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Transform Unhealthy
Emotional Patterns
You will find that it is necessary to let things go;
simply for the reason that they are heavy.
—c. joybell c.
Well-being comes from being who you really are and accepting yourself in that space, no matter what. There are several unhealthy life patterns that I consider “spirit squashers, which make that level of love, acceptance, and well-being very difficult to achieve. Here is a question I get often and want to address before we start talking about unhealthy emotional patterns: “If we are supposed to love and accept ourselves for who we are, why are we trying to change so much about ourselves?”
The answer is simple: We don’t want to change who we are, but we do want to change anything in our lives that isn’t working for us. We don’t need to keep unhealthy patterns that have become part of our lives but are not part of our best selves. For example, I’m an impatient person by nature sometimes. When clients hear me say that, they wonder why I don’t “fix it.” But the truth is, that’s just part of who I am, and it’s okay with me. It doesn’t inhibit my quality of life. I don’t want to spend my whole life nitpicking my personality. I want to spend my life living in the freest way possible, accepting all that I can about myself and changing only what really hinders my quality of life.
You may have practiced some of them for a very long time—quite possibly, for your whole life. They are probably threaded into your being to such a great degree that when you read them, you might not even recognize they don’t have to be that way. But that’s the beauty here. You can change any pattern that’s not working for you, no matter when you may have learned it.
These unhealthy life patterns include the following:
• Draining vocabulary
• Negative self-talk
• Victim mentality
• Taking things personally
• Negative thought loops
If you resonate with any of these patterns, you’d be wise to sit quietly and ask yourself if you’re really ready to let go now. Don’t beat yourself up if you’re not. They can be scary to change. However, if you get a gentle nod that it’s time to “shift that shit” (as I often say to myself), then I’m ready to help you.
With each pattern, where applicable, I’ll be offering you some ideas of what types of unprocessed experiences (chapter 7) and harmful beliefs (chapter 8) might be connected to them. Then you will be able to clear them using the techniques you learned in those chapters. At the end of this chapter, I’ll also share a brand-new technique (3 Hearts Method) for clearing emotional energy. I’ve waited to introduce it until now, as I didn’t want to overwhelm you with too many techniques at once. Once you learn it, you may want to combine the 3 Hearts Method with the other practices, or use it independently.
Draining Vocabulary
My motto: Be careful what you tell yourself because you’re always listening. Oh, ain’t it the truth? While this definitely pertains to self-talk, it also applies to our general day-to-day language with others, and that affects how we feel just as much. Here, we are going to discuss both types of language: vocabulary that we use every day in conversations with others and our own internal self-talk.
When I became convinced of the immense power of the mind-body healing approach, I also became aware of every facet of myself that wasn’t in alignment with helping me heal. I then began to see phrases and sentences that I spoke as either reaching toward where I wanted to be or reaching away from it. With that new perspective, I came up with several words that I chose to ditch from my vocabulary, and I invite you to consider doing the same.
The only thing you need to do to change outdated language patterns is become aware of when you’re using them, and immediately stop. Just don’t go there. These everyday language patterns are simply a habit, and you can undo them by forming a new habit and using better-feeling language.
Busy—This implies having a great deal to do. Busyness is an addiction. Our society prides itself on being busy—it means we’re doing, making things happen, and being “useful.” The common excuse of “I’m too busy to …” implies you don’t have a choice. Non-truth. Not having a choice is stressful. Choosing from a place of what feels good is calming.
Instead, try engaged. “I’m really engaged this week, so I choose to dedicate my free time to what I really want to do.”
Overwhelm—This means to bury or drown beneath a huge mass; to overpower or crush. Yeah, this one just isn’t pretty. Let’s drop the over and stick with whelmed, which can be interpreted as “abundant.” Nothing can crush us, and telling our body all day that we’re “overwhelmed” isn’t a healthy message to send it. You’d never even think of saying “I’m being crushed” over and over to yourself, would you?
Instead, try whelmed. “I’m whelmed with an awesome full list of opportunities.”
Anxiety—This is a feeling of uneasiness, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome. The word anxiety doesn’t say exactly how you feel. Using the general word of “anxiety” let’s us off the hook of figuring out what’s really there, and dealing with it. In my opinion, anxiety is buried emotion. Not using it will help you call yourself to the challenge of figuring out “what” is sitting beneath it just waiting to be acknowledged and processed.
