Family Energetics: It's not your fault you aren't getting better; finding hidden causes of our problems using EFT.

(This article assumes the reader is familiar with EFT. It was originally published in Gary Craig's newsletter in 2009.)

I have come up with an approach for using EFT to resolve deep-seated problems rooted in our family history. (I call it Family Energetics). I am getting outstanding results with every single client I use this approach with. That's because I have folks look at areas that they didn't realize were impacting them and then use EFT to clear those areas, gently and effectively. So this approach adds in a different line of questioning that can show where we need to tap. I don't recommend it for folks new to EFT.

My clients, including many seasoned EFT practitioners, are pleasantly surprised at the amount of energy moved and the great results achieved. They feel a greater sense of peace and ease with their family relationships, work, money, and self-love - all good stuff!

I love it because we are extending the foundational EFT principle of loving ourselves no matter what (of course found in the set-up phrase) to the entire ancestral family system. It's a built-in human desire - we want to feel good about where we come from and who we are.

The starting premise, from the field of Family Constellations, is that any place there is an excluded person in the family history that hasn't been recognized, there is a loss of love available to the current person. The solution is to see what and who's been lost.

We then use EFT to clear the emotions for all involved using tapping and surrogate tapping. This opens the path so that we can feel and find the love that supports us, which is the key to moving forward and unleashing a huge capacity to give love back to ourselves, our families, and the world in general.

We get support when we are energetically connected to our family line. When we can see every mishap, every bad action, every horrible thing that happened and see the love that's behind that story, we move into a space of forgiveness and freedom. This requires a very real and deep ability by the practitioner to be non-judgmental and view everyone with love, regardless of their actions. This requires the courage to see what's in the system as well as the knowledge that the emotions can be cleared with tapping. Again, I do NOT recommend this approach for folks new to EFT.

When to Use

The approach I am describing here I use mostly with folks who have already done a lot of tapping. In fact, there might not be any obvious symptoms or issues on the surface but after doing this work, things just get even better than before. It also can be used in when there are specific issues being worked on. I use it after we've tapped on the specific issues. I definitely do not use it as the client's first exposure to tapping. He/she needs to develop confidence and trust in the effectiveness of EFT first. My preference is to do this exercise with every client; so much rich material comes up.

How to Use

The first place to start is with the client's connection to the parents. I ask the client to imagine facing her mother and father and tell me what she notices. I've never met a client who didn't have some sort of intensity the first time they did this exercise. In fact, if I suspect that there might be a very strong reaction, I'll use a version of the tearless trauma technique and have the client imagine herself imagining herself facing her parents.

I use a combination of my client's language and my own as I introduce some reframes. Here's an example based on a composite of several clients' experiences.

Me: Imagine your parents are in front of you, facing you. How close are they to you?

Client: My dad is right in my face and my mom is off in the corner. She's turned away.

Me: How does it feel with your dad there and your mom away?

Client: I feel scared - like he's going to hurt me and my mom is not going to help.

Depending on how much intensity the client is feeling, we might start tapping immediately or I might ask for more information about how and where she feels the intensity in their body. I ask for their level of intensity so we can track progress.

Even though I'm scared because my father is going to hurt me and my mother isn't available to help me...

Even though I have this fear in my stomach, I love and accept my fear anyway...
Introducing the reframe:

Even though my father's anger isn't about me, but I was the one who was there to feel it, I love and accept and forgive myself anyway.

EB: This angerr
SE: It's not about mer
UE: I was the targetr
UN: This fearr
CH: It wasn't about me.
CB: I was the target.
UA: I can now see this fear and anger and it's okay.

Once the level of intensity is at 3 or less on a scale of 0 to 10 or less, we move on. The next step is to ask about the underlying loss that's causing the family disconnect. Since this loss is often hidden, we need to know what to look for. It's important that the practitioner keep a picture in her head of each generation of parents being connected to their children, with the love flowing from generation to generation. That's the solution picture; our job is to find out why the love has stopped flowing and to KNOW that the connection can be made again by this work.

There are key questions to ask at this point. I am looking for lost children, miscarriages, lost loves, early deaths, crimes, losses due to war, losses of a homeland, any place where a connection was lost and wasn't properly acknowledged.
In this case, knowing that there is a reason the mother is turned away, and that we need to find a way to reconnect the mother with the client, I ask about the mother's history. Please note that I don't ask about the father. We are looking for where energy is being drained or lost from the family system. The mother is the one who is not available, not the father.

The client tells me that her mother lost a child in birth before the client was born. Depending on how much intensity the client is feeling we might tap immediately or I might I ask the client to just imagine looking at her mother mou
ing the unbo
child. Together, we tap for the mother and the unbo
child.

Tapping for the mother: Even though I lost my baby, and I can't stand to feel it, I am open to the idea of loving myself anyway.

Even though I feel unlovable because I lost my baby, I am open to the idea that I am still the mother to that baby.

Even though I've been missing this baby horribly and I just didn't know it, I'm becoming aware that I have another child who needs my love.

EB: This unbearable lossr
SE: I want my baby.
UE: They didn't let me hold her.
UN: This grief.
CH: I want my baby.
CB: This loss.
UA: I am willing now to see my baby.

Now it's time to introduce the concept that the baby and mother are always connected in love and that the mother is available for her living child.

EB: I see this baby and she will always have a place in my heart.
SE: I see this baby, she's mine, she's ours, she will always have a place in both of our hearts.
UE: I see this baby, she's ours. She was the first child.
UN: And we had another.
CH: I am the mother to two children.
CB: I can see both of my children now.
UA: I can feel the love for both of my children.

I ask the client to recheck how it feels to imagine looking at her mother and sibling. At this time, the client tunes into her own sense of loss of a sibling and we tap on that.

After a few more rounds of tapping, when the client feels at peace, we then go back to the original imagination of the client facing her parents. In this case, the client feels complete. She's feeling connected to both of her parents. When she checks in with me later in the week, she tells me how connected she feels with her own children and how much easier things feel overall for her. At a family reunion later that month, she is amazed at how she is connecting with her extended family and she no longer feels out of place.

There are many levels to this approach: connecting with grandparents and great-grandparents, connecting with our homeland, connecting with our own children, and connecting with our partners. Some clients need to explore many facets of their family history, others need just this one reconnection exercise I've described. Regardless of how it happens, imagine if every person who learned EFT, every person who tapped, was able to feel connected and supported and loved by their family heritage? What a huge outpouring of love would be available for the world. That's my dream.