Self Healing Portal Newsletter

June 2010 Update

2010-06-12T12:29:00.002+12:00

Hello everyone

After trying to juggle too many things in my life for a while now, I've decided to put a hold on publishing Self Healing Portal Newsletters. The Self Healing Portal website will remain however it will not be updated regularly.

There are so many wonderful sources of information out there to inspire you with your healing, here are a couple in case you haven't come across them:

www.EFTfree.net

This brilliant website gives you the ability to receive regular EFT inspiration, and offers a free EFT manual. If you haven't already checked it out and are looking for more ideas on how to incorporate EFT into your life, this is a great website to check out.

www.eftuniverse.com

For those who haven't caught up with the latest on Gary Craig's official EFT website, his website is no longer available but much of the old website archives is now available at Dawson Church's new website www.eftuniverse.com You can sign up for regular newsletters from the site to continue your EFT learnings.

Focusing Tips

Ann Weiser Cornell puts out weekly Focusing tips which are really worth signing up for if you are looking for more ideas on how to integrate Focusing into your life. You can find the archives of the tips at www.livingafocusinglife.typepad.com

Very best wishes to all,

Jo

Newsletter March 2010

2010-03-28T13:08:00.002+13:00

Hello everyone

I’ve been having some major technical difficulties that have been preventing me from updating the Self Healing Portal, so this month’s newsletter is just on the blog, and will be added to the website in the future if I can resolve the problems. There are therefore no hotlinks from the titles of the articles or between the articles, so you will need to scroll down to read them. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.

The process of emotional freedom

This article was originally published on EFTfree.net and is included here for those who haven’t yet subscribed to the excellent article feed at EFTfree.net. The article details an example from our own life that powerfully shows the process of using a tool such as EFT to gain emotional freedom.

It’s NOT about the story!

This article details a recent AHA that I had that came as a real surprise to me, after using EFT effectively for so long. If you are stuck in any issues that just aren’t clearing, this may be of real use to you.

PTSD – Could it be affecting you?

This is a look at PTSD and how it can go unnoticed and still have a huge influence on someone’s life.

Book Review: The One Thing Holding You Back by Raphael Cushnir

This is a brief review of a book I’ve recently read that I think would be of use to anyone wanting to understand more about emotions and the healing journey.

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The process of emotional freedom

We were excited to move onto our new property, where we plan to grow the bulk of our own food and restore some areas to native forest, two months ago. Just before we found and bought the property I had an accident that resulted in damage to a disc in my back and to my left shoulder. The accident has meant that in the last two months I have not been able to garden at all on our new property, instead having to ask my partner and our guests (we belong to an organic hosting scheme and have guests from overseas who work and learn with us in the garden) to implement all of my plans for the garden. In addition, the accident has meant I can’t do yoga and a whole bunch of other things I love to do. Yesterday morning this situation resulted in a great example of how tools like EFT can lead us to emotional freedom in our daily lives.

We had some new guests through the organic scheme and I had designed a new kitchen garden, and my partner and our guests were keen to implement it. We started with laying it out and as my partner and I discussed how to do that, I felt my frustration building. My partner made a couple of comments to me which I accused him of being defensive and blaming and I stormed into the house saying that I wasn’t adding any value and he didn’t want my input anyway so they would be better off doing it all without me!

I headed for my bedroom and started tapping:

• Even though he gets defensive whenever I suggest another way, and that makes me so angry, I deeply and completely love and accept myself
• Even though he doesn’t want me to be involved, he always thinks he knows best…
• Even though I’m fed up with him not listening to me…

A couple of rounds of tapping led to the inevitable shift from focusing on it being “all his fault” to what I was actually feeling. Beneath what was presenting was an incredibly strong feeling of frustration:

• ET I’m so frustrated that I couldn’t just take the sticks and string and show them what I wanted to do, instead I had to try to explain everything in the limited container of words which is all I can use these days since I can’t bend, and it’s just sooooo frustrating…
• ET it’s driving me nuts being in the garden and not being able to do anything but stand and watch…
• ET I feel so useless because I can’t do a single thing in the garden…

A few rounds of tapping through the feelings of frustration, and the frustration gave way to sobs and an enormous pool of grief. I cried and cried and tapped on the feelings of grief, not being able to be the physical part of the garden we are creating, not being able to be a part of the team, all the things I can’t do at the moment because of the physical limitations I have while not being able to bend to allow the disc to heal etc.

Half an hour after my little tantrum, I was back in the garden. Having accepted and truly acknowledged the deep well of grief (aided by my partner and our guests also compassionately witnessing and accepting my deep emotions), I was able to realise that I am a part of the team. I had done the whole design for the garden and was key in coming up with the whole concept and communicating what we want to achieve to our guests. I spent the rest of the day enjoying simply being in the garden with the others as they turned my plans on paper into a reality on the ground. Nothing had changed on the outer – I still couldn’t bend over or do anything to create the garden physically, but I had accepted my role in it and could enjoy the others creating it. That’s emotional freedom!

I am so very thankful EFT, which allows me to turn towards my emotions, instead of pushing them down without even realising that I’m doing it. Here’s to us all finding our way towards true emotional freedom.

It’s NOT about the story!

