love first

Have you seen that bumper sticker that says Love First?

It works as a reminder for me on multiple levels: Put love at top of the priority list. Love before you do or say anything else. Love yourself first. Wait until you feel love before doing or saying anything else.

The Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), a self-administered acupressure technique that helps to restore disrupted energy patterns that impact our health and emotional well being, always starts with a setup phrase: Even though I ____, I deeply and completely love and accept myself and all of my feelings.

The blank can be filled in with anything; have this headache, feel this rage, this grief, this shame, this sore toe, or this jumping out of my skin feeling. The technique continues with several other steps, but I usually start feeling better after tapping on just this one phrase.

While I've been working through some personal issues these past few days, I've been trying to pay close attention to what is happening to see if I can figure out what is causing my suffering. (The word suffering is overly dramatic there - it's more like mild angst. But it still bugs me.)

It seems to go like this: an outer circumstance or piece of information triggers enters my awareness. It triggers a reaction in me depending on where it lands and how sensitive that territory is already. If it's a reaction I'm okay with, it passes through me pretty quickly and is gone.

If I am NOT okay with my reaction - if I judge it as inappropriate or unacceptable in some way, I compound the original reaction with self-recrimination, and the whole thing starts snowballing. Feeling bad about feeling bad about feeling bad ... well, you get the idea.

What seems to interrupt the snowball effect is that EFT phrase: Even though I am not proud of how I am feeling right now, I deeply and completely love and accept myself and all my feelings.

It might even be a bald-faced lie at the moment, because I'm probably NOT accepting all my feelings, but that's okay. It still works, because saying this reminds me that it is possible. It's like programming my inner GPS with a destination. I may not already be there, but at least I know which direction to go.

gotta dash, may write more later. EFT is easy to learn, and if you are interested, there are tons of free tutorials at www.emofree.com.