According to Emrika Padus, editor of The Complete Guide to Your Emotions and Your Health,  each year doctors write millions of prescriptions for tranquilizers. Not only are these drugs potentially dangerous, they’re ineffective at getting to the ’cause’ of Anxiety.

If we do not treat the underlying causes of any emotional or physical condition, we are likely to continue taking mediation with only temporary or no change.

In the EFT sessions with Rakesh, we tapped on many stressors (factors that cause stress) . Gradually his eye pain started going down.  He also learnt to recognize and tap on his triggers on his own.

With EFT, you can get to the causes of emotional distress or psycho-somatic ailments and get long lasting relief.

How to get to the ’cause’?

1. Identify the time frame when the problem started – Based on whatever you can remember, make a list of incidents that happened during that time. Tapping on the events during this time frame will help. Rakesh’s eye condition started in school and started getting worse after witnessing constant fights in the family.

2. Ask yourself specific questions such as -

• “When did this problem start?”
• “Is it genetic?”
• “What was happening in my life when this problem started?”
• “Which area of my life was affected?”

My favorite questions, as given by Gray Craig, the retired founder of EFT are

• “When was the first time you can remember feeling the same kind of feeling?”
• “If there was a deeper emotion underlying this problem, what might it be?”
• “If you could live your life over again, what person or event would you prefer to skip?”
• “If there was an emotional contributor to this pain, what would it be?”

Daily Awareness of your thoughts and feelings will help.

We are used to saying “I don’t know” for nearly everything. When we say ‘I don’t know’  in relation to feelings, we basically imply that ‘ I don’t care about myself’.

Take a moment to  gauge deeper inside you, you will know why you feel in a certain way. You can give it any name you want – intuition, gut feeling, or simply ‘knowing’. It’s a different thing that you may not want to accept or deal with ‘what you know’. It’s always better to say – ‘I feel this way because maybe I did that’ or ‘I feel this way because maybe he said that …’ than saying “I don’t know”!

Extensive research has revealed that when people put their emotional upheavals into words, their physical and mental health improve markedly. ~James & Lori Stone.

Learning to be aware of what you feel and why you feel in a certain way will help you in getting quickly to the causes of the intense reactions and bothersome feelings on a daily basis and tap on them. Verbalizing the affirmations is indeed effective.

(Names and some details have been changed to protect client confidentiality)

We play multiple roles in our lives: role of a parent, child, spouse, friend, brother, sister, relative, employer, employee, grandparents, professional etc.

In my counseling practice, I have witnessed that problems occur when we are not cognizant of the fact that we play multiple roles and each role has a different set of boundaries.  Not being aware of this can cause tremendous confusion in roles. Each role comes with its own set of feelings, behaviors and expectations. Not to forget the role of culture in defining all this!

“You are not your profession.”

A police officer was behaving like a police officer even at home to his children, his wife and his relatives.  He had forgotten his role as a father, a husband, a brother… The ‘police officer’ role had overpowered every other role in his life. He expected his family to behave in a subservient manner. He expected them to be like his staff in the police station.

Roles that have blurred boundaries often cause problems.

1. People can easily take advantage of you.

2. You may land up hurting others.

3. You have confused role expectations and hence all your relationships suffer. You feel  angry when things don’t go according to your expectations. You start blaming others for your ’misplaced’ expectations.

Examples: Each role has a different boundary

Example 1: If someone has a one night stand with her friend then her relationship with her friend has changed.  It’s no longer just a friendship. She has become a lover to her friend but sees it as a part of friendship. And the situation gets further complicated if she continues to have a relationship with her friend and expects her spouse to understand that.

I am not passing a right and wrong judgement but merely pointing out that we need to have the awareness of the ‘kind’ of definitions we give to our relationships and the boundaries we set for them. And also recognize that we can easily hurt our loved ones and blame them for our misplaced expectations.

Example 2: You share your intimate personal details with your acquaintance, and she turns back and makes nasty comments about how you should lead your personal life. You feel very hurt and dejected. Your acquaintance isn’t your friend yet and your sharing personal details with her can lead to unnecessary interference in your life.