I’ve been doing EFT since early 2007, and it’s completely changed my life. I’ve healed from a chronic long-term illness and found that EFT has given me freedom in other areas of my life as I become more relaxed and able to let go of things. However there are some areas of my life where I am still not finding the freedom I want to, so I continue to work with different issues and the aspects that periodically arise. In doing so, I recently realised something that now seems so obvious, I can’t believe I hadn’t seen it before! As it was a major AHA moment for me, I thought I’d share it in case it’s of help to anyone else.

One of the great ways to tune into an issue with EFT is the Tell the Story Technique. This is Gary Craig’s technique where you start to tell a story about what happened, and as soon as you get any emotional intensity, you stop telling the story and start tapping. The telling of the story is then used to test along the way, and you keep going until you can tell the whole story without any emotional intensity. With a technique called the Tell the Story Technique being a core technique of EFT, it can be easy to fall into the trap I did of thinking that the story has more importance than it does. Working with a practitioner recently, I realised that her real skill was in keeping me out of the story and in the emotions and physical sensations, and it struck me that many times in the past I’ve unwittingly been wallowing in the story to the detriment of tuning into the emotions. I realised that the story is used simply to help us to tune into the emotions and the physical sensations. This may seem a subtle difference at first glance, but to me it’s been a quantum leap.

Gary Craig often says that EFT is simply about tuning into the problem while tapping. Looking back I’ve realised that over and over I’ve fallen into the trap of getting so far into the story of what happened, that I am no longer tuned into the issue. This came as a real surprise to me, I assumed that if I was telling the story I was tuned into the issue, but I can now see that instead I was retreating from the intensity of the emotions into the safer-feeling world of thought as a way of protecting myself. So while I was getting heavily into the story, I actually wasn’t tuned into the emotions and physical sensations accompanying them at all. I can now see that the concepts I learnt from Raphael Cushnir’s excellent book The One Thing Holding You Back has helped me to see this in myself. Prior to reading Raphael’s book, I didn’t realise that thought was such a seductive productive mechanism (if you are interested in finding out more about this, see the review of this book below.)

So if there is some area in your life where you don’t have the emotional freedom you desire, consider looking at how you are working with this issue and whether you are perhaps retreating into the world of thought every time you get near tuning into the issue. If you are unable to do this yourself, you might find that like me, you would benefit from working with a practitioner skilled at assisting with this. I have discovered that in my own life my tendency to retreat into thought is very much a protective mechanism as a result of early trauma, if you suspect this might be the case for you, you might want to read the article about PTSD below.

PTSD – Could it be affecting you?

PTSD – Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome – is more commonly thought of in cases where someone has experienced a traumatic event that continues to haunt them long after, with nightmares or flashbacks. However there can be a far more subtle form of PTSD that often goes unnoticed and that makes tuning into our issues to heal them quite difficult.

I had always thought of PTSD as something that war veterans or people who had been raped experienced and had never considered that it could be relevant for me. However when I watched Gary Craig’s excellent 20 minute video on working with EFT with war veterans, I realised that I displayed quite a few of the symptoms that they were talking about on the video. I have an extremely heightened startle response, I can’t concentrate to read or write if there is a conversation going on in the room, I can’t sleep if there is any noise, if we go out to eat I’m aware of all the conversations going on around me… Until I watched that video, I’d always just considered these things to be a part of who I was. I now realise that we only have these symptoms if something has happened in our life that was too big for us to cope with at the time, so a part of us decides to protect us by staying vigilant to danger all the time. This form of PTSD can be quite insidious, because we can consider ourselves to just be weak or pathetic leading to us being very hard on ourselves, instead of approaching these symptoms with the compassion that they need in order to heal.

PTSD is a complex area and often people need some assistance to work their way through it. There are some individuals, usually those who know what caused their symptoms, who are able to work consistently with EFT to clear all the emotions and beliefs and heal without the support of someone else. In other cases, whether the person knows what caused the PTSD or not, some assistance from a trained practitioner is essential to unravel their reactions and protective mechanisms. For many it’s crucial to find someone with whom they feel safe, who can help them to heal whether or not they ever discover the story behind their symptoms.

While speaking with an experienced EFT practitioner recently, I realised that it is possible to heal without ever knowing the story of what happened. While our conscious mind often wants to know the story, I’ve realised that can get in the road of the healing we need to do (for more on this see It’s NOT about the Story! above) All sorts of things that can happen to us very early in our life, even while in utero, that we may never remember, but on a subconscious level still affect us. The key is to tune into the emotions and accompanying physical sensations, and when we do this magic happens and we find ourselves releasing all sorts of stuck emotions that we’ve been holding in our bodies for years and years.

If you consistently find yourself stuck with clearing issues, there may be something in your past that part of you is protecting you from being aware of on a conscious level, but that is still exerting a lot of influence on your thoughts and your behaviours. If this is the case for you, consider finding a practitioner experienced with dealing with PTSD and ask them to support you on your healing journey. If you think you should be able to resolve it all yourself, stop and consider for a moment what you would do if you became aware of a traumatised child who was being ever so brave but was still haunted by what had happened to him or her. Would you expect them to sort it out themselves? I would imagine that in most cases people would be unlikely to expect that, so remember that there may be a traumatised child inside you who needs some help. Sometimes someone from inside the family can help, but often it requires some support from someone more objective who can hold the child’s hand and support them through the aftermath of the ordeal. This is where the help of an experienced practitioner can be invaluable.

