By Paul & Layne Cutright

Dear Friends & Colleagues,

My wife, Layne, and I share a creative/professional partnership as well as a romantic one. Much of our coaching practice is with relationships and partnerships of various kinds. We work with some couples face to face and some over the phone. This situation concerns a couple in another state whom we coach over the phone with whom we use EFT. Hopefully, this will demonstrate how effective EFT can be with relationships even when they are not sitting right in front of you.

This particular couple have been married ten years and they have three children. We will call them John and Mary. Their issue can be one of the most painful and seemingly intractable that a married couple can experience - SEX!

The situation, in a nutshell, is this. John wants to have sex more often than Mary and feels angry and hurt by her rebuffing his advances. Mary, on the other hand, feels spiritually superior to John when he "comes on" to her and gets turned off to sex and to him. She thinks his desire for her is too "animalistic" and not "spiritual" enough for her. He feels her attitude of superiority and condescension and has the feeling that his emotional and physical needs are not important. The result is that they seldom have sex and when they do it is less than satisfying for either one of them.

When we are working with them on the phone we know that they are in the same room and that they can see and interact with each other. One of the things about relationship issues is that there are generally multiple aspects to deal with that can often be quite surprising. Also, part of the beauty of EFT is that you can begin with exactly what is presented and the work will lead you, aspect by aspect, ever deeper into the root cause of the issue.

Before we go into either partner's issue, we get their mate's permission for them to go into the issue in front of them.

We had John and Mary facing each other and began with Mary by having her tap on her feeling that John is not spiritual enough for her (which had an intensity of 8on a 0 to 10 scale) like this:

Karate Chop Point while looking at John -

"Even though I don't think John is spiritual enough to have sex with, I deeply and profoundly love and accept myself."

"Even though the more John wants to have sex with me, the less I want to give it to him, . . ."

"Even though I've had this problem for so long I don't think I can let go of it, . . ."

Tapping on all points while looking at John with this phrase -

"The more he wants it the less I want to give it to him."

This resulted in a drop from the 8 to a 4. We then had her tap on her face and torso points, followed by the 9 Gamut Procedure, which took her down to a 1.

At this point we checked in with John to see how he was doing. His feelings had increased in intensity to a 10+ while listening to Mary. The feeling John was having was that he was never going to get his sexual and emotional needs satisfied with Mary. So, we had John tap on the Karate Chop Point -

"Even though I feel hopeless and frustrated about my sex life with Mary, I deeply and profoundly love and accept myself."

"Even though Mary doesn't want me as much as I want her and I have a lot of hurt about that, . . ."

"Even though I feel like I'm never going to get what I want, . . ."

Tapping on all the points while looking at Mary with this phrase -

"Feeling like I'll never get what I want."

Note: It is often a judgment call who should go first in this kind of work. In this case we had Mary go first because her issue was not as emotionally vulnerable as John's. Then, when it was John's turn, she was able to be clear (emotionally non-reactive) and lovingly present while John tapped through his painful feelings. In fact, she was so free of her previous "better than" issue at that point that John reported afterwards that he felt like she was flooding him with love.

John's 10+ dropped to a 4. He then reported a strong feeling of a tight blockage in his throat. We asked him what the energy in his throat wanted to say, and after a moment's reflection he said, "All I can hear is, 'You cold, castrating bitch!'"

We checked in with Mary to see if it was ok with her for John to go into this issue in front of her, and she said, "Of course, I know that's how he feels anyway!" She was still in a very clear and loving place.

We had John tap on the Karate Chop Point while looking at Mary and saying -

"Even though I judge Mary as a cold, castrating bitch, I deeply and profoundly love and accept myself and Mary."

"Even though I have this tight feeling in my throat, . . ."

"Even though I'm afraid of how powerful my feelings are and I'm afraid to let them out, . . ."

We then had him do another two rounds through all the points with the phrase, "Cold, castrating bitch", followed by the 9 Gamut Procedure, which brought his intensity level down to ". . . pretty much a 1."

After this they both reported feeling a lot better, which we could hear in their voices. They declared it to be a breakthrough in their relationship and it was a great relief for them to talk about such (previously unsafe) deep emotional undercurrents. They said they had taken some giant strides and were both feeling a little fragile.

