Shay didn’t trust anyone. She didn’t trust her parents, her boyfriend, or her boss. She especially didn’t trust herself.
“I’m a pathological liar,” she confessed. “I tell people what I think they want to hear so that they’ll like me.”
“And do they like you?”
“Yes. But, they don’t know me.”
“Do you like yourself?”
She nodded yes as she admitted “no.”
I observed that Shay’s body language belied her truth.
“I don’t like myself,” she said candidly. “Actually, I kind of hate myself.”
Shay had just spent a minute or two in Reclined Cobbler’s Pose. Experiencing the open, vulnerable nature of the posture felt directly antithetical to how shut down and closed off she was in her everyday interactions.
In Reclined Cobbler’s Pose, I asked her who she would be if she allowed herself to be completely open and vulnerable.
She said “honest.”
“What is it that keeps you from being honest?”
“I’m afraid people will use what I tell them against me. I’m afraid that they’ll hurt me.”
After teasing out the threads of Shay’s fear, we discovered that its source was rooted in a memory of her older brother finding and reading her journal in middle school, and then using the information contained in it to terrorize and blackmail Shay. She confided in me that, ever since then, she had never kept a journal. Even as an adult, living alone in her own apartment, she didn’t want to record her innermost thoughts and feelings.
“I don’t even let myself look at how I’m feeling or examine my thoughts. I even lie to myself.”
I had Shay do the following exercise and I invite you to do the same:
Think back to a time when someone betrayed your trust. Delve deeply you’re your memory and try to access the feeling of betrayal. Remember the experience of violation. Re-live the hurt, the vulnerability, the wound, the surprise, and any other feelings that surface. Then, tap out the experience using the EFT setup phrase “Even though (insert name) hurt me when he/she violated my trust by (state what they did), I can trust myself today.”
In Shay’s example, she said, “Even though my brother hurt me when he violated my trust by reading my journal, I can trust myself today.”
While tapping on the various points of your body, say things such as “(insert name) hurt me,” “(insert name) violated my trust,” and “insert name state what they did.” Then, do one round of EFT tapping in which you repeat “I can trust myself today.”
If you’re unfamiliar with the EFT tapping sequence, click this link http://eft.mercola.com/ for instructions on how to perform EFT.
