Clearing Clutter With EFT

Carol Look, EFT Master www.AttractingAbundance.com Rick Wilkes, Emotional Freedom Coach www.ThrivingNow.com Copyright © 2009 Carol Look LLC & Thriving Now LLC. All Rights Reserved. Special thanks to Cathy Vartuli, The Joy Connection LLC, for her invaluable help with the transcripts and audios. Transcription service by Lucy Spencer (through eLance.com).

See also Carol & Rick's other sites: www.PainReliefWithEFT.com www.EFT-Talk.com

Clearing Clutter with EFT

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Table of Contents Disclaimer..........................................................................................4 Recording #1......................................................................................5 The Basics About Clutter...................................................................5 Physical Space and Clutter................................................................5 Abundance and Clutter.....................................................................7 Technological Space and Clutter.........................................................9 Emotional Clutter...........................................................................10 Physical Body and Clutter................................................................12 Spiritual Clutter..............................................................................13 Where Does Clutter Come From?......................................................14 Needing Some Place for the Stuff to Go.............................................17 Scarcity and Lack...........................................................................20 Lack of Love..................................................................................22 Recording #2....................................................................................25 Clearing Emotions, Events, and Conflicts............................................25 The Feeling of “Overwhelmed”..........................................................27 Tapping on the Feeling of “Overwhelmed”..........................................29 Tapping on Decision-Making.............................................................33 More Tapping on “Overwhelmed”......................................................35 The Fear of Facing Clutter................................................................38 The Fear of Facing “IT” (Whatever IT Is)............................................39 Tapping on the Fear of Facing “IT”....................................................40 Tapping on Refusing to Face “IT”......................................................42 Tapping on the Fear of Facing “IT” When There’s “Too Much”................44 Tapping on Being Too Busy..............................................................46 The Itch of Scarcity........................................................................48 Tapping on Scarcity........................................................................50 Tapping on “Not Enough”.................................................................51 Recording #3....................................................................................54 Abandonment, Hurt, and Clutter.......................................................54 Tapping on Abandonment................................................................57 Tapping on Rejection......................................................................59 Tapping on Clinging........................................................................61 Tapping on Anger...........................................................................67 Tapping on Rebelliousness...............................................................69 Tapping on “Accept Me the Way I Am”...............................................70 Tapping on Anger...........................................................................72 Tapping on Guilt.............................................................................74 Tapping on Family Clutter................................................................75

Carol Look & Rick Wilkes — www.ClearingClutterWithEFT.com


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Tapping on Guilt and Money.............................................................80 Recording #4....................................................................................82 Guilt, Shame, and Clutter................................................................82 Tapping on Shame in General..........................................................84 Tapping on Shame from Parents.......................................................86 Tapping on Shame About Clutter......................................................87 The Habit of Clutter........................................................................90 Tapping on a Bad Habit of Cluttering.................................................93 Specific Events Tied to Clutter..........................................................94 Tapping on Specific Events - What Someone Did.................................98 Tapping on Rebelliousness.............................................................100 Tapping on Specific Events - What Someone Said..............................101 Recording #5..................................................................................105 What Clutters Our Vibration?..........................................................105 Tapping on What Others Think........................................................107 Tapping on External Approval.........................................................109 Tapping on Intrusive Behavior from Loved Ones................................112 Tapping on the Past......................................................................114 Tapping on the Future (Part 1).......................................................117 Tapping on the Future (Part 2).......................................................118 Tapping on the Habit of Negativity..................................................123 Tapping on Appreciating Yourself....................................................125 Recording #6..................................................................................128 Review of Physical & Emotional Clutter............................................128 Tapping on Being Busy..................................................................131 Tapping on Where to Start.............................................................134 Tapping on Emotional Interference..................................................136 Tapping on Backsliding..................................................................138 Tapping on Building Habits.............................................................140 Tapping on Needing More..............................................................146



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Disclaimer The information presented on these recordings is educational in nature, and is provided only as general information. Emotional Freedom Techniques, often known as EFT, is a technique referred to as a type of energy therapy. To date, EFT has yielded remarkable results for relieving emotional and physical distress. EFT appears to have promising mental, spiritual, and physical health benefits, but has yet to be fully researched by the Western academic, medical, and psychological communities. Therefore, EFT could be considered experimental, and since EFT is a relatively new healing approach, the extent of its effectiveness as well as its risks and benefits are not fully known or understood. You agree and understand that the information contained in these recordings is only for your personal use. You further agree and understand that if you choose to use EFT, it is possible that emotional or physical sensations, or additional unresolved memories may surface, which could be perceived as negative side effects. Previously vivid or traumatic memories may fade, which could adversely impact your ability to provide detailed legal testimony regarding a traumatic incident. The information presented on these recordings is not intended to represent that EFT is used to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or psychological disorder. EFT is not a substitute for medical or psychological mental health treatment. Any stories or testimonials presented on these recordings do not constitute a warranty, guarantee, or prediction regarding the outcome of an individual using EFT for any particular issue. Further, you understand that Carol Look and Rick Wilkes do not know how you will personally respond to EFT, or whether EFT will help you with a particular issue. Carol Look and Rick Wilkes accept no responsibility or liability whatsoever for the use or misuse of the information contained on these recordings. Carol Look and Rick Wilkes strongly advise you to seek professional advice as appropriate before implementing any protocol or opinion expressed in these recordings, including EFT, and before making any health decisions. By continuing to listen to these recordings and using the transcripts, you knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently assume these risks, including any adverse outcome that might result from using EFT, and agree to release, indemnify, hold harmless, and defend Carol Look and Rick Wilkes and their heirs, agents, consultants, and employees from and against any and all claims which you or your representatives may have, or any loss, damage or injury of any kind or nature arising out of or in connection with listening to these recordings, reading these transcripts, and using EFT. The recordings and transcripts are copyrighted and unauthorized reproduction of these recordings and documents is prohibited by federal law. Please enjoy these recordings, and have fun with EFT!



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Recording #1 The Basics About Clutter (starts @ 03:15) Carol Look: Welcome, everyone! This is Recording #1, our introduction and definition about the basics about clutter. Welcome, Rick! Rick Wilkes: Hi, Carol! Carol: Definition of clutter - we have lots of people listening who have clutter in all parts of their lives, and I thought we would go through some descriptions and examples and just get people’s heads around different versions of clutter in their life. Some people are going to be listening who don’t quite think they have much, but they’re interested, and I think we can pique their interest even more. Rick: A lot of people also think of clutter as that physical stuff that’s in your life and we’re going to be talking here about some of the other aspects of clutter in your emotional space, in your body, and in other aspects in your life as well.

Physical Space and Clutter (starts @ 04:11) Carol: Let’s start with the physical space, because that’s the obvious one that is bringing most people to the recordings and that come to us for coaching in our practices. Physical space clutter: let’s give some obvious examples. The tables with mail on it. Piles and piles of mail that people walk by and it changes your energy when it’s cluttered. Piles and piles of books in the corners of offices, on tables and couches - what else? Give some other examples that are obvious. Rick: Well, to me, the physical clutter - what defines it as clutter is it’s causing you some distress. You’re looking at it, and it doesn’t feel right. It changes the space in a way that isn’t pleasing to you. It’s not comfortable. You have judgments about it. You look at it, and it doesn’t look organized.



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When you want to go into the space and get something, you feel more distressed about it than you normally would have if you went in to find something in that space that might even be very full, but isn’t cluttered. You think about a library. There is organizational structure to that that allows us to go in, find it, take it off the shelf, bring it back, and you know where it’s going to go. In a lot of people’s spaces, there is either no organization or the organization is so chaotic that it causes them to stress. I separate that from someone that has a quote “filing system” that’s all their own, that doesn’t cause them distress. I don’t necessarily think that somebody’s desk, which has a bunch of piles on it, is necessarily cluttered if they have a system and it’s not causing them distress, and they’re not spending a lot of emotional or intellectual energy worrying about it. That’s just a different kind of space. But we know that, if you have a space that is not energetically feeling safe, comfortable, and flowing to you, that that’s a problem. And also, to me, in physical space, as people’s lives change and as their vibration changes, a space that might have been comfortable to you before, might start feeling cluttered or overwhelming as your vibration changes. As you start feeling more abundant, interestingly enough, you often want to simplify your spaces, so clutter in a physical space looks like that to me. And also big spaces where you are hoarding things, keeping them aside for one day - “maybe if this happens, I might need this”. The garage that you can’t get into and you don’t even know what’s in there because it’s holding all the stuff that you didn’t feel emotionally free enough and safe enough to let go of. Carol: I think “chaos” is a key word here, because you’re right. I can go into your place and think it’s cluttered, and you can come into mine and think it’s cluttered, but if it doesn’t create a chaotic response inside you energetically, then it’s not cluttered. It doesn’t get to be called “cluttered”. My desk - some people wouldn’t be able to find anything. I know exactly where everything is on that desk. And that’s really important - that notion of chaos. When you look at your pile or your desk or the corner or the garage, does it give you that electrical charge that doesn’t feel good? I was working with someone on the abundance tapes and he said, “When I think of my pile of bills and the paperwork on my desk and the taxes,” he said, “Ugh! I feel terrible!” That was clutter. Rick: Yes. Carol: That was chaotic clutter to his energy. Then again, somebody else might look at it and not have that reaction. I think one thing that does seem to happen is people get used to it, and they get that shudder in their body, and they ignore it. It’s still having an energetic effect on them that’s



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negative, but they kind of pretend they don’t see it or they ignore it or they look over it, and that’s not good for us energetically either. Rick: I do believe that people’s spaces often are a mirror to what their inner life is like. And, if you walk into a space as someone who is normally pretty balanced and comfortable, and it feels chaotic, discordant, chances are the owner of that space is living in that energy all the time. There are practices like feng shui and the energetic tuning of spaces, but almost everybody can walk into a space and get a feeling of…for me: “Does this make me feel comfortable, safe, energized, or relaxed?” Different spaces can have different energies. You may want a space that has a very creative, energizing effect. You may want a physical space that has a relaxing, nurturing, cuddle-me kind of feeling to it. The clutter aspect of it is, “Hey, there’s something wrong with this space. It’s not nurturing me.” That’s one of the things we’re going to help people with. Another aspect to me, Carol, is the entropy rule about the universe: that in any space, it will tend toward disorder. And for me, clutter is something that there is always going to be a gap between the perfect organization of the space and where it is in that moment. We want to help people feel surprisingly comfortable with a space that has got some work to be done on it and feel surprisingly comfortable moving forward and cleaning up the space, organizing it in a very relaxed, natural pace, without having to have that pressure on ourselves to get it done “right here, right now, because it’s driving me insane”. Sometimes we don’t have the time to do that right in that moment.

Abundance and Clutter (starts @ 10:02) Carol: Before we talk about emotional, bodily, and spiritual clutter, let’s talk a little bit about how it interferes with abundance, because you and I did a podcast on this which was very exciting, and we both agree that if you are cluttered and energetically feel that energy which seems negative and off or chaotic, that will affect your vibration. And we are all about changing your vibration, raising your vibration to be able to attract and keep abundance in your life moving and flowing, to be able to attract and keep it in your life. And if you walk into your home or your office and you just close your eyes out of disgust for your own clutter, you are not in an energetic place that is abundant. So part of why we decided to do this together was about abundance and what gets in our way, and clutter is one of the main things.



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And again, we’ll talk more about emotional, bodily, and spiritual clutter. We’ve already talked about the physical space clutter, but it’s critical to our being able to receive abundance, I believe. Rick: Receiving abundance financially and experiencing it emotionally has a lot to do with the state of being that a space evokes within us. That’s what I was talking about. One of the things that we are going to want you to look at as a part of this program is, for each of your spaces, what kind of state of being does it naturally evoke, and anything that doesn’t fit within that, if you call it clutter, we can help you start shifting that space, shifting the energy of that space so that it feels more pleasing to you, that it is evoking that state of being. To me, abundance is about a wide variety of states of being, including feeling very comfortable as well as feeling energized, eager, and curious. As I walk into my office, I feel overwhelmed instantly. Well, that’s not an emotion of abundance, and so it’s hard for me to tune into abundance. That means that I’m not going to be looking for opportunity open to opportunity - as much as I’m just going to be trying to tread water and get it all taken care of - getting it all taken care of, trying to make do with the mess. That uses a lot more energy actually than creating something new that might bring financial abundance in, that might open up relationships. Those types of things actually take less energy than all of the other stuff, usually, for a lot of people that are struggling with clutter. Carol: Right - it’s just like you’re trying to catch up by cleaning up. Catch up, catch up, and then you never sit down. Also, I believe it can be used as a way to procrastinate. It’s a good excuse. “Well, I can’t do that project yet because I haven’t cleaned up…” You know the old joke about being in school, when you’ve got a term paper, you suddenly clean up your room! Rick: (laughing) Carol: “Well, you know, I can’t work on the term paper before my laundry is done and my room is clean!” And I think it can just be woven into our lives in a dysfunctional way, in everything.



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Technological Space and Clutter (starts @ 13:05) Rick: We have to address, in terms of physical space, also the technological spaces that we have. Carol: Thank you. Rick: When you are looking at your inbox, and it gives you the same sense that it would if each one of those emails was printed out and strewn out all over your office. If that’s the same kind of feeling you get, then it is cluttered and having as much of a drain on your focus, choices, as anything. If your hard drives, if your documents, and all of those areas are causing you those same types of distress, techniques that we are going to be teaching you, they will also be able to help you to shift those areas. And again, procrastination applies there. Some people spend a lot of time massaging their inboxes rather than moving forward in the areas that are priorities that gives them that feeling of abundance. That is using clutter as that block to doing the other things. That’s why what we’re going to be doing is not just talking about how to clean it up, but looking at how do you clean it up? What ways, when you get into one of your cleanup binges, is it really serving you, or is it maybe a higher vibration way of doing that that will be more sustainable, more pleasing to you, give you a sense of a foundation that can support all the other aspects of your life. Carol: With one click of a button, I deleted 17,000 emails one day. I had to really think about it. “Do I need these? What’s the point? What if… suppose…” and we’ll get into that more later with the emotional pieces, but I haven’t turned back, haven’t missed them for one minute, and that was several months ago. There was an interesting exercise for me about that kind of clutter on the computer. Computers haven’t saved me anything as far as clutter. I have more paperwork and more emails and more stuff and junk than ever. That was an interesting exercise.



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Emotional Clutter (starts @ 14:58) Carol: Now, emotional clutter: some of these are obvious, but we just want to talk about these. It was very helpful for us with each other, Rick and I, when we were planning this, to talk through some of these stages of clutter. Now, emotional clutter: we are experts in helping people release some of that, just in basic EFT and just in coaching sessions, and sometimes people come to us, and they just say, “I don’t know where to start. I’m overwhelmed.” In helping them with EFT to maybe categorize, or say, “Okay, let’s put this in this compartment”, and “What overwhelms you?”, “What’s the family issue?”, “What’s the money issue?”, “What’s the grandparent issue?”, “ What’s the boss issue?” That alone can help someone feel less cluttered emotionally. Now, some people hold on to every feeling. If that’s a good image for you, the way you might hold on to every piece of paper, hold on to every book or every pamphlet you get from a workshop, and you have too much of it. People can hold on to emotions that way, whether it’s nursing grudges, or they just think too much about all the feelings they have toward everybody, and they’re not clear. And if you’re not clear, you’re not taking the next right step toward your own abundance and that could be an abundance of love, an abundance of money, an abundance of priority - an abundance of anything. So clarity for us is key in our work. So emotional clutter can come in many, many forms: too many feelings, too many thoughts, not being able to turn it off at night, to turn off your monkey mind. Rick: Yes. Carol: Lots of ways to have emotional clutter. You’re kind of too upset and too anxious about what other people think about you - I find that cluttering for people. There are lots of ways that some of you listening say…”Well, my office is very neat, and my home is very clean.” But emotionally, there’s “back and forth, back and forth, left, right, left, right, forward, back, what if…”, so much noise that they really can’t take a step. That’s critical, to look at the emotional clutter that we all have. Rick: Emotional clutter, to me, impacts our relationships in enormous ways. If I think about a particular person, and I’ve held on to a lot of different negative experiences that we might have had - little ones, big ones - I cannot be fully present with that person. You’re going to have in your heart and around you all the different emotions that you are holding as you relate to that person. One of the things that attracted me most to EFT was being



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able to clear that emotional clutter so that I could be very simple and present with the people in my life without having to have all of this other noise. Emotional noise keeps you from hearing what someone is really communicating to you. Emotional clutter acts as heavy weights on our heart, the senses of big and little betrayals, the senses of not being heard, manipulated - all of those things play into the tapestry that we have around the people in our lives, from our bosses to our mates. That kind of clutter, you can feel it. When you think of people, do you have a very simple, uplifted feeling about them, or do you remember this, that, and the other thing that “gosh, yeah, well, that person would be perfect if it wasn’t for (blank)…” and if you have a long list of (blanks), then you have emotional clutter. The other problem with emotional clutter is that it holds people to the past that they had. It would be like if you were seeing them through negative movies that you had around them from a year ago, or five years ago, or twenty years ago, or fifty years ago. You’re seeing them as that person. Each one of us is changing moment to moment. With some people that’s very obvious, and they’re moving up the Vibrational Scale; with some people, less so. But the emotional clutter, as you clear that, suddenly now you’re relating to the person that is, right here, right now, rather than the person that was three years ago. Carol: Now that’s a great point and angle that you bring up. If you and I met each other in person, and we haven’t seen each other in a while, and we are bringing clutter to each other about each other. I was thinking in terms of just clutter in general in your mind emotionally. You also can’t be present. Rick: No. Carol: Well, I may want to be present to you, and be totally clear about the two of us in our relationship, but if I’ve got clutter about everybody else in my life, in business, in a business deal, and a future thing I’m doing with a family member, I’m also not present. So again, back to that clarity and that ability to be present and listen and pay attention. It’s actually an interesting sign. If someone’s talking to you and they’re not there, where are they? Rick: (laughing) They’re off in their emotional clutter. Carol: They’re in their emotional clutter.



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Physical Body and Clutter (starts @ 15:20) Carol: Okay, how about we do the physical body and clutter? Because I think this can come out in some pretty interesting ways. A basic might be for some people, I had a client say she felt that way with her weight loss. There was all this extra stuff she was holding on to, on her body, and she was almost ready to let it go. She felt like it might as well have been her messy office. It was an interesting image and angle from which to see it. That was interesting for her, just saying, “I’ve cluttered up my bones and my body by covering them with all this extra...” Rick: I believe that excess weight - when you really feel like you have more weight than you need - the primitive brain has been carrying around the pantry with you. Perhaps 10,000 years ago when we didn’t have grocery stores, it was important for survival, if you were under stress a lot, to carry with you a lot of stuff. A lot of those things had an expiration date a long, long time ago, and if we can help clear those energies and free them up to be reinvested in some way, in the same way that, if you had a coin collection that was gathering dust, and you felt like you wanted to go on vacation, that that would be a better experience, if you sold the coin collection and took the money to have that experience, you’d be reinvesting one form of energy into a different form of energy - from the physical coin collection to an experience. Clutter in the body in terms of stored energy, in the form of fat, is one way that, as you clear that out, you’re reinvesting that in other things in your life: movement, vitality, creativity. There’s also those pains and traumas that are stored in a hip, in a knee. They can be speaking to us constantly. You and I, through our program “Pain Relief With EFT”, looking at these specific events and where they can be stored in the body as well as the emotional things that keep coming up, coming up, coming up. Sometimes if you listen to the body and take inventory of the areas that you’re paying attention to in a negative way and start addressing these specific events and big and little traumas of your life, it clears the clutter from the energy flow in your body. It’s like taking a creek and taking the big rocks and the logs and the rotted stumps out of it. It gets your energy moving more smoothly. Just like a room has a flow of energy, your body has an even more dynamic flow of energy. Clearing the clutter from that makes an enormous difference in your experience of life. Carol: Right, you have more energy. It’s like sleeping. If your mind is cluttered, you won’t sleep well. And if you don’t sleep well, you don’t have much energy. They all come together.



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Spiritual Clutter (starts @ 22:40) Carol: So how about spiritual clutter? Let’s talk a little bit about that and how does that show up with someone. Rick: Spiritual clutter, in the form of the inner critic. Carol: Mmm-hmm. Rick: When someone has an inner critic, or a whole team of inner critics that are yapping at you all the time, it’s hard to hear inner guidance. “Inner guide” is a soft, still, quieter, less assertive energy. It guides more gently than “inner critic”. So, as you address those critical, self-critical, self-hating kinds of energies - as you quiet yourself - as you allow yourself to go to a state of peaceful simplicity and awareness, now you’ve got that connection to source energy, which provides power. It provides guidance. That’s what I find - when people have a lot of clutter around that connection, clearing that clutter so that they can powerfully and consciously and intentionally connect to source energy. (Rick takes a deep breath.) “Ahh - now things are flowing quite differently.” Carol: When people have the “shoulds”, I know they have spiritual clutter. Rick: (laughing) Carol: They’re not connected, as you say. When “Mom say this”, “Dad says this”, “the neighbor says this” and “coach says this”- okay, but what does your guidance say? “I don’t know. I can’t hear it!” Rick: “They’re ‘should-ing’ all over themselves” is the way I describe it. The “shoulds”, “have- tos”, “I must” - that shuts us off from spiritual guidance, which is much more attuned to “Where am I and where do I want to go?” and doesn’t use “shoulds”, “musts”, and “have-tos” in order to guide us and let us go with that flow. Carol: Before we take a brief break, before we talk about where it all comes from, let’s talk about the question, “How does it serve you?” I think, for everyone listening, that would be a valuable question. Let’s say you have physical space clutter. How does it serve you? Is there any upside? Let’s say you have bodily clutter, whether in the form of pain or weight or arthritis



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in your knees. How does it serve you? Is there any upside to it? Does it help you do something or get a need met? Is there anything positive about it? Because if there is, and we just try to tap it away, you’ll take it back because you need to be safe with it. Being safe with it is more important than letting it go. So I think that’s a valuable question. How does it serve you to have this spiritual clutter? Rick: You taught me the question, “If I didn’t have this clutter, what would I have to be thinking about? What would I have in my face if I didn’t have this?” That’s a very powerful question to ask. A lot of times, I can’t see the upside of keeping the clutter, but if I imagine it gone, all of a sudden now I know that there are things that are maybe outside of my comfort zone that I have been putting off, I don’t want to look at, I don’t feel supported looking at, that are unsafe, risky, etc. It may not make logical sense at all. In fact, often times they don’t. Carol: We’ll keep asking that question as we go through exercises, talk more about where clutter comes from, and do the EFT exercises with all of you. We’ll continue to ask, “How does it serve you? Is there any way that having spiritual clutter, mind chatter, emotional clutter, physical space clutter - is there any way that it gives you something or gets your needs met by protecting you in any way that we could look at?”, and then of course use EFT for the energy of that.

Where Does Clutter Come From? (starts @ 26:17) Carol: So, Rick, where does clutter come from? Rick: One of the places that it comes from is from our family history and the type of family that we are. I picture a family of hunters thousands of years ago. They probably traveled pretty light. They had to be able to pack up and carry with them everything that they owned. That meant a certain simplicity - that everything had a very strict function to it, and if it wasn’t valuable, it wasn’t worth carrying. And then other groups that were geographically located could start collecting lots and lots of things, and there were cultures where acquisitions and wealth and jewels and other things were the way that you established your status within the tribe. Those things have gone with us and evolved through time. We all know people where what you own is the definition of who you are.



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Carol: How much stuff do you have? Rick: I used to have a t-shirt “He who dies with the most toys wins.” I gave that away when my energy shifted around that! That was one of the things that is a drum beat that I heard and I listened to, and I said, “Hey! That sounds pretty good! I will go that route.” So that was one of the family history types of things. It also comes from contrast, doesn’t it, Carol? Carol: The contrast of scarcity? Rick: If you grew up without it, you may want a lot of things, thinking that that was the answer. Carol: Both can happen, so you and I talk about modeled habits. So, if your parents modeled holding on to stuff, you can either follow that model because you think that’s right, or you might get repulsed by that and give everything away as a result. If your parents felt a scarcity issue, they held on to stuff that wasn’t valuable because they thought that would help them feel valued. Rick: Right. Carol: You know, you can go both directions. You know, my favorite expression is, if you grew up in France, you speak French. Well, if you grow up in a household, whatever you see at home, we usually take with us - our parents’ attitudes, their patterns, our grandparents’ attitudes about stuff. It’s about jewelry, books, paper, clothing, carpets, art work, television sets anything - chairs, dining room tables. You also get involved in that “well, this was my great-great-grandfather’s…”. Well, it’s broken! “But this was my great-great-grandmother’s…”. It’s broken! It’s not worth anything. And that “yes, but…” feeling of you can’t possibly get rid of anything that was part of the family, that comes from a whole emotional energy there, too. So, you and I talk a lot about “Does clutter come from a need to hold on?” Now, is that from your parents? Is that from one experience? Maybe there was an event in your life - and we’ll use EFT with many specific events maybe there was an event that taught you “you gotta hold on, because if you don’t hold on, you’ll be in trouble, you’ll feel lax, you’ll regret it”. You know the old joke about, “if you throw something out, next week you’ll need it!” Rick: That thought is in the air. We’ve all heard it. As soon as you have that experience, it will reinforce that statement, that idea, that as soon as you get rid of it, you’ll need it. If that happens to you once, you will tend to want to move away from the pain of feeling like “Oh, well, I just gave that



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away…” Addressing that in the moment with EFT can be a big help, keeping you from changing your behavior in a way that is not pleasing to you. I think of children who were told to share and maybe they had candy that they wanted to keep, or they had certain things that they wanted that were taken from them, like a toy that was taken prematurely for some reason. “My baby blanket was taken from me before I was ready to let it go!” Those things, we don’t know for sure whether it causes a desire to hold on, hold on, hold on. But if you start having memories like that, as you think about the things that are cluttering your life and you’ve got a resistance from letting go of the thing that so clearly, logically, no-one would accuse you of doing anything silly by getting rid of it. If you still have a feeling of holding on, guess what? There are almost certainly some events from your life that could be used effectively with EFT to shift that “I need to hold on to…” feeling. Carol: And maybe you heard someone talk about that. “Oh, darn it, I shouldn’t have gotten rid of that.” Maybe you were eight and heard an aunt or an uncle or a parent say that. Maybe you did it yourself, and maybe you were ordered to clean up your room at age ten and you threw something out that you wish you hadn’t thrown out. There are so many small instances as well as enormous ones that could lead to the need to hold on. So we’re going to be very flexible, go all the way to both sides of the continuum about why emotionally we might feel the need to hold on to material objects, books, clothing, scarves…you know how many people have a box of extra mittens, right? Fifteen extra pairs of one-sided mittens, because you might need them one day! Rick: Or how about that sock that doesn’t have a match? You keep waiting for it to reappear after its vacation for two years, and you still have those unmatched socks, rather than just taking the whole basket and dumping it out and buying another set for $1.99 at the store? Those are things that give us insight into our energy. You don’t have to take necessarily the big ones. You can take the small ones, the silly ones, and that will give you a doorway that we’re going to show you how to use that to affect the rest of your life, too. Sometimes it’s the simple stuff, isn’t it, Carol? When you shift the simple things, the bigger ones start becoming easier and easier and easier?



