful thing, and sure beats listening to that music you can’t stand.

Now here’s another issue you’re going to tap on (more crummy music). Then the blessed relief of silence (clearing with tapping). And again. And once more. And another time. Back to silence.

So what’s wrong with this picture? Silence is not the only option other than lousy music. What about some good music? Let’s get a little balance in here!

It’s possible to use EFT to make your own good “music” – some really positive focus. Here are some ways to create that balance.

On Your Own

Before you start tapping on a problem, take a minute to back off from the issue. Imagine what will be different when it’s no longer bothering you. Get a clear picture of the best possible outcome. Imagine how you’ll feel when you’re there. Yum!

Then come back to your issue and tap it away. You may find you’ll release it more quickly this way as your body-mind has a clear target for where it’s headed. This can lower your resistance to releasing the problem.

For the final few rounds of your tapping, tap in the positive. Use Pat Carrington’s Choices methods, or just make up your own positive statements. Include words of gratitude for being done with the problem. Add a round about how much you’re looking forward to new possibilities, going into detail about what those possibilities are.

Tap In Affirmations

Regularly tapping in affirmations is a great way to keep your balance. Click here to read a separate post about that.

How do YOU keep your balance with EFT? Let us hear how it goes for you and leave a comment below.

Has this ever happened to you when you’re doing EFT? You’re tapping away, moving out your issue just fine. Your emotional intensity is dropping fast. And suddenly it just won’t budge. You can’t seem to finish off the issue. You want to get that intensity down to a zero, but you just can’t do it.

The Answer May Be Anger

Maybe the problem is hidden anger. Anger seems to act like a magnet, holding unwanted feelings in your system. You have to release the anger to let go of the rest of the larger issue.

Anger In All Its Disguises

I’m using anger here as a general category of emotions. Maybe you don’t think much in terms of “anger.” But what about these variations: feeling annoyance, irritation, impatience, blame, self-blame,  resentment, outrage, unfairness, injustice. Do you ever have little pieces of that mixed in with other issues?

When It Hooks Other Emotions

So anger can act like a hook, hanging on to other emotions so they resist being released. Let me give you some examples of how this works.

1. Say you’re afraid of snakes. You’re using EFT on the fear, and you can feel it leaving. But the process hits a snag. If you’re annoyed at your mom for having that fear herself when you were little, that annoyance (anger) can block the release of the remaining fear.
2. Or maybe you’re tapping away physical pain. You fell on a wet floor and hurt your leg, and EFT is relieving the pain. You realize you’re mad at the store people for not cleaning up the puddle, so you’ve tapped on that anger already. But if you can’t get rid of the pain completely with your tapping, you might be blaming yourself (anger) for falling in the first place.

The Solution

The ideal thing is to quickly check with yourself at the start of any issue to see if you have any kind of anger about it. Then either tap that away with separate rounds, or include it with your other EFT.

Otherwise, whenever you hit a slowdown in your tapping, ask yourself if anger could be the roadblock. Take a minute to tap it away (it often releases very quickly), and finish off your EFT session.

Watch For This One

The biggest culprit in this category, in my experience, is self-blame. The tricky part is this: If you have a habit of scolding yourself, it might not even occur to you to look for self-blame.

One way to remind yourself to check on this is to write a note that you keep with any other EFT papers you have. 

What’s your experience with this? Leave a comment below and let us all know.

Once you’re into a tapping session, it’s not unusual for another issue to show up — something a little different from what you started with.

Always A Good Thing

It may not feel pleasant (unwanted emotions seldom do). But the way I look at it, any issue showing up always give you more information about yourself and what you’d be better off without. Right? So the appearance of a new issue during an EFT session is always good news.

Temporary Issues

One version of pop-up issues are temporary ones. They show up by seeming to pile on to what your’e already tapping on. The key word here is “seeming.” It’s an illusion that they’re really a part of your original issue.

Suddenly your intensity number can seem to go up, even when it’s been steadily dropping. These are just temporary issues. Let me explain what I mean by giving a few examples.

New Fear

A new business owner was tapping away concerns about marketing staff who were doing initial website, logo and startup work. His concerns were that they might mess everything up. The business would never get off the ground. We were tapping and his intensity number was steadily dropping.

Suddenly his emotional intensity went up. With a little questioning, we found the cause was fear about supervising future office staff. This was a brand new fear. It clearly wasn’t the original issue we were tapping on. So the intensity number didn’t apply to our original issue.

