On the Road to Girona

Posted on by Rob Nelson

Back in March 2018 my wife and I were lucky enough to visit Spain. After 4 incredible days in Barcelona, we’d planned to rent a car and head north, visiting some glorious medieval villages. Our first stop was about an hour up the road, the Old Jewish Quarter in Girona.

We paid a bit extra for a car with GPS, voiced by a polite but rather firm English woman who guided us out of the narrow twisting lanes of the Gracia neighborhood in Barcelona and out onto the big, modern Spanish freeway heading north. We decided to call her Gwendolyn and were very grateful for her help.

About 20 kilometers south of Girona though, our trust in Gwendolyn was put to the test. She was quite insistent that we take the next exit, despite very clear road signs instructing us to keep going on the freeway. That was weird.

But I had faith in Gwendolyn and took her recommended exit. We were suddenly on a very busy and rather narrow four lane highway, crammed with big trucks. We began heading east, away from the coast and up into the hills. The heavy traffic and curving road spiked our stress level and after a few close calls we took a sketchy looking exit to try and get our bearings.

After driving on this blasted road for nearly half an hour, Gwendolyn told us Girona was a mere hour and 40 minutes away! The screen showed us on a great looping detour up into the mountains. Yikes! Clearly there was some crazy mistake. Ignoring Gwen’s protests, we headed back the way we’d come to get back on the actual freeway.

​Sure enough, once we got back on the freeway it was about 20 more minutes to Girona. We’d just wasted an entire hour! To make matters worse, we couldn’t figure out how to get Gwendolyn to shut the hell up without turning off the GPS entirely. This was a big deal because she kept insisting we take each and every exit on the way to Girona, even though they clearly led off into the empty countryside.

I’m sorry to say that Gwendolyn’s increasingly unwelcome and seemingly psychotic travel advice provoked some rather coarse language on my part. At first this may have shocked my poor stressed out wife, but soon enough she joined right in cursing poor Gwen.

Girona was amazing. The Old Jewish Quarter is absolutely worth a visit. But I think we were both a bit haunted by the mystery of faithless Gwendolyn. Was she possessed or what? Should we try and find some Holy Water? Before continuing our journey north, we decided to investigate.

Delving deep into the menus of the GPS – layer upon layer of settings, we found the simple but idiotic answer. An option to AVOID TOLL ROADS had been chosen by someone for some reason at some point. And that big beautiful “freeway” was in fact a toll road – we’d paid a €7 toll just a few kilometers south of Girona. Lovely Gwendolyn was just trying to be helpful after all.

If we hadn’t turned around, that one hidden setting meant we would have burned an extra €20 or more in petrol and cost us a few precious hours of sightseeing. Not cool!

Can you guess where I’m going with this?

How many of us have crazy default settings we’re completely unaware of? We’re trying so hard to reach our destination, but our own inner-Gwendolyn sends us off on a wild goose chase.  When our life goes off the rails it’s tempting to blame everyone and everything in sight. But honestly, it’s probably some messed up default setting in our programming.

You might say that all of us are born and raised in the backseat of our own car. Our folks are driving. They set the course, put it on cruise control and even pre-set the stations on the radio buttons. By the time we climb into the driver’s seat and take the wheel, our lives are pretty much on autopilot.

It’s important to realize this! We can change our own settings – if we know they’re there. If we know to go looking for them. It isn’t even all that hard, really. A lot of what I do with clients is really helping them take their life off autopilot.

​So what’s your own Girona? What sort of life are you steering for? And what settings, programs, vows or beliefs might be sending you off in the wrong direction?

copyright 2018 Rob Nelson

Interested in working with Rob? Click here for details

​

The Roots of Procrastination

Posted on by Rob Nelson

Note: This article is a draft of one of the chapters in my upcoming book: Hacking Reality

You're not the boss of me!

I love this picture of the little girl, arms crossed over her chest, glaring at an adult just off screen.  You can easily guess her thoughts: “You’re not the boss of me.”

I think a great deal of our procrastination comes from an inner child stuck in this attitude of defiant rebellion. They’re confusing us with their parent!

When I decide to get up half an hour early to meditate, or to stop eating wheat, or go to the gym, I’m making that decision from my grown-up, adult perspective.  It may be all about self-care and self-love, but essentially I’m stepping into a parental role with myself.

If I happened to grow up with a demanding, critical or domineering parent, there’s a good chance my well-intentioned decision will activate a whole posse of younger selves. I’m unknowingly invoking a total power struggle. One I’m likely to lose.

Other reasons for procrastination might involve feelings of deep inadequacy – instead of rebellion there’s an intense fear of exposure by the younger self. Failure is guaranteed, so why risk everyone finding out how worthless I am by trying something new?