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Needing Some Place for the Stuff to Go (starts @ 32:32) Carol: Yes, absolutely, and also this reminds me of something else. It also has to have someplace to go. When I found a fantastic second-hand shop that I could bring bags and bags of clothing and socks and books - they take everything. They’ll take an old picture frame - they’ll take anything. When I found that, that changed how I handled clutter, believe it or not. There was a sense of “I don’t know where to put it. Who am I going to give it to? What am I going to do with it?” It sounds odd, but that shifted something energetically. That, and my office building, half a year ago, put in an enormous industrial shredder in our lobby of our building by the mailbox holders. So, I now feel totally free. I take reams of paper and paperwork and old workshop flyers and things and bills and things that I don’t need and shred it. Now, some people are thinking, “What, you didn’t know how to throw it out?” No, I needed a place to put it where I felt safe getting rid of it. Rick: Yes. Carol: And having a second-hand store that is fantastic where I can take piles and piles and having a shredder…it changed the feeling of being able to let go. Now, I wouldn’t have been open to that had I not been doing all of my energy EFT work on letting go. So that had to come first, then lo and behold, I mean I’ve been doing this taking things to the second-hand store. You helped me with that one time financially when I said, “It’s hard to give away something that you’ve spent a lot of money on.” You helped me realize about the abundance about it, that you’re giving it to someone else. It’s not being thrown in the garbage. It is being given to someone else. Take it to the second-hand store. Give the couch for no money. Give it away, whatever you hold on to, whether it’s furniture or books. I’m starting to give away books, and it feels good. It feels really good. Rick: I used to hold on to my books. I used to hold on to clothes. I used to hold on to so many things, and I think you’re right on with that. We need to feel good and safe in the recycling/reuse process. Most of the things that we have that we think are clutter are not just trash. Carol: Right. Rick: If it was just trash, if you’re holding on to dirty lollipop wrappers, then it’s a different level of intensity around needing to hold on to. Most



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people that say they have a cluttered house, it’s not necessarily a dirty place, it’s just that there are things that they are not ready to move on. I agree with you - in terms of paperwork, for me, dumping it out in a bin that was on its way to the county dump, and I knew somebody was not going to be able to go through it, that provided a measure of safety. Shredding it is great because most of the shredded materials end up being recycled and end up in toilet paper and stuff like that. It’s wonderful. So, I believe that there are ways of allowing that energy to transform and move and flow, but like you said, you won’t see them. You’ll make excuses why it’s not going to work for you. You won’t even see the tax deduction that you get from donating clothes and books and the like, which can be very considerable. You won’t see those things if your programming is, “I have to hold on to this. I need to hold on to this, or I will feel worse for the not having than the having.” Carol: One time I was taking a whole load of clothes to a Salvation Army, and in it - the Salvation Army was actually built like a store as well - there was some seventeen-year-old kid who found a black suit or a tuxedo for his prom, and he bought it for like two dollars. Some man gave a tuxedo that probably cost hundreds of dollars, and this seventeen-year-old kid paid three dollars for it, and he was beaming! I was like, suddenly energetically, “I got it! I get it! I get it!” That sense of “I might need this one day” or “Who’s going to use it?”, there are millions of people who can use the book you read and loved, who can use that sweater that, you know what, it’s not your style any more. You’ve moved to a different… Rick: Your energy has changed! Every time someone’s energy changes, the clothes that used to work for you are not going to work for you. And unless you backpedaled to junior high school, chances are you’re not going to be interested in wearing those clothes any more. I had always wondered what the “nearly new” shop did with the clothes that nobody seemed to buy. They went off to Guatemala. Every year, some of the local surgeons would go down and do free surgery down in Guatemala, and when they did, they would take shipping crates worth of clothes and materials and other things that were appropriate for the villagers that they would be seeing. And they were like Santa Claus for these people - the shirts and socks and things that we may not be happy with, there are people in different places in terms of financial abundance that can be happy with it. If you find that that idea makes you tense and uncomfortable, we’re delighted to have you listen, because that is the energy that, if it shifts, you will find a lot of things start flowing in your life. And it’s okay to be there. We all pick these things up. We can pick them up from movies, from our family, from bosses, friends just the experience of living can say, “It’s better to hold on than to let go.” From a flow standpoint, that’s not true.



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Carol: I remember first being in New York, and living in these tiny apartments and not having enough furniture or a little ceramic thing for the table - I mean, I didn’t have anything. So I would kind of collect stuff that was neither my style, my preference, my taste, I didn’t buy it. If someone was throwing something out, I was happy to have it. I don’t mean grungy stuff, but you know - someone would say, “I don’t need this ashtray any more”, and it’s like, well, I wasn’t smoking any more, but “I’d like an ashtray on my table!” Rick: (laughing) Carol: Because I had nothing. I was living in a studio apartment. I was lucky to have a couple of chairs. So that feeling took a while to let go of. That sense - we have categories - that needing to hold on, the insecurity, “there’s not enough”, “even though it’s not great, grab it anyway”. “There’s not enough, so why don’t you…” People do that with overeating, too. There’s not enough food, so they’ll eat more of something they don’t like because there might not be enough food tomorrow. Well, we do that with items - with material objects. We fear that there’s not going to be enough for us and we hold on. Rick: Then there is the “what if…” game. “What if I need this…”, what if, what if, what if, what if - all the negative what-ifs that you can ask around a specific thing that has you put it back instead of letting it move on. Carol: Right. So, the fear of “we might need it one day”, “if only I had held on to…”, “what if…” - that’s connected to regret. What we’re going to get more into the emotions, the lack of, and how our emotions make us hold on rather than a life experience of “I threw something out and I wish I hadn’t because I needed it.” That “I might need it one day” - I hear that over and over and over again in this society. People tease about it. It’s a cliché: “Oh, you might need that one day!” People talk about that even when they don’t really believe it. That’s a very common topic. “Oh, you might need that one day!” They’re teasing. They’re talking around the water cooler: “Don’t clean up your office…” I think that’s a very common topic of conversation. Rick: I think it’s also a way of covering for the emotional discomfort that people have about letting it go. I say, “I might need it some day”, and I can’t argue with it. Right? You might need that carburetor from that 1974 Chevy Vega that you haven’t owned for 15 years. “You might need it some day. It might be worth something someday.” That’s the other side of it. “It might be worth something someday.”



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Carol: That’s the abundance… Rick: “Yep, look at those Beanie Babies. They might be, if they’re in pristine condition!” But are they really something that you’re enjoying having in your space and in your life? You can always go back and re-buy them, if you want, and if you’re in a place of abundance, that’s one of the measures: if something really isn’t life or death, and it’s right to let go of, if you can’t, then to me, that’s a sign that you’ve got an energy around it that isn’t as healthy and useful and resourceful.

Scarcity and Lack (starts @ 41:00) Carol: Yes, and that it’s being used for the wrong reasons. So let’s talk about scarcity and lack. Rick: Okay. Carol: In scarcity and lack, maybe you don’t have your physical needs met. Maybe you grew up in poverty and you really didn’t have enough clothes or enough warmth or enough shoes. That’s a serious, real physical lack and scarcity. But now you’ve grown up and you have a job, and you actually are providing for yourself and you have enough. It may not feel plentiful, but you have clothes and shoes and a roof over your head. You know, it’s hard to grow out of that, where one day… I’ve always had clients talk to me about how they grew up so poor, and they’re wealthy now, or wealthy by comparison. Rick: Yes. Carol: They have a job and they do have a home, and they’re so afraid that they’re going to go back to being poor, the way they were as a child. They can’t let go of that. All the signs are there that they’ve changed that energy - they have an income and they have a salary and they’re taking care of themselves much better than the previous generation, but that energy is in them. “Yes, but what if I ever go back to that poverty state I was in as a kid?” It’s very powerful. Rick: You didn’t have a pair of shoes that fit, so now you can’t even let go of the shoes that are so well worn out, or that you will never wear again. You were short of food for a while, legitimately, and it was painful -



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traumatic, even. So now, your pantry has to be stocked to overflowing, and your refrigerator has to be stocked to overflowing. You don’t feel comfortable unless it is. Those are signs of that scarcity and lack. It’s not a mentality only - we call it a mentality - but it’s a feeling in the body. It’s a whole-body experience of discomfort when you think about changing that. Recognize that it’s not a behavior that’s serving you, that may have led you to this program. Now, what we’re going to be doing is help you feel comfortable shifting that, by acknowledging and doing a little detective work about where that lack of physical needs being met early in your life is still being run and experienced now - and run amok, to a certain extent. Carol: And by the way, if your energy is in that lack because of what you grew up with (or didn’t grow up with), stocking the refrigerator and the pantry doesn’t scratch the itch. If you didn’t grow up with enough shoes and socks and clothing or enough warmth, having fifteen thousand sweaters doesn’t actually do the job, but we are under the illusion that it does. Rick: I think it does self-medicate, but it’s a self-medication that lasts for a very short period of time. It’s really a case where any change in the negative direction is a trend that you’re sensitive to. So as long as you’re accumulating more and more and more and more, you’re comfortable, but as soon as that trend starts changing, where you start feeling like stuff is moving out rather than more and more and more stuff being accumulated whoa, now we’ve got the problem. That’s the trigger. It doesn’t matter whether you’re starting from a thousand pair of shoes or ten. If you have an issue around needing lots of physical things, if the trend shifts the other way…uh-oh. Your being will start sabotaging any effort - sometimes rather dramatically sabotaging. Carol: No one ever accumulates unless they have an energetic place of lack that they’re trying to fill. It’s not normal to accumulate for no reason, just for security. In other words, it comes from an emotion. It comes from energy. You’re not reading the book. You couldn’t possibly read the thousands of books. You couldn’t possibly go through all those papers. I used to hold on to all the old workshop brochures that I put out, or my 20and 30-page pamphlets that I gave to people from 1998, my first EFT workshops, 1997 - and I got to the point where I realized, “I don’t need that one day! I won’t need that!” But it was an insecurity of “Yes, but what if someone needs it? What if I need to copy it? What if I need to do another…” I have so moved on from that time period in my life, and even how I teach EFT, but I had to really wrap my head around that, and it was wonderfully cleansing when I did. We’re offering people a way to clear and to cleanse, because I must say that it’s very hard to do it by yourself. If you’ve had the lack of food and the lack of physical needs - and what about



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lack of love? Let’s talk about that for a little bit. If you’ve experienced a lack of love, what might you hold on to in your life?

Lack of Love (starts @ 45:00) Rick: Anything that gives you comfort. Anything that makes you feel loved. The person that had a lack of love generally, but felt loved when Grandma brought her some chocolate chip cookies, will want to hoard chocolate chip cookies as well as other food and things that evoke the same energy. If you felt loved and safe escaping into books - and a lot of people did as children they would be able to pick up a book and escape into it, and it would allow them to not be in their body and in their current life. Well, why in the world would you ever want to get rid of a single book? Because the books represented not only love, but safety. Those are, for me, some of the key examples. What do you think of when you see people compensate for lack of love with clutter? Carol: Before I say that, I want to go back to one of your earlier points that, if you have a beautiful library of a thousand books, and you walk in and you feel happy there - not energetically disturbed or chaotic - then that’s not clutter. Rick: It isn’t. Carol: Keep your lovely, beautiful books! You’re not self-medicating - it’s fantastic! I just want to make that point again. It’s about your reaction and your response to the stuff in your life. But regarding love, I have found people literally hold on to and get cluttered with relationships. Rick: Oh. Carol: The relationships that aren’t serving them anymore, the relationships that are a drag on their energy, but they keep up. I think, “Now why is he keeping up with that person? You told me two weeks ago that they criticized you, and it’s no fun, and you felt like you had grown past them, but you can’t let go!” So they have two hundred close acquaintances… Rick: (laughing) …that they all have to send Christmas cards to every year, and call at least once a month…



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Carol: …which makes them feel special. So if that love issue - if you’re starving, if you’re starved from love and comfort and care and affection from your family, you may grow up and mistake and confuse quantity with quality. Rick: Can it also be that somebody makes a statement to themselves as a younger child, “I will never do this to someone else,” that they felt rejected and let go of. Carol: Yes. Rick: They say, “I will never turn away from anyone, even if that person is messing up my psyche. They’re being mean to me, disrespectful, there is no emotional or even physical safety. I’m not going to turn away from that person. I’ve got to hold on.” That’s a very good point about relationship clutter. I also think about groups. I hear about people that are on so many different committees… Carol: Right. Rick: …that they have all of these different areas where the ways that they’re trying to contribute to society is so cluttered, they don’t feel good anymore. They’re just doing too much. Again, I think it comes down to that looking at “Why is this serving you?” on some level. What rule would you be breaking if you let go of this? Carol: Right, and if you only feel valued because you contribute? I believe in contribution, absolutely, and doing service, but if you don’t feel valued without it, then you’ll be on fourteen committees, three local societal organizations…and you will be stretched beyond your capacity and not be giving to yourself or your family anymore. That would defeat the purpose. This is what you and I always see in our coaching practices and in our workshops with people who… they’re trying to get a need met, but they’re going about it backwards, the wrong way. It doesn’t meet the need, except for very temporarily, and then they end up more hungry later. Rick: I think you just defined what clutter is. Carol: I’m so glad people are listening to this, because we knew it was complicated. You know, everybody teases, “Oh, yeah, I’m so cluttered. I’m a mess. Oh, yes, my office…my home…” It is very complex. I won’t say complicated - it’s complex, energetically. We believe from our personal and professional experiences that you can make huge progress using EFT to clear the clutter emotionally, spiritually, physically, in your body, with



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relationships. You know those people who, their last 27 girlfriends or boyfriends are still buddies? Still pals? And I think, “Really? You didn’t like them enough to stay with them…” but they don’t want to let go of anybody. “No, we dated 23 years ago…” What are you doing? What’s the point? What is the point of keeping in touch with everyone? What is that serving? We’re back to “How does that serve you?” How is that really taking care of you? Maybe it’s taking care of you because you feel safer that you haven’t lost touch with anybody because some family member lost touch with your parents or your grandparents, and it’s a family story. Again, family stories and family patterns and habits are where we learn. That’s our first language. Rick: So, on the other side of clutter, there’s safety, there’s simplicity, there’s a “going with the flow”, and there’s an emotional freedom that allows you to choose the things to be in your life that feel really delicious, that give you that sense of abundance, that let you live a life that is thriving, enjoyable - that you can be eager about without dragging with you stuff that really can be left behind for someone else or recycling, composting, what have you. Carol: And you can be so much more creative when you’re not cluttered. Again, cluttered on any level, like what you’re saying with safety and simplicity on the other side. And creativity - there can be some real brilliance and inspiration on the other side when your energy isn’t being dampened by stuff. Rick: Thank you, Carol. Carol: Thank you!



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Recording #2 Clearing Emotions, Events, and Conflicts Carol: First thing, Rick: We need to decide whether we’re clearing an emotion, an event, or a conflict, because we treat those differently with EFT. Rick: Do you want to give us a little background on what you mean by that, Carol? Carol: With the emotion, if someone says, “I’m so cluttered because I feel anxious about all the work I have to do,” that’s in the now. Right now, they think about all the work they have to do and the feeling comes up in their body. That’s our target. Maybe they feel clutter because of an event in their life. Maybe something happened in their family, in their high school, in their college. Maybe something happened that somehow triggered this feeling of overwhelm and clutter. Then we go back to, “In 1992, ‘x’ happened, and this was the feeling,” and we tap on that. We have different targets. Rick: Yes. Right. Carol: A conflict might be…you know how people say, “My desk is messy, but I can find everything, so don’t touch it”? Some people think they should be all neat and tidy and noncluttered, but they really don’t work that way. It’s okay to have some, and honestly, their system does work for them. So that would be a conflict. So then we’d use “Even though I have a conflict about clutter, and I’m not sure I want to clean it up”, “even though people are saying “should, should, should”” - so then that’s important, too. Rick: Right. When people are doing it for the wrong reasons, they’re doing it because everyone else looks at them and judges them… Carol: Yes. Rick: …versus “What’s right for me?” Carol: Right.



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Rick: “What’s the level of organization?” - because organization is a time investment. It is. Carol: Absolutely. Rick: Things tend toward disorganization. The amount that you invest in the organization of various areas of your home, various areas of your office and your life, will depend both on your own personality and what works for the way that your brain is structured… Carol: Right. Rick: …as well as some compromise with other people in your life. What’s the balance? If you clear the conflict there, then you’ll be able to get clarity about what’s a YES for you. Carol: I think that’s important because you and I are really having fun doing this, and that’s really helping me with my clutter, and really, things are changing. However, no one needs to do it our way. That sense of you saying, “the judgment from others” - we’re just offering stuff to help you. If they want to shift the clutter and EFT energetically, we’ll shift the reason you have excess clutter that’s making you unhappy. If your clutter is making you unhappy, that’s a problem. If you’re happy with your clutter, you know what? Work on something else. Rick: (laughing) Chances are you’re not listening to this anyway! Carol: (laughing) True, true, true. So I thought we could start with the emotions, because they seem to be all over the place for everyone. We have so many emotions that we could tap on that would clear the clutter in the mind and in the energy. We have all sorts of emotions here: overwhelm, fear, scarcity, abandonment, anger, guilt, shame. Do you have a preference on where to start? Rick: Let’s start with overwhelm.



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The Feeling of “Overwhelmed” (starts @ 02:57) Carol: Overwhelm? Okay. Rick: Things that are inherent in clutter is that you look at it and there is no organization to it. You feel often that it’s clutter because it’s too much to get your hands around - too much to get through. Something that doesn’t feel that way, I’m not sure is even clutter. Carol: Right. Rick: So that’s why, to me, starting with overwhelm - the feeling that, “How do I do this?”. I think we’ll go from that emotion to some of the other subsidiary ones that are all around how you feel when you connect to the reality that is your clutter. Carol: Yes, and I think what’s hard for people and is so challenging is if you feel overwhelmed by your clutter, you can’t start cleaning it. Rick: No. Carol: So there’s this terrible cycle that happens, where “I’m overwhelmed by my clutter!” What you need to do to get less overwhelmed is to clean the garbage! You can’t clean the clutter because you’re overwhelmed! So again, EFT would be fabulous, and I’ve certainly done it with myself and with others for that overwhelming emotional feeling. Maybe your overwhelm is actually about your life and emotions, so then you become cluttered because you’re not paying attention to that, and it’s not overwhelm about looking at your clutter. Those are two separate tracks also. Rick: Right. Carol: Shall I lead you through one? Rick: That would be great! Carol: All right. As all of you know, we start on the Karate Chop point, and then go through the regular points, tapping. Rick: What’s our subject for this?



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Carol: Let’s have people look at their clutter and get that feeling of “overwhelmed”, and then we’re going to tap on that and then we might do “overwhelmed” with feelings in their life - what feels like clutter in their emotional life. Rick: Got it. Carol: They’re two separate ones. Okay? Rick: I’ve got a big pile of stuff that I put in a place where it has been piling up. I added to it this morning. I even have an empty box sitting there, too… Carol: (laughing) Rick: (laughing) …I’ve got all kinds of a mix of stuff there. Carol: I love using props. Rick: I can feel it coming already! Carol: Great! You and I love using props with EFT, right? Rick: Right. Carol: So the prop is in your office or your home or your purse or your briefcase or whatever. Look at the clutter. What does it do to you physiologically? Rick: The idea here is to build some intensity. Carol: Yes. Rick: We have gotten used to, many times, ignoring it - just not seeing it. That’s to avoid the overwhelm feeling. Carol: Yes. Rick: Right now, we’d like you to look at it, and if you’re going to feel overwhelmed, let that feeling come up right now while we tap together. Carol: And how about measuring it on our EFT 0-10 intensity scale that we always use…



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Rick: Great. Carol: …see if you get a place in your body. Rick: Yes! Carol: Where does the overwhelm show up for you in your body? Rick: Mine is at the base of my throat - upper chest, base of my throat. I’m feeling that as I look at these things and, really - Ugh! Carol: And mine right now is definitely upper chest. I hadn’t even noticed it was there until I was asking the listeners to do that.

Tapping on the Feeling of “Overwhelmed” (starts @ 05:52) Carol: Okay. Karate Chop point: Even though I feel overwhelmed when I look at all this stuff… …and I don’t know what to do with it all… …and I don’t know how to even get started. I deeply and profoundly… …accept myself anyway. Even though I feel overwhelmed by my own clutter… …and I can feel it in my body right now… …I deeply and profoundly… …accept all of me anyway. Even though I’m critical of myself… …because of all my clutter… …I accept who I am… …no matter what. Eyebrow: I feel overwhelmed by my own clutter. Side of the eye: I’m overwhelmed by my own clutter. Under the eye: There’s too much! Under the nose: Too much clutter! Chin: It makes me feel overwhelmed.



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Collarbone: I feel overwhelmed by my own clutter. Under the arm: It’s too much, and I feel it in my body. Top of the head: I just want to run away. …or ignore it. Carol: Take a breath. Rick: Ahhhhhh… (deep breath) Right before we finished, it actually got more intense. I could feel it become more sharp in my upper chest. I was doing that intentionally. I was looking at these things and really feeling what it meant to me in terms of overwhelm. I could use another round. Carol: Yes. Absolutely. Round Two - “Overwhelmed” (starts @ 7:40) Karate Chop: Even though I still feel overwhelmed by my clutter… …and I feel it in my body… …I deeply and profoundly accept myself anyway. Even though I am overwhelmed by my own clutter… …and I am embarrassed by it… …I accept who I am… …no matter what. Even though I hate this overwhelming feeling… …all this clutter… …all this clutter in my life… I accept who I am right now. Eyebrow: This remaining overwhelming feeling. Side of the eye: I look at my clutter and I feel overwhelmed. Under the eye: No wonder I can’t do anything about it. Under the nose: No wonder I can’t do anything about it. Chin: All this clutter is overwhelming me. Collarbone: I’m overwhelmed by my own clutter. Under the arm: I don’t even want to look at it. Top of the head: I don’t even want to look at it. Carol: I thought we’d stop there. Rick: Ahhhhhh. (deep breath)



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Carol: We could always do a positive round, kind of a clearing round, but I thought we’d stop there and just check in. Rick: What’s interesting is that I now am seeing individual items, and there’s a specific action associated with at least two of the items. The box easily thrown away. Carol: Mmm-hmm. Rick: And there’s a spray bottle for cleaning the screen on my computer. And I feel like, now, I see it, and I know that that’s right to just clean it and then put away that spray bottle. Those two things are different than when I first looked at it. As I now look at it, I’m picking out certain things that feel like they’re heavy, that there’s an obligation involved with doing something with it. That’s part of the overwhelm. Now, as I start seeing the individual items, my overwhelm sees that there is a CD sitting here that someone gave me. It feels like, “Aw, now I gotta write a thank-you, and they didn’t send an email, so what am I going to do with that?” and “Do I really have time…” Carol: Mmm-hmm. Rick: “…to listen to this CD?” That’s part of the overwhelm process to me, if I start looking really at it. Is there something we can do for that? Carol: Well, yes. One thing I was going to say is that I forgot to ask you your number at looking at the pile, because things are different. This is very important energetically for you to be able to see things. Things are popping out at you, and that’s what happens. If someone is overwhelmed about a relationship, they’re not looking at the relationship either. They do some tapping, and suddenly pieces of the relationship start to show themselves, and they understand what they can do. So I forgot to ask you the number. I’m sorry about that. But what I can tell you about my chest - you know, I was saying that it was in my upper chest as I’m looking at this particular corner - is that has definitely gone down in me. Rick: Yes. Around the whole pile, it’s probably gone from a 7 to a 2. Carol: Okay. Rick: Around one of the specific things that is sitting here in the front, kind of on the top… Carol: The CD?



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Rick: …the CD, I don’t have clarity. It feels like, “Ugh! What do I do with this? You don’t throw out a gift!” You know? So those are examples of now we’re at specifics. Carol: And decisions. What kind of decisions should you make? Rick: Decisions. And that’s an aspect of clutter. Carol: Okay. Rick: “What do I do?” If I could reduce the overwhelm feeling around even one specific item on there, I sense that everything might shift a bit. I feel that when my breathing gets constricted. Carol: Okay. Rick: I’m sharing this with everyone because this is the type of thing that will happen. Your body reaction may be different. Carol: Right. Rick: You may want to run. Carol: Right, right. Rick: I feel like I want to release this tension, so I’m staying very focused on it. Carol: And 0-10, the tension for you about this particular item is what? Rick: It just feels overwhelming at about an 8. Carol: Mmm-hmm. Rick: It’s not that important to me… Carol: Mmm-hmm. Rick: …which actually makes it more overwhelming. If it was really important, then it would be something that I would fit into my day, but it’s not that important to me. Carol: Ahhh, but it’s nagging at you.



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Rick: I’m looking at the last two bank statements that I haven’t reconciled. In terms of the grand scheme of things, I’m already kind of electronically up to date. But they’re sitting there. Carol: Right. Rick: And what do you do when something feels overwhelming? It feels like kind of a chaotic, “Ughhhhhhhhhhh”… (laughing) Carol: And not being able to make decisions about small things, because you’re overwhelmed. I mean, we could do 6 audio CD tapes on being overwhelmed period with no extra content… Rick: Right. Carol: …and it would help people because it is such a common issue. Okay. So the overwhelming tension is about an 8? Rick: In my breathing, it is. Carol: Okay. Rick: Not in my mind. In my mind, I’ve got pretty good…I could come up with something logical. But in my breathing, in my body, there’s not an alignment between the part of me that says, “Just file this on the shelf - no problem” versus leaving it here in my to-do, big, huge pile.

Tapping on Decision-Making (starts @ 12:59) Karate Chop: Even though I don’t know what to do… …and that’s tightening up my breathing… …I deeply and profoundly… …accept myself anyway. Even though I can’t make a decision about this… …and it’s making my breathing all tight… …I accept who I am no matter what. Even though I feel overwhelmed when I can’t make decisions… …and I don’t know what to do…



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…I accept who I am… …no matter what. Eyebrow: I feel overwhelmed again. Side of the eye: What do I do with this stuff? Under the eye: I can’t make a decision. Nose: I don’t know what to do… Chin: …and my breathing is so tight. Collarbone: I don’t know what to do with this stuff… Under the arm: …and it’s making me tense. Top of the head: I don’t know what to do with this stuff. Rick: Ahhhhhh… (deep breath) My breathing has relaxed dramatically. There’s still a point in my upper chest on my right-hand side. We often see this, where we’ll relax in one area and it might become more noticeably constricted in another place. Carol: Mmm-hmm. Rick: What’s interesting is that I don’t feel as overwhelmed about that. It was a gift, and I’m starting to connect to the energy of the gift rather than the obligation… Carol: Mmm-hmm. Rick: …to do something. I had a rule. This person sent me something. It’s nice. It’s actually appreciated. I don’t know exactly when I’ll listen to it, but it’s got a good energy to it. Carol: Mmm-hmm. Rick: I’m shifting. I can feel the shift around this. What’s interesting, too, is that everything else doesn’t feel heavy to me. Carol: Nice. Rick: I’m getting to that resourceful state. There are some exceptions I’m thinking of, in terms of overwhelming now, quite a bit. Carol: Nice. Rick: Thank you.



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More Tapping on “Overwhelmed” (starts @ 15:12) Carol: Want to do just a quick remaining “overwhelmed” on the eyebrow? Eyebrow: This remaining feeling of overwhelmed… Side of the eye: …this remaining tension… Under the eye: …this remaining tension… Nose: …this remaining tension… Chin: …the remaining tightness… Collarbone: I can handle it. Under the arm: I can make the right decisions. Top of the head: I can make the right decisions… …and I love being calm and peaceful. Carol: Take a breath. Rick: Ahhhhh… (deep breath) Carol: If you’re calm and peaceful when you look at your overwhelm, you can do something about it. You can’t when you go into a state of shock. In overwhelm, and too much noise, and too much static, you can’t do something. That puts us into paralysis of some kind. We really can’t operate under that. Rick: It’s like the clutter creates a repetitive, traumatic “freeze” response… Carol: Absolutely. Rick: …where you look at something and you’re saying, “I don’t know what to do,” and that overwhelm to me is I’m frozen. Carol: Yes. Rick: I cannot engage the higher mind in making decisions… Carol: Right. Rick: …about what to do. There are really only a few decisions. I’m going to file it, I’m going to discard it… Carol: Right.



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Rick: …I’m going to put it in a calendar for some time in the future, I may give it to somebody else. There’s not that many things that we can do with a particular piece of information, or a particular item. There are not many things that you have to decide, but when you’re frozen, I felt it. I could feel frozen around it. Right now, I’m not feeling frozen around it. There’s still tightness, honestly, but it’s about a 2. Carol: Mmm-hmm. 2 is a very different energy. Rick: I think that’s probably around some of the other emotions that we’ll start tapping on now. Carol: Mmm-hmm. And what’s interesting is I’m noticing, and I didn’t notice it before, but next to the pile that I use as my prop, first of all it’s totally changed. (Isn’t that funny? It’s down in my stomach, and it’s not as high at all.) But I’m noticing this enormous area under a hanging bookcase that I completely cleaned up weeks ago, and I have not gone back to it. You know, whenever there is a hole or a space in my office, I put something in it. I have not done that, and that’s new for me! I clean up, and then a week later, something is in the same space that I just cleaned up. I have kept this. So I’m now noticing a new space that is clean, noncluttered, and I’m also noticing some real progress. I’ve done a kind of decluttering where I’m not just having to put things back in a different place. Rick: That starts feeling like appreciation. Carol: Yes. Absolutely. Rick: That’s feeling like I’m noticing the ways that I am on a journey toward a space that is more and more and more to my liking. Is that feeling in the stomach overwhelm still, or is that another emotion? Carol: No. Isn’t that funny? Rick: Not really. To me, when the place in the body where it changes, usually in my experience the emotion has changed. Carol: It was interesting: as you were talking, my first thought was, “oooh, that’s anxiety - I know that feeling,” and then it turned out it’s not anxiety. It’s excitement. Rick: A-ha!



