by Amy B. Scher
Oh my goodness, this man is suffering for what seventy-five dollars could fix , I thought. I decided I would buy this man a wheelchair. I asked the doctor to go outside and tell him about Operation Wheelchair, as I was sure he wouldn’t speak English and my Hindi knowledge was poor at best. The doctor hurriedly made his way down the stairs and crouched before the man as I watched in anticipation.
After a quick conversation, the doctor returned to the building and said, “He kindly declines your wheelchair offer.” I was stunned. He explained that the man had asked what was wrong with the way he was. “He is fine this way, ma’am. This is his life and he is happy.”
My stomach sunk and it felt like my Western ego had fallen out of my body and splattered on the floor. There was nothing wrong with this man in his eyes, just in mine.
While charity is obviously a very positive thing, this entire situation came from my own need to feel better about this man’s life—which wasn’t bothering him at all, from what I learned! From that day on, I redirected my focus from trying to save others and myself from suffering to becoming comfortable with suffering as a part of life. This helped me so much, and I bet this story could help you, too.
Energies to Consider Clearing
Our beliefs about pain and suffering often come straight from how our parents feel about it. We also tend to learn about suffering from our religious upbringing. Here are some ideas on what to clear in relationship to fears around suffering.
Unprocessed Experiences:
• Times when you felt helpless while someone you loved suffered
• Times when you suffered and felt trapped in the suffering
• Times when someone around you made you feel like you deserved to suffer
• Times when you believe that suffering was punishment for something you did wrong
• Times when someone you loved (maybe a parent) avoided their own difficult feelings or distracted you from yours
Harmful Beliefs:
• It’s my job to spare others.
• Others can’t handle pain like I can.
• No one should have to suffer.
• Someone has to suffer, so maybe it should be me.
• Suffering is bad.
• I will die if I suffer.
Fear of Not Being Perfect or Good Enough
My clients who experience the most intense emotional and physical symptoms are by far the ones who beat themselves up the most—usually about not being “perfect” or good enough (which means they have set a level of perfection they have to meet in order to be good enough). It’s one and the same thing. Often the idea of being perfect (good enough) equates to being loved. We perceive that we need to be perfect to be loved. Imagine the fear of not being perfect as a mama duck: the leader. The additional fears of being judged and being rejected are just like little ducklings trailing behind. They are all stuck to each other like glue!
The fear of not being perfect may arise from your own expectations or because you internalize the expectations of others. It doesn’t matter where the pattern originated, but it does matter that we spend as much time and energy as it takes to change it. We cannot be ourselves, embrace ourselves, and love ourselves when we are dominated by this fear. The two simply cannot coexist. We must learn to be easier on ourselves to be happy and healthy. And this is a big part of that.
What happens if we fear our imperfections so deeply that we continuously beat ourselves up for them? The research of Dr. Masaru Emoto demonstrates what happens to water molecules (just like those that make up a large percentage of your body) when they are exposed to negativity for a period of time. Even the simple exercise of writing negative words on paper and attaching them to the water bottles had a significant negative impact on the structure of the molecules. What if that energy of self-criticism is present inside of you constantly? If our minds are our leaders, how do we expect anything good to come from a leader who constantly judges him- or herself for not being perfect? Or a leader who accepts the criticism of others as truth? Exactly. We can’t. We must love ourselves and ensure our bodies feel loved, despite all our messy imperfections, in order to invoke positive change. We don’t have to be perfect at that either, but we do have to be the best we can possibly be.
The energetic frequency of love is believed to be the highest frequency that exists. The practice of loving ourselves despite our “imperfections” makes good sense for our overall well-being. And, as far as I know, love is impossible to get too much of, so it’s a very safe approach.
Loving yourself is simply the act of treating yourself like a human being: being able to laugh at yourself, shrug your shoulders when you mess up, give yourself a break, and realize that you’re perfectly fine just as you are. But in order to do that, you have to give up the gigantic assumption that you should, or even could, be perfect. And you must give up the need for others to see you as perfect, too.
Loving ourselves wells up from inside of us naturally, albeit sometimes slowly, like a pot that it seems will never boil. One minute there is nothing, and then the first bubble appears. But the first bubble is all it takes. And as we feel better in that space, we become less fearful of not meeting the perfectionist ideals that we placed such high value on before. We strive only to be ourselves, even if we are afraid that others won’t like it.
We must allow ourselves to be human, full of imperfections, and embrace ourselves that way. Clearing unprocessed experiences and beliefs will help us do that more easily.
Energies to Consider Clearing
Exploring and clearing “evidence” that fuels this fear of not being perfect is a great way to start. Here are a few ideas to get you thinking.
Unprocessed Experiences:
• Times when someone got mad at you for making a mistake
• Times when you perceived that your value was tied to being a “good girl” or “good boy”
• Times when someone punished you for not doing something their way
• Times where you feel you were judged or rejected for expressing yourself
Harmful Beliefs:
• Bad things will happen if I’m imperfect.
