Using EFT with “The Secret”
 Part 6 of a 7 part series in which EFT Master Pat Carrington delves into the complexities of the Law of Attraction as depicted by the DVD and book "The Secret".
Accessing Your Goals With the "Why" Question
The basis of The Secret, or any other application of the Law of Attraction for that matter, rests on the premise that you will be able to project yourself into the future state that you desire so completely that what you wish for seems to you to be a present reality. This is easily said of course, but unfortunately it is not so easily done. That is why I am writing this article today. In a sense I am continuing with the article I wrote last week where I proposed a method called “Future Thanks” which we can use in an EFT statement to help trick our minds into stepping beyond the confines of our habitual time-bound consciousness.
To step beyond these bounds is of course essential for any manifestation of a desired outcome. It is one of the cornerstones of The Secret, as of all other descriptions of the Law of Attraction. It has been repeatedly pointed out by serious thinkers on this subject that in order to bring about something you desire in the future, you must step into the future in an emotional sense, you must in a sense transcend time. To pay lip service to the concept of imagining something to be present which is not present right now is of course easy, but anyone conversant with the concept of “like attracts like” as expressed by the Law of Attraction, knows that you must be resonating with the very essence of that which you want in order to attract it into your life - and this is not something that comes naturally to most people.
Although the movie and book The Secret do not emphasize the fact that one must not just "believe in" the future that you desire but you must actually "be" in it (in a profound emotional sense), those who created The Secret clearly know this principle. I recently heard a recording of an interview with Rhonda Byrne, the author of The Secret, in which she described her own experiences when creating the movie and subsequent book. She emphasized repeatedly throughout the interview that, as the movie was being made, there was not a shadow of a doubt in her mind about the outcome of it. She actually experienced in advance the effect it would have on people’s lives worldwide, this was as “real” to her as anything tangible in her surroundings could possibly be. I don’t remember her exact words ( I didn’t record the interview) but they were to the effect that the outcome of the movie and book were realities to her, not “desired outcomes. They were for all intents and purposes “done deeds” as they say, and she emphasized how important it is to adopt this stance when applying the Law of Attraction.
Today I am going to suggest a way of propelling ourselves into the future in our minds so that we can bypass the time restrictions which our logical mind traps us in as it constantly points out that we are “here now”, and the future is “way off there”. This method is based on a fascinating technique which I like to call the “Why Question”. The man who created this idea, Noah St. John, refers to it as “Afformations” (notice that the “i “ in this word is replaced with an “o”), but I personally call it the “Why Question” because the word “Why” is such an essential component of the concept. However, call it what you want, using the “Why Question” with EFT is a strikingly effective way to reach a sense of being in the future that is not easily attainable any other way.
Noah has based his technique on the premise that questioning is the most profoundly productive thing the human mind can conceive of, and that our alertness to questions exceeds our alertness to any other concept (my words not his).
I am not repeating here what you can read in his book, which I will tell you about in a moment, but am paraphrasing his concept and in so doing I am expressing my own thoughts on this subject. I apologize if I don't completely represent his way of thinking, but it is not necessary to take his exact formulation because what he does for us is to spark off a type of thinking which can help us break the bondage of time-bound thinking. Once we have done that, the way is open for some surprising things to happen.
My point of view is that we humans are inquisitive by nature otherwise we would not have survived as a species or been able to develop civilization as we have. In order to do this we had to ask incredibly profound questions and ask them continuously throughout the ages. In other words, people are basically questioners. We need only watch a young child first learning to talk and first exploring this world, to verify this fact. “Why? Why? Why?” is the constant refrain of the child. Only rarely do they ask the question “How?” and then only when they want to be shown specifically how to do something (most of the time they’d prefer to find it out for themselves though!).
”How” questions are of course useful ways of conveying information from one person to another. “How do I operate this new software?” is a very good question if you want to learn a transmittable technique, something someone else knows a lot more about than you do. By contrast a “Why” question is an open ended one, it is tremendously broad in its scope and can access large vistas. The minute you say the word “why” you tap a profound area of the human psyche. You contact that part of yourself that asks unanswerable questions as well as answerable ones. The deepest philosophical, religious, or intuitive questions that have been asked down through the ages have all been “Why” questions rather than “How” questions - the latter have been asked of course but they are much more practical in nature.
I am going to suggest here that we use the “Why Question” in combination with EFT, so let’s look at the type of Why Question that Noah St. John proposes and how I have been using it to great effect with EFT.