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Carol: It’s in the same place, but I’m excited to get going on this and to keep doing this because it reminds me of another topic I wanted to make sure we talk about. It’s the idea of a deep-clean clutter versus the surface. Some people only have surface clutter, and it’s a matter of time. They clean it up, and it’s fine. I have, and have had, a deep-cleaning problem. I need to go into the drawers and get the old junk out, so the right stuff goes in there that is chronologically appropriate there, but it needs to be a deep clean for me. When I deep-clean, everything changes. For me to do surface clutter - what’s the point? Right? Three days later, the mail is piled up again. So, I want people to really evaluate for themselves: “Oh, am I just a surface clutter, and that’s easy, or is this a really deep problem?” Because if you don’t go to the deep cleaning, your problem will not get fixed. It’s a little bit like if you don’t go to the core issue emotionally with EFT, it will come back because something will trigger it. Rick: Absolutely. Carol: This last year or two I’ve been doing deep cleaning and decluttering, and that’s what’s making a difference. The idea of just taking stuff off the top shelves once a week - that’s not what I need in my life, but other people may have that. Rick: For most people, I think, it’s a combination of things. If you want to make an energetic shift in your life - to feel more abundant, for example those areas which you’re not facing… For example, you have a fear of facing that closet. You have a fear of facing the mess in your relationship. You have a fear of facing anything. We can become good at not facing it… Carol: Right. Rick: …but our subconscious is still staring it right in the face. Carol: Exactly. Rick: There’s no aspect of our life that, if we’re not facing it, that a part of our energy system isn’t giving it “the stare”. Carol: Right! I guess you’re right. Rick: When we talk about the vibration, people learning about the Law of Attraction often focus on that which is only in their conscious mind, whereas your vibration is primarily a vibration that is holistic: those things which you’re not facing - which you’re not looking at - as well as those things which are right in front of your face.



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Carol: Right. I call it that “pebble in the shoe”. There’s always just that one thing that bugs you. You’re trying to ignore it or deny it, but it’s there. Excellent. Shall we go on to another emotion? Rick: You want to do the fear of facing it? Carol: Yes, why don’t we just segue right into that.

The Fear of Facing Clutter (starts @ 21:06) Rick: So what are some of the aspects of that, Carol? Carol: Well, I think one thing that I’ve noticed that comes up for people is, what might you uncover? The fear is, if you uncover clutter in your life, your relationship, your health, your exercise program, the clutter in your emails, the clutter in your office…what might you uncover underneath it? That’s the same for everybody. If you smoke two packs a day, and you get rid of that clutter, what’s going to come up? If your office is neat and clean, what emotionally might surface for you? So there’s some dread and fear about what’s underneath the clutter, fear of really facing this issue for you. Rick: There’s an emotional aspect, of course. If you go through, let’s say a closet that you’ve been not looking at, and there are (quote) “memories”. You know them. They’re either painful now to look at - those items that may have come from a happy time which is no longer happy. I’m poking people a little bit here because it’s part of understanding that this isn’t just an organizational issue. If it was just an organizational issue, you could hire an organizational expert to come in and help you very quickly take care of it. But the fear of facing it says there are things in there which, when I look at them, are going to remind me of a time gone by, or some other emotion. That’s where, if you start tapping on the fear of facing it, you might get some insight about some of those emotions. Address those with EFT, and then you won’t have as much of a fear of facing it. That’s my theory. Carol: Right. And also, clutter, when it makes you feel overwhelmed or unfocused…I was working with a client about what’s the upside of being unfocused, and he got to it, and it was pretty upsetting. It really helped him sabotage and helped him be ashamed of himself, and all this. So, if your clutter is doing something good for you, meaning it makes you unfocused



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because you’re afraid of success and abundance, and as long as you’re cluttered, then you can say, “Oh, I can’t get it together…” So, what’s underneath the clutter? That scares people because they don’t want to move forward. We all have limiting beliefs about moving forward and being successful. So there’s a lot underneath the clutter, metaphorically. There’s a lot underneath the reason you have it. As you and I talked about before, whether you learned it in the honest way from your family or whether you’ve developed that habit, there’s a lot that we can look at around the fear. So I think the fear of facing it - facing the clutter - is a wonderful exercise for people. Rick: Shall we do some tapping? Carol: Absolutely.

The Fear of Facing “IT” (Whatever IT Is) (starts @ 23:48) Rick: Now, in this particular case, as you start tapping on the fear of “facing it”, you might choose the “it” and get very clear on what that “facing it” means to you - in your body, how intense it feels, and if you get an emotion around it – that isn’t just the fear of “facing it”. Write that down. Make it specific. Carol: Now I just got an emotional hit that I think is important just for me to say it out loud, which is my fear when you’re asking. My fear seems to be “Aw, I’ve done it before…” - a little bit of that “fail-success, fail-success” that people have when they’ve quit smoking or lost the weight and they always gain it back. Rick: Sure. Carol: And I think, well, I’ve done this before. Now I know that, in the last two years - I’m a different human being because of what I’ve done in the last two years with decluttering. But I didn’t realize that I have that touch of “I’m afraid to really do it” and tell people I’ve done it, because then it will come back again. I will just slip into my old ways. And I’m saying it out loud, and I’m thinking, “You know what? I’m not that person energetically anymore,” so actually I don’t think that’s true and I’m doing a different kind of decluttering. So that’s not true, but that’s interesting. I don’t honestly



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think that’s going to happen - that it’s going to come back - but I just got that tightening in the stomach. Rick: You feel like it’s a bit of a (quote) “waste of time”. Carol: Mmm-hmm. What’s the point? Rick: The things that come in and out of our life are like the food that comes in and out of our system. It’s different when it comes out than when it goes in. So the things that come in and are delicious in your life - when you’re done with them, they feel different. And yet, the letting- go process is either a wonderful process of noticing the things that are no longer for you and allowing them to move out, saving those things in an appropriate way, but again, this is an emotional process. It’s not just a physical action, and it’s not even just a skill of how to organize. There’s an emotion attached to everything. That’s how we know what it is. What’s the emotional attachment to it? You hear that around mementos and other things. “Well, I’m emotionally attached to that.” Are you emotionally attached because of the fear? Does it evoke in you a really positive feeling? If you think about what your life looks like, do the things that you have in it evoke a positive feeling versus a feeling of being heavy or down? That’s also part of what we’re encouraging as we look at all the energies in your life: allowing those things that no longer uplift you to be released, like we’re doing with these emotions. Carol: Great! Fear of facing it. I’m ready.

Tapping on the Fear of Facing “IT” (starts @ 26:30) Rick: Okay. Karate Chop: Even though I’m afraid of what I’ll find underneath… …I’m open to feeling surprisingly calm and confident anyway. Even though I have all this fear… …there’s just too much to face… …and I’m not even sure what all is there. I deeply and completely accept myself anyway. Even though I want to clean the clutter…



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…I want to let stuff go. That doesn’t serve me any more. I’m afraid to face it… …and I acknowledge and respect this conflict. Eyebrow: I want to let it go. Side of the eye: No, I don’t. Under the eye: I’m ready to face it. Under the nose: No, I’m not. Chin: I’m ready to face it. Collarbone: No, I’m not. Under the arm: And you can’t make me. Top of the head: I refuse to face it. Eyebrow: I refuse to face the clutter. Side of the eye: I don’t know if I can handle what’s underneath. Under the eye: I refuse to face the clutter. Under the nose: I want to clean the clutter. Chin: I refuse to face what’s underneath. Collarbone: I have this conflict. Under the arm: I really have a conflict here. Top of the head: And that’s okay. …I accept myself anyway. Rick: Take a deep breath. Ahhhhh… (deep breath) Carol: (yawning) A yawn’s been trying to come out since the beginning! Rick: Ahhhhh… (deep breath) Shake your hands out, maybe... Carol: Mmm-hmm. Rick: Get some energy moving. Carol: Mmm-hmm. Rick: What do you think might come up for someone after that kind of round? Carol: Maybe getting an “a-ha” of what they are afraid of, because of course it’s overwhelming to be afraid of something and you don’t know what it is. But if you get the clarity, at least you’ve got an answer. So maybe people got some answers. Maybe they got an “Oh, that’s what I’m afraid of.” “Oh, that’s what’s going on.” Maybe that came up.



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Rick: Let’s do a round on “Even though I’m afraid to face that”. Just do another round, assuming that some things have become a little more concrete for people about what they’re afraid to face here. Carol: Okay. Rick: I like to do the refusal tapping. Carol: Yes, I love it. Rick: There’s something I’m not doing that I want to do. I refuse to, I refuse to, I refuse to - and that’s giving ourselves back some control. That’s where we’re standing anyway. Carol: Love it! My favorite tapping! Rick: Me, too.

Tapping on Refusing to Face “IT” (starts @ 29:18) Karate Chop: Even though I’m afraid to face this thing… …and I have my reasons… …I deeply and completely accept myself anyway. Even though I am not quite ready to face this… …I’m letting go of the emotion… …bit by bit… …at the perfect pace for me. Even though I’m not going to jump in and face this right now… …I acknowledge its emotional pain… …and I deeply and completely accept myself anyway. Eyebrow: This is painful to face. Side of the eye: It’s too painful to face. Under the eye: It’s been too painful to face. Under the nose: It’s becoming less painful to face. Chin: I accept that. Collarbone: Maybe I can face this.



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Under the arm: Maybe not now… Top of the head: …and that’s okay. Eyebrow: I give myself permission… Side of the eye: …to address the emotions of this... Under the eye: …and then let go of the clutter. Under the nose: That would be different. Chin: It might even be surprisingly easy. Collarbone: I am so ready for it to be easy. Under the arm: I acknowledge the emotions in all these things. Top of the head: And I choose to be calm and confident anyway. Rick: Ahhhhh… (deep breath) Carol: Ahhhhh… (yawn) - finally - big yawn coming out. What was interesting for me - that wasn’t hitting home with me, but it was still helping because all these other ideas were coming up. All these reasons for the old clutter, acknowledging the changing I have done in the last couple of years, looking at the clutter differently - there was a moment of shame, and then there was a moment like, “I’m totally different! I don’t need to hold on to things anymore!” Energetically, I was able to see that, for me, at the moment there is a time crunch. Give me two weeks, and it’s done. That is very, very different for me. So hopefully the listeners, even if some of our rounds that we’re doing today don’t hit “bullseye”, it doesn’t matter! Keep tapping with us, because it will bring up something else. That was really good for me, to have all the chains of feelings that were going on for me, and the ideas coming up. Rick: That’s part of what we’re teaching through this program. It’s not just a treatment. It is a teaching. If you take what’s coming up in front of you, or even if you listen to tapping rounds on something that isn’t directly related, but you feel that relief in your body, the tension level in your body changes and you find yourself yawning. That is teaching your system how to be surprisingly calm and confident, no matter what, whether you’re facing clutter, or facing what’s coming up in your life. These are energy exercises, taking things which are common to all of us. Every one of us has things coming into our life that feel like clutter. Like you said, we’ve noticed that when we go back and listened to recordings that we made a year ago, or six months ago, or last week, the energies that come up are often different and they get soothed; even though we might have been focused on a particular energy in that moment, it’s different the next time we go through it. You can come back and listen and tap along to this many times. We hear that from people who listen to the same EFT talk for three months and tap along with it. Different things come up and they relieve it, and that creates a



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resilience inside of their energy system on how to address a fear of facing it and to be surprisingly calm and confident. We take clutter as an example here, but it applies everywhere. Carol: I’d like to do a round, if you could walk me through one, for everyone; either clutter in someone’s relationship that they are afraid to face, or clutter in their body, or clutter in a schedule. A number of people come to me, and they feel important when they’re too busy. When you can shift that for someone, that busyness is not evidence of value and importance. Then their entire life changes. You see everybody now - too busy, too scheduled, too many emails, too much stuff - that they feel like “Oh, I’ve got someplace to go, so I am somebody.” If you could run me through something with either clutter in a relationship, body, or schedule something like that could be useful for people as well. Rick: Those feel like different aspects for me, so let’s do a couple of rounds on those. Carol: Okay. Rick: Okay? Carol: Yes. Rick: Let’s start with the fear of facing it when there’s just too much in a relationship or my schedule - whatever. Carol: Okay.

Tapping on the Fear of Facing “IT” When There’s “Too Much” (starts @ 34:24) Karate Chop: Even though it’s just too much… …there’s too much to face… …and I don’t see it changing the way I want it to… …not quickly… …not quickly enough… …I deeply and completely accept all of my feelings. Even when I look at this part of my life… Carol Look & Rick Wilkes — www.ClearingClutterWithEFT.com


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…there’s just too much. It’s overwhelming. I don’t know what to do. I feel out of control. I can’t solve it. I can’t snap my fingers and have it done. I deeply and completely accept all of my feelings. Eyebrow: It’s just too much. Side of the eye: I’m not in control here. Under the eye: I can’t face it alone. Under the nose: I can’t face it alone. Chin: I can’t solve it. Collarbone: And it stresses me out. Under the arm: I stay so busy. Top of the head: So I don’t have to really look at this. Eyebrow: What if there was a different way to see it? Side of the eye: I don’t have to do it all at once. Under the eye: Is there something that would help? Under the nose: Maybe there’s something that could help. Chin: Bring me just a little bit of relief. Collarbone: I’d love just a little bit of relief. Under the arm: I’m open to guidance. …That would bring me just a little relief. Top of the head: I deserve some relief. …I accept relief. Thank you, universe. Rick: Ahhhhh… (deep breath) Carol: And I accept clarity. Rick: Yes. Carol: Clarity, clarity. You and I… Rick: Clarity, clarity. Carol: My life has changed since you and I started working with and talking about clarity and getting YES and NOs. And if you just got clarity about what’s overwhelming you about your schedule, your relationship, or your body, something will shift.



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Rick: There are many people who, when you ask them how it’s going, their response is about how incredibly busy they are. Unless you happen to be somebody who puts “Busy = Abundance”…let’s do a round. I’d like you to lead that one, Carol, because you have a lot of experience with the city folk… Carol: Mmm-hmm. Rick: …there in New York City - and the pace - but even out here in the Appalachian Mountains, there seems to be a belief that if you’re really, really busy, that it excuses you from looking at the things that require - like you said - deep clutter. It requires a kind of focused, relaxed attention to it that is not a superficial busyness. Right? Carol: Yes. Rick: So let’s do some. When I think of the time in my life where I would describe myself as busy and cluttered with way too many things that are a NO for me… Carol: Yes. Rick: Right? “I’m doing this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this…” and there’s so much of my day which was busy, busy, busy with NOs - things that weren’t really a strong YES. They weren’t going to be on the gratitude list on the end of the day. They didn’t need to be done, compared with some of the things that could have been YESes.

Tapping on Being Too Busy (starts @ 38:13) Carol: Okay Karate Chop: Even though my schedule is too cluttered… …and I’m afraid to let this go… …because I don’t know who I am underneath it. I deeply and profoundly accept myself anyway. Even though I’m too busy… …and my schedule is way too cluttered… I’m afraid to let go… …but I’m accepting myself right now.



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Eyebrow: My schedule is too busy.. Side of the eye: I have a need to be busy. Under the eye: I feel important when I’m busy. Under the nose: I feel important when I’m too booked. Chin: I feel important when I’m rushing around. Collarbone: I feel valued when I’m busy. Under the arm: I wonder what’s underneath that? Top of the head: I’m afraid it’s a feeling of emptiness. Eyebrow: No wonder I don’t want to go there. Side of the eye: I think I might feel empty… Under the eye: …or scared… Under the nose: …or lonely. Chin: If I face this clutter… Collarbone: …if I change my schedule… Under the arm: …if I let go of my need… …to be busy and cluttered… Top of the head: I wonder what will happen. Eyebrow: But I’m willing to look into it. Carol: (laughing) Good. We can just end there. Rick: Well, it was nice because I started feeling a sense of expectation right at the end, at the top of the head, and you put a little icing on it. Sometimes it will take people more than one round through that to start feeling the shift. Carol: Yes. At any time, if someone listening feels the need to do another round, rewind, right? Rick: Yes. Carol: Go back and start again. Because I think that’s a wonderful one. I do think that, finally, I would have to say that many, many people are overbusy and over-booked because underneath it all, there’s this feeling of “I’m not enough.” We have that. We’re going to get to that later because that’s a real issue. I just think that’s critical for people to take a look at. What would happen if you let go of this, “I’m so busy”, “I can’t get here” and “I can’t get there” and “I can’t call you back”? What does that mean? What’s going on with that kind of clutter?



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Rick: When I look at what makes me feel abundant in my life, it is the unscheduled time. Where I feel empowered to go with my flow. Most people do not have much unscheduled time. Sometimes you have to schedule your unscheduled time… Carol: Right. Rick: …as “me time” - you just look at it and say, “What would be pleasing to me?” and that can help you if there’s nothing to do, to start feeling like there’s a benefit for clearing stuff. Carol: Absolutely. Rick: If you clear something from your schedule for you, that is essentially unscheduled time. When it arrives, you say, “Hey - what would be pleasing to me?” Then you’re teaching yourself that there’s a value in not having so much stuff. Carol: Right. Rick: It can start with just a fifteen minute chunk once a week. Carol: Exactly. Rick: Thank you. Carol: Wonderful.

The Itch of Scarcity (starts @ 41:46) Rick: What about scarcity? Carol: Scarcity is a big one. When I first started thinking about doing the “Clearing Clutter With EFT” with you, I was thinking, literally, of clutter. The connection of clutter and scarcity in abundance is 100%. Everything is lined up between those two subjects, but that’s not how I was approaching it in the beginning. But I do think, energetically, the idea of scarcity makes us hold onto three copies of the piece of paper. It makes us hold onto stuff so that we feel like we’ve got something. Is there not enough value in material in our life? Not enough possessions? What’s going on around this lack and



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not enough? What happens if we can’t scratch the itch? If we feel inadequate or empty and we don’t have enough love or we don’t have enough something in our life, we substitute. That’s why people are eating, drinking, smoking, “interneting”, “drama-relationshipping”: because we replace things. That may be something that’s going on - a connection. I hope many people are getting some “a-has” about that connection. Scarcity has nothing to do with stuff. Scarcity is about love or attention or time. Rick: And if your stuff - the emotional attachment to the stuff - is love… Grandma buys a toy for her grandchildren, one each, every single week; that’s the way she shows love. Well, that means that that particular object has been infused with “This is how I’m showing you that I love you.” Now, how can you let that go? I think EFT can help with that. For example, in people’s lives where I’m a friend of theirs, if the toys and things come from other people, for example, it’s harder to organize them and it’s harder to let them go because of that emotional attachment. I spoke to a woman who runs a “clutter service”. The back of her minivan says, “Got clutter?” (laughing) Carol: (laughing) Rick: I asked her about this, and she says that certain people collect things, whether it’s real estate or stocks. They might have a stock portfolio that has way too many stocks because they’re collecting investments in all these different businesses and it makes them feel - they get an emotional feeling from it - that “I’m a broad investor. I have lots of interest out there.” Then there are the people that go out on eBay and keep buying and buying and buying, and even though people have boxes of stuff that arrive, they never open them. Carol: Right. Rick: They fill a room. Now, to me, there’s an itch of scarcity that they keep scratching and scratching. It never really gets addressed… Carol: Yes. Rick: …because when the stuff arrives, the itch was scratched when it was purchased, not when it was arrived, and because it was purchased with the energy of “this is going to soothe my sense of there not being enough…” Carol: Right.



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Rick: …they could never let it go. It’s traumatic for them to let it go because it’s been infused with it. That’s my perspective on it, energetically. The things we buy from that sense of there not being enough - it’s very much different, letting go of those, than “This will be pleasing to me for a little while.” Do you feel the difference? Carol: Yes. It’s the same when someone starts smoking because they feel lonely as an adolescent. The smoking becomes infused, as you’re saying, with all this energy and all this stuff, but it’s not doing it. It becomes hard to let it go. Rick: Right. What we’d like to do is help people shift from that feeling of scarcity to acknowledging every little thing that does flow in and out of our lives with a sense of gratitude and appreciation. That’s difficult to get to, if you’re really strongly in this scarcity energy. Shall we do some tapping? Carol: Yes. We’ll do several layers here. The first thing is just acknowledging that you’ve got some scarcity in your life, not connected to clutter yet, but there’s just a feeling underneath that there’s not enough.

Tapping on Scarcity (starts @ 46:22) Karate Chop: Even though I have this feeling of scarcity in my life… …I deeply and profoundly accept myself anyway. Even though there’s never been enough for me… …and I really feel empty… …I accept who I am no matter what. Even though I feel this feeling of scarcity at my core… …there was never enough. I accept who I am… …no matter what. Eyebrow: There was never enough for me. Side of the eye: There was never enough. Under the eye: There wasn’t enough love. Under the nose: Not enough attention. Chin: Not enough stuff. Collarbone: There was never enough.



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Under the arm: I need more. Top of the head: No, I don’t! Eyebrow: I need more. Side of the eye: That’s an energy inside. Under the eye: What if I realized that I am enough now? Under the nose: There is enough. Chin: I am enough… Collarbone: …and I don’t need more. Under the arm: I want to release this underlying feeling. Top of the head: Where did I get that feeling of not enough? Carol: Take a breath. Rick: Ahhhhh… (deep breath) Interesting. Two things: one, you said about not needing more, a part of me down in my gut said “Ooooh…” - a kind of primitive, wanting more. The other aspect is I started having some images that I’m going to back and tap with individually around times in my childhood where, legitimately, we had a downturn in the amount of abundance in our lives. It did feel on the edge of scarcity. I know that, working with clients who had times where absolutely there wasn’t anything in the refrigerator, if I could freeze us in those moments… For example, somebody who grew up in a time where there wasn’t something in the refrigerator - they may find it terrifying to not have their refrigerator stocked to the gills and their pantry filled to overflowing. If that’s the type of thing, going back to those specific times in our lives, connecting with that energy and tapping again on this feeling of scarcity, just focusing on one specific aspect, like going to the refrigerator and it being empty. That would help you shift that event, even just using that round we just did. Carol: Well, let’s put that in our specific event section later, because I think that is a little different than what we’re doing on the underlying feeling. It connects to it, but I think that would be really helpful. Let’s do one more on this underlying feeling of emptiness: “I’m not enough. There’s not enough.”

Tapping on “Not Enough” (starts @ 49:44) Karate Chop: Even though I have this feeling in my stomach… …that there’s not enough… …I feel kind of empty.



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I deeply and profoundly… …accept myself anyway. Even though I have this deep feeling that there’s not enough for me… …I think I’ve always had it. No wonder I have clutter. I accept who I am… …no matter what. Even though I have known the energy of scarcity… …my whole life… …I am deciding to change this energy. Eyebrow: There’s not enough. Side of the eye: Yes, there is. Under the eye: I’m not enough. Under the nose: What if I am? Chin: There’s not enough. Collarbone: Yes, there is. Under the arm: I’m not enough. Top of the head: That’s what they taught me. Eyebrow: What if I am enough? Side of the eye: What if there is enough? Under the eye: I am enough. Nose: There is enough. Chin: I feel so much better. Collarbone: And I think it’s the truth. Under the arm: I think it’s the truth. Top of the head: I love feeling abundant now. Carol: Good. Sure is the opposite energy… Rick: Ahhhhh… (deep breath) Carol: …feeling abundant, and if that means you go to the park and count flowers and feel abundant that way and count the blades of grass, that’s a totally different energy. Rick: It is. My life has been a mix of abundance and, at times growing up, scarcity. I was raised by a single mom and went to visit my dad, who was a top D.C. attorney. There was a big amount of contrast that accentuated the feeling of “enoughness”. What’s interesting is that I’m sensing the shift in my core. I think this is where EFT really goes deep is that you can have



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abundance in your life. You can have a situation which clearly is not a situation of scarcity. EFT helps you feel it. Carol: Mmm-hmm. Connect to it. Rick: EFT helps you feel it just by releasing those old feelings that are encoded into our primitive brain, encoded into our body. Ahhhhh… (deep breath) That’s where you start noticing the tingles and the sighs and the openness that comes. I feel bigger. Just from the time that we’ve spent tapping on these things, I feel bigger and stronger. For those people that are tapping with this, look for little changes in your body - little senses of expansion, a little bit less turmoil as you look at the things in your life. If you have a little less turmoil, you’re seeing them from a different vantage point, and when you see things from a different vibration, a different vibrational vantage point, everything changes. Carol: So much can happen. This is exciting. I love combining all these feelings. We’ll do some specific events later. It’s just so dramatic for people - this feeling, the behavior of clutter, the feeling of “not enoughness” underneath it, feeling bigger, connecting. The perfect example is the kind of person you’re talking about: someone who has a lot, and they keep acquiring more because it doesn’t scratch the itch. What you’re saying is that EFT helps you energetically and emotionally connect to what you do have and who you really are. Rick: Right. It lets your body, mind, and spirit know that things have changed here on earth for you, compared to how you were energetically frozen a long time ago. That lets you enjoy the one beautiful king-size bedspread and not find six or seven of them in the storage closet that you didn’t even realize that you had, because you had not really connected to the energy of the things that you do have. Carol: Mmm-hmm. Wonderful. Rick: Thank you, Carol. Carol: Thank you, Rick.



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Recording #3 Abandonment, Hurt, and Clutter Carol: All right, Rick. Welcome back! Rick: Hi, Carol! Carol: Let’s continue with clearing feelings and emotions that might be part of the reason that we’re holding onto clutter. We worked last time with overwhelm and fear and scarcity. Let’s move to abandonment or hurt in love issues. Rick: It’s not something that most people think of when they think of clutter. Carol: No. Rick: How does this come up in the reflection of what’s in people’s physical world if they’ve been abandoned or hurt? Carol: Most simply, people end up replacing love that they didn’t get with stuff. They kind of fill the hole of abandonment, love-pain issues, or hurt. They gather stuff because the ultimate, underlying feeling is “There’s not enough, I’m not enough, I wasn’t loveable…” so they think getting more stuff in their life will somehow soothe it or fill the hole. So abandonment is a pretty profound, often early childhood or later childhood issue. People can feel abandoned in their adulthood, but if you’ve got the original track from childhood, then you really have a lot to work on. So replacing it, filling that hole, is quite common, but as you were saying, people don’t typically think “I have a clutter issue because of my abandonment problems from childhood.” Rick: How would someone know if this is the underlying cause? Because it feels like, to me, this is something that would be operating subconsciously. Carol: Yes. First thing would be just the awareness in someone’s life of “Is abandonment an issue?” You know, I often say to people, “What emotional themes are running your life from childhood - abandonment, hurt, grief, frustration, resentment?”, and they often say, “Oh, yeah, that’s me.” So it



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becomes a bit more conscious. So if abandonment or being left or early deaths in your life have been a problem and a challenge, and you’re listening to this because you’ve got a clutter issue, just see if anything resonates. See if you get any charge, even when we’re just talking about the topic, that love issues or breakups or losses could be the reason. It may not sound very rational, but it could be the reason you’re accumulating more stuff. Let’s see if there’s any resonance and charge on that one we’re talking about. If not, when we tap, just go ahead and tap on an abandonment in your life. Everyone’s got something, small or large, that they perceive to be an abandonment. We’ll tap on that and just see what happens. A lot of what’s happening with us doing this tapping is just clearing emotional conflicts, and the clutter is a side benefit. Right? Clearing the clutter is what’s going to happen as a result. Rick: I had a picture of someone saying, “I love buying shoes! I love buying shoes!”, and they have so many shoes that, the other side of it is an overwhelm with how many shoes they have. The emotional benefit that they get from the process of buying shoes is short-lived. Carol: Right. Rick: I believe that, if we clear the pain around using buying things to soothe ourselves, if we’re in emotional pain, if we’re feeling a lack of love in our life, a lack of things that represent joy in our life - you may really love to buy shoes, but if you’re using that as medication… Carol: Yes. Rick: …now you’ve got the downside of doing it so often that you’re not sure how to let shoes go or how to organize. There’s a whole other slew of side issues that come up around the buying of certain things. That’s another way that you might look at it. Are the things that you love to do a real enjoyment or a passion that you have for those things, or do you tend to do those things where otherwise emotionally you’re in a down stage? We’re not saying that you’re not going to want to buy shoes or buy clothes or whatever; it’s “What’s the emotional state that you do that buying in?” What we find is that if you let go of the downside energy, you’ll still enjoy those things. They’ll just be more balanced. You’ll also do them from a higher vibration, so actually, you get the joy of it more. When you buy from a place of already feeling abundant, every time you wear the shoes you’ll feel that reminder of that abundant place that you bought them in. Sometimes, if you bought them in a low vibration, you don’t find yourself wearing them because you’re reminded of the low vibration that you were in! So that can also make it hard to do. We talked last time about facing



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what’s there. You don’t want to face that box of shoes because it represented that moment in time when you bought that to soothe yourself over that feeling of being abandoned by someone that you loved. Carol: And it didn’t work, and it’s not going to work a month later. Rick: No. Carol: You’re saying, really, don’t purchase out of a compulsive need to fill. If you’re going to purchase, purchase from a place of abundance, and that would be lovely to add to my life, not “I’m desperate” or “I need this” or “If I don’t fill up, I’m going to feel empty.” Rick: That’s where, if you tap on that feeling before you make the purchase, it will change the vibration inside of you. You may or may not make the purchase, but if you do, you’ll be doing it from a very different place. Carol: I was thinking also of someone having a cluttered schedule. You know how when someone breaks up with someone, and they either get depressed and stay home, or they fill their schedule - with every day, every night, every lunch, every dinner - and it’s because they’re trying to replace that emptiness with the socializing. They’re trying replace the love, to fill the hole of abandonment. If you have a cluttered schedule, take a look at what that’s doing for you. What are you trying to replace? What does that do for you? It’s often not until someone gets completely overwhelmed with their schedule that they say, “I’ve got to stop saying ‘yes’” or “I’ve got to stop compulsively putting things on my calendar to make me feel good.” I had a client who said that if she doesn’t have plans on Saturday night, she said, “I feel like a loser and inadequate; nobody wants me.” And I’m thinking, well, I’d love not having plans! So it was such an interesting place that she was coming from, that had some meaning to her: “I don’t have plans on a Saturday night, so I’m not good.” She was making plans that didn’t fill her, that didn’t satisfy, the behavior was for the wrong reason, and her schedule was cluttered. She was exhausted and overwhelmed as a result. Rick: It is interesting that you bring up that point, that if you’re in a place where you feel like someone has abandoned you, or you were abandoned young, and that vibration is very active in you, you’ll tend to attract a lot of people who are very needy, and needy people that have claims on your time, and there is an aspect of “yeah, that feels good.” But it fills up your schedule.



