For the longest time I pondered the meaning of what it was to be aligned. It is an overused term that really has no good definition. I know Abraham has tried to define it and I have heard some very good attempts, but unless you experience it, it’s a mystery.

We’re going to get to our topic in just a second. First, I want to say that this blog will no longer be sent out in my newsletter. If you want to get this in your email, subscribe to the RSS feed to the right. Second, I’ll be operating without a net. That’s right, Julie will not be editing my posts so I will probably write what resembles a cross between drivel and mental diarrhea. Julie will see these posts via her RSS feed or Facebook like everyone else.

The first thing I noticed was my cat. My cat was in powerful alignment with achieving contentment. Okay, that one was easy. Now I shifted to me. What was I in alignment with? Oh, I know I am in alignment with everything around me by definition, but what am I aligned with that is what I am wanting.

I am in powerful alignment with my morning coffee. If I don’t have it, I’ll find a way to get it. I totally expect to have it and in no uncertain terms will I accept not having it. What’s more, I enjoy it.

I am powerfully aligned with having with having plenty of butter in the house. We can run out of anything else, but never butter.

I was powerfully aligned with my car long before I got it. I didn’t know how I was going to afford it, but I knew it would have leather interior and a wood dash. It would also ride like driving an easy chair. I imagined this car would be a Cadillac CTS but when I read they blew engines every 50,000 miles or so I changed my mind.

When I saw my Lincoln Continental in an ad on the Internet, I knew I had to go see it. I fell in love with it from the start, but while I was driving it, another customer put a deposit on it. I tried other cars, but none felt like relief to purchase. It told the agent I would wait until another car like the one I drove came available. A week later, the other customer pulled out of the deal and I was able to purchase the one I drove.

Now I look for excuses to drive it and am looking forward to driving across country in it. Julie thinks we should take her van because it has 4 captains chairs and is a good ride for everyone (just not as nice as the RIDE (Really Indulgent Driving Experience.) I am so aligned with that car.

I am also aligned with my sessions. I really enjoy climbing into my vortex and creating a space for my clients to remember who they are so they can experience relief or come into alignment with what they are wanting. (You can sign up for a session at PracticalWizard.com BTW).

So, as you see, within a few minutes I was able to really ramp up what it feels like to be aligned.

You can do this exercise too. How does alignment manifest in your life? Use the space below if you like. I guarantee you will feel better from where you are.

How did the exercise work out? Do you have any other ideas of how to powerful achieve alignment.

(c) 2012 Chip Engelmann

Once you understand the fundamentals of EFT and have made a commitment to yourself to use EFT to help others as a business, one of the obstacles you might face is the belief that perhaps you are a phony, not well-enough qualified.

Of course, if you have not taken any training or read any materials or watched Gary Craig’s videos, you should do a good dose of those things. But if you have done your homework and your intention to help is clear, you can go ahead and start helping people.

I’m not saying quit your day job. But dive right in? Sure. Start experiencing what it feels like to be paid for your EFT services. Start doing EFT as a side venture, and you will soon know a lot more than you do now about the shape you want your business to take.

Just don’t try to practice outside yourself. By this I mean start where you are, with who you are and what you know.

Hang out your shingle with the clear intent of helping people who are a vibrational match to your abilities. They will find you. As you grow in your skills, more challenging clients will appear, but never more challenging than you can handle. As long as you are in alignment with your abilities, you will only attract people who can be helped within your abilities.

One way to stay within yourself is to work on your own issues. For this I suggest trading sessions with someone else in your position. I traded sessions weekly for 3 years when I was getting started. It was extremely helpful.

So what about feeling like a phony? I’ve known practitioners who are among the world’s elite who still feel like phonies, because you never know what you will run into with each new client. In fact, no two clients are remotely similar to one another. You will always fly by the seat of your pants. You just learn to trust yourself, that what you know is enough for the client you are working with in the moment. It gets easier to trust yourself as you do it.

So if you are ready (and no, that doesn’t mean you feel like an expert — it means your hair is raised on end with the twin excitements of fear and elation), just start helping!

(c) 2011 Chip Engelmann

According to state and federal agencies, the treatment, mitigation and diagnosis of any physical, emotional, or mental disorder is illegal unless you are a practitioner of an authorized modality of healing such as psychology, psychiatry, allopathic medicine (MD), chiropractic, and acupuncture. It is basically against the law for an EFT, Meridian Tapping, or Light Tapping^SM practitioner to make a claim, offer a guarantee of results, or even suggest that tapping has a positive effect on any physical or emotional disorder.

Recently, EFT Master Rue Hass underwent a year-long battle with the state of Colorado in which she was ordered to Cease and Desist her practice of EFT. Her lawyers speculated that she was being used as a test case. After $10,000 in legal fees, the case against her was dropped when she filed an appeal with the Colorado Supreme Court. I recommend everyone, especially EFT practitioners, read the article that chronicles her ordeal, “Reducing Potential Legal Risks, for Practitioners.” (Click here and scroll down to the title.)

Even though a paradigm shift is coming in the science of health care – “body as broken machine” to the body as energy — the sleeping giant, the pharmaceutical industry, has become aware of EFT and the potential revenue loss if people get better without drugs. The good news is that there are no big EFT stars making tons of money and attracting a lot of attention. The bad news is the numbers of EFT practitioners are growing, so action is likely coming.

I, for one, have played this game in two previous businesses in the vitamin and supplement industry in the 1990’s and I don’t want to play it again. So for now anyway, I am shifting my focus to being a straight Law of Attraction coach. My future writings for TAPezine will be along those lines.

