#3: Expanding on Specific Events

Understanding aspects will dramatically expand your results.

In my book, The Unseen Therapist, I presented an introductory version of specific events.It is an essential foundation to this lesson and so, if you need a refresher on this vital topic, please visit that book again under Step-by-Step Through The Personal Peace Procedure..

In essence, specific events are the building blocks of most of our issues and contain the unresolved emotional crescendos from our pasts. Resolve these emotional crescendos with The Personal Peace Procedure (The Unseen Therapist) and our emotional burdens become lighter. This brings freedom on many levels and each resolution moves us a bit higher up The Stairway to Miracles.

As a reminder, here is the recommended sentence for portraying your specific events…

The moment when [what happened] and I currently feel [emotion] about it.

This sentence works nicely for many of our specific events i.e., one or two trips through The Personal Peace Procedure often brings rapid, quality relief for that specific event. However, sometimes there are related happenings and alternate emotions that show up while the original specific event is being resolved. These “aspects” represent major opportunities for deeper, longer lasting results but, unless you are familiar with them, they can be quite confusing and can make it erroneously appear that our process is flawed..

Aspects appear “hidden” from our awareness.

Definition of aspects:

Aspects are alternate parts of a specific event. They occur while performing The Personal Peace Procedure on the original specific event and typically, but not always, represent unexpected shifts in the [what happened] and/or [emotion] parts of that specific event.

Although these aspects are new pieces to the original specific event, we tend not to recognize them as such. Instead, they seem like parts of the original specific event… AND… since they are yet to be resolved, they can lead us to believe that Optimal EFT didn’t work very well … OR … the issue eventually “came back” … OR … The Unseen Therapist fell down on Her job. None of these are true. Aspects often occur naturally within our specific events but, until recognized, they appear “hidden” from our awareness and mask the true healing in progress.

Let’s dig deeper and take a look at the two forms of shift that aspects can take. We will first look at a [what happened] shift and then a shift in [emotion].

Form #1 – A [what happened] shift:

A client of mine still had trauma symptoms from an auto accident of 20 years ago. When I asked what bothered her about the accident she said,

The headlights! The headlights!

“The headlights!! The headlights!! I can still see them coming at me.”

I then applied The Personal Peace Procedure to that headlight specific event and then, mistakenly, asked her if the accident still bothered her. She said,

“Yes. I am still very tense … in fact, I’m shaking inside.”

So, unless I investigated further, it would appear that my client made no progress and that my efforts “didn’t work.” But the problem was that I asked the wrong question. I asked about the accident as a whole and didn’t investigate if other aspects were still bothering her.

Eventually I figured this out and asked, “Do the headlights still bother you?”

Her answer was, “No, but I can still hear the screams in the car.”

Do you hear a shift in the [what happens] portion of her specific event? Sure. The headlight trauma was fine; she waved it off like it was nothing. But now it was the screams in the car; a new [what happens] aspect that bothered her. I applied The Personal Peace Procedure to the screams in the car as though it was a new specific event (which it was). Once the screams were relieved, I found that she still had guilt for driving too fast and held anger at the doctors and lawyers involved. More aspects. Sometimes an unwanted memory can have many aspects and you aren’t done until all of them have been resolved.

Form #2 – an [emotional crescendo] shift:

In another case, my client’s specific event involved childhood abuse at the hands of his father. His original emotional crescendo was anger at a 9 intensity. but, after one round of The Personal Peace Procedure, he reported that the intensity had dropped to a 6. Partial success… at least so it seemed.

However, upon further questioning, I found that the 6 intensity was no longer about the emotional crescendo of anger. It had shifted to guilt for the client’s perceived role in bringing about the abuse. The anger had fallen to zero and was “replaced” by (shifted to) guilt at a 6 intensity. We then addressed the same childhood specific event as though it was a new specific event (which it was) but this time we used guilt as the emotion instead of anger. Deeper success.

