#7: How to find specific events underlying emotional issues.

Refining your aim at emotional issues

In the beginning:

In The Unseen Therapist book, I showed you how to list numerous specific events of your own and then apply The Personal Peace Procedure to collapse each of them. You were then asked to notice the extent to which some of your emotional and physical symptoms faded.

However, those listed specific events were NOT grouped under distinctive ailments such as panic attacks, height phobias or the fear of rejection. Rather, they were randomly chosen by you without a particular focus. In terms of our table top and table legs metaphor, you collapsed some random specific events (table legs) and then assessed which symptoms (table tops) achieved relief. This is OK for a beginner because it gives you some practice with The Unseen Therapist and The Personal Peace Procedure.

Example: I’m afraid of rejection.

Turning it around:

Now we are going to turn that around and aim our process at more definable issues. In doing so, we will examine how to find those specific events (table legs) that underlie a given, more general ailment (table top). This will echo more precisely the way people perceive their issues.

Example: Fear of rejection:

As an example, let’s explore a table top emotional issue such as, “I’m afraid of rejection.”

Not everyone has a fear of rejection, but you can be sure that those who do will have some specific events in their past to back it up. Indeed, without those rejection-filled specific events, they could not have the fear of rejection because there would be no experiences on which to base it. It would simply be an academic problem that “other people have.”

The simple request:

But for those who live with the fear of rejection, or any other emotional issue, a simple request will point right to the specific events underlying it. Here it is…

“Please list some specific events where you felt this issue in the past.”

The resulting list can then be systematically addressed, one-by-one with The Personal Peace Procedure, so that the larger issue (fear of rejection) eventually fades. For clarity, here are some examples of possible specific events (table legs) underlying the fear of rejection (table top). They are stated using the format given in my book, The Unseen Therapist.

1. The moment when my 3rd grade teacher embarrassed me in front of the class and I currently feel rejected about it.

2. The moment when my father didn’t attend my high school graduation and I currently feel rejected about it.

3. The moment when my high school sweetheart said, ‘I’ve grown tired of you’ and I currently feel rejected about it.

4. The moment when I was sent to my room for the whole day on Thanksgiving at age 8 and I currently feel rejected about it.

5. The moment when Mom told me ‘you’ll never get married unless you are thin like your sister’ and I currently feel rejected about it.

6. The moment when I was cut from the Little League baseball team and I currently feel rejected about it.

It’s easy to see how each of these events could result in someone saying “OUCH! I just got rejected.” Each of these painful rejections gets stored in our systems and they build into an overall fear of rejection. Stated differently, the above table legs are contributors to the “I’m afraid of rejection” table top and they represent the basis of the problem. They point to the emotional causes while the fear of rejection is but the symptom.

To summarize, we use the simple request above to look for the specific events (table legs) underlying the larger issue (table top) and then neutralize those individual causes one-by-one. When we do, each leg that is removed (or weakened) destabilizes the table top until it eventually collapses and the fear of rejection issue resolves. This allows you to systematically work through all emotional issues and thereby improves your confidence in, and success with, the process.

You can practice this on your own and develop solid skills. This is another place where the Webinars and live sessions in the Optimal EFT Course can accelerate and deepen your abilities.

Questions and Exercises

1. How does this lesson differ from what is taught in The Unseen Therapist book.

2. What is a simple request you can make to find the specific events underlying a globally stated emotional issue?

3. Make a list of possible specific events underlying the following globally stated emotional issues.
   

4. “I have an anger problem.”

5. “I have a fear of spiders.”

6. “I always seem to feel guilty.”

7. Make a list of actual specific events underlying your own issues.

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