Instead, try emotional or uneasy. This is neither negative nor positive. It just is. “I’m feeling emotional (or uneasy) and I want to figure out why.”
Chronic—This word means persisting for a long time or constantly recurring. I’m all about aligning with beliefs that promote what we really want. The word chronic essentially implies this issue or thing does not have an end in sight. Using the word and attaching its label to you isn’t any way of aligning with the belief that it will pass sooner rather than later, right?
Instead, try experiencing. This one works as a substitute perfectly, and does not at all imply that you plan to hang onto it for a long time or as a recurring event. “I am experiencing this _______ (challenge).”
Should—This word is used to indicate obligation, duty, or correctness, typically with someone’s actions. Should have implies a mistake, that something was done wrong and there is someone to blame. It’s easier to be easy on ourselves when we’re not declaring an action as “wrong,” but rather simply looking at what the other side of the coin could have shown us.
Instead, try could have. This is a baby step in the right direction. Could have implies a choice, and choices always come from being in a good place. If one choice doesn’t work out, we get to choose, and choose again. “I could have done this or that.”
My _______ (insert name of challenge)—While possessives are necessary in the English language, it’s wise not to claim anything that you don’t actually want to be yours, like emotions, diseases, or other challenges. Examples of this include my cancer, my anxiety, my anger issues, and so on. These can all be rephrased with language that is relaxing to the body instead of stressful.
Instead, try the words the or this. Healthier rephrases include the cancer or this cancer, the sadness I’m feeling, or the anger I’m experiencing. All of these phrases support separation from the issue or the fleetingness of it, implying that it is moving through you or is not owned by you.
I am _______ (insert emotion)—There is such a fine line between feeling something and being something. Along the same lines as replacing the word my, I am is another phrase that implies ownership of things we may not necessarily want to claim.
Instead, try feel. “I feel sad.” “I feel sick.”
Bonus Suggestion: Although these things might not be something we typically think of as “language,” it’s wise to make sure email addresses, passwords, forum screen names, and so forth are not claiming energetic ownership over the very thing you don’t want. This includes being lymegirl, chronicfatigue4ever, anxietysurvivor, or anything else in cyberspace. You cannot “be” something and separate from it at the same time.
One way to shift the pattern of using any of the draining vocabulary we’ve covered is to immediately correct yourself. Rephrasing it out loud, if you’re comfortable, is a great way of “erasing” the energy that you just put out there. Or you can simply say something like “delete” or “oops!” in your head. That will help send a message to notify all those unconscious parts of you that it’s time to reprogram your language.
Energies to Consider Clearing
Another way to approach draining vocabulary is to look for beliefs or unprocessed experiences that cause you to use this language. For example, if you are hooked on the word busy, it might be beneficial to look at beliefs you have about being “too busy” to choose yourself and your own needs instead of everyone else’s. What do you believe would happen if you did? Would someone be mad at you? Do you have a past experience in your history that gives this belief its roots?
Negative Self-Talk
Imagine for a moment that our bodies obey each thing we tell ourselves as if it’s a command. It does not filter or translate; it simply takes it in and acts. Now, the scary part is, you don’t have to imagine. You are, with your internal self-talk, commanding your cells to believe or do as you say—either verbally or internally. Make sure you don’t have a “shitty committee” in your brain running the show, okay? We need to give ourselves commands that align with healing. The only commands that align with healing are ones that remind us that we are worthy of healing because we rock, not suck.
After practicing a pattern of beating yourself up for so long, it would be almost impossible to instantly transform into a self-loving work of art, so take baby steps. Instead of aiming for thinking everything you do is golden, let’s start by helping you be lighter with yourself and accepting your humanness. The goal is to laugh at yourself more and yell at yourself less.