Example 3: A coach asked a client to have sex with her as a part of the treatment! The client did not know that he had the right to say no. He thought that since she was a coach, he had to comply. This is a perfect example of confused and blurred boundaries. The coach didn’t know her boundaries and the client didn’t either. In these cases it becomes very easy for people to become a target of unethical practices.

The consequences of blurred boundaries and confused understanding of roles can lead to internal conflicts, reduced self respect, guilt, shame, anger, confusion and a host of other troubling and nagging emotions.

Recognize, define and understand your roles and set your boundaries. It will make your life much more easier.

How often do you overanalyze the reactions of other people? Lets suppose, You went to a party and after coming back all you could think of was “what did he/she think about me”? She was frowning at me! Was it my dress, the way  I spoke, what I did, the way I sat etc…  Or in the office when you spoke to your manager, he replied in a crisp tone and you immediately thought that, “He doesn’t like me”!

We are social beings and we interact with others all the time; in office, at home, in a party, at a gathering. Even if we don’t interact we are often in the presence of Others: in the bus, train, mall, theatre, restuarant, etc. And it can become very tedious if we analyze each and everything.
A social situation is very complicated. You as a participant have certain expectations, beliefs, attitudes about the situation and the people in that situation. The others present in that situation too have a set of beliefs attitudes, etc. And to top it all,  the situation/environment/location where the participation happens, does influence you and others as well. So when there are so many variables, how can you assume that your predictions about others are accurate.

Now my point is – if there are so many variables present then how can we PREDICT what others think of us with so much of conviction. To think that  the prediction may be accurate seems next to impossible .Yet we do it ALL the time and assume “our” predictions to be true. We predict what the others think of us…! Yes we do need to operate on the basis of what we think and what others may think, but at the same time if there is ambiguity, then we do need to take that into consideration as well.

“That woman was frowning at me”
Think of alternate reasons, apart from the usual ones you give to yourself. It could be that; she has a  toothache, she has a perpetual frown, she frowns at everyone, she is thinking of a painful incident…  there could be so many reasons for her frown but since she looked at me and frowned, I predicted that it was the way I behaved or looked or… I took it on myself.

Thats the way we think!

If you feel that you are predicting and hence analyzing everything a lot, take a break and tap on it. More often than not, the predictions are based on your own fears and doubts about yourself.

Here’s a script that will help.

Even though I think and analyze a lot after back coming from office about all the things that happened in the office, I accept the way I am.

Even though I worry a lot about what others will think when I go out, I deeply love and accept myself.

Even though I assume, predict, overanalyze others behaviors/actions a lot, I deeply love and accept myself and I would like to relax. Step back a little. I choose to take a deep breath and relax.

Even though this overanalysis may be because I am insecure,   I Still deeply love and accept myself.

Language

EFT and its key component, the affirmations, were created in English by the EFT Founder, Gary Craig, an American English speaking gentleman. Hence, when we use EFT with people whose native language is different than English, we need to understand that each word has a specific meaning in a certain context. I have found while working with clients from different nationalities, that in many languages, there is no exact translation for words ” love” and “accept” , especially in the context of oneself; self love and acceptance may not be looked upon favorably in some cultures.The language in which a person speaks to himself “internally” will often be his native language. Geo-specific EFT encourages use of native verbal expressions during tapping.

I recently was working with a lady from Saudi Arabia and her native language was Urdu. She knew English but the term “accept” did not resonate with her. So we found a word “Kubool” in her language that was more appropriate for her.

Each word carries an emotional intensity that differs in each culture. The same word spoken by an enemy will have different intensity than when spoken by a friend. Certain words like forgiveness, acceptance, love, abundance, co-dependence etc carry a different intensity in each language.

Culture

Culture includes a wide range of factors like lifestyle, communication styles, parenting styles, family roles, values, and a lot more.

In a study conducted by Cousins & Ross & Nisbett, they found that in Japanese culture that emphasizes collective self, they define themselves in terms “meeting the expectations of others rather than of fullfilling their own private needs.” If they are asked to answer “Who Am I”, they would say “I’m an employee in this X company.” In contrast, Americans are more likely to emphasize the content of the individual (private) self, defining themselves with such statements as “I am strong-willed.” Japanese define themselves in a social context whereas Americans are less dependent on social context. (Bordens, 2008)

An Example of Geo-Specific EFT

“Cathy” called me from Indonesia. She was going through a difficult phase in her marriage and was advised by a friend to consider divorce. She was not comfortable with the suggestion and revealed that divorce in her community carried a social stigma. She was very stressed and indecisive. She was anxious that her daughter’s life would be negatively affected by a decision of divorce as her daughter would be teased mercilessly in her school. She and her parents would also face repercussions in her community.