There can also be a fear of losing one’s place in the family system – usually the black sheep. If I try and actually succeed somehow, I won’t fit in anymore and I’ll be abandoned or driven out. I know that probably sounds really weird – who wants to be the black sheep anyway?

But remember, we’re looking at a very young younger self being activated.  They don’t know who we are. They probably register our intentions somehow as coming from a parent or teacher.  If procrastination is a big problem in your life, exploring any childhood roots might be really helpful. Much more fruitful than doubling down on the old willpower or beating yourself up.

Here are a few simple questions to ask yourself:

  • Did I have an over-bearing parent?
  • Was there an endless to-do list of chores?
  • Was whatever I did just never good enough?
  • Did I have a perfect sibling who could do no wrong?
  • Was I forced to become a caretaker for a parent or my siblings?
  • Is there a humiliating failure or defeat I’ve just never gotten over?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, there’s almost certainly at least one younger self causing your procrastination. But please don’t hate them! They need your help. And helping them will set you free.

Try this: Make a short list of memories related to your answers above. Choose one to work on right now (yes, right now – this is about procrastination, right?). Choose the one that stands out, or that has the most emotional charge when you think about it.  And then rate that emotional charge. Not at the time it happened, but right now just remembering it.

On a scale of zero to ten, how much intensity do you have? And what is that intensity about? Is it embarrassment? Anger? Guilt? Some combination of feelings?  Whatever you’re feeling, do some good old EFT tapping on it and try to get the intensity level down for that memory. In fact, try to get it down to zero if you can.

And then do so for each of those memories on your list.  You may not be able to do all of them right at once, but perhaps 2 or 3 a day until they’re all discharged.  By then your procrastination may be a thing of the past!  Literally.

One last thing – when I checked back in with Grace a week later I was shocked!  She’d actually downloaded some algebra problems off the web and had been doing them for fun! 

Copyright Rob Nelson 2018

Is Your Weight Problem Really a Solution?

Posted on by Rob Nelson
When healthy eating isn't enough

8 Key Questions for EFT Success
If you’ve been struggling with a weight issue – being too heavy, binge eating, obsessive thinking about food and dieting, anorexia and bulimia, or simply chronic dieting – there’s a very likely reason for not making any lasting progress.

Your weight problem is almost certainly a weight solution. A solution for a problem on a deeper level.

EFT tapping is an incredibly powerful self-help tool, but it works best when focused on a specific problem. Ideally we tap on the specific problem. In other words, tapping on general statements like “I can’t stop eating sweets” or “this out of control binge eating” aren’t likely to do much good.

When I work with a new client dealing with a weight problem, there are certain questions I usually ask to explore whether there might be a deeper issue and what it might be. Many of these questions are rather obvious ones, but I’d like to share them with you.

1. When did the problem begin for you?  Around what age?

2. Were you ever sexually molested or assaulted?  Is your weight issue protecting you from unwanted attention?

3. Did you experience food deprivation?  Did your mom or dad use food to control or punish you?

4. What was your mother’s relationship to food/dieting like?  Was this a way to connect with her, or try to win her approval or affection? Or conversely, an attempt to rebel?

5. How much time/energy does your weight issue take up?  If it’s substantial, what might you be doing if the problem was gone? 
And would that be scary or stressful?

6. Is there anyone who might be unhappy or upset if you achieved and remained your ideal weight?  Is there a risk of losing connection with someone?

7. Have you ever had your weight issue go away for a time?  If so, what was going on in your life then?

8. If you achieve and maintain your ideal weight, is there a downside?

Again, these questions are meant to reveal any deeper, underlying issues that your weight problem might be a solution for. Let me give you an example:

My client’s uncle got very creepy with her when she hit puberty at age 12. He lost interest when she put on an extra 30 pounds and left her alone. Now she’s 57 and starts binge eating every time she seriously tries to diet. The uncle is long gone, but her body doesn’t know that. Weight loss still registers as extremely unsafe. We turn off the binge eating by tapping on the creepy uncle memories.

If my questions uncovered specific bad memories for you, choose one at a time, notice your current emotional distress just remembering it, and then tap on the anger, hurt, fear, betrayal – whatever you’ve got – to reduce the intensity you’re feeling about it now.

EFT Tapping

With EFT we use a zero to ten scale, ten being the most intense. If you can tap all the different emotions involved down to zero intensity, that’s likely to make a huge difference for you.

Of course, if you have very traumatic memories that are seriously triggering for you it’s usually best to work with a skilled practitioner. If you do decide to go it alone, my suggestion is to commit to really getting that intensity down. Don’t just open up a can of worms and walk away!

My own personal trick is to use a timer – set it for 12 minutes (or whatever) and keep tapping until it dings. Then assess the intensity level. If it’s not down to zero, or close to zero, then do it again!

