By Christine Wheeler, MA

Who's pushing your buttons? It might be your spouse ... your boss ... your child ... your in-laws. If you're like most people, you have at least one person in your life whose behavior burns you up.

Whether your partner leaves clothes on the floor ... or your boss is condescending ... you know you can't control them. The only thing you can control is your reaction to their behavior. 

I'm not saying their behavior is OK. But wouldn't it feel good not to react at all? You've asked a hundred times ... but they still leave a mess in the bathroom or leave the cap off the toothpaste. 

And sometimes you're surprised by how you respond ... you feel the anger brewing inside ... you clench your fists ... grit your teeth ... and it's all you can do to keep from screeching at the scoundrel who left socks on the floor.

But maybe it's not about the socks.

So what might it be? What's actually fueling your response? The socks on the floor might be igniting a spark from an old, unresolved emotion or trauma. Those unresolved emotions can bottle themselves up and so ... when someone pushes your buttons ... you go off.

It would be great if you could rewire those buttons so that when someone does push them, nothing happens ... you stay calm. You can easily do this rewiring yourself with Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT).

You can't change their behavior but you can change
your reaction to their behavior.

EFT empowers you to take control of the way you operate when you're annoyed. This do-it-yourself emotional acupuncture technique helps you to rewire your subtle energy system ... and soothe your circuits so things don't bug you as much ... even when someone leaves the toilet seat up (or down).

Now EFT doesn't claim to solve all your relationship woes, but you are likely to feel better about 80 percent of the time. And that can mean a lot if you are looking to maximize friendship and romance.

You can learn the basics of EFT in just a few minutes and quickly conquer those destructive triggers and thus put back the "elation" into your relationships. While a complete description of EFT is beyond the scope of this article, you can learn all the basics from the free EFT Get Started Package on the EFT Web site. This includes a free download of the 79-page EFT Manual. Those wishing to save time and dive right in can get the affordable five-star training DVDs.

How Karen the "Neatnik" and "Sloppy" Joe Diffused Their Dispute by Using EFT

You can read the entire story on the EFT Web site.

By Gary Craig

I met with Karen and Joe (whose names have been changed to protect privacy), a loving couple who had been living together for two years -- but they had developed some relationship problems. Imagine that!

Karen preferred a neat and tidy apartment and she kept it that way. Only to have Joe come home and turn her palace into a pigsty in minutes, dropping clothes and paperwork everywhere and leaving drawers and cupboards open.

Both Karen and Joe became intense while they were describing their perspectives on the problem and this was clearly a threat to the relationship.

Karen perceived that Joe disregarded her need for neatness. On the other hand, Joe preferred the mess and it was easy for him to find what he needed and saw no need to put things away. The mess was his way of "organizing" things and it saved time.

He felt like he had made some progress since they had been together but it still wasn't enough for Karen. He said that Karen would "scream frantically" at the mess. At one point she even picked up a sneaker and hurled it across the room toward Joe's guitars (a major no-no).

EFT Resolves "Over-the-Top" Emotional Responses

We briefly discussed their respective emotional responses to each other's behavior. To Karen, Joe's messiness meant that he didn't take her seriously. She was being ignored and that brought up feelings so intense that she needed to "scream frantically." On the other hand, Joe interpreted Karen's screams as betrayal. 

Joe was not intending to ignore Karen and Karen was not intending to betray Joe. Nonetheless, those were the emotional responses. And they were very intense. It wasn't that the responses were unjustified. Rather, it was that they were "over-the-top" in intensity. And that unnecessary intensity was causing the problem.

The purpose of EFT is to resolve the emotional responses, not just discuss them. So instead of talking about the issues in an attempt to get Joe and Karen to understand each other's positions, and reach some kind of compromise, we did EFT together.

In 45 minutes of EFT, they were both able to talk about the issues without ANY emotional response  ... other than love. The unnecessary level of triggering was gone. 

More on EFT

Please note that in addition to helping you improve your relationships, EFT has been a consistently effective healing tool for hundreds of other physical, mental and emotional ailments. For more information, you can explore the EFT Web site and its numerous success stories regarding fears, phobias, emotional traumas and physical ailments.

Please consult qualified health professionals before putting EFT into practice for yourself or others.