The method which he calls Afformations ( “o” in the middle) has the person make a statement about what they want to bring into their life in the form of a Why Question, and place that Why Question in the future so that, in effect, the questioner is asking why something has, and I emphasize the word “has”, happened. I realize that you probably don’t know what I'm talking about so here’s an example.
Suppose you found a relationship with someone important to you becoming extremely difficult because you reacted with annoyance to certain phrases that they used, or to certain mannerisms that they had (or whatever). As we all know, using EFT to change our level of irritation and change our attitude towards that other person, and hopefully improve our relationship with them because of this, can be enormously effective. However, we can often run into roadblocks to anything that we want to change, including our attitudes and ourselves. In this method, if you encounter such a roadblock you formulate a question that is stated as though you have already reached the state that you desire, and you are merely asking why this had happened. It’s as simple as that. Such a future-oriented question might go “ Why have I been able to achieve such a quiet, balanced and effective way of dealing with (this person)?”.
Notice that you will be asking the question as though you had already achieved your desired state, and it is already effective. If you try this, you will discover that it is difficult to ask this kind of question without being startled out of your present time frame. It is much more effective than a traditional affirmation which would go, “I am able to achieve a quiet, balanced and effective way of dealing with (this person). As Gary Craig has so aptly pointed out, the latter could easily trigger an enormous number of “tail enders” (inner contradictions) because it is so obviously contrary to fact. However, if you pose this same desired outcome as a question for which you are seeking an answer, you are likely to become unaware of whether it is contrary to fact or not - a question always opens our minds, expands our horizons. Therefore the Why Question is a great help in bypassing tail enders that might otherwise block us.
Let’s consider another type of desired goal and see how the Why Question would apply there. Suppose you wanted to have a wonderfully satisfying new career. In order to manifest that you would need to emotionally experience the happening of it, and here is where the Why Question comes in. Instead of saying, “I have a wonderfully satisfying and exciting new career” (contrary to fact) you would ask yourself, “Why did I create this wonderfully satisfying career for myself?” You would stir your own curiosity the minute you did this. The desired outcome would now be far more real to you. It will have come right into your being.
When you combine this questioning with the use of EFT you have what is called a “double whammy” - its effect on you is multiplied impressively. Here is how to use it with EFT:
After formulating your Why Question, you then “tap it in” at every EFT tapping spot, beginning with the karate chop spot or sore spot (whichever reversal spot you use). Then, at each one of the EFT points, you ask the Why Question again. That is all you do. You may want to do more than one round of this, and of course if you have a great deal of distress about the issue, you will want to do a round or two of tapping on the negative before you tap on the Why Question, e.g. “Even though I feel despair about ever finding a career that’s right for me”, etc. - doing several rounds of this helps clear away the negative. After that go back to tapping just the Why Question at every EFT point.
If you work with this method I think you will discover, as I have, that any possible wish of yours can be turned into a Why Question, and that repeating this question as you tap creates an underlying assumption that the goal has already been reached. Underlying assumptions are powerful. If we have a negative assumption it can work against us, but if we have a positive one it can work for us, and it can do so even more powerfully if we use EFT to tap it in.
If you want to try this technique, I suggest you first write out a list of desired outcomes in your own life, things you would love to see happen in each main area of your life, and then turn each of these desired goals into a Why Question. When you tap in a Why Question you may be amazed at how this breaks the grip of the word “impossible”, often making what you want to achieve seem genuinely possible to you for the first time.
If you want to read the Afformations that Noah St. John describes, he has hundreds of Why Questions for all areas of life, in his book, “The Little Book of Afformations” (obtainable through major book stores). While some of these may not suit you personally, others may really “hit the nail on the head” as they say. When you add the power of EFT to Why Questions, you will have a major tool for implementing The Secret.
Pat Carrington
Part 1: The Starting Point
Part 2: Appreciating Yourself with Loving Kindness
Part 3: Tapping In Gratitude for Positive Intentions
Part 4: Handling Your Mistakes with Compassion
Part 5: Using the "Future Thanks" Method to Create What You Want
Part 6: Accessing Your Goals With the "Why" Question
Part 7: How to Handle Multiple Aspects of a Major Goal
Copyright © 2007 Pat Carrington.
You can learn the basics of EFT by downloading the free EFT Manual from the EFT website. If you wish to save time and dive right in then explore the affordable EFT DVD Library.
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