This is one of the reasons I've come back to live with my folks for a while. I'd got about as far as I easily could peering into my own navel. Much easier to look at them to see what else is there in me. As the old saying goes: "If you think you're enlightened, spend a weekend with your parents." So far, it's been about six months and boy, I've grown lots. Ha ha. Oh boy. Yes.

What I've started to realise over the last couple of days is something of a corollary to the above truism.

What I want most from others is what I'm not giving myself.

For years, the thing that has made me the most angry is if I feel someone isn't listening to me — particularly if they're insistently asking me something, despite my attempts to explain.

The very few times (historically maybe twice a decade) I've got truly "red mist" angry, that's been the situation.

At some level, the reason it has had such a strong effect on me is simply because I feel I haven't been listening to myself.

Isn't it funny how it's ok for us to treat ourselves like shit, but if someone else does it, it's suddenly outrageously unacceptable?

So here's the interesting bit: what the hell does that even mean? "Not listening to myself?" I honestly have no idea. All I do know is, when I healed* on not listening to myself, I felt a huge rush of energy leaving and a great peace come over me. Now, if I think back to those times when I've been aggressively not-listened-to (ha ha, yes), I find the situations oddly amusing.

This, by the way, is great news.

Why? Because it shows you don't have to consciously understand what anything is about to heal it. You don't have to figure it out. Just let your subconscious sort it out. It is, after all, the part of you faffing about and being all stroppy in the first place. It's only fair it should pull its weight for once. Take that, inner child! Slobbing around on the sofa all day watching TV and eating cheerios!

Over the last couple of days, as a background task, every so often I've answered two questions:

• "What pisses me off (about others)?"
• "What do I really want (from others)?"

Often these are opposite sides of the same answer. It pisses me off when people don't respect me. I really want people to respect me. The reason for both of these? I'm not respecting myself. If I do that, well who cares what anyone else does? The craving for it disappears.

I want people to love me? (And frankly, who doesn't?) I'm just not loving myself.

I want people to listen to me? I'm not listening to myself.

I want people to value me? I'm not valuing myself.

This is such a stupidly simple thing, it sounds almost ridiculous to write down. All I know is, this has been incredibly helpful.

When I give myself what I want, I no longer crave it from others.

*Oh, and the silliest thing? How did I heal this? That's the easiest bit yet. More on this in a little while, but for now all you need to know is this:

1. I simply said: "I love that I don't listen to myself," while releasing all the energy, physical tension, emotional responses and thoughts that arose in response to saying that.
2. I mixed it up a little with "I love that I still  don't listen to myself."
3. I kept going until I felt peaceful.
   
4. I then plugged in the positive "I love that I listen to myself," "I love that I always listen to myself," "I love that I listen to myself completely." Again, releasing all resistance that came up.
5. I kept going till I felt peaceful and the positive statements felt true.

Really, I simply said whatever popped in my head, felt right and felt like it would push things a little further, a little deeper. I maybe tapped my karate chop point if I felt things needed amping up a notch.

If you really want to test if something's gone, see how you feel about someone else treating you in that way. Can you say out loud (for example) "I love [person close to you] not listening to me"?

That's all I did. It's all I needed to do. How could I not share something so elegantly powerful with you?

Since any mind map should ideally be about a single subject, if you want to clear a bunch of different subjects, each subject will require a different map.

So, unless we want to the spend the entire rest of our lives tapping frantically, instead of, well, living (*yawn* been there, done that. BORING), you need a fast way to hammer through these. Then you can head off happily to the pub (or wherever) with the freedom of knowing that whatever-it-was that had been bothering you is now a thing of the past.

OK. SO.

My general approach (as I outlined here) is to scribble out a map, then next to each item jot if it's about wanting or lacking Approval, Control or Security (or all three). Finally, I flick on the video & tap along, saying "I love that I lack control (etc) about.." (whatever the item is).

So, here's the trick to clearing a lot of these things quickly. First of all scribble out all your maps, one after the other. When you've finished that, then go through each item on each map & put it into a/c/s (or combos). Only when you've completely finished, go through & tap each map.

