No. 2: TFT & EFT

No. 2: TFT & EFT


Performance & The Subconscious Mind- No. 2: TFT & EFT
Posted on February 1, 2011 by Richard L. Matteson Jr.

                   Roger Callahan

Hi,

Clearing Negative Beliefs and Experiences

Clearing Technique #1 TFT & EFT

In the last Blog we looked at some information from Joseph Murphy about how the conscious and subconscious minds work in concert. If the subconscious mind is filled with negative experiences and beliefs about performing, it’s going to make performing a difficult and unpleasant experience. In this blog we’ll examine some solutions and a clearing technique developed by Roger Callahan in the 1980s.

A musician can consciously focus on positive thoughts and words before a performance repeating in their mind, “I’m prepared, I can do this” or “I’m a great guitarist, I know I’ll nail this.” The positive thoughts are good but they may not be in alignment with your subconscious or the musician may not believe they are true. The negative beliefs and experiences may be blocked in your body. How do we get them out?

Pumping in a few token positive thoughts will help but probably not enough to make a big difference. In past blogs we looked at some ways world renown teacher Aaron Shearer
had his students mentally prepare for performances. The main ways were:

1) Believe that a performance is sharing music so the emphasis is on the music and not the individual musician and their ego.

2) Think positively toward your audience.

Without recognizing the role of the subconscious mind (which we talked about in private conversations), Shearer is teaching you to send affirmations to the subconscious.

There are two ways to get both minds aligned:

1) You can send positive thoughts, affirmations and beliefs to the subconscious (I love my audience; I love sharing music) hoping to replace the negative beliefs and past experiences.

2) You can “clear” the past negative experiences and beliefs so that they no longer bother you.

Positive information and beliefs simply do not work with some individuals because of the deep emotional scars they have experienced in the past. Some of the fears may not even have anything to do with performances. They may involve personal trauma.

So how do we clear ourselves and cleanse our subconscious memories?

There are many ways, some rooted in accepted and often controversial psychotherapeutic remedies and some new concepts that are beyond quantitative scientific analysis.

From the concepts of Freud, Alfred Korzybski and Will Durant came L. Ron Hubbard’s 1950 book Dianetics, which led to the religious movement Scientology, defined by Wiki as a “method of spiritual rehabilitation is a type of counselling known as auditing, in which practitioners aim to consciously re-experience painful or traumatic events in their past in order to free themselves of their limiting effects.”

Clearing and removing past negative experiences and beliefs is a topic with a myriad of possible remedies that my short series of blogs cannot evaluate.

When you think (pun intended) about it, we don’t understand scientifically how our thoughts travel, the rate they travel, and what they are composed of.

Let’s look at some solutions to clear our subconscious so we can perform better and become better people.

Clearing Technique #1 TFT and EFT: Thought Field Therapy (TFT) was discovered and created by psychologist Roger Callahan in the 1980s. It involves tapping with your fingers on the main meridian points used in acupuncture. EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), created by Callahan’s student Roger Craig in the 1990s, is a variation of Callahan’s techniques.

“According to Craig, imbalances in the body’s energy system have enormous effects on the personal psychology and subsequently on the physical health. He further theorized that tackling the negative experience as well as curing the negative emotions is going to correct the energy imbalance. EFT gets rid of the negative emotions that disrupt the human system’s flow of energy.”

While tapping, certain repetitive phrases that deal with the problem are spoken or mentally reviewed. The EFT verbal phrases would need to be customized and adapted to fit musical performance, which wouldn’t be difficult. Here are some of my ideas you might say while tapping:

First you identify the problem, saying to yourself: From past experiences I have learned that I can’t make mistakes, that anything but a perfect performance is unacceptable.

Then: These limiting beliefs I no longer hold true. I choose to accept myself.

Then: I enjoy sharing music and have the ability to confidently perform in any situation. I love playing music.

You can script the dialog to fit your personal situation. There’s lots of info on the internet and you can access free videos on youtube and other sites.

More to come,

Richard L. Matteson Jr.