My approach for accepting my humanness came from something my dear friend Julia said to me in my twenties. I was telling her a story about someone in my life who hurt me. I was waiting with anticipation to hear an angry reaction, and for her to come to my rescue in defense. But what happened next changed my entire perspective, and how I judged not only others and their actions but my own as well. With almost no pause after my last sentence, she said calmly, “Well that sounds very human to me.” In that moment, she rescued me from myself, and everything I judged before as either “good” or “bad,” “right or “wrong,” suddenly slipped into the singular category of “being human.” Those words helped me take the first baby steps toward transforming the way I treated myself. When I caught myself judging, berating, or being critical of my experiences or myself, I threw my arms up and said, “Well, that was very human!” It made it difficult to judge something as right or wrong, because it was simply the truth. And how could I argue with that?
To this day, I use Julia’s words in client sessions. Often clients nervously tell me they want to share something that they have never told anyone else before. And after they tell me, I say calmly, “Well, that sounds very human to me.” The acknowledgment of being human is a miraculous little spark that brings peace and relief almost immediately. With that, I can feel their energy shift completely. And luckily for you, those words will forever remain available. Just remember, use often and apply liberally.
This next little gem is a simple trick I used regularly to retrain myself away from a pattern of negative self-talk. As soon as I would recognize being lost in a loop of B.S. in my brain, I would call myself out on it. Because by now we all know better than to let that loop roll and gain any momentum, right? I’d say out loud, in my most fun and loving tone, “I call bullshit!” That’s it. It’s a light and silly way of holding yourself responsible for changing this pattern.
Remember, your body is always listening. If it listens to something long enough, it will start to believe it. It did when you told it sucky things for all those years, and it can when you send the opposite message, too.
Energies to Consider Clearing
While using draining vocabulary in your day day-to-day is typically just a bad habit and can be altered consciously, negative self-talk can run much deeper.
It may be beneficial to clear past experiences where …
• you made a mistake or choice you can’t forgive yourself for.
• others told you negative things about yourself.
• you felt that you embarrassed yourself.
Further, you may be holding harmful beliefs that are driving that negativity toward yourself. Here are a few examples:
• I need to punish myself.
• Being mean to myself will motivate me to be better.
• I shouldn’t be forgiven for the past.
• I owe it to others to be perfect.
Victim Mentality
This is a pattern that I had somehow mastered, although it took years for me to realize it. My personal pattern was fairly subtle, but once I saw it, boy, did I see it! I’ll go so far as to say this pattern can be an addiction for some—the pattern of blaming outside circumstances, playing the part of “poor, pitiful me,” or claiming little to no responsibility for one’s life circumstances. The difficulty with identifying this pattern is that it shows up in so many ways, and they aren’t always obvious.
This pattern often manifests as talking about the illness or challenge all the time, always bringing the conversation back to how you have been wronged: the doctors did you wrong, the disease is unfair, a person ruined your life, your past “did this” to you, and more. Of course, it’s healthy to share experiences, but there is a fine line between sharing and putting yourself in a place of powerlessness. People with this pattern often perceive themselves as worse off than anyone else and need others to see them in that way, too. They seek confirmation from others that they have struggled more than their friends and family. They may have a need to be a hero, a survivor, that person who has “been through hell,” sometimes feeling that this validates their worth. There is nothing shameful about the victim-mentality pattern. It’s very common, but it’s also extremely harmful.
Lyme disease, because it’s highly controversial and not well understood by many, offered me the perfect opportunity to hold this pattern (and, later, to release it). Not only are there two camps of doctors, each professing a different truth about contraction, diagnosis, and treatment, but insurance companies often don’t pay for the treatment that is recommended by physicians who specialize in Lyme disease. So there I was, not only bitten out of the blue by some horrible insect, but also now being told that the treatments my doctor recommended (sometimes in excess of thousands of dollars per month) would not be covered by my insurance. This left me feeling very frustrated. In the beginning, I shared this unfairness with those around me. I obsessively warned people about ticks, told them about the difficulty in getting diagnosed, and shared my treatment struggles. It felt good to have a place to direct the blame for my miserable situation.
However, as time went on, I realized that this energy was doing nothing but creating more helplessness and struggle. While perhaps all of the experiences that led me to this victim mentality and behavior were valid, my feeding of that energy by constantly engaging others in it, talking about it, and researching it was certainly not hurting the tick or the insurance companies. I was the one who was being hurt—by myself.