We made progress on all the aspects that we tapped on in this two hour session. We completed it with a forgiveness process that had them facing one another and placing their hands over their heart center in the middle of their chest. We then asked them to "ignite" their palm chakras, which is to imagine a beam of light flooding out of the palms of their hands into their chest. Then, they repeated three times to each other, one at a time, "Through the power of Divine Love, I forgive myself for doing anything that may have hurt you." Then, "Through the power of Divine Love, I forgive you for doing anything that may have hurt me."

After this, they both felt emotionally open and connected with each other. They both expressed deep gratitude for having someone lead them through such deep, painful and vulnerable feelings and for having made enormous progress in such a brief time.

Now, because this was our most recent session with this couple, we don't know yet what affect this particular session has had on their sex life. As of this post, they haven't "taken it out for a test drive, yet!" Remember, with relationships there are sometimes multiple aspects that can come up later. We may have helped them to clear enough to transform their sex life -- and we may have a bit more work to do. Stay tuned. . .

What I have given you here is the essence of the EFT work we did with them. It was preceded, though, by quite a bit of talking to discover the issues. There are so many issues that EFT easily clears in a round or two, that we can sometimes forget that EFT is also effective with deeper issues requiring more time, patience and multiple sessions.

One of the important things that was revealed that you should know about is the parental patterns that they were running, which we will address in future sessions.

Mary's feeling of superiority and condescension was acquired through the modeling of her father's condescending relationship with her mother. She had been duplicating the emotional dynamic of her parent's relationship in her own marriage, but was completely blind to her doing so. In future we sessions we will be using EFT to address her feelings about her parents' relationship with one another.

John grew up in a family in which his emotional needs were seldom noticed or tended to, especially by his mother. It is no surprise, of course, that struggling to get his emotional needs satisfied has been a recurrent theme throughout his married life. We will likewise be able to work with John, using EFT, to clear other specific memories of him not getting his needs met.

I hope you find this helpful as you expand your experience with EFT.

Blessings,

Paul Cutright

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Dear Friends & Colleagues,

Last month I wrote about the work Layne and I have been doing with "John" and "Mary" and the challenges they have been experiencing in their relationship, especially sexually. As of the last posting, we still didn't know if the EFT we did with them had been successful in terms of their renewed lovemaking. So, I thought you might like to have an update on their situation.

To refresh your memory, here is a recap of the situation we were working with.

The situation, in a nutshell, was this. John wanted to have sex more often than Mary and felt angry and hurt by her rebuffing his advances. Mary, on the other hand, felt spiritually superior to John when he "came on" to her and thus got turned off to sex and to him. She thought his desire for her was too "animalistic" and not "spiritual" enough. He sensed her attitude of superiority and condescension and had the feeling that his emotional and physical needs were not important. The result was that they seldom had sex and when they did it was less than satisfying for either one of them.

We made progress on all the aspects that we tapped on in our two hour phone session. After this, they both felt emotionally open and connected with each other. They both expressed deep gratitude for having someone lead them through such deep, painful and vulnerable feelings and for having made enormous progress in such a brief time.

Now, because this was our most recent session with this couple, we didn't know yet what affect this particular session had on their sex life. As of that previous session, they hadn't "taken it out for a test drive, yet!" Remember, with relationships there are sometimes multiple aspects that can come up later. We may have helped them to clear enough to transform their sex life -- or we may have needed to a bit more work.

Here is what has happened with John and Mary since then. We have two hour sessions with them once a week.

(Three weeks later)

As of their most recent session last week, they have had a major breakthrough with their sex life! And beyond that, they've made progress with their general level of intimacy, safety and emotional surrender. Now, let me tell you a bit about how we got there, because it wasn't a "quick fix." Rather, it was the result of persistence in focusing on their intended outcome and dealing directly with each aspect in their relationship as it arose.

In helping people to recreate their marriage there are usually three basic elements to consider:

1. insight as to how their marriage came to be the way it is,

2. learning to make new choices that will produce new results, and

3. what we call "trigger work".

Trigger work is where EFT is enormously helpful. When couples are frequently frustrated, angry, argumentative or distant, they usually have a long list of complaints about what the other person does to set things off. Triggers can be anything - a look, a tone of voice, a gesture, certain words, an attitude, silence - really, anything that produces a negative reaction in the other person.

