In the last post, I wrote about what sources you can use for creating empowering references, and how such references can have life changing results. I’ve mentioned that to make your references particularly effective, you need to affirm them while feeling good, or, to be more precise, rehearse them in such a way that the reaction of your mind and body are in alignment with them.

This was a quite challenging task for me. I’ve been using positive affirmations for years, which would often feel fallacies or empty words. However, I’ve recently gone through a really impressive change: now I can emotionally tune into what I really want and I’m certain that it is actually possible. Currently I’m working on carrying out the steps leading there, which I perceive more and more peaceful and encouraging day by day.

What’s happened? I changed what to focus on so that I could both work on the resistance and amplify my feelings that support my empowering references side by side. First, I’ll discuss what advantages this approach has, and I’ll also give advice through an example in case you want to try it.

There was still a remaining issue, though: I was frequently confused about what I really wanted. In a world where it’s easy to hear contradictory opinions about any topic, who shall I believe? Those who think I should have given up a long time ago and make do with something more common, or those who warmly receive the news that I’m on the same path they’ve already completed? Is it worth following my dreams at all? These were the questions I commonly asked myself, and I think I know the answers now. For this reason, I’ll also cover how you can choose your ideal affirmations.

This is how I release the resistance

I start by making an affirmation, i.e. stating what I want. When any resistance comes up, I tap on it until it’s gone or I lose track of what I’ve been working on (which happens very often as I pull myself out of the trance). The key here is the latter part: In this approach, testing if I’m aligned with my affirmation has a higher priority than pursuing unpleasant references. I propose that this has four enormous benefits.

Firstly, it allows the mind to intelligently bring up the right limiting references at the right time. For example, if I start to tap on reference A having an emotional charge of a 10 out of 10, it’s unlikely I can fully shift my attention back to my affirmation until I bring the charge down to a 0 (or close to it). When I can finally focus on the affirmation, my mind may bring up reference B, then reference C as I clean the underlying structure of my problem. After all this, reference A may come up again although I’ve already worked on it and I consider its status “good enough”. Sometimes, I end up working on a belief that sounds completely illogical and like a basic issue to get rid of in your first month of your journey with FasterEFT. Still, if I listen to my mind’s message (as if it was telling me, “Hey, here’s something you need to take care of!”) and tap on whatever it brought up, I feel a relief afterwards. If I ignore it, that resource continues to affect me and it’ll show up again in some form sooner or later anyway.

Secondly, it complements the use of the Peace List. The Peace List, recommended by Robert Gene Smith, contains all your limiting references so that you can go through each and transform them one by one into positive. While this list definitely has its uses (e.g. it helps you become aware of what you need to clean up and it sets your mind up to do real work when you make it the first time), it can also be bothersome when you have thousands of references accumulated from here and there throughout your life.

When I look at the list of all my unresolved references (or just the ones I jotted down after a couple “sessions” with myself), I often feel unsure of what to work on next, especially if I want to let go of the obstacles preventing me from achieving a specific goal. In addition, if I could identify my problem with words during tapping (which wasn’t always the case!), I used to write down a brief title representing the memory I was working on so that I wouldn’t forget to come back to it next time. Eventually, this made my list an unorganised mess: a lot of entries had duplicates, categorising and sorting chronologically were ineffective and distracting, and the list itself was made up of several individual parts lying around on my computer or some sheets of paper. I don’t have to deal with all these issues anymore.

Thirdly, it motivates you. As you could imagine, looking at my Peace List wasn’t exactly inspiring. Virtually all I could notice is the fact that it just kept growing and growing and some of the entries didn’t bother me as much. Even if I removed or marked some of them as resolved, many of them would still bother me after a while, which was especially annoying. On the other hand, if my main focus is on the references representing what I do want, it’s much easier to notice shifts in my belief system. What I imagine feels more and more realistic, which energises me and gives me confidence that I’m on the right path.

Last but not least, it encourages you to actually feel good. I’ve noticed it on both other people and myself that when our main goal is to change a particular memory, we’re more likely to make do with a neutral state than go the extra mile and make sure we feel only good about it. That’s not enough.

As I’ve written in the previous post, maintaining a positive emotional state is crucial for success: in such a state, it’s much easier to access the resources in your mind that allow you to make wise decisions, come up with the best solutions to your problems, and attract situations that can fulfill your needs. As you’re testing your affirmation, you’re also practising it, which creates new neural pathways in your brain. As a result, you’ll become increasingly better at focussing on what you want rather than what you don’t want, and inducing and staying in a resourceful state.

Putting it into practice

Let’s say you want to have a wonderful job. In this case, your affirmation can be as simple as “I have a wonderful job”, or you can also add words that describe pleasant emotions and feelings, as in “I feel happy/joyful/confident that I have a wonderful job.” As soon as you say this, what happens inside you? Are your feelings, emotions, sensations, visuals, sounds, etc. in alignment with your statement?

