EFT for a specific piece of clutter.

You can use EFT to slowly break down the resistance to throwing things away by picking up one thing that you know needs to go but you can't bring yourself to, and asking yourself why over and over again, and tapping on the answers that pop into your head.

For instance, you can take an expired coupon from a paper pile, or something small and without a lot of charge to it, and hold it in your hand. Say, out loud, that you are going to throw this away. See if you get any emotional response from it- fear, anger, sadness- and go through an entire circuit on whatever pops into your head.

An example of how this could work would be like this:

Your Strong Self: I am going to throw this expired coupon away.

That Nasty Voice In The Back Of Your Head: No you're not. We might need that some day.

Your Strong Self: (while tapping on the eyebrow point) I can't throw this away, we might need it some day. And I choose to throw it away anyway. It's expired.

TNVITBOYH: You're not going to throw it away, you never throw anything away.

YSS: (while tapping the outer eye point) I never throw anything away. That's OK, I am going to throw away this expired coupon.

TNVITBOYH: This is going to end in failure like everything else you do. You're not going to throw that away. We need it.

YSS: (while tapping on the upper lip point) Even though I need this, and I am not going to throw this away, and this is going to end in failure, I am going to throw away this expired coupon.

TNVITBOYH: You failed miserably the last time you tried to clean your house, what makes you think this time will be any different?

YSS: (while tapping the chin point) I did fail miserably the last time I tried to clean my house. I'm not trying to clean my house. I am just going to throw away this old, expired coupon. Just this one. And that will be a success.

TNVITBOYH: You're so pathetic. Throwing away a coupon isn't success. Look at the rest of this mess.

YSS: (tapping on collarbone point) I might be pathetic, but I'm saying that throwing away this coupon is success. I don't need to clean up this whole mess, I CHOOSE to throw away this coupon. And that's all I need. When I am ready for it, I will throw it away.

Keep going through all the points, and tapping on anything that the nasty voice says, until you are no longer upset at the idea of throwing away the coupon. Don't let it distract you from the coupon! It might try to drag you off into other pain, to scare you away from fixing your anxiety about throwing away the coupon.

Once you have eliminated the anxiety about throwing away the coupon, and you feel good about it, march outside, toss the coupon into your dumpster, go inside and tap on all the points while saying "I am proud of this accomplishment and my glorious victory over my clutter. I threw something away and I am proud of myself."

If you feel like it, pick up one more thing you want to get rid of and repeat the process. If not, simply enjoy yourself and do it again with something else you are anxious about getting rid of tomorrow.

Finding a Root Issue

The fastest way to clear a clutter problem is not always the easiest way in the sort run, but in the long run it's so much simpler.

What you do is you find the root issues, the ones that hurt the most, and you tap on them. Any phrase that sends you into a flat-out panic the instant it pops into your head is PROBABLY a root issue.

Ask yourself why you collect things. Why you want things. Why you can't bear to throw this thing away. Let's start with the classic problem of not throwing away magazines and newspapers after you get the next issue.

Question: Why can't I throw away this newspaper?
Answer: I haven't finished reading it.
Q: Yes, but you haven't finished reading any of this big stack of newspapers, and you probably won't finish it. Why keep it?
A: I have to finish it before I can throw it away.
Q: Why?
A: Because it's wasteful to throw away something before you've used it up.

I know when I got to that point in my internal conversation, I was pretty easily at an 8 on the zero to ten scale of emotional intensity. If you are prone to self-examination, you can go a step further.

Q: Why am I so afraid to waste something?
A: Because I know I will never be able to replace it, and there isn't enough.

BINGO! For me, tapping on the phrases "there isn't enough" and "I can never replace it" were huge. A feeling that I was never going to be able to have enough, that there wasn't enough in the world and I would go without if I let go of anything, was forcing me to keep holding on to things that I didn't want, love, need, or enjoy.

You can also alter this technique a bit to help you when you're trying to clean anything or throw anything away, clearing away the mental clutter and pain as you clear away the physical clutter at the same time.

Does EFT work?

