How to Get Unstuck: Moving Your Emotions With A Set-Up Statement

How many times have you felt something but didn’t want to feel that way?

Have you ever felt anger but then tried to rationalize your anger away? I’m sure she didn’t mean it that way. I’m overreacting again.

Have you ever felt ashamed but then swallowed that feeling, hoping it would never surface again, if only you could keep pretending it didn’t exist? What’s wrong with me? Nobody else seems to have this problem. Why can’t I get this right?

What about sadness? Have you ever felt tears prickling your eyes and a lump swelling in your throat, only to dismiss these emotions and to ‘not let them show’? He can never see me cry or know how much this is hurting me.

All of us have experienced emotions that we don’t want to feel at some point, and

Each of us has an assortment of ‘signature moves’ when it comes to dealing with these feelings.

Maybe you bury your feelings. Or deny them. Or ‘talk yourself out of them’. For some people, it’s all about projection: She’s so immature! I hate it when she does that! And for many people, the way ‘out’ of feelings (…but not really) is to judge and criticize yourself for feeling that way. Uh-huh.

For most of us, the idea that we can actually feel our emotions and then let them go seems too simple to really work or be effective. This idea is way too ‘out there’ and ‘woo-woo’, am I right? We have been trained our whole lives to work hard and to achieve more, so this notion that we can simply acknowledge our feelings in order to release them causes us to narrow our eyes in suspicion. (Yep, speaking from personal experience here.)

It’s true, though:

Sometimes the best way through our most difficult and uncomfortable feelings is to simply acknowledge them as they are.

Even when you feel like this.

How can we do that? I’m happy you asked. 🙂 In today’s post, we’re going to learn ‘The Set-Up Statement’ from the EFT/Tapping sequence, which is a quick and easy way to name our feelings and to keep that energy moving healthily. The general ‘formula’ for a Set-Up Statement is as follows:

“Even though _____________, I love and accept myself.”

(Fill in the blank with what it is you want to address and also how you feel about that topic, e.g., “Even though I’m super angry with my son for never cleaning up after himself, even though he’s 16 and he totally knows better, I love and accept myself”. -OR- “Even though I have this killer pain in my lower back and I can barely move it hurts so much, I love and accept myself.”)

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The Set-Up Statement is usually the first part of a Tapping sequence, and it is normally said three times while Tapping on the Karate Chop point. As you can see in the example above, the Set-Up Statement introduces the topic that you will be Tapping on, and it also acknowledges how you feel about that particular issue (or emotion, person, situation, etc.).

The Set-Up Statement combines the physical motion of Tapping with the totally transformative act of talking to yourself out loud. (I know this seems silly– if not a little horrifying– but trust me: it works.) Together, the electrical impulse of Tapping and your true acknowledgement of how you really feel work to calm your stress response down and to communicate to your nervous system that all is well. This helps to ‘un-stick’ your emotions and to help you feel lighter and brighter overall.

Yes, lighter and brighter like this!

The Set-Up Statement is usually considered the ‘preamble’ to a full Tapping sequence, but I have often done just the Set-Up Statement for myself and left it at that, without proceeding to tap through an entire round afterward. Depending on your particular topic and feelings, it can be just as effective to do the Set-Up Statement by itself as it would be to work through a whole Tapping routine, and especially if you’re pressed for time, energy, or privacy, a small amount of Tapping is always better than no Tapping at all. Definitely don’t feel that you need to commit a whole hour to Tapping– 5 minutes works wonders as well!

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In this video, I’m sharing an example of what it looks like to create and work through a Set-Up Statement. Each of my three Set-Up Statements in the video is different (partly because I was improvising and couldn’t remember what I had said earlier- ha!), but when you are making your own Set-Up Statements, it might help at first to just repeat the same statement three times while tapping on the Karate Chop point. It’s all good!

Here is what this video covers:

• What a Set-Up Statement is
• The “Even though _______________, I love and accept myself” format of the Set-Up Statement
• Using the Set-Up Statement to tap on the issue of body weight: feeling uncomfortable with your weight and feeling critical of yourself for being uncomfortable with what you weigh (!)
• Variations on the theme– you’ll be able to see me improvising and personalizing the basic Set-Up Statement formula on the spot, which demonstrates how flexible and customizable the ‘formula’ really is
• The benefits of using a Set-Up Statement: keeping your energy flowing and your emotions ‘in motion’

Want to get the hang of creating Set-Up Statements for yourself? Try it out in the comments below! Use the formula: “Even though ________________, I love and accept myself”, and fill in the blanks with your chosen topic and how you feel about that topic. I’m happy to guide and steer you if you’re feeling stumped or if you’re not sure if you’re on the right track. And until next week, xo! –Dana

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PS: Very important!