The focus of EFT sessions was to help Cathy find ways to resolve conflicts within the marriage and release her anger with her husband. She felt much better after finding a way to work on her problems. Her eventual decision of not taking divorce based on her cultural beliefs became a significant factor in her healing process. She was not comfortable with the idea of divorce and attached a lot of importance to her family and her community. Her self worth was reflected in her “self-other relationships” and her being part of the community. If I had focused on changing her cultural beliefs and downplaying the importance of community, it could have aggravated her situation. Instead, helping her within her cultural framework was more beneficial.

Religion

Some problems are deeply imbedded in a religious context and understanding them in that context is very important.

Rose from South America came to me for issues related with self image few years back. During the course of the sessions, she told me about her belief in spirits; she could feel them at times. A part of her anxiety and fear was embedded in this specific belief. However, she also believed that these spirits would not harm her but she was not able to reduce her anxiety. My first instinct was to challenge her beliefs, but I realized that it would be more helpful to use an EFT reframe for her anxiety in the context of this belief:

Even though I see apparitions and I get terrified of them, I choose to feel safe when I see them because I know they won’t harm me. This helped in significantly reducing her anxiety.

Ranjitha, a pious lady, believed that she had psoriasis because she didn’t appreciate her hands and legs and God was punishing her for this. The following EFT statements gave her a lot of solace. It brought about a significant shift in her problems:

Even though I have psoriasis because I didn’t appreciate my beautiful hands and feet that God has given me…

Even though I feel that God gave me psoriasis to make me realize that I did not appreciate my hands and legs, I deeply and completely love and forgive myself for not appreciating what God gave me and ask God for his forgiveness.

Conclusion

Our work as practitioners is to help the clients change the beliefs that hinder their growth rather than change their core cultural or religious beliefs. It’s important to distinguish between the two: beliefs that hinder growth and cultural beliefs that are supportive. Beliefs that may seem like a block to us may be healthy cultural beliefs in the client that do not need to be changed. Therefore, in my opinion, understanding our own cultural and religious beliefs is very important before we use EFT on clients from different cultures. This will help us in refraining from imposing our socio-cultural beliefs on them.

Note: Please do not form any generalizations about any culture or religion based on the examples given in this article. Geo-Specific EFT does not intend to encourage stereotypes, biases or prejudices.

Puja Kanth is a Counseling Psychologist, Certified EFT Practitioner and Emotional Trauma Expert. She uses a unique approach called Geo-specific EFT, a cross cultural approach, to work with clients around the globe. Visit her online atwww.emofreetherapy.com

Reference : Bordens, K. S., &Horowitz, I. A. (2008) Social Psychology. U.S.A: Freeload Press.

Published on EFT Free.Net

http://www.eftfree.net/2011/06/18/an-introduction-to-geo%E2%80%93specific-eft-meeting-people-in-their-cultural-framework/

- Vanessa Jensen, PsyD 

I really liked this sentence as it speaks volumes.

Very often we stop our children from speaking and expressing. Letting them express is very important. If your child is talkative and suddenly stops speaking, then pay close attention.

Young Children feel emotions without any filtering. They do not have the filtering capacity of adults; they can feel unadulterated emotions. They do not think before they feel and they don’t process their emotions in the way adults do. Therefore they can easily feel neglected, ignored, hurt and angry. If you shouted at your child because  you were frustrated with your boss, your kid will not understand that logic. She will feel that you shouted at her because of something that she did. And that it is her fault.

If your child has stopped expressing, you need to provide a safe space for him to express himself. Children will feel safe in expressing if they are not ridiculed, repressed, humiliated or ignored. Otherwise lack of expression may later develop into emotional problems.