• No one will like the real me.
• I have nothing to offer if I’m imperfect.
• I need to be perfect or I’ll be rejected.
• I need to be a perfect _______ (mother, wife, employee, etc.) to be loved/lovable.
• I will lose my identity if I’m not the “perfect” person people think I am.
Fear-Based Environmental Reactions
Just as you can be reactive to food and other substances (allergies are a good example), your body can have a fear-based reaction to pretty much anything in your environment. This includes foods, substances, people, places, and things. This reaction comes from your body being in a place of fear and defensiveness about something that you come in contact with. I have seen people have negative energetic reactions to their mother, money, a specific color, and more! This reaction just means that your body has decided that that person, place, or thing is dangerous for you. This is very common.
Fearful reactions are an energetic imbalance that can cause almost any “symptom” in the body. Just a few examples include feeling shaky and “off,” headaches, itchiness, fatigue, and panic attacks. This is happening because at some point you came into contact with a person, place, or thing while you were feeling strong emotion or stress—either related or not related directly to it. Let me explain.
Let’s take the example of a family gathering, as this is one I’ve seen countless times. Everyone is sitting around the coffee table chatting on Thanksgiving when your brother Billy starts ranting about his political views. At the time, you are munching on chocolate-covered almonds, wondering when he will start to attack you about your views, as he always does. As the fear builds, you might have a belief being triggered, such as “I’m unsafe when Billy is unhappy.” Or you might recall, subconsciously, an old fight you had with him in the past (an
unprocessed experience). During this time, your body is becoming more and more stressed.
While the threat of the family brawl is what’s really upsetting to you, your body decides to blame the chocolate-covered almonds you are eating because you are in contact with them at the time. Your energy system then creates a program to “react” to chocolate and almonds so that you are protected from this stress again. Or maybe it doesn’t link the chocolate or almonds, but instead it “blames” your brother’s unruly dog that is running around the house, so you become reactive to dogs. As another quick example, when we recently got a new kitten in our house, I immediately started feeling fatigued and heavy-headed. After realizing it was a reaction to our fluffy little Stanley, I worked on clearing it. I released fear around responsibility for a new pet and also cleared a couple of unprocessed experiences linked to previous pets. In just a few hours, the symptoms were almost completely gone. If your system perceives that something is a danger to you, it can create this negative reaction in an effort to keep you away from it in the future. It’s simply a misdirected protection mechanism.
Your body can become fearful or reactive to anything you are in contact with during times of great stress if the emotional energy doesn’t get acknowledged and processed in a healthy way. A lot of these negative reactions will clear as you work on unprocessed experiences and harmful beliefs. However, you can target them directly as well.
How to Clear Fear
Clearing these types of reactions can be complex, but I’d like to give you a basic technique to use, as it often works quite well. While there is really no clear formula for figuring out what’s behind these reactions, a lot of guessing and muscle testing will do the trick.
Using muscle testing, ask: “Is _______ (person, place, or thing) causing a negative reaction in my body?” Then, as we have done before, use muscle testing to ask if you need to know more before you can clear the negative reaction.
If you get a “yes,” you will likely need to handle it one of the following ways:
• Find and clear an unprocessed experience linked to it using Thymus Test and Tap and/or EFT.
• Find a harmful belief caused by fear, such as “almonds are dangerous for me,” and clear it using Chakra Tapping.
If you get a “no,” it means you don’t need to know more about why the reaction is happening before you can successfully clear the reaction. You can use this quickie EFT tapping script that I use very successfully to clear fear-based reactions. You can alter the words as long as you are addressing the same theme: the body not liking, being defensive around, and feeling unsafe with the substance or issue you are reacting to. If the item you are reacting to is something tangible (like a type of food or fabric), it’s helpful to put it on your lap while you use this script.
Karate chop point— Even though I have this reaction to _______ , I choose to change that pattern. Repeat this three times while tapping the karate chop point continuously.
Rest of the points:
Top of the head— My body doesn’t like _______.
Eyebrow— My body is really scared of _______.
Side of the eye— For some reason, my body doesn’t like_______.
Under the eye— I am so defensive around _______.
Under the nose— My body got the idea that this is scary!
Chin— This _______ is dangerous for me.
Collarbone — My body can’t handle _______.
Under the arm/side of body— This strong reaction to _______.
Top of the hand— Do the following as you continue to tap:
Close your eyes, open your eyes, shift your eyes down and to the right (don’t move your head), shift your eyes down and to the left (don’t move your head), roll your eyes in a big circle in front of you, then roll them in the other direction, hum a few seconds of a song (anything will do!), count to five quickly out loud (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), then hum for a few more seconds.
Fingertips— My body doesn’t like _______.
My body is really scared of _______.
For some reason, my body doesn’t like _______.
I’m ready to be friends with _______ now.
I can be perfectly okay with _______.
Back to karate chop— My body can relax around _______ now. (It’s beneficial to continue tapping the karate chop point continuously while repeating this one a few times.)
