EFT Tapping Meditation - Letting go

A client of mine recently asked me, 'What is letting go?' and I've thought about it ever since. This is certainly a tricky question, and I am no philosopher. For me personally, letting go is the acceptance that something hard/awful/tragic happened, acknowledgement of how it made/makes me feel (emotionally) and then an energetic release of the negative feelings associated with that event. 

Recently I've noticed a few themes cropping up around 'Letting go'...

1. I've talked to people recently who absolutely and consciously want to let go. They understand that their limiting belief has created a negative pattern that is repeating over and over again, and they want to 'create new more positive and empowering beliefs'. One client told me, 'I want to let go of holding myself back'. (For more info on this go here).

2. Some have said they don't want to let go because they aren't ready to 'go there' and face the route cause of what they know/suspect to be their trauma/creation of limiting beliefs.

3. For others there is a fear of what's going to be in its place, or who they are going to be without that negative emotion.  They have lived with it for so long, they are to some extent defined by it and wonder 'who am I without it'? What is on the other side of letting go? 

4. What about being terrified of letting go, for fear of not being able to put yourself back together? When the worst imaginable happens, you go straight into survival mode and slowly work through the grieving process in a bid to find your ‘new normal’. That raw pain is so overwhelming and all consuming you might think you’ll be broken forever.

Watching my two sons (Josh is 7 months and Casper nearly 3 years old), I have noticed how easy it is for them to let go. Casper hits Josh over the head (mostly on purpose) and Josh cries. Within a minute he is back smiling at Casper again. It's remarkable. But it also suggests we're born with the ability to let go. Now it might well be a developmental issue for Josh at his age, but I also see it with Casper and friends - they get over things very quickly. 

“I was thinking of regrets, like, you know when you feel like you’re stuck in yourself, you keep repeating certain patterns of behavior, and you kind of want to cut out that part of you and restart yourself. [...] So this song was kind of like, ‘Shake yourself out of it, things will be OK,’. [Because] sometimes I have to write songs for myself, reminding me to let it go.”

— FLORENCE WELCH ON HER SONG 'SHAKE IT OUT'

(CONVERSATION WITH MTV NEWS)

We are not taught 'how' to let go, it is even likely we've been conditioned to hold on to the past more than we should. If we look at books, TV, movies, magazines, schooling - they often give the past huge emphasis. So much more focus than the present and the future. Maybe that's why Mindfulness has become so popular in recent years. We are looking for ways to reduce our stresses by letting go of the past and being more present/mindful.

I think we can often get to a place where we rationally and consciously know we need to let go, but we struggle releasing the emotional connection. We often play out difficult memories over and over again in our minds. The minute we think about this painful memory we are right back there, immersed in these feelings, as if they are almost happening in the present.

In many ways that is very much like what is happening in our subconscious brain. Because we haven't 'let go' and released the negative emotions, they're stored right there in the memory, ready for us to access any time. This is an amazing coping mechanism which allows us to "file" away the painful memory and the negative emotions and continue on with our lives. Some people have blocked memories altogether, but I see this as a short term strategy. Ultimately we can only hold so much stress and negativity in our "filing cabinets" - one day they will overflow, which can cause stress hormones to flood our body. This has the potential to impact both our physical and mental wellbeing. I believe that feeling of stress is our body's way of waving a big red flag and saying "okay, you've got to sort out your filing and chuck out some of these painful emotions - because I can't go on like this"... 

Based on the trauma and pain I've experienced, I can honestly say that Tapping / Emotional Freedom Technique genuinely helped me in 'letting go' of the negative emotions and feelings I had attached to certain memories. The act of tapping on certain meridian points while saying how you feel (including 'I choose to let go now') sends a signal to the brain which reprograms it by telling the stress centre - the amygdala - that it is safe, that it can stop producing the cortisol and adrenaline. Based on my experience it doesn't just clear it for a few minutes, it can clear it forever. There are a variety of techniques I have learned in my training to help clear the trauma of events, and the best one I have encountered so far is called Matrix Reimprinting. 

Matrix Reimprinting is when you look at a memory like an observer watching a movie. You see yourself at the time in the scene (its called an Echo - i.e. hologram), you approach yourself, you stay detached from the emotions (the more detached you are the better), you introduce yourself to your Echo and say you are there to help. You find out how they're feeling, and if they’re unhappy we start tapping on them to help clear their negativity. We work together (practitioner & client) to get the Echo into a much better place. We change the scene altogether to leave them much happier than when you first approached. We then work to imprint this in your brain, and ultimately in your body. It is hugely powerful, and in my experience, it works! It worked for me with the loss of Alice and on a number of other things, which is why I decided to deepen my understanding in these techniques and work further in this area. I would like to help as many people as possible to let go of the past and start enjoying the present to build a happy future. 

So if you...

1. consciously want to let go but don't know how... tapping could be the tool that helps you get to where you want to be.

2. are afraid to go back to look at certain events or are scared of what you might encounter... matrix reimprinting is a great way of remaining detached from the event, we don't want you getting upset, so we will employ strategies to protect you, and allow you to do the work from a safe distance.

3. you are afraid doing this work will change who you are... throughout your life your experiences will have formed into beliefs that make you who you are. Some of the beliefs you have formed are needed to help keep you safe, but others may be preventing you from doing what you want to do with your life and being who you want to be. I would see these beliefs as 'limiting', and they can have a negative impact on you, your life, your family. By doing work in the matrix with tapping, we don’t necessarily work to remove the belief, we just work to bring the belief back to a level where it is manageable and no longer limiting.

4. you are afraid you’ll not be able to pull yourself back together again…keep talking. Find someone you can trust and just keep talking through how you are feeling, acknowledging the deep pain/grief within you. Let them be there to listen, not to necessarily fix you. Then after some grieving time, seek help from a practitioner - possibly tapping. One of the great techniques we learn is the ‘movie technique’, where you narrate a scene/memory out loud while tapping, and stopping on the hard parts to tap deeper and further until it releases the emotional charge. Once you’ve softened the grief/pain you could look to do some Matrix Reimprinting work to release the trauma for good. It is all a process, and a gentle one, that actually works. (Thank you to my friend who lost both parents not long after each other, who provided this guidance x).

If you just don't want to let go of something at all, ask yourself, what's the reason for holding on to it? What is the benefit to you in doing so? You might have very good reasons and that's absolutely fine, but if some day you decide that you do want to let something go, remember that you read something about 'Tapping' that might be able to help!!

Ultimately my goal is to empower you to let go of the past, be happy in the present and to shape a brighter future!

If you’d like to give it a go and see what happens have a look at my Letting Go Tapping Meditation below ;) xxx

For more information about how to work with me fill out my form here, or email me at [email protected]

We all know that we should let go of the past and the pain, trauma and stress that comes with it. Stress drives the production of cortisol and adrenaline, which in high volumes can cause depression, disease and chronic illnesses. BUT we just don' know how to let go even though we want to.