This article from Catherine Strang looks at the "deceptively simple" yet highly effective technique of breathing into and through layers of emotion in order to get to the core of the issue.

The article includes two examples and explains the technique in a practical and simple manner, showing how it is possible to breathe through the emotions and then heal the core issue with EmoTrance and EFT...

Catherine Strang writes: This is a deceptively simple method for getting to the core of an issue.

Simply put it involves breathing into and through layers of emotion whilst in a relaxed or mild trance state until we arrive at the core feeling or memory.

The inspiration came from Brandon Bays Journey work, a friend of mine was doing a course in this and needed case studies. I enjoyed the sessions and found the start intriguing as a way of moving quite quickly through layers of emotion, or perhaps aspects of an issue until we reach a core memory. I couldn’t help thinking that the core memory could be healed a lot faster with EFT or EmoTrance!

The beauty of this method is that when we reach the core the layers above it will clear along with everything else without having to clear each layer bit by bit beforehand.

The first time I tried this on myself I had a breakthrough experience with a problem that would only ever lift temporarily with tapping. The problem which I had had for years was that I frequently felt tired, more a kind of mental weariness than any physical problem but enough to be quite debilitating. I was feeling really tired yet again one day and thinking about applying EFT but instead decided to really sink into the weariness, allow myself to feel it completely and then drop through that into the emotion below, I kept doing this with each emotional state (about four I think) until I hit a well of very painful feelings. I used EmoTrance to clear the layers of feeling for the next 20 minutes and at the end felt remarkably different, more alive yet peaceful.

After this success I wanted to practice on someone else, the opportunity came with a very unusual case and I think adds to the ever-increasing proof of the power of EFT.

The following took about 25 minutes with the result of a complete clearing of the problem.

I have had this particular client come to me for massage for about five years now; Mark (not his real name) had over the past few weeks become increasingly preoccupied with time, specifically the passing of it. Before each part of his day he would think about the fact that it was going to pass and another part of his life would be gone. He also started to spend hours online looking up whatever he could find about the nature of time.

Mark was feeling increasingly anxious about where this was going as he had suffered from depression a few years previously and one of the symptoms was thinking about time passing. Mark is a fairly confident person by nature and came for regular massage as part of a commitment to his general wellbeing.

During the fourth massage session were this was, again, the main topic of conversation, I was becoming quite worried and asked if was willing to try an experiment that used EFT. He had tried EFT before so was quite willing.

We started by simply relaxing through breath work and I offered the suggestion that this technique would lead to the cause of the problem. I asked him to think about time passing and how that made him feel.

“Anxious”.

“Breath into where in your body that you feel that. Now allow the anxious feeling to expand through the body”.

I waited about a minute to let this happen.

“Drop through to what’s underneath the anxiety, just allow yourself to sink through this feeling. What are you feeling now?”

“Fear”

“Breath into fear and allow that to spread through your body”.

Let another minute pass

“What are you feeling now?”

“Still fear but I’m remembering something that happened when I was a child. My dad has come home from the pub drunk and in a bad mood and he’s hitting my mother”.

At this point Mark was experiencing a lot of distress so I tapped for about ten minutes on whatever he was feeling, only when the distress had gone down significantly did I do opening statements for any remaining distress.

After checking for any remaining distress on the memory I then asked him how he felt about time, he was quite calm.

We got to the core very quickly in this case, it usually takes one or two more layers; if you don’t reach an actual memory then the emotion reached will have a “bottom line” feeling to it.

I tried this on Mark 14 months ago and he has passed through the time of year he usually experiences anxiety or depression (Autumn) and has had only occasional mild feelings of distress that he has alleviated quite easily, the problem with time has not resurfaced.

I have used this with other clients and have found that with some you have to be patient or quite creative at first with the sinking through layers bit. I even once found myself using the image of the characters from the first Harry Potter film sinking through Bindweed! It seemed to work…

Catherine Strang
www.TheWholeOfYou.com