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Carol: Right. Rick: You’re filling up your schedule with organizations that need you, with individuals that need you. That’s the law of attraction at work. If you’re attracting into your life a lot of people who need you, need you, need you you can look in the mirror and say, “This is me. I, for some reason, am wanting, attracting.” Wanting? I’ll use that word advisedly. You’re attracting, vibrationally, people who need you, and that usually indicates that there is a part of us that gets soothed by being needed. I don’t tend to attract people who need me in my life, even in my coaching practice. I like that. I like that it is more of an equal mutual support and interaction. But I do work with clients many times (as you do) that have way too many people that need, need, need them. These underlying issues that we’re about to tap on - abandonment, hurt, and love - those are the key things. Carol: Remember when you’re coming from that place of lack - “He left me, “ “She left me,” “They left me” - you’re not very discerning because all you want to do is have a person in their place, which is why so many people grow up and end up with a spouse that mirrors whatever was lacking in their life. They just want to be with someone, and they’re not taking a look at whether that person can be a great partner for them. Rick: Would you like to lead us in some tapping, Carol? Carol: Absolutely.

Tapping on Abandonment (starts @ 08:53) Karate Chop: Even though I have all this stuff… …because I thought it would help my abandonment issues… …I feel so empty… …and so lonely. I deeply and profoundly… …accept myself anyway. Even though I realize now… …that I have used my stuff to replace love… …and I still feel hurt… …I still feel abandoned… …I accept who I am no matter what.



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Even though I was abandoned… …and I never got over it… …and having stuff makes me feel better… …temporarily… …I accept who I am right now. Eyebrow: I was abandoned and never got over it. Side of the eye: No wonder I accumulate all this stuff. Under the eye: I was abandoned and never got over it. Under the nose: I feel less abandoned with my stuff. Chin: I wonder what would happen… Collarbone: …if I let go of some of this stuff? Under the arm: What would happen? Top of the head: I wonder if I would feel those feelings again. Eyebrow: Yes, and I’m afraid of them. Side of the eye: I don’t want to feel that feeling of abandonment. Under the eye: I’m running as fast as I can. Under the nose: I don’t want to feel it. Chin: I don’t want to feel it. Collarbone: And all these material possessions… Under the arm: …are very distracting… Top of the head: …and I love being distracted. Carol: Take a breath. Rick: Ahhhhh… (deep breath) I’ll shake my hands out. Ahhhhh… Carol: See, that’s a fantastic tapping sequence for anyone. Even though I was abandoned and never got over it. I would be willing to bet that 90% of the population would say, “Oooh! What a surprise! I didn’t know that would have a charge on it.” Maybe you felt abandoned by your teddy bear. It doesn’t matter how big it is, because to you at age five, it could seem earthshattering. To someone else at twenty-five and fifty-five and eighty-five, it could be earth-shattering at any age and any incident. It’s never for outsiders to judge it. It’s for you. What happened? What was the charge like? Did someone not pick you for the ball team in second grade? Rick: Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. Carol: Absolutely. I think that’s great to keep focusing on that sense of “Was I abandoned?” Yes. “Were my buying sprees really because I feel abandoned?” “What would happen if there were less stuff in my life? Less



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people, less scheduling, less ‘oh, I’m so busy…’” - you know how often people feel important when they’re busy. “Oh, I’m so busy, they want me here, I’ve gotta go here…” They’re often not consciously in touch with it. If you’re not that busy and people aren’t asking you to do things, how do you feel? Rick: There you are. That’s one of the things that you can do is to picture yourself not with people demanding of your time and needing you. How do you feel? What’s the emotion underneath that? If that feeling were to go away, or that behavior was to go away, shift. What would you feel like? I’m getting a feeling - you mentioned it - about the baseball team and rejection. Abandonment is a little bit different than rejection. Rejection sometimes feels more active, but it’s a real strong hurt. Do you think that plays into clutter as well? Carol: Yes. Let’s do another round. It is slightly different. In rejection, someone basically says, “NO” to you. With abandonment, it feels like, “Hey, what happened? They’re not here anymore.” It’s just what you were describing. Shall we do one on rejection? Rick: Yes, let’s do that. Carol: All right. Everyone listening: Think of a time when you felt rejected. Think of that specific event. See if you can scale it from 0-10 how much it affects you now, how much it hurts you, what kind of charge is on it, and then tap along with that.

Tapping on Rejection (starts @ 12:41) Karate Chop: Even though I felt rejected back then… …I feel that hurt in my body. I deeply and profoundly… …accept myself anyway. Even though I feel rejected now… …when I remember what happened back then… …I accept who I am… …no matter what. Eyebrow: I felt so rejected.



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Side of the eye: I felt so hurt. Under the eye: I still don’t understand it. Under the nose: I felt so hurt. Chin: I still feel hurt. Collarbone: I don’t understand. Under the arm: I wonder if my clutter helps me. Top of the head: I wonder if taking these things in… …combats being rejected. Carol: Take a breath. Rick: Ahhhhh… (deep breath) Carol: Now, did that make sense? Rick: It did. Carol: Okay. Rick: We do a lot of things to soothe ourselves. It’s a very natural, human way of coping with negative emotions. What we’re bringing up with EFT is that there’s another conscious way of taking what’s coming up in the moment, now that you’re learning EFT and starting to use it on some of these emotions, your body will be more likely to call for it if something comes up and you feel rejected. That’s what I’ve noticed. Carol: Mmm-hmm. Rick: There’s also the aspect of all the other times that are still banging around in our energy field, in our primitive brain, in the parts of us that are tribal, that don’t want to be rejected. Being abandoned means life or death, even if logically it doesn’t. Carol: Right. Rick: There’s a part of us that gets triggered. If we were abandoned then, we might be abandoned in the future, which means that if I have all this stuff - I know that this is kind of weird, but it’s like the person who has all the stuff would be able to barter for food or something. If I had seventy blankets, then I could barter for food. If I had 600 Beanie Babies… Carol: Mmm-hmm, mmm-hmm.



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Rick: …then I could trade those for something I need in the future, right? So it’s a way of collecting things that might be of value. Again, this is usually a subconscious energy… Carol: Yes. Rick: …up until the point that it becomes conscious. Once you become conscious of it and you start feeling the emotional interplay between the stuff in your life and these more core emotions, then it gives you empowerment. That’s why we’re bringing it up… Carol: Absolutely. Rick: …rather than teaching you how to make piles, and file, and things like that. All of those things will take care of themselves when the emotional noise and clinging is taken care of. Carol: Right. Rick: Can we do one on clinging, Carol? Carol: Absolutely. Rick: I think that word comes up: abandonment, clinging… Carol: Sure. Rick: Yeah. Carol: Okay.

Tapping on Clinging (starts @ 15:37) Karate Chop: Even though I’m clinging to my stuff… …and I can’t let go… …because they made me let go before… …when I wasn’t ready… …I deeply and completely… …accept myself anyway.



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Even though I’m clinging to my stuff… …and I don’t want to let go… …don’t make me!... …I accept who I am and how I feel. Even though I have this clinging feeling… …I feel a little desperate… …I accept who I am… …no matter what. Eyebrow: This clinging feeling… Side of the eye: I need to cling to my stuff! Under the eye: I’m clinging to my clutter. Under the nose: What if I didn’t need to? Chin: What if I felt confident and relaxed? Collarbone: But I’m clinging to my stuff. Under the arm: What if I let go? Top of the head: I wonder how I’d feel. Carol: Deep breath. Rick: Ahhhhh… (deep breath) Carol: The energy of that word is really powerful. Thanks for bringing it up. Rick: It’s very childlike when we think of clinging, but it’s also one that… As human beings, we cling to life, even in our agedness. (laughing) We will cling to a job that isn’t right for us. We’ll cling to a lot of old memory stuff. Carol: And hurt and abandonment and rejection - you think that people would want to forget them, but nooooo… Rick: Nooooo… Carol: Are you kidding? They hold them in a very special place, a very special file, and they go check on them once in a while. Rick: We say that with respect… Carol: Absolutely. Rick: …because there’s a deep part of us that wants to resolve it. You and I have been looking at how the brain responds to trauma. There’s a part of us that gets ‘frozen in time’ at that moment of abandonment - the things



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that are connected to it are like the “bread crumbs” that I think take us back to that. So until we process that old trauma, we need some way back. That makes sense to me. Why would I not get rid of something that has a bad memory attached to it? Well, there’s a part of me that’s still back there, and as soon as I relieve that, I’ve noticed that people say, “Oh, yeah, I can let go of this.” That, to me, is a sign that there is a deeper intelligence working in the letting go process. We don’t let go. We cling to something for as long as we need to, especially if there’s something that’s unresolved. Carol: Right, and sometimes out of habit. If you were taught that you weren’t any good, then you have new experiences of that every year of your life, and you cling to those because it feels like they’re truths. Rick: That’s right. This is my evidence. Carol: Yes. “I can prove to you why I should be rejected.” Rick: If somebody is rejected, what is an emotion that comes up? Carol: Hurt is number one. I have also found that confusion is there. “I don’t get it. Why me?” I’ve said that. I’ve felt that. I’ve had clients that said, “Huh? What do you mean, you rejected me?” There’s a shock to being rejected - depending, of course, if the person is quite aggressive about it, if they say something that’s really mean or nasty, or it’s a really big disappointment. Let’s say you get rejected for a job position, or you don’t get into the school that you applied to, or something like that. It depends on what meaning you put to it, but it’s the initial hit going right to your gut, and then hurt, and then confusion. I think confusion is a big deal with some of these. People don’t get why that happened, and that’s hard. Rick: Lets tap on that. Tapping on Confusion (starts @ 19:24) Karate Chop: Even though I don’t know why that happened… …and maybe I never will… …I deeply and completely accept my feelings… …and I’m ready to move on. Eyebrow: I’ll never understand it. Side of the eye: Maybe it’s not understandable. Under the eye: Is that okay? Under the nose: I’d like that to be okay.



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Chin: I’ve decided that’s okay. Collarbone: I’ll never understand it. Under the arm: I never will understand them. Top of the head: And I have decided to move forward. Rick: Deep breath… Ahhhhh… Carol: How many people have come to us in sessions over the years and said, “He or she broke up with me” or “He or she left” and they’re still looking for closure. They want the answer: “Why?” The “why is often impossible to explain, especially to the person that has been left. Rick: Do we sometimes get stuck in anger? Carol: Yes. Absolutely. Rick: So how does anger play into clutter? Carol: Well, I ask my clients, if they come in and clutter is a problem, “Is collecting and having clutter an angry act on your part?” Rick: A-ha. Carol: “Is there some way that you get back at someone this way? Do you get angry at yourself, or does holding onto clutter help you hold onto anger?” Rick: There’s two aspects there. One is the revenge aspect. “He hates the fact that I collect this stuff, so I’m going to do it anyway because it’s my way of…” what? Getting even, showing that, “You can’t control me.” Carol: They’re saying, “Ha, ha! Watch this!” I’ve got people saying they won’t be successful to get back at their parents. Again, it can be totally illogical as far as the behavior, but it works. It’s scratching some itch. So holding onto clutter - as you say, the two pieces of ‘holding on’ are, “You can’t control me” and “I’m going to do this…” It works, but totally temporarily, right? Rick: Yes. And the aspect I think also is that people have an attitude that they’re told by other people that they need to clean up, that they need to be more organized, whether it’s a boss, or a roommate, or your mother and father, still after you about how messy your room is, and now it’s your whole house. There’s a part of us that wants to object to being dictated to.



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Carol: Right. Rick: It’s very human. I think that we’re freedom-seeking beings when people try to disempower us, especially if our parents did, you know? If you like a messy room, why should I have to clean it up? Carol: I never understood that. Like, who cares? I was the mess out of all the kids, and my parents weren’t terribly upset about it - it wasn’t a huge deal or anything, but I was a mess. So what? Rick: Do you notice that it plays in for you at all? Did you ever get that feeling of, “Fine. I’ll just keep it the way I want it.”? Carol: What I notice is that, over the years, tapping on so much emotional baggage, basically, and just releasing and releasing and releasing, it’s curious to me that I was a mess and my siblings weren’t. You know what I mean? I’m thinking, “Huh. I really came by this naturally. I really started out that way!” You know? I don’t know what it did for me. I would do things as a kid, and I would play the guitar, and I would have wonderful time periods of being lost in music or something like that. I didn’t want to clean up! It was boring! Rick: Yeah! Carol: It was totally boring. Rick: Do you want to lead us in one, for those people who feel that it’s boring and ridiculous to have to keep things that clean? Carol: It was never a high value for me. It was a value for my siblings and my parents, but it doesn’t have a charge for me. Now, as I’m older, I want neat, tidy, and clean. Well, it was always clean, but it was just stuff. Rick: Right. So those are choices. Let’s imagine that somebody is still in a place, right now, where anger is coming up. There’s a contrast between how they want to keep it and how other people in their life are looking at them. Carol: Mmm-hmm. Rick: They’re angry about the judgment. I looked at it the other way. I was the clean one, and my brother was the slob. When you were talking, I’m finding, “You know, there’s a part of me that’s still needing to be a little cleaner than maybe I would want to be…” Sometimes when I’m busy, out of the sense of “See? I’m the clean one!” (laughing)



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Carol: Right! Watch this! (laughing) Rick: So do you want to do a round there? Carol: Yes, but it’s interesting - I’m still trying to get to those feelings. I have much more feelings as an adult about it, but back then, was it frustrating to be told to clean up my room? Sure. It was never successful. I never could keep it without clothes piled on the chair. Rick: Yes. Carol: So it’s interesting, and it doesn’t feel like it was connected to anger as much as I can’t quite get back to that. I know that, as an adult - as I’ve been tapping on issues and conflicts and feelings - that whole clutter issue is changing for me at a deep level. I didn’t look at a pile and say, “Even though I have this clutter pile in front of me…” I have been working on anger, fear, hurt, guilt, abandonment, grief, loss…fear. As a result, I am cleaning the deep inside, metaphorically and literally, of closets and cabinets. Rick: Well, we notice that, not only in clutter, but in weight… Carol: Absolutely. Rick: … in every issue. If you are addressing these emotions, I believe you come into a very natural, authentic balance that’s right for you. That may be on the clean side, it may be on the messy side. Carol: Right. Rick: It may be very thin and athletic; it may be soft and sensual. Whatever your natural balance is, if you’re out of that balance, it’s probably the kind of distressed feeling that brought you to this program. Carol: So, for someone listening: Do you get back at anyone, now, by being cluttered and having a lot of stuff and holding - we’re back to holding on versus releasing. Rick: That’s right. Holding onto the power of being able to “do it my way” and getting back at them, and show me…



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Carol: All of the feelings we’ve worked on - the overwhelm, fear, scarcity, abandonment, and anger - they’ve all come back to that, ultimately. Do you want to lead me through? Rick: I’m feeling like I want you to. Carol: Okay.

Tapping on Anger (starts @ 26:08) Karate Chop: Even though I have all this clutter… …as a way of holding on… …and maybe as a way of being angry… …I choose to release it now… Even though I can’t let go of all of this stuff… …and I don’t want to because you want me to… …I deeply and profoundly… …accept myself anyway. Even though I won’t let go of this… …and I have a suspicion it’s related to anger… …maybe resentment… …I choose to accept my decision. Eyebrow: I have been holding on out of anger. Side of the eye: Why won’t I let go? Under the eye: I’m using clutter to get back at them. Under the nose: I feel angry and I refuse to clean up. Chin: Let me do it my way. Collarbone: I want to do it my way. Under the arm: I want to do it my way. Top of the head: Don’t make me do it any other way. Rick: (laughing) I don’t know why, but I’m really into this today. I’m not sure where that’s coming from. That’s the neat thing about EFT. I can’t specifically say that this is an issue for me, but it’s the idea that we do things out of resistance to an energy that somebody else is trying to put on us.



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Carol: Right. Rick: Any time we feel like we’re doing that, you can become conscious of it. Ahhhhh… (deep breath) That takes away the choice. It feels like we’re standing in a refusal to do it their way. That is our choice. That is one level of it. If you go deeper, though, and you can’t go anywhere else now because you’ve planted your anchor - “this is the way that I show how empowered I am” - well, now you’re stuck. You’ve lost your choice. Carol: Right. Rick: It’s like the person who smokes out of a sense of defiance. Right? Now he’s lost his choice. He can’t stop smoking because then his feeling will be that he will capitulate. Carol: Right. Rick: So I’d like to do a round on feeling like, “If I give in, if I make this change, then everyone else will feel like they’re right.” They’ve been right all along. “See? Don’t you feel better? Blah, blah, blah…” Carol: Right! For me, it’s bringing up stuff where, as a kid, I was into sports, into music, had friends, and siblings that were a lot of fun to play with. We played games and listened to records all the time. Rick: Yes. Carol: Why on earth would I spend a half an hour cleaning up my room? Rick: (laughing) Carol: It’s funny, because I’m thinking, “Huh!” It is just so interesting because society and my family and everybody else in the world thinks you shouldn’t have a messy room. Rick: Right. Carol: There was some innocence…I’m thinking about it. Back then, there was some real basic innocence. I’d rather have fun. Rick: That’s right. Carol: It’s like homework. I always did my homework. I always got it done, first thing. There are some people who rebel with their homework in



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the same way. It’s like I didn’t have that. Frankly, I wasn’t terribly rebellious. I just didn’t get that one! I wasn’t born with that bone that thinks cleaning up is a good idea! Interesting.

Tapping on Rebelliousness (starts @ 29:49) Karate Chop: Even though I refuse to give in… …and do it your way… …I accept who I am… …no matter what. Even though I don’t want to give in… …I’m not going to do it your way… …I accept who I am… …right now. Even though I want to do it my way… …leave me alone! Stop telling me what to do! I deeply and profoundly… …accept me… …even if I am a slob. Eyebrow: I accept me. Side of the eye: Why won’t you accept me? Under the eye: I’m not going to give in. Under the nose: I’m not going to give in. Chin: I don’t want to give in. Collarbone: I refuse to do it your way. Under the arm: I’m going to do it my way. Top of the head: Because my way works for me. Rick: Ahhhhh… (deep breath) Let’s do another round, right now, on “Why won’t you accept me the way I am?”



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Tapping on “Accept Me the Way I Am” (starts @ 31:01) Karate Chop: Even though I need you to accept me right now… …as I am… …I accept my feelings… …and your rejection. Even though I’m angry because you don’t accept me… …I deeply and profoundly accept myself anyway. Even though you won’t accept me as I am… …I accept who I am… …no matter what. Eyebrow: Please accept me. Side of the eye: Please accept me. Under the eye: Just the way I am. Under the nose: So what if I have clutter? Chin: So what’s it to you? Collarbone: Please accept me. Under the arm: I accept me. Top of the head: And it has taken a long time. Carol: Take a breath. Rick: Ahhhhh… (deep breath) Carol: Now in wonderful EFT fashion, I don’t have a charge on my parents not accepting me. It just seemed very basic, like, “Kids, clean up your room.” But I have a charge on a colleague relationship that you know about - that I have talked to you about - where he doesn’t accept me. He keeps telling me to slow down and do it this way, and “Why don’t you breathe when you do this, and…” Rick: (laughing) Carol: …it feels like an order from him. When I say ‘hello’, I’ve done it wrong! It’s like, “Hug this way…” or “Breathe deeper…” or “Do this…” or “You talk fast.” Rick: (laughing)



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Carol: I feel that sense of, “Just accept me, or don’t play with me! Don’t play in my sandbox!” My life is going pretty darn well. I don’t need to do it somebody else’s way, male, female, friend, colleague, anything. But it is striking to me that that came up with a charge while we were doing that about ‘accept me’. This is not someone whose approval I need. I don’t care about them much, I don’t need their approval professionally or personally, and it still feels really irksome. Rick: What’s interesting is that - I believe it’s because we do not want to be molded by somebody else’s vision of what we have to be in order to be acceptable. We just don’t. That sets up a, “Okay, I’m going to continue to do it the way that I want.” In relation to clutter, what we’re focusing on with this, as these emotions come up for you, and I bet a lot of people say “I accept me.” When Carol had us say that, while we were tapping, did it feel 100% true? Don’t be disappointed if it only felt 20% true, or 60% true, or 80% true. Just continue to tap on that particular round until you see that trend changing. Because if you can take either a professional relationship like Carol talked about or any relationship - anywhere where you’re not getting unconditional love… They’re looking at you and saying, “For me to really love and respect and admire and appreciate you, this is going have to change.” There’s a core part of us that says, “No way!” Carol: “You should be different. You should do it my way.” As an adult, hearing this, I’m thinking, “There’s nothing wrong with my way,” but it makes me defensive. Rick: Yes. Carol: Because the attitude is “You’re doing it wrong; if only you would slow down.” Um, I’m not having any problems in my life with speed right now… What he is suggesting that I should do, these three things - if only I would do them differently whenever I see him - I think he’s going to vibrate right out of my life. Rick: And that’s what you will notice here. As you do the tapping, the people that are annoying to you, or that are the aggravators around your clutter, they will start diminishing in importance, psychologically and even in your physical life. They just will, because the hook is no longer there. You’re not meeting them with resistance. If people were compliant with what the leader or some powerful person was dictating ‘had to be’, we never would have evolved. This impulse to ‘do it a little differently’ is part of why we have so much diversity and so much technology and all the other things that we have in the diversity of the human experience.



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Carol: Anything more on anger? We didn’t end up doing so much on anger. We got sort of sidetracked by my issues. (laughing) It was a personal session for me, thank you! Rick: You’re welcome! Carol: Anything else on anger or that sense of holding on or letting go? We could do one more. Rick: What happens if the person lets go of the anger? Carol: Mmm-hmm. Rick: You know, I don’t want to clear my anger. It’s a good excuse not to… Carol: …release. Rick: Yes. If I let go of my anger, then what will happen? Carol: Let’s do one more for the anger on the releasing versus holding on, and what might happen if someone lets go of their anger and lets go of their stuff, if they’re connected. Now, a lot of you won’t resonate with that, and you won’t think that’s connected, and that’s fine. Just tap along anyway. Rick: Great.

Tapping on Anger (Starts @ 36:10) Karate Chop: Even though my stuff and holding onto it… …reminds me of my anger… …and I don’t want to let go of either… …I deeply and profoundly… …accept myself anyway. Even though having all this stuff… …is a good excuse not to release my anger… …because I don’t want to… …I’m afraid to… …I’ll feel so exposed without it…



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…I deeply and profoundly accept who I am. Eyebrow: I don’t want to clear my anger. Side of the eye: I don’t want to clear my home. Under the eye: I want to hold on to both. Under the nose: I might feel vulnerable without it. Chin: If I let go of my anger at them… Collarbone: …who will I be? Under the arm: What will I have? Top of the head: No wonder I’m holding onto stuff. Rick: Ahhhhh… (deep breath) Carol: There are so many variables here, and so many equations we could make with emotions and with clutter. So, those of you listening, if the anger one didn’t quite hit or the scarcity feeling didn’t feel like a good match, don’t worry about it. Keep tapping with us, because all of these old issues can be relieved. Clear the way, and then clear your clutter. Rick: We’re teaching our energy system how to acknowledge something that’s there which is not pleasing to us and to clear it. That will then start being reflected in your physical world as well. “This is no longer pleasing to me as it sits here or even in my life at all.” I know how to clear that out. That’s where the emotional basis for noticing things - that big, chaotic mess - clearing them out, one by one. It teaches your whole being how to do that in every context, and to become very quick at it as well. It becomes something that, on the emotional level, you start clearing anger and feelings of being hurt much more quickly, having done it with three or four or five specific energies that come up. Carol: Excellent. Shall we move to guilt? Rick: Oh…guilt. Carol: I think there are two directions that we could go with guilt, and I think we’ll save the specific events for later. What we could now with the guilt is the guilt about throwing things away, the guilt about having clutter, the guilt about getting rid of clutter, the guilt about throwing things away. (Is it wasteful?) Then, later, we’ll do a segment on guilt from old conflicts in your past which somehow get connected to clutter now. Rick: There’s the guilt of letting things go. There’s also the aspect of “secret” – or is that shame? Shame and the hiding?



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Carol: We could do it both ways, but I think it’s a little more shame. The other thing with guilt: I’ve had clients who grew up both in poverty and some who have grown up in great riches, and they end up having weird feelings of conflict and guilt around stuff. Rick: How does guilt play into clutter at this point? Carol: I think it plays in, in two different ways, and we’ll separate that. The first is guilt from things you have done that you perceive are wrong in your life that may make you punish yourself or do something with clutter in your adult life. Rick: Yes. Carol: Another way is just guilt about stuff – guilt about having something, guilt about not having something, guilt about throwing something away, guilt if you think it’s wasteful. You know how people can eat too much because they feel guilty about throwing it away, or they have too much because they don’t want to throw it away. Now, they’re not going to use it, by the way. They’re not going to use that broken lamp, but they’re not going to throw it away. Rick: That’s a very good point. If you would feel guilty about letting go of anything that is on the list, it can also keep you from starting in the first place. Guilt is such a powerful emotion. We will do almost anything to avoid it, and if we already have it, we don’t want to look at it because it is so painful to look at without something like EFT to help soothe you while you are working through that feeling.

Tapping on Guilt (starts @ 40:47) Karate Chop: Even though I feel guilty whenever I throw something away… …I think that’s bad. I shouldn’t throw anything out. I deeply and profoundly accept myself anyway. Even though I feel guilty if I throw something away… …so I keep it all… …I accept my feelings and my conflicts.



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Eyebrow: It seems wasteful to throw things out. Side of the eye: I don’t want to get rid of anything! Under the eye: It seems so wasteful. Under the nose: I feel guilty when I throw something out. Chin: I feel so guilty when I throw something out! Collarbone: No wonder I hold on. Under the arm: No wonder I hold on. Top of the head: I need to hold on… …because it’s bad to throw anything away. Carol: Take a breath. Rick: Ahhhhh… (deep breath) That’s interesting. I had a couple of pictures of things like you inherited something that doesn’t fit your energy. Carol: Mmm-hmm. Rick: “This was important to my great-grandmother.” “This was important to my mother.” “This was important to my sister.” It may have no importance to you, but even giving it to somebody who would value it, or giving it to Goodwill, there’s a guilt associated with letting it go. Carol: Right. If it had meaning for somebody, but it doesn’t have meaning for you… How many people right now can look in their homes and say, “Yep, that belonged in my family, but I don’t like it!” (laughing) Rick: (laughing) It doesn’t fit! I can definitely think of certain things that are in other family homes that just don’t fit! “But they were Great-aunt Soand-so’s, and she was so nice to us…” Do you want to do something specific on that?

Tapping on Family Clutter (starts @ 42:54) Karate Chop: Even thought I’m holding on for them… …because I would feel guilty getting rid of it… …I deeply and profoundly accept myself anyway. Even though I’m trying not to hurt their feelings… …so I’m holding onto something I don’t like…



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…and something I don’t need… …I choose to release the guilt. Even though I have all this guilt… …because I even want to get rid of it… …I accept who I am and how I feel. Eyebrow: This complicated guilt. Side of the eye: I don’t think I should throw anything away. Under the eye: They gave it to me. Under the nose: I can’t give it away. Chin: I certainly can’t throw it away. Collarbone: And that’s okay. Under the arm: I accept myself as I am… … right now. Top of the head: And I appreciate all these conflicts. Carol: Take a breath. Rick: Ahhhhh… (deep breath) Sometimes it’s hard to appreciate those conflicts. One of the things that I encourage people to do is to consider that you can keep the energy, the gift - the actual emotional gift of the item, the thought behind it - and not necessarily hold onto the thing itself. Carol: Well, one of the reasons, for your birthday for the last two years, I’ve written you a poem and an appreciation list is that I don’t really want to give you more stuff! I try to encourage people, you know… Rick: (laughing) That’s why you make such a good friend! Carol: (laughing) I’m encouraging people and myself to stop collecting ‘stuffola’! So if I give you a list of wonderful things I appreciate about you, I think you would hold onto that. Rick: Your birthday list is something I look at every single month. It’s a single sheet of paper that goes from August to September folder, and September to October folder. That’s my way of connecting. I encourage people to think about this. If you’re trying to create a balance between the richness of your emotional life and greater simplicity in your physical life, then think about presents which have rich emotional meaning to them, that aren’t physical things. Those can be experiences that you choose to have together. It can be like something that Carol did for me.