Suddenly I saw things clearly. I was making the unfairness worse by making Lyme disease more a part of my life than it had to be. I included it in both internal thoughts and external conversations. I let the perception that everyone and everything was against me take over. If you look at this pattern with a big ol’ open heart, you will eventually realize that while you may have experienced wrongdoing once or even several times, every time you act from a place of victim energy, you are re-victimizing yourself. Chris Grosso, author of Indie Spiritualist: A No Bullshit Exploration of Spirituality, offers a question in his book that is fitting for this discussion. He writes: “Are we going to continue on autopilot, allowing our incessant negative thoughts and emotions to dictate our mental and emotional well-being? Or are we going to own our shit and take the power back?”
Releasing the victim mentality is all about taking our power back. It may not be easy, but it is your job, and until you are accountable for that job, you will not reach your full healing capacity.
Complaining, whether outright or subtly, is a victim pattern. It is a direction of energy toward what we do not want. We need to stop complaining, not because crappy things didn’t happen or because they aren’t horrible or upsetting, but because complaining is destructive. What message are we sending to our bodies—each organ and cell—when we align with the idea of being a victim? We must always consider, with each action and each word, what message we are sending ourselves.
Sharing my thoughts on victim energy is a conversation I have with many, many clients. Some immediately reject the idea that they are participating in this type of energy, and I’ve been there, so I understand this well. But for those who are ready, putting effort toward changing this pattern is full of great rewards.
I’ll share an example with you. In a difficult session I had with Maggie, who I had been working with for about a month for a host of emotional challenges, I said to her: “I understand you are miserable and have had lots of things happen in your life that you wish never had, but you carry such enormous victim energy that I think it’s a bigger block than anything else.” I went on to explain to Maggie that in every session she was so focused on recalling things that weren’t fair in her life and proving to me that they were so horrible and worse than her friends’ problems that she was actually adding energy and weight to them. She was far more interested in blaming than clearing energy imbalances. I certainly expect clients to share with me what’s not working in their lives so I can help, but this went far beyond sharing in that way. I couldn’t even imagine how much she was doing this outside of sessions, too. No wonder she was constantly on the edge of panic.
It wasn’t even just that Maggie was talking about her feelings, though; she was making her whole life about how wronged, sick, and abandoned she was. Maggie was not happy with me when I shared my observations, but after she had time to mull it over, she sent me an email. She explained that she had never realized she was giving off such a “poor me” energy and said she really wanted help with it. We then began focusing on that in sessions, and Maggie became more conscious of it on her own. She just didn’t let herself go there anymore. Maggie’s entire life changed when she changed this pattern. Her health made a huge turn in the right direction, she finally got into a living situation that was healthy for her, she stopped attracting friends who hurt her, and she got an incredible job—all things she admitted she never could have imagined could come from this change. But it was all because she stopped treating herself like a victim. Like Maggie, we all have a choice.
There is one simple question you can ask yourself to help determine which choice you are making: Will this action, language, or behavior deplete my healing energy or fuel it? That’s it. New rule: If it will deplete it, delete it.
Consider making a pact with yourself: Don’t have conversations (with yourself or others) that support this pattern. Simply refuse to let yourself go there. Instead, when you catch yourself talking about your life in a way that makes you feel powerless, sit quietly and try to figure out why you have a need to do this. Are you seeking support and confirmation? Do you need help but can’t ask for it? Try instead to use this as an opportunity to clear energy around these issues.
Energies to Consider Clearing
Often, there are unprocessed experiences lurking behind this victim mentality. It is wise to identify and clear experiences in your past that are contributing to this mindset.
These types of experiences might include experiences where …
• you felt like people didn’t “pay for” the way something impacted you.
• you felt overpowered and had “no say.”
• you feel like life wasn’t fair to you.
Beliefs are also likely behind this pattern. Going to work on clearing beliefs that put you in a place of powerlessness will always be extremely helpful. Here are a few examples:
• I can only move on if those who hurt me are sorry.
• Other people are responsible for fixing me/this issue.
• I need to blame others to feel secure.
• I need to be rewarded for what I’ve been through.
• Life isn’t fair to me.
• I always get the short end of the stick.
• People owe me (sense of entitlement).