If you are working with a practitioner, here are a couple of things to ask yourself to help determine whether you are working with the best practitioner for you:
• Do you feel safe working with this practitioner? Are you able to share whatever you are feeling and what is coming up for you?
• Are you moving beyond the story, to the emotions and their accompanying physical sensations, or are you staying mired in the story?

If the answer to either of these questions is no, it might be worth exploring working with someone else, as it’s crucial to find the right practitioner for you.

We need not continue to be affected by the traumatic things that happened to us early in our lives. With the wonderful methods that we have available to us now, we are able to let go of all the stuck emotions that have been stored in our body for so long, and move to emotional freedom. As we learn to get past the story, and instead tune into the emotions and their accompanying physical sensations in our body, we are able to move on from whatever it was that happened, whether we are consciously aware of the story or not.

Book Review: The One Thing Holding You Back by Raphael Cushnir

This little book is absolutely packed with gems of information and understanding that are so important on our healing journey. So many of the concepts I’ve been introduced to over the years are included in this book - it gives such a clear understanding of the purpose of emotions, the importance of us allowing them to do their thing, and the traps we can fall into along the way. Raphael has some great analogies (like surfing the wave of our emotions) that really help to explain the process, and he uses lots of examples from his own and his clients’ lives to demonstrate these concepts in action.

One of the key AHAs I had while reading this book was that retreating into thought is one of our protective mechanisms. I had never before seen how quickly I shifted into thought when I was feeling uncomfortable, instead of simply staying with the emotions that were arising. Reading The One Thing Holding You Back has really helped me to spot in real time when I retreat into thought instead of allowing myself to stay tuned into the emotions that need to flow in order for me to heal and return to balance.

The only caution I would offer with this book is that the process is very difficult to do if you are dissociated or have PTSD symptoms, and it is important to realise that you may need to work to heal what is causing the need to dissociate from your feelings first, before you are able to use this process. However even if this is the case, the understandings that come from reading this book are still invaluable.

Very best wishes to everyone,

Jo
www.selfheal4me.com

Newsletter January 2010

2010-01-14T17:00:00.002+13:00

Hello everyone

Thanks for your patience while I took a break from producing newsletters. For those who aren't aware of it, there is a new EFT blog wth lots of great articles that you can sign up for a weekly feed from, if you are interested check out www.eftfree.net

To print this newsletter or read it offline, please click here. To read the whole newsletter online, click here.

This month we have four new articles on the portal:

Kicking myself in the butt

This article gives some interesting insight into one possible driver for self-criticism. If you find yourself regularly blaming yourself or feeling guilty for things, there might be something in here for you. The article also shows the power of an EFT protocol called S-L-O-W EFT - a method that can be really helpful for those working on their own with big issues.

Turning Towards Ourselves

In this article we take a look at one of the most important aspects of healing, and discuss why this simple truth is so hard to implement in our lives. If you have ongoing issues that you are struggling to resolve, this article may give you some insight into the healing process.

The Importance of Deep Relaxation

A brief look at an important subject which many of us overlook. While getting to the bottom of our issues is very important, so is giving our body the conditions it needs to heal optimally.

Tapping with Food Cravings: A New Approach

I've tried tapping on food cravings in the past without success, but recently while tapping I had a bit of an AHA moment which I thought I'd share in case it's of use to anyone else.

Best wishes everyone,

Jo
www.selfheal4me.com

Newsletter August 2009

2009-08-01T09:39:00.001+12:00

Newsletter August 2009

Hello everyone

This is just a quick note to let all our readers know that the Self Healing Portal is taking a break from publishing newsletters over the next few months. There are now so many articles on the portal that it’s getting hard to navigate around! Perhaps you might like to take this time to review some of the older articles which contain a wealth of ideas and information about taking your healing into your own hands.

Remember that if you have any questions about EFT, the EFT Forums are a great place to get some support and more ideas for tapping, and if you want to try working with someone else with EFT but can’t afford to work with a practitioner, you could sign up for a Tapping Buddy and support each other.

If you want to learn more about Focusing, I seriously recommend getting in touch with Suzanne at www.innerwisdoms.com – Suzanne teaches a great style of Focusing at really good rates, and after you’ve learnt with her you can have free support in the form of a Focusing Partnership, something that I really value in my own life.

Very best wishes everyone,

Jo
www.selfheal4me.com

July 2009 Newsletter

2009-07-01T07:34:00.000+12:00

Hello everyone

If you would like to print or read this newsletter offline, please click here. To read the newsletter in it’s entirety on one online webpage, click here.

This month we have four new articles on the Self Healing Portal:

The difference between visualisation and imagery

This article details the difference between visualisation and imagery and discusses why it’s important not to assume that you can’t utilise imagery with your healing just because you believe you can’t visualise. Imagery is such a powerful resource with our healing so it is good if we can all feel comfortable using it.

Cartoon EFT

I’ve recently been experimenting with a way of EFT that seems to work very well for all sorts of issues. This article introduces the idea of “Cartoon EFT” and gives several suggestions for when you can use it and gives tips on how to use it.

Domain Focusing

This article explores what Domain Focusing is all about and discusses some of the benefits of using this style of Focusing.

Book Review: Embracing Your Inner Critic

This short review of Hal and Sidra Stones’ book details how useful it can be for anyone doing any sort of healing, and links to one chapter of the book that you can read on the net free of charge.

