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.
Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge, for knowledge is limited, while imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.” In these days of information overload at home, at work, and in our communities, it is helpful to remember that human beings have the power to imagine a different kind of world, and, once imagined, the emotional intelligence, the intellectual insight, and the spiritual, physical, and social skills to realize this world.
Sometimes, when we feel pressured to problem solve, we reach a saturation point in our knowledge gathering and stall. This is the moment to turn to our imaginative faculty to create a way forward, a path that is in the highest good of all concerned. How do we do this?
One way is to simply tell ourselves the story of how we would like things to be. If we want more time to smell the roses, reflect on our relationships, or create a less hectic life, then sharing that narrative with a good friend or in a journal or short story begins the process by actually making space for a positive alternative to work. Sometimes we are making space far less effectively than we realize because we are using our time away from the problem to talk about the problem. When we find ourselves carrying work into down time through complaining, we can shift the energy and create space for a new reality by using our imagination.
For example, we can create problem-free zones in our lives, zones dedicated to listening to music, enjoying yoga poses, reading, singing, walking, drawing, visiting with friends, or watching an inspiring film alone and in company. All of these activities shift energy and feed our imaginations. Recently walking on our road when taking a break from a problem I had been working on for a while took me into the realm of a fictional narrative perfect for a short story. Dancing to the wonderful new song “I am Malala” inspired me to call a friend to talk about the deep honour we feel at being involved in education for girls and women as well as boys and men.
Speaking a positive narrative aloud while tapping also resolves the energy blocks that are making us feel the pressure of too much knowledge. I mention alternative ways of shifting energy because new converts to tapping are often in danger of seeing it as the only solution to life’s challenges. Using tapping exclusively is like limiting our diet to a single food because we hear it is great for lustrous hair or strong teeth. Because we are incredibly complex creatures with diverse needs, one tool is unlikely to provide an answer to all our problems. For example, cooking and sharing recipes with friends from different cultures will shift our energies and enrich our senses in a way that tapping cannot. What tapping can do is make space for the insight that leads to the enriching activity that will open our hearts and help us to feel connected to life in positive ways.
There is usually a point in a tapping session when a client begins to laugh and says “I just don’t get it. I feel so much better but I don’t understand why this works?” I’m always happy when we reach this point because it means that the person I am working with has tuned into the self in a way that is very rare in our do-do-do, over-worked culture. I don’t have an answer to this question beyond the currency I value most highly: metaphor. I might say, “For me a great tapping session is like opening a window to allow fresh air in and stale air out.” I also share with clients that if I overuse tapping – when a walk, or a nap, or a visit with friends, or a concert is what I most need – it becomes less effective.
Self care requires our imagination. Tapping is effective when we have been doing all kinds of other wonderful things to honour our physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual needs but feel stuck in one particular area of our lives, no matter how lovingly we treat ourselves. Tapping loses its effectiveness when we replace our deeply human needs for the arts, fresh perspectives, human intimacy, and physical nourishment with multiple tapping sessions.
Like other forms of self help, Tapping is inspirational when we use it in conjunction with other indispensable tools that have been proven, often over thousands of years, to shift energy. The human imagination is perhaps the most potent of these tools. To make sure we are living in harmony and balance with our wildly diverse human needs, it is essential we use our imaginations daily.
Until next week
Jane
Jane Buchan, MA, AAMET Advanced Practitioner, jane@winterblooms.net, 802-533-9277