Taking Things Personally
We were all born as wonderful, self-centered works of art. As human beings, we tend to be self-focused, and that’s okay a lot of the time. But it can get us into big trouble, too, because we tend to interpret everything as if it is personal. It’s all too easy from our human vantage point to see the opinions and actions of others as direct reflections of our own wrongdoing.
I used to be the queen of “it’s my fault” syndrome. If someone I loved or cared about seemed “off,” I felt a heavy sense of fear that I had somehow inadvertently caused it. If someone seemed upset with me, I quickly jumped into action to fix it, at the expense of my poor, overburdened soul. To this day, I have no idea where this originated. Growing up, I was never blamed or ridiculed, although now I can definitely see my mom’s own pattern of self-blame for things.
It wasn’t until my early twenties that I thought to examine this pattern in my life. Most of us think that the whole wide world revolves around us, and that’s just a big ol’ problem. Becoming aware of how this affected me changed how I perceived everything. Up until then, I lived a life being paranoid that others were angry with me, or upset because of me. But for the first time, it occurred to me that the world doesn’t revolve around me at all. I began to see that each of us reacts from our own emotional space—of simply having a bad day, feeling insecure, being frustrated with someone else perhaps, and so on.
My days of taking things personally started to change ever so slowly. When I would fear that I had upset somebody or I would become angry because of how I thought they were treating me, I would ask myself, usually while laughing, “What makes you think that the whole world revolves around you?”
Let’s do a quick exercise here. Look back at some of your recent personal interactions—times when someone in your life seemed grumpy or irritated. How did they make you feel? Did you assume you had done something wrong? Did you try to fix things immediately? Did you apologize when people were being impatient with you? If so, you likely had the mindset that it was all about you. This can cause us to tiptoe around others and be afraid to be our true selves. And we already know what a big impact that can have on us, right? That’s why this is a very important pattern to work on.
I also use the visualization of a burning forest fire when I’m having difficulty with taking things personally. I imagine the person whom I am being upset by as a burning fire in a large wooded area. In this visualization, I draw a circle around the fire with a stick. I then know that I can be anywhere in that forest (symbolic of my own life and my own energy field) and be safe from the heat and sparks. I allow the fire (symbolic of the person in this specific situation) to be angry or do whatever it needs to do to burn out or dissolve. However, I don’t allow myself to be affected. This is very helpful for me in staying grounded when others are upset, either in general or specifically with me.
With the pattern of taking things personally, it’s very helpful to ask yourself, “Where could this pattern have come from?” In other words, “Where did I get the idea that I was responsible for everyone else and how they feel?”
Energies to Consider Clearing
Unprocessed experiences from your past could be playing a direct role in this pattern of taking things personally. You might want to think back to experiences where …
• you felt blamed or shamed.
• you perceived that someone else’s happiness was your responsibility.
As always, harmful beliefs are likely contributing to this pattern as well. Here are some examples of harmful beliefs to consider releasing:
• Something is inherently wrong with me.
• When someone else is unhappy, it’s my fault.
• I am always wrong.
• Keeping the peace is my job.
• It’s my job to fix things for others.
• If I’m rejected, it means there is something wrong with me.
Negative Thought Loops
It can be easy to get stuck in a negative thought loop, which not only makes us feel a little crazy but also causes stressful reactions in our body, which can show up as symptoms.
As we know now, thoughts are pure energy. This next technique, Throwing Stones, is one that was created during a time of desperation for me. It is based on “throwing” energy from the body. It’s a great disrupter of unhealthy thought patterns.
A few years ago and for no obvious reason whatsoever, right before a trip to the infamous and spirited city of Sedona, Arizona, I started to feel extremely unsettled. I was flooded with fear and uneasiness, which made me want to jump out of my own skin. Negative thoughts were looping around in my brain at what seemed like warp speed.
People travel from all over to visit Sedona and, specifically, its vortexes, which are thought to have highly concentrated energies conducive to healing. Sedona has been known as a sacred place for hundreds of years. As we prepared for the trip, I used all my best tricks, but in true Amy style, they weren’t working instantly. They do work extremely well for me, but sometimes not as fast as I’d like. Sedona, a place known for healing, turned out to be, for me, just a place where I was having a serious freak-out. Very spiritual, right? I was in a location where miracles are known to happen, and I didn’t want to leave my hotel room. I couldn’t stop crying.