Best wishes everyone,

Jo
www.selfheal4me.com

Newsletter June 2009

2009-06-01T16:37:00.001+12:00

Hello everyone

If you would like to print or read this newsletter offline, please click here. Alternately if you’d like to read through all the articles on one page online, you can click here.

This month we have four new articles on the Self Healing Portal:

A Healing Team

This article takes a look at the benefits of involving others in our healing. It is based on my own experience of discovering that I have built a healing team around me, and offers insight into how powerful this can be.

Trusting Ourselves

This article by guest writer Noreen Barron looks at some of the factors that might be contributing to our difficulty involving others in our healing. Many thanks to Noreen for sharing this excellent article with us – trusting ourselves is the foundation of our ability to trust others and something that most of us can benefit from spending time on.

The Truth Is…

This is a phrase that I recently learnt and have used extensively to great benefit in my EFT tapping. This article is also a good example of the power of doing healing with our inner child/younger selves.

Healing Your Relationship with Time

I recently had the opportunity to listen to a fabulous free teleclass by Betty Moore-Hafter and it had so much impact on me I wanted to share this resource with others. Betty will be running this free class again this month so check out the article and consider signing up for her class if you have any challenges with time. Don’t make the mistake I originally did and think you don’t have enough time to attend the class!!!

Very best wishes everyone,

Jo
www.selfheal4me.com

Newsletter May 2009

2009-05-01T07:41:00.000+12:00

Hello everyone

Note that this month we have changed the layout of this newsletter to make it easier to read. You now have three options for reading it:

1. To read the newsletter offline or print it click here. Note that the print version is for printing or offline reading only and does not have active links in it.

2. To see the whole newsletter on one webpage, where you can scroll down to read through all the articles sequentially, or click on the heading of the article to jump to a specific one click here.

3. As in the past you can simply click on the headings of the newsletter articles in this email to go directly to each article.

This month’s newsletter has a real focus on inner child healing. I know that there are many people who feel uncomfortable with the idea of talking with the voice of an inner child in our head, but as I and many others have found, it’s an incredibly powerful way of healing. Here’s something Jef Shockley recently wrote on the EFT Forums about how effective inner child healing has been for him:

There was a link posted in one of the other forums that lead to inner child work and it has proven to be a gold mine for me. Things that I've carried around my whole life, and never understood why, are coming into focus and resolving faster now than at any other time since I've been using EFT. My poor inner child was a basket case when I first started, but I'm happy to report that he's coming along and healing quite nicely :O)

Jef wrote to me that he has never resolved so many things in such a short time and that it absolutely blows him away. He believes that everyone should start with the child first and watch as behaviours and traits vanish before their eyes.

Here are the articles for the month:

Self help Inner Child healing tips by Chim

Chim is a very dedicated self helper who has been using EFT for a while now. Like many people when she initially heard about the concept of talking to inner children or inner parts, she was a little put off. In this article Chim writes about what happened when she started to use inner child healing, and she gives some great tips on how to get started and some of the really important guidelines to bear in mind. Many thanks to Chim for generously sharing her experience and what she has learnt along the way.

Inner Child Healing with EFT - Taking Care of Your Young Self by Betty Moore-Hafter

In this article long time EFT practitioner Betty Moore-Hafter shares insight into how healing it can be to be in touch with the hurting younger parts inside us. Betty writes about the key things she has found make a big difference to inner child healing. Many thanks to Betty for taking the time to share her thoughts on inner child healing with us.

Holding a healing space

It’s easy to get overwhelmed with all the methods and different approaches to healing and lose sight of the power of the most simple concepts. This short article gives idea on how we can let go of needing to fix everything and simply discover the power from truly listening to the hurting parts inside us.

Dialoguing with your Inner Child

Some people hear about the concept of talking with their inner child but feel it just won’t be possible for them. This article shows an example of how this sort of healing can unfold and gives some simple tips on how you can access those hurting younger selves inside you that need to be heard.

When we don’t have time for healing (“Not now, I’m too busy!”)

This article discusses a recent experience I had that really taught me the power of taking the time to stop and acknowledge how a hurting part inside is feeling. This experience taught me that thinking that I’m too busy to address issues when they arise is seriously damaging my relationship with the hurting parts inside, and how it only takes a few moments to acknowledge what is hurting inside.

Who inside got triggered?

This article is a write up of a recent session that I did, designed to give some insight into how powerful this sort of approach to our healing can be. I know that some people are quite uncomfortable with the idea of inner child healing, so this article has also been written with the intention of demonstrating how this work is a simple and powerful way to uncover specific events to tap on.

Best wishes everyone,

Jo
www.selfheal4me.com

More free EFT resources

2009-04-14T06:48:00.001+12:00

Hello everyone

I have recently come across an excellent free EFT resource which I highly recommend anyone serious about healing take a look at. EFT practitioner Marian Mills has written a fabulous book which is available free of charge from her home page. “Feeling Bad About Yourself… And What You Can Do About It” is absolutely packed with great information, tapping sequences and links to lots more resources to inspire you on your healing journey. If you have any challenges in your life around feeling bad about yourself, battling with an inner critical voice, or you are just plain feeling stuck and not sure what to do about it, I highly recommend downloading, printing and binding this book to use as an ongoing reference. With all the information and ideas for tapping it is a great resource for anyone working on their own – sometimes it’s just too difficult to decide what to work on next and this book is an ideal resource to help you to get started and do some tapping and start feeling better. It also provides a brilliant resource for anyone who is working with a practitioner who wants to tap in between sessions and really get the most benefit out of their EFT time.

