I've spent most of my life looking for something. A tool, a technique, a book, a class, something to teach me how to be happy and to help other people do the same.
When I was in college I saw a three different therapists. They were sympahetic, very kind, and great listeners. I told them all my woes and my stories. Nothing changed. Week after week it was more of the same. Lots of talking and if there was progress it wasn't measurable to me.
Little did I know then what I know now: I was rehearsing and refining my ability to have the same problem. I was making myself better at it, not changing it. Oops!
At some point I realized talking wasn't helping me. Neither were the antidepresssants. I felt worse. I had massive anxiety and couldn't sleep. With the antidepressents I still couldn't sleep. I still had massive anxiety. Now I struggled to stay awake during the day at work and felt so foggy it was difficult to think.
After six months of playing with dosages that kept increasing, I threw them all away. It was time to try something else and with my limited amount of experience all I could turn to was exercise. It helped. In fact it has even been demonstrated that
exercise is as effective as antidepressants in treating depression. It worked for me and I was sleeping at night again, thanks to the work outs.
Exercise is and was a very tangible tool with immediate results for me. My anxiety and depression largely improved with it. I have to admit though when in the throes of a panic attack putting on my gym shoes and hitting the elliptical wasn't my first thought.
What I really needed to learn was how to transform my thoughts and beliefs into what served me, rather than those that created anxiety and depression in the first place.
I needed to learn that inside me, I have pictures, voices, sensations, emotions, smells, and tastes. That as I experience these internally my body reacts physically. This is what makes me literally feel that my thoughts are real. They aren't, they are just thoughts.
Like most people in the world, I read The Secret and convinced myself all I had to do was think happy thoughts and my life would change. I didn't really understand the message on a deeper level. It isn't just about repeating a mantra or affirmation a few times a day and voila the world is new! Meanwhile you go about your life, cursing at the person who cuts you off on the road, meeting your friends to compare stories of what went wrong all week. Who pissed you off at work, what your signficant other did that bothered you, or how your family just doesn't understand you at all. Insert your own vents there. Do you see the contradiction?
The real point of The Secret is that what you hold inside, those things that make up your thoughts create your world. Unless you tap into this, mantras and affirmations don't have soil to grow in.
I took up Yoga and Meditation to feel more peaceful, accepting of life. Years later I understood what it means to practice them "off of the mat" as well. Sitting, breathing and repeating a mantra in class, going outside and then returning back to patterns of complaining, noticing what's wrong and not right makes the peace temporary.
I began a gratitude journal. Many times. Unfortunately it took me many years to stick with it.
Then I found a course by Larry Levine, The Release Technique. I went through that in record time. I didn't seem to release to much though. I kept on searching.
That same year I found something that really worked. My anxiety had returned with a vengeance, in spite of diligent exercise. I made a series of choices that were probably better left unchosen. I was looking for a way to cope with the repercussions of my choices.
That something is called EFT, or Energy Freedom Technique. It did help me shift emotions, but it was a slow process. It felt slow at times and that could be frustrating. Because it worked I stuck with it. I shared it with friends and coworkers too.
Then Rhonda Byrne's second book, The Power came out. One thing that really resonated with me and still does to this day, is to look for things that you appreciate anywhere and everywhere you go. This has become effortless. At first it was a challenge. When I walked my dog I would practice, the whole walk. What can I appreciate here?
Then one day, a friend I shared EFT with learned of FasterEFT, Faster Emotionally Focused Transformations. It took me about 6 months to try it, feeling loyal to the technique I was using. Then I tried it and I agreed, it was faster for me too.
In fact I loved the process so much I decided to become a practitioner, to share it with others. The personal transformations I have experienced have been incredible. The peace I feel and the changes I see are what I wanted so many years ago when I first saw a therapist.
With FasterEFT, I have learned how to aim at my own pictures, voices, feelings, emotions, smells and tastes stored inside to create changes. The changes create shifts in what I see outside of me. All of these things are simply stored information created long ago. They are in the background driving the tour bus of our life, showing us more of what we already believe to be true based on this information.
We don't see what is there, we see what we believe to be true about what is there. All information is filtered through our beliefs and perceptions. If you're wearing smudged, dirty glasses you see a smudged, dirty world. It really is that simple.
Simple isn't necessarily easy though. It takes effort. Daily practice. Repetition. Dedication. Awareness.
I learned to go inside and change this information using my FasterEFT skills, either by myself or with another practioner (because two heads really are better than one). Next everything I saw around me began to change. Yet it was not circumstances that changed, it was my filters. I dusted them off and all of a sudden I could see what I had been missing all these years.
I am by no means done. Life is a process and I will be working on my internal references for the rest of it.
My main take aways are:
- Do not believe what you think, your thoughts are predictable patterns of thinking established long ago. They play along a theme. Have you ever been driving somewhere and went somewhere else out of habit? Yes, your thoughts work that way too.
- Talking about my problems makes me better at having them. Have you ever told a story and added more details? Felt it all as if it were happening again? We create reality with our stories. The question is: are you creating the reality you want?
- There really is only now. All our memories are in the past, we cannot go back. When we visit them in our mind we are recreating them from faulty perceptions. It is all made up now, choose a better feeling story.
- Words are just words. Each one of us defines the same word differently. If I were to choose five words that describe love for me, and everyone did the same exercise, we would not have the same words. Our references are all unique. This keeps my mind open.
- Ask better questions. What's wrong with me? will give you lots of proof that something is wrong. Your mind is an eager servent, it wants to please. Give it a better task and ask "How did I get so lucky?" or another question that resonates with what you truly want to see more of.
FasterEFT has given me the skills to create change. My memories are my references that determine what I see and believe about myself and the world around me. As I change my own self-identity by removing negative emotions from these memories I create a positive alternative, meaning or experience. How I see the world evolves along with it. The process is so fascinating. The best part is helping others as they do the same. Seeing those changes is a gift that keeps on giving.