And this new fear only appeared because of new possibilities opening up — possibilities he could now see because his marketing startup fears were disappearing. So we acknowledged that he was definitely moving forward. Progress can wear some uncomfortable disguises, can’t it? A part of him was already down the road, visualizing the business and up and running with office staff on board. Excellent!

We wrote down the new fear so we could check back on it later. Then we continued to tap down the original issue to zero. When we checked back on the office staff fear, it was gone! Strictly a temporary issue.

Hindsight Sadness

Another pop-up issue I see frequently is sudden sadness. Again, this usually shows up when the intensity on the original issue has dropped quite a bit. Here’s an example of how this works:

A musician was tapping on concerns about an upcoming performance. We were using EFT to release fears, lack of confidence and self-blame about not preparing well enough.

We’d made a lot of progress, when suddenly her emotional intensity number went up. This was another case of a new emotion showing up, but this time it was sorrow. Just showed up out of the blue. She was feeling really sad that she’d been blaming herself and thought of all the times in the past when she’d done the same thing.

So we did the same routine: Acknowledge that this shows progress — right? If she hadn’t let go of the self-blame, she couldn’t be looking back in hindsight at it. And there wouldn’t be room to have that compassion for herself. Guilt and shame and scolding herself would still be crowding it out.

So once again we stopped to realize she’s seriously moving towards being completely clear of the original issue. Great!

Next we wrote down that sadness, so we could come back to it. Then we continued tapping on the original concerns and feelings about the performance — down to zero. When we checked back on that sadness, it was gone, too. Another temporary issue.

Other Types of Side Issues

There are definitely pop-up issues that are NOT temporary. But that’s another story….. Stay tuned for another post on that.

In the meantime, what’s your experience? How do you deal with these extra issues that show up during EFT? Let’s hear your side of the story, too — in the comments area below.

“Do I need permission to tap for someone else?”
“I can’t stand her. Can I tap for her to change?”
“Does EFT work for remote healing?”
“Do they need to know when I’m tapping for it to work?”

These are some of the questions you’ve been asking about surrogate EFT, or tapping for someone else. The answers are a little more involved than a simple “yes” or “no.” So let’s take a look at them.

The Right And Wrong Of It

Some people are adamant that any treatment (including EFT) must be done with the permission of the recipient — like informed consent for a medical procedure.

Others say the permission thing only applies to those who CAN say yes. So that rules out unconscious people, pre-verbal babies, people with dementia, etc.

I look at it this way: If I think a good thought about someone, or meditate on goodness for them, or do my version of praying for them, I don’t ask permission. I just do it! I figure that since my intention is good, I can’t possibly harm them, so why not?

And on the flip side, do you ask permission before you think a crummy thought about someone or gossip about them? If thoughts and words have energy (which I think they do), then where’s the consent of the receiver of your negativity?

Kinda makes you go hmmmmmmm….., doesn’t it?

Tapping To Change Someone Else

Hey – good luck with that! That works about as well as any other way you try to change another person. Unless you’re a plastic surgeon, it’s not really going to happen.

A better approach is to tap on your own feelings about the person and how you respond to them. Once you clear your own unwanted emotions, think about that person again.

There’s almost always some kind of fear at the bottom of unpleasant behavior. Maybe you could surrogate tap for them on their fear, intending some healing for them.

Distance EFT

Whether remote EFT works or not is another great question to ponder. There are many testimonials to its effective use long distance on the website of EFT founder Gary Craig at www.emofree.com. Some amazing results have been reported.

In my experience, whether it works or not depends on a variety of things. And each factor carries a different weight in each circumstance. Here are some considerations:

• How strong a connection is there between the tapper and tappee (person being tapped for)?
• How skilled is the tapper?
• Is there more than one person tapping?
• How resistant to healing (consciously or subconsciously) is the tappee?

Do They Need To Know For It To Work?

There are a couple of ways to look at this question. If the tappee DOES know there’s surrogate tapping going on, maybe their added intention of healing could help it be more effective. Some would argue that their knowledge of it happening is what’s making it work.

On the other hand, maybe knowing that someone’s tapping for you could raise more subconscious resistance to healing (AKA “reversals” in EFT jargon). Possibly that could actually prevent the EFT from working.

Not a simple answer….but I warned you about that.

What Do You Think?

Have you done any surrogate tapping? Are you for it or against it? Let us all know about it and leave a comment here.