How EFT helps with decluttering with Dawn Norton

What is EFT and how do we connect it to clutter?

Okay. So EFT is an abbreviation for Emotional Freedom Techniques. And most people know it as tapping. You might've seen people or experienced it yourself tapping on these points. But there's a lot of people don't know it's Emotional Freedom Techniques. There's 48 different ways to apply EFT for different things. And so I just basically do the what we call the basic recipe with most people. And then if needed, I pull in other little things that I know with it. How can it help with cluttering? Well, to start with, since I, I do focus on mind-body, the mind and body are connected and our exterior world is a reflection of what's going on in the interior. So if you have scattered thoughts, scattered emotions, it's going to reflect in your surroundings. And I would even say that when we have really heavy attachments, and I'm going to use the word heavy, if we have heavy attachments to things like, I can't get rid of that because, and I get that because I have beloved family members and some things I'm like, it's years to finally let go of some things. So I get that, but consider that it's really an emotional attachment. When you investigate and resolve that emotional attachment, sometimes it's really easy then to say, oh, well, I would love to give this to someone else, or I really don't need this like I thought I did. And so it's just, it's bringing a coherence between mind and body that settles things down, reduces the internal clutter. So now you can express or act on the external clutter.

Wow. It really actually gives you so much more agency.

So Gary Craig, who was the founder of EFT, and his default statement was the cause of all negative emotions is a disruption in the body's energy system. So when we can restore that disruption, restore the flow of energy, then we feel better. What was your question? I wanna—

Yes. So I deeply and completely accept myself.

Okay. So he created that phrase and the reason he created it is because You know, we have a conscious and a subconscious mind and we express that through our bodies. That's what the mind is made up of. And we have a lot of subconscious programs running things. So you might be someone who says, I'm such a loser. I'll never amount to anything. Well, first of all, it's not true, but at some level you believe that and that's running around in your subconscious because somebody told you that at some point in your life, or they treated you in a way that it became a belief for you. And so that default statement is really to start, it's kind of like a positive affirmation to address the negative thoughts that are going on within us. So the default statement is, even though I have fill in the blank, or even though I feel fill in the blank, I deeply and completely accept myself. So if people have a hard time saying that, sometimes I'll change the phrasing a little bit, but when I can get them a little more comfortable, I also have them say, I deeply and completely love and accept myself. Because we don't love ourselves enough.

I agree. I agree.

We're so—

we can be so cruel and so mean to ourselves. So I want to fill in that blank for a second.

Okay.

Even though I haven't started decluttering, even though I haven't finished decluttering, even though I notice it's hard for me to let go, even though I feel embarrassed, even though I no longer let my friends come into the house, Even though I feel like something is so, so wrong with me, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

And I would add, even though I feel so heavy about this, even though I feel so overwhelmed by what needs to be done. Yeah. I deeply and completely love and accept myself. I actually love that you're choosing shame and embarrassment. Those are the lowest on the scale of emotions, the lowest energy you can possibly feel. The only thing lower than shame and shame shame and embarrassment is death. So that's one that you really want to clear as quickly as possible. And what I can do, if you want, after we get off the call is just make a nice, neat little script that you can send out to your people on the shame. But how would you verbalize that? How would you— what words would you use about feeling shame about the situation?

I'm so embarrassed I let it get this bad.

Okay.

All right. I'm so ashamed. That I don't, I don't, I don't know what to do next. I feel frozen. I can do all these other things in life, but why can't I do this?

Yeah. Now, of course, you and I would, would go down a rabbit hole asking all kinds of questions. And I would usually do that first to get some more information, but just with what you've said, um, so that we would create the statement, even though I feel so ashamed, about this situation. Okay. That, that covers everybody's situation. So the first thing they do is really think about, because this isn't a traumatizing thing necessarily. I'm happy to let them explore this. If it was something traumatizing, I would say, don't, don't, don't go into that memory, but, you know, walk around your house and look at it and really take it in and say, how, how do I feel? Okay. They're going to have some shame come up. So where in the body do you feel that? And it's different for different people. Some people are like, I feel it in my core. I have a headache. My throat is tightening. I feel so anxious in my chest. I feel sick to my stomach. So pay attention to those kinds of things. Where do you feel that? Tension in your shoulders, you know, it's, it's different for different people, but I'd say about half the people are like, it's a kind of an anxiety in the chest. And so then you're going to say on a scale of 0 to 10, how high is that number? So you just write this down. I feel ashamed. I feel it in my gut and it's an 8. If you have tears coming up, it's a 10. If you're really upset about it, it's a 10. You're like, oh, it doesn't bother me that much. It might be a 2 or 3. And you can even just say low or medium or high, but just, just make a note of that. Okay. So now that you've done that, and we're just going to say the statement, you're going to tap. We're going to tap 3 times and say something here. And then we're going to go from point to point, which is the top, the eyebrow, the side of the eye, Under the eye, the nose, this curve of the chin, and the collarbone isn't like way out here. It's where it starts. If you go to the V neck and just go slightly to the right or left and slightly lower, you can do either side. You can tap with either hand, you can tap with both hands, and then under the arm, about 4 inches under your armpit. It's going to be right about the top of your bra strap on women, and it might feel a little tender there. That's because you have lymph nodes that go through there, and then you tap My experience has been the more you tap, the less sensitive that gets. So, okay. So even though I feel ashamed about this situation, I deeply— and Heather's not going to reply, repeat after me, but normally I would have you repeat after me just to keep it less confusing.

So I'm going to actually say it, but I'm going to keep— be on mute.

Okay. Even though I have this shame about this situation, I deeply and completely accept myself. Even though I feel ashamed about the situation, I deeply and completely accept myself. Even though I feel ashamed and I feel it in my— just put the word in there— my gut, my throat. I deeply, completely love and accept myself. And we just say a little reminder phrase, this shame, and you can vary it. I feel so ashamed. This shame feels heavy. I want to let it go. I don't want to carry this. It's heavy. I feel so ashamed, but I'm willing to let it go. And then just take a deep breath. And then just notice how you feel. Check back into your body. Is that number still at 8? Has it changed?

It absolutely is life-changing, this work, when we get curious about ourselves and our health and our potential. I so agree. Okay, so Dawn, finish this sentence. Let me finish the sentence. The lighter path is—

Hmm. The lighter path is embracing the truth of who we really are.

Embracing the truth of who we really are.

We are. We, we seem to be almost like in a dark room. Feeling around, trying to figure out everything. Um, when you know who you are, things have more clarity. It doesn't fix everything, but if you know who you are as a person, not, not what people think of you or the things that you've done or haven't done or accomplished, like, who are you at the core? Yeah, the lighter path is, is really understanding that and believing the truth of who you really are.

Believing the truth of who you really are. And that just, oh, that makes all that mind clutter just dissipate. It's not true. We aren't horrible human beings. We aren't, I should have done this. I should have done that. I shoulda, shoulda, shoulda. That's not who we are. It's so distracting, isn't it? So getting to the truth of who you are, I I agree. That can be one of the greatest gifts we give ourselves while we're on this planet.

Yeah. And going back to agency, it opens up that agency to be such a greater influence and impact on others. You know, when we are turned inward and, you know, self, whatever it is, beating ourselves up, we can't really see anybody else. We're just focused on ourself and how we feel and our problems and But when we have a vision of who we are, who we can be, or who we can become, we get to choose that too. We can now look outward and see like, who's out there that needs my help? Who needs the light? You know, you said Lighter Path, but also light is in that word. Who needs light and who can I give it to? When we know who we are, we have the capacity and the power to do that.