Welcome to Part IV of Emotional Freedom Technique. If you would like to read the first article, please review Emotional Freedom Technique, Emotional Freedom Technique II and Emotional Freedom Technique III.
Keep in mind that EFT is not intended to replace qualified medical or psychological treatment. Before practicing EFT, please be sure you are doing so with the advice of a qualified medical or mental health professional.
Gary Craig has been a student of personal improvement and human behavior since he was a teenager. His journey has exposed him to a wide variety of theories about why people have the challenges they face and what it might take to overcome them. He has personal experience with all of the theories, and has experimented with his own version of those theories for decades.
Eventually he came up with a perfect metaphor that makes sense and he refers to it as “The Writing on our Walls.” He explains this as, “events in our lives create our beliefs about the world, and how those beliefs can either pose limits or open new possibilities. We live in a Palace of Possibilities. It is an ever expanding structure, filled with awesome rooms and annexes that are loaded with achievements and joy. These rooms are open to everyone, although most of us only visit a few of them. It’s not that we are barred from any of the rooms. Rather, it’s that we choose to dwell only in those rooms within which we are comfortable. Somehow, we don’t belong in those other, more expansive rooms. They are for others. They are for richer people and more privileged people and people with more talent than us. We stay within the familiar (our comfort zones) and don’t venture beyond the walls (limits) of the rooms we have chosen. Why? Because our can’s and can’ts are written on those walls and we obey those dictates as though they were real. They are reflected in our careers, our incomes, our relationships, and even our self image. In fact, there is scarcely any part of our makeup that is not affected by what’s written on those walls.”
He goes on to explain that the words on our walls are metaphors for our self talk. These words represent the attitudes, opinions & beliefs that we have accumulated over the years. Many of them are hand-me-downs from our parents, grandparents, teachers, coaches, church’s, peers, books, TV and an endless list of other “authorities” in our lives. Upon investigation many of them are laughable, nonetheless, they still seem to hinder our progress.
We all have different words on our walls and this is why we appear to have different limits. Your limits are different from my limits because the “truths” written on your walls are different from the “truths” written on mine. However, they are not really “truths” at all, only guidelines we have adopted for getting through life … AND … many of them are fictions.
We continually consult the writing on our walls
That writing is our most leading advisor and we consult it all day long. And why not? It represents every experience we have ever had. It contains all of our “how to’s”, our can’s & can’ts, our should’s & should not’s as well as our must’s & must not’s. It contains our personal version of what is right or wrong, our judgements, our successes and failures in this world. “It’s all there … everything we hold to be true … written on our walls.”
Those words on our walls tell us about our opportunities or our limits … and often they are very conflicting words. The opportunity voice will say ” here is an opportunity – go for it!” Whereas our the limits voice will say:
“I am are too young (or too old) for that.”
“I don’t have enough education.”
“I don’t have enough experience.”
“People who take risks end up broke.”
“Rich people are dishonest.”
And the list of our limited beliefs go on and on. If you believe any of these limited beliefs, you may have bought into an expensive “limit” that need not be there.
So consider this…
You consistent thoughts become you reality.
The main goal of psychotherapy is to change peoples consistent thoughts so that the quality of their lives (their reality) will shift for the better. The primary goal is to get people to think differently about their traumas, fears, guilt, grief, limited beliefs etc. in hopes that they will put these things “in perspective” and go about their lives more positively. Their consistent thoughts, once changed, become their new reality.
Many people are unaware of “The Palace of Possibilities” in which they live because they dwell in their own personal dungeons amidst their thoughts of past abuses, war memories, fear, guilt and their limited beliefs. Their continual thoughts have become their reality, and when they walk into a therapy office, they bring their dark dungeons with them. The writing on their walls provides graphic evidence of their personal guilt, shame and emotional turmoils. The other writing on the wall of a positive nature is defiantly there, but is completely overwhelmed by the negative writing.
The moral of the story is that you have become a lifetime of “limits” and will continue to do so until that writing is erased and replaced.
