Tackling the Inner Messages That Drain Your Energy

As you have worked through the previous exercises, some of you may have noticed that you have run into an inner limit (or two); internal messages that drain your enthusiasm away from your goals. The most common types of internal energy drains are inner messages that suggest you:

1. Don’t deserve what you want;
2. Don’t have what it takes personally to achieve your goals (personality, character, knowledge, skills);
3. Don’t have the resources to accomplish what you want (time, money, equipment, contacts);
4. Related to #2 and #3 is the message that says you can’t acquire these things or they’re too difficult to acquire.

Another set of energy drains act more like thermostats. These are internal set points that govern the inner environment. The most common ones are:

5. An inner limit (a ceiling or a floor) that limits how much you can accomplish;
6. Conflicting beliefs about a goal so that you both want it and don’t want it;
7. A constant stream of interest that makes it difficult to choose just one (or two) goal(s) and stick with them until they’re accomplished;
8. Related to #5 is a limit to how much change you can comfortably deal with resulting in intense emotional responses (e.g. feeling overwhelmed, afraid, homesick, culture shock, depressed). This is a very common energy drain for people who go overseas for an extended stay - more than six months. I’ve lost count of the number of coworkers that have left in the middle of the night to return home.

When I encounter these energy drains I find that energy techniques are very effective in neutralizing them. The energy technique I use is the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) developed by Gary Craig.

EFT is based on the same meridian system as acupuncture, but without the needles. Tapping or rubbing is used to stimulate the meridian points instead. Gary explains that EFT works to neutralize limiting beliefs and emotions because the energy paths in our bodies are linked to our thoughts and emotions in this manner: Thought > Energy System > Emotions. Thus, if you have a thought that creates what Gary calls a short circuit in your energy system, you will experience an uncomfortable emotional response. By holding that same thought while stimulating the meridian points on your body, you can clear your energy system of the short circuits. This in turn neutralizes the emotions associated with that thought.

I’ve used EFT to help a friend achieve her weight loss goals and I thought this would be a good example for how you could use EFT in your situation. I have changed her name to respect her privacy.

Liz has been following a weight loss program for several months and has achieved tremendous weight loss in that time. But at one point her weight loss began to level off and plateaued. I referred her to the list of energy drains above and we concluded that she had hit an inner floor or limit for how much weight she could lose.

The next step is to create a setup phrase that will be repeated as the meridian points are stimulated. In this case we chose "Even though I don’t believe I can weigh less than X pounds, I deeply and completely accept myself."

I then asked her how intense her feeling response was to the setup phrase on a scale of 0 (no intensity) to 10 (an intense emotional reaction). She said it was an 8.

I then had Liz repeat the phrase three times as she tapped her *Karate Chop point. Then she repeated a shorter version of the phrase ("can’t weigh less than X") as she tapped on the *other meridian points. After a few rounds of tapping, her emotional response to the phrase came down to 0. Within a short time she broke through a significant weight loss goal.

Since finding this technique I have used it on every kind of energy drain I’ve encountered. I’ve had great success with it, but there is an art to doing it. I would recommend downloading the *EFT manual and becoming familiar with the procedure. Use it on anything that drains your energy from achieving your goals.

In my next article I’ll talk about creating goal statements that work just as hard as you do to accomplish your goals. I’m talking about using inner programming techniques that not only state your goal clearly, but also send it out to a Higher Power where it can attract to you the resources and conditions you need to thrive in your overseas placement.


*Information on the meridian points and the EFT procedure is available for free from Gary Craig’s website. Click on "EFT Manual" on my Mighty Links to get to the site.

If you have any questions about how to use EFT in your situation, or about anything else to do with planning your overseas stay, you can contact me, Jan Anderson, at atlas-has@yahoo.com

Jan Anderson ©2007 The Travel Coach