It’s a new year. And with that comes new year’s resolutions - changes you want to make to your life and/or your behaviour.
You might want to stop procrastinating or stop being so hard on yourself. You might want to get more organized or be more active.
Maybe this is a brand new resolution you’re making or maybe it’s one that you repeat every January thinking, “This is the year this change is going to happen!”
You really want this change to happen. This change will make life better and easier in every way.
Or will it?
There was a 42-year-old woman named Dawn, who was trying to lose the 50 pounds she had put on since college. Year after year, she renewed her commitment to stick to yet another diet plan, exercise program, or supplement. You name it, she tried it. (And legitimately tried it; not half-assed tried it.)
No matter what she did, nothing seemed to work to shed the extra weight she desperately wanted to lose. Life would be better and easier without it. It was like her body was fighting against her and she was tired of fighting back. She was frustrated. (Obviously!)
Lacking hope, she decided to try something “out-there” and “woo-woo”, in her opinion. It was called EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques, also known as Tapping). This method explores and gently removes unconscious blocks to making the changes you want to make.
With the guidance of a certified EFT practitioner, Dawn recalled that in her final year of college, when she was fit and athletic, pretty and attractive, she was sexually assaulted.
It was then that her unconscious mind (the part of your mind whose job is to always try to keep you safe) concluded that this event happened because she looked the way she did. So, in order to keep herself safe, her unconscious mind made a silent vow to never again draw unwanted attention to herself.
To Dawn’s unconscious mind, losing weight wouldn’t make life better and easier; it would make it dangerous and unsafe. You could say that Dawn’s body truly was fighting against her attempts to make the changes she wanted, but not in a way that was trying to hurt or harm her; in a way that was trying to serve and protect her!
With her practitioner’s help, Dawn heard, understood, and had compassion for this part of herself that was resisting her efforts to lose weight. She released the stuck, unprocessed emotions of the past event and reprogrammed her unconscious mind - it now doesn’t connect being 50 pounds lighter with being in danger.
Dawn successfully lost the weight she was trying to lose.
It can be difficult to actually make the changes we attempt to make because we hold unconscious resistance to the change we say we want. That resistance shows up in several forms including protection of some sort, a repetition of an old pattern, or a silent vow.
Maybe your new year’s resolution is to change your habit of procrastinating. You try to make decisions but you keep putting them off and don’t know why. It might be that you unconsciously learned somehow at sometime that you can’t trust yourself to make the right choice. To the unconscious mind, procrastinating helps you avoid, for as long as possible, the pain of making the wrong choice - again.
Maybe your new year’s resolution is to be more organized, but you remember how miserable it was and how many fights were had as a kid when your mom made you clean up everything 5 times because it wasn’t ever organized or clean enough. No matter how hard you try to get organized now, there’s a part of you that says, “Forget organizing! It causes chaos. I don’t want chaos anymore! DISorganization equals peace.” And that makes it challenging to be organized.
Maybe this year you want to stop beating yourself up. Yet when you don’t say mean things to yourself, you feel vulnerable to attack from other people. Like now they will say hurtful stuff to you before you say it to yourself so you won’t be prepared to take it and it will hurt more. Therefore, it may appear that beating yourself up hurts you but to your unconscious mind, it hurts less than not doing it.
Maybe this year you want to be more active, but you never had a model of that in your family when you were growing up. You know on a logical level that being more active is good for you but your unconscious mind knows “Smiths don’t do ‘active’.” And it will take more willpower than you have to work against the programming of your unconscious mind.
Your unconscious mind controls 95% of your life. Your conscious mind, 5%. For any change to happen, you have to remove the unconscious resistance to that change occurring. If there is an unconscious part of you resisting the change your conscious mind wants, the unconscious will win and the change won’t happen. Your conscious willpower is not enough to make the change, or make the change permanently.
So, if you want this year’s resolutions to really happen, I am here to help you release your unconscious blocks with EFT as a certified practitioner.
Start with this:
Close your eyes as you imagine yourself achieving the goal you say you want. Really embody it and notice how it feels. Notice anything that does not say a resounding “yes!” to your goal.
For example, in your mind’s eye, see that desired dollar amount in your bank account. Does it feel freeing? …Or scary? Do you feel you deserve it? Are you allowed to have it? Is it safe to own that much?
See your fit, toned body in the mirror. Does it feel safe to be that size? Is it actually comfortable? Do you notice a sense of vulnerability being that size? Is it worth all the effort? Are you worth the effort?
Try this with any of your goals! Look for any part of you that might be resisting it.
As EFT practitioner Brad Yates says, “The extent to which we don't have what we say we want tends to be the extent to which we are resisting it.”
If you want to make a change in your life, together let’s explore and remove the unconscious resistance so the change can become your reality.
Here’s to conquering stress.
With heart,
Louise
The Stress Experts
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