It’s good to repeat this process for a few full rounds.
When you’ve done your clearing, it’s important to see if it’s really clear. The best way to confirm that your work is done is to muscle-test again. I typically use the testing statement This _______ is 100 percent safe for me now. Once you get a “yes” response from the body, the person, place, or thing should no longer cause a negative reaction for you. If possible, it’s beneficial to wait twenty-four hours before coming in contact with that reactive energy again.
In addition, the next time you come in contact with that reactive energy, I suggest that you use your EFT tapping points to tap for about one minute before and after contact. You do not need to say anything; rather, just tap the points while in the presence of that energy in order to help reinforce the calm and balanced state. This only needs to be done with the first contact after clearing.
You can also use the EFT tapping points to ease a sudden reaction you are having to something like a food or substance. I’ve helped many people through swollen tongues, itchy faces, and rashes just by tapping through the points for several rounds (no need to say anything out loud while you tap). The tapping can work wonders to calm down the system, especially while you are determining what medical help you might need, if any.
While I’ve worked with many clients who have successfully cleared major reactions, I do not recommend you rely solely on this process for anything you are highly reactive to. Allergic reactions are considered a medical issue and can be quite serious, so it’s best to be extra cautious.
Tip: You don’t need to be scared that you’ll create negative environmental fears or reactions every time you’re stressed. That’s the whole point of all the work we’re doing. We’re changing our internal relationship with stresses and chaos and more so that our system can better handle things and we can be well.
Through exploring all of these different ways that fear can show up in your life, you are probably now seeing fear in new ways. I’ve already given you some ideas of unprocessed experiences and beliefs to work with, which will help dissolve fear.
Next, we’re going to dig deeper into the process of clearing.
How to Address Fear Completely
Unprocessed experiences and harmful beliefs are held in the body as a reference point for fear. In other words, experiences and the beliefs that come from them are the body’s “proof” that there is something to be scared about, even though the original state of fear may be long past. The beliefs and experiences are essentially “fear triggers.” Clearing experiences and beliefs that are acting as fear triggers is one part of clearing fear completely. The body also has a physiological response to fear (the fight, flight, or freeze response), and that can be a very entrenched pattern. It needs to be calmed down, retrained, and redirected to do something different from what it’s been doing probably for a very long time. Changing this physiological response to fear is the second part of clearing fear completely. I’ve seen many “conquer fear” plans fail because one of these aspects was missed. Let me spell out exactly how we achieve fear-clearing success in two parts.
Part 1: Clear Fear Triggers
We now know all of the things that can cause fear. Remember, every fear most likely comes down to a core worry that you’ll end up unsafe in some way. So if you think in terms of what things make you feel that way, you’ll always be on the right track. Clearing those causes are a big part of the overall process of addressing fear. We will do this by using techniques you’ve already learned to release harmful beliefs and unprocessed experiences.
Here’s a breakdown of the proce
ss:
• Clear Unprocessed Experiences— Identify and clear unprocessed experiences from your past where you may have gone into fight, flight, or freeze mode. This can include experiences where you felt fearful, panicked, humiliated, or unsafe in any way (emotionally or physically). You can jump back to Chapter Seven to do this. Additionally, you can use the 3 Hearts Method that you learned in Chapter Nine . These may include generational or past-life experiences, which we talked about earlier.
• Clear Harmful Beliefs— Look at each of the common ways fear can show up, which we just covered. Try to identify harmful beliefs that could be behind them. You can use the suggestions I offered, or you may be able to come up with some of your own. You can go back to Chapter Eight to run through that process, or you can use the 3 Hearts Method that you learned in Chapter Nine . These beliefs may include generational or past-life experiences.
Take your time and gently work on clearing energy using the methods you’ve learned. Even finding small relief from one fear can help catapult your body in the direction of healing. Go where your heart tells you to go and you’ll be moving further away from fear with every step.
Part 2: Reprogram the Fear Response in the Body
While it’s important to go back and clear the root causes of fear energy, you also need to retrain the fight, flight or freeze response in the body. Here I’ll share several ways to approach this so you can find what works best for you. Remember that we can manipulate and calm that triple warmer meridian (papa bear) energy, which is closely connected to the fear response. By doing so over and over, we can set a new pattern.
By using these simple techniques anytime you’re feeling fearful, you’ll essentially be saying to your body, Hey, we can do this calming thing instead now. You don’t have to use them all, but I want to give you several options so you find a few that you feel called to use. You must remember to use them, and to use them consistently, when you get triggered into fear mode. That’s the only way this reprogramming process will work.
Heartbeat Thymus Tapping— We originally discussed the importance of the thymus gland and tapping it in Chapter Four . We then explored it further in Chapter Seven when we learned Thymus Test and Tap. Gently tapping the thymus gland in a specific 1-2-3 rhythm, to mimic a heartbeat, is one of my favorite go-to fear-calming techniques. It is both stimulating to the immune system and calming to the body. It’s a perfect combination.