This may be a cognitive sort of approach, but what will take us to new level is a combination of these tools with EFT. Once we erase the limited beliefs from our walls, we are free to replace them with whatever we want … and the result is freedom from those limits.
Adding New Information To Our Walls
There is an old saying that goes, “Nothing has any meaning except the meaning we give it.”
So what happens when there is no writing on our walls? How do we make sense of blank or clean walls with no information on a subject? Its Simple! You make up a meaning that fits as closely as possible within the “truth” that is already written on your walls. The resulting “meaning” is probably fictitious, but will not stop you from doing it. It is a human need to make meaning and sense of the world around us. People who attend therapy are constantly filling in the blanks to make meaning of the world around them. Listening to people trying to fill in the blanks leads to big clues regarding core issues.
There is true peace and freedom involved in fully recognizing what we do with the writing on our walls. This leads to better understandings and forgiving attitudes. It helps us to stand back from disagreements and de-personalize ourselves from other people’s actions. After all, they’re just spouting off what is written on their walls.
Incongruent Writing On Our Walls
The writing on your walls are there to help you navigate through uncertainty. It helps you make “formed” choices and decisions. It helps you avoid danger to keep you safe. To challenge the writing on someone’s walls is to use a technique called Affirmations. This is a positive thinking technique, for example, your goal is to lose weight or find a new job. You then design a statement or affirmation that assumes your goal has become a reality.
- I will loose 10 pounds.
- I will earn more money and find a new job.
Affirmations conflict the writing on your walls. It affirms a reality that is currently not true. Here’s an example, a 200 pound woman uses an affirmation aimed at weighing 130 pounds. Her affirmation might be:
“My normal weight is 130 pounds.”
As a result, you end up with “tail enders” at the end of her affirmations. They might go like this:
- “But if I lose the weight, others will expect me to keep it off.”
- “But if I lose the weight, I will have to spend a lot of money for new clothes.”
- “But if I lose the weight, men will hit on me and expect sex.”
- “But if I lose the weight, men may not hit on me and then I will know I’m not loveable.
- “But if I lose the weight, I will have to give up my favorite foods.”
Again, this list of tail enders are never ending. These are existing obstacles for losing weight. They are the “yes, buts” and, in fact, represent the true affirmation. This is why affirmations don’t work well in practice, despite the persuasive logic behind them. They are typically followed by the opposing tail-enders that always has the last word. Your tail-enders always win the argument and keep you right where you were before the affirmations. If you are an EFT Practitioner treating someone who wants to lose weight, knowing these dynamics can save you a lot of time.
More importantly for the EFT process, Tail Enders often point directly to the Specific Events that contributed to those beliefs. To carry on with weight examples, consider these explorations:
- “If others expect you to keep the weight off, how do you know that? Did someone say that to you? Maybe someone’s parents made it clear over and over that once you achieve something you must never let it go, or maybe there were peers in school who judged someone who had lost weight then put it back on.”
- “If men will hit on you and expect sex, what is wrong with that? Was there a time when having sex was uncomfortable for you? Have you ever felt pressure to have sex? Maybe there were uncomfortable dating experiences or unreasonable pressures to have sex. Finding those Specific Events will go a long way toward getting deeper results with EFT.”
- “If losing weight means you will have to give up your favorite foods, was there ever a time when you were deprived of food? Or when snacks were taken away as a punishment? As soon as you find a Specific Event, head straight for the Tell the Story Technique to release that disruption.”
In most cases when someone reveals their objection to reaching a goal, it represents a fear or a memory of discomfort. Those Specific Events can usually be revealed by asking “what does that remind you of?” or some variation thereof.
If we listen to ourselves talk, we can hear our “limits” and other forms of affirmations come rolling out, like:
- “I can’t sing,”
- “Making money isn’t spiritual,”
- “Women can’t compete in a man’s world,”
- “I never seem to find the right words,”
Here are a few more examples of the writing on our walls:
- “Salesmen are pests.”
- “Rich people are greedy.”
- “Profits are bad.”
- “Diets don’t work.”
- “Men don’t cry.”
- “Nice girls don’t do that.”
