Ger is in his thirties. He's a very quiet and shy person. He'd heard about EFT through a friend, got interested and contacted me to help with a "spelling problem". He confessed he had tried EFT on his own, with no much success so far. Still...
he was willing to seek help, which I found very courageous of him. I explained to him that it is not uncommon that you couldn't get any results when working on yourself, particularly for deep rooted issues, and with little or no experience to start with.
We met 3 times over 6 weeks.
On our first session, I asked him to describe his spelling problem with a little bit of detail. He called it his dyslexia, even though it had never been diagnosed, and said that he knew there were some self confidence issues, but that there might be physical things as well. The example he gave was a visual difficulty to "see words". He mentioned it was very embarrassing to him. We started on the broad issue.
"even though I can't spell properly, and that's embarrassing, I love and accept myself completely"
Trying to get to some sort of fact to work from, I asked him if he had a problem with one word specifically. He said "conscious" was one. I gave him a piece of paper and a pen, and he wrote it. I have to confess, I had a sudden doubt, and while he did misspell it, I thought it was correct (that's the risks you get when practising in a language which is not your native one!). I asked him for another word, he suggested that I'd give him a spelling test. I came up with "unbelievable", which he misspelled. That was something to work on!
even though I can't even spell "unbelievable", and that's really ridiculous, and I feel embarrassed and ashamed, I do love and accept myself, and I forgive myself for misspelling unbelievable.
The reminder phrases addressed various aspects, adding a bit of humour. Ger being a very good humoured person, it did help.
... Can't even spell "unbelievable" ... how unbelievable is that ... ridiculous ... I feel so embarrassed...
Given the chance to write "unbelievable" again, he spelled it correctly. However, that wasn't a very viable measure for our results, and I felt the problem was somewhere else. He couldn't say for sure when it started. But he could remember one embarrassing situation as a child. He was about 10 years old and had made a spelling mistake. The teacher showed it to him, which is normal behaviour for a teacher, but he managed to get all the kids aware of the mistake, and laughing at Ger, who was obviously extremely embarrassed. I asked him to visualise the classroom, and the other kids around him, and off we went:
"even though I was soooo embarrassed when the teacher made fun of me and all the other kids laughed at me, I do love and accept myself, and I forgive this teacher, because he had NO IDEA of what he was doing, and he was probably doing the best he could. I also forgive the kids for laughing at me, because they were kids, and I forgive myself for letting them make me feel so embarrassed"
Once the emotional charge was gone from that one, I asked for any other embarrassing situation he could remember. He did hesitate a lot before sharing that as he was 8, he saw a TV program about Houdini, the "escape artist". Next day at school, as any other 8 year old would be tempted to do, he tied himself to his chair, trying to demonstrate his own escape skills, and of course failing. That would have been a good laugh if it hadn't been for the teacher. Not only did he spot it and get the whole class to have a laugh at Ger's expenses, but he got the principal of the school in, and when you think it couldn't get worse, that man decided to take Ger still tied to his chair around the school for everybody to enjoy. All this happening in a small school, in a small village, we can only start to imagine what this single event would make any 8 year old feel like. We tapped that one away, until Ger was able to report it as if it was somebody else's story. I have to say that tapping along with Ger was good for me too, as I could feel anger in me for all those teachers who do so much life-long damage to so many kids, even though so many teachers do the exact reverse, bringing a lot of good in kids life!I'm sure you can remember one wonderful teacher from your childhood.
When that event was cleared, I started to poke Ger for information about his parents, and there was a bomb waiting to be uncovered. His dad has had an addiction to alcohol as long as Ger can remember. Ger recalled one event when his dad had told him after coming to watch a hurling game at school that Ger was useless. Of course that was more tapping material, one more reason to feel embarrassed all the time!
This first session was quite busy, and just showed the tip of the iceberg. To start our second meeting, Ger told me that again he tried EFT to prepare himself for social occasions when he knew he would feel embarrassed and didn't get any progress. And again, his statements had been too generic. We decided to focus on a similar issue. Ger had a business meeting planned, and even though it was due in a few weeks time, he was already a bit panicky about it. We used the movie technique on this one. I asked Ger to imagine himself getting into the office and seeing all these people to whom he was supposed to present his work. We imagined the worst case scenarios we could find and tapped each worry away :
Even though when I'm getting in the room, they're all looking at me with disdain....
Even though they are not interested in what I have to say...
Even though they're not listening and I feel embarrassed...
Even though I feel so embarrassed I'm starting stuttering...
Even though I make a spelling mistake on the flip chart...
And a few more... After about 30 minutes of that, Ger felt much more relaxed, ready to prepare his presentation with confidence.
When I met Ger again 2 weeks later, I had to look at him twice : something had changed in him. His face just looked clearer, more luminous. He looked like another man. He had used EFT again, this time on written reports he was asked to do for work. That didn't happen very often in his line of work, but he seemed to have quite a few at that time. Every time he felt uncomfortable writing one part of the report he was working on, he would stop, tap on what made him particularly uncomfortable, and move on. He said he had completed a couple of reports that way and felt great about it. He wanted to get back and focus on the spelling problem again. This time, I heard about yet another teacher, an English teacher when Ger was in 5th and 6th year (about 15 or 16 years of age). This time it's a woman. Again a sorry story unravelled as we tapped :
Even though she said I was lazy and she didn't understand me...
Even though she kept making remarks in front of the class about me being lazy...
Even though maybe I was a little bit lazy... (The really difficult thing about EFT is that you have to be honest to get results :-)
Even though I can still feel her looking over my shoulder as I'm writing my reports...
Even though she's still here making me feel embarrassed...
Gradually, while tapping the points, we started shifting Ger's feeling about that woman :
... I might one day be open to the possibility that I could think about forgiving her...
... she really had nothing in her life...
... she was not a good teacher...
... maybe one day I'll forgive her...
... she did the best way she could with what she'd been taught...
... she wasn't very clever, really...
... I might forgive her...
... she's not in my life anymore, still I'm carrying her around...
... I'm the one paying now for her being incompetent. Me suffering doesn't affect her...
... I'm keeping her with me, while I don't need her anymore...
... I feel sorry for her...
... she must have been very insecure to pick on a student like that...
... she doesn't serve me any purpose anymore...
... I choose to release her now...
... I forgive her...
... I let her go...
... I'm free now!
This took the best of 1/2 hour to review all the aspects, but at the end, Ger was ready to go and write as many reports as he needed to, make the presentations he choose to excel in...
We agreed to stop our collaboration at that point, since Ger was now perfectly able to use EFT for himself with success. The self confidence issue was nearly sorted. As for the spelling issue, it was also the results of years of not learning properly because of all this emotional baggage.
Ger was now well able to teach himself the proper spelling, and still accept himself if he did any mistake in the future.
Ger's story is just another example of how teachers can impact our lives for the better or the worse, and how a "ridiculous" issue (spelling) actually hides very deep hurt. I do hope that reading his story will give many people the hope to face their own demons and find the freedom they deserve.
Keep tapping!