I find when I'm in that kind of flow, it's super easy to just flick from one map to the next, with barely a pause in between. Doing them one at a time took forever!

There's something about not needing to context switch (writing, assessing, tapping) back & forth that makes this way much, much faster than just doing each complete map one at a time.

Anyway, have fun clearing stuff out. I've been doing a ton of these over the last month or so & the difference it's made in terms of inner peace is almost ridiculous.

What I've learned recently is just how subtle this body/mind interaction is.

After 20 odd years of Aikido, this shouldn't have surprised me as much as it did.

In Aikido, we often sit in seiza. Basically, you kneel with your knees apart, your bum on your heels, back arched and head up.

This posture is well known across the universe.

Here's Spock doing it

(From this excellent site on Vulcan meditation. Ha ha, you think I'm kidding. Oh Internet, you have everything!)

The most important part of all this? The arched back. (Spock does it well)

If you prefer more beard, here's how it looks from the front:

Long white beard is optional. Grass, preferred. Katana, mandatory.

The basic Aikido pin looks like this:

Shake my hand would you, fool?

No, wait, like this:

No! You sit over *there*!

Ok ok, I'm joking around. It's actually like this:

See? There's that seiza again. And you thought we'd just been sitting like that coz we hated legs.

(a few minor corrections — most importantly knees apart will drop her centre more, but that's actually pretty good)

Now here's where the arched back comes in.

When you're on the receiving end (i.e. face down, eating grass) if the person doing the pins arches their back or not makes the difference between:

"Someone's leaning on my arm"

and

"My entire being is pinned to the centre of the earth by a large truck"

What's even more interesting is that when it's done correctly, zero effort is expended, and the person is not just squashing you as hard as they can — that's actually a weaker pin.

Now, out of the dojo, and back to real life.

Here's what I've noticed: When I'm healing, or hell, doing anything sitting down, if I sit just that little bit straighter, and yes, arch my back, everything goes much better and becomes extraordinarily easier.

Stuff that might have been tricky to drop or heal fall saway instantly.

I feel more in control of my code, my writing, my life. Things become… possible.

Everything.

The only thing I'm changing is maybe pushing my butt further back on the chair, and arching my back, very, very slightly. Of course, this pushes one's shoulders back and also tends to raise the head slightly — but really, it's just a little back arch.

Such a subtle shift, such huge effect.

After a while though you may start to notice, there's always more crap.

What's going on?

It's easy to get discouraged, feel that whatever you're using "doesn't work like it used to", or even convince yourself that it never worked in the first place (I've seen this a lot).

What's really happening though?

Well, there's a couple of things.

First of all, our problems expand to fill our horizon.

We have this thing called our Ego (aka the nasty little voice inside), that thrives on misery. So, however big our problems are in reality, if we're not fully present they can seem to fill our universe.

I used to live with a girl. Not very smart, but lovely. I would come home from work and she'd be worked up into a tizzy, almost in tears. It took a while before I eventually figured out what she was so upset about.

Shortland Street. The New Zealand soap opera. "Something terrible" had happened on the show.

The first couple of times this happened I couldn't believe it. Eventually I realised, this girl was serious. To her, this was a very real crisis. To her, this was reality and yes, it filled her horizon.

Important lesson there too: Always respect someone else's pain. (One I've mostly learned, although I do still slip up from time to time in my enthusiasm to help people).

The second thing to realise is that as we heal more and more of our lives, we go through stages:

1. You work backwards through time, dealing with earlier & earlier events in your life (and past lives, if you're into that)
2. You heal more and more subtle issues. You may have started with major life traumas, but the next thing you know you're letting go of anger when you knock your coffee over (it's still non-loving, so you might as well chuck it out, right?)
3. You deal with higher and higher emotions (aka moving up the vibrational scale). Abraham Hicks have their emotional guidance scale. The releasing guys talk about AGFLAP-CAP — Apathy, Grief, Fear, Lust, Anger, Pride, Courageousness, Acceptance, Peace. It's all the same. You start by healing the lower, duller emotions, then work you way through the higher ones.

