Many times, when we're working on an issue with a lot of emotional pain-or physical pain-and it's not clearing, it can be because we're not being specific enough.
You can look at it like peeling an onion, except this onion has a treasure in the very center-the core issue.
If you stay on the level of the peel or the outer layers, you don't get to the treasure, and the issue doesn't get resolved.
Low Self Esteem For example, "low self esteem" can be seen as an "umbrella" that spans over a number of core events.
Anyone with low self esteem knows it's real and knows when they're feeling it.
However, in any kind of psychotherapy, including EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques), if we stay with just talking about or EFT Tapping on "low self esteem," nothing seems to change-or the change is very slow.
What Does Low Self-Esteem Consist of? Let's start by peeling one layer off the onion, going from the umbrella to what low self esteem may be made up of? Just guessing, here are some possibilities:
Just picking one from above-"I feel ashamed"-let's think about when you tend to feel that way.
Some possibilities:
So, picking one of the things from above--let's say, your spouse or partner getting angry-ask yourself, when have I felt this specific kind of shame around someone getting angry when I didn't listen or respond correctly? For example, I've had clients whose parent suddenly got angry and told them they were selfish or purposely rebellious or bad.
The child had no idea what she/he had done.
When we go back to the event, it often turns out that the parent was often in a bad mood and the child happened to be there and didn't help them with whatever was bothering them.
So they yelled at the child, putting them down for not noticing that the floor was dirty.
Or the child needed something when the parent was trying to sleep or whatever.
In any case, it usually had little or nothing to do with what the child was doing.
Nor could the child-because it was a child-solve whatever was bothering the parent.
You can see that childhood emotional abuse creates long-term emotional pain.
Criticism Creates Shame Creates Low Self Esteem Nevertheless, this kind of criticism and shaming creates what we experience as the umbrella, low self esteem.
Each time it happens is lumped onto the other times and now, whenever something happens that has even a flavor of the specific emotional pain that was created in the original events, the shame and low self esteem is there in the same intense way it was in childhood.
EFT Tapping Can Heal Low Self Esteem When you can get to core events and use EFT Tapping on the feelings that arise when you remember specific parts of specific events, you're actually working on a core issue.
Often, it will resolve and your day-to-day life will change.
It's amazing how such horrible experiences as childhood sexual abuse, childhood physical abuse or other trauma that contributes to low self-esteem can often be healed relatively working with a psychotherapist that is adept at EFT.
You can look at it like peeling an onion, except this onion has a treasure in the very center-the core issue.
If you stay on the level of the peel or the outer layers, you don't get to the treasure, and the issue doesn't get resolved.
Low Self Esteem For example, "low self esteem" can be seen as an "umbrella" that spans over a number of core events.
Anyone with low self esteem knows it's real and knows when they're feeling it.
However, in any kind of psychotherapy, including EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques), if we stay with just talking about or EFT Tapping on "low self esteem," nothing seems to change-or the change is very slow.
What Does Low Self-Esteem Consist of? Let's start by peeling one layer off the onion, going from the umbrella to what low self esteem may be made up of? Just guessing, here are some possibilities:
- I feel like I'm often wrong in how I think or what I say or how I act
- I feel like I AM wrong or bad, in my essence
- I put myself down a lot; self criticism
- I feel ashamed
- I feel that I shouldn't have been born
- I imagine others thinking badly of me
- I believe I can't do anything right, or that I often fail at what I try
Just picking one from above-"I feel ashamed"-let's think about when you tend to feel that way.
Some possibilities:
- When I make a mistake at work and my boss notices
- When I slip on the ice and fall
- When my hair doesn't work out right in the morning
- When a friend tells me I don't care about them because I didn't notice something about them
- When my spouse or partner gets angry because I didn't respond correctly when they told me something about themselves
- And on and on and on
So, picking one of the things from above--let's say, your spouse or partner getting angry-ask yourself, when have I felt this specific kind of shame around someone getting angry when I didn't listen or respond correctly? For example, I've had clients whose parent suddenly got angry and told them they were selfish or purposely rebellious or bad.
The child had no idea what she/he had done.
When we go back to the event, it often turns out that the parent was often in a bad mood and the child happened to be there and didn't help them with whatever was bothering them.
So they yelled at the child, putting them down for not noticing that the floor was dirty.
Or the child needed something when the parent was trying to sleep or whatever.
In any case, it usually had little or nothing to do with what the child was doing.
Nor could the child-because it was a child-solve whatever was bothering the parent.
You can see that childhood emotional abuse creates long-term emotional pain.
Criticism Creates Shame Creates Low Self Esteem Nevertheless, this kind of criticism and shaming creates what we experience as the umbrella, low self esteem.
Each time it happens is lumped onto the other times and now, whenever something happens that has even a flavor of the specific emotional pain that was created in the original events, the shame and low self esteem is there in the same intense way it was in childhood.
EFT Tapping Can Heal Low Self Esteem When you can get to core events and use EFT Tapping on the feelings that arise when you remember specific parts of specific events, you're actually working on a core issue.
Often, it will resolve and your day-to-day life will change.
It's amazing how such horrible experiences as childhood sexual abuse, childhood physical abuse or other trauma that contributes to low self-esteem can often be healed relatively working with a psychotherapist that is adept at EFT.