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Carol: I have several friends and we have a pact that, for birthdays and holidays, what we do is to go out and have a wonderful meal together at a favorite restaurant. Rick: Yes. Carol: And that wonderful experience…I don’t need another blouse. I don’t need another piece of jewelry. I don’t need anything. Rick: Frankly, as I get more energetically clear in myself, what is appealing to me is very specific. Carol: Yes. Rick: People will say, “He’s so hard to buy for.” Okay? Yeah! No apologies there! (laughing) You know, you may want to buy me a television, but I’m real careful about the energy of the items that I bring into my world. With that in mind, though, experiences - heart-to-heart experiences and expressions of what we mean to each other - these are things which never clutter yourself. These are the rich memories that live on even after we’re gone. Carol: I thought about the guilt around books. I have way too many books. Slowly but surely I’m giving some away, but what really helps me is to have a place to give. So I found a fantastic place that will take books, and once or twice a year there’s a store near us that says, “Put your books for other people here.” It’s sort of a ‘pass-along’. But before I had places to put them, and to give them, the guilt was overwhelming. For one, I thought I should read them. How many books have I bought but never read? Rick: Sure. Carol: One client said to me, “I have a business card sticking out of each book,” which means, “That’s how far I read, and the business card is my place marker.” There are a lot of books that you don’t need to finish - one chapter is perfect. I’ve gotten much better about that. But what helped me is feeling confident that I was giving it to someone who would enjoy it. I won’t throw books out. Isn’t that interesting? I will not throw them out. Rick: I will throw out books that I feel the energy in them is not something I personally would want to pass along to the world. When I went back through all my books, there were about ten that I just didn’t want to pass on. So those got recycled. Thank you, universe, for paper recycling. Right?



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Carol: Right. Rick: It will turn into toilet paper as it runs through the mill. I agree with you completely. As you think about things that you want to flow in your life, you have to have an avenue for them to flow out in a way that feels good to you. When I give a book to somebody, and they say, “I’ll give it back to you,” I say, “No, if you like it, pass it on. If not, give it to the library. Drop it in the library box.” They’ll figure out something to do with it. I know the library will take it and put it in their book sale that raises money for them. So that’s what I do. I agree with you. Anything we have, there are usually people that, if it’s no longer right for us… Our intuition - once we let go of that feeling of “I need to hold onto Aunt Mary’s thingamawhopper” - as soon as you get over the guilt of even considering letting it go, you might have a person come to mind that it would be perfect for. Carol: Right. Rick: It’s like jewelry. There’s some people that can wear those big clip-on earrings, and there’s some people that can’t. Carol: Mmm-hmm. Rick: That’s what we’re talking about here is letting go of the emotional holding, clinging, and guilt so that you can get clarity about what is right for this. You’re probably not going to be buried with all of your stuff, so at some point it’s going to move on. As soon as you get used to the idea of a flow of things…ahhhhh. Then life becomes natural, and you don’t end up feeling like you need to cling to life itself, too, which makes you feel much freer as you go through the time that you do have. Carol: Then there’s also that financial peace. If I’ve spent $22 on a book, and I give it away, I feel like I’m wasting money. This happens with clothes and makeup and books. Since I’ve been changing all this… I had some nieces staying with me, six months to a year ago. I had no less than five extra blush compacts in my bathroom, and I gave them away to them. The colors fit them. They didn’t fit me. I don’t know why I had some compulsion to buy rouge or blush. They were from these expensive places. I didn’t want to give them away - it was going on six to ten years of old stuff (that stuff doesn’t go bad). Women have a real issue with this. I have talked to a lot of women about this. If they buy makeup, they can’t give it away. It’s not right for them, they can’t throw it away because they spent money on it, and they can’t return it. Who wants used makeup? We cleaned these rouge puffs up, and my nieces are thrilled.



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Rick: As you say, who needs makeup? The domestic violence shelters, you know? There are places where, to have a nice makeup kit, for somebody who has gone through a very difficult time, can be wonderful. A lot of these women leave with the clothes on their backs. But you can’t get clarity on that if you’re feeling like, “I bought that.” Again, it’s not logical. It isn’t logical. That’s why we’re doing this using EFT instead of saying, “We want you to go through your bathroom closet and say, ‘Look - do I really need this or not?’” You can’t do that if you’re… Carol: If that worked, it would have worked ten years ago… Rick: You don’t do that if you feel like, “Why did I buy that??” And there’s a sense of guilt or even a sense of stupidity. Carol: Right, as if holding onto the extra thing is going to make the money come back… Rick: There is evidence of primitive brain. There’s no logical reason for it. Let’s just assume there’s something primitive going on here. “I might need it someday? No, not that. Would I feel guilty if I gave it away or threw it away? There it is: guilt.” Even though I feel guilty if I just throw it away, because…fill in the blank. Carol: That idea of wasting money - I think it’s so important. That’s why we think abundance and clutter are so connected. Let’s do one more tapping on guilt, connecting it to wasting money. I must say also, the joy I felt of giving my niece a little rouge compact - that she couldn’t afford, by the way… Rick: (laughing) No. Carol: …and it looked beautiful, and she was so happy. It was one of those feelings. But I didn’t used to get that. I was all about holding on, and oh, I might need it someday. Even though that coat is clearly from the early 1990s and it’s out of date, it’s like, “Oh, well.” Once I found places to transfer and give and offer, that was a serious part of my clutter problem not having an avenue. Rick: Yes. I would say that it’s probably 95% of the people… Even if you clear some of the emotional stuff, you need to have some way of letting it go that feels acceptable to you. Even if it doesn’t feel great, it needs to feel at least acceptable. I’ve noticed that I buy books sometimes and they’re really meant for somebody else. I’ll read a couple of paragraphs or pages or a



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chapter that jumps out, but then somebody’s picture will come to mind and “Oh - it was supposed to go to that person!” I did that just the other day with a book on servant leadership. I read about three chapters of it in a coffee shop, and then this person walks in, and I know her, and I said, “This is perfect!” She was so delighted to get the book. It was absolutely right for her. Carol: Mmm-hmm. Rick: That, to me, is abundance. That’s allowing us to be a flow. Carol: Absolutely. So, one more on guilt and money:

Tapping on Guilt and Money (starts @ 53:18) Karate Chop: Even though I feel guilty giving something away… …or throwing something out… …I accept who I am… … anyway. Even though it feels like I’m wasting money… …when I let go of something… …I choose to rearrange this belief. Even though I was taught that it is a waste of money… …to throw something out… …I choose to accept myself anyway. Eyebrow: Maybe it’s not a waste. Side of the eye: Maybe it’s okay. Under the eye: Maybe it’s okay to have that flow. Under the nose: I love flow, in and out. Chin: I love flow. Collarbone: It’s not a waste of money. Under the arm: Someone is going to get it… Top of the head: …or else it will be recycled. Top of the head: I love feeling clear. Rick: Ahhhhh… (deep breath)


Clearing Clutter with EFT Carol: Great. Rick: Thank you, Carol! Carol: Thank you, Rick. Good stuff today!


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Recording #4 Guilt, Shame, and Clutter Rick: We talked about guilt, Carol, related to clutter. How is shame different, and how does it fit into the energy around clutter and the stuff in our life? Carol: Well, I always tell people that guilt and shame are different. Guilt is ‘you feel bad about something you did’, and shame is ‘you feel bad about you’. You think you’re bad. That’s a very different feeling than if someone has some specific guilt about something that happened in 2005. Rick: Right. Carol: Shame is within yourself. What’s so important about shame is that many people are ashamed of their clutter. They have this emotional shame about something else in their family, and then they have this habit of clutter that they can’t seem to move through, and then they’re ashamed about that, and it just piles on top of them. Now, they may be ashamed of their parents’ clutter. They may be ashamed of how they were raised. They may be ashamed of the stuff that they have. It doesn’t really matter. The point is that feeling…talk about blocking your energy! Shame really, really scrambles your clear energy about yourself, about making decisions, about what you want to do, and this is long before you even consider cleaning up clutter. Rick: It’s also one of those energies that tends to come up after you have done a bit of tapping. Because it’s so core, and we’re ashamed of it, we don’t tend to bring it up right at the start. Carol: Right. I had a client who, six months into therapy, finally admitted that he was ashamed that he was ashamed. He had never been able to tell me before, and it was a turning point. Shame makes us hide. We’re often hiding behind shame. We hide the shame because we’re ashamed we have it. We hide the things that we feel ashamed of about ourselves, our life, or our family. You can’t clear something if you’re hiding from it. If it’s not front and center - the way we do EFT, the subject matter needs to be the target - if you’re not admitting that you’re ashamed, or not telling anyone



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that you have this clutter problem or this shame problem, you really can’t address it and energetically deal with it. It’s a bit of a Catch-22 there. Rick: A lot of times, the shame comes up from our own judgments about how we feel about the clutter and projecting that onto how we feel other people look at us and define us - by the mess in our house, the mess in our finances, wherever the clutter is. We have convinced ourselves that it means, “I am (blank),” and that blank is not complimentary. Carol: Right…the judgment. It’s also important to note that many people, if they don’t have a history of shame from their family - and again, whether they inherited the feeling and the energy of shame from their parents, or whether they were made to feel ashamed - if they don’t have that, it’s unlikely the shame is going to be very big about their clutter problem. It’s more, “Oh, this is just me, and it’s a drag, and I’m going to get to it,” but you don’t have that terrible, cellular shame about it unless you come from a place where you are easily shamed and judged. Rick: …where shame was a parenting technique! “You should be ashamed of yourself!” If you heard those words dozens and dozens and dozens of times a week growing up, chances are there’s an energy of shame around anything that you want to shift in your life. Carol: It’s hard to admit, “This is a problem and I want to shift it,” because they feel so ashamed. Now, that word ‘hide’, again, is really important because we can hide behind the clutter - relationship clutter, financial clutter, stuff in our office or home clutter, body clutter - we can hide behind that and use it as a way not to come out and say, “Hi, this is who I am,” right down to the basics where you don’t invite someone to your home because it’s cluttered or you just use it as an excuse. It’s kind of tRicky. Change is always tRicky, I find, with clients. So, any time we can make it present and available rather than hidden, even if someone is finally admitting that, “I’ve never told anyone I have this clutter problem.” That would be great, because now we have something to work with. Rick: You could choose a safe professional to tell, not necessarily someone that isn’t safe and is going to judge you and not be a supporter. You may or may not have that type of person in your life right now, but you can attract that as soon as you have the desire to be able to safely say, “Here is where I am and here is where I want to go,” including, “I’m ashamed of it.” Carol: Right. I know it’s a bit global for EFT, but even if we did one on “I’m ashamed of myself” not connected to clutter - I think that would have some



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charge for a lot of people. Again, it’s not very specific, but it still feels right to people, and then we can be specific on the “ashamed of the clutter”. Rick: I think that, when you’re doing a global statement like, “Even though I am ashamed,” and the energy as you’re tapping starts coming up, going from a 2 to a 6 to an 8, you can ask yourself, “Why am I feeling ashamed?” and list the specifics. “What is the indictment against me?” Carol: Mmm-hmm. Rick: By getting into the specifics - which we’re going to talk about soon and using tapping on the specifics, this general tapping on the shame will bring some of those specifics to mind - thoughts that you have about yourself, thoughts that you picked up from other people. They may have said things that make you feel embarrassed, deeply embarrassed, about where you are. Those are energies that you can help transform with EFT. Carol: Absolutely. All right, do you want to lead me through? Rick: Sure.

Tapping on Shame in General (starts @ 05:44) Karate Chop: Even though I feel ashamed… …and I don’t want anyone else to know… …I deeply and completely accept all of my feelings. Even though I feel ashamed… …and maybe I always have… …and it’s reflected in everything that I look at… …I deeply and completely acknowledge and respect all of my feelings. Even though I am ashamed… …and I have a long list of reasons… …I accept myself anyway. Eyebrow: I feel ashamed. Side of the eye: I do feel ashamed. Under the eye: Not all the time… Under the nose: …but most of the time.



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Chin: I feel ashamed. Collarbone: I feel ashamed in my body. Under the arm: I feel the shame in my body. Top of the head: I feel it in my head. Eyebrow: It weighs on my heart. Side of the eye: It blocks me. Under the eye: It keeps me frozen. Under the nose: Frozen in shame. Chin: I’m so tired of being frozen in shame. Collarbone: I’m ready to let go of the shame. Under the arm: I’m so looking forward to relief. Top of the head: The relief from the shame. Rick: Take a deep breath. Ahhhhh… (deep breath) Carol: Ahhhhh… (deep breath) That would be a great place for someone to start if they can’t identify why they feel ashamed and what they feel ashamed of. Where do you feel it in your body? People feel shame in their stomach or their chest or their back - anywhere in their body. They just feel this wormy feeling of shame, and that may be a wonderful place to start if you can’t get any more information. Rick: By addressing the body’s sensations, there are doorways into the energy system - excellent doorways into the energy system. A lot of people ignore them and do not give enough respect to the body’s sensations as being of the same intelligence as a thought or a vision or something that you hear in your head brings to the healing experience. Carol: In fact, probably smarter! (laughing) Rick: (laughing) We don’t try to second-guess and talk ourselves out of the body sensations as much as we do a thought. “I’m ashamed. Oh, I shouldn’t be ashamed. I’m ashamed that I’m ashamed!” That’s different than the feeling of tight constriction, that wormy feeling in the body. Do you want to do a round on the physical stuff? Carol: Sure, let’s do the physical. And remember - I want everyone to think of this. Ask yourself: Is the shame from your generation or from the last one? Our parents and grandparents can literally hand us down shame as an energy, even though you shouldn’t be ashamed, and they didn’t say, “You should be ashamed of yourself.” They carry so much. It’s in the DNA.



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Rick: It’s our inheritance. Why don’t you lead that one? Carol: Okay.

Tapping on Shame from Parents (starts @ 09:09) Karate Chop: Even though I have this shame from me… …and my family… …and my grandparents… …maybe my great-grandparents… …I deeply and profoundly accept who I am. Even though I inherited so much shame from them… …I choose to feel compassionate toward them. Even though I don’t think I’m carrying my own shame… …I think it’s from them. I deeply and profoundly accept all of me. Eyebrow: I accept myself even if I feel ashamed. Side of the eye: I accept who I am even if they gave me too much shame. Under the eye: I accept them, even if they came into this world ashamed. Under the nose: We all have too much shame. Chin: And it’s not real. Collarbone: It’s just a feeling. Under the arm: And I choose to release it. Top of the head: I choose to clear the shame from my life. Carol: Take a breath. Rick: Ahhhhh… (deep breath) Carol: I recommend doing that one several times if it hit a chord. Maybe you think the women in your life are ashamed, or the men in your family, or maybe it was just one generation. Sometimes there’s one aunt or uncle who just carries that tune. See if you can release it, because shame - that feeling of “I’m not good, I’m bad to the core” - that’s not a truth. That’s something you have to learn. You do not come out that way. Rick: It’s interesting. I sense that, if we love someone and they’re our mentor - like a parent - and we see them in a certain light, but there’s an



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underlying hidden shame that they’re vibrating. We as children pick up on that. It doesn’t make any sense, but we will tune to it. I think that’s what you’re suggesting - the ancestral inheritance of shame energy is that we will tune to that. It’s interesting. By releasing that, I have certain very specific connections to men in my lineage and some of the things - they never talked about being ashamed - no. They would never admit that they were ashamed. I could feel, as we were tapping, a brief connection to that energy and feel it in my body and release it. Carol: All right. Rick: Now, if you’re having that again, go back through that tapping several times. See what comes up. See what shifts. The wonder of EFT and these types of recordings is that you can use them again and again and again. If you get bored with it, then you’re done! Carol: Right! Rick: If it’s still bringing up stuff, you know that it is useful to you as an exercise. Carol: Right. Let’s do “shame about clutter” specifically. Okay?

Tapping on Shame About Clutter (starts @ 12:33) Karate Chop: Even though I’m so ashamed of my clutter… …and I have to hide it from everyone… …even from myself… …I deeply and profoundly accept who I am. Even though I feel ashamed of my clutter… …and too ashamed to even admit it sometimes… …I accept who I am right now. Even though I feel ashamed of myself and I hide behind all this clutter… …I deeply and profoundly love and accept myself. Eyebrow: I’m so ashamed of the clutter. Side of the eye: I’m ashamed of the clutter. Under the eye: I don’t even know what to do.



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Under the nose: All I know is I keep hiding it. Chin: Like other things about myself. Collarbone: I’m ashamed of my clutter. Under the arm: And I think I’m ashamed of myself. Top of the head: I want to let go. Eyebrow: What if I let go? Side of the eye: What if I accepted the clutter? Under the eye: Then it would stick. Under the nose: No, it wouldn’t. Chin: If I accepted the clutter… Collarbone: …and accepted myself… Under the arm: …and accepted my feelings… Top of the head: I know things would change. I appreciate who I am… …even though I have all this clutter. Carol: Good. Deep breath. Rick: Ahhhhh… (deep breath) Carol: It’s so key that people really acknowledge what the truth is. It’s a little bit like in the weight loss - people think that being ashamed and guilty about what they eat and their bodies will make them lose weight, and it never does it. So holding onto the shame about the clutter and the shame about myself - it does not make you better. It keeps you stuck. People say, “Oh, no, if you’re ashamed or guilty, you won’t do it again.” Not true! Rick: I have ample evidence that that doesn’t work! (laughing) Carol: I had a little clutter ‘relapse’ this week (I would say), and I was gone for a week, so I came home and of course there’s a week’s worth of mail , everyone sending me stuff, plus the bills. I’m getting back on top of it, but there was an interesting feeling of “Ugh!” - like a heaviness, like I was making such progress. I continued to do this deep process which was completely different that what I had been doing for the past year or two. It’s that little surface stuff. I have to remind myself that I did have a relapse, or it looked like a relapse, but it was just surface junk. It was very easy, if you have places to put it. So I have this wonderful shredder in the lobby of my building. I have this new filing system. If you can give it to the right place, even if that means the garbage, then a lot changes. And that’s about letting go. We’re back to those initial recordings we did about “Why can’t we let go of it? What is this scarcity issue? What is this about



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hoarding? What is it about holding onto stuff? Let it go. You don’t need it you haven’t used it in ten years!” Rick: Whatever the energy is that’s wrapped up in the clutter, facing it honestly with EFT will take the energy out of the clutter and then it just becomes things. You’ll learn. You’ll become attracted to techniques and ideas on how to sort and file and take care of stuff. Your attention will be attracted to a sign for Goodwill - you didn’t even know the store was there, but you had already prepared yourself energetically for the idea. Those types of things will come up. It’s a good time to smile and say, “Thank you, source - I really appreciate the feedback that we’re in this together and I’m going to be attracting into my life opportunities to allow stuff to move forward, move on, move out.” Carol: How do you say it - once the charge is gone, then you can do something with it - it’s a little bit like a heavy charge on something. An electrical charge, an emotional charge, is like glue. If you think of this thing that happened in 2002, and you get this feeling or charge in your body, that’s like glue. It’s sticking to you. That means you have energy work to do on it. If you look at your clutter and say, “Blah! Ick! I’m disgusting. I’m ashamed,” you’ve got work to do before you throw anything out or rearrange anything. The ‘doing’ doesn’t work long-term. It works for about a week. It’s like the alcoholic. Any alcoholic (almost) can put down alcohol for a few days, but it can’t stick unless they have done the underlying work. So you can rearrange the books and refile things, but it won’t stick. I did that for a while. Rick: You’ve noticed that neither you nor I have been telling people, “Hey, you should have made this kind of progress on your clutter by now,” and trying to hold people accountable. Until they’ve done the energetic work, holding someone accountable can provide an external force that makes it more uncomfortable for them to keep the clutter than to get rid of it. That’s not addressing the energy that caused it in the first place. Whether it’s illness in the body or discord in the house or in a relationship. Deal with the energetics that you have control over first. That’s what we’re talking about here. Once you do that, your perspective on it - your vantage point - is completely different. Carol: It is so like addiction. I told you that I’ve been working on this ‘quit smoking’ program. The people’s eyes are opening up. They’re saying,” Now I know why I smoked!” We’re getting to the grief, the hurt, the pain, the connection to the parent that smoked. “It’s so obvious!” It’s not obvious when you’re smoking a pack a day. You can’t connect to why you’re



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cluttering unless you do the energetic work. You can’t just rearrange the books. It’s not going to work.

The Habit of Clutter (starts @ 18:51) Rick: How much clutter is a habit, then? Just a bad habit? Obviously not… Carol: No, for some people, it can be a habit connected to time where if you literally don’t have enough time in your life, but then you need to look at your cluttered schedule. Why are you going out every night? Why is every minute full? Why aren’t you having down time, where you go through the mail and throw out old things and give to the Goodwill (the clothing) and properly arrange things in your office or your home? If you have too much to do, there’s a different kind of clutter going on. If you literally can’t attend to the pile… Rick: Right - life balance issues and the emotions that go into that. Like you said, it’s the habits about where you put things. Do you have an organizational habit that you’ve gone into? I’ve gotten into a habit now of keeping my Inbox clear, and it was not a habit that I had found a technique that really had worked for me until recently. But now that I do have that technique, it makes a big difference. What was interesting was, until I cleared some of the overwhelmed feelings, the technique wasn’t going to stick. I could just feel it. I tried something so similar that it could have worked two years ago, but my reaction to 100 messages in my Inbox was not a resourceful one. Carol: Mmm-hmm. Rick: It’s very common for me to look at my Inbox and have 60 to 100 messages overnight. Now, when I address the overwhelm, I no longer get triggered into primitive brain when I look at the Inbox. The overwhelm was something that I didn’t have conscious control over. It was something that the primitive brain triggered. There were a number of ways that, by tapping on the overwhelm, where I felt it in the body, the specific events came up, and then I was able to shift the habit. The habit was to leave the things that I just couldn’t get to in the Inbox, rather than very quickly going through it and deciding, “Do I delete this? Is this a reply, or is this something that needs to be filed, or is this something that needs to be done on a specific day?



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Carol: Mmm-hmm. Rick: That’s pretty simple, isn’t it? I can actually process an entire Inbox of 100 messages in less than two or three minutes based upon that criteria. You can’t, though, if you’re in primitive brain because you either want to fight, which means wail about how overwhelmed you are, you want to freeze and do nothing, or you want to run! Carol: Yep. Rick: So that’s an example for me of how good habits are made possible by this process that we are talking about. Carol: I also hope that people are getting that connection because - I think that you’ve said it a couple of times - that when you are overwhelmed, you can’t make clear decisions. If you can’t make clear decisions, you don’t know where the book goes, or the file, or the piece of paper, or the mail that you don’t have to address this week. You cannot make decisions. If you can work on that overwhelm - go back to our section on overwhelmed - and tap and tap and tap until things become clear… “Oh, I can make a decision about this!” “Oh, I know where to put this!” When I used to be much more overwhelmed with work, it was a couple of years ago that I finally put a special hook up right inside the front door, and my mail keys and the post office key and my home and office keys, which were all on the same hook. I put them all up. “It seems kind of basic, Carol, really simple,” but it wasn’t simple because I was overwhelmed. I’d walk in and what would I do? I’d drop the keys on the table again in the middle of the mess and never find them until these beautiful hooks were put up. So it is what you’re saying, that if you don’t get and deal with the overwhelm, the good habits that seem pretty normal… It’s why, when people say, “Read a book on time management,” it doesn’t work. If that’s all we needed was a book on time management, we would have done it. If all we needed to do was have someone come in and clear out the closets, then we wouldn’t get them messy again in two weeks or two months. So that energetic work has to be done first. Then you have a commitment and intention and you’re inspired to put your keys where they belong. You’re inspired to clean out your pockets. You’re inspired to move that pile of clothing that you don’t use anymore. You must be inspired. It can’t be this laborious chore. “This is what I have to do every day…I’d better clean up.” That’s not going to work, either. Rick: That energy that you described is whipping yourself so that you’re using your primitive brain, I think, in order to get yourself to act out of pain



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avoidance. We’ll do a lot to avoid pain, and we do use self-criticism, whipping ourselves to create enough pain in order to do something. Carol: You know, we’re back to shame and lack of abundance and heavy, heavy feelings. When you feel heavy, you don’t want to do anything. You don’t feel like feeding the dog or the cat, either, when you have heavy feelings. You don’t feel like doing the laundry. It’s not depression, per se, but it feels pretty dark. Rick: Would you lead us in tapping around bad habits - this bad habit of clutter? For those who view it as a bad habit. Carol: Yes, and remember, all of you listening - you might have gotten the habit literally from your parents and siblings, the way you get the habit of hand-gesturing or something else that you do that’s just like the rest of them. Rick: I know, for example, that people that come from families where they know how to clean, are able to clean a house in one-third of the time than people who come from a family where they did not know how to efficiently clean the place. There’s an art to keeping things organized. Carol: Mmm-hmm. Rick: It can be natural and an easy flow, but if you don’t come from there there is a ‘skill’ aspect of it. If you came from an energy where the bad habits have been handed down from generation to generation, you never were exposed to what the good habit felt like, whether it’s cleaning the house or taking care of and organizing the stack of stuff. Carol: It wasn’t developed as a value for you. There are people who do not value orderliness in their homes and offices, and that’s their prerogative and their right. But you may have just inherited that because nobody else did it. Why would you? What’s the importance? You’d rather do x, y, or z than spend the time cleaning and organizing and having things available to you when you need them. Rick: Maybe include developing a good habit that suits the person’s desire for the level of organization that is perfect for them. It’s not necessarily ‘the perfectly clean spot’. Carol: Exactly.



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Tapping on a Bad Habit of Cluttering (starts @ 25:36) Karate Chop: Even though I have this bad habit… …and I got it from my family… …I choose to make some changes soon. Even though I have this bad habit around cluttering… …I’ve examined my feelings… …and I’ve decided that I do want to change. Even though I have this bad habit around cluttering… …I want to come up with a new way… …to feel inspired about my life. Eyebrow: I don’t have to be a neat freak. Side of the eye: I don’t like them, either… Under the eye: …but I don’t like the clutter… Under the nose: …and I can feel that this is a bad habit. Chin: I’m just like my parents… Collarbone: …and I just want to change it. Under the arm: They wanted to change it, too… Top of the head: …but they never tried very hard. Eyebrow: They had other concerns. Side of the eye: I’m ready to change. Under the eye: Actually, I feel excited. Under the nose: I’m ready to change. Chin: I’m looking forward to all the new habits. Collarbone: I feel kind of excited! Under the arm: I can give up this old habit… Top of the head: …and I look forward to developing new habits… …that suit me. Rick: Yeah! Carol: Take a breath. Rick: Ahhhhh… (deep breath) Carol: There is no one way. A hundred books on a bookshelf for you is fifty books for someone else, or twenty books for someone else…there is no right or wrong. We never want to communicate that. We’re saying, deal with the



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feelings behind the behavior of clutter and see what you can change and see how you feel about it. Rick: Right. Carol: Anything else on the habit portion? Rick: Just encouragement that there are wonderful resources out there. Let your intuition pick. One of the ones that made a difference for me in organizing my business was David Allen’s Getting Things Done. Very matter-of-fact kind of sorting - it gave me a tool that helped me organize my materials. There are literally hundreds out there. Let your intuition see which one is bright and shiny for you. As you deal with the emotions, opportunities, you’ll be attracted to things that help with the basic techniques and logistics.