For more thoughts about self esteem and how we can use EFT to help improve our self esteem, there is also an interesting 17 minute video on Youtube by Robert Smith that you might like to check out.

Until next time,

Jo
www.selfheal4me.com

Newsletter April 2009

2009-04-01T20:13:00.000+13:00

Hello everyone

This month we have four new articles on the Self Healing Portal – an example of the Focusing Method in action, an example of the power of using imagery with our healing, a link to a great new article with lots of tapping statement ideas, and a brief article introducing yet another great free resource available on the internet.

Example Focusing Session

The method of Focusing is difficult to describe to someone who hasn’t experienced it, because it’s very much an experience rather than a process. This article is a write up of a Focusing experience I had to give an insight into how a Focusing session can unfold.

Accessing the Subconscious with EFT and Imagery

This article shows how powerful using imagery to get in touch with the subconscious is. The old saying “A picture is worth a thousand words” holds just as true for the healing process as anything else. When we are able to listen to our subconscious through it’s language of imagery, things are really able to open up in our lives.

36 EFT Affirmations - Improve Your Tapping Results with these ‘Best Ever’ EFT Statements!

EFT practitioner Karen Nauman has posted a great new page on her website that I highly recommend you bookmark so you can go back to it time and time again. Karen has brought together 36 great phrases that you can use in the place of the standard setup statement, and she has grouped them into three different categories which can really help when we are feeling stuck on an issue and just not knowing which is the most effective way to proceed. The page is going to be updated regularly with new phrases that Karen discovers and learns, so it will prove to be a fabulous resource for any of use using EFT to heal.

Inner Child Healing and the Five Stages of Grief

This brief article introduces a series of short videos that EFT practitioner Cathryn Taylor has posted on Youtube. These videos bring together Cathryn’s approach with Inner Child Healing, Addictions work, and EFT, together with Elisabeth Kubler Ross’ Five Stages of Grief Model to give us a powerful framework for our healing.

Very best wishes all,

Jo
Self Healing Portal

Some resources to check out

2009-03-11T17:17:00.000+13:00

Hello everyone

There are just so many wonderful free resources on the web that it’s difficult to keep up with them all. Here are three resources that might be of interest to you:

Focusing into Sleep

Sleep is a really big issue for many people and many are looking for solutions that don’t come in a bottle. Susan Rudnick and Robin Kappy are Focusing Partners and Focusing Oriented psychotherapists so when they teamed up to create resources to help people with sleeping difficulties, they brought with them a lot of experience and different methods. In this article in a past issue of the Focusing Connection (from on their website) they give ideas on how we can use simple focusing approaches to drift into sleep when it seems to be eluding us.

Integrating EFT into your daily routine

Gene Monterastelli has started doing some podcast sessions and the first one is packed with ideas to help you to integrate EFT into your daily routine. The podcast starts with a 6 step method to using EFT more regularly in your life and then Gene interviews Rick Wilkes. Rick is a great practitioner and speaker and in this interview he shares some wonderful ideas on how to go about our healing. For anyone wanting to integrate EFT into their lives, listening to this podcast will be time well spent.

The Science Behind Matrix Reimprinting

In this article, Matrix Reimprinting founder Karl Dawson lays out the science and concepts behind Matrix Reimprinting. For anyone using Matrix Reimprinting or contemplating using it, this article gives a lot of food for thought. (This link comes with thanks to Karen Nauman who so generously shares lots of resources with us all on the EFT Forums. :0) )

Until next time,

Jo
Self Healing Portal

Newsletter March 2009

2009-03-01T15:03:00.001+13:00

Hello everyone

This month we have four new articles on the Self Healing Portal:

Tips on using EFT to heal chronic anxiety (or other stubborn issues)

This article was written as a summary to help the many people coming to the EFT forums looking for answers as to why EFT doesn’t seem to be effective for them. While the article talks specifically to those with chronic anxiety, many of the concepts in the article are just as applicable to any chronic issue that doesn’t seem to be responding to EFT.

When Listening is not Enough

I’ve written a lot about the need to build our listening skills and truly listen to the hurting parts inside of ourselves. Recently I had an experience which taught me that sometimes just listening isn’t enough, because the part of us we are listening to doesn’t feel ready to talk until they’ve heard the words they need to hear for them to know that we really do care. This article shows how powerful some phrases are to unlock the hurting parts inside us.

Our inner committee

It might seem crazy to some readers that we could consider ourselves to be like a committee, but I’ve found this to be a really interesting metaphor with my healing. This article explores this metaphor to help us better understanding this aspect of our healing process.

If you are serious about DIY EFT

Anyone who has been a Self Healing Portal reader for some time, or has read the free e-book “You CAN Heal with EFT”, will know that I am a big advocate of self healing. Just like with any type of DIY, the more we want to do, the more skills and knowledge we need to have, so here I introduce some resources I have recently come across that really help take self healing to a new level.

For any readers who are interested in the Focusing method:

I have discovered a great article on Focusing without a Focusing Partner on the internet. While I love having a Focusing Partnership and very much benefit from it, I am always looking for ways to more effectively focus on my own in between sessions with my Partner. This article by Kay Hoffmann looks at this subject in depth. You can read the article at http://www.focusing.org.uk/solo_focusing.html

Please also note that if there is anyone who has done a training course in Focusing who wants a Focusing Partner but currently doesn’t have one, I know of a woman in the UK looking for a Focusing Partner. If you would like to connect with her, please drop me an email at selfheal4me@gmail.com Thanks.

