Resolving 'I'm Lazy' using stick men

a case study tapping for yourself

By Karen Young, EFT Practitioner

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I spend a lot of time resolving my own annoyances and labels. One which I haven’t really thought to tackle much is ‘I’m Lazy’.  I always figured it was more a case of procrastinating through fear and avoiding things so I never dealt with it directly. However, I’m making a big effort to keep my goals in mind and trust that whatever comes up for me will take me in the right direction.  Today it was being lazy.

When I work on myself I find it easier to use tools to deal with things indirectly.  Rather than just tapping on ‘I’m lazy’ I prefer to work on the issue as if it’s a separate person.  I also like to open the tapping up to variety as much as I can so I often use stick men as they can represent me at any age and it’s easy to bring in other people and objects. 

I started by finding an image that represents my laziness. It was a stick man slouched on a sofa.  I started tapping on ‘even though I’m lazy’ but I couldn’t say that I deeply and completely love and accept myself. I actually felt that I hated the stick man on the sofa.  So I changed my phrasing.

‘Even though I really hate you (the stick man) I completely accept that I feel that way’

‘Even though I really hate you I choose to allow my feelings anyway’

‘Even though I hate you, that’s ok’

I paced up and down the room for a while just tapping on ‘I hate you’ and variations.  I use whatever language would come to me in casual conversation and sometimes this means it’s not polite to print!   After a few minutes or so I felt that I was more ashamed so I tapped on this instead.

Soon after, it occurred to me to ask if there was anyone else in the room with the sofa.  Mum was behind the sofa, and she hated the lazy stick man. I cried through it saying ‘Your mum hates you’ until the emotion subsided. I noticed then that mum was crying. I cried a little more just repeating and tapping while she cried.  Then she was mad for a while. 

I noticed that the stick man had a cushion, a red one. He was holding it tightly to his chest and crying.  I was just repeating what I saw and also that I was ashamed of the stick man and his remaining laziness.  Mum just stood there while the stick man held the red cushion. After more tapping I saw that Mum was sat on the sofa and both she and the stick man were smiling. She was trying to gently take the cushion but it was making the stick man anxious. He didn’t want to give up the cushion.  It made him fidgety and restless; giving up the cushion would leave him exposed and vulnerable. I tapped on his fear of being exposed and vulnerable.  I was also saying ‘don’t take my label, I’m vulnerable without my label, everyone can see me’.  The stick man only gave up the cushion briefly then took one of my daughters’ teddies instead to feel safe. 

I left the tapping there.  I felt that it would take a lot longer to take away the teddy and I was happy with the progress I’d made. I felt more able to take action with things I’d been putting off and I felt lighter and happier.  I was still nervous about being exposed but it felt like a different problem to being lazy.

When I checked back later, the stick man was still sat on the sofa, but he was upright looking happy and holding onto the red cushion.

The words I used throughout the tapping were simple and expressing how I felt looking at the scene with the stick man.  I switched between referring to the stick man as ‘you’ and ‘she’ and talking about my own feelings.  I figure that whatever I say in the moment is the easiest way for me to resolve the issue.  I simply re-assured myself that it was ok to feel what I feel. 

Sometimes I do a set-up stating that I trust that whatever needs to come up will come up, and that this will allow me to clear as much as it’s safe for me to do in that session. 

Author's Bio:

Hi I'm Karen, an EFT Practitioner who has spent a lot of time working on my own issues and recently presented 'Tapping for myself' at the 2011 EFT Gathering in Ilkley, West yorkshire.

It is very important to me to understand what clients are going through as well as I can and to be in the best place that I can for getting out of the way and being a catalyst to the self-healing of others using EFT.

3 Comments

Leelah
Posted September 25, 2011 05:00 PM

Dear Karen, I immediately fell for your procedure and the sweetness and straightness you presented it with. I would trust you completely as a practitioner.

Leelah saachi

Karen Young
Posted September 26, 2011 12:13 PM

Hello Leelah

Thankyou for your kind words, they are appreciated. Sharing is so important.
I feel that its sometimes very diffficult to see my own stuff so have spent lots of time trying to get around this. I'm getting pretty good at it now and trust myself to resolve things.I feel that the best thing I can do is listen to my body, my mind is too good at covering things up!
I do hope you have great success yourselfand please let me know if there is anything I may be able to help with.

Warm Regards

Karen x

Felicia
Posted September 26, 2011 01:57 PM

Thank you for this extremely valuable way to work with EFT, Karen. I am amused at the stick figures but I see how marvelous this could be! I have a feeling this will be very helpful to me in the future. Thank you so much!

Sincerely,
Felicia.

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