Specific Events Tied to Clutter (starts @ 28:15) Carol: So, specific events: Why are these so important in EFT? We’ve been working, Rick, on the feelings: the anger, the guilt, the shame, the abandonment - all the emotions that might contribute to this habit of clutter. Now, let’s specifically talk about specific events, because I think it’s critical for effective EFT. So why are specific events and getting to them so important when using EFT? Rick: Well, sometimes there’s a very specific event, like somebody walked into your home and said, “I can’t believe you live like this.” The emotional charge in that specific event will freeze us in that moment, and by addressing that specific event, that tone of voice, the look on their face, who the person was, what that meant to you to have been told that, and how that feels in your body. Neutralizing that specific event can change your whole relationship around clutter. As we tap on anger and shame and the habit and our fear and all of these other things; oftentimes with EFT, a specific image will come up. Carol: Mmm-hmm. Rick: That specific image is tied to an event. Specific words that you heard once, or over and over again like a mantra, will come up. Those are your body intelligence telling you, “Hey, this is what you need to focus on.” The



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emotions themselves - we could do tremendous shifts with EFT by addressing the emotions like anger because as you’re tapping on our tapping on anger, you are bringing things up. It’s just like we did a moment ago about ancestral shame. My intelligence brought up certain images, certain feelings. That’s the way it works for people. But if there’s one that comes up that feels intense to you, taking and using EFT on that specific event wow. There’s great value in doing that. Carol: It may surprise you what event ends up being connected to clutter. You may not have consciously put it together - that this event five years ago, ten years ago, thirty years ago was connected - but when we do the tapping, the ‘a-has’ start to happen. I always say to people, “Who, what, when? Who, what, when? Who said what to you, and when did they say it?” Then you go right into a specific event. As your example was, someone came in and said, “I can’t believe you live this way.” That kind of shaming doesn’t make you clean up; as you said, it makes you freeze. It’s like a trauma. Ugh - you just got scolded by some important figure or friend of the family or another relative or somebody. Rick: I’ve worked with people that, as a child, their parent got very upset with them and threw all of their things out on the front lawn where they were rained on and many of them were destroyed. They have a problem letting go of things. They hold onto them. They hide them. They create locked cupboards and all kinds of other stuff. As they address that specific memory, which was extremely intense - shaking, crying - very intense. As she touched on that event, her attitude changed. Her energy around her stuff changed. Carol: The extent of that kind of a trauma - and I hope this is triggering some people who are listening into maybe something else - what did they say or do about your stuff? Was it as dramatic as throwing stuff on the lawn to get rained on? Was it taking something away prematurely? I just heard someone say - this is a grown man talking about how his bottle was taken away too early, and he remembers it! This is a grown businessman making about $2,000,000 a year - he’s talking about his bottle! After we did some tapping, he could feel that take-away, that feeling of being deprived. Obviously it wasn’t very conscious - we had to get to it. There was just that feeling of something being taken away from you, so what do you do? You grow up and never give anything away! Rick: It is fascinating. I believe these things come up at a perfect time when we want to grow. We want to shift. We want the change and that awareness of “What does this remind me of? What does this feeling of scarcity remind me of, or that my things will be taken away, or I’m going to



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need them someday? What does it remind me of?” When your higher consciousness gives you an answer, it may not make sense. In fact, it’s one of our favorite things to hear from clients: “This couldn’t possibly be it. This makes no sense.” Bingo!! That, to me, says that we’ve just gotten the perfect target for EFT and working on a specific event. Carol: No habits really happen or develop out of the blue, so when we did that habit section, and some people have certain pieces of the clutter as a habit; in general, why would you develop that? It’s gotta come from somewhere, so there may be a habitual response to put things in this pile and over here, and not clean up that. However, why would you have developed it to begin with? What does it remind you of? What is the feeling that someone is threatening to take something away from you? I’ve dealt with people who at work - and not about a clutter issue - someone comes into their office and borrows the stapler or borrows a file, and you just know it’s not a normal reaction, what happens to them. What is that about? It turned out to be around siblings taking their stuff - borrowing without asking! Rick: Oh, definitely. When I found EFT, I remembered a couple of times when my brother took stuff, and shifting those changes your attitude about loaning things. You’re much more comfortable and confident that everything’s going to be okay. You also tend to get things back, because you’re not vibrating, “Well, I bet that person’s never going to give that back to me. I shouldn’t have loaned that out.” That’s the Law of Attraction at work, there! I now expect people to easily return things because I’ve released those energies, and guess what? They do! Carol: Right! So, everyone: think about, if you hoard (if you use that word), if you’re a hoarder or just hold onto things and never throw anything out, never give anything away - what made you want to hoard? Because there is a desire there - there’s this urgency, there’s a need. “I’ve gotta have this!” Rick: “I must…” Carol: “I must…” What do you suspect made you want to hoard? Is it because you had a sibling who took everything of yours? Is it because the older kids ate the dessert? Is it…there are so many options! Again, does that seem as traumatic as something else like an earthquake or a car accident? No, of course not, but it is to you if you’re four. It’s as traumatic if you’re waiting for the piece of cake. I had a client who said that. She said that everybody used to take her cake. She was the youngest! Everybody



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ate her stuff. And it turned into, of course, weight issues, but also into many more emotional issues. Rick: It requires one time where you go to the refrigerator and it’s empty. Your interpretation is that “We’re going to starve,” especially if you’re picking up on the energy of scarcity and ‘not-enoughness’ in the vibration of the family - the vibration of the household - if that’s there. Maybe they’re going to get paid tomorrow. Maybe their refrigerator will get filled up soon. But you’ve already picked up on the vibration, and you’ve interpreted it and stored it vibrationally. So that means that, “I can never let my refrigerator be even close to empty, even if it means wasting food that I can’t eat in time.” Carol: Right. Rick: Having two freezers worth of stuff available, you know, two years’ worth of food in the pantry. Justify it however you want. If it feels tensionproducing to you, and it’s not just a calm thing that you just prefer - it feels like a compulsion, that “I have to do this. I have to hoard. I have to have this.” If you can picture it, say “How would I feel if this stuff wasn’t there?” If you have a really strong body reaction of terror, discomfort, distress that’s a sign that you could use EFT on that image of the stuff not being there. Soothe it, and then you’ll be more relaxed in your life. It will be one less thing that your energy system is constantly paying attention to and constantly worried about. Carol: It does become compulsive. It’s a little bit like how I talk about addicts. A food addict better have three candy bars in their purse, because if they run out, they will panic. An alcoholic has a drink at home before the party, just in case… A compulsive clutterer - a compulsive ‘holder-ontostuffer’ - they would feel panicky letting go of… “Oh, I’ll wear that one day.” “Oh, I’ll read that one day.” No, you won’t. But that’s not the feeling. You can’t talk sense into the left brain, because it’s a right-brain issue. It’s about conflict. It’s about panic. It’s about terror. It’s about trauma. It’s about “What’s going to happen to me if I don’t have this?” And there is something compulsive and kind of addictive about that. Rick: So we can do a (quote) ‘specific’ tapping in a general way. If you picture the specific event, doesn’t that help? People picture the specific event, but we’re doing some general words. Does that help people with clearing it?



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Carol: Yes. Let’s have them picture what happened for the person whose clothes got thrown out on the lawn, and then we’ll do one for audio as well what they said to you. Rick: Great.

Tapping on Specific Events - What Someone Did (starts @ 38:08) Karate Chop: Even though I remember exactly what they did… …that made me decide I had to hold onto everything… …I choose to release the energy around it. Even though I remember that specific event… …I know where I was. I know how it felt. I can see what they did. I made a decision… …I would never let go again. I deeply and profoundly… …accept who I have become. Even though I can see that event… …I can remember it as if it were yesterday… …I deeply and profoundly… …accept myself anyway. Eyebrow: No wonder I hold onto everything. Side of the eye: No wonder I don’t give anything away. Under the eye: They threw it out too early. Under the nose: They took it from me. Chin: No wonder I hold on. Collarbone: Now I understand it. Under the arm: No wonder I hold onto things… …No wonder I refuse to give anything away. Top of the head: I remember it right now. Eyebrow: What if I took away the charge? Side of the eye: What if I relaxed about that event? Under the eye: It was a long time ago. Carol Look & Rick Wilkes — www.ClearingClutterWithEFT.com


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Under the nose: They were doing the best they could. Chin: It wasn’t very good. Collarbone: But it was the best they could do. Under the arm: I’m going to change now… Top of the head: …but not until I want to. Carol: Take a breath. Rick: Ahhhhh… (deep breath) Carol: There is great rebellion in clutter and giving away and not giving away and holding on. There’s a lot of the energy of “Don’t make me. I’m going to do it when I want to.” Our culture is all about, “Clean up your room.”, “Tie your shoes.”, “Make sure you wash your face,” to little kids, and I think that is how rebellion comes out. I also talk about procrastination and how that’s rebellion. If you rebel by clutter, hey - it’s doing something for you. Now unpack it, get to the vibration energy underneath it, and you don’t have to use clutter as a way to rebel. Rick: That’s right. Carol: It’s very adolescent - some of it - and that’s okay. We all have the adolescent part of us in us, until we’re 90 or 100. But it does have a bit of that ‘push me, pull you’, ‘do it my way’ rebellion. Rick: I think we all need a certain amount of feelings that we control something. To me, something like the rebellion energy, we’re demonstrating control over something. To me - what gave me relief was letting go of things where I was rebelling and choosing to have control over my interpretation, my emotional response. That, to me, felt more empowering - more, manly, frankly - than using rebellion, especially against old stuff. “No, you can’t make me.” “I’ll do it when I want to.” “I’ll do it when it’s perfect for me.” Feel free to throw those in as you’re tapping. Carol: Let’s just do a quick one, because sometimes people hear that, and they go, “Mmm, maybe…” but when they say it when they tap, you know if that’s accurate for you.



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Tapping on Rebelliousness (starts @ 41:56) Eyebrow: Don’t make me! Side of the eye: I’m not going to do it your way! Under the eye: I’m going to do it when I want to. Under the nose: Don’t make me! Chin: You can’t make me. Collarbone: I’m going to hold on forever. Under the arm: I’m doing it in my time. Top of the head: And you can’t make me. Rick: Ahhhhh… (deep breath) Carol: I have a client, if I don’t throw that in during a session, she’s unhappy. Rick: (laughing) Carol: It works so beautifully for her, and it releases it. Instead of it making her more obstinate by saying, “You can’t make me,” of course it releases it, and she feels empowered; then she understands this behavior. Rick: Allow yourself to get into it, too. As you can tell, I’m putting energy into it. That’s what helps EFT be more effective. If you’re skimming over the top of how you’re really feeling, it’s going to take you longer to transform the energy than allowing yourself to feel it. Carol: You know how they say about the lottery, “You’ve got to be in it to win it!” You must be in the emotional field in order to have the tapping release or change or shift it, just as you’re saying. Rick: If the specific event is really quite traumatic, I encourage people to get professional help so that there is someone there to support you and be able to take you at a pace which is slower and more healthful, perhaps, than you might do it on your own. It’s not a requirement. A lot of people do specific events on their own. I have just found it very helpful for me and my clients when there’s a lot of pain - when it’s above a 10 – the 10 plus, the ones that feel like a ‘six-trillion’. Sometimes these come up. Carol: Sure! If you felt violated in the way you described when your client’s possessions were thrown out on the front lawn and then ruined



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because she was a mess or whatever, that will feel like a violation and a huge trauma. This isn’t going to be a one-minute wonder. There are a lot of aspects. Let’s go back to the auditory. We were going to tap on what they said, and how you heard it. Do you want to lead me through one of those?

Tapping on Specific Events - What Someone Said (starts @ 44:10) Karate Chop: Even though what they said deeply hurt me… …scared me… …froze me… …they were taking away my stuff… …my control… …over my world… …I deeply and completely accept myself anyway. Even though I remember what they said… …and it struck me right in the heart… …it twisted my gut… …I feel it in my body now… …I acknowledge and respect all of my feelings. Even though they took away my control… …I remember what they said… …I can hear it now… …the tone in their voice… …the emotion behind it… …even the threat… …I choose to feel surprisingly calm and confident. Eyebrow: I can hear what they said. Side of the eye: It echoes inside me still. Under the eye: I still feel it. Under the nose: Those words were so harsh. Chin: They had ‘threat’ to them. Collarbone: I felt scared. Under the arm: And that’s okay. Top of the head: It was scary. Eyebrow: It was hurtful. Carol Look & Rick Wilkes — www.ClearingClutterWithEFT.com


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Side of the eye: It was mean, what they said. Under the eye: It confused me. Under the nose: It scared me. Chin: It froze me. Collarbone: It really affected me deeply. Under the arm: And I made some decisions then… …about my things… Top of the head: …and I’m open to looking at those again. Rick: Take a deep breath. Ahhhhh… (deep breath) Carol: That’s nice. It’s like saying you’re willing to renegotiate with yourself. We make these pacts, right? A specific event happens, and we say, “Well, that’s the end of that one!” “We’ll never do that again!” “We’re always going to do this again!” Rick: And if it happened at a time when we were young, we didn’t make that decision verbally or intellectually. It was just an energetic, “If I do this, then this happens.” “That happened, I never want it to happen again.” “As soon as I have some control in my life - as soon as I’m an adult - I’m going to respond in a certain way.” “I’m going to protect my things.” “I’m going to hide them.” “I’m going to hoard.” These are not conscious decisions. Carol: The irony is that the hoarding is to get control back, and of course, the person feels utterly out of control, so it backfires. That’s one of the energies we deal with around any kind of rebellion, clutter, or procrastination. You think you’re doing it to get control back because you didn’t have it as a child, and that doesn’t work. Then you’re ashamed, and you have this big charge on the clutter, which actually you are doing so that you have control…it doesn’t work. Rick: On specific events, I encourage you to take a little time and write out three, five, ten specific examples from different periods of your life around the things: the clutter, the busyness, the lack of time and attention. Whatever it is energetically that you have noticed since you have been tapping with us - the shames, the angers, how you deal with your stuff what kind of emotions come up? What do those emotions remind you of, specifically? They may have nothing to do with actual clutter. It may just be an emotional response that made you feel unsafe. Write them down. Go through them systematically with EFT. One of the ways you can do that, if you’re not working with a professional, I found, is to write them out very slowly, while you tap. Write a sentence. How do I feel about that? What am I noticing in my body? Write another sentence. Take it slowly.



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Visualize it with intensity. Hear it with intensity. Then tap, tap, tap while you’re doing that. Carol: Absolutely. Of course, we love asking, “What’s the downside of letting go?” Here we are, doing all these recordings about letting go of the clutter, letting go of the feelings, releasing the conflicts that make us cluttered - what’s the downside of letting go of the clutter? What is the panic that goes through your body when you think of having clear space in your home or office or car? I was talking to someone who said that they practically live in their car. It had everything in it. It is so cluttered that nobody could sit in the front seat. Why? If you cleaned that up, what is the possible downside of getting over - whether this is a habit or from specific events or emotions - what is a or several downsides to it? If you don’t get to that, you’re liable to relapse. Rick: “If I didn’t have the clutter in my life, what would I have to look at?” is another way of answering that question. Carol: Or the upside of holding on - does that chaos or busyness… Someone said to me, “It’s not chaos. It’s comforting!” Rick: Ah! Carol: Oh - interesting! In the same way, someone said to me about smoking, “What do you mean? It calms me down. The nicotine doesn’t rev me up. It makes me go to sleep at night.” So, if clutter calms you down, if looking at your stuff and clutter makes you actually feel at home and calm maybe you grew up that way or it symbolizes something - then letting go of it is going to be a lot more than just tapping on the habit, if that’s an upside of holding on. Then you want to look at how you could get comfort in a new way, in a way that doesn’t involve stuff and clutter. How could you comfort yourself? It’s the same way that people use alcohol, drugs, food, or cigarettes to comfort and to fill the emptiness when it doesn’t really work. It works temporarily… Rick: What would be even more pleasing? Carol: Right. Rick: All the things work. I like EFT more than other options for soothing myself. Carol: Right.



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Rick: It gives me relief at my fingertips, right there in the moment of soothing myself when something comes up. Life happens. It happens to all of us. The energy that we have to put into organizing things varies from week to week, especially if you’re travelling, like you mentioned - coming home and soothing ourselves to put us in a resourceful state for the life that we want to live. Ultimately, that’s what we’re teaching here: how to be more in a resourceful state of being so that you’re living a thriving, abundant life - one that gives you the emotional experience that you want with very few leaks. If clutter is a big leak - a big jab in your side - that’s what we’re shifting here, and all the negative emotions around that. Carol: We work so much with raising your vibration. If some of these feelings we’ve tapped on, or specific events seem overwhelming, or you haven’t gotten additional help yet, raise your vibration merely by looking at the clutter and tapping. Sitting down, don’t say a word. Tap when you look at this corner, tap when you look at the couch, tap when you look at your clothes draped over the chair, tap when you see the pile of books. If nothing else, just tap to soothe and raise your vibration a little bit, and things will be different. Then you will have the opportunity, because your mind will be working differently. A thought, a feeling, or an event will come to you, and you will say, “Oh - now I know what they mean! Now I can tap on that one.” Rick: Absolutely. Thank you, Carol. Carol: Thank you, Rick!



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Recording #5 What Clutters Our Vibration? Rick: So what kinds of things clutter a person’s vibration? Carol: So many things, and as you know, I know in how we work with people is we try to raise their vibration. When there’s clutter in the vibration, it’s not very high. I certainly know that about myself. Some of the things that I bump into with clients and with myself: negativity chronic, negative thoughts or constant negative thoughts or events. “What if this happens?” “This might not work out.” That’s a very cluttered vibration. Another big one: fear of what others think about us. Rick: Oh, yeah. Carol: Right - big one. The general fear of the future and then being in the past. You’re not current and present if you’re always thinking about the past and what happened. You haven’t forgiven this person. This was unfair about what happened with your job. It was unfair when the kids did this. If you’re in the past, you’re cluttered, and if you’re in the future, you’re quite cluttered. Both of those are also good angles to approach. Rick: I think about somebody that, every time they meet a person that they’ve had a relationship with for a while, all of those negative experiences that they might have had… I think that, in any relationship, there are going to be experiences that are good, bad, and ugly. If the person is really tuned to the bad and the ugly, the vibration around that person is so cluttered, there’s no way that they can see who that person is in that moment. Carol: Right, and they can’t bring out the best in them. That’s the idea of matching. I was recently with a niece of mine. We bring out the best in each other! We haven’t had all that parental stuff, and I haven’t had to discipline her - none of that stuff has gone on, and we are just two little peas in a pod! She’s my little niece. That’s the kind of thing. My vibration around her is totally uncluttered. There’s no agenda, in hers or around mine. She’s grateful…we love being together! Rick: I believe that all relationships have vastly more potential than they demonstrate. When you clear that clutter… Look at the specific events that



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I have with this person. When I remember them, they’re still high emotionally. They create a certain reaction in me. That’s how you can tell. You think about something and it has no impact. It’s a 0 or a 1 - it’s pretty neutral. Well, it’s not clutter anymore. If you think of them and it’s a 7, 8, 9 - that old event is still banging around, taking up space, distracting your energy, distracting your presence of mind, certainly diminishing the relationship as it goes forward. The same thing applies to the future, if you envision certain things about the future. Even dreams can be cluttered, can’t they? If the dreams have changed, but there’s a part of you that’s still holding onto a sense of loss or regret - even if you wanted to dream new dreams, those old dreams are taking up space on your wall. Carol: Mmm-hmm. Rick: So looking at some of those, and letting those go can help you be more present and more imaginative in your day-to-day life now. Carol: Part of why you and I got so excited when we thought of doing this ‘clearing clutter with EFT’ is that the specific events - we’re going back and doing basic EFT. Those events - what happened with those people that are loud and in our life still - all of those events, and traumas with a little “t”, and issues and conflicts - that’s clutter on an energetic, vibrational level. You and I have gone through all the emotions with the clutter tapping and all sorts of things about our stuff (the material stuff). I just think this is a really, really good exercise for everyone to do - to work on these things that are cluttering our current level of vibration, even right now, right this minute. Rick: It’s key to me to not look at physical clutter as the only aspect. In fact, our emotional clutter - as you and I have already talked about in these recordings - is the largest contributor to what is showing up in people’s physical lives. If your schedule is cluttered, chances are there’s a vibrational clutter that is keeping you from seeing clearly was is a YES for you. Carol: Right. I keep making the point - I think at the beginning of each of the recordings - it’s not enough to have a good system to clear paperwork and shoes and old clothes. You need to do the vibrational and energetic work, then the systems work for you. How many times have you come home and tried to clear the top of the desk, and it gets messy within three days because it’s a different issue. It’s not just a space issue. Living in New York City, I can argue that it’s a space and countertop issue - there’s not enough room in the drawers - but it’s not, and I see the difference. I am so dramatically different because I’ve done the inner work energetically, and that allows me space on all levels. I don’t need to hold onto things. I can



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clear out, and now there’s room for things that belong in drawers and closets. I keep making that point. Do the energetic work first. Clean up later. Rick: How can we help our listeners go through that energetic work and clean up their vibration? Carol: How about we work on the fear of what other people think about us, because those thoughts and feelings can mess up our vibration and we’re not even quite conscious that we’re always thinking that way. Many of us are. “What is he going to say?” “What is she going to think of the book?” “What are they going to think of my workshop?” “What do they think of how I’m raising the kids?” Everybody has little bits of “What do they think of how I’m doing in the world?” That’s a great place to get uncluttered. Rick: Great. Carol: Okay?

Tapping on What Others Think (starts @ 06:04) Karate Chop: Even though I’m worried about what other people think about me… …and I think this takes up a lot of time… …I deeply and profoundly accept myself anyway. Even though I’ve always been worried about what other people think of me… …I’m pretty sure it’s a bad habit… …I choose to release it now. Even though my fears of what other people think of me… …clutter my vibration… …I choose to let those fears go. Eyebrow: I’m afraid of what they think of me. Side of the eye: What if they don’t approve? Under the eye: I don’t like this energy. Under the nose: I can tell it feels like clutter. Chin: There’s so much static. Collarbone: I don’t want to worry about what they think of me.



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Under the arm: I want to raise my vibration. Top of the head: I want to feel better. Eyebrow: But what if they don’t approve? Side of the eye: What if they don’t like me? Under the eye: What if they’re mean to me? Under the nose: What if they don’t like me? Chin: So what? Collarbone: How they think of me… Under the arm: …is none of my business. Top of the head: I choose to release these fears. Carol: Take a breath. Rick: Ahhhhh… (deep breath) Carol: Now that actually reminded me of doing a session with someone whose biggest conflict in her life was that she never got her father’s approval, and then when she was about forty, her father died. She was still looking for his approval and it cluttered her vibration. It cluttered how she approached men, both in her social life and in the workplace, and it took up a lot of space. So, even if the cluttered emotion or conflict doesn’t feel like it’s right front and center, you know it’s using up space in your mental computer, because it’s been stored somewhere - even if it’s not conscious in the moment. Rick: You described something that I believe blocks that sense of simple inner guidance. Simple inner guidance comes through when the decks are cleared (so to speak). Looking outside of ourselves - “What are they thinking?” - especially looking outside of yourself for what somebody who’s not even alive is thinking and judging you - wow, that takes up so much energy. You have your antennas out to the world. There’s no attention to your inner world to get that sense in your own heart of “Is this right for me?” “Do I approve of me?” “Is this something that I want to evolve and shift?” If you’re looking outside of yourself, you’ll always pick up a lot of noise. There’s no one in our society today that probably would get much over a 60% approval rating. I don’t care who you are. Carol: (laughing) Right! Rick: Especially if you become a subject of conversation. We see that happen. That’s relief, to me. I didn’t think of it as relief until I really let it sink in. You know, people that I know and love and respect - that are on a national stage - I see an awful lot of people that don’t approve of them.



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Well, okay. Who’s right? That allowed me to go back more within myself. With this type of tapping, what I encourage people to do is to think of a specific person. Even though we use the “they” - maybe it’s Mom and Dad as I was tapping, I got a specific face in mind. If I had a picture in front of me of that specific person while I was tapping, I know that I would have gotten a little bit more relief. Try that out, folks, and see how that works. You may have to do it six or seven times. You may even want to list out the ways that they don’t approve of you and do a round of tapping. You can use the exact same tapping sequence while looking at the ways that person does not approve of you. Carol: Great idea. I love the idea of you talking again about clarity and getting our inner guidance, because you can’t get clarity when that messy desk and all the files and those piles of books and papers are staring you in the face. Nor can you get clarity internally if you’ve got a file on your father, a file on your mother, a file on your siblings, a file on your kids, a file on your aunt and uncle, a file on your coach - a file that has something in it like “They did me wrong,” or “They don’t approve of me,” or whatever conflict might be in those people’s files that are on your mental desk. I love the notion of clarity. You and I both have worked with that with our clients and our groups. The more quiet and clear you are, the more you will get that YES from your own body and mind. Rick: Great. Carol: Let’s do one more on that, because I think it’s such a biggie. Let’s just say ‘he’ (someone could substitute ‘she’) doesn’t approve of me.

Tapping on External Approval (starts @ 11:39) Karate Chop: Even though he doesn’t approve of me… …and I spend a lot of time worrying about that… …and I can tell that it clutters my vibration… …I deeply and profoundly accept who I am. Even though he doesn’t approve of me… …and I’m the one who spends time worrying about it… …I accept who I am anyway. Even though my vibration is cluttered by fears of what he thinks…



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…I deeply and profoundly accept who I am. Eyebrow: I have this cluttered vibration. Side of the eye: It’s cluttered with my fear of what he thinks of me. Under the eye: It’s cluttered with my fear of what she thinks of me. Under the nose: I’m so afraid of how they view me. Chin: No wonder it’s hard to be clear. Collarbone: No wonder it’s hard to be clear. Under the arm: I want to be clear. Top of the head: I choose to release this clutter. Eyebrow: I love being clear. Side of the eye: Maybe he doesn’t approve of me. Under the eye: Maybe she doesn’t approve of me. Under the nose: I don’t care anymore. Chin: I’m doing the best I can. Collarbone: I don’t need to fear their thoughts… Under the arm: …because I want to be clear… Top of the head: …and I choose to be clear right now. Carol: Take a breath. Rick: Ahhhhh… (deep breath) I love the way that you include the negative aspect of not approving as well as positive movement toward “I really don’t care!” Even if that doesn’t feel completely true, if you shifted it from caring at 98% to caring at 70%, that will change everything. If you do it again and again, and it continues to go down to the point where “Why did I ever care what he thought?” Carol: Right. And remember when we were talking and tapping about overwhelm with stuff and feelings, people have that overwhelm feeling with clutter. It’s very hard to picture taking one corner, or now, what we’re talking about is taking one emotion or one event and clearing it. It’s critical to go piece by piece by piece. If you walk into a very cluttered, messy house or garage and try to do it all at once - you can’t do that. What happens is you get overwhelmed and you go back to those feelings, and that clutters your vibration. We want to step through each part that might feel cluttered in your vibration, and get clearer and clearer and clearer. It may take some time. Rick: I was helping my friend emptied out clutter from her garage. What was interesting was that she had done a certain amount of work and got to a particular place, and then she needed a helping hand. When I brought my energy in, just for a short period of time, it helped to take care of some



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things that would be difficult to do just by herself. Then, after I left, she filled up four, five, or six more contractor bags full of stuff. That was great. I think it’s also a paradigm that sometimes we can use a helping hand for certain aspects of it. Like you said, the clearing of the clutter - whether it’s emotional clutter or physical clutter - when your body or your mind or your spirit says, “We’re done for now,” see if you can move away from it, pat yourself on the back and say, “Yes. That was a great step in the direction of what I want.” Lots of times when people get started, they see the whole landscape of what might be required, and they’ll get some energy up, they’ll do some work, and then, when their body is saying ‘enough’, they’ll want to push forward and (quote) ‘finish the job’. On the physical side - when it’s physical stuff - that can really deplete you. When you’re getting guidance from your body that, “Hey, you’ve done enough,” your mind and your body have sorted enough, done enough, it’s time to stop and do a little celebration. Pat yourself on the back. The same thing works emotionally. If you have five, six, seven specific events around a particular person and you take one of them, afterward you feel relief on that one event. You feel like you want to finish all of them and just get them out of the way, but you don’t really have the energy to do it, you’ll feel it. If you push forward at that point, chances are you won’t be as complete, especially using EFT. You’ll tend to skim over the important details, the more powerful energies, the more powerful emotions, you’ll skim over. So I encourage people to be listening. At each given point, ask your body and mind: “Is it okay to continue?” Carol: Right. And trust that answer, because it’s not about ‘should’: “I should do more.” “I should clean up one more corner.” As you say, people get burnt out, and it’s not good for them. It’s not as efficient. Do solid work. I’m somebody who does short spurts of EFT. I don’t sit down with myself and do an hour session. I never have. Somebody else might do half an hour every day on themselves, or forty-five minutes. I do these little bits. That works for my system. It’s not right or wrong. Get clear on what works for you. Whether you’re doing it with a partner or a peer or a buddy, what feels right to you in the amount of time that you spend and the amount of energy that shifts? Rick: Exactly. I’ve noticed that, with clients, sometimes you’ll get small shifts - from a 9 to an 8, or an 8 to a 7. You’ll do that for a couple of weeks if you’re working on your own. Then you’ll start shifting more significantly. That’s often because, as you build up the energy in your vibration, your energy gets used to the idea that it can bring things up and have them soothed and not overwhelm you, and allow you to continue on with the rest of the things that you have to do in your life. Now you have a working



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collaboration going on. You can take on bigger things. Your body/mind/spirit knows that it can trust you. Carol: Absolutely. I want to tell a brief story about someone who was talking to me about their clutter. She had a friend visit for the weekend, and the friend is anxious and insecure and says so out loud. “I need to be liked,” she said. She attacked the clutter areas of the person who owns the house. The person who owns the house is my friend, and she said, “It’s not that I didn’t think it needed to be done. I’m not an idiot. I can see the piles. It’s terrible.” But she said, “It felt intrusive. It’s not the right timing for me. I’m not ready for it.” One of the things we have to do, if we are a cluttered person, is to set really clear boundaries with friends and family members who often are impatient and say, “Clean this up and do this,” or “What’s the matter with this pile?” You have to deal with that so that you can get energetically ready first before you do the actual work, if that’s the right direction to go. Again, she said, “I know it needed to be done, and it looks great…” but she was left with icky feelings. “Why did I let her do that? She was doing it for herself, and I’m glad I kept her busy, but ughhhh…” You must respect that in yourself. Rick: How can we help people with EFT around situations like that? Who hasn’t been pressured to clean up their physical stuff as well as their emotional stuff by someone who ‘loves us and wants the best for us’ and is not on our timeline?

