Why is it Particularly Effective to Give Yourself Permission to Change with EFT?
Gene Monterastelli is an EFT practitioner in Baltimore, MD, and author of numerous articles on EFT that appear regularly on his website eftQandA.com. He can be e-mailed directly at eftqanda@gmail.com.
When I was working with a client today she asked me a question that caught me a little off guard. She asked, “Why do you use the phrase ‘I give myself permission…’ so much when we are tapping?” The reason this question caught me off guard is I didn’t realize how much I did use the phase.
The fact is that often we don’t feel that we deserve the things we actually do deserve. When there is a part of our self or our past that needs to be healed, there often is going to be a part of ourselves that is strangely and unreasonably resistant to that healing. I have found with my clients that one of the most common types of resistance to healing is a feeling of not being worthy or not deserving healing and change. The feeling of undeserving and unworthiness generally takes two forms.
The first type of resistance to healing is the feeling of not being worthy or not deserving to heal pain or am issue that already exists.
In this instance our self-talk can sound like: “You deserve the pain you have…You are being punished…You shouldn’t ask for better…This is as good as it is going to get…Others have it far worse than you do…How dare you ask for healing…”
The second type of resistance to healing is a feeling of not being worthy or deserving of better things in the future.
In this instance our self-talk can sound like: “Who are you to think you should have a better job…better life…more pay…doing work you love…losing weight…finding the partner of your dreams? You already have too much. You shouldn’t ask for more. There are people with way less than you. You are being greedy. Only good people deserve more and you are not good.”
These are very powerful thoughts and beliefs that can imprison us for years. When we have these feeling it is often even hard to get the strength to try to tackle these issues to move down the road of healing. This is the reason the phrase “I give myself permission to…” is so powerful. It is speaking directly to the part of us that sp often –– even when we don’t realize it –– doesn’t feel it is allowed to change because it is not worthy enough to change.
As we know, EFT is a very powerful tool for helping us deal with the resistance we have toward getting the healing we deserve. But for some reason when I was working with clients we would often make a great deal of progress and then hit a wall. We couldn’t get the last little bit. That is when I started adding this idea of directly giving permission to change right in the EFT statement. The moment we are given permission to move on that last bit of resistance melts away.
I often tell my clients “I give you permission to change your life for the better and you are allowed to give yourself permission as well.” Just by having someone else tell us it is okay, we suddenly feel like it really is okay. I have even gone as far as to write some clients notes (just like we used to get from mom and dad asking the teacher to excuse us from school) to give them permission to change your life.
Giving permission is actually a very easy thing to incorporate into your tapping routine. “Permission phrases” are no different than any other phrase that we use when doing EFT. You say them while tapping, but remember. the key point is to be very specific about what the permission is you are giving.
The phrase, “I give myself permission to be happy” might be effective but it will be even more effective to approach it by being more specific as in:
I give myself permission to be happy with my life
I give myself permission to be happy with who I am.
I give myself permission to be happy with the choices I make.
You deserve more and better, but you need to spell that out specifically too.
You can use “permission phrases” for anything that you are doing.
I give myself permission to know I deserve to be happy (or healthy, wealthy, lovable)
I give myself permission to forgive myself (or someone else) for the choices I have made in the past [again, if there is a specific choice name it, such as “getting into debt”]
I give myself permission to loose weight, even though there is a part of me that’s resistant.
I give myself permission to stop worrying about what others think of the work I do.
The formula is simple. Just give yourself permission to get past what ever limiting belief you have.