Vanessa Jensen, PsyD, is from Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Pediatric Behavioral Health. This quote is on the importance of parents’ knowing whether their children are slipping into depression. Published in USA Today, Nov. 14 (Monitor on Psychology publication, Vol 42)

(p.s: Doesn’t mean that we start reveling in other’s misery!!)

 Examples of “ALL, everyone, none”  beliefs.

 Everyone is happy except me! Question yourself – Is it?

All of them are healthy! Question yourself – Are they?

 No one is as miserable as ME! Question yourself – Is that true?

What’s the connection?”

I said: Do you feel frustrated that the injury hasn’t healed?

 He said: Yes!

 Do you blame yourself that the injury took place?

Yes!

 Do you remember the time when the injury took place and feel upset?

 Yes!

So aren’t the emotions linked to your condition?

 Yes!!! 

Purely Physical symptoms

 Resistance to Heal

Even purely physical problems due to organic causes or injury can resist healing due to emotional factors.

Possible Aggravations

Physical symptoms may also get aggravated due to the emotions attached to them. For e.g. when we have a sore throat or fever or pain we start attaching emotions to them. We think – “Why do I have this pain? Why can’t it just go? Oh it’s so bad! I hate this! My body has just given up!” It’s human nature to react to problems.

 Psycho-somatic Problems

The very name suggests physical problems (somatic) caused by psychological/emotional factors.

 Given below are some of the psycho-somatic problems that people suffer from.

• Abdominal, chest & back pains
• Dizziness
• Visual Blurring
• Weight loss
• Anorexia
• Nausea
• Food allergies
• Asthma
• Migraines
• Skin Problems
• Circulatory problems
• Menstrual irregularities
• Hormonal imbalances
• Gastrointestinal Symptoms
• the list is endless.

No Organic Cause

Many of these symptoms suggest a medical condition but no medical condition, organic or neurological, can be found upon testing. These fall in the category of non-organic symptoms (These are caused by psychological stress and have no identifiable physical causes).

 Medication Doesn’t Always Work

Despite medication these physical problems do not entirely go away.  In fact at times, the medication doesn’t work at all.

 However, many of the symptoms given above are also caused by organic disorders and therefore sometimes it may be very difficult to differentiate between the purely physical from psycho-somatic problems. But what is important to know is be it physical or psycho-somatic, they both are tied with emotional causes.

 EFT helps in releasing the emotions that are tied with physical and psycho-somatic problems. Thus, bringing about a faster recovery.

 To know more about EFT click on the following link. http://www.emofreetherapy.com

Fear is not always negative. If a person is in the middle of an earthquake he should be afraid for his life. If someone’s child is in danger, the person will be afraid. There are numerous such examples when there is fear but it doesn’t mean that people have to get paralyzed by that fear. Fear prepares the body for fight, flight or freeze response which is important for survival. Caution comes from a place of fear. There are many shades of fear- caution, care, avoidance, negligence.

And hence fear is an important emotion.

A child knows ‘No’ fear but with experience and learning he is taught to fear certain things for protection and survival and that is required. But slowly generalizations may occur and the fear may get generalized to something that was neutral earlier.

 So we need to determine 2 things when we are afraid

1. Whether the fear is a natural response or an excessive response.

2. Where does the fear originate from  - it originates mostly from our past experiences.

What can we do?

1. Telling ourselves that the present situation can be handled differently will help. Reminding ourselves that the present situation is different from the past situation. Looking at the differences in situations rather than similarities will help.
2. Distinguishing between fear arising from caution, care or avoidance is important. For e.g – Fear of getting run over (Fear arising from caution) makes us follow traffic rules while crossing. Fear of losing a loved one (Fear arising from care) makes us fear for her safety and take certain precautions as a result. Fear of confronting a person who  may be harm us (Fear arising from avoidance) makes us avoid that person.
3. Avoiding generalizations will help. Just because last time you had a rough ride in the car doesn’t mean that you will have a rough ride in bus, train, plane as well.
4. Recognizing when your fear is becoming excessive and calming yourself with deep breathing and a reality check will help.

Conclusion
Fear is not a problem, phobia is. Psychotherapy and EFT can help.