These three sequences are all happening more or less at the same time. So, there's always new ways to look at things, always room to improve.

Compounding this, our roguish ego often makes every step seem enormous.

A good example is relationships:

• First you realise that it's not ok for them to beat you
• Then that it's not ok for them to cheat on you
• Then that it's not ok for them to shout at you
• Then that it's not ok for them to emotionally abuse you
• Then that it's not ok for them to disrespect, dismiss, be condescending to you
• Then that it's ok to have someone who supports you
• Then that it's ok to have someone who loves you as much as you love them
• Then that it's ok to have someone who works at the relationship as much as you do
• Then that it's ok to have a loving, peaceful relationship
• Then that it's ok to be perfectly happy & growing together

(there may be more, but this is about as far as I can see right now)

At each stage, the thought of accepting something earlier would seem utterly ridiculous. If you're at the point where you will only accept a relationship where you're supported, the thought of being with someone who is physically abusive is ludicrous.

At that point however (looking further down the list) the thought of being with someone you can be happy with all the time may seem like a pipe dream. Mr (or Ms) Perfect.

Transitioning from each stage to the next can be a major life revelation — a huge jump forward in your personal growth.

As you grow, heal and mature, you do move further down the list though, until eventually (hopefully) those later things will all seem reasonable, normal and expected.

Sadly it often takes several major relationships, maybe a marriage or two, before we see these things clearly. C'est la vie. This is how we learn. Bad choices lead to experience leads to good choices.

Still, we're all on our own paths and everyone learns at their own pace. If I was a faster learner, I wouldn't be over here talking to you. Why, I'd be over *there* talking to you (and it's so much greener too).

To see clarity along the way, keeping a journal is helpful. As is talking to old friends, or family — to remind ourselves how far we've come.

The important thing is to remember it's a journey. Everything you learn, heal and let go of is improving your life. No matter how troubling things seem today, it's so much better than it used to be, and best of all, it's going to be even better tomorrow.

But first let me wind back a bit.

A few days ago I hung out with a friend of mine. This is someone I've known for a decade or longer, so there's a lot of history there. Mostly pretty good, but some very dark times too. This guy has very strong energy. Historically, he's affected me enormously.

Now, he's going through some shit at the moment (aren't we all?) The catch is, within about 15 minutes of hanging out with him, I could feel his energy making me feel, quite literally, physically ill.

Ok, so that's not good. What to do, what to do?

I tried putting up separation roses, to energetically divide us. They didn't stick. Maybe we just have too much history, we're too strongly connected. Maybe he's just too energetically grasping. I don't know.

I could feel giant clumps of dark energy coming off him and coming towards me, as he was describing the various troubles in his life. Nothing I tried was helping, and things were quickly spiralling downwards.

Interesting situation.

Then I settled on the simplest possible solution.

I focused on the clump of darkness, and simply said "I love you."

Yep, just that.

The super cool thing was, the darkness immediately dissipated. My feeling of sickness left, and (very interesting) he perked up and started talking about something else altogether.

For the rest of our time together, everytime I felt negatively affected, or could sense dark globs of whatever appearing, I'd just address them, say "I love you" and watch them disappear again.

Very. Interesting.

Now, in Ho'oponopono (A Hawaiian healing technique), you cycle through four phrases:

1. I love you
2. I'm sorry
3. Please forgive me
4. Thank you

But I'm starting to suspect, if there was one single prayer to say for the rest of your life, it should be "I love you." The single most powerful thing you can say in any situation.

Since then I have (of course, you know me!) been doing the exact same thing to anything that's appeared — in myself, or those around me. Said "I love you" to it (in my mind) and let it go.

So, to last night.

pic by Cesar T Sanchez

Ever since I started tapping out nightmares, the frequency with which I've experienced bad dreams has dropped precipitously. They've just stopped happening.

So last night was pretty interesting. I had 10, maybe 15 distinct bad dreams in a row.

Why? Who knows (and really, who cares?) Maybe I just unblocked something big enough that it was time to wash a bunch of related remnants out of me. It really doesn't matter too much.