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’m in the process of creating my new website (and it’s nearly ready, which I’m sooooooooo excited about!) It will be live really soon, so if you want to stay in the loop and not miss out when I migrate over to my own domain, I’d totally encourage you to sign up for my newsletter here. (I will be sending out my post notifications via a third party service instead of directly through WP on the new site, so signing up is the best… and only… way to keep receiving posts from me. Thanks a bunch!)

 

Introduction to EFT Tapping Points (Video)

One of my favorite things in life is a little technique called ‘Tapping’. It’s also known as EFT or Emotional Freedom Technique, and it’s basically a magical (and simple!) procedure you can use for everything in your life– from overcoming pain and phobias to losing weight and earning more money. For real. Even though the effectiveness of Tapping has been fully backed up by a bunch of science now (not to mention thousands and thousands of personal testimonials), it’s still not 100% clear exactly why or how Tapping works on such a wide spectrum of issues, but hey: I’m not one to argue with skinny jeans and extra $$$ in the bank. 😉

I first came to Tapping in early 2013, and I did so out of desperation.

I had been involved in a very heated confrontation with a friend of mine back in 2011 (two years earlier!), and no matter what I tried to do to heal and move on, I just couldn’t shake the emotional charges that this experience brought up for me. Every time I saw her (or even thought about her– which was a lot), I’d go through the same emotions all over again: a fresh wave of anger, hurt, betrayal, frustration, and bitterness. It wasn’t a pretty scene, and I hated that I couldn’t be a good ‘self-help student’, apply all the New Age techniques I had read about, and just move on with my life.

I tried forgiveness.

I tried using this person as a ‘mirror’ to my Shadow Self. I tried justifying her behavior and feeling compassion for what she must be going through in life, in order for her to be mean to others. Nothing worked, and as weeks turned into months and months stretched into years, I still felt wounded and tender. I ended up feeling like something was very wrong with me. Why couldn’t I move on? Why was I wasting my time and energy on something that was so not worth it? How could I possibly let this go– finally?

That’s when Tapping came into my life. (Alleluia!)

I had read about Tapping before and I had even worked my way through a number of Tapping videos and “scripts” online. I had okay experiences with these online tools (meaning I usually felt calm and peaceful afterward), but when I discovered that I could work one-on-one with somebody to process my specific feelings and my distinct situation, I jumped at the opportunity.

My first one-on-one Tapping session was nothing short of miraculous.

Seriously. My initial experiences with standardized “scripts” online did not (and could not!) prepare me for the depth and degree of healing that took place in that personalized, unique-to-me Tapping session. My teacher intuitively guided me through the Tapping points, articulating my emotions for me and having me repeat these phrases back to him. I felt like a torrential storm of feelings was brewing inside of me, but I definitely felt safe in that context with him. Eventually, tears (and, I’m afraid to admit this: snot!) started spilling out of me with no reserve whatsoever… in front of this man I had only known for 15 minutes. Classy.

By the time my session finished, I felt an incredible lightness inside of my spirit. It felt like I had been walking around with a gigantic backpack of bricks strapped to my soul for the past two years, and after 60 minutes of Tapping, I was a new woman: fresh, curious, joyful, and ‘me’ once more. The anger had dissolved. The resentment and the rage were gone. And all those feelings of being a victim to somebody’s bullying were replaced with a quiet, unshakable trust in my own strength and power.

Anyway.

It’s great that Tapping resources are so widely available online, and I’m all for having easy (and free or inexpensive) access to general healing techniques. Power to the people, yo! But…

I also have incredible respect and mad admiration for the healers (ahem, including myself) who offer customized, in-depth, totally personalized versions of these same techniques, for a fee. I have experienced, first-hand, the transformation that can occur in a single session– with Tapping acting as the catalyst– and honestly:

There is no comparison between a generic Tapping “script” (e.g. Tapping for Stress Relief) and being led through your own situation and your own range of emotions by a trusted guide. No. Comparison. Whatsoever.

