No More Tears On The Pillow ...

Dear Friends,

As one of the original guinea pigs for EMO, I thought I knew what to expect from Silvia’s training last weekend. Just goes to show you how limiting the imagination can be.

I knew that EMO was designed to work with feelings as we experience them in the present. There was no particular expectation that the results would be permanent. Rather that it was a new way to experience and handle our internal responses to stimuli coming at us from others in the outside world, or arising from inside ourselves. 

A new skill for managing whatever feelings appeared – not necessarily to change the feelings. My experience of looking at unflattering photos and shifting from cringing at the signs of aging and unfitness to being able to appreciate the openness, sincerity and warmth I saw in that face (mine) was great. It was also something I might have expected to repeat every time I looked at them. After all, it only took a few seconds, and it felt good to do it. Not so, however. Ever since when I’ve looked at those photos, I’ve like what I saw there.

Over the weekend, Silvia said that was the icing on the cake, and, that from her point of view, the new skill was the most important contribution of EMO. Now, however, I’ve discovered an even more powerful result of using these techniques.

There’s a personal issue I’ve been working on for more than two years using at various times most of the techniques I know. The pain has been temporarily relieved, but any of a vast number of triggers, both external and internal, can drop me back into it at any time. Last night, as I went to bed, one of those triggering thoughts crossed my mind. I gave my usual sigh of pain and longing and grief and self-pity and all the other things that are wrapped up in this (a recent loss with deep roots in early life and who knows how many earlier lives, as well).

And then something incredible happened. Another thought crossed my mind. One I hadn’t been able to imagine thinking before. “Well, that’s one way to respond to this, but you could have a different response.” Simple? Yes. Obvious?

Yes. The intended and desired (well, with parts of me, at least) result of all the other work I’d done on this issue. But I’d never got to that point before. I’ve been stuck so deeply in this one for so long. I’d been locked into my previous response.

Now here’s the important part. I hadn’t even got to the point of doing an EMO procedure on it, but the shift in what was possible happened apparently without effort or intention on my part. With that shift suddenly available, I could easily do a bit of EMO more with it, and go to sleep contentedly and full of awed gratitude for what Silvia has offered us, instead of with my customary tight chest and jaw and tears on my pillow.

My hypothesis is that something about doing EMO – which we all did LOTS of during the Trainers’ Training last weekend – has shaken loose or opened up all sorts of possibilities that simply weren’t available to me before. And I saw this over and over again in many others during the weekend – most noticeably, of course, in those I already know well. I am a changed woman.

And so are lots of others.

Thank you, Silvia.

With love,

Susan

PS I’m still hoping to persuade you to offer an EMO workshop at the European Conference at Oxford in August.

Susan Courtney, Chair

European Energy Psychology and Energy Therapies

Conference

Oxford University

2 - 4 August 2002

www.TheAMT.com/oxford2002