When triggers are cleared so that there is no longer any emotional charge, it leaves people in a more resourceful state when the same trigger occurs in the future. Rather than reacting automatically and making the same old moves that takes them to the same old place, they are able to make new moves that can take them to a new and better place. Any coach can tell you there is a huge gap between a client's willingness to make new choices and their ability to act on those choices in the heat of the moment. Clearing the triggers reduces the "heat of the moment" so they can actually do what their wisdom tells them to do.

In our coaching with John, he realized that when he got even the slightest whiff that Mary was going to rebuff his romantic/sexual advances he got triggered into a younger self. He described the feelings as identical to the feelings he had as a boy with his father.

John's father was verbally loud and physical in the way he expressed his disapproval of his son. He would be impatient with John and disapprove of him for not moving fast enough. In addition, he would often hit John sharply on the back of his head. John's experience was of being misunderstood and that his father was not there for him.

John was still carrying the wound (trigger) of this treatment and every time Mary declined his overtures for sex this emotional wound would get activated (triggered). John would proceed to share his feelings about being refused by Mary without realizing that the old pain of this wound affected all of his communication with Mary.

For Mary, instead of a powerful man coming to her with passion and desire it appeared that she had a powerless, whining child needing comfort. The recurrent pattern was for John to come on to Mary, Mary not being interested as quickly as John wanted her to be, and then being thrown into his feelings of rejection and being misunderstood. John interpreted Mary's rejection through his wounded child.

After we worked on John's feelings of unresolved disapproval from his father he was able to make some new choices and some new interpretations when Mary wasn't as interested in sex as he was. Previously, he would feel like a defeated child, but now he was feeling and behaving like a playful seducer. He even went so far as to do a Chippendale striptease that left them both rolling on the floor, first in laughter, then in passion. And Mary was responding differently now that John was more in his power in his advances toward her.

Mary's part was that she was trained to put everyone else's needs before her own, and she had deep resentment about this that would show up when John wanted sex and expected her to be turned on before she had "warmed up". When John shared his feelings of disappointment and hopelessness, Mary would go into an analytical mode trying to help him understand his feelings, all on top of her resentment about not having her own needs seen and understood (her trigger), once again. The result of this pattern was always no sex and feeling distant and unsatisfied.

Now, this dynamic in their relationship had been going on unconsciously. Our work was about helping them to become conscious of what was really going on,. One of the things that predictably happens on a transformational, healing journey like this is that old, repressed feelings will erupt at some unexpected and often seemingly inappropriate time. (How nice if it could all happen nice and neat within scheduled sessions!) Mary called one day after a schedule session in which we had her tap on her beliefs about other peoples' needs being more important than her own. She was experiencing spontaneous insights and energy rushes, so we helped her through them, after which she felt clear and open at a whole new level. This showed up in an interesting way in our next session with them.

We were working with John, tapping on his feelings about his father disapproving of him, hitting him on his head and of John's feeling that no one was there for him. While John was tapping and clearing these historical memories and triggers, Mary, sitting across from John, began tapping on her own body on John's behalf (surrogate tapping). This had never happened before and it represented a breakthrough for John in being understood and cared about by Mary, rather than all alone in his pain. Mary shared that she felt a new understanding of John's previous behavior and a huge outpouring of love and support for him.

Now, remember, all of this is over the phone and John and Mary are sitting in the same room with each other.

In just this past week since this last session they have shared an amazing lovemaking experience with each other. Mary told us, "It was awesome. I feel like I'm falling in love all over again. He's sooo sexy!" John's comment was simply, "It feels like a dream come true!"

The thing about triggers is that they tend to make people "me" oriented. You get triggered and go into self preservation mode which usually involves making the other person wrong. Blame interferes with love and understanding. But, when triggers are cleared people are able to step into a "we" orientation. They can work together as allies. They are able to liberate the energy used in a "power struggle" and use it for the creativity of cooperation.

It doesn't take much to imagine the possibilities that open up for us as members of a larger society. What could we accomplish together as a society if the triggers that generate alienation disappeared? What if our good intentions to create a better world weren't continually undermined by our inability to simply get along?

I hope this story offers you some insight into the value of persistence, as well the amazing power of EFT to clear triggers that could take years to clear (if ever) in more traditional forms of therapy.

Blessings,