After a few days, though, I surrendered to what I was feeling and stopped fighting it so hard. I knew I just had to let all of the energy work do its thing. Something inside of me shifted, as often happens when we stop fighting so hard. I calmed down just enough to try to enjoy a short hike along a beautiful creek. The water was dotted with different-size boulders. While sitting on one of the giant ones for a rest, I dipped my still-shaky hands into the water to play with some of the smaller rocks. That’s when I had a thought: What if I could “throw” or “wash” away the energy of whatever was coming up for me and send it hurling down the creek?
With each rock I picked up, I closed my eyes and imagined transferring a single thought, feeling, or emotion I had into it. I said a silent statement to the rock, asking it to please “carry away the energy” of each one: fear of what was happening, anger, uncertainty, nausea, the feeling of “not being good enough to fix this,” and more. And then I threw the rock into the rushing water, watching it skip along the bottom until it was gone from my sight. One by one, I went through this process: assigning each rock an energy I no longer wanted, throwing it, and feeling my energy come back into balance. Energetically, I was transferring the feelings, thoughts, and emotions into those rocks to be carried away and washed clean. I felt massive relief from this process, and you can too.
This is easy to do and you don’t have to use rocks. You can use coffee beans, pebbles, snowballs, or anything else that won’t hurt the earth if you toss it into a body of water. You can also use a bucket of water if you don’t have access to a beach, pond, or other body of water.
When you have a decent little pile, pick them up one by one, assigning each one a thought or emotion you’d like to release. Simply focus on infusing that thought or emotion into the rock or other object. Take your time, but when you’re ready, throw the object into the water using as much force as is comfortable, and let yourself release all that is associated with it.
This had already become one of my favorite techniques when I read an article about a similar concept. In a study at Ohio State University,15 researchers found that when people wrote down their thoughts on a piece of paper and then threw the paper away, they mentally discarded the thoughts as well.
I believe this works as an energy technique because we are signaling to the subconscious mind to release the energy of the thought or emotion. So throw to your heart’s content. All you have to lose is some energy that you didn’t need anyway.
Energies to Consider Clearing
Negative thought loops often stem from a belief or unprocessed experience that we haven’t let go of. In order to release this, it’s helpful to pay attention to those thoughts and address the core of them. What are you ruminating about? Is it an experience that can be cleared? Is it something you believe that’s creating the negativity? Digging deeper into these thoughts can produce big, positive shifts.
You’ve learned four main techniques up to this point, including Thymus Test and Tap, Emotional Freedom Technique, The Sweep, and Chakra Tapping. As I mentioned earlier, these techniques can be used to help you release the various unhealthy emotional patterns you’ve learned about in this chapter. The 3 Hearts Method is another technique that I consider to be very important. It’s the fifth (and final) main technique you’ll learn.
The 3 Hearts Method was fed to me through some higher guidance during a difficult time. I was lying on the couch one night, my head hanging off the ottoman (a typical pose for me), and I spontaneously began tracing, with my hands, three upside-down hearts on my face. It almost seemed involuntary. I had no idea what I was doing, but I could feel energetically that I was most definitely doing something.
As I started to explore and use this new technique, it proved to be extremely powerful for releasing stored emotional energy associated with those incessant negative thoughts. While emotional processing happens in the brain, the expression of emotion is limited primarily to the face. Muscle movements that happen under the skin cause expressions. Certain facial expressions are associated with specific emotions. And emotions, as we know, are just energy. Because our cells and muscles have “memory,” it is logical that some of the energy that causes negative thinking could easily become stored in the place of the most expression.
The heart shape, symbolic of love, has an extremely high healing vibration. When we trace lines around the eyes and mouth, we are addressing the major emotionally expressive areas of the face. We are essentially “erasing” or “tracing over” whatever is behind the negative thoughts, with love. It is critical that the hearts be traced upside down so the “point” is always directing the old energy away from the body. With the third heart in the sequence, we are specifically tracing it around the head where emotions are processed and then finishing the sequence at the back of the head. Here again, the direction of the point is crucial, because we are sending the energy behind us, which is symbolic of moving those experiences and associated emotions into the past. This is where, in the energetic body, memories and thoughts—even negative ones—are stored in a healthy way.
