EFT: Not Wanting to Tap

If EFT is new to you, take a look at tryitoneverything.com and bradyates.net for more information.  What do you think?  The perfectionist in me is howling..  My next tapping video will be on perfectionism, the not so silent killer.

It Doesn't Work if You Don't Do It!

It Doesn't Work if You Don’t Do It!

We all find activities that make a big difference in our lives.  If we write gratitude lists every day, we notice an increase in our enjoyment of life.  Or if we walk on a regular basis we notice we have more energy and our mood is uplifted.

Then, for unknown reasons, we quit doing what we know improves our lives. It doesn't cost much, doesn't take much time, and greatly increases our ability to appreciate our gifts and deal with our challenges, AND YET WE STOP DOING IT.

What is this about?  Most of us know this phenomenon.  "Yes, I was doing those things and was feeling better.  It was easy, but then I stopped.  I don't know why. Huh. That's interesting."

I think we stop doing what serves us because these insidious thoughts creep into our minds and take over:  "This is too easy.  This is too little.  Such a small behavior can't make a profound effect on my life.  I don't need to do this anymore.  I need to find something newer, sexier, harder, more complicated."

So we stop doing what supports our emotional, spiritual, and physical health.  Then we wonder why we find ourselves right back where we were when we started doing those things that had been improving our lives.

 

Here is what interests me: We brush our teeth everyday, twice a day, even though we don't have a huge effect from one brushing. We brush our teeth because we know it benefits us in the long term. We don't debate every day whether or not we are going to brush our teeth; we just do it.

People who grow up in the Culture of Poverty do not take care of their teeth and they lose them.  A deep belief in the Culture of Poverty is that what we do doesn't matter. It’s all about luck anyway -- so why bother with boring little things such as brushing our teeth?

I think most of us have a bit of this Culture of Poverty in our brains.  This is what stops us from writing, walking, tapping, singing, dancing, stating our appreciation and gratitude and all those behaviors that take so little time and produce such great results.

How Do We Help Ourselves Keep Doing What Works?

Here are two ideas:

1. Connect a new behavior to something you know you will do, such as brushing your teeth.  For example, always tap before you brush your teeth. Putting the new behavior in front of the already established behavior ensures you won't forget. You get to feel very proud of yourself every time you do this. Your self esteem skyrockets.

2. Install ringtones on your phone that remind you of what you are committed to doing regularly.  Every time your phone rings, you get a fun reminder of who you want to be.   Impress your friends.  Contact me and I will make one just for you:  (Suzie, wake up!  Suzie, wake up!)

You have to commit to staying in the game.  Set up a system to support you because you know your tendency will be to stop doing what works.  Then plan for regular evaluation times to catch anything that has fallen off your "I Do This Reality List.”

It is not, as they say, rocket science, but it does take persistence and means we need to stay awake.  I'm working on my version of a parody of  “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do.”  Maybe this song will help us all keeping doing what is working for us.

Waking Up is Hard to Do

Inspired by Scott at http://www.scottsongs.com/ 

 Don't take this pain away from me.

My comfort zone is my misery.

It's too scary. You know it’s true.

Waking up is hard to do.

I remember when I felt so fine.

Walking writing – I had plenty of time.

Then I “forgot.” You’ve done it too.

Cuz waking up is hard to do.

 

They say that waking up is hared to do.

Now I know. I know that it’s true.

Don’t say I don’t’ get to pretend.

It’s too hard.  I give up.  I don’t’ want to wake up again.

 

My energy feeds my fear.

I get batter at this every year.

The Law of Attraction turns out to be true.

Waking up is hard to do.

Chorus

Leave me alone.  I don’t want to try.

I have plenty of good reasons to cry.

Mind your own business.  If you don’t I’ll sue

Waking up’s too hard to do.