Very best wishes all,

Jo
www.selfheal4me.com

More great EFT resources

2009-02-16T16:19:00.001+13:00

Hello everyone

There are so many wonderful resources available free online to help us to learn more about EFT these days that it is getting difficult to fit everything into the monthly Self Healing Portal newsletters without bombarding you with too much at once. So I’ve decided to periodically send out a mid month note with links to a couple of resources that I’ve found to be really helpful. If you are busy and finding it difficult to find the time to listen to resources like these, but serious about your healing, you might want to consider downloading these interviews onto an MP3 player and listening to them while walking or gardening or shovelling snow, or whatever it is that is keeping you busy!

The first link this month is to a fantastic interview of Rick Wilkes by Gary Williams of EFT World. Rick is not only a really good EFT coach but is also brilliant at helping to explain the really key concepts of EFT. Each time I listen to this interview I pick something else up, or hear a reminder that helps me to see how I could approach something differently. If you haven’t listened to this interview at least once, and you consider yourself to be serious about healing with EFT, I strongly recommend that you check it out. It runs for just under an hour and is absolutely packed with ideas and great ways of explaining how EFT works effectively. You can listen to or download the interview from here.

The second link is to a free teleclass by Betty Moore-Hafter which is another must listen to for anyone serious about using EFT. Betty generously combines her understanding of the subconscious with her love of language and her in depth understanding of people and EFT to help us to use language creatively with EFT. If you have any stubborn issues that just aren’t budging no matter how you approach them, this interview will give you loads of ideas on how you can bring empathy to those parts of you that are hurting and in doing so aid them to open up and let you know what you most need to address with your tapping. The teleclass comes supported by a brilliant free booklet that gives details of the different phrases Betty introduces in the class. The booklet has a really helpful summary at the end that you can use to glance at if you are tapping and getting stuck, it gives phrases you can use to really let those hurting parts know that you understand how they feel. I believe that the power of EFT lies largely in helping us to find ways to truly accept ourselves and Betty’s use of language has really helped me with this. It is so easy for us to say the standard setup phrase while rejecting the part of us driving unwanted behaviour or physical symptoms without even realising we are doing it. If we have a “stubborn” issue in our lives that just isn’t budging, it’s an indication that on some level we aren’t truly hearing a part of us that has something to say that we really need to hear. Betty’s teleclass can really help in cases like these. You can download the class free from Betty’s website www.creativeeft.com – look for both the class and booklet “Creative Language with EFT”.

Until next time,

Jo
www.selfheal4me.com

Newsletter February 2009

2009-02-01T13:24:00.001+13:00

Hello everyone

This month has seen some changes at the Self Healing Portal. What was shaping up to be a major frustration due to a crash and my limited computer skills has instead been taken as an opportunity for a revamp - as the number of articles climbs the portal Articles pages has become a bit unwieldy for new users, so the articles have now been categorised to make it easier to find your way around. The old articles have all been maintained with their existing links in order to keep the integrity of any links from outside sites coming into the Self Healing Portal, so hopefully no-one has experienced any frustration in finding older articles. They are all now also listed on the new tab called “Articles Index”.

We have five new articles this month, including two by guest writers:

EFT and the Power of Forgiveness by Pat Burns

In this continuation of our series of articles written by people who have discovered something that has been really key on their healing journey, Pat Burns shares the difference that forgiveness has made for her on her healing journey. Many thanks to Pat for this insightful article.

Tips from an EFT Self Helper by Chim

Anyone who has spent time on the EFT Forums over the last few months is likely to have come across a very enthusiastic poster by the name of Chim who has embraced EFT for self healing and loves to share what she has learnt with others. In this article Chim gives tips that she has gathered during her experience with EFT. Many thanks to Chim for enthusiastically sharing her learnings with us all.

Focusing as a way of Moving Forward

This article gives information and links about some free resources on the web that can really help us when we are stuck with healing a particular issue, whether or not we use the tool of Focusing. Whatever method you are using, you might find something useful in these wonderful resources.

Tips for using Matrix Reimprinting – A Powerful Method of Healing

This article is a follow up on our Introduction to Matrix Reimprinting article last month. It contains various tips to help you to really gain the benefit of this powerful tool in your own healing.

How can I know if I’m working with the right EFT practitioner for me?

This one has been written in response to several questions lately from people who are working with EFT practitioners and just aren’t sure whether to hang in with them even though things don’t seem to be budging, or find a new practitioner to work with. The questions in this article are designed to help you to find your own answer to this for yourself.

Very best wishes all,

Jo
www.selfheal4me.com

Newsletter January 2009

2009-01-03T16:49:00.001+13:00

Hello everyone

We have five new articles on the Self Healing Portal this month. Please note that if you want to print any of the articles, you will need to copy and paste them to MS Word (or equivalent) to print as I still haven’t had the chance to resolve the printing issue. Please also bear with me with a few gremlins – the New Year is challenging my limited computer skills and I’ve had to do some strange workarounds to get this month’s newsletter out!

