When You’re Better At Loving Others Than You Are At Loving Yourself

In our STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, we’re doing a deep-dive into our Book Club selection! This week is Chapter 5 of REWIRED: The Breakthrough Tapping Method to Stop Overthinking, Calm Your Body, and Finally Feel at Ease by Nick, Jessica, & Alex Ortner.

In Chapter 5, the Ortners describe a predicament we know all too well and experience almost everyday: When Your Mind Won’t Shut Up!

It’s the Inner Critic, voicing its “opinion” about everything you’re thinking, doing, or feeling, whether it’s already happened, is likely to happen, or you’re worried will happen, non-stop.

Most people try to stop this incessantly cruel inner dialogue, but trying to silence it just doesn’t work. It’s like trying to not-think about a pink elephant. The second you try, your mind conjures an entire circus full of them.

And this isn’t some inconsequential mental phenomenon occurring in your mind.

No, when our minds get trapped in this mental loop of reactivity, our amygdala interprets our strong desire to stop the Inner Critic as yet another threat.

I love how the Ortners summarize this dilemma with…

The Quicksand Rule

“When dealing with the nervous system, the harder you fight the deeper you sink.”

The more we use our willpower to try to force ourselves from stopping, the more we activate our sympathetic nervous system to have a fight-flight-freeze-fawn-or-flop reaction.

The Solution: Tapping to Calm

The only way to escape the quicksand is to stop our straining, struggling, and forcing.

Instead, we can do EFT tapping to send a cascade of piezoelectric signals to our nervous system, to foster the state of calm our bodies need to recognize it’s safe to enter a Parasympathetic Nervous System state of rest-and-digest.

My MINDFUL Reflection

I find the more I lean into the final phrasing of the tapping script, the more easily I am able to feel calmer: “Even though I feel X, I completely love and accept myself.”

When you think about it, this makes perfect sense to anyone who has ever tried to comfort a young child who is upset.

The solution is not to force them to stop crying or ignore the way that they feel.

Personally, when my young kids are upset, it always helps to come close, give them a snuggle, and talk to them about their emotions. Whether their feelings are positive or negative, it always helps to acknowledge how they feel, because all feelings are welcome, and then reassure them that I love them anyway, no matter what they are feeling. Then, after they’re calm, I help them to come up with a solution, one that they will be much more open to hearing when their bodies and brains are calm and relaxed.

I’ve found, being patient enough to wait for the calm before addressing any issue is critical.

If you’ve ever tried to reason with a tantruming toddler, you know it doesn’t work. They’re too caught up in their upset — sometimes kicking and screaming or literally going limp in your arms — that their thinking brains simply go off-line.

When that’s happening, no amount of logic will get through to them.

And the solution is not to try to force them into listening.

The solution is to hold space for them, so they can feel safe feeling exactly as they do. And, once they’ve calmed down, their bodies and brains will naturally release their upset.

Of course, it’s never an excuse to behave badly, like hurting other people or property, no matter what age we are. So, I like to tell my kids, “All emotions are welcome — even the so-called negative ones, like anger. They all serve a purpose. But, inappropriate behaviors are not allowed.”

I also remind them, “I care how you feel. Tell me what happened, and I’ll help you to come up with a solution.”

As I raise them, I see how amazingly effective this has been. The tantrums have faded. They come to me when they’re upset and automatically explain what they feel, what happened, and ask for my help solving it.

Why not extend the same loving-kindness to ourselves?

I love how EFT tapping does precisely that, with its endlessly-modifiable EFT tapping script. No matter what stress we may be going through, or negative thought we may be having, it follows the same pattern: “Even though I feel X, I completely love and accept myself.”

(And, if we feel uncomfortable saying that particular statement, we can choose something that is true for us, like “Even though I feel X, I am here to listen to and support myself.”)

Whatever words we choose, they’re like a verbal snuggle we get to give ourselves. Instead of plowing through our upsets, EFT introduces the pause between the upsetting stimulus and our response. To take a break. To go inward. To listen to and validate our emotions. To give our hearts and minds a cuddle.

That may sound trite or silly. But, as we know from science, hugging sends a strong signal to our brains and bodies to give us powerful soothing hormones, like oxytocin. EFT may use tapping instead of a warm embrace but, in essence, it’s generating the same effect, to bond with our Highest Self.

And, like many do in psychotherapy to honor our Inner Child, the more we do EFT, the more we can teach our Inner Child to trust our Highest Self, to help us get through anything, no matter what we’re facing externally in our lives.

As Dr. Ellen J. Langer’s shown in her Counterclockwise Experiments, the thoughts we think matter. So, I am setting the intention to see my EFT Tapping as an oxytocin-boosting, Inner-Child-Healing practice that it can be, to nurture and parent my Highest Self into a state of calm, clear Parasympathetic way of thinking about my life’s trials and tribulations, whether they’re big or small.

Now, Take a Mindful Moment, to ask yourself:

⭐️ What do you think about The Quicksand Rule? Do you think it’s accurate?

⭐️ Now that we’ve had some experience trying EFT, do you think it’s helping you to stop fighting, to allow your emotions to be as they are, so you can feel calm first, without so much internal resistance?

⭐️ If you have a so-called “negative” emotion like anger or jealousy, might EFT Tapping help you to broaden your mindset? When you’re calm, might you see how that these emotions can serve a positive purpose, like signaling your right to have your concerns addressed?

• Could anger help you see that you need to set a boundary with someone else?

• Or, maybe jealousy’s a sign that you want to experience what someone else has or does for yourself?

⭐️ How might EFT Tapping help you to stop fighting what you think or feel?

⭐️ Imagine: wouldn’t it feel better to trust that your feelings matter, no matter what they are?

⭐️ Interestingly, the Ortners say that many people who try EFT for the first time struggle to say “I completely love and accept myself.” I can relate. I think, if I had tried EFT before having kids, it would have been harder for me to go that far and say “I completely love and accept myself.” Now that I have had kids, I know I’d have no problem at all saying that to help my kids get through their upset. I think that’s a huge reason why I can say it to myself without my mind resisting it. 🤔 Isn’t that interesting? I’m noticing it’s much easier for me to be compassionate to my kids than it is for me to be compassionate to myself. I hope that self-compassion becomes my new default, the longer I go on the lifelong journey of learning to love myself. 🤔

⭐️ This week, let’s experiment with EFT, see if we feel more relaxed, and notice if we’re cultivating more Loving-Kindness for ourselves & others.

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