Our wounds are often the opening into the best and most beautiful part of us. David Richo
I attended an EFT conference last week. Almost everything I do these days has to do with trying to understand how to live in a healthier emotional and physical state. I’ve always been conscious of my physical needs. My dad spent a lot of his life learning and believing in a more holistic approach to staying well. He did a lot of reading and applying ideas to his lifestyle. I too followed that tradition but I obviously needed to expand beyond the physical and look at the emotional and spiritual aspects of health. I see my time with cancer as the nudge I needed to get a move on.
I often made fun of psychiatry, psychology, saying people entered that field because they needed themselves.
They were broken and needed fixing. What I find is that judgements I make like that often come back to bite me. I now understand how people move in a direction to learn not only to help themselves but to also help others avoid the same consequences, much like parents who wish to keep their children from making their same mistakes. I now learn and hope to help myself stay physically and emotionally healthy but I also hope to pass this on.
I know now that the universe kept trying to get me to pay attention. I had so many clues from physical issues such as back pain, headaches, nervous sweating and I also had clues connected to emotions and spirit. I could have paid attention but I really didn’t know how to. I also had some family dogma that told me I didn’t need anyone’s help. “We” didn’t need to rely on others; “we” were the ones to help others. I can count on one hand the number of times my mom was sick while I was growing up. She’d say, “It’s all in your head. Just will it away.” That worked for her. However, there is a distinct difference in our emotional workings. She didn’t stuff issues or hold on to them. She dealt with her emotions on an issue and then she was done with it.
I on the other hand mull it over in my mind, rethink it in several different ways, wonder if I should attack it head on, usually talk myself out of it and then stuff it into my box of what I believed was “letting it go.” I never let it go. It sits there fermenting just waiting for the opportune time to show up when another issue of similar consequence arrives. It then acts as fertilizer to grow the issue so I now have twice the emotional stuff to deal with. 
So, I spent two days with a group of clinicians and other non-clinicians like me wanting to learn about Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) and how it could be useful. I have been working with EFT and Bernadette Hunter. I’ve written about that in previous posts. So my interest in this conference was to understand a bit better how to use EFT myself. Because it is hard for me to ask for emotional help because I consider the need for assistance means I’m not okay or not whole or a little luny, it was great to listen and work with others who see needing guidance as nothing more than a great way to stay healthy. It helps us on all levels from physical and emotional to spiritual. Even though my personal dogma still nags a bit, what I gained was understanding that I don’t have to percieve myself as broken just because I might need to learn new ways to help myself emotionall