When the underlying problems are resolved with tapping, weight issues often disappear with little fuss. No further dieting or working out is necessary. Our metabolism and appetite seem to re-adjust to healthier settings and weight loss becomes effortless and automatic.

And yes, this really can happen! I’ve seen it with my own eyes. So go for it. What do you have to lose?

Copyright Rob Nelson 2018

Bitcoin, Tesla and EFT?

Posted on by Rob Nelson
EFT as Disruptive Technology

I love my electric car, and it's not even a Tesla.  We just plug it in at night. No gas stations for us!  There's almost zero maintenance since it's so much simpler than a gas car.  And it's WAY more fun to drive.  Even on “eco-mode” the acceleration beats any ICE car off the line. Our Nissan Leaf is a freaking race car disguised as a 4 door hatchback.

Best of all though, electric cars are a “disruptive technology.”  Along with the solar, wind and new advancements in battery storage, they’re undermining the dirty fossil fuel industry that has had a literal death grip on global politics and industry.

Prices have dropped so low and so quickly, we may be able to leave enough oil, coal and gas in the ground that we might actually make it!  Bad news if you’re Exxon Mobile.  Great news for the rest of the planet.

Many inventions might be called a “breakthrough technology” without disrupting any existing entrenched power structures.  Flush toilets for example, had an incredible impact on society but weren’t up against the powerful chamber pot industry.  

EFT is definitely a breakthrough technology, no question about that.  It’s easily learned and can reliably produce healing miracles. EFT liberates human potential by empowering radical improvements in one’s personal experience of life.

But is EFT a “disruptive technology”?  And if so, who or what is being disrupted?  Just off the top of my head, I can think of at least four powerful socio-economic power structures potentially threatened by EFT:

Big Pharma The management of emotional problems through medication has become a multi-billion dollar industry. Oddly enough, there seem to be at least as many depressed and/or stressed out people as ever. Worse still, properly prescribed medications have become one of the leading causes of death in developed nations.EFT has the potential to drastically change how society deals with stress, anxiety and depression by actually resolving it rather than just treating symptoms. And of course a host of diseases and conditions have been healed or at least improved by tapping.

Advertising Most advertising works by provoking, expanding and exploiting our insecurities, low self-esteem, and fear of missing out. In a nutshell, we must compensate for our inadequacies by purchasing the product on offer. Problem solved. EFT repairs damage to our self-concept, making us less susceptible to this sort of scam. We don’t need to buy stuff anymore to try and be okay if we already feel pretty good.

The Weight Loss Industry Estimated at $60+ billion dollars, you might say that the weight-loss industry itself is obese. Its steady growth over the decades has somehow paralleled the increasing percentage of overweight people. Clearly whatever’s being peddled doesn’t work very well. EFT does work. It has the potential to drastically reduce emotional overeating along with the shame-based obsession with dieting that plagues so many people.

Traditional Psychotherapy Many therapists have embraced and adopted EFT, but the vast majority have not. Consider how galling EFT might seem – a relatively brief and inexpensive training can empower EFT practitioners with no formal counseling or psychology background to be astonishingly effective, outperforming even experienced talk therapists who likely invested thousands of hours and tens of thousands of dollars in their degrees and licensure.  It’s no fun being disrupted! But considering the epidemic levels of stress and trauma in our society, it can’t happen quickly enough for me.

Rapid adoption is what makes a new technology truly ‘disruptive’.  So many people jump on the bandwagon so quickly that it just steamrollers the existing industry.  It took only ten years for cell phones to reach 100% adoption rates in the US and Europe.  Ten more years to take over the world.

For the most part “disruptive technologies” are liberating.  They unleash creativity and expression, economic opportunity and human potential.  In part because the corporate and political power structures being disrupted have consolidated control by stifling competition and innovation.

Of course the most obvious modern example is the Internet which simply eliminated the ‘gate keepers’ controlling information and finance.  Media networks, publishing houses, magazine and newspaper editors, universities and ‘think tanks’ have all lost their monopoly.  We can do our own research with a few clicks and there are hundreds of thousands of independent teachers, journalists and ‘thought leaders’ sharing their work on open channels.

Entrepreneurs are empowered to start businesses or plug into online retail systems like Ebay or Amazon.  Almost anyone can sell almost anything to just about anyone.  Your little website can compete with Walmart.

In a parallel development “cryptocurrencies” like Bitcoin and Ethereum are beginning to undermine the dangerous power of central banks. They may provide an alternative to the boom and bust cycles of fiat currency, hyperinflation and seemingly inevitable global economic meltdowns.

Of course not all disruptive technologies are beneficial. Gunpowder for example! And some, like GMOs may actually disrupt the delicate balance of nature. Not to mention the traditional economics of indigenous farming. Not good!

