The only time that a baby or an animal is bored is when their environment and its fascinating challenges are radically constricted. If an infant is placed in a barren crib away from ever-changing stimuli, or a toddler is admonished to “Sit still and don’t fidget, or else!”, or an animal is confined in an empty cage with nothing to explore, then the extremely painful anti-life emotions of boredom and its companion loneliness will occur.
By nature, we are explorers always fascinated by the new. We ask ourselves “why” questions in our minds at all times. We are intrigued with new possibilities and challenges that we’ve never seen before. Given the slightest possibility to exercise our curiosity about what is happening and our ability to find new solutions to things, we find life endlessly fascinating.
Ironically, the loneliness-boredom combination rules so many lives today and more and more people seek to escape from boredom at any cost. Trying to escape from the loneliness-boredom combination is why many people sit transfixed before a television set for long hours each day – the television is supplying the suspense of living, secondhand.
Games of all kinds are the human being’s structured way of supplying missing challenges and drawing upon our problem-solving abilities. This is all good, except that people can become addicted to computer games, crossword puzzles, and other mental challenges, for just this reason. They are seeking to recreate, in a conscious fashion, a life that was once unplanned and filled with the natural suspense of the continuously unexpected.
The degree to which we enter into many of our activities to avoid the boredom-loneliness “combo” is staggering. However, it is actually the ability of the adult to become bored or lonely that needs to be investigated, not the fact that it happens.
We need to ask why we have lost the ability to feel the pleasure that the uniqueness of each single moment can bring; the excitement and anticipation of the new that allows a very young child’s life to be one great adventure all day long.
Related – Let Life Be An Adventure
We could speculate that it is largely due to our present school systems, which impose conformity and restriction of thinking and action, rather than encouraging innovativeness and exploration. It is obvious that most parents, having had it drilled into them that they “must” do this or that (in other words, that life is an unending series of “shoulds”) have lost the spontaneity that they themselves had as young children, so that they impart a grimly restricted view of life to their children in turn, a point of view they cannot help but transfer.
Since this is clearly a major societal problem, how then can we handle it by using EFT? And is this even possible?
The answer is yes, it is. We can use EFT in a profoundly effective manner to bring back our original childlike enthusiasm and excitement in living, and I am going to suggest several EFT exercises that can offset the deadening effects of our “civilization.” Ideally they should help you become so excited by the small events and unusual happenings of your day that you do not have to resort in desperation to a violent and intense movie or TV show or book to recreate that excitement for yourself. You can then choose your vicarious entertainment with discretion, because it will no longer be as necessary as your lifeblood.
EFT Exercises for Boredom and Loneliness
The first exercise involves taking a few moments out of your day to pretend that you have absolutely no predetermined tasks to perform now, none whatsoever. You are, in your imagination, free at that precise moment!
If you don’t happen to live where you can be close to nature (which is a great reminder of adventure) but rather, you live in a mechanically and electronically dominated place or are indoors a lot, look around at your surroundings and you will see some, perhaps much, evidence of past activities that you have not quite cleared up. In all probability, a lot of your surroundings may be in a state of some disarray. Strange as it may seem, the task of “straightening things up” and bringing them back into a pleasing order can become an adventure in itself, if you use EFT to bring this about.
Let’s imagine that you’re in front of a desk where there is an array of scattered papers, and each seems to shout at you with its own urgent message, “DO something with me!” Or, you could be looking at a kitchen counter piled high with unwashed dishes that calls out, “I own you! You are obligated to clean me up!” In fact, you could be in any place where unfinished tasks pull at you so powerfully that to remain sane and balanced you are obliged to physically or mentally escape from them.
In this first exercise in the boredom-loneliness series, you will pick up, seemingly at random — I say “seemingly” because you will probably pick up something that you perceive as more important than something else – some objects such as documents on your desk. As you hold each piece of paper in your hands, look at it and do one round of EFT, using the statement:
“Even though I feel confined (boredom always involves a sense of confinement and a lack of expansiveness) I choose to see this page as though I were a baby unable to read it.”
Then tap on each of the EFT spots using the phrase, “As though I were a baby unable to read it” at each spot.
As you do this, you may notice for the first time that the page has a certain lively design. If it is handwritten it may have a strange and compelling outline, like a modern abstract painting, and even printed matter can have startling designs. Above all, as you look at it after tapping on that phrase, you may sense that it actually contains energy. In fact, it probably bristles with energy. With words crossed out and others scribbled in, or with the intentional composition of a typed page, it almost seems to be alive. How interesting!
As you do this exercise, you may discover something else unusual. Each scribbled or even printed note actually possesses clear traces of its original intention, whether the intention came from yourself or someone else. It communicates much more than the meaning of its words. It actually possesses a vibration of its own.
Now I suggest that you try another EFT exercise.
Looking over at the disarray, and respecting the energy invested in each separate piece of paper, or dish in the kitchen, or whatever the object happens to be, tap using the following EFT statement
“Even though there are different energies here, I choose to allow each of these energies to direct me where to place it, or how to treat it right now in the most appropriate manner.”
Do one whole round of tapping on this statement, and then reach out to perform your routine task of straightening up, washing, cleaning or otherwise bringing order to your environment. You may well find that this becomes an intriguing joint enterprise between you and the “energies” of these objects. Sometimes it almost seems like a dance. Now, if you pile them in a certain way it is no longer you imposing your order upon these things, but it is you and the world interacting, with respect and excitement.
As you pick up the scotch tape dispenser, for example, mentally tap on, “I respect your role…. I respect your role”… tap…tap…tap.
As you pick up a scribbled note from yesterday, tap and say, “I respect your role…. I respect your role…”
As you pick up the pot with the burnt pie crust in it from the night before you can tap on, “I respect your role… I respect your role…”
When you do this, you will discover that, strangely, you are not alone anymore. You are interacting with other energies, and by respecting them, your day can become filled with endless surprises and gifts.
Ultimately, you are moving away from the “Have to’s,” which our organized society imposes upon us, and toward the “Want to’s.” You will find that the boredom-loneliness combination, that dreaded specter of modern society, will dissolve as you return, even in the midst of the most electronic environment, to a natural interaction with all that is around you.
When you have finished straightening up a certain area of your life –– a particular room, a certain counter top, or whatever it may be ––follow-up with one round of EFT in which you tap-in the positive by saying to the entire room, “I respect your roles… I respect your roles…” (Using the plural)
If you do this exercise every time you feel bored, or repeatedly many times throughout your day, your day will take on the quality of an adventure, and you will never be alone. As you become receptive to the wise answers that are “conveyed” to by your surroundings, you will also discover that you don’t know all the answers; there are many more to be discovered!
This exercise allows you to be the vibrant human being that you are. Essentially, it is an exercise in happiness.
(This article, by Patricia Carrington was also previously published on Gary Craig’s website: https://www.emofree.com/articles-ideas/general-ideas/loneliness-boredom-pat-article.html)
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