When you are led through the Tapping process by someone– a real person, not the internet– you don’t have to worry about getting lost in your sadness or stuck in your fear. Instead, you are led and you are held as you work through whatever is keeping you stuck and ‘small’– safely and effectively.

Destination? Healing.

Destination? Personal transformation.

Destination? Releasing and letting go of that which no longer serves you.

Destination? Stepping back into your own, divine, power. (Boo-yah!)

It’s utterly, profoundly magical.

So. All of this lead-in is meant to introduce you to Tapping. (Read: Here, finally, is the point of this post!) If you’ve never heard of Tapping before, heads up: I believe it is one of the best healing tools out there. If you’re already familiar with Tapping, did you know that you can supercharge your Tapping experience by working one-on-one with a guide? It’s true, and not-so-coincidentally, this is one of the services I offer. 😉

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See? Doesn’t this look fun?

One of my intentions is to make Tapping easy and accessible for you, which I’ll do, in part, by creating videos about the different Tapping points and how you can create your own (personalized!) Tapping session. The first of these videos is below:

This video provides a short introduction to the nine different Tapping (acupressure) points along the body’s meridians.

Here’s what’s covered:

• What a Tapping sequence involves
• Where the Tapping points are on the body
• Different variations for Tapping each point

Enjoy!

Also: For those of you who want to go deeper with this process, or for those of you who feel more comfortable being guided safely and effectively through their own emotional terrain, I offer customized Tapping support over Skype, so please feel free to contact me if that seems like a fit for you.

–xo, Dana

PS: Reactions to Tapping definitely vary, and just because my first experience with EFT deserved its own fireworks show, it doesn’t mean that I’ve felt the same way about every session I’ve ever experienced. It’s normal and expected to experience some (or all) of the following responses to Tapping:

• charged emotions (‘good’ or ‘bad’ feelings)
• itchiness
• boredom
• yawning
• ‘zoning out’
• not being able to focus well
• tingling
• sensations of hot or cold
• remembering ‘things’
• seeing ‘things’
• and occasionally– not feeling anything whatsoever.

All of these are good. 🙂

PPS: Very important!

I’m in the process of creating my new website (which I’m sooooooooo excited about!) It will be live within the next few weeks, so if you want to stay in the loop and not miss out when I migrate over to my own domain, I’d encourage you to sign up for my newsletter here. (I will be sending out my post notifications via a third party service instead of directly through WP on the new site, so signing up is the best… and only… way to keep receiving posts from me. Thank you!)

Are You Criticizing Yourself for being Critical of Yourself? (Also: A Sample Coaching Session on Video!)

My Inner Critic about to scoot down a kid’s slide at Universal Studios. For the record: Marty was planning to slide down *with* me in a 2-person, choo-choo train formation. However, before he was able to link legs with me, I slipped out of his reach, yelping like a surprised puppy as I tore down that slide like nobody’s business. Alas. I skinned my elbow on the way down AND shot out of the bottom of the slide, legs straight out, before landing flat on my butt. Thankfully, nobody saw me. Phew! But I digress…

Do you judge yourself for being judgmental? Are you layering blame and nastiness onto more blame and nastiness? Are you practically in a competition with yourself, racing to see how much guilt, shame, criticism, judgment, blame, and insults you need to dole out before you’ll effectively be “motivated” to change?

Please, pull up a seat and join the club.

As intelligent, perceptive, and competent women, we “know better” than to judge ourselves. We’ve read about the ego, we understand the origins and consequences of fear-based thinking, and we certainly “know better” than to indulge our inner critic. We’re familiar with the concept of self-love, we accept the need to shift away from perfectionism and to embrace our imperfections… but then? Maybe we make a mistake and chastise ourselves for “knowing better” than that. Or perhaps we fall off the diet wagon (again) and then raise our hands to the heavens in frustration. I know better than this!, we rage. Why do I keep sabotaging myself, even though I know better?

Here’s the thing (and I suggest you print this next sentence out and possibly have it tattooed on your body… ideally somewhere highly visible):

Telling yourself you “know better” doesn’t actually make you FEEL better.

In fact, “knowing better” usually makes you feel even worse about yourself, because it adds an extra veneer of judgment onto something that is already pretty raw and tender with criticism. Ouch.