Tapping on Intrusive Behavior from Loved Ones (starts @ 20:04) Karate Chop: Even though I feel pressured to do it their way… …and I resent it… …and it makes me want to rebel… …even more… …I deeply and profoundly accept myself anyway. Even though I don’t know how to say ‘no’ when they want me to do it their way… …I accept who I am and how I do react. Even though I resent this pressure to do it their way… …I know it’s messy… Carol Look & Rick Wilkes — www.ClearingClutterWithEFT.com


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…I know I have a clutter problem… …but I’m not ready yet… …so leave me alone. Eyebrow: Leave me alone. Side of the eye: I resent your pressure. Under the eye: Leave me alone. Under the nose: I’m not ready yet. Chin: Leave me alone. Collarbone: I want to feel free. Under the arm: I will do it in my own time frame. Top of the head: Leave me alone. Carol: Take a breath. Rick: Ahhhhh… (deep breath) Carol: The rebellion that will come back will be destructive. People mean well, and they want to help you - “Oh, I’ll just clean this up for you…” - and it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work long-term, and it doesn’t work short-term. The person doesn’t feel like it’s on their time frame. I think that’s important. Rick: “Leave me alone” is acknowledging the lower energy. Is there anything practical when you’re faced with someone who wants to dig into your stuff and clean it up? Is “leave me alone” the answer? Carol: No. “No, thank you. I appreciate your willingness.” “No, thank you. I’m not ready yet, and I’ll call you when I am ready.” Something that sets the boundaries. “I see that you want to help. I’m not quite in a position for that yet.” “Oh, come on, we’ve got an hour - let’s go.” “No, that wouldn’t be good for me.” Rick: Oooh, I like that one, too. Carol: Right? “Thank you for your efforts, but I’ll let you know when I’m ready.” Now that person I’m talking about didn’t feel comfortable with it this was a houseguest - and she’s mad at herself for letting that happen, but that was a great learning experience. Rick: Of course, EFT can be used on the feelings post-experience as well. If you’re struggling with the idea that you might be able to say that to your mother or your grandmother or your best friend, what you can do is to write down some of those things that Carol said. Pick one or two that feel like they might be able to come out of your mouth, and then just say them in



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front of the mirror while you’re tapping. Tap the points while you’re saying those things over and over. What you find is that they’ll just tRickle off your tongue at the right time without resistance. The body resistance, the worry about, the threat energies that you might have been feeling about saying something like that, will come up. If you can’t even say them at all, then ask, “What rule would I be breaking if I spoke my truth in this case?” Carol: Because the backfiring of resentment toward that person who is trying to help, that will come out sideways. Then you feel guilty. Then you feel ashamed. Rick: The rest of the time that they’re there, you’ll be trying to manage your resentment. That’s a good time to go take a break and go off to the bathroom and do some tapping on whatever resentment that is honestly there. Resentment is a sign, to me, that somebody violated my boundaries. Carol: Yes. Rick: Once it comes up, I can look at, “Is this a boundary that is healthy for me?” “Is it something that I picked up that I’d like to change?” Or, “Did they legitimately step on me?” Carol: Right. How about we do first the past, and then the future? How about all those past events? Of course, we recommend that you go to specific events, but many people are cluttered by hundreds of things in the past. When you walk, or take a shower, or you’re doing the dishes or other busy work, you can often hear yourself. You talk to yourself, and it is so cluttered! “What he did…what she did…what happened…what about that Christmas…” It’s amazing if you stop and listen to the chatter! So we’ll start globally with all these cluttered past events and memories, and see if there’s anything more specific that comes out of it. We would recommend that you take each loud one as a separate tapping sequence for you.

Tapping on the Past (starts @ 24:45) Karate Chop: Even though the past is cluttering my present… …I have all these thoughts about my past… …and all those things that happened… …I choose to accept who I am right now.



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Even though my past is cluttering my present… …all those thoughts and feelings… …about events that happened a long time ago… …I accept who I am right now. Eyebrow: My past is cluttering my present. Side of the eye: My vibration is cluttered by my past. Under the eye: It’s cluttered by my past feelings. Under the nose: Those things aren’t happening right now. Chin: But I feel as if they are. Collarbone: My past is cluttering my vibration. Under the arm: All those feelings and events… Top of the head: …all those things that happened… Eyebrow: …all those leftover pieces… Side of the eye: …those unresolved conversations… Under the eye: …those things I never got to say… Under the nose: …those things I never got out. Chin: What if I let go… Collarbone: …and put them back where they belong, in the past… Under the arm: …and cleared up my current vibration? Top of the head: I wonder what it would do for my abundance? Carol: (laughing) I couldn’t resist. Rick: (laughing) I loved that. Carol: Take a breath. Rick: Ahhhhh… (deep breath) Carol: And it does. Ultimately, what are we going for? Abundance in your health, your wealth, your relationships, your spirituality, your peace of mind. Clutter gets in the way. Whether we’re talking about too much anger, too much guilt, too much needing to hold on to unnecessary stuff, past events it doesn’t matter. Clutter gets in the way. We were talking about a clear signal. You were talking about getting clear guidance for yourself - the YES and NO in your body. What about being able to put out a clear signal to the (quote) ‘universe’ or whatever you use for that word? Are you giving a clear signal, or are you saying, “I want all this abundance! No, I don’t, because I don’t deserve it because my father said…and my coach said…” What’s the clutter? What’s the static that’s in the way of a clear signal to the universe to the Law of Attraction?



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Rick: What puts you in that alignment with allowing it to happen and show up in your life and being receptive to it? Carol: Right. Rick: As I was doing that tapping, I noticed that one particular period of my life seemed to pop up. To me, that would be a sign that my intelligence is saying, “Huh. There’s a few things there.” They feel like threes or fours. Nothing very specific came up, but I’m pretty confident that I sat down with a piece of paper and just jotted down some things from that time in my life, that those would give me the specific events. As you’re listening and you’re tapping along with us, you may want to pause at times when you’ve done a tapping round, especially around the past or the future - around specific events that may be coming up. Jot them down, and write down the intensity, so that you can come back to them later. You can stop right then and do some specific EFT on those events right in the moment. Carol: Specific events hold the charge in our bodies. That’s why general EFT can just get you so far. The specific event - the time the coach said, “You didn’t do very well. I’m putting you on the bench.” - that’s a big deal. When you go there, that specific event comes up. So just as you’re saying, Rick, you ended up thinking about a certain part of your life during that tapping. Go back and write it down. I always say, “Who, what, when?” Who said what, and when did they say it to you? Get clear about what it is that’s bothering you. I call it ‘the pebbles in my shoe’. Heaven forbid I have a pebble in my shoe. I’m not peaceful when I have that, so I need to call people and clear something up. I need to make sure, in my relationships and in my work, that I’m totally lined up and I don’t have something hanging out. I don’t have a ‘pebble in my shoe’ about what the person said and what I said, or something like that. It’s really good advice to get us all to work on specific things that people said to us - specific statements or comments. You know, people throw around comments all the time. Sometimes they don’t mean to be hostile at all, but boy, does it wound you. Rick: Indeed it does. Carol: How about the future, and how that clutters our current vibration? Some people listening will say, “Future? No, not at all. Mine’s all about the past.” Others will say, “I let go of the past a long time ago, but I cannot stay present because of my future concerns and worries.” We’re not saying the worries aren’t legitimate. Maybe you’re changing jobs or changing relationships or your kids are going off to school or something. Real issues are out there, but the extent to which you worry about it does not protect you.



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Tapping on the Future (Part 1) (starts @ 30:19) Karate Chop: Even though I’m worried about my future… …and it’s cluttering up my vibration… …I deeply and profoundly accept myself anyway. Even though I have all these worries about my future… …especially that thing that’s coming up… …what if it doesn’t work out? What if it’s not the right decision? I accept who I am anyway. Even though I’m constantly in the future… …and I know it clutters up my current vibration… …I choose to accept these habits. Eyebrow: I’m so worried about things in the future. Side of the eye: What if I didn’t make the right decision? Under the eye: What if I should have said no? Under the nose: What if I should have said yes? Chin: This takes up so much energy. Collarbone: These decisions and fears… Under the arm: …about my future… Top of the head: What if it doesn’t work out? Eyebrow: It’s so hard to stay present. Side of the eye: I’m afraid to stay present. Under the eye: I need to be alert. Under the nose: I need to know what’s right for me. Chin: I learned how to worry about my future. Collarbone: Don’t I have to worry? Under the arm: Isn’t it normal to worry? Top of the head: I’m so worried about my future… …and I know it’s getting in my way. Carol: Take a breath.



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Rick: Ahhhhh… (deep breath) That is so accurate that, as we were tapping, I went off someplace! (laughing) I could feel myself saying the words, but there’s an aspect of the future that takes us out of our body. Carol: Yes. Rick: We can’t even enjoy the interaction with someone if we’re out worrying about something. If you’re tapping and you get triggered by something that is rocking around and cluttering up your vibration, it’s okay. Until you can do that round that stayed present with your body and the tapping, it’s probably a sign that you can do it again and again and again for a while. Carol: Right, and get more specific with each round. Rick: Yes.

Tapping on the Future (Part 2) (starts @ 33:01) Eyebrow: I’m worried about next week. Side of the eye: I’m worried about next week. Under the eye: Am I going to be prepared? Under the nose: I’m worried about next year. Chin: Do I have what it takes? Collarbone: I’m worried about my family. Under the arm: I’m so worried about my family. Top of the head: I want it to work out. Eyebrow: I don’t know how it’s going to look. Side of the eye: I’m worried about my family. Under the eye: I’m worried about my job. Under the nose: I’m worried about my health. Chin: No wonder I’m not very present. Collarbone: My clutter vibration… Under the arm: I want to clean it up. Top of the head: What if I stayed present? Eyebrow: I wonder how I’d feel. Side of the eye: What if I was present? Under the eye: I wonder how I’d feel?



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Under the nose: I bet I’d be relaxed. Chin: I bet I’d feel free. Collarbone: I want to be peaceful. Under the arm: I want to be present. Top of the head: I deserve to raise my vibration. Carol: Take a breath. Rick: Ahhhhh… (deep breath) Carol: You know how people say, “It’s so loud in this room, I can’t think straight”? It’s so loud in our heads sometimes, that we can’t think straight. We have to clear the past. We have to clear the future. We have to clear those fears about what other people think about us. We need to clear the negativity, which may be a habit. There is so much to clear energetically from our vibration to get that uncluttered so that, then, we know what we want, we know who we are, and we know what the next right step is - only the next right step. We’re not talking about making a life plan for twenty years, only the next right step. Do you make that phone call on business, or do you write the email? Do you need to go get lunch because it’s now 2:30 and you haven’t had enough and you’re not thinking straight? Do you need to call your son? What do you need to do in the next moment? Do you need to put a sweater on because it’s cold and that makes you not concentrate? What do you need? I’m talking about little things on purpose. These are not crisis issues. They are taking care of your needs so you know what the next right step is. Rick: As a massage therapist, I know that some people will sit at their desk for four or five hours straight, ignoring the signal that their body is giving them to get up and move, to go out and get something to eat, to stretch, to roll the shoulders and stretch the neck. They will stay rigidly attentive, and the only reason to do that, I feel, is because you’ve got so much worry and stress and strain going on that you think that your survival depends on where you are and what you’re focused on, rather than a balance of listening and flowing and doing the things that will keep your body well and relaxed and strong, as well as those things that move us forward in our business and our career and our family. Carol: Right - that sense of urgency. “No, I have to. I can’t get up and go to the bathroom or eat lunch or do anything. I’ve gotta be here. I’m tied to the computer.” Rick: That’s where your intelligence will bring it up, right in the middle of working at the computer. “Even though I have to stay right here…”



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Carol: Mmm-hmm. Rick: “What if I don’t?” What about the people that do have a negative habit? That’s self-generating clutter every single moment of every single day. Is there some relief that we can start them on right now? Carol: Yes, and I think the first thing to acknowledge and be compassionate about toward yourself is that, if you are very negative - if you tend to go to the “what if” in a negative way - it is a habit because I promise you that you didn’t come out that way. Rick: (laughing) Carol: Maybe you learned it from a parent who was brilliant - a master at negativity. Maybe you learned it due to an incident. Honestly look at it and say, “You know what? It is a habit. It does make me feel better. I am accustomed to it.” Then admit, “I don’t think it’s that good for me!” I talked to an older woman who said that if she didn’t worry about her children and grandchildren, she would feel a bit useless. She had never worked in her life; this was her job. She never had a job in an office. Her job was taking care of her kids and her grandchildren. Now they are all of age. So if she doesn’t worry about her 24-year-old granddaughter, she doesn’t feel useful. If she doesn’t worry about her 50-year-old son… She feels like that’s her job. I said, “Okay, what’s the downside? Because it causes you great upset.” One of her kids smokes and one of her grandchildren smokes, and this causes her great upset. So I said, “What would happen if that was all peaceful and quiet?” She said, “One, I don’t know who I’d be…” Now, this is a woman incredibly fit and put together - mentally, physically, and spiritually - she’s in her 80s. She said, “Who am I, then, if I’m not worrying?” I can tell with her it’s going to take a while to help her feel needed, feel valuable, and feel like she can be in this world without wringing her hands about somebody. We’re not talking about not loving and not caring about them. We’re talking about unnecessary staying up at night with “What if he chooses the wrong college?” or “What if my daughter gets divorced?” We’re talking about a little bit of everything. So for her, it may take a while, and that’s okay. Rick: I think that one of the things that a coach can do sometimes is to give people an alternative success strategy. In this case, if you talk about the vibrational approach, beating the drum on someone’s positive aspects even when they’re not there - I have come to know that this changes the relationship. I believe this also energetically supports them in all the other things that they do.



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Carol: That’s so awesome. Rick: We can feel the people who really appreciate us all the time. You and I know because we’re energetically sensitive. We’re attuned to the people that really like us, that really beat the drum of our good qualities. We feel during the down times. We feel during the up times. We feel as we go through our day. We know that they’re there. I think that a role for any of us in the relationships that we have is to be able to beat the drum of positive aspects. What do I like about this person? What qualities does my child have? What qualities does my grandchild have that he or she is developing? Maybe they’re not fully in bloom yet. Maybe they’re not bearing fruit yet. That’s okay - you’re beating the drum of “YES”. “My son is incredible. Look at this! Look at that!” Make them truthful - things that you’re in alignment with, that you really do appreciate. If you’re focusing in that way, there’s less room for worry. I find that worry will tend to be washed away by that kind of vibrational approach - by consciously choosing thoughts that feel better and that shine a much brighter light on people than the negative. Carol: That habit, like a muscle, will be worked and stretched and moved forward, and then you’ll become good at that. “Oh, I just have those negative thoughts. What if I wrote that down in my book of positive aspects about this person?” Now, there’s another list that I find really helpful because these habits often grab us unconsciously. Before we know it, we’ve had 43 negative thoughts before we catch ourselves. Rick: (laughing) Yes. Carol: My new favorite list that I do all the time now is 10 Things I Feel Happy About. Now, that can be “My lunch was good.” That can be “I have a new pair of sneakers.” We’re not talking about a life event. It’s just ten things I feel happy about. I love my home, I love my sneakers, I love the puppy I just saw. It can be anything from huge to small. I hold onto that because sometimes, if I’m in a negative spiral or cycle, first of all sometimes I’m wed to it and I don’t want to let go. Right? And other times I just need to pull out a list and say, “Hey! Let’s remind myself what I love.” What am I happy about? I am thrilled about this. Momentarily, it will get you off the negativity, which is a habit and a cycle, and in that moment it changes your vibration, you’re less cluttered, and in that moment, you then have access to more positive thought, and in that moment the spiral goes up as quickly as it goes down. I don’t think that there is anyone listening who has not had a series of negative spirals in their life. They can watch themselves going down the drain with negative thinking. Well, it goes up, too. I’ve had enough experience with the Law of Attraction to have real feedback from the



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universe that the positive cycles are wonderful, and they work very, very quickly. But I have to do it. I would say that I am not negative anymore. That’s an old habit. Now, I need to really grow - and I am growing, consciously choosing those positive thoughts. And it starts with my list, 10 Things I am Happy About Today! “Hmm - it’s a pretty day.” “I got that project done yesterday.” “I had a great call with someone yesterday.” Whatever it is, it’s on my list. It’s instantaneous. (I love things that are instant. I’m very impatient.) Instantaneously, you change your vibration. Rick: I love that. One of the things that EFT can do is to stop that negative vibrational trend - that negative spiral. As soon as you build up a habit, and you start feeling that downward trend, and you start tapping on a point, I have found that it stops the trend. I may not start tapping or I may not start shifting my vibrations until I bounce a little bit off the bottom, but it’s very different for those of us who have been tapping for years. I don’t have to tap very often, frankly - maybe two or three times a day, or an email will come in, or I’ll hear something. It’s usually more externally focused nowadays. But those things used to grab me. When I first learned EFT, I started applying it diligently. I would tap on whatever was coming up; it would change the vibrations. What you’re talking about was the ten things that make me happy - are those new habits? With EFT, clearing the clutter from your vibrations will make it easier for you to instill new habits. If you’re so consumed by worrying about the future, ten things that you’re happy about right now is just not going to be on your priority list. Carol: Right. Rick: Those other big worries will be so huge. If you can’t get to that yet, that’s okay. Write it on your list of things and just notice that as you clear the clutter in your vibration, the negative energies, the experiences - you’ll find that you will make time for things that give you more pleasure. They’ll come naturally. They’ll come into your awareness when you have five minutes, waiting in the doctor’s office. “A couple of things that I’m happy about right now…oh, yeah. I feel better. I’m in a better place now.” Carol: Let’s do a round of EFT on assumption that some of us have a habit of negativity, own that, and then try to move from it. Rick: Great.



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Tapping on the Habit of Negativity (starts @ 44:42) Karate Chop: Even though I am cluttered by my negative habits… …and my negative thoughts… …I deeply and profoundly love and accept myself anyway. Even though I’m cluttered by my negative thoughts… …and I know it’s an old habit… …I learned it in my family… …I accept who I am and how I feel. Even though my vibration is cluttered by negativity… …I still appreciate myself. I still am grateful for who I am. Eyebrow: I have this negative habit… Side of the eye: …of cluttering my vibration. Under the eye: I learned it a long time ago. Under the nose: I want to learn new tRicks. Chin: I know I’m negative. Collarbone: I know I worry a lot. Under the arm: That’s who I am. Top of the head: And I am accepting of that. Eyebrow: But I’m willing to do something different. Side of the eye: What if I replaced my negative thoughts… Under the eye: …with some positive thoughts? Under the nose: With my list of what I’m happy about? Chin: With my gratitude list? Collarbone: Even if I did it only a few times a day… Under the arm: …I bet I’d feel better. Top of the head: Do I want to feel better? Eyebrow: Or do I love this negative habit? Side of the eye: Does it make me feel safe… Under the eye: … to think I’m anticipating? Under the nose: It’s an old habit. Chin: I think I’m ready to let go of it. Collarbone: This old habit of negativity… Under the arm: …that is cluttering my vibration… Top of the head: This old habit of negativity… …that has been cluttering my vibration.



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Eyebrow: I’m ready to let it go. Side of the eye: Right now. Under the eye: I can let go of some of it… Under the nose: …by appreciating who I am. Chin: I appreciate my body. Collarbone: I appreciate my life. Under the arm: I appreciate my work. Top of the head: I appreciate my family. Eyebrow: I’m feeling better already. Side of the eye: There are things to be happy about… Under the eye: …even that I recognized this habit. Under the nose: I love having a clean vibration. Chin: I love feeling so clear. Collarbone: I am clear. Under the arm: It feels so simple. Top of the head: I love feeling clear in my vibration. Rick: Ahhhhh… (deep breath) Carol: Well, I don’t know if it’s all the tapping we have been doing or if that one specifically affected me, but I definitely feel better. I wasn’t noticing that I was feeling terribly bad, but something really clicked for me with that one. Rick: Interesting. In there I also felt my vibration as a light that was clearer and cleaner than it was before that round. That’s what we notice with EFT. There’s a profound quality to the shifts that happen when you’re tapping on your physical body and expressing gratitude and appreciation, even if it doesn’t feel 100%. It cleans things up. It does so quickly and painlessly, I find. Carol: I would recommend - just as something I’ve tried, and sometimes I fall off, but it’s in my mind to try a lot - that when you’re talking to someone socially and you don’t know the person, but you’re having an interaction in the grocery store, when you are doing the dishes, be mindful. Be present. You’d be surprised at how negativity doesn’t come in when you’re looking at the dish and washing it carefully with the hot water rolling down the side when you’re really present. When you’re showering or watching a television show, don’t be doing five things at once. Be present. See if you could practice that because multitasking isn’t always good. I am an olympic-style multitasker, but I am always working toward being present, in the moment, and I just think it’s great practice to add that to EFT, to the vibration lists, to



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trying to raise your vibration daily. I think it’s a wonderful practice and if you don’t do it well, great - you tried for thirty seconds! Rick: That’s right. Carol: Thirty seconds is a long time to be appreciative. Try to appreciate yourself for a minute, instead of, “Aw, I didn’t do it well…aw, I shoulda, woulda, coulda…” Rick: (laughing) Now we’re really stretching people. Carol: Yes, we are! Rick: Do you want to do a tapping round on ‘appreciating myself’? Carol: Yes, I do.

Tapping on Appreciating Yourself (starts @ 50:17) Karate Chop: Even though it has been hard for me to appreciate who I am… …because that wasn’t my habit… …and my mind is cluttered with a lot of negativity… …I choose to appreciate who I am right now. Even though I can be quite critical of myself… …and I think I learned it… I choose to look for things that I like. Even though it’s hard for me to appreciate who I am… …I should have done it differently… …I could have done it differently… …I should be better… I deeply and profoundly accept who I am right now. Eyebrow: But I’m used to being critical. Side of the eye: I think it helps me move forward. Under the eye: No, it doesn’t. Under the nose: I’m going to be positive and appreciative right now. Chin: There are many things about me that I like.



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Collarbone: There are many things about me that I am grateful for. Under the arm: I appreciate who I am. Top of the head: I appreciate how my mind works. Eyebrow: I appreciate my insights. Side of the eye: I love it when I’m clear. Under the eye: I love being a good friend… Under the nose: …and a good worker. Chin: I love it when I sleep well. Collarbone: I appreciate my body when it feels good. Under the arm: I appreciate my body even when I am sick. Top of the head: Because it’s mine. Eyebrow: I am enough. Side of the eye: I do enough. Under the eye: I appreciate who I am. Under the nose: I am grateful for me. Chin: I’m just glad I am who I am. Collarbone: Of course I want to change some things. Under the arm: But I appreciate me. Top of the head: And that makes me feel happy! Carol: Take a breath. Rick: Ahhhhh… (deep breath) Carol: How did that feel? Rick: Simple, peaceful. It brought up some things. I liked that, as we got started in those rounds, a part of me was arguing with the negative, and then I said, “no, that’s not right any more”. That’s a sign with EFT, if you start saying something that strongly negative - “I have this negative habit.” - part of you says, “No, not any more.” Carol: Right. Rick: “It used to be…” “We’re different now.” That’s when you know that you’re connecting with your inner guidance, the positive part of you that encourages and supports and appreciates. There is a part of all of us that is quite proud of us, quite appreciative of who we are, has a broader perspective on our life, and knows more intimately than we could imagine how much we overcome, how much we have grown, how much we love and care for this life that we’re living in the body that we animate right now.



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Carol: Yes, and even if it doesn’t make you happy, I promise you it will change your vibration for those twenty-five seconds that you’re tapping on that round, and if you can get an opening, change your vibration, raise it a little bit, then something else is going to come to mind. “Oh, come to think of it, you are right. I do appreciate my body even though I don’t feel like it.” Just a little bit - you don’t have to go from 0 to 60! You just want to move an inch in the right direction. Rick: That’s right. Thank you, Carol. Carol: Great. Thank you, Rick.



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Recording #6 Review of Physical & Emotional Clutter Rick: Carol, let’s wrap up a little bit with this recording and review the areas where people can have clutter in their physical life, their emotional life, and their vibration; and look at some of the things that most people are going to be addressing and readdressing as they come up in their life. Carol: First of all, that’s a good point. Just to remind people, this isn’t a one-shot deal if you’ve had a life-long history and habit of clutter. It can come from emotional issues, and you can have clutter in your emotional life. It can come from spiritual issues, and you can have clutter in your spiritual mind and heart. It can come from family issues, it can come from and be a part of all of those segments of our life. The emotions, you and I always think, are the most important. Emotionally, what contributes to clutter? We have found that that’s really what can drive a person’s habitual behavior to hold on. Clutter really means you have more stuff in your life, in your mind, in your home, in your office, more stuff in your car, more stuff than you know what to do with… So what’s the point? Why is that necessary? What is the reasoning? You and I always ask, “What’s the purpose? What purpose does the clutter serve?” I think that’s an exceptional question for people to keep asking themselves. “Okay, I cleaned up a little bit, but I’m not willing to let go of the rest.” Hmm? What purpose does holding on really serve? Rick: Sometimes those purposes don’t seem very big. For example, there’s a catalog that has been sitting here and sitting here, and it annoys me because it’s a reminder: “I want to get some new clothes.” And yet, it’s clutter. It’s absolutely clutter. It’s not where I would have ever designed it to be, and it’s annoying, and I can feel that, but there’s a resistance to just saying, “Throw it away. I don’t need it. It’s not where I’m going to get the clothes.” Or just picking it up and dealing with it. Carol: Making a decision. How much do you think an inability to make decisions contributes to clutter? Rick: To me, if a decision is easy to make, there is no clutter… Carol: Mmm-hmm.



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Rick: …other than that which is just dictated by having a light level of stuff flowing in and out, where the clutter will accumulate and then just naturally be taken care of. To me, those people who make decisions easily and comfortably and well-guided have less clutter in their life. I know that has been true for me. I know also that, as I look around at the things that I have, there’s an emotional component to everything that is still sitting out in my space. Carol: I’m thinking of a couple of clients who say, “I’m so overwhelmed. I can’t clean up because I can’t make a decision.” I think, yes, but which came first? Were they born so overwhelmed and learned that in the first few years of their life, so then they didn’t know how to make decisions, or is the clutter interfering with that ability? To me, clutter (if you want to put in an auditory sense) is noise and static and buzzing. Which comes first? Which interferes with what? Rick: It’s a feedback loop, to me. Carol: Yes. Mmm-hmm. Rick: If you’re in a place, even on a particular afternoon when a lot of mail comes in, and you’re not ready to file it or act upon it or discard it or give it to somebody else, then you have a pile, and you’re not going to get to it. Then, if your habit is to be mostly overwhelmed, then every time things start flowing in, there’s a constipation effect. Carol: Mmm-hmm. Rick: Then it becomes more and more overwhelming, because there are little bits of time associated with everything there. You can look at a stack and know that there’s a half an hour of time there, at least. If I look at this catalog, I know that to go through it is five to seven minutes; but then if I find something that I want, well, now that’s a ten-minute online transaction, perhaps. Carol: Mmm-hmm. Rick: So there’s a sense of time commitment for each thing, and if you’re not ready to commit time, there’s a pressure. I can feel that pressure in my body to do something with it and not do something with it. We’re back to our conflicted energies. Carol: Mmm-hmm.



