Negative self-beliefs can have a dramatic effect on our self- esteem and self-worth. We often revisit our past mistakes, however, instead of looking for the learnings from those mistakes we see the mistake and how foolish we felt blaming ourselves continuously as being undeserving of love or respect.
One such clients story illustrates this perfectly:
“I did the worst thing possible to my ex-wife. I left her with two kids, I just bailed because the business was failing, and I did not want to put my wife and children through the bankruptcy. Through the separation my wife did not have to lose the assets, the house, etc. You see nothing was in her name, it was all in my name. But when I look back on it, I left my children who were just five & seven all alone, I should have been there for them, I did a terrible thing.”
But when we look back at our past mistakes, when we reflect and feel a sense of shame we are only seeing part of the picture, a distorted version of the past and not the whole picture.
Sometimes, these events can be great motivation for us to forgive ourselves, recognise the full situation that made us behave the way we did and in doing so create a healthier version of the past in our heads, one that does not debilitate us and leave us with poor health.
A good EFT tapping technique would be to acknowledge the emotion of feeling shame, regret & hatred and once the tapping has reduced the level of pain down to 2, tap in some positive beliefs such as “Even though I walked away from my wife and children, I accept myself completely and deeply.”
You may want to include a further statement: “Even though I walked away from my children and wife, I did what I thought was the best possible thing at the time.”
When we learn to sit with these uncomfortable feelings, be empathic towards our self and through the lens of kindness, we can move forward by releasing negative self-beliefs and negative emotions.
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