Anyway, in each of these dreams, I settled back, said "I love you" to whatever was happening, and the dream disappeared. Sometimes I needed to repeat it a few times, but every single time the dream would dissolve, along with whatever it was that had been bothering me.

Best of all? I woke up feeling like a million bucks. Now that is a first after a night of bad dreams.

"I love you" — said calmly and with intention — it's continuing to amaze me just how powerful that phrase really is.

I first talked about them here.

These may not be the utterly highest states possible (how much bullshit wankery do we want to get into, really), but they're damn good to aim for.

Acceptance is a higher state than Courageousness. Peace is the highest.

Courageousness

Is described as "The willingness to move out without fear or hesitation — to do — to correct — to change wherever needed. The willingness to let go — to move on."

You can super easily get yourself into this state by just repeatedly & forcefully saying "yes." It truly is that simple. Of course, getting into a strong, powerful posture also helps

Acceptance

"No need to change anything. No judgements of good or bad. It just is and it's OK. It is beautiful as it is. I have and enjoy everything as it is."

This is the "It is what it is" state.

Peace

Summed up by "I am — I am whole, complete, total unto my Self. Everyone and Everything is part of my Self. It is all perfect."

A much argued over term that encapsulates this is enlightenment. We've dropped all our crap, or at least  we're holding a steady state where remaining crap continues to drop effortlessly.

Now, there are three lists that describe each of these states.

The Courageousness List

Adventurous. Alert. Alive. Assured. Aware. Centred. Certain. Cheerful. Clear. Compassionate. Competent. Confident. Creative. Daring. Decisive. Dynamic. Eager. Enthusiastic. Exhilarated. Exploring. Flexible. Focused. Giving. Happy. Honourable. Humorous. I Can. Independent. Initiating. Integrity. Invincible. Loving. Lucid. Motivated. Non-resistant. Open. Optimistic. Perspective. Positive. Purposeful. Receptive. Resilient. Resourceful. Responsive. Secure. Self-sufficient. Sharp. Spontaneous. Strong. Supportive. Tireless. Vigorous. Visionary. Willing. Zesty

The Acceptance List

Abundance. Appreciative. Balanced. Beautiful. Belonging. Childlike. Compassionate. Considerate. Delighted. Elated. Embracing. Empathetic. Enriched. Everything's Okay. Friendly. Fullness. Gentle. Gracious. Harmonious. Harmony. Intuitive. In Tune. Joyful. Loving. Magnanimous. Mellow. Naturalness. Nothing to change. Open. Playful. Radiant. Receptive. Soft. Tender. Understanding. Warm. Well-being. Wonder

The Peace List

Ageless. Awareness. Beingness. Boundless. Calm. Centred. Complete. Connected. Eternal. Free. Fulfilled. Glowing. Light. Oneness. Perfection. Pure. Quiet. Serenity. Space. Still. Timeless. Tranquillity. Unlimited. Whole

WHAT TO DO WITH THESE LISTS

How can you use these lists, to help propel you into those states of being?

You can simply say any of the phrases below, while focusing on each word in turn. I've used all of these phrases (and other variants), depending on my mood at the time, and found them all to be super helpful.

• I am that I am [emotion]. I release and let go of all disapproval. I approve of you Si. I love you.
• I am that I am [emotion]. I drop all disapproval. I approve of you Si. I love you.
• I am that I am [emotion] yes! I drop all disapproval. I approve of you Si. I love you.
• I love that I am [emotion] (my personal favourite)

(replace with your own name, obviously)

Feel free to tweak the words till they resonate most strongly for you. Your own intuition is always the best guide.

After you say each phrase, feel the emotion, and picture it in your head. This helps connect you to it more strongly, and drop any opposing resistance.

Generally it's good to do courageousness in the morning, acceptance in the middle of the day, and peace at night. It breaks it up so they're not overwhelming, but also gets you back into a high state for more of the day.

Yep, the first time you go through the lists, they take forever (well, ok, maybe 40 minutes). They're worth persisting with, it gets much faster as you get the hang of it — down to maybe 10 minutes.

