A 9-STEP PROCESS TO CLEAR THE STRUCTURE OF A PROBLEM
Note:
I do not suggest that you work alone on traumatic and deeply upsetting life episodes because of the danger of retriggering the suffering. Work with a skilled practitioner.
1. Start by setting a specific goal or intention for this session with yourself. What specific problem (heartbreak, shame, grief. . . whatever) do you want to clear?
2. Select one specific event or memory to process.
3. As you recall the memory, assign a number representing the intensity of your emotion on a scale of 1 (low) – 10 (high).
4. Ask, “How does it make me feel? Where do I feel it in my body?” You are not looking for the cause of the problem. Your only concern is your feeling response to the problem.
5. Start at the beginning and replay the memory in detail, focusing on what you see, hear, feel, smell or taste in the present tense. Go at it piece by piece, tapping on the meridian points.
Don’t be concerned whether the details are accurate or not. All that matters is how you represent the experience in your mind.
You are tapping to disconnect the emotion you feel as you recall the memory. You do not need to name the emotion.
Don’t worry about the words. You don’t need a script. You just need to allow yourself to feel it.
6. Tap on your body’s physical response to the memory (tightness in my chest | pounding in my ears | lump in my throat). You can just say, “Whatever this is, whatever the cause, whatever the source, whatever it represents, I give myself permission to let it go.” Or “Clear it!”
Tap until it feels better.
7. Hold your wrist, with thumb on the pulse points and say, “Peace.”
8. Go back to the memory and check the level of intensity on the 1 – 10 scale. The reason for doing this is to assess your progress. Tap on what is left until you get to zero or close to it. (Clear all remaining tightness in my chest. | Let go of everything that supports this memory.)
In other words, aim at the memory, tap on everything that makes up the structure of the memory and your mind/body will begin to heal itself.
Your goal is to tap every aspect of the memory down to zero. You will know you have succeeded when you replay the memory and it has no emotional trigger. It doesn’t resonate any more. Where it used to distress you it now means nothing to you. The negativity is completely gone. You feel indifferent to it.
9. Once that is done, the last important step is to go back inside the memory and replace it with a happy one. In a perfect world, how would you have the story end?
That’s the new memory you want to install. If you don’t have a happy memory to draw from, make one up.
(This works because, as you have no doubt read, the mind/body does not know the difference between imagination and reality.) The response is the same.
The true test is that hours, days, weeks, months and years hence you feel disconnected from the problem.
One of the truly wondrous traits of this work is that, when you have cleared the negative structure of a problem, the positive changes are permanent.