How to create empowering reframes (seeing things differently) with EFT

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Hi Everyone,

Pamela Bruner provides quality advice about how to help clients "see things differently" (reframes). This is particularly useful when a client has so completely cleared some past emotional issues that they are now unsure how to behave in given situations.

Hugs, Gary

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By Pamela Bruner

One of the tasks of an EFT practitioner, and a possibility for anyone who uses EFT, is creating powerful reframes to facilitate the cognitive shift.  Once someone begins to let go of anger, fear, or upset, there is often the question of ‘What now?’  Finding a new way to be, or a new action to take, is part of a reframe.

In coaching, we are taught to empower our clients by letting them make suggestions and decisions.  As EFT practitioners, sometimes we suggest reframes to our clients in extended setups.  I have found that suggesting reframes, based on intuition, is often more effective when dealing with overcoming upset.  If I ask a client how she would like to feel now, if she’s coming off of years of upset, she will often be confused and unsure.  Here’s an example:

After a client has released her anger, or most of it, towards her father for his indifferent treatment of her, she may be confused about how to relate to him.  After all, her ‘normal’ emotion was anger.  As a practitioner, I have numerous choices.  I could suggest emotions to her, such as love, respect, gratitude, etc., and sometimes those might work.  But what I have found to be particularly empowering is to create the opportunity for new emotions, without dictating what they should be.  Here's the setup phrase:

Even though I’m used to feeling anger towards my father, I choose to find a new way to relate to him that works for me. I may not know what that will look like, and I may not be sure that I can do it, but I choose to create something that works for me.

Tapping reminder phrases would be (one round):

I’m used to feeling anger towards my father …  Part of me thinks he deserves it … I haven’t felt another way … What other emotion is there? … I’m so used to this anger

Positive reminder phrases would be (one round):

Perhaps there is another way … What if I could find another way to relate? … What if I could relate in a way that empowers me? … I’m not sure what that could be … I could ask for help from the Universe, God , Spirit  … I choose to consider that I can find a way … I choose to relate in a way that empowers me … I choose to relate in a way that works for me.

After this, a client will often suggest their new way to relate, i.e. ‘I think I could be cordial to my father’ or ‘I think that I can relate to him like an equal’ or ‘I think I could find sympathy for him’.  These are all very different, and that’s fine, because they are the client’s choices.  Sometimes I will do one more round, using the client's choice, for example with the setup:

Even though I’m used to feeling anger at my father, I choose to find sympathy for him now.

With this type of Choices setup, ordinarily I would do three rounds – one negative, one positive, and one alternating.  Because of the previous open-ended reframe, though, I may only do one full round, alternating the negative and positive statements.  I believe that it sinks in faster, because the client is in charge!

Important points to put in an open-ended, empowering reframe:

1) Use a Choices statement.  Using ‘I choose’ is empowering just by itself.

2) Allow it to be OK for the client to not have immediate answers (‘I may not know what that will look like’)

3) Allow it to be OK if the client doesn’t do this (‘I may not be sure that I can do this’)

4) Make it personal (‘I choose to create something that works for me’)

This type of reframe puts the power in the hands of the clients.  It avoids the situation where they feel pushed by the practitioner – since often we are working to eliminate a trigger of being ‘told what to do’, this is especially important!  And it gives the client a feeling of empowerment, because she/he has stepped into a possibility that resonates with them.

Thanks, Gary, for my favorite empowerment technique, EFT!

Pamela Bruner

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