By Carol Tuttle
Master Emotional Release Therapist and the author of the best-selling book, Remembering Wholeness: A Personal Handbook for Thriving in the 21st Century.
Gratitude is one of the highest states of emotion we can experience. In the United States we will soon be celebrating Thanksgiving, This Holiday reminds us to practice gratitude in our thoughts and expressions.
8 years ago our family started a tradition to write in a Gratitude Journal. Every Thanksgiving, as a family, we get out our Gratitude Journal and write 1,000 things for which we are grateful. We number from 1 to 1,000, leave it on the kitchen counter with a pen, and family members and friends are invited to write in it as often as they would like.
It usually takes us between ten days to 2 weeks to get to 1,000. Last year I added a new practice to include with our gratitude journal. Every day starting the week before Thanksgiving I tap on statements of thanksgiving and gratitude.
I choose to tap on 25 different statements a day using the EFT shortcut method. I also invited my clients to practice this as well. I was amazed at the benefits they reported, so since then I have consistently incorporated more and more positive statements in my EFT protocol as I teach my clients how to process with positives. I was especially amazed at the results of one client, Claire.
Claire, a woman I had been seeing for about 2 months, was still reporting a lack of success. Her complaints included:
It doesn't seem to be working for me.I don't feel any better.I get tired of saying so many negatives.
Claire was very practiced in coming to her weekly sessions, reporting how hard her week had been, what went wrong, and how bad she still felt. I told her two weeks before Thanksgiving that I was going to put her on a gratitude diet. That she had a mental and emotional habit of focusing on the negative and unpleasant in her life and we needed to teach her brain to start seeing and feeling the blessings of her life.
I asked her to start a gratitude journal 10 days before Thanksgiving. She agreed to write 25 things a day that she was grateful for, and to then tap on them. She had such a tremendous shift in her moods and thinking, that she continued her gratitude diet for the rest of the year.
She shared with me, "I began to realize how hard it was for me to focus on the positives of my life. I had to really make an effort the first few days to make my brain come up with them. I began to notice that the aspects of my life I was unhappy about were in the minority, and the positives were all over the place.
"I used to wake up feeling miserable anticipating another day of drudgery. Now I wake up feeling a sense of peace and thanks for all the good that is in my life. I have noticed that my life is getting better and the answers are coming and problems are being resolved."
The following 15 gratitude statements can help you get started on your gratitude diet. These statements are very general, so add to it with very specific statements that are personal to your life. Use the following gratitude statements while tapping on the seven consecutive points of the EFT shortcut -- (1) Eyebrow(EB), (2) Side of Eye (SE), (3) Under Eye (UE), (4) Under Nose (UN), (5) Chin (CH), (6) Collarbone (CB), (7) Under Arm (UA), and (8) Top of Head (H) -- while repeating the following:
1. I am grateful for my life2. I am grateful for all my experiences and what they have taught me3. I am grateful for my ability to choose how I respond to my life4. I am grateful for the opportunity to change5. I am grateful for my loved ones6. I am grateful for this amazing planet and all the richness it offers me7. I am grateful for my freedom8. I am grateful that I can change the way I feel9. I am grateful for all the blessings I have received10. I am grateful for EFT11. I am grateful that I am never alone12. I am grateful that God is watching out for me13. I am grateful for all I have learned this year14. I am grateful for all the answers and help that has been given to me15. I am grateful I am finding answers and resources and that I am free to change and grow
Using EFT to process with positives will support you in allowing more blame, anger, resentment, frustration, and all other negative beliefs and emotions to melt away. It is important to feed the energy of gratitude within you.
If you are feeling stuck use more statements of gratitude to get your positive emotions moving again. Put yourself on a gratitude diet this holiday season and watch your world start to shift for the better.
Teach yourself to appreciate everything. Express gratitude for every single moment of your life. The more you create feelings of appreciation and gratitude, the more you will attract into your life that which you can appreciate and for which you can feel gratitude for.
Carol Tuttle is a Master Energy Therapist, a highly sought after speaker, and best-selling author. Dr. Mercola highly recommends Carol's book Remembering Wholeness: A Personal Handbook for Thriving in the 21st Century where you will learn powerful techniques to help you make the changes you want in your health, your relationships and in your finances.
Visit Carol's website www.caroltuttle.com where you can explore all her life-changing books, CDs and DVDs that are highly recommended by Dr. Mercola.
Earlier this year I had an opportunity to attend a three day Internet seminar with Carol and had a chance to get to know her. Although I enjoyed the seminar, the highlight was the opportunity to get to know Carol.
Without a doubt energy psychology is one of the greatest tools I have ever encountered in the healing modalities and EFT is an amazing application of this discipline. Carol happens to be one of the most gifted EFT clinicians I know of.
If you want to apply some of the principles Carol discusses in the above article and learn powerful healing techniques to release the emotional issues that are keeping you from losing the weight you will want to pick up Carol's best-selling Audio CD Clearing the Issues that are Keeping You Fat. You can also review Carol's other life changing books, CDs and DVDs that I highly recommended.
Carol stopped seeing clients awhile ago so she can concentrate on sharing her message over the internet. However there was such a demand for her services that she decided to limit her patient load and increase her fees to $10,000 for a series of comprehensive individual consultations and even at those rates she has more clients than she can handle.
In October I invited Carol to spend some time at my center to teach my staff some of her principles and we had a great time and decided that we will offer a joint seminar in Chicago in April 6, 7 and 8th. I want to tell you that now as by then it will have been nearly two years since I have held a major event. The last one was also in Chicago in June of 2004.
It was an EFT event with Gary Craig and we sold out the 550 seats in a few days and had a waiting list of over 500 people who could not attend.
Well, this event should be far better than the one last year as we have some incredible programs that will absolutely amaze you at the benefits you will receive.
Can't tell you much more about it now, but I do want to forewarn you to mark you calendars now for next April 6-8th and plan on being in Chicago for an event you will remember the rest of your life.