Here’s our new articles, hopefully there will be something of interest to each of you:

What will be gained when I take care of myself? By Rebecca Baldwin

This article by Rebecca is a very inspiring way to start the year – a look at just what is to be gained when we do our healing. If you are looking for motivation on your self healing journey, or would like to reflect on just how important it is to do our healing, this article will be of interest to you.

Trauma and EFT by Marian Mills

EFT Practitioner Marian Mills kindly shares some information that could be of interest and use to you if you are working through any trauma (big or little) with EFT. Marian explains how most of us have some trauma in our history and how important it is to deal with it.

The Importance of Support in Healing By Gillian Wightman

This article is a continuation of our guest articles written by people who have found something that has made a big difference in their own healing journey. Gill shares how the support of others has made a huge difference for her in her own healing process. This article gives a great example of what Marian talks about regarding the need for support to clear trauma in her article above.

Fear originating from Birth Trauma

This article is a good example of how our behaviour in present time can be driven by unresolved birth trauma that we are unaware of. It gives insight into why it can be very important to clear our early traumas and also supports the message in Marian’s article above.

Introduction to Matrix Reimprinting

This short article gives links to information available free on the internet to help you to learn a wonderful new way of working with EFT. In future editions of this newsletter we will have examples of how to work with this powerful method of healing.

Happy New Year everyone. Here’s to a year of joy and fun and laughter and growth and healing for all of us.

Very best wishes,

Jo Hainsworth
www.selfheal4me.com

Newsletter December 2008

2008-12-01T14:00:00.001+13:00

Hello everyone

It’s been brought to my attention that the articles on the Self Healing Portal don’t print well at all. I apologise for not having found the time to address this, and suggest that anyone wanting to print the articles simply copies and pastes the particular article to MS Word or another programme to print from. It has also been brought to my attention that if anyone replies to the newsletters with feedback or questions, it doesn’t arrive in the Self Healing Portal inbox. So if you do want to write with any feedback or questions, please email them to me at selfheal4me@gmail.com Thanks.

We have four new articles this month on the Self Healing Portal:

I’m SO excited about the new me I’m experiencing By Arum

Arum’s article is an inspiring look at how we can do our healing with EFT even if we aren’t in the financial position to pay for ongoing support with a practitioner. Arum kindly shares her story and thoughts on how you can learn EFT for self healing and in doing so move mountains. Many thanks to Arum for taking the time to write up her story so others can be inspired and learn from it.

The Power of Proxy Tapping

I’ve written a few times lately about Silvia Hartmann’s proxy tapping. As I’ve seen some great results with it, I thought I’d document my thoughts a few months down the track from starting using it.

Inner Child Healing Resources

The inner child is basically a useful metaphor for enabling us to be able to heal childhood issues without the overwhelming us. Doing this sort of work can be very empowering and cut to the root of many of our current day issues. This article contains reflections and information about various resources that can help you with this sort of approach to healing.

Why do I have all these issues?

This short article gives an overview of and links to a fantastic interview able to listen to free of charge on the internet. It contains information that can really help us to understand why we have developed the issues that we have. While this understanding is not essential on our healing path, it can be helpful in giving us perspective about the path we are walking.

Season’s greetings and very best wishes,

Jo

Self Healing Portal

Newsletter November 2008

2008-11-01T17:21:00.000+13:00

Hello everyone

This month we have four new articles on the Self Healing Portal:

The Blind Spot

This article is for all those who have an issue in their lives that no matter how much time they spend trying to resolve just doesn’t seem to budge. It looks at how we can have a blind spot for a particular issue and what we can do about it.

An Example of Healing and the Blind Spot

This is an example of a blind spot in action and shows how using one of the methods suggested in the above article can be very helpful in resolving a stubborn issue.

The Importance of Basic Trust in Healing

This is another article especially for those who are struggling to heal a long term physical illness or behaviour pattern. It discusses the importance of healing issues related to trust when working on these long term challenges.

Healing with Hope by Andrea Chervenak

This article is the next in our new series of inspirational articles written by people who have found a path to healing after many years of struggling with physical illness and other aspects of life. In last month’s article Rebecca wrote of how discovering Focusing had made a big difference for her. This month Andrea emphasises the difference that focusing on trust and faith made for her.

If you would like to you can also read an article written by Jo on EFT & Gratitude on the Heal with Hope website.

Best wishes everyone,

Jo
www.selfheal4me.com

Newsletter October 2008

2008-10-02T21:17:00.001+13:00

Hello everyone

We have four new articles on the Self Healing Portal this month:

A Healing Journey by Rebecca Baldwin

Rebecca has battled for many years with depression and major challenges with her weight and binge eating. She has searched for answers in many directions and for a long time feared that nothing would really shift things enough to be able to lead the joyful life she so desperately wanted but had trouble envisaging due to her challenges. In this article Rebecca shares with the Self Healing Portal readers a method that she has discovered that has helped her move towards peace and truly learning how to love herself. Many thanks to Rebecca for sharing this inspiring article.

Clearing Emotions to Expose the Point of View

This article details a powerful example of how emotions are generated from a point of view, and how we can use EFT to clear the emotions and then reframe the point of view. The article also details aspects of particular relevance to anyone with a highly sensitive temperament.

A Shift in Perspective

Most of us go through life taking on points of view as a result of the experiences we’ve had, then collecting evidence over the years that support our points of view. Healing requires us to allow the points of view to change as we clear the emotional trauma associated with the experiences that result in us taking on the beliefs and perspectives that we did. This article takes a look at this and how we can use tools to assist us with allowing the points of view to change.