When I first learned about EFT I thought it was the goofiest thing I had ever seen. For one thing, I thought affirmations were stupid (my actual language is a bit coarser about the subject of affirmations), and I was supposed to say these weird, scripted affirmations when tapping my body all over, including lifting my arm and poking my armpit?

You have GOT to be kidding me!

EFT is free to try, though, and I am the type of person that will try anything and everything at least once. I figured the only thing I had to loose was 15 minutes.

The first issue I tapped on was physical pain from having a minor surgery. I hated the way the pain medication made me feel. I tapped on it, and the pain faded within one round to almost nothing. I started experimenting like crazy, to find out what else it might work on. I've spent the last year trying to test EFT to failure and each and every time, I find some way that it works to solve my problem.

I come from a family of compulsive hoarders and clutter bugs. I understand the deep empty feeling, the void within that makes someone try to fill it with things. EFT is the only thing I have ever seen that will close the void. No willpower, no medication, and no struggle is needed. It simply allows the old pain to be healed, so that you feel happy without the things. You start to be able to clean without feeling overwhelmed, angry, unappreciated, and panicked.

Life becomes a joy instead of a struggle.

What makes you do it?

What drives someone to compulsively do anything? Why does someone do something over and over again, even if it makes them miserable and they hate it? Why does someone who genuinely want to change keep doing the things that make them miserable?

Most people with compulsive behavior are trying to fill some sort of hole in their hearts. They feel as if something vital is missing, and this lack creates a tremendous amount of anxiety. Compulsive behaviors are self-soothing behaviors, and what they do is they dull the pain and lessen the anxiety, but only for a short amount of time. There is always a rebound effect, which leaves you feeling just as anxious as you felt before, but now with the guilt and shame of having fallen prey to your addiction yet again, which only increases your pain, which increases your anxiety, which makes you crave your soothing behavior...

Solving a compulsive or addictive behavior is almost impossible unless you address the root issue FIRST. Instead of trying to rip away the only soothing mechanism a person has, it is much more effective, as well as being kinder and easier for you, to solve the problem of WHY you feel anxious in the first place.

When you look at why someone feels the need to hoard, usually you see someone who feels insecure about their place in the world, and someone who, at some point, didn't feel like they would have enough to see them through. They are perfectionists and whenever they fail to meet their own standards, they beat themselves up. No progress is good enough, so no progress happens.

It's time to stop beating yourself up. EFT is simple, easy, and it will help you close the void that pushes you to hoard in the first place.

Demand Resistance and Flylady

I saw an interesting comment on Smackytravel's blog (which I just found, but is hilarious). The first comment is:

i hate flylady. hate hate hate. i hate it so much that i would just get mad when i saw the emails and then not clean my house just to spite her.

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Wow, did that strike home! Anyone else feel that?

Everyone who's had our sorts of problems has seen or heard of Flylady. Some of us have had Flylady shoved down our throat as the ultimate panacea. Those of us who are not happy flybabies right now usually have the same sort of reactions to her- she makes us ANGRY and when she tells us to do something it PISSES US OFF, or we feel guilty for not doing it all perfectly and decide that the answer to our troubles is to finish off the Chinese takeout from lunch.

I've heard this called demand-resistant behavior. I have a love/hate relationship to Flylady. The person who's demands I tend to resist the most are that of my Mom, who happens to be a dead ringer for Flylady. They look, talk, and dress the same, and sometimes if I'm already feeling bitter or angry about Flylady bossing me around, if she uses one of the nag phrases my Mom used to clobber me with that'll push me from dragging my feet to digging my heels in. And if my Mom starts to nag me about not doing Flylady perfectly, that's game, set, match. That sink is staying nasty, and no force on Heaven or Earth can stop me.

The lovely thing about EFT is that you can address and defuse the bomb of emotions that are the root cause of demand resistance. You can get every part of you on the same team, and pulling in the same direction. It's great! Instead of part of me feeling angry, part of me not wanting to do this, part of me feelng guilty for not having done it already, and part of me feeling overwhelmed, and part of me resenting this, so that the general consensus among the different parts of me is to go take a nap, and forget the sink, I just go, tidy up the sink, and then feel a lot better afterwards.

I can't imagine having to go back to living like that. I finally feel free.