Thankfully, there’s a simple and effective way to put a stop to the endless layers of guilt, judgment, and criticism. As with most of the techniques I share on the blog these days (afformations, anyone?), this one seems totally counter-intuitive at first. However, once you start practicing (and playing with) it regularly, I’m sure you’ll find– as I have in my own life– that it works, period.

Ready? Okay. Picture the scene: You catch yourself being critical for some reason, and then you notice (with a familiar hint of judgment) that you’re criticizing yourself for being critical. You can go one of two ways now:

1. You can criticize yourself… for criticizing yourself… for being critical of yourself. (Um, not recommended.)

-OR-

2. You can accept the parts of you that are feeling critical and judgmental. (Yes, you can.) This is as easy as saying*:

Even though I’m feeling really critical of myself right now, I’m choosing to accept myself and the way I feel.

Ahhhhh… Can you feel the difference that acceptance makes?

Like a breath of fresh air!

*You don’t have to say this out loud, but it totally helps. (For real.)

To illuminate this idea further, and to offer some additional ways to turn down the volume on the nasty voice of our Critical Mind, I thought it would be helpful to share one of the coaching sessions I recorded for a client of mine. This video was sent to her as a one-way stand-in for an actual Skype conversation (thank you, sketchy internet connections!), but I have edited out any identifying or otherwise confidential information about her in this version of the video.

Anyway. This recorded session covers the following topics:

• The defining qualities of our Mind’s Voice (aka the Inner Critic)
• A guided visualization exercise, to allow the Inner Critic time and space to scrutinize our bodies (yes, I realize how counter-intuitive and even sadistic this sounds!)
• The distinguishing characteristics of our Spirit Voice or Source Voice (aka our Inner Guide)
• 3 specific energy medicine techniques that can be used to calm the body’s stress response and to open the door for new perspectives
• An exercise to help you shift away from the Mind’s Voice and towards the Spirit/Source Voice, when it comes to your weight and your body
• What to do if/when you encounter our old friend, Resistance!

Be forewarned: this video is close to 40 minutes long and thus requires more than a fraction of your undivided attention. It’s worth it, though! It will definitely provide you with some practical, easy-to-implement tips that can help you lower stress and self-judgment on a daily basis. As well, it showcases my unique flavor of coaching, which apparently involves a blend of earnestness, silliness, and gigantic hands. (You’ll have to watch the video to understand that last part…)

And just a reminder, if you are interested in partaking in a complimentary coaching session before I start to charge for them on April 1st, please send me an e-mail and we can make arrangements from there.

I hope this article and this video were helpful!      xx –Dana

A Few Words About Resistance

Graffiti in San Francisco

Do you ever wonder if you’re normal, or worry that you’re not?

Does it ever feel like everyone else has uncovered a crucial piece of the Puzzle of Life, but that somehow, this piece will never be made known to you, because you are inherently and fatally flawed in some way?

Luckily, there is a simple, totally objective way to determine how normal you really are:

Step #1: Read this post and take note of the journaling exercise it suggests.

Step #2: React to the prescribed activity in one of the following ways:

a) With violent, full-body resistance! Examples of this reaction include declaring with force that this exercise, in no way, applies to you whatsoever and/or dismissing the author as a total lunatic. (Bonus points for both.)

b) With coolness, mild curiosity, and a vague, fleeting “I should do this… someday” thought. (Note: this is also resistance). Examples of this reaction include ‘getting it!’ on a purely intellectual level, seeing the value of the journaling exercise in an abstract concept kind of way, and even feeling really excited about the exercise but then… not writing down a solitary word.

If these steps apply to you in any way,

Congratulate yourself for being normal. Resistance = Totally Natural. I love it! Then:

Step #3: Read the follow-up post and let some of the core concepts sink in.

Step #4: React to the follow-up post in one of the following ways:

a) Listing 1,001 logical, bulletproof reasons about why these posts supremely, superly-duperly do not apply to you. At all. Whatsoever. Bonus points for scoffing in disgust and/or swiftly hitting the “delete” button in your inbox. Bam!

b) Hedging: Accepting the possibility that these posts might have something valuable or insightful to offer, but then lamenting that you are currently too busy, too stressed, too out of paper and pens, too wanting to buy the perfect journal before you write anything down, and too preoccupied with planning the menu for next year’s Christmas dinner to actually do the writing exercise now. So sorry– my hands are tied! Ahem.

