Week 10: Healing the Father Wound
As discussed last week, our relationships with our parents have profound and lasting effects on us. Many of us carry emotional traumas from events or incidents involving them. This week, we explore healing the “father wound.” You can apply this healing work to traumas associated with your father, another male relative, or any other man. For some people, the father (or other male) wound involves abuse. For others, the wound stems from a father who left or was never present. For many of us, the wound is related to approval we longed for but never received.
Like an unhealed mother wound, an unresolved father wound can contribute to or exacerbate a wide range of physical and psychological problems. The father-related upset from your childhood takes a toll on your body, as present-day events or people trigger the emotional reaction from your past. As we talked about in the first week of this course, upset is a stress reaction. The link between stress and a worsening of fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue symptoms has been clearly drawn. So the more you can do to decrease stress reactions in your body, the more you will be doing to reduce your symptoms and enjoy a better quality of life.
You might be fortunate to have a whole lot of positive memories of your father. You might, on the other hand, have little other than memories of violence or unpredictability. In this case, your image of “father” carries few positive connotations. In this lesson, you’ll find that you may be able to clear much of your collection of bad memories using EFT.
The Role of EFT in Healing the Father Wound
As you likely discovered last week in working with your mother wound, EFT can heal what you may have thought was unhealable. And amazingly, the circumstances do not have to change for you to heal your mother or father wound, you don’t have to process anything with your parents, and they can even be deceased. EFT works, regardless, to tap away the wound. It bears repeating that when trauma goes untreated, it saps your energy, and if you suffer from fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue, it’s obviously very important for you to eliminate anything that saps your energy. For many people, even thinking about the traumas associated with their fathers is just too painful. With EFT, you can clear trauma without reliving it. This is why EFT is so effective for war veterans. If you need more justification for opening up this “can of worms,” remember that in week 8 we talked about how avoiding unresolved feelings and memories can actually cause symptoms. Avoidance creates stress and tension, which increases physical and psychological pain, which increases avoidance, and so on. By healing your father wound, you are taking a serious step toward recovering your full health.This Week’s EFT Success Story
In this case history from the EFTuniverse.com archives, Utahna Tassie, LMT, EFT-ADV, Reiki Master, uses EFT for a massage client and clears three issues by focusing on only one of them: Josie is a regular client of mine who comes in every couple of weeks for a massage to manage her fibromyalgia pain. One night she called for an emergency appointment. When she came to the door, she was red-faced and teary-eyed from crying. I asked her what was wrong because I’d never seen her so bad. She said that she needed to resign her job, she just couldn’t take it anymore, and she didn’t know what she was going to do. She said she felt like she had a migraine from head to toe. I told her that I had been practicing a new technique for about four months and I felt like it might help her. I told her it would be easiest to show her by clearing a phobia of some sort and asked if she was afraid of snakes or spiders. She said, “Oh, spiders! I can’t believe you said that!” I tapped while Josie went into an awful story of going to the desert with her alcoholic uncle and two other little children when she was little. Her uncle turned the headlights on bright to help find and stun wild rabbits so that he could shoot them with a shotgun. He drove the truck up a hill where there was a cliff on one side of them and told them about the cougars in the mountain above them. He pointed the rifle in the kids’ faces and told them not to be afraid because it wouldn’t go off unless he pulled the trigger (while demonstrating how he would do that). The maniac uncle found a tarantula and teased the kids with it where they sat in the truck. We worked on all kinds of things as they came to mind. I kept tapping while Josie said:- “Even though I couldn’t protect myself from my monster uncle, I was a good kid.”
- “Even though I was too little to defend myself and had to do what he said, I was still an awesome kid.”
- “Even though my uncle wasn’t grown up enough to take care of us properly, he must have had a sad childhood himself.”
- “Even though my uncle was trying to escape his own childhood pain, parts of me want to forgive him.”
- “Even though I couldn’t stop him from scaring me and my cousins, I choose to love and forgive myself completely.”
- “Even though he doesn’t deserve forgiveness, I choose to forgive him anyway.”
- “Even though someone was irresponsible about letting us kids go with an alcoholic, I forgive anyone involved with the situation.”
- “I love and accept all of me even though I couldn’t stop him from acting crazy.”
- “I’m still an awesome person even though I had this bad experience with the spider.”
- “Even though that tarantula was gigantic, and very hairy scary, I know I am safe now.”
- “Even though the giant spider crawled all over me and I screamed, I forgive the spider; the spider was afraid of Uncle too!
- “I forgive myself even though I hate my uncle for what he did to me and my cousins. I love and accept all of my relatives.”
Using EFT to Heal the Father Wound
Think back to your childhood and recall any negative incidents involving your father (or other male relative or any man). Choose the one that has the greatest emotional intensity for you. What was your memory? Write it down on a piece of paper. Before you start tapping, take a moment to assess your feelings as you remember this event. Use the 0 to 10 (0 = no discomfort and 10 = extreme discomfort) SUD scale. How strong is your emotional reaction to the memory right now? Give it a number, and write down that number. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 or 10 Also, identify a place in your body where you feel that emotion most strongly. It might be your forehead, your shoulders, or your heart. Write down the location in your body of this strong emotion.So far, so good! Here’s your Setup Statement:
“Even though (the memory you wrote down), I deeply and completely accept myself.” Say this three times while tapping on the Karate Chop point on the side of your hand.
Now look at the illustration showing EFT’s 12 acupoints, and tap lightly 7 to 10 times with two fingertips on each point. While tapping, focus on the problem.
A Second Helping of EFT
Now let’s do EFT again, but with a slightly different Setup Statement. Most people experience a reduction in the intensity of the problem, so we’ll modify the Setup Statement accordingly. “Even though I still have some strong feelings about (the memory you wrote down), I deeply and completely accept myself.” Say this three times while tapping on the side of your hand.
Now tap lightly 7 to 10 times with two fingertips on each point. While tapping, stay focused on your problem.
A Final Round of EFT
You might still have some remaining SUD intensity (0 = no discomfort and 10 = extreme discomfort), so for good measure, let’s try EFT again. “Even though I still have some remaining feelings about (the problem you wrote down), I deeply and completely accept myself.” Say this three times while tapping on the side of your hand.
Now tap lightly 7 to 10 times with two fingertips on each point. While tapping, stay focused on your problem.
Measuring Your Results
Think about the problem again. Using the same scale from 0 to 10, with 0 being no emotional intensity, and 10 being the highest possible, write down the number below that represents your number: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 or 10 Congratulations! Your level of emotional intensity just went down by ___percent. (Divide your second number by your first number, then multiply your answer x 100.)Healing Father Issues as They Arise
Now you have the tool to address traumas related to your father wound (or to any other man) as they come up in your life. Tap away each upset having to do with your father, another male relative, or any other man, using the instructions above. As usual, before you go to sleep each night, think about any upsetting incidents that occurred during the day, and tap them away. When you wake up, tap through the points three or four times before you even start your day. This will help balance your energy, and give you more resilience to face the day ahead.TAP ALONG VIDEO TOPICS
- Stupid Girl Mistake at Age 7
- Core Belief: I have to be perfect
AUDIO
Healing the Father Wound
This Week’s Assignments
Reading:
- Week 10 in EFT for Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue
Actions:
- Do EFT whenever an upset related to your father, another male relative, or any other man arises, using the instructions above.
- Do EFT for 10 minutes when you wake up, and before you go to sleep.
Further Resources
Peak Vitality: Raising the Threshold of Abundance in our Spiritual, Emotional, and Material Lives
by Jeanne House