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Rick: So overwhelm - usually, to me, there’s a lot of conflicted energy. Carol: Lots of YESes and lots of NOs, and they kind of cancel each other out? Rick: Right. I see a box that hasn’t been opened. I think I know what’s in it, and if I open it, then I’m going to need to file them away somewhere or review them. So the box isn’t open. It’s sitting on its end, over there on the bench. Now, there’s a conflict around that. I both want to see what’s in it, and take care of it, and get the box off the bench, and it’s not really a priority for me… Carol: Right. Rick: …right now to do that. That’s a reality as well. We want to acknowledge that clutter often accumulates because there are other priorities in our life. Carol: Yes. Rick: That’s where looking at it and feeling okay with where it is - tapping around the conflict - “What do I do with this?” “I don’t want to deal with it…” - the conflict around the time that it takes. These are key energies around clutter and feeling comfortable with those things. To me, it’s not noise if I know that it’s okay for it to be there. When it starts speaking up, and my brain is paying attention to it, now it’s clutter. Like you said, the auditory aspect of it is noise. Carol: It’s also siphoning off other energies. Rick: Yes - it’s making it more difficult to be present and relaxed and comfortable in a particular space, for example. Carol: And as we have said, that interferes with abundance. So this all goes back to freedom and peace and abundance. If your life is too cluttered and your emotions are too cluttered, and it shows up as physical stuff in your office or your home, then you’re not peaceful and you’re not giving out a very, very clear decision. I think if you talk to people who have really extensive issues with clutter, they don’t say they’re clear. They often say, “Uhhhh, I can’t get to that yet - I’m not sure…” - it’s very, very complicated for them. As you say, they feel the pressure. They don’t know what to do first because, if you let things go a long time and the clutter piles are not prioritized, it does feel like there are four priorities staring at you in the face.



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And by the way, you have a job and a life and kids and a boss and whatever, and you know, it’s very hard to then make good decisions about what to throw out, what to keep, what’s necessary, what phone calls you need to make. All of that comes into it, and it goes back to how you and I talk about people’s lives being so busy that there isn’t room to get clear. That’s part of the problem. Rick: I think that’s our first tapping round here today. “I’m too busy.” We feel that. I can tell you that sense of being too busy is really not always tied to a reality. You could feel really busy and have four or five hours of meandering in the day. That busy feeling, though, is a cluttered emotional noise that will keep you from being able to use those hours in an effective way. Carol: Right. It is about efficiency. You know the old joke about “Give a busy person something to do, and it will get done,” because they can be quite efficient. It’s not about quantity. At that point, it’s about quality. Rick: Clarity. Carol: Clarity - absolutely. Do you want to lead me through a ‘busy’? Rick: Okay.

Tapping on Being Busy (starts @ 07:43) Karate Chop: Even though I am so, so busy… …I don’t have time to get to this… …and it’s driving me crazy… …I acknowledge and respect all of my feelings. Even though I am too busy to deal with my physical clutter… …and I don’t want to listen to my emotional clutter… …it’s just too much. I accept myself anyway. Eyebrow: I’m too busy. Side of the eye: I’m way too busy. Under the eye: That’s the truth. Under the nose: I am very busy.



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Chin: It feels like I’m too busy. Collarbone: There’s too much stuff to deal with. Under the arm: If I stay busy, I won’t have to deal with it. Top of the head: I am too busy. Eyebrow: Way too busy. Side of the eye: I’m not going to deal with this stuff. Under the eye: You can’t make me! Under the nose: I refuse to deal with this stuff. Chin: Because I’m too busy. Collarbone: What if I wasn’t so busy? Under the arm: I’d really like to clean it up a bit. Top of the head: I’m open to a few minutes every day where I can easily clean. Rick: Deep breath. Ahhhhh… Carol: I would say that changed my life when I didn’t have to have a threehour block of time to clean my office. “Oh, you mean I’ve got ten minutes and I can throw out two catalogs?” Rick: Right. Carol: That made a big difference. But what started first - what you and I keep saying is that it starts with your emotional energy. I can’t point to exactly what changed that for me, but over time, working with EFT and working with my energy, that became possible and even attractive. Rather than a “No, I can’t possibly start that project until I have three days off.” Rick: People will look at the enormity of the situation and be overwhelmed. Carol: Yes. Rick: And yet you can look at a single thing and ask for clarity, or whether there’s something I can do with that. Carol: Mmm-hmm. Rick: For example, I can look at this one area and my eye is attracted to this empty water bottle and I can go over and I can put it into this recycle bin here. Carol: Mmm-hmm.



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Rick: I’m done with that. I feel better. What’s interesting is that this space looks cleaner - less clutter. There’s less noise coming from that area, from a five-second action. Now, if I really start focusing on it too much, at too intense a level, we know from the Law of Attraction that what we focus on gets bigger and bigger and bigger. What I would suggest to people with clutter: sometimes soft focus can be more effective than putting a lot of energy into it. For example, I can look over at this other work surface, and I can take these four or five checks and I can quickly put them in a pile. I can take the pen and I can put it in the drawer. I can take the stapler and put it in a drawer, too. I can line up this, and I can take this Post-it pad and put it someplace where it looks nice, and I can straighten up my mouse pad. So in those few seconds, from what I just did, this corner of my desk looks really good! Carol: Mmm-hmm. Rick: The things that I have are in a nice position. As I look at them, I’m drawn to the mug. I’m going to take the mug and I’m going to put it over next to where that old water bottle was. Okay, so now everything has a different energy. It doesn’t seem noisy to me anymore. That kind of simple ability to softly focus on one narrow area and raise its vibration. You and I talk about vibrational trends all the time. Carol: Yes. Rick: With clutter, I believe vibrational trend is going to be much more important for most of us than trying to nail it and get it right. Carol: And not have to be perfect. Rick: You do not have to be perfect. Carol: I think if everyone could listen… Rick, your example was simple and useful, but we have some people listening who have piles, and they couldn’t move anything because the piles are so big. Rick: I want to do some tapping for those people, where everything just seems so big. I think the intention should be that we can find one area, someplace, that the trend in that area could be shifted. Carol: Mmm-hmm. Rick: Just one area in one place; because if you can do that, you’re building the skill of being able to softly focus in ways that are effective.



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Carol: Right.

Tapping on Where to Start (starts @ 12:27) Karate Chop: Even though I’m overwhelmed… …I can’t even get started… …because there’s too much to do… …way too much to do. What if I thought of one thing… …that might help? Even though I’m totally overwhelmed… …I can’t get started… …I accept all of me anyway. Even though I feel overwhelmed… …and discouraged… …and I don’t even know where to start… …I deeply and profoundly accept myself anyway. Eyebrow: I’m so overwhelmed. Side of the eye: What if I could calm down? Under the eye: What if I chose one small place… Under the nose: …to make my own? Chin: What if I could do just one thing? Collarbone: I can do one thing. Under the arm: But I can’t do a lot. Top of the head: So don’t make me! Eyebrow: It just makes me overwhelmed. Side of the eye: Don’t make me do it all. Under the eye: But I could do one thing. Under the nose: I might even feel better. Chin: I might even help my vibration. Collarbone: I could do one thing. Under the arm: I’ve done it before. Top of the head: I’m just going to commit to do one thing… …if I feel like it.



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Carol: Take a breath. Rick: Ahhhhh… (deep breath) Carol: That vibrational trend is essential. We’re not trying to go from 0-60 and change someone’s life in two minutes of tapping. We’re trying to move in the right direction. Turn the corner, take one step, go a little bit to the right…and that’s what starts the ball rolling. That’s really what we’re doing. Each step rolls the ball a little bit further down the hill. Rick: It does. Carol: It doesn’t do us any good to have people getting overwhelmed, listening. We want you all to really understand the huge continuum of who has clutter and who doesn’t. I bet, Rick, your clutter is about one-tenth of mine, but both of us are changing. Both of us are moving forward. Mine is completely different than it was a year ago, and I can feel inside of me that it is going to be completely different in a month. I’ve had people come in and say, “What do you mean, you have so much clutter? I’m not seeing it.” Well, for me, I think I’m attached to the old picture I used to have. I’ve working on it so much for a couple of years that it really is different. Rick: There are some spaces in your life where you can have a lot of things, and that feels homey and comfortable. There are some work areas where you might want to have a clean desk, where everything has its place. What I encourage people to do is to try that out. Create a space where it’s clear and do certain activities there. Take them in, and then take them out. It’s one way to get a feel for what might be a more enjoyable living arrangement for yourself. For people that have stuff everywhere, they often don’t have any clean space anywhere. I have started people on ‘creative meditation corner’, where just the corner is in a different vibration organizationally, clutter-wise. Often, that is the starting point for them. Carol: I say to myself, “One drawer at a time…” “One tabletop at a time…” Slowly. If you see a tabletop or a section of a bureau that looks clean, and you contrast that to the other sections, you might say energetically, “I want more of that one. Oh! Now I have a model.” Many people with clutter issues don’t have a model of what it looks like or how to do it, and then internally - the most important piece - you don’t have an energetic interest or inspiration. I keep wanting to say out loud over and over again, “The inspiration to clean up clutter is energetic.” Rick: Yes.



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Carol: It’s energetic, and it has to come from that place because that’s where the clutter came from: an energy and a vibration. Even looking at a 2’ x 2’ area on a desk, you can say, “Wow! That looks kind of interesting.” I remember a few years ago, I didn’t have the desire to be uncluttered because I was so overwhelmed. There was no space for it. Now, I am so excited, it’s really funny. I can wake up in the morning to do one more tiny corner, and I’m down to the last bit. It really is different to have space - to have the desire to want to do it. Rick: You talked about tapping on the emotional clutter, the vibrational clutter. That creates a space. Carol: Mmm-hmm. Let’s do one on emotions. How about ‘even though I still have emotions that are in my way of cleaning up’? Rick: Great.

Tapping on Emotional Interference (starts @ 17:38) Karate Chop: Even though I still have some emotions… …like fear… …and hurt… …and abandonment… …that are in my way and cluttering me… …I deeply and profoundly accept myself anyway. Even though I still have some emotions that are in my way… …and I’m not totally clear on what they are… …that’s okay… …because I’m learning about myself. Even though some emotions are still blocking my desire… …and they’re still cluttering my mind… …I choose to get clear right now. Eyebrow: I don’t have to do anything. Side of the eye: I just want to be clear. Under the eye: I wonder what emotions are getting in my way. Under the nose: Maybe there are several feelings… Chin: …that are getting in my way.



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Collarbone: That’s okay… Under the arm: …because I can clear those feelings. Top of the head: That’s all I have to do. Eyebrow: I’m not going to do anything else… Side of the eye: …except to get clear about my feelings. Under the eye: I want to respect my feelings. Under the nose: I want to understand how they connect to my clutter. Collarbone: I love feeling clear. Under the arm: I choose to feel clear. Top of the head: And I choose to honor all these feelings… …that are contributing to my clutter problem. Carol: Take a breath. Rick: Ahhhhh… (deep breath) Carol: Again, we want that acceptance that happens in EFT. “I deeply and completely accept myself no matter what…”, even if your clutter is just the way it was a year ago. Accept, accept, accept in order to change the inspiration. Pushing at it isn’t going to do anything. Rick: No. Carol: How did that one feel? First of all, I skipped a couple of points there, but I could tell that I bounced around emotionally. It kept pulling me in a different direction. It was interesting. Rick: I found that it hit on a lot of different things. I could feel unnamed emotions coming up. Carol: Mmm-hmm. Rick: One of the things that strikes me, Carol, is that when people make some progress, how they handle the slip backward has a lot to do with whether they make a new habit, or whether they just fall back into the old ones. “What’s the use?” is one of those energies that comes up. “What’s the use? It’s just going to get messy again.” Can you do some tapping with me on that? Carol: Yes, because I think the hopelessness is so devastating to people. They just want to collapse on the couch and say, “Forget it!” Hopelessness is a big piece of this. When you get overwhelmed and have too much clutter



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and can’t make decisions, you can’t find a piece of paper that you needed to find to make the next decision, it feels pretty discouraging. Rick: It does. Carol: Is that what you were talking about? That direction? Rick: Yes.

Tapping on Backsliding (starts @ 21:00) Karate Chop: Even though I feel hopeless about ever changing this… …it is just who I am… …maybe I’ll never change… I deeply and profoundly love and accept myself anyway. Even though I feel that awful sense of hopelessness… …I don’t think I’m going to get anywhere… …so what’s the point of trying… …I deeply and profoundly accept myself anyway. Eyebrow: I feel hopeless. Side of the eye: What’s the point? Under the eye: I feel hopeless. Under the nose: Nothing is going to change. Chin: I feel so hopeless. Collarbone: I don’t think I can do it. Under the arm: I’m afraid I’ll just relapse. Top of the head: Then I’ll really hate myself. Eyebrow: So why even start? Side of the eye: What’s the point? Under the eye: I don’t even want to start. Under the nose: Yes, I do. Chin: A part of me really wants to be different. Collarbone: Can I accept myself now… Under the arm: …as I begin to change? Top of the head: I hope so. …because I accept my feelings… …my challenges…



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…and my conflicts. Rick: Ahhhhh… (deep breath) Carol: What did that feel like? Rick: The conflicts - just acknowledging that we have conflicts! Carol: Mmm-hmm. Rick: I also feel like there’s a reality that cleaning things and organizing things, dealing with emotional clutter and vibrational clutter - these are not one-time events. This is not like building the house and there’s just a little bit of cleaning to be done once in a while. It’s more like building a vibrational habit. That is very different. How do we deal with those relapses? It’s not even just a relapse. If the mail arrives, or you’ve been on vacation for a week, now there’s a big stack of stuff and you don’t have time to deal with it all. That’s going to create noise. I think that, for those people who have had a problem with clutter, the fact that something has shown up in their life may reactivate that vibration again. I think that’s good, because every time it’s reactivated, from a new vantage point you get an opportunity to raise your vibration even more and solidify the habit even more, but without EFT, that reactivation can be painful and distressing. Carol: You know what it sounds like, when you’re talking that way, we could have been talking about someone who goes on a very strict diet… Rick: Yes. Carol: …and for two months, they in fact lose weight, and they go back to their environment of eating normal food in normal portions, and of course they relapse because no habits have actually gotten into place. They were just restricting. So if you restrict yourself by saying, “I have to clean up in this amount of time every day,” and you’re not really building new habits, the new habits can’t stick around. So I think that’s a great point. Do you want to take me through something like that?



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Tapping on Building Habits (starts @ 24:26) Karate Chop: Even though ‘mess happens’… …I accept myself. Even though I will accumulate certain things… …for a time… …and they may even be messy… …that’s okay. I’m still a good person… …if I have some piles. Eyebrow: I have piles. Side of the eye: I will again. Under the eye: That’s okay. Under the nose: They’re different. Chin: I want them to be vibrationally different. Collarbone: They are just things moving through. Under the arm: What if I don’t get emotionally upset about it? Top of the head: That would be different! Eyebrow: That would be great! Side of the eye: Letting it be what it is. Under the eye: Sometimes it’s messy. Under the nose: It’s not my preference. Chin: It’s not my preference. Collarbone: I don’t need to beat myself up about it. Under the arm: That would be helpful. Top of the head: I accept myself. I accept myself… …and I’m open to finding it surprisingly easy to make decisions… …and clear my clutter. Rick: Deep breath. Ahhhhh… Carol: Energetic again. If you don’t want to do it from an inspirational place, and that motivation and “I have to…”, and put it on that list of chores - gosh, how does that work out for people? Not well… Rick: I found that sometimes, when you just look at the mess and you tap on “It’s a ‘blankety-blank’ mess…”, and you look at it, and you sputter and



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you spit, and you tap and tap and tap, and you let yourself be upset about it - I’ve done that on computer errors. Carol: Mmm-hmm. Rick: I’ve done it on dirty clothes behind a door. I’ve done it on cat hair and dog hair. I’ve done it on big piles of junk mail. Anything that I have allowed myself to be honest about how irksome it is - what a mess, what a pain - it has changed it forever. It has never gone back to being as intense. When I’ve been a little bit more polite about it - “Even though I really wish that this stuff wasn’t behind the door…” - No. Carol: It’s not true. Rick: “Even though it’s horribly insulting to me that people will not put the dirty clothes in the hamper LIKE I DO, and that makes me feel SO ANGRY…” Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap while you’re sitting there, while you’re looking at it, while you’re picking it up. Guess what? It took the emotional charge out of it. Now it’s just what it is. There’s not a big emotional tie to it once you have been honest about how you feel about a particular pile of stuff, a particular thing that happens. It could be dirty dishes. I know somebody that hated doing the dishes because her husband had promised to do the dishes before they got married, and then he never did the dishes. So the dishes would pile up until the pain of having the dishes there was higher than the pain of doing it, even though he said he was going to. Now, by tapping on the underlying emotional noise of “He doesn’t love, respect, or keep his promises because he’s not doing the dishes,” guess what? They just became dishes. While sometimes she doesn’t get them done every single time, there’s not the same emotional strain. You’re not getting poked. I encourage people, as you look at stuff - certain things in your life ask if there’s this emotional component. What does this thing really mean to me? Carol: What does it really represent? Rick: What does it really represent? If you’re getting really, really, really intense about five pieces of dirty clothes, chances are there’s an emotional component there. As you get down into that and use EFT on that, then it’s just five pieces of dirty clothes. Carol: It reminds me of a client of mine who was so far into debt that all the bills would go in the drawer, and she just couldn’t open the drawer. In the beginning, it wasn’t about the dollar amount. It was about shame, and “How could I?” and “Am I spending too much?” and “This is a secret.” All



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these emotions would come up in her when she would get the mail. She would take unopened bills and throw them in the drawer and say, “I’m not dealing right now. I don’t have to have that problem right now.” There were so many emotions that had nothing to do with money, actually, and nothing to do with the $25 bills and the $200 bills. We really had to ‘unpack’ that and say, “How does a bill from ComEd actually become such a problem emotionally and energetically?” Once you can ‘unpack’ that, like you’re saying, if it’s dishes or a particular pile - we’ve all had piles of things from work that we don’t go near for a while. What’s in it? What’s the monster? What’s the snake underneath the pile? It’s just a pile of paper… Rick: The reason it’s the pile you’re avoiding is that there’s an emotional component to it. Carol: Right. Rick: It could be a priority. I won’t be quite so bold to say that there’s always an emotional component. But if it’s being noisy, rather than just matter-of-fact… “It’s on my priority list, but it’s way down the list. I’ll get to it.” If there’s emotional noise when you look at it, address that with EFT. Carol: Mmm-hmm. We want to also encourage people on the way to go about this. You could listen to CD number 2, then number 4, then number 5, then number 3, then number 1. Let’s say I have had a problem forever, and it’s totally cleared up - well, not totally. It has cleared up considerably in the last couple of years. I didn’t look at a pile of clutter and say, “Oh, that’s bothering me,” and tap on that, which is a brilliant thing to do. I should have. I just kept working on my emotional issues around anxiety and what’s going on in my life, and an outcome of that was this inspiration and strong, strong desire to clean things up, throw out, shred, give away. But you can go about it any way - you can start by looking at the corner of your office and tap. You can do it that way. There are many angles and doors in to clearing this problem. It is interesting - I never used the props that were right under my nose, which were my piles in my office and my piles of clothes and my piles of papers. I never did that, but, of course, it’s a wonderful way that you and I use EFT for all sorts of problems! Rick: Yes, like our Pain Relief With EFT program, we look at the physical stuff as a doorway into the emotional and at the emotional stuff as a doorway into the physical. Carol: Yes.



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Rick: With clutter, you can look at a pile and say, “What does this remind me of? What is the emotional component of this?” You can look at an emotion and address that with EFT and suddenly your physical world changes. Either way, both work with EFT. Carol: Yes, both - and there are other ways as well. Now, let’s revisit the downside/upside question. As you know, it’s our favorite question. Again, for those of you who still feel confused, or “I haven’t quite figured out what’s going on around the clutter,” or “Yes, I still have it. It’s getting a little better, but I don’t understand it,” what I always ask is, “If you got rid of this problem, would there be a downside? Would there be some unexpected ‘ooooh, I didn’t want that to happen, even though I said I wanted my clutter to go away.’” I was thinking of that, Rick, when you said “I stay busy” when you were tapping with me. The busyness means I don’t have to deal with my clutter. Well, does the clutter mean you don’t have to deal with an emotion? Rick: The clutter then becomes the insulator. “I stay busy to avoid the clutter, and the clutter allows me to avoid my relationships… Carol: Right. Rick: …my problem with anyone.” I have a problem with my boss. We see that a lot. It’s a good psychological method that I think is very cluttered. We set something up as the big, hairy elephant, and it really isn’t the big, hairy elephant. It’s just the one that we decide to focus on so that we don’t have to look at the big, hairy elephant. Carol: Like my client, who, in the process of quitting smoking, said, “Oh, okay. Now I know why I was smoking!” I said, “What happened?” She said, “I’m thinking of my father 40 years ago when he died, when I was a kid.” I said, “Oh, I didn’t know that”, when I first met her. She didn’t know it because she had been smoking since she was fifteen. So this smoking problem that her life was built around - “I have to have them, I need to have them, and my friends have to smoke, and I’m not going to quit, and I am going to quit, and I tried to quit” - had nothing to do with smoking. It was all about grief, but she didn’t know that until the smoking went away. So if you’re so filled in your mind and in your vibration with “I hate myself with the clutter. Look at that. Look at that. I’m a mess. I’m a loser. I can’t fix this. I can’t find this.” - what’s actually underneath that? How are you using it? How does it serve you? What’s the upside? What’s the downside, if you got over it? If you sit down with a piece of paper and a pencil and ask yourself that question: “The downside of getting rid of my clutter is that then, I would (fill in the blank)” - you’ll come up with something.



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Rick: It may not make sense. It may not be logical. That’s a good sign. Our primitive brain often makes decisions that are not logical, especially if it’s made when we were two, or three, or seven, or fifteen, or thirty-five. By asking the questions, you are opening yourself to intuitive guidance for a doorway. A doorway. That is all you’re looking for - a doorway into the energy around your clutter. Carol: Just a little ‘a-ha’. Just one ‘a-ha’. Another great question to write down and ask yourself - and leave it blank for a while if you can’t answer “I’m afraid to let go of my clutter because…” and just sit with it. Be peaceful and quiet about it. Most people never say, “I’m afraid to let go of my clutter.” They come in and say, “I’m overwhelmed and I can’t let go of my clutter.” No one says, “I’m afraid to let it go” because that doesn’t feel “up” in our consciousness. Rick: A coach asking that question can open your awareness to that underlying core issue. I remember asking that question of a client, and after the initial answer was, “I’m not afraid of it.” I just said, “If you were afraid of letting go of the clutter, what might be the reason?” I had her picture the room not being cluttered. She immediately said, “Oh, my - I’d go back to being on eBay all the time.” Carol: Ah! Interesting. Rick: She had filled up enough space and spent enough money that if she were to get rid of the stuff, all of a sudden an old pattern she felt would reemerge. But she was keeping it under control by the pain. The pain of the clutter was so predominant that it was providing an “Ugh! Well, this feels better than that.” Carol: Wow. Rick: “It feels better to keep that pain than to go back to fighting over items on eBay and buying a lot of stuff that didn’t even get opened.” She didn’t even realize that she already had purchased something just like it. This was a serious issue for her, so when that door opened, yeah - there were many of the energies we talked about before around scarcity and security that had to be addressed before she could even begin to think about taking stuff out of that room. Carol: I’d like to do another one on scarcity. I know we addressed this a couple of CDs ago, but that idea that “There’s not enough” and “I have to hold on” - I think that’s under a very high percentage of clutter issues and



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clutter challenges. There’s a sense of “I can’t let go of that - I might need it.” “Oh, there’s not enough of this.” Someone came to me and said, “There wasn’t enough love in my family.” She was able to identify that, and she said, “I didn’t get enough love there, so I feel the need to hold on.” Now, she had done enough work on herself initially, so that she knew that’s where it came from. But many people think, “That’s not where it comes from! What do you mean? That’s not about scarcity of love!” But if you keep ‘unpacking the layers’, it’s often about something vitally important to us. Rick: We all know that gifts are something that we get and give as an exchange of love energy. An absence of that can make a child feel very insufficient and insignificant. That energy came up with a client the other day, where they very powerfully remembered the Christmas where there were no presents. That scarcity feeling - you only have to go to your refrigerator once when you’re a child, and there’s no food in it and you’re hungry, to want to hoard food. Carol: Right. Rick: Your primitive brain will say, “As long as you can, in some way, if it’s possible for you to hoard food, then let’s do that.” Carol: Mmm-hmm. Rick: If you threw something out once, and then were roundly criticized for having thrown away something (quote) “perfectly good” that you might… “You see? You needed it!” Right? That activates the need to hold on to this stuff. Carol: It’s funny - I had an incident. It doesn’t feel emotionally connected at all to anything for me in this clutter, but it was a perfect example. I put my favorite charm, a necklace pendant. I wrapped it up in Kleenex and put it in one of those old film canisters (I was doing a lot of photography at the time), and I threw it out. I saw the Kleenex and just threw it out. Days later, I went, “Ooooh! My necklace is missing!” It came to me - it’s almost like I woke up in the morning and it was that sense of panic: “I threw something out - I threw something out!” And I had worked on that, so it went away, so it didn’t feel like it was connected to my current clutter, but it’s an example of how you can make a mistake and hold onto it and have it manifest in a different way in your life.



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Tapping on Needing More (starts @ 38:33) Karate Chop: Even though I’m holding onto as much as I can… …because I need more… …because there was never enough… …I deeply and profoundly accept all of me. Even though I’m holding onto all of this… …because I need it… …or I might need it one day… …I accept who I am anyway. Even though I think I need all of this… …I don’t want to let go. I accept who I am… …no matter what. Eyebrow: I need to have this. Side of the eye: I can’t give it away. Under the eye: I need to have it. Under the nose: I want it. Chin: No, I don’t. Collarbone: I wonder what it’s substituting. Under the arm: I’m substituting this stuff… Top of the head: …for something I didn’t get. Eyebrow: What didn’t I get? Side of the eye: Not enough love? Under the eye: Not enough care? Under the nose: Not enough food? Chin: Not enough attention? Collarbone: I wonder which one… Under the arm: …fuels my clutter problem. Top of the head: Because I have that feeling that there’s not enough. Eyebrow: This urgent feeling… Side of the eye: This urgent feeling… Under the eye: I have to hoard it all. Under the nose: Give me more. Chin: I have to have more. Collarbone: I need more. Under the arm: No, I don’t.



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Top of the head: What if I let go? Carol: Take a breath. Rick: Ahhhhh… (deep breath) Yeah. It could be more than one of those things. Carol: Absolutely. Rick: Once you have a consciousness around the emotional contributors to the stuff in your life - the holding on in your life - it immediately starts to shift, and it will start to heal. It may become more intense, but that’s okay. Keep tapping on it. You may have been suppressing that feeling of not having enough. Certain specific events may come up. Certain specific images may come up. It’s okay that you just pick up something, and you’re about to decide what to do, and you’re flooded with emotion. Just stop there, and do some EFT on it. You don’t need to drive forward. You don’t need to use willpower. In fact, we encourage you not to use willpower as an alternative to clearing the clutter vibrationally, emotionally, from your body, or your mind, allowing yourself to be easy about it, relaxed about it. I believe that habits are easy and relaxed when they really serve an abundant life - a thriving life. Your habits will be just natural, easy, just something that you do. The good news is that, as you go from where you are right now to where you want to be, there will be places where you will get intense feedback. Be okay with it. Tap on that. Carol: Right, and just know the purpose and the point is, as you say, not to push willpower and really try hard - the point is just to turn the corner. Rick: Right. Carol: Emotionally and vibrationally, everything changes when you change your vibration. Even if all you do is stare at your piles and tap for a couple of days, something is going to shift. That’s what we know about EFT. If you can get into the energy system - and EFT is the way to get into the energy system in your vibrations - you can shift things virtually in a minute, in an instant, overnight - sometimes it takes a week. It shifts things like no other tool or technique can do. Rick: Wonderful. Carol: That was really exciting. It’s great work to do, it’s incredibly gratifying - I don’t know if I’m more excited, Rick, for counselors to listen to this and help their clients and help themselves, or just lay people listening,



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because I think everybody can use it. I just know there are so many colleagues of mine who say, “What do you do when someone comes in and their real issue is about clutter? They’re not talking about emotional issues with their family.” I know in what direction to take them. So I think this will be incredibly useful for both clinicians helping their clients and practitioners helping others, as well as people just listening because of their own concerns about their own habits. Rick: I admit this vibrational approach is a little weird. Carol: (laughing) Rick: You know, when you start asking, “What specific event might this remind you of?” or “What emotion does it evoke?”, you get, “It’s just a pile of CRAP!!” No, if it was just a pile of stuff, you wouldn’t have intensity about it. Carol: Right. Rick: You would just grab a plastic bag, throw it in the plastic bag, and take it out to the dumpster. It’s that simple. The fact that it has an emotional component to it - a noise to it - in your body… Yes! You’ll feel that in your body, in your emotions. Yes, you’ll have thoughts. You’ll have beliefs about it. All of those things coming up - that’s reality. That’s what makes it a big pile of emotional, physical stuff that you have to learn to soothe yourself and clear out the noise, and then it really just becomes very straightforward much more straightforward. Carol: Excellent. I think there’s a lot there. Go back, everyone, and listen to the recordings over and over again - different sections that might have been really helpful for you about different emotions or different reasons to hold on - and just keep working through the recordings. Rick: Thank you, Carol. Carol: Thank you, Rick.

Happy Tapping, Everyone!


Clearing Clutter With EFT

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