Tips for Using the Movie Technique

The Movie Technique in EFT is an incredibly powerful one but at first glance some people seem to be put off it, either thinking that it’s too simple to work or too complicated to use! This tool is too good not to be in every DIY EFT’ers toolkit, so this article examines some of the common misunderstandings with the Movie Technique and gives some suggestions for dealing with it when it’s not working the way it should.

Very best wishes to all,

Jo
Self Healing Portal

Newsletter September 2008

2008-09-02T16:43:00.002+12:00

Hello everyone

Thanks to everyone who has sent feedback on the new free book You CAN Heal with EFT, it's been very much appreciated and great to hear that people are learning new ways of working with EFT and getting past blocks to using it. If you've downloaded it and haven't got around to reading it, the feedback coming through suggests it is worth the time, as there are quite a few ideas and different concepts that can really help us with our healing. Please continue to help get the word out and let anyone you know who might benefit from the book know that it's free to download from the Self Healing Portal. Thank you.

For those who have been finding the font hard to read on the new Self Healing Portal, I've had a friend help me and we've figured out the line spacing so it is hopefully now more readable. Unfortunately I still haven't been able to make the font bigger on this newsletter!

There is a great new resource on the net for anyone looking for someone else to do some EFT tapping with. Pat is a regular reader of the EFT Forums and read there that it can be very supportive to have someone else to tap with, either in person or by Skype/MSN or phone. When she couldn't find a way to easily connect with others looking for tapping buddies, she decided to set up a space online specifically for that purpose. There is nothing quite so isolating as feeling that we are all alone on our healing journey. A place to connect with others and find someone to share mutual support with is invaluable. Many thanks to Pat for taking this great initiative. You can find the new website at http://tappingbuddies.net/. Please share this web address with anyone who you know who may benefit from it. Thank you.

This month we have four new articles on the portal:

The Dangers of Positive Thinking (a.k.a. Making friends with "negativity")

I know, we are all supposed to be thinking positive! However I've found over time that sometimes positive thinking is simply smearing a thin coat of pain over issues that are having far more influence in our lives than we realise, so this article explores how we can use tools like EFT & Focusing to overcome this.

A Powerful Method for Clearing Writing off the Walls

This details some powerful healing I did recently to clear a long term issue for myself. If you are looking for fresh ideas on how to break past long term issues, this article might be of real use to you.

Getting Past that Brick Wall

This article is an account of some healing done recently with the son of a friend of mine. It's a powerful example of how listening to what is going on inside us can be a huge catalyst in helping us to access how it is that we are really feeling. This case shows clearly how EFT and Focusing are really helpful used side by side.

More on Auto-Immune Illnesses

With the upsurge in allergies and environmental illnesses there is a real need for more understanding on how we end up with these illnesses and what we can do about them. This article gives an analogy that might help some to find a way through their journey with an auto-immune illness.

Very best wishes to all,

Jo

Self Healing Portal

Newsletter 2008 August

2008-08-02T21:27:00.004+12:00

Hello everyone

This month brings big changes for the Self Healing Portal. As a result of changes at Googlepages, who have hosted the portal for free, the website has had to be moved. You can now find the Self Healing Portal at www.selfheal4me.com. As a result of the move the past newsletters will no longer be available, but the most important articles are still available, at the new website.

This month also brings the release of the new FREE book "You CAN Heal with EFT". This book is a great introduction to those new to EFT, and a very comprehensive look at using EFT for self healing. It has been written not only to cover the basics, but also to assist those who have been using EFT for some time who have been having difficulty getting past the blocks to clearing their issues.

The body of the book has been kept to less than 40 pages, with a lot of other information in the Appendices which help you learn more as you go, and is referred to throughout the book. You can read it on screen (taking advantage of full Adobe PDF functionality to navigate around the book) or you may choose to do what I have done and print the book and bind it to refer to as a reference over time.

In other news, if you are looking for a simple method to help you to deal with ongoing anxiety, a method called "Simple Energy Techniques, which is a simplified version of EFT might be of use to you. Dr David Lake and Steve Wells are well known EFT practitioners and trainers from Australia, who have come up with this technique by observing what happens when you miss certain parts of the EFT process out. They have agreed with Gary Craig that it will be known as SET, as it is in many ways different to EFT, although it is derived from use of EFT.

For anyone dealing with ongoing anxiety, there is an EFT Revealed interview with Steve Wells available for free download which is very interesting, and talks about how to use the SET method. You can download the audio free of charge from http://eft-revealed.com/blog/category/anxiety/ Alternatively, you can download Steve and David's free report about SET here.

Here's what someone who was recently introduced to SET had to say about it:

One thing I like to say is that I got a lot of help from that site you told me about - that anxiety tape and their concept of continuous tapping. I tap on my fingers quite a lot now at random times and I am much calmer. In fact wierdly more so than I have been from a year of more of practicing mediatition and breathing excersises.

So if you are looking for a simple way to deal with ongoing anxiety check out the information on SET, a very simple self help method that can work very rapidly and very effectively for some people.

Welcome to all the new folks who have joined the Self Healing Portal Newsletter recently. I hope that if proves to be a source of inspiration and information for you and for all of you who have been receiving the newsletter for some time.

Very best wishes to all,

Jo
www.selfheal4me.com