c) Deciding that you are too overweight and too far gone for a stupid journal entry to make a difference, anyway.

d) Confirming internally that you’re not overweight enough to merit worrying about your weight or doing some silly journaling exercise in the first place.  “This is for people who are morbidly obese. That’s totally not me.”

e) Realizing with triumph that the author of these posts is not at her all-time thinnest, and therefore dismissing her ideas as crap. If that journaling exercise worked so well, then why does she still weigh more than 100lbs? AM I RIGHT??! Huh??!

f) Discovering with bitterness that the author of these posts might, in fact, already weigh less than you could even dream about weighing yourself… and therefore dismissing her ideas as crap. Why does *she* care about her weight, anyway? God, I would kill to look like her! We obviously have nothing in common. She can’t help me.

If any of the above scenarios resonate with you, even in the slightest,

Congratulate yourself wholeheartedly for being completely and utterly normal. Hello, Resistance! What a relief!

Resistance is a tricky beast, my dear– one that continually eludes capture and avoids being slain. In contrast to issues that truly have no relevance or personal connection to you, Resistance can easily be identified by the telltale energetic charge it carries within your psyche. Denying something takes energy: that’s a charge. Likewise, suppressing something takes energy. Ignoring something takes energy. Justifying something takes energy. Rationalizing or explaining something away takes energy. Pretending that something doesn’t apply to you (when it does) takes energy. Projecting onto other people takes energy. (In contrast, things that really, honestly, cross-your-heart don’t relate to you simply don’t relate, without you having to push, pull, or otherwise expend energy to fashion them into a desired shape. You simply report on these things, like a meteorologist reports on today’s weather. “Is it raining outside?” “Yup.” No charge of resistance, see?)  

You might have experienced some Resistance when reading my two previous posts (which are here and here, in case you resisted clicking on the links I inserted earlier in this post. Heh.) This Resistance might have been directed outward– wondering why I’m posting these sorts of essays now and longing for the amusing, easily digestible tales I used to post. (I just want to read about cats and rainbows, OK? Is that too much to ask?) Or, this Resistance might have been directed inward, my words landing close to home and more than a little too close for comfort. Yikes, I don’t even want to go there. That’s okay, too.

Resistance seems to make so much darn sense most of the time, especially when it comes to exploring intimate and personal topics such as our bodies and what they weigh. Gulp. Resistance cautions us: Wait. Why would we put ourselves out there? Why would we risk being hurt? How can we know for sure that this Dana girl knows what she’s talking about? How can we guarantee that this journaling exercise even works? We’ve all been burned before– over-trusting, over-sharing, over-laying-our-hearts-on-the-line and over-having-them-crushed-by-people-we-thought-would-never-hurt-us. We’ve tried so many things. We’ve been disappointed so many times. And why should this so-called “journaling exercise” be any different?

I get it.

Listen. If a part of you connects with what I’ve been saying about weight (even a small, timid part of you), but another (BIG) part of you feels resistant, worried, overwhelmed, or even scared about moving in the direction of a more intuitive, self-exploratory, non-dieting approach to your body, please be gentle with yourself. There is no need to make yourself wrong for feeling a totally normal emotion, and that’s all Resistance is. First of all, you’re not the only person who feels this way or has ever felt this way. You’re normal, remember? Hooray! And secondly, it might be helpful to know that I had my own experiences feeling eleventeen hundred shades of resistance when I started this conscious weight loss journey, too. (You can read about my “Oh sh*t!” moment here.)

Anyway. As promised, we will start exploring some simple ways to re-train and re-program our core (but limiting) beliefs about weight loss in the next post. I just wanted to take the time to reassure you in the off-chance that you were maybe experiencing some Resistance. (Totally normal!) In the meantime, gently and lovingly check in with your intuition and ask yourself with the utmost kindness,

• Am I experiencing resistance to these concepts, or is there genuinely no energetic charge for me around my weight or body? (Note: Either option is totally fine– just don’t go forcing issues upon yourself if you don’t already have them, please.)
• If I am feeling resistant, can I accept and forgive myself for feeling this way?
• If I am feeling resistant, where in my body does the resistance reside? Can I describe its location, shape, color, temperature, smell, relative weight, or other properties?
• Can I become curious about my resistance?
• Can I open myself up… perhaps… to a different perspective?
• What would support me in exploring a different perspective? How can I open myself up?
  

Until next time, xo. 🙂