(starts @ 28:15)
Carol: So, specific events: Why are these so important in EFT? We’ve
been working, Rick, on the feelings: the anger, the guilt, the shame, the abandonment - all the emotions that might contribute to this habit of clutter. Now, let’s specifically talk about specific events, because I think it’s critical for effective EFT. So why are specific events and getting to them so
important when using EFT?
Rick: Well, sometimes there’s a very specific event, like somebody walked
into your home and said, “I can’t believe you live like this.” The emotional charge in that specific event will freeze us in that moment, and by
addressing that specific event, that tone of voice, the look on their face, who the person was, what that meant to you to have been told that, and how that feels in your body. Neutralizing that specific event can change your whole relationship around clutter. As we tap on anger and shame and the habit and our fear and all of these other things; oftentimes with EFT, a specific image will come up.
Carol: Mmm-hmm.
Rick: That specific image is tied to an event. Specific words that you heard
once, or over and over again like a mantra, will come up. Those are your body intelligence telling you, “Hey, this is what you need to focus on.” The
emotions themselves - we could do tremendous shifts with EFT by
addressing the emotions like anger because as you’re tapping on our tapping on anger, you are bringing things up. It’s just like we did a moment ago about ancestral shame. My intelligence brought up certain images, certain feelings. That’s the way it works for people. But if there’s one that comes up that feels intense to you, taking and using EFT on that specific event - wow. There’s great value in doing that.
Carol: It may surprise you what event ends up being connected to clutter.
You may not have consciously put it together - that this event five years ago, ten years ago, thirty years ago was connected - but when we do the tapping, the ‘a-has’ start to happen. I always say to people, “Who, what, when? Who, what, when? Who said what to you, and when did they say it?” Then you go right into a specific event. As your example was, someone came in and said, “I can’t believe you live this way.” That kind of shaming doesn’t make you clean up; as you said, it makes you freeze. It’s like a trauma. Ugh - you just got scolded by some important figure or friend of the family or another relative or somebody.
Rick: I’ve worked with people that, as a child, their parent got very upset
with them and threw all of their things out on the front lawn where they were rained on and many of them were destroyed. They have a problem letting go of things. They hold onto them. They hide them. They create locked cupboards and all kinds of other stuff. As they address that specific memory, which was extremely intense - shaking, crying - very intense. As she touched on that event, her attitude changed. Her energy around her stuff changed.
Carol: The extent of that kind of a trauma - and I hope this is triggering
some people who are listening into maybe something else - what did they say or do about your stuff? Was it as dramatic as throwing stuff on the lawn to get rained on? Was it taking something away prematurely? I just heard someone say - this is a grown man talking about how his bottle was taken away too early, and he remembers it! This is a grown businessman making about $2,000,000 a year - he’s talking about his bottle! After we did some tapping, he could feel that take-away, that feeling of being deprived.
Obviously it wasn’t very conscious - we had to get to it. There was just that feeling of something being taken away from you, so what do you do? You grow up and never give anything away!
Rick: It is fascinating. I believe these things come up at a perfect time
when we want to grow. We want to shift. We want the change and that awareness of “What does this remind me of? What does this feeling of scarcity remind me of, or that my things will be taken away, or I’m going to
need them someday? What does it remind me of?” When your higher
consciousness gives you an answer, it may not make sense. In fact, it’s one of our favorite things to hear from clients: “This couldn’t possibly be it. This makes no sense.” Bingo!! That, to me, says that we’ve just gotten the perfect target for EFT and working on a specific event.
Carol: No habits really happen or develop out of the blue, so when we did
that habit section, and some people have certain pieces of the clutter as a habit; in general, why would you develop that? It’s gotta come from somewhere, so there may be a habitual response to put things in this pile and over here, and not clean up that. However, why would you have
developed it to begin with? What does it remind you of? What is the feeling that someone is threatening to take something away from you? I’ve dealt with people who at work - and not about a clutter issue - someone comes into their office and borrows the stapler or borrows a file, and you just know it’s not a normal reaction, what happens to them. What is that about? It turned out to be around siblings taking their stuff - borrowing without asking!
Rick: Oh, definitely. When I found EFT, I remembered a couple of times
when my brother took stuff, and shifting those changes your attitude about loaning things. You’re much more comfortable and confident that
everything’s going to be okay. You also tend to get things back, because you’re not vibrating, “Well, I bet that person’s never going to give that back to me. I shouldn’t have loaned that out.” That’s the Law of Attraction at work, there! I now expect people to easily return things because I’ve released those energies, and guess what? They do!
Carol: Right! So, everyone: think about, if you hoard (if you use that
word), if you’re a hoarder or just hold onto things and never throw anything out, never give anything away - what made you want to hoard? Because there is a desire there - there’s this urgency, there’s a need. “I’ve gotta have this!”
Rick: “I must…”
Carol: “I must…” What do you suspect made you want to hoard? Is it
because you had a sibling who took everything of yours? Is it because the older kids ate the dessert? Is it…there are so many options! Again, does that seem as traumatic as something else like an earthquake or a car
accident? No, of course not, but it is to you if you’re four. It’s as traumatic if you’re waiting for the piece of cake. I had a client who said that. She said that everybody used to take her cake. She was the youngest! Everybody
ate her stuff. And it turned into, of course, weight issues, but also into many more emotional issues.
Rick: It requires one time where you go to the refrigerator and it’s empty.
Your interpretation is that “We’re going to starve,” especially if you’re
picking up on the energy of scarcity and ‘not-enoughness’ in the vibration of the family - the vibration of the household - if that’s there. Maybe they’re going to get paid tomorrow. Maybe their refrigerator will get filled up soon. But you’ve already picked up on the vibration, and you’ve interpreted it and stored it vibrationally. So that means that, “I can never let my refrigerator be even close to empty, even if it means wasting food that I can’t eat in time.”
Carol: Right.
Rick: Having two freezers worth of stuff available, you know, two years’
worth of food in the pantry. Justify it however you want. If it feels tension- producing to you, and it’s not just a calm thing that you just prefer - it feels like a compulsion, that “I have to do this. I have to hoard. I have to have this.” If you can picture it, say “How would I feel if this stuff wasn’t there?” If you have a really strong body reaction of terror, discomfort, distress - that’s a sign that you could use EFT on that image of the stuff not being there. Soothe it, and then you’ll be more relaxed in your life. It will be one less thing that your energy system is constantly paying attention to and constantly worried about.
Carol: It does become compulsive. It’s a little bit like how I talk about
addicts. A food addict better have three candy bars in their purse, because if they run out, they will panic. An alcoholic has a drink at home before the party, just in case… A compulsive clutterer - a compulsive ‘holder-onto- stuffer’ - they would feel panicky letting go of… “Oh, I’ll wear that one day.” “Oh, I’ll read that one day.” No, you won’t. But that’s not the feeling. You can’t talk sense into the left brain, because it’s a right-brain issue. It’s about conflict. It’s about panic. It’s about terror. It’s about trauma. It’s about “What’s going to happen to me if I don’t have this?” And there is something compulsive and kind of addictive about that.
Rick: So we can do a (quote) ‘specific’ tapping in a general way. If you
picture the specific event, doesn’t that help? People picture the specific event, but we’re doing some general words. Does that help people with clearing it?
Carol: Yes. Let’s have them picture what happened for the person whose
clothes got thrown out on the lawn, and then we’ll do one for audio as well - what they said to you.
Rick: Great.