EFT & Bitcoin

To be honest, some emerging disruptive technologies really freak me out. I can’t seem to get my head around ‘autonomous vehicles’ for example. And 3D printing and robotics seem likely to put everyone out of a job. Throw Artificial Intelligence into the mix and things could get really scary really fast. Seriously! Do we have the wisdom, as a species, to handle this stuff?

That’s where EFT comes into the picture. All of the other ‘disruptive technologies’ are aimed at changing our external circumstances. EFT changes our internal environment, releasing the hold of the past, discharging stuck emotions, and replacing negative limiting beliefs.By removing our triggers, EFT empowers us to live more in the moment, to have agency, to be responsive instead of reactive. In my own practice I see a universal increase in compassion for others. And isn’t this precisely what humanity needs? ASAP?

The rate of adoption for EFT is still too low to pose any real economic threat to the four power structures mentioned above.  We’re still flying under the radar, so to speak.  And perhaps that’s for the best for now.  Aside from the organized scrubbing of positive Wikipedia edits, something that EFT shares with most other ‘alternative’ healing modalities, there’s been very little active suppression or sabotage so far.

My hope is that we’re rapidly approaching a kind of critical mass in awareness and adoption of EFT will accelerate across the globe, too fast for any real resistance – the way were seeing it go with solar energy and electric cars.  I’m fairly sure this is already underway with EFT and will only continue.  And that's because it works!

Perhaps we’ll actually survive as a species!  We’ll develop the necessary emotional health just in time to handle these other powerful emerging technologies.  To quote H.G. Wells “History is a race between education and catastrophe.”  Feeling anxious about that race?  Maybe we’d better tap on that!

copyright 2017 Rob Nelson

Interested in working with Rob? Click here for details

​

Surrogate Tapping

Posted on by Rob Nelson
Surrogate Tapping

On a recent flight from San Francisco to Denver, just before take off, I saw two young parents trying to comfort their baby who was clearly distressed.  She was really beginning to squirm and fuss.

Compassion (along with the prospect of being trapped for hours near a screaming baby) motivated me to do surrogate tapping.  

Keeping my eyes on the unhappy child, and tuning into her energy as best I could, I began discreetly tapping my finger points—as if I were the baby:
“Even though I don’t know where I am, and my ears feel funny, and there are strangers all around me, and I’m scared, my mommy and daddy are here and they love me and will keep me safe”

I tapped through the points with reminder phrases like “my ears hurt…it feels funny in here…it’s too crowded…people are looking at me…but my mommy is holding me…my daddy is here too….etc.”   Within a few minutes the baby had completely calmed down and was snuggling in to take a long nap. The parents looked very relieved. Was it my tapping that changed the picture?  While I can’t really know for sure, it certainly did no harm.  

Surrogate tapping simply means tapping for the benefit of someone else, as if you actually were that person.  Because we are all connected energetically through the quantum field, distance isn’t really a factor.  We can tap for someone thousands of miles away.  

One summer evening I was relaxing in my back yard when the dog next door began to whine and howl.  Our neighboring town was doing their annual fireworks show and I could hear the booms and cracks quite clearly.  Unfortunately so could the terrified dog.  His frantic barking was soon joined by another dog nearby and then a third one across the street. They seemed to be setting each other off, getting more and more hysterical as the fireworks exploded in the distance.

Without much thought I began tapping for the dogs:
"Even though I'm so scared of the loud sounds, my master loves me and will protect me and I'm safe"
"Even though the other dogs are scared too, so it must be something really bad, my master will keep me safe"
"Even though these sounds are freaking me out, I'm going to be okay and my master will protect me."

I tapped around the points saying "these loud sounds" "so afraid" "these scary sounds" “my master loves me” and so on.  Within two or three rounds of tapping, even though the fireworks were still going off, all three dogs were completely quiet.  It was like flipping a switch.

There was no doubt in my mind that the tapping had worked.  Some people are uncomfortable with the idea of surrogate tapping.  It seems a bit like Voodoo—trying to influence some unwitting person at a distance.  And don’t you need to get their permission?  When someone asks me that question I ask them back "Do you feel you need permission to pray for someone?  Is so, then don't do surrogate tapping."

For me, there’s a tangible difference between wanting to help someone feel better and trying to manipulate or control their behavior.  It’s true that I wanted that baby to not cry and for the dogs to stop barking, but the entire focus of my tapping for them was about helping them feel safe and loved.  The change in behavior was secondary.

I once had a client whose son was planning on joining the army.  She was very upset about this.  She asked if we could do surrogate tapping on him to get him to change his mind.  I had to say no.  That’s clearly manipulative.  Instead we simply tapped on her own emotional intensity.  

