Welcome to the second newsletter from The Future Starts Now - bringing you features and information about Personal Coaching and Meridian Therapy, along with quotes and stories to inspire you in your own personal development.  You can Subscribe automatically to future issues, Unsubscribe at any time, or send  Feedback, requests or questions. 

Stress: a new approach
How Personal Coaching and EFT combined can effectively combat Stress.

There are many academic explanations of Stress - what triggers it, what happens in the brain and body, and so on.  But what really matters to the average person is how it feels - and most importantly, how they can reduce it!  In my workshops I use an experiential model of Stress that shows the 3 primary sources of Stress in people's lives and how  they interact.

Most of us think of Stress as being caused by the events happening around us and to us every day - and indeed everyday experiences can be powerful Stress triggers.  While EFT can keep down your Stress response to these triggers (e.g see pet owner example below), we all know that everyone has a different set of triggers. This is because our triggers are often "programmed" as a result of past experience - and everyone's past is different.

Many of the negative events that have happened to you in the past have "set up" your system to produce a Stress response anytime you are reminded (consciously or unconsciously) about that time. This is exactly what is happening when we say that someone is "Pressing my buttons". By neutralising those past experiences with EFT, you reduce the number of "buttons" that can be pressed, and so fewer new events are able to trigger Stress.

Possibly the most fundamental source of Stress is to be living out of alignment with your real Self. That means living in a way which contravenes your value system or which does not allow your own talents and life purpose to be expressed.

It doesn't matter how "sorted" your life seems to other people, being out of self-alignment can create a constant "friction" between your self and your lifestyle which creates a background feeling of Stress. This is often what is happening when people who are healthy, financially successful and in good relationships talk about feeling Stressed. When you are living out of alignment with your self, the everyday pressures of work, family and modern life seem particularly stressful, because the suffering seems "pointless".

People who are living in alignment with themselves often find it much easier to cope with everyday irritations and pressures, partly because it feels "worth it" to achieve their life purpose, and partly because they have less ongoing background "friction" going on and so everyday irritations are less likely to push them "over the top" into Stress. For many people who have travelled a conventional life path of school, work, marriage and kids, finding out their own value system and life purpose (as opposed to society's or their family's value system) can be difficult - and taking time out for personal coaching can help discover these.

Past experiences can also negatively interact with achieving self-alignment, by creating limiting beliefs about what's possible, desirable or even safe for us to achieve (e.g. "I'd be no good at that - my teachers told me I was useless"). These beliefs can prevent you taking the steps to live in closer alignment with your self, even when you have clarified what that means for you. Clearing the past experiences with EFT can help to undo these limiting beliefs and, if carried out within the context of ongoing coaching, it can make self-alignment, and reducing Stress, easier to achieve.

The impossible trouser trick

I recently saw a repeat of "The Hypnotic World of Paul McKenna". In the show he hypnotised a man and a woman into believing that putting on a pair of trousers was the hardest thing in the world.

Although both of them were actually already wearing trousers, they stood rapt with fascination while Paul "demonstrated" how to put on a pair of trousers.  He then asked them both to put on a pair themselves. This proved an "impossible" task for both of them - the woman ended up with the trousers over her head and the man attempted to put his feet through the ankles of the trousers.

Paul had programmed them both to temporarily but ABSOLUTELY believe that this everyday task is very, very difficult. They then produced behaviour which was then entirely consistent with that belief.  

That is the power of your belief system. What you firmly believe to be difficult or impossible becomes so - no matter what gave rise to those beliefs in the first place.

What beliefs do you hold about what's impossible for you to achieve in your life?

Think especially about what you believe to be impossible for you despite the fact that you see other people achieving the same thing. Do you find yourself saying things like "There's no way I could do that", or "I've always been hopeless at that".  Perhaps you even have "sound reasons" for your beliefs: "I could have done that when I was younger, but I'm too old now", or "Only 1% of people who try that ever succeed".

Both coaching and EFT can be powerful ways to examine these beliefs and reprogam yourself to hold the beliefs you WANT to have - the beliefs that serve you and empower you - and to get rid of the beliefs that are holding you back.

So - be careful what you believe - you might just end up making it come true!
 

"First Aid" EFT helps distraught pet owner cope with sudden surgery

A woman in her sixties rang me in a state of distress as her pet dog had suddenly been taken in for surgery on a "lump". As well as the obvious upset of the surgery being so sudden, her upset was exacerbated by the fear that the lump might be cancerous (she herself being a cancer survivor) and that the experience reminded her strongly of one of own children being hospitalised at a young age. Her husband, who would normally have been at home, was out that day and she would have to wait several hours to hear from the vet. All in all she was trying to deal with a variety of distressing circumstances and memories with no-one round to talk to.

Since she had done EFT with me face to face on a previous occasion she was fully familiar with the EFT sequence. Although we could have gone into detailed EFT, tapping on her fear of cancer, her memory relating to her child and so on, I decided the priority was to simply allow her to feel calmer until her husband got home and she had information from the vet. I suggested she do three rounds of EFT right now, and any time she felt upset. She wasn't sure what words to use but since she was already "tuned in" to the issue (being in a state of actual distress) I advised her not to say anything but to just think about her dog while she tapped.

I rang her later that evening to find out the outcome of the surgery - the dog was at home and fine and later the lump proved to be benign.  She reported she had done the tapping, and that this had calmed her down very quickly, making the waiting period much easier.

This "First Aid" style use of EFT is a wonderful and easy form of EFT for beginners and self-help users to learn, since there is minimal need for language and no need to work out any underlying causes for the emotions.  And it's also fast - 3 complete rounds would typically take less than 5 minutes to do.


Learn EFT Now!
You can start using EFT for yourself right now by downloading my EFT QuickStart manual.
 

Gary's Corner

Gary Craig, the originator of EFT maintains an excellent website packed with real case histories. Each month I select a case that really shows the power and range of EFT.

This month:  "I don't fit in"

Example of a long-held belief, causing repeated feelings of rejection and unhappiness which were "affecting her decisions, her self image and her life in general.... 2  or 3 times per week she would perceive a 'not fitting in' event and would get an intense "thud" which resulted in tears and/or angry outbursts".

Despite many contributing memories, the belief was drastically reduced by a single session of EFT by Gary himself.