Language

EFT and its key component, the affirmations, were created in English by the EFT Founder, Gary Craig, an American English speaking gentleman. Hence, when we use EFT with people whose native language is different than English, we need to understand that each word has a specific meaning in a certain context. I have found while working with clients from different nationalities, that in many languages, there is no exact translation for words ” love” and “accept” , especially in the context of oneself; self love and acceptance may not be looked upon favorably in some cultures. The language in which a person speaks to himself “internally” will often be his native language. Geo-specific EFT encourages use of native verbal expressions during tapping.

I recently was working with a lady from Saudi Arabia and her native language was Urdu. She knew English but the term “accept” did not resonate with her. So we found a word “Kubool” in her language that was more appropriate for her.

Each word carries an emotional intensity that differs in each culture. The same word spoken by an enemy will have different intensity than when spoken by a friend. Certain words like forgiveness, acceptance, love, abundance, co-dependence etc carry a different intensity in each language.

Culture

Culture includes a wide range of factors like lifestyle, communication styles, parenting styles, family roles, values, and a lot more.

In a study conducted by Cousins & Ross & Nisbett, they found that in Japanese culture that emphasizes collective self, they define themselves in terms “meeting the expectations of others rather than of fullfilling their own private needs.” If they are asked to answer “Who Am I”, they would say “I’m an employee in this X company.” In contrast, Americans are more likely to emphasize the content of the individual (private) self, defining themselves with such statements as “I am strong-willed.” Japanese define themselves in a social context whereas Americans are less dependent on social context. (Bordens, 2008)

“Cathy” called me from Indonesia. She was going through a difficult phase in her marriage and was advised by a friend to consider divorce. She was not comfortable with the suggestion and revealed that divorce in her community carried a social stigma. She was very stressed and indecisive. She was anxious that her daughter’s life would be negatively affected by a decision of divorce as her daughter would be teased mercilessly in her school. She and her parents would also face repercussions in her community. The focus of EFT sessions was to help Cathy find ways to resolve conflicts within the marriage and release her anger with her husband. She felt much better after finding a way to work on her problems. Her eventual decision of not taking divorce based on her cultural beliefs became a significant factor in her healing process. She was not comfortable with the idea of divorce and attached a lot of importance to her family and her community. Her self worth was reflected in her “self-other relationships” and her being part of the community.

If I had focused on changing her cultural beliefs and downplaying the importance of community, it could have aggravated her situation. Instead, helping her within her cultural framework was more beneficial.

Religion

Some problems are deeply imbedded in a religious context and understanding them in that context is very important.

Rose from South America came to me for issues related with self image few years back. During the course of the sessions, she told me about her belief in spirits; she could feel them at times. A part of her anxiety and fear was embedded in this specific belief. However, she also believed that these spirits would not harm her but she was not able to reduce her anxiety. My first instinct was to challenge her beliefs, but I realized that it would be more helpful to use an EFT reframe for her anxiety in the context of this belief:

Even though I see apparitions and I get terrified of them, I choose to feel safe when I see them because I know they won’t harm me.

This helped in significantly reducing her anxiety.

Ranjitha, a pious lady, believed that she had psoriasis because she didn’t appreciate her hands and legs and God was punishing her for this. The following EFT statements gave her a lot of solace. It brought about a significant shift in her problems:

Even though I have psoriasis because I didn’t appreciate my beautiful hands and feet that God has given me…

Even though I feel that God gave me psoriasis to make me realize that I did not appreciate my hands and legs, I deeply and completely love and forgive myself for not appreciating what God gave me and ask God for his forgiveness.

Conclusion

Our work as practitioners is to help the clients change the beliefs that hinder their growth rather than change their core cultural or religious beliefs. It’s important to distinguish between the two: beliefs that hinder growth and cultural beliefs that are supportive. Beliefs that may seem like a block to us may be healthy cultural beliefs in the client that do not need to be changed. Therefore, in my opinion, understanding our own cultural and religious beliefs is very important before we use EFT on clients from different cultures. This will help us in refraining from imposing our socio-cultural beliefs on them.

Note: Please do not form any generalizations about any culture or religion based on the examples given in this article. Geo-Specific EFT does not intend to encourage stereotypes, biases or prejudices.

Reference : Bordens, K. S., &Horowitz, I. A. (2008) Social Psychology. U.S.A: Freeload Press.