This same client had problems with her ex-husband, who had become a meth addict.  He really seemed to hate her and went out of his way to make her life miserable. She had to see him every month to get the child support check and every month he was extremely nasty.

We’d already tapped on her negative feelings towards him, clearing them over a series of sessions.  So I agreed to do surrogate tapping on her ex, to try and help him release his anger, hatred, jealousy and rage.  In a case like this I do ask permission from the recipient’s higher self.  I simply visualize a traffic signal and see if we get a green light. We got the green light.

Somehow I tuned into this man’s energy field.  His suffering was terrible. I led my client through some long and very intense rounds of tapping for him—as him.  Mostly about how much he hated her, how she'd ruined his life and he wished she were dead!  It was NOT pleasant stuff, but eventually we both felt a real shift.

The following week my client walked through my door with a radiant smile. She had just met with her ex the day before.  He wasn’t friendly.  He didn’t apologize to her. But he was civil and wrote out the child support check without argument or invective.  After two years of bitter antagonism—to her it was a miracle.

Certainly her ex has a lot more work to do.  His meth addiction is a serious problem and a few minutes of surrogate tapping isn’t going to make that go away.  But something seemed to shift for him.  Maybe it was a start.

The idea of tuning in to another person (or animal’s) energy field at a distance, and healing it through intention, may seem unscientific to some.  But then, not many of us really understand the insights of quantum physics yet.  Even though we don't have a clue how our smart phones work, we’re happy to use them.  I certainly don’t know enough about quantum physics to explain how surrogate tapping works.

But science is built upon experimentation and observation, not dogma.  Why not experiment with it yourself, and observe the results?  If surrogate tapping really does work (and I’m convinced that most people, with a little practice, can do it successfully) then it’s a wonderful way of expanding our healing work into the world.

copyright Rob Nelson 2011

Interested in working with Rob?  Click here for details

Mercury Retrograde & EFT

Posted on by Rob Nelson
Mercury Retrograde & EFT

Years ago I volunteered for a Suicide Hotline, and every month we’d brace ourselves for the full Moon.  There’d always be a surge of folks going “loony” at that time of the month and we’d get pretty busy. You could count on it.

Of course whatever one’s beliefs about astrology, the phases of the moon are astronomical fact.  And however dim our understanding of gravity, we know that the Moon affects the tides.  And since our bodies are mostly water, it’s not such a stretch that Moon cycles might influence our ‘emotional tides’.

But what is the deal with Mercury Retrograde?  Again, it’s an astronomical fact that Mercury seems to move backward in the sky three or four times a year (that’s what retrograde means).  But the significance of the event seems to be gaining widespread acceptance, as in “OMG, is Mercury retrograde or something? My computer just crashed!”

In mythology Mercury is the messenger of the gods, and when he goes retrograde those messages seem to go haywire.  I’ve heard it said that you can always tell when Mercury goes retrograde because the TV and radio announcers all start flubbing their lines.

Astrologers say the “Re” in Mercury Retrograde means re-do, return, replace, repair, reboot, rewrite, etc.  At the time of this writing, Mercury has been retrograde for about a week. In the last four days my computer crashed, I lost an entire hard drive (including the new website I was about to launch and never backed up), our phone line went dead for two days, one daughter lost her driver’s license and library card, and my other daughter’s ipod got the white screen of death.  Not my usual week.  Thank God!

Okay, so what does any of this have to do with EFT?  We know from quantum physics that everything in the universe is connected through a vast field of energy and information.  Our personal energy field is, of course, fully integrated into this greater Matrix.  However our personal experience of this connection can be seriously hampered when our energy system is disrupted.  What we do with tapping is to smooth out these disruptions.  In EFT we see them as the cause of our negative emotions and limiting beliefs. They limit our experience of love, healing and success in life.

They also seem to attract negative circumstances over and over again- our subconscious mind's way of seeking resolution. Instead of glossing over problems with affirmations and positive thinking, EFT focuses directly on the negatives to discharge their intensity, slough them off and get them out of our system.  As the disruptions fade, our connection with the greater Matrix grows stronger, things start to flow, magic happens.

Perhaps Mercury Retrograde is a special kind of communal disruption - a potentially annoying way our collective consciousness has come up with to focus a spotlight on things that need to change.  Not a great time to launch a new venture or initiative, but a serious invitation to turn inward and re-visit, re-view and re-vise things. Isn’t it lucky we can tap on whatever shows up?

Here are a few simple suggestions to get you started:
"Even though I'm so frustrated with this damn ______________ acting weird/taking so long/not working, I deeply love and completely accept myself and choose to use this as an opportunity to really get it right this time..."
"Even though I thought everything was fine and now I have to do it all over and I feel like screaming, I want to get to a calm and peaceful place...."
"Even though we're delayed, and for no good reason, I have every right to be angry/frustrated/freaked out/anxious and I have every right to let it go - I choose to accept what's happening as best I can"

copyright 2012 Rob Nelson

Interested in working with Rob?  Click here for details

Letting Go of Cravings – Cinnamon Buns and Red Bull

Posted on by Rob Nelson
EFT for Cravings

“Jane” was worried about her weight.