If the answer is no, notice what bothers you or contradicts your affirmation, and tap. Then, repeat your statement about your wonderful job and notice what’s changed. It could be the intensity of the feelings, sensations, or emotions. It could be the proximity of the person or object you’re seeing in the memory that has come up. It could be the volume of the voices or sounds you remember. Notice it, tap, and check your reaction to your affirmation again.

Don’t be discouraged if you perceive the change worse than when you started tapping. Should that happen, it means that your mind has brought something to your attention you haven’t been aware of—because it’s been tucked away in your subconscious mind. Keep tapping and it will pass as well.

If your reaction is congruent with your words (that is, you’re actually feeling happy/joyful/confident that you have a wonderful job), amplify it. For now, focus on the end result (already having what you want in the present) and make it real inside you. This is who you are. This is actually happening. This is the life you’re shaping however you wish. Is it still peaceful and in alignment with your statement? If not, tap on the resistance any time it comes up.

You can clean up even more resistance (if there’s any left) by projecting what you want into the future. To do this, imagine yourself at a specific time in the future and check if your affirmation is still true in that moment. For me, it also helps if I say it in future tense (e.g. “I’m confident that I will have a wonderful job by 1st November 2018.”). If it feels good as well, you can move on to making a plan and taking action (for instance, having a look at the available job listings, applying for a few, and so on).

Choosing the right affirmation

When you ask yourself, “What is it I truly desire?”, or “What do I really need?”, I suggest going with whatever the answer is. At first, you may perceive it as silly or embarrassing. You may even see someone in your mind laughing at or judging you. Remember that it’s all you doing it to yourself, based on your past experiences. The whole point of this exercise is to let those unpleasant references come to the surface so that you can let them go, and, at the same time, create and strengthen ones that support you.

Some of the affirmations I’ve made in the past felt childish at first. No wonder, because I wanted those things to be true when I was little, and later on, I was told by others that they were unrealistic or they didn’t make sense. To paraphrase what Louise L. Hay wrote in her book The Power Is Within You, everyone has a child living inside him/her, and it’s very important to make sure that child is happy. In other words, instead of telling that little boy or girl that he/she can’t have what he/she wants, create a world where he/she has exactly what he/she needs. Again, this is your mind, and everything you do with it is under your control.

This brings us to another question: wouldn’t we just delude ourselves if we stuck to something that is physically impossible, such as having the super powers of a comic/cartoon hero? I don’t think so. You see, making an affirmation doesn’t necessarily equal planning or creating the final version of your goal. Those are separate steps that come after you’ve established a resourceful mental state. So, if your desire happens to be that you’re Superman, imagine yourself being him, and make sure it pleases you.

As you keep cleaning up the resistance and practising your affirmation, you may find yourself wanting to revise your statement eventually. Going back to my example, after a few minutes, you may realise that you don’t really want to be Superman; what you actually want is the feeling of being like him. Maybe what you’re looking for is being able to help others in need, or being able to protect yourself from any danger whatsoever, or being able to fly. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways of achieving any of these in real life. (You can fly by an aeroplane or a hang glider, for instance!) To me, projecting into the future and the use of the questions of the precision model are of great help in discovering what I want exactly and finding ways that are achievable.

That is not to say you always abandon your initial affirmation ultimately. There are people who grew up with the TV series Knight Rider and had the desire to drive a car that looks just like K.I.T.T.. Some of them not only hunted down an instance of the same model, a Pontiac Trans Am Firebird, but they also spent a fortune on modifying it inside out to look (and feel) like the real deal. If you have the same goal and want to stick to it till the end, go for it! As I’ve mentioned last time, if someone has done it, so can you.

Recap and closing thoughts

To sum up, choose an affirmation that resonates with you the most, keep repeating it and tapping out the resistance until everything in your mind and body becomes in alignment with the affirmation. Regardless of what your affirmation and reaction are exactly, trust your mind. If you learn to communicate with it properly, it can become the greatest ally you ever need. Ask the right questions and it will show you what to aim for and what you need to change inside you to reach it.

I mentioned that this exercise complements working on your Peace List. That means you can consider it as one of the many available tools rather than “the best” protocol that makes other ones inferior. Some works better for one person under given circumstances than the rest. I like this one because it helps me figure out what I want to achieve in my life and make deep shifts, plus it’s also pleasantly simple. Give it a try and you might find it useful, like I do.

If working on your own is still overwhelming, the door is always open to ask a practitioner to help you. If you book a session with me, I promise to take whatever you wish to work on seriously and I won’t laugh at you or judge you or try to convince you to pick a different goal. I’ve learnt from experience that doing so just because the practitioner doesn’t agree with the client won’t help anyone. What we all need is someone to be there with us, supporting us in reaching our heart’s desire, no matter how weird it sounds. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be any innovations in the world; everyone would be living with the same habits, tastes, rules, and limits. We all were born unique in our own ways and we can truly be ourselves only if we consider these unique features as assets instead badges of shame.

Whatever you do, do the thing that feels right for you. Peace.