I've also found tapping while doing it helps (either full tapping, or just on your fingers). Oh, and going through the video shown here, one emotion per point (as you like). That way the whole list only takes 8 minutes — super quick.

I'd recommend doing this for a few weeks. I went through the lists daily for a coupla months (not perfectly of course, I missed lists all the time, as life got variously crazy).

I can look back and see these lists providing a phenomenal amount of momentum. Clearing lifetimes of junk out, and getting me in a really high, very consistent state of being.

I also noticed — days when I missed my morning list were always, somehow, much worse than days when I didn't. Even if I only managed to do the first list, it would always get me into a (surprise!) courageous state of being, where I could get up, get out & kick serious ass in the world.

Kickin' ass. It's recommended, encouraged even.

How bad? Really bad. The worst I've felt in… months?

Kinda like this:

(Years back I used to sing this to myself every day at work… but that's a whole other story)

In fact, I distinctly remember thinking "God, I feel so crap even a blowjob wouldn't cheer me up today."

Which is pretty damn bad.

I have no idea why I felt so bad. I hadn't had a bad dream. Best guess was that I'd eaten too much licorice the night before and was suffering an extreme sugar crash. But, you know, if you don't know immediately, trying to figure out never helps (your brain just gets all tied up in knots).

I noticed my brain was just circling. Thoughts like "Holy fuckballs I'm in a shitastic mood" kept echoing in my head.

So, what to do?

1. First, I made a choice to think about something else, other than how bad I was feeling (repeating the same negative thought only makes you feel shitty. Changing that thought also reiterated that I'm the boss of my thoughts, not the other way around)
2. I consciously decided to be ok with the crappy mood (not beat myself up about it).
3. I asked myself "Could I choose to be 100% happy, even if was feeling crappy?" (pro tip, the answer is always "Yes". This didn't shift things completely, but it sure as hell helped. More on this later)
4. I ate, took multivitams and omega 3's (to stabilise my blood sugar)
5. I hid the licorice in the cupboard (take immediate, concrete action to remove negative influences from your environment)
6. I noticed & relaxed tension in my face (simple, but definitely helped me relax)
7. I emailed a friend for encouragement (Create an emotional support network. Help them. Let them help you)
8. I did a mindmap on whatever came to mind (nothing like a sugar crash to get you questioning the core of your existence). A little tapping, a little releasing.
9. I did some tapping on one of my CAP lists (always ensures I have a better day. More on those here)
10. I went to aikido (exercise, socialising with people I love, doing something I enjoy)
11. I rolled around on the grass with those beautiful trees (connection to nature)
12. I listened to loud, upbeat music (music has a strong effect on mood)
13. I basked in the sunshine, feeling warm concrete through my socks & the sun on my face (vitamin d elevates mood)

What helped? Maybe all of it. Maybe none of it. Maybe it's all bullshit. It doesn't really matter. I'm a huge fan of — if you have a problem, throw every possible solution at it. There's a million things you can try. Just do what feels right at the time. Trust your intuition.

After that, I listened to this:

And you know what? It felt pretty true.

I'm slowly learning, this journey isn't about being perfect. It's just about the highs slowly getting higher and more common. It's about when the lows do hit, how quickly you pull out of them. Over time, it gets faster & faster.

Not perfect; just more perfect, more often.

Our usual reaction to fear, anxiety, in fact any "negative" or "unpleasant" emotion is to avoid it. To either push it down or try to escape it (booze, sex, TV etc).

And this works!

Well, kinda.

All it really does is push that emotion back down again, but, like an unkillable hydra, it will in time rear itself up to bite us on our proverbial asses.

So, what's a better way to deal with fear?

Well, there's a super easy way, but you've gotta be willing to try something different.

In fact, you've got to be willing to do the exact opposite (If what you're doing isn't working for you, why the hell not give it a shot? Worst case and it doesn't work, you're exactly where you are already)

Here's what you do: Rather than push it down, welcome it up.

Of course, this goes against our natural instincts ("Our hand hurts, we take it off the stove"). But maybe something unobvious is what's needed here.