Form #3 – What does that mean to you about you?:

Sometimes, an aspect within a specific event lies within the MEANING it has to the person. For example, a child may have undergone a traumatic sexual abuse event and, in addition to anger, guilt and other aspects, s/he may conclude from the experience that s/he is dirty, defective and/or unlovable. These latter aspects reflect what the event means to the child about the child and are often deeply set. They can become an ever-present influence on the child’s very identity.

Accordingly, these aspects tend to color the child’s entire life and and perpetually fester under the surface. Serious indeed.

Locating aspects:

Aspects tend to be “hidden” and don’t usually announce themselves or cause a bell to ring. So how do you uncover them or bring them out of hiding?

I’ve been doing this a long time and can often intuitively smoke out their existence. However, as newcomers, it will take you a while to develop that skill. In the meantime, there is a reasonably reliable question you can ask that will typically point you right to an aspect. Here’s an example of how it works.

Let’s say your original specific event has an intensity of 8. You then perform The Personal Peace Procedure on it and evaluate the resulting 0-10 intensity at, let’s say, 4. OK…good. This seems like you are on a success track. However, at this point you don’t know if that 4 represents an aspect or if you just need to do another round of The Personal Peace Procedure on the original specific event to bring down the intensity still further.

You can find out by asking this question…

What makes it a [number]?

Where [number] represents whatever number comes up in the actual situation (4 in the above example).

If an aspect is present, the answer will often reveal it. Why? Because the answer will portray the specific event differently and thus reveal the shifts. It will bring up different [emotions] and/or different people or events within the [what happened] segment of the specific event.

The video below provides an example. In it, Patricia and I have just finished a round of The Personal Peace Procedure on her specific event (original intensity 9.5). As a test, I then ask her to evaluate the resulting intensity. She reports a “4 or 5” and I then ask the above question. As you will see, the [emotional crescendo] shifts to frustration.

Sometimes, however, the answer is not very useful. For example, it could be something like, “It just seems like a [number].” In such cases, you need to ask the question more precisely. Try this…

What keeps it from being zero?

It’s also helpful to recognize that, in some cases, we are so accustomed to carrying around an issue that we don’t know what a zero is. Therefore, it is challenging to evaluate low-intensity numbers. Nonetheless, if we can talk, visualize, etc. the issue without any noticeable reaction, we can reasonably assume that the job has been accomplished.

Do we need to get to zero?

Not necessarily. For many issues an intensity of 1 to 3 is quite normal… even human. For examples, stories of childhood abuse, war atrocities and the like will bring up normal levels of sadness, anger, etc. for most people. This is to be expected and thus Optimal EFT (The Unseen Therapist) will not turn someone into a non-feeling zombie. Rather, our aim is at the excess, over-the-top) responses that tend to limit our lives.

Each aspect, when present, is treated as a separate specific event.

Each aspect can be addressed as a separate specific event.

While I have touched on this above, it is worth repeating.Once you discover new aspects, resolving them is straightforward. Just address each of them as a separate event and let The Unseen Therapist resolve it.

Critical to your mastery:

Practice, of course, is essential in mastering aspects. You are not likely to thoroughly “get it” by reading these instructions.

This is because human issues are often like moving targets and don’t always fit into neat little boxes. However, as long as we understand specific events and their aspects, we can tame even the most challenging issues. By practicing, you can create your own examples. Also, the companion Self-Help Sessions are loaded with live examples of our entire process in action.

Questions and Exercises

What is the recommended sentence for portraying your specific events? This should be memorized as it is the centerpiece of most in-depth Optimal EFT sessions.
What are aspects and why are they important?
When do aspects occur?
What do aspects shift?
Why do aspects appear “hidden” from our awareness?
Explain the two forms of shifts that aspects represent.
What question can you ask to help locate aspects? When do you ask it?
What backup question can you ask to locate aspects?
Why is it that we may not always know what a zero is?
Do we need to always get to zero? Why or why not?
Once you locate an aspect, how do you address it?
Address a few of your own specific events and take note of the aspects when they occur. Then address each aspect as a separate specific event (using The Personal Peace Procedure and notice how much more deeply and thoroughly the process becomes.;

THE PALACE OF

Possibilities

#3: Expanding on Specific Events – Finding Aspects