Tapping and Thankfulness

Please Note:  Winter Blooms is an educational website only and is in no way meant to replace experience with a trained EFT practitioner, counselor, or therapist.  To find an EFT Practitioner, visit the AAMET website, the EFT Universe website, the Tapping Solution website, or contact Jane at 802-533-9277 or jane@winterblooms.net for EFT coaching support.

It is often challenging to practice stewardship at a time of year when everyone seems mad to eat from a sense of duty and tradition rather than gratitude and hunger and to buy goods to “fuel our economy” in its quest for limitless growth rather than out of personal need.  And yet we know in our wisest, most conscious moments that our habits of excessive consumption are killing our planet, shortening our individual lifespans, and alienating us from our brothers and sisters all over the world.  Here in the west, perhaps unwittingly, we have become insular and parochial rather than thankful world citizens.  We have made having more of everything the greatest good and in the process chained our souls to a brutal and unforgiving way of life.  We witness the signs of dire poverty on every street corner of every town, city, and village.  We witness racism at work in our educational, political, and judicial systems.  We complain about our leaders, but show no leadership ourselves.  We go along with things as they are because to do otherwise requires an effort we cannot imagine making.  Change, however, is always possible.  At this time of year, as the seasons change, as our fuel bills change, as our wardrobes change, as our relationships with our modes of transit change, the energies of change – of fundamental transformation – batter at the doors of our yearning hearts.

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Trust and Tapping: PTSD Transformations

Disclaimer:  PTSD  is not something anyone without training should face alone.  This blog contains descriptions that may trigger anxiety or fear, especially in PTSD sufferers.  If you suffer from PTSD and have learned tapping from your EFT Practitioner, counselor, or therapist, please tap while you are reading the following post; if you are unfamiliar with tapping, please postpone reading this blog until you have engaged a counselor, EFT Practitioner, or certified/licensed therapist who uses this technique.  Winter Blooms is an educational website only and is in no way meant to replace a trained EFT practitioner, counselor, or therapist.  To find an EFT Practitioner near you, visit the AAMET website, the EFT Universe website, the Tapping Solution website, or contact Jane at 802-533-9277 or jane@winterblooms.net for support in transforming your PTSD experiences.

Please see the August 3, 2014 blog post for the introduction to this three-part exploration of tapping to transform PTSD symptoms.

In transforming my personal PTSD symptoms and in my work with clients, I consider our ability to reframe or shift our perspective on events to be our most valuable tool.  In every case, by learning to view our PTSD symptoms as messengers warning of potential danger we are able to create the necessary space to be with the evidence of our trauma, not as a threat, but as an ally that is looking out for us.  Once we understand and experience our explosive feelings as guides and teachers, we can then shift our relationship with them.

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Tapping and Those Last Five Pounds

The exhilaration of shifting our weight after a long struggle with obesity is one of the most satisfying experiences we can have in life.  It is beneficial to our health as well, since our Body Mass Index is an indicator not only of longevity but of quality of life.  As diabetes diagnoses soar and reports circulate regarding the dangers of processed foods, many search for a successful route to a healthy weight and body image.  When used effectively, tapping supports both.

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Tapping and Authenticity

Sometimes, in our multi-media, Type A Culture, living authentically feels impossible.  We may discover this impossibility when we believe strongly in alternative medicine but we work, in one capacity or another, for Big Pharma.  Or, at our core, we may understand the threat of ecological devastation by human industry but take the only work available to us, in the oil or automotive industries.  More common still, we may understand the importance of organic, unprocessed foods, but our budgets and our neighbourhoods offer only inexpensive, processed foods whose primary ingredients – corn, soybeans, and wheat – are supported by government subsidies and allowed on our shelves without labeling despite containing killer pesticides and genetically modified organisms.  Authenticity, that is, congruence between our values and our behaviours, is a hard-won achievement in western culture.

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Tapping to Acknowledge Personal Dreams and Goals

Sometimes the reason why we don’t accomplish what we’d like to is because we don’t acknowledge or even recognize our own dreams and goals.  Our days are filled with meeting our responsibilities to others – at home and at work.  Meeting others’ needs is satisfying and rewarding.  However, by focusing exclusively on being conscientious with others, we can misplace the precious, secret things we dream of accomplishing ourselves.

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Tapping to Harmonize Group Energies

Most of us live in a world of group dynamics, whether at the family dinner table, in the conference room, or in the lunchroom.  In our relationships, conflict often feels inevitable as people function with too little sleep, poor nutritional choices, differing values, and even open hostility emanating from unhealed wounds.  As unlikely as it sounds, we can harmonize these energies with a tapping partner or on our own.  Tapping to harmonize relationships is a very exciting process to initiate and experience, especially as it flowers and bears fruit.

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New Year New Habits – Part Four: Maturity

The process of aging well offers us one of life’s most satisfying rewards: maturity.  Mature trees provide shelter to birds and small animals, breathe for our planet, and weather storms.  In some Native American traditions, trees and plants are called Standing Silent Nation.  Clarissa Pinkola Estes compares us to mature trees when she applauds people for “still standing” after experiencing traumatic events.  Habits that support our intentions to do well by ourselves and others expand our maturity.  As a negative habit transforms into a positive one, we are able to turn our gaze inward regardless of what might be going on in the world.  This inward gaze signals our capacity for reflection, a sure sign of maturity.  Developing this capacity, we discover and strengthen our inner balancing point, our inner core.

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New Year New Habits – Part One: Seedlings

One spring when I was digging in my garden, a wise Silver Maple Tree offered an eloquent and entirely visual response to my curiosity about growing through one stage of life into another.  Dripping with maple keys, this wise old Tree Being planted Herself over and over again in every corner of my garden.  As I removed last year’s dead-leaf mulch and gently turned the soil to transplant a  sprig of lily of the valley, I inadvertently dislodged one of these keys from its Earth home.  Swollen, purple, and marked by fissures in its outer skin, it told me everything I needed to know about growth.  Looking at that bursting seed I understood:  in its initial stages, growth requires a period of darkness and mystery.

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