For eight years she’d had a surgical lap-band which kept her weight low. Then in February it slipped and had to be removed. By our session in November she’d gained back 90 pounds and was still gaining.

Jane has a high stress job and had gotten in the habit of bingeing in the morning on a big cinnamon roll from a local donut shop and a large can of Red Bull. This would get her up and running for her work day, sort of like a shot of adrenaline to the heart.

Jane had tried stopping a number of times to no avail. Whenever things got stressful at work she’d relapse – usually after a few days or a week or so. We met via Skype at 9am and I’d asked Jane to hold off on her morning binge so that the cravings would be high.  And boy were they ever!  

We began with the cinnamon roll and Jane rated the intensity of her craving at a 9.5 out of 10.  Along with the cravings she reported feelings of embarrassment and shame. Especially imagining her co-workers saw her eating the cinnamon roll.  Jane was careful to keep her habit hidden from the world.

In the first round of tapping I brought in every aspect I could think of about how wonderful that cinnamon roll was – the taste, the sugary frosting, the feeling of taking a big bite, how it was such a reliable ‘friend’, how she could always count on it making her feel better, the wonderful smell, etc.

To my surprise and Jane’s dismay, this first round of tapping actually made the cravings stronger!  Her acute awareness of all the aspects of the cinnamon roll made the craving almost unbearably intense.  For the next round I kept the wording simple – mostly just tapping on “this craving” and very quickly I could see a look of disgust on Jane’s face and stopped to check in.  She was astonished that her craving seemed be at a zero!  

Wanting to test these results I had Jane pick up the cinnamon roll and smell it, which actually brought the craving back up to about a 3. A quick round of tapping on the smell brought her back to zero.  My next test was to have her taste the roll.  I thought this might spike the craving again, but she actually had to spit it out – her cinnamon roll now tasted really disgusting.  She went from a 10 to a “yuck!”

All of this took about ten minutes or so and Jane said it actually scared her.  The change was so rapid and so complete she worried that it was too easy and therefore wouldn’t last.  This is not an uncommon fear when big changes happen faster than our minds can account for. So we did a round of tapping on the fear that it wouldn’t last, that this was just some kind of trick and she’d be right back to bingeing, more hopeless than ever.  And the fear seemed to melt away pretty quickly.

Next we tackled the Red Bull.  Jane opened the can so she could smell it and her craving was a solid 9.  Once again the initial tapping actually increased her craving while the next round dropped it to zero.  Smelling and tasting the drink did not bring any craving back at all. “It’s just a can full of chemicals and I don’t want it”.

I know from personal experience that caffeine headaches are no fun at all.  Jane had the beginnings of one by now – a 3 out of 10 intensity. She was about three hours late on her Red Bull schedule, so we tapped on the headache discomfort and the fear of it getting worse.  It only took a few minutes to get her headache down to zero.

Tapping away cravings can be amazing and this was pretty spectacular, but there’s always an underlying reason for the craving and if that isn’t addressed, we’ll usually just turn to a new substance and be right back where we started.

With over half the session time left, I asked Jane about the shame she’d mentioned when imagining her co-workers seeing her eat that cinnamon roll.  I had her exaggerate that scene with all the pity and contempt they’d no doubt express about her lack of self-control.  It didn’t take much to get her intensity up to a 9!  

Tapping on feelings of shame dropped the intensity to a 5 and also brought more clarity. The feelings were centered in her stomach and chest – a palpable terror of negative judgment. And like a homing beacon, this led us to a specific memory…

When Jane was about 5 years old she was visiting her grandparents.  They took her to church where she was taught lines from the Bible and later asked to recite these lines up in front of a lot of people, including the minister and her grandparents. Unfortunately, Jane froze and couldn’t remember the lines at all.  

She felt intense disappointment coming from her grandparents – she was setting a bad example for her younger siblings and embarrassing her family.  The experience was excruciating for the 5 year old Jane and she decided that she wasn’t good enough and didn’t have what it takes.

Using Matrix Reimprinting we were able to tap away that 5 year old’s distress and help her feel compassion for herself.  We also worked a bit with her grandparents so that they could be supportive instead of discouraging and came up with a much better picture to reimprint. The take-away was the little girl felt loved and realized that making mistakes wasn’t such a big deal.  She’d be accepted no matter what.