It's actually very simple (aren't most Truths?)

Rather than saying "No" to the fear or other negative emotion, say "Yes" to it. Literally.

1. Address the fear and say "Yes" to it, out loud.
2. Welcome that feeling up
3. Feel it (in your stomach or chest)
4. Then, open a door or window (whatever works for you) right over that feeling, and just let the emotion leave.

It's the funny thing with emotions, the only reason they appear in the first place is because they want to leave.

All emotions want to leave.

Our instinct-to-avoid thus prevents this.

You can send the feeling love "I love you, and it's time for you to leave." You can just allow it to leave "I allow you to leave." You can ask it if it wants to leave "Fear, do you want to leave?" Tap along with it. All of these work.

The key is just that you stop resisting the feeling. Stop saying "No" to it and say "Yes" instead. Send the feeling love instead of hate.

Much like learning to drive — when we see oncoming lights, our instinct is to swerve towards the lights — which is why we need to be taught to steer towards the side of the road. Sometimes our instincts do steer us wrong.

The answer is so incredibly simple. The opposite of our instincts, not always easy, but simple.

Say yes to all non-loving feelings, and just let them go.

What do you have to lose. You're already in pain anyway*, right?

Just say yes.

* You're not in pain? You have no fear? Awesome. Then keep saying yes. Say yes to love, to happiness, to joy! Say yes to being The Most Amazing You Ever!

The basic gist goes like this: Most issues (particularly core or long-held beliefs) are like little spiderwebs. There are lots of things tied in around them — both positive & negative (ie, both attachments and aversions).

So, to clear out anything significant:

1. Get yourself in a chilled space
2. Focus on the issue
3. Do a mindmap of everything that pops into mind around it (negative and positive), no matter how trivial
4. Tap it out (bitch!) starting from the outside and working your way in

Earlier this week, I discovered a neat way to amp that up, and really clear things out, super powerfully. Huge thanks to Leslie for this one.

In short, watch the vid (fullscreen is best), tap along, but focus on your mindmap.

The great thing is, the words David is saying are all aimed at letting stuff go, so even though you may be focussing your attention on something that's been difficult to shift in the past, he (more or less) programs your brain to just chuck it out. Because your conscious attention is on your issue, his verbal instructions side step your resistance. It's sneaky but awesome.

He also focuses pretty heavily on sending positive energy to you (the viewer) as you're watching. Whether you believe that or not really doesn't matter. What he's doing works.

Interestingly, the exercise also becomes something of an EFT/Releasing hybrid. You're tapping, but really, you're just letting go of it all.

Perhaps as a result, I've found myself shifting stuff super fast with this.

Simple stick with each item on your map, continue tapping along until it feels clear and you're not bothered by it any more (you feel hootless!). Then move to the next item, working your way from the outside in.

Once you've watched the whole video once, you can prolly skip forward to 03:55, that's where the tapping really starts. Thus, from there to the end of the tapping is only about 8 minutes. So yes, you can do two sessions in quarter of an hour. Amazing. I've managed to clear full page mindmaps, with more than 40 items on them, down the point where none of it bothers me any more in one single viewing/tapping session.

Also interestingly, while I've been tapping for, wow, maybe 5 years now (and anywhere from 5–50 things a day, pretty much every day), it's pretty rare that I have strong physical reactions any more. Except when I've been using this approach. Doing this, pretty much every time I end up over-heating like crazy, in tears, snotty-nosed and/or burping loudly (yes, delightful I know). These are all signs that it's going super deep & really ripping stuff (lovingly!) out.

Over the last few days I've managed to clear out a ton of super deep programs (negative beliefs). Fear of failure, fear of success, a ton of stuff about women (amazed I've ever had a date, with all that junk floating around in my noodle), being not good enough, not worthy, a ton of stuff around money, you name it.

I feel different. I'm thinking differently. The world feels different than it did even a few days ago. The efficacy of this technique is simply mindblowing, in terms of bang-per-minute spent.