- “No pain, no gain.”
- “Good people work for free.”
Taking the writing on our walls a few steps further by adding a framework in which you can organize all the pieces of peoples issue. Putting this skill into practice will allow you to see the overall picture more clearly and choose more powerful skills to develop.
The “truths” on people’s walls were put there by the Specific Events from their past.
Identifying Truths
When describing your issues, looking for writing on your walls and try to discover how your inner world is put together. You may or may not know or probably cant explain it. The better you are at working with input, the better you will get to the bottom of your limits.
In general, once you have finished your description, the first thing you want to know is “Why?”…why do I feel this way, why am I in this situation, why do I continue to behave this way?
When you have explored deep enough to reveal the “Truths”, or writing on your walls, you can see what may be driving your behavior, or coloring your perception, and then you can start breaking that into Specific Events.
Here are some examples to help you with this idea.
General Conversation “Truths”
“I don’t enjoy my job” vs “My coworkers don’t like me”
“My husband is critical” vs “Nobody appreciates me”
“I just can’t lose the weight” vs “I need food to relax”
“I can’t let go of my ex” vs “If I let go, then he wins”
“I take care of everyone but me” vs “I’m not valuable any other way”
Each person will present a different set of experiences which will have a list of different questions. However, these “truths”, beliefs, or writing on the walls can be identified as follows:
- Look for a conclusion, “Truth”, or general belief that you have about yourself or the world (e.g. I’m not smart enough, women can’t be successful in business, etc)
- Look for a general fear (e.g. afraid to be thin, fear of rejection, fear of being alone, etc)
- Look for something that points directly to a collection of Specific Events (e.g. people don’t like me, I hate school, I can’t drive at night, etc)
These aren’t the only qualities that define the writing on the walls, but they will certainly get you off to a good start. The first two are really strong clues, but the third one is mandatory because:
If you can’t see Specific Events behind your issue, then you need to keep digging.
Depending on the person, you may need to do some general tapping before you can get to the writing on their walls.
Addressing “Truths” and events from earlier in life will make a bigger difference.
If you always catch the red robots while driving, you might eventually conclude that you “always catch the red robots.” At that point, you have constructed a tabletop, supported by all the times it was true. From there, you will expect to catch the red robots, so you will look for evidence to support your conclusion, and continue to add “Legs” to support the tabletop. Even when you went through a green light, you would consider that to be an exception to the rule and consider yourself “lucky this time,” which also supports the above conclusion. When addressing the issue of “I always catch the red robots” by simply removing the intensity of each table leg one by one, that conclusion, “Truth,” or tabletop, eventually collapses.
This tabletop was created earlier in life, it sits deeper in your system than some of the others, and probably directly underneath the more recent similar experiences.
In the diagram below, you will see that if you collapse all the legs under the more recent tabletops, they would simply land right on top of the earlier tabletop. Further, as long as the deeper issue is still intact, you would continue to erect new legs for the smaller tables, or build a few new tabletops in the name of “I always do it wrong,” using the experiences to come. That’s because you still expect to “do it wrong,” so your system will find ways to make that true. This big, deeper tabletop is called a Core Issue, and ultimately, those are the ones we want to collapse.
It is tempting to blame others, or outside circumstances, for our emotional states but, in reality, the true blame lies within. If we are harboring anger, guilt or fear, for example, it may seem like someone or something outside us is causing it but, in reality, these emotional states are internally generated, they are “inside jobs.” Thus if two people see a snake, one may be calm about it while the other has a phobic response. It isn’t the snake that caused these emotional states, it’s the inside job of the people involved.
The other half of this twin mindset says, “it’s not what happens to you, it’s your response that counts.” This is, essentially, the same thing. It’s just another way to approach it verbally and thus better cement the concept. This will move your sessions along much more rapidly.
According to the writing on our walls, one person’s truth is not necessarily someone else’s. That means…
…there is no “one real truth.”
There are 5 parts to the Emotional Freedom Technique, this is part IV, if you enjoyed this article, click follow to get Part V automatically when its published.
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