It turned out there was a direct connection between this memory and the intense pressure Jane had been feeling at work.  Her job really is inherently stressful, but this old fear of being a disappointment was making it all so much worse. This was a major reason Jane was bingeing on sugar and caffeine in the morning – to jolt herself awake and super-charge the hyper-vigilance that felt so necessary to keep her safe.

Resolving this one memory seemed to bring her a great deal of peace. About a week later I emailed Jane to see if the cravings were still gone. Her response: “100% success. A true miracle in my eyes”.  

Not every session is so easy and productive. Sometimes quite a few memories need to change before a tipping point is reached, but I wanted to share this one because it really is possible to achieve massive change in 90 minutes!

Copyright Rob Nelson 2015

Interested in working with Rob?  Click here for details

Ghost Story in the Matrix

Posted on by Rob Nelson
Matrix Reimprinting with a ghost

Note: If this article challenges your spiritual or scientific beliefs, I invite you to read it as fantasy or science fiction. I base some of my own understandings on Michael Newton’s interesting book Journey of Souls.

Something was wrong.

Deep into a Matrix session, my client was at her father’s death bed.  We’d done a fair bit of tapping on her younger self and it was working.  There’d been shock and overwhelming feelings underneath – intense grief, anger at the hospital, anger at her father for dying, and guilt over not taking her father’s depression seriously.

With both my client and her younger self feeling a lot calmer, I suggested we invite dad’s spirit into the picture.  This is my standard protocol.  The spirit of the loved one simply shows up and there’s a powerful opportunity for healing, reconciliation, closure and sometimes an agreement for on-going connection. This always works.  Even if my client is a hard-core atheist, it’s crystal clear that this really is their loved one - that they aren’t just making this up in their head.  It’s a beautiful thing and it never fails.  It works every time.

But not this time.

Something is definitely wrong.  My client is frowning – “I see my dad but he looks confused and sad.  And worried.  This can’t be his higher self”.  I have to admit I was taken aback.  She was right, of course.  This clearly wasn’t her dad’s spirit self.  The spirit self is beyond all the worldly drama and concerns.  So what was happening here?  

When in doubt, go with what you know – “Can you take your dad’s hand, in this picture, and ask him ‘What are you feeling?’” Dad answered “Sad, lost, confused, depressed.” So that’s what we tapped on.  Right away it seemed to be helping him, at least somewhat.  But it still didn’t make a lot of sense.  Were we really tapping on dad?  Why was he showing up that way?  

That’s when it hit me. We were tapping on her dad’s ghost. That realization actually gave me chills.

So what do I mean by ghost?  Normally when someone dies they leave their body behind, leave Earth and go to an in-between place.  Here they reunite loved ones who’ve died and begin the process of remembering who they really are on a soul level – which is far greater than can really fit into a human personality.  Once this process is complete, they are free to return to their loved ones on Earth and offer support and guidance.  These are the spirit selves who routinely show up for my clients.  

A ghost hasn’t left and gone through that process of remembering.  They don’t seem to realize they’ve died!  Often they have some very powerful emotional attachment – important unfinished business that keeps them stuck.  So instead of radiating love, serenity and forgiveness, ghosts are apt to be confused, unhappy and frustrated.  

I have to say I was a little nervous suggesting to my client that we were tapping on her father’s ghost.  I needn’t have been.  This made perfect sense to her and she reminded me of certain key factors that confirmed my suspicions.  Her father died under unusual circumstances.  While in the hospital recovering from a fairly routine and successful operation, he suffered a massive paralyzing stroke. After some days of confusion and unable to speak or communicate with his family, he lapsed into a coma and was put on full life support.

Even for the doctors it wasn’t clear when exactly he died!  But at some point he clearly had and the hospital wanted to pull the plug with the family present.  This was the picture we’d stepped into, two weeks from dad’s initial operation.  He’d never said goodbye – he never realized he was dying.  

My client also described her father as being the pillar of his large extended family.  The eldest of 8 siblings and with his own father absent, he’d been hyper-responsible his whole life.  He was the rock.  A dedicated father and also a community organizer and social reformer.  Over 100 strangers showed up at his memorial.  

It was easy to imagine he had important unfinished business.  And given the confusing manner of his death, that he might not have realized that he’d died.  Indeed, my client tried to draw her father’s ghost's attention to his dead body laid out on the hospital bed but he couldn’t seem to see it.  

There was one other interesting factor – her father had been a staunch lifelong atheist.  She thought it extremely unlikely he’d expect any sort of survival after death.  That might well add to his confusion.  

So what does one do with a ghost?  Tapping, of course.  We tapped on his attachments and confusion.  He’d been uncharacteristically depressed before his death, so we tapped on that – the feeling that his life had been a failure, that he hadn’t accomplished his dreams. That he hadn’t made any real difference in the world.  And we offered the reframe that once he’d left and remembered who he really was, he’d be able to come back and actually be helpful.