In order to demonstrate this technique, I’ll walk you through it using the example of a negative thought loop. Later, I will give you some tips on revising the 3 Hearts Method for clearing other energies, such as unprocessed experiences and harmful beliefs.
Step 1: Rate Your Intensity—Close your eyes and focus on the negative thoughts. On a scale of 0–10, give it a rating as far as how intense it feels for you, 10 being the strongest. If you can locate where you “feel” it in your body, also take note of that. It doesn’t matter where you are at this moment; it’s just good to have an idea of your starting point so you can gauge your progress as you clear.
If you have many upsetting thoughts and they’re not just on one topic, you can let them all run through your mind, or you can focus on them one by one and go through this process for each thought pattern. You may have to try it both ways to see what works best for you.
Step 2: Trace the Hearts—As shown in the 3 Hearts Method illustration, keep your eyes closed and your focus on the upsetting thoughts as you trace, with medium pressure, three upside-down hearts on your face, as shown in the illustration. Use both hands. You will do the same movement on each side of your face simultaneously.
While you’ll be tracing the hearts three at a time (this will be one “round”), you will want to continuously trace for four rounds, or a total of twelve hearts. I don’t have a logical explanation for why we trace a total of twelve hearts, but through much muscle testing I discovered this was the magic number!
For the first heart, start with all your fingertips at your bottom lip point. Drag your fingers down toward your chin, around, and up your jawline, finishing at the second point—the bridge of your nose. For the second heart, starting at the bridge of your nose, scoop down around the eyes and up to the top center of your forehead where your hairline is. For the final heart, use a similar scooping motion down your forehead and then back along the sides of your head and past your temples, ending in a point at the back of the head. All three hearts should be traced consecutively in one fluid motion.
You want to really sink into the issue you are trying to clear. Let all the emotion come up, and allow yourself to review the issue in your head, noticing any details of the experience.
Step 3: Check In—Take a break, open your eyes, and take some big, deep breaths. Close your eyes and reassess how strong the negative thoughts are now. Do they bother you any less? Do you feel any more detached? Re-rate your thoughts on a scale of 0–10 to gauge their intensity.
Step 4: Keep Going—Repeat the process for several more minutes. You can continue this as long as you’d like, taking a break after every few rounds and making sure to take deep breaths and give your body time to process the energy.
With negative thought loops, it can often take a bit of time to notice a shift. You may want to just go about your day and see how things play out. With negative thought loops, I’ll often wonder if the clearing has done anything, but then later I’ll suddenly become aware of how much it has actually helped.
While this technique may seem too simple (yes, I’ve actually had that complaint!), it’s extremely effective. Don’t worry that it’s “too easy to work.” This is good practice in letting life be easy.
Tip: Remember that most unhealthy emotional patterns are linked to harmful beliefs or unprocessed experiences. For example, if you can’t stop thinking about that mean thing your boss said to you last week, you would benefit from working on that experience, or earlier experiences that you were reminded of with that one. Or perhaps it would be beneficial to identify and clear a belief that is creating a trigger for you, such as “I am worthless at work.” In addition to using techniques that you already know can address unprocessed experiences (EFT) and beliefs (Chakra Tapping), you can explore using the 3 Hearts Method to clear them.
To use the 3 Hearts Method for unprocessed experiences, simply alter steps 1 and 2 to focus on an unprocessed experience instead of specific negative thoughts. Try to use the glass-capsule analogy that we talked about earlier, making sure to focus on all of the details (sights, sounds, smells, and more) connected to that experience.
To use the 3 Hearts Method for beliefs, use a similar process to Chakra Tapping, but instead of tapping the chakra points, trace the three hearts. Remember to ask through muscle testing—just as you would when clearing any belief—if you need to go back and find an unprocessed experience to work with first. If not, you can use verbal cues like you did for Chakra Tapping as you trace the hearts, or you can just try focusing on the belief itself without saying anything at all. Again, make this method your own.
Next, we’re going to talk about a serious game-changer: addressing fear.
15. Jeff Grabmeier, “Bothered by Negative, Unwanted Thoughts? Just Throw Them Away,” Ohio State University (Nov. 26, 2012), http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/matthoughts.htm.