If you have a particularly chunky map, or something that feels like there's a lot to it, it's a good idea to give it another bash the next day. Create a brand new map and then tap on that. You'll be amazed how different successive maps become, as you wade down through the layers, clearing out the accumulated detritus of life. I did three maps on women (ie, intimate relationships) three days running, and there was basically zero overlap between any of them. Amazing!

How To

Here's an example (one I did). You can see that really, you're just brain dumping, in a semi-structured way. Just scribble (or draw) stuff down in any manner that feels useful to you. There's no right or wrong approach.

click for an easier to read (ie, large) version

The primary advantage, I think, of writing it all down is that it frees up space in your brain to focus on the one specific tiny subsection you're working on, at any one time. Of course, this is something that the Getting Things Done crowd have known forever. Empty brain = easier to be mindful & focused.

Some suggestions to get started (if they resonate with you):

• I must suffer
• Life is hard
• I don't deserve to be happy
• Women (or Men, if you're female)
• Your partner (if you have one)
• Family
• Parents
• Making money
• Having money

Just take it from there. Don't be afraid to do them on seemingly trivial issues too. I've found & removed some super deep, super hardcore life stuff when the map itself started with an utter triviality. Everything is connected, you'll be amazed what pops up.

Extra For Experts
Since everything comes back to either wanting (ie, lacking) Control, Safety or Approval, try writing a note next to each item on your map (I just jot down –C, –A or –S), then, rather than focusing so much on the specific issue, focus on letting go of wanting/lacking Control, Safety or Approval about that issue. Things don't have to be only one of course, they can be any combination or all three.Once you've cleared the A/C/S, then tap/release on the issue itself (usually by then this will have already gone).

Doing this is more intense, and slightly more work while you get used to it, but really does seem to clear deeper, and faster. An additional benefit is that it more thoroughly clears you out in general, since letting go of a little wanting control in one area lets go of it from everywhere in your life, and so on.

Once you've worked all the way in to the centre on any specific branch of the map, then quickly scan back out to the edge again. This'll pick up anything that may not have cleared completely.

Generally speaking, what you say is more or less irrelevant. It serves primarily to keep you focused on the situation or issue you're tapping out.

Understandably then, I was pretty excited to discover the other day a neat side step around the whole damn pickle.

I have @InspiringAlways to thank for this. She pointed me to Robert Smith's EFT videos on youtube, and since I was having a "Let's not code today" day, I gave a bunch of them a watch.

Here's what he recommends:

1. Tap the karate chop point (side of hand) while describing the issue (just say a short descriptive phrase three times).
2. Then tap on each point (5–10 times) and say "Let it go."

That's it.

And by "short descriptive phrase", the easiest way to think of one is this: Imagine what you're tapping on is a movie. What's the title of that movie? Right, that is your phrase.

Interestingly, this is a sort-of intersection between releasing and tapping. Releasing, in essence, is about welcoming up all feelings & letting them go. In other words, say "yes" to them, instead of (our more usual, avoidant, escapist) "no."

Whatever. It works, really well.

I have found if I write the short phrase down in front of me I can keep my eyes on that, which helps keep my brain from dancing off elsewhere (down monkey, sit down!).

Also useful is to vary the phrase a little, depending on how you feel, and what feels best at the time:

• Letting it go
• I choose to let it go
• It's safe to let it go
• I choose to let it go completely
• Letting it all go

[edit: update a month later. These are SUPER powerful]

• I love you (or this)
• I choose to love you (this, it, etc)

(you get the idea. Just remember, you're the boss. Reassert that and (lovingly) allow this stuff to get the hell out)

This, combined with mind-mapping has enabled me to have quite possibly the most productive healing weekend of my life. I feel like I'm floating on a sea of endless, effortless love. I don't know how long it'll last (maybe 5 mins, maybe till tomorrow, maybe forever? It doesn't matter), but while it's here, I'm loving it (and everything else that pops in my my mind).

Extra for experts

A good way to ensure you've cleared things completely is to first of all measure (0–10) how much emotional resonance there is with the issue ("How much does it hurt?"). Then tap, then measure again. Rinse, wash, repeat until you're at zero. It's also good to take a few deep breaths and let it all out afterwards.