We encouraged him to leave – to find his way to the light.  We invited in his mother and deceased brother to come and help him.  My client had been very close with her father all of her life.  His death was devastating for her.  She’d told me that in the two years since his death, her own personality had changed – and not for the better!  She realized that somehow she’d taken on the negative mood and traits her father had been feeling before his death.  

I half-jokingly suggested that she was being haunted!  Or that her experience of life was being contaminated in some way by her father’s ghost energy.  I wasn't entirely serious, but my client was struck by the idea.

Unfortunately our session had to end before we had any clear success in helping my client’s father cross over.  However a lot of her own stuck grief and anguish seemed to be gone, and I believe she’ll be able to shake off her father’s negativity and get her old joy of life back.

Copyright Rob Nelson, 2015.

Interested in working with Rob?  Click here for details

All The Love That Was Missing

Posted on by Rob Nelson

“I’ve been waking up crying. I keep seeing this little girl with her arms held up. She wants to be picked up, but her mom won’t do it – it’s like she can’t somehow. I think that little girl is me. Just thinking of it now makes me so sad.”

“Sarah” brought this to our session and I had her step into that scene and pick up the little girl, who seemed to shift from around 3 years old to an infant. I had Sarah tap on the baby and let her know she was okay, and loved and special.  When the little girl was feeling better it was time to find out what was wrong with mom.

In the Matrix some part of the person we’re addressing always shows up to work with us, even if they’ve passed away.  I had Sarah take her mom’s hand and ask “Why aren’t taking care of your daughter? What’s wrong?” I think Sarah and I were both surprised by mom’s answer – she didn’t see any problem.  In fact, she thought she was doing a fine job.

This lead to some interesting tapping along the lines of “Even though something is missing, and you don’t see it, you want to be a great mom….but something IS missing, there’s something your little girl isn’t getting from you, you don’t know what that is because you didn’t get it yourself”.

This lead to some interesting tapping along the lines of “Even though something is missing, and you don’t see it, you want to be a great mom….but something IS missing, there’s something your little girl isn’t getting from you, you don’t know what that is because you didn’t get it yourself”.

We asked mom to show us a younger self who was not getting her own needs met. The answer came in the form of a picture. Instantly Sarah could see a little 5 year old, lost in the chaos of a big family - the 5th of 7 kids. She was the second daughter in a family that valued boys, and was feeling invisible and totally unimportant.

As we began tapping on mom’s younger self, tears began streaming down Sarah’s face. She felt such sorrow for her mother in this scene, for this sad, lost little girl. A powerful dose of empathy like this is always helpful to stop taking things personally – in this case Sarah’s long held belief that mom neglected her because Sarah somehow wasn’t good enough.  

We tapped with mom’s younger self for sadness and feeling invisible, and when she was feeling better we asked the 5 year old how she’d like things to change.  All she wanted was for mom and dad to tell her they loved her.  A new picture emerged - just the three of them, without her siblings around, walking together and holding hands, outside on a beautiful day.  The little girl felt really great.  But she also felt skeptical. She was 5 years old and this was the first time she'd ever felt special this way. She didn’t trust it would last and the new picture wasn’t holding up.

So we re-wound time a bit and let her watch her daddy carrying her as a baby.  And taking her first steps with dad waiting right there to catch her, with mom looking on and beaming. And then a scene where she was around 2 years old and just starting to talk, and mom and dad were having a very “serious” conversation with her, while feeling delighted and amused.  Sarah mentally played out these scenes for the little girl and it was beautiful. And it worked! The little 5 year old was able to accept their love and this beautiful new connection with her parents. She felt seen and special and so we re-imprinted that picture.  

Returning to our original scene with Sarah’s own younger self, things had changed dramatically.  Mom was now holding the little girl who was really feeling the love.  In fact it was overwhelming.  Once again, because the experience was coming a bit late in the game for the younger self, she was having a little trouble receiving it.  So I had Sarah take the baby’s little hand and we simply moved back in time to her birth.  

Because we’d already done that work with mom’s younger self, she was able to be fully present and connect with her new baby – and we put the newborn immediately onto mom’s bare chest and allowed them to really bond. The intensity of the love in that scene was even more overwhelming for Sarah.  Again there were tears, but this time tears of joy and relief.  

Sarah told me she was feeling what she’d always been missing her whole life – love and acceptance was flooding into her body and she just sat with it and cried for about ten minutes.  When we reimprinted this scene, Sarah saw golden light around the picture with golden rays emanating from it.  That’s what she brought into her heart and then sent streaming out into the field.

This was a profound session, but not at all uncommon. This really is beautiful work.

Copyright Rob Nelson 2015

Interested in working with Rob? Click here for details