Last week I offered a huge discount on sessions for a limited time. I am repeating that offer today and opening it up to any issue you wish to bring to the session. The nature of my business is going to shift in the next couple weeks, and I want to give anyone who has been putting off getting help from me a last chance to do so (see article). So from now until the end of May, you may purchase sessions with me for $80 (instead of $150). You may purchase as many as you like during May, to be used as you see fit until the end of the year. These sessions are also transferable to other people.

I am very good at what I do, but will be pursuing a new direction. I’ll tell you more as the situation develops.

There are two steps to taking advantage of this offer. First, use the PayPal link to purchase as many sessions as you would like. Then use the Genbook link to schedule your next appointment. I am looking forward to working with you.

(c) Chip Engelmann 2011

Fear of flying can be a very serious limitation in someone’s life. It can limit you from seeing travel destinations, family and friends, or be a detriment to your career. If you are afraid to fly you will find excuses not to, at the expense of opportunities.

From an EFT practitioner’s perspective, there are two basic categories of fear of flying. The first is a basic fear of physical harm or confinement. This type of fear may come from a trauma earlier in one’s life, witnessing a crash either live or on media, or something else related to airplanes.

This type of fear is straightforward. Once we tap on the fear, find the trauma, and walk through an imaginary flight, usually flying becomes much easier.

The second category of fear of flying is more difficult. The fear is not a primary emotion, but rather a symptom of a deeper issue. Often it is one of many manifestations of anxiety.

Anxiety is a subject in itself. I will not go into depth about it here except to say that anxiety is not a primary emotion either – rather, it is a diversion from a deeper, more powerful and painful emotion. Because anxiety protects a person from a very deep pain, the person finds it very hard to let go of. But this anxiety must be released before the fear of flying can be alleviated.

The fact that there are two types of fear of flying creates a problem. People read about being “cured” of the fear of flying in one EFT session. This is most likely the first type, where the flying fear is the primary fear. But if a person with anxiety reads or hears about others getting over the fear of flying in one session, they become disillusioned when, after a session or two, they seem no closer to relief. They then assume that EFT does not work for them.

The problem can be compounded when the client does not associate the fear of flying with their anxiety and therefore does not tell the practitioner. The practitioner then spends valuable time working on a symptom rather than the root problem of the anxiety.

Either type of fear of flying can be relieved with EFT. However, a client with anxiety will spend a little more time working with the practitioner. As an added benefit, they just might find relief from much more than their fear of flying in the process.

(c) 2011 Chip Engelmann

Everyone has been disappointed at some point in their life, but some seem to expect it.

In my early life I was disappointed so often and so deeply that I developed emotional strategies to “manage” my disappointment. Unfortunately these became mental habits which, of course, manifested more disappointment in my life.

Two scenarios push my “disappointment management” buttons. One, when I am looking forward to something with excitement, my disappointment manager steps in to curb that excitement: “The more excited you are, Chip, the worse your disappointment will be!” Two, when people give me compliments: “Better not feel too good about praise, because the next time you deserve it you might not get it and you’ll be disappointed!”

I can see that my parents demonstrated this attitude of disappointment too. I have used EFT to tap on it, but it still raises its head from time to time.

Most recently, Minda Bernstein and I produced a series of channelings to help people learn about and get in touch with their spiritual guides. It is a good product and I was excited about it. But one of the aspects of Law of Attraction is to release your attachment to the outcome. When I did, I found myself slipping into the vibration of managing disappointment.

So I asked my spirit guides, through Minda Bernstein, what to do about it. I would like to share the recording of this answer, because it may be helpful and interesting and also gives a taste of the project.

Audio: My Guides on: Managing Disappointment [11:38]

(left click to listen; right click to save to your computer)

I found this channeling inspiring, and have been living by this advice since it was recorded a week ago. Even though the answer is for me, I hope you get something from it as well – perhaps the lily-pad jumping technique!

One thing that surprised me during this channeling was the suggestion to listen to The Network for inspiration, a CD by Frank Butterflied and the Communion of Light. I have in fact, listened to this recording five or six times.

See you next time,

Chip

(c) 2011 Chip Engelmann

When we talk about contrast from a Law of Attraction perspective, we tend to think of it as something to be avoided, if for no other reason than it feels bad. For those who don’t know, contrast is a word used by Abraham for – well, the things that we don’t want. Using the word “contrast” means that, if not for the things we don’t want, we would not know what it is that we do want. In fact, the more strongly we don’t want something, the more strongly we do want the opposite.

But what if I told you there was another type of contrast that not only feels good, but you can actually use it to bring you what you want faster?

Good-feeling contrast is the contrast between where you were vibrationally when you started trying to get what you want, and where you are now that you have been allowing what you want to come to you. This contrast points out the progress you have made, and it feels good to think about it!

Let’s look at the example of Roger, who does not seem to have enough money to cover his bills. He notices the contrast, because he feels bad. He may feel any combination of shame, guilt, fear, anger, disappointment, frustration, sadness and grief. His bad feeling launches rockets of desire to have the money he needs to pay the bills.

Now let’s say Roger works on lowering his resistance to not having money. As you’ve read in my previous articles, this means he becomes okay with his situation and starts to find better-feeling thoughts. Soon Roger notices signs that he is having some success. Strangely, some money came from two unexpected sources – not enough to pay all the bills, but the ones most needed. Now he is in an interesting position.

Our hero can notice that he doesn’t have money to pay the rest of the bills and they are still weighing on him. Or he can put his attention on the progress he has made, and by appreciating it, create more progress. In other words, he could focus on what he wants more of.

If I were Roger, I would create a rampage of appreciation about how far I’ve come. Let’s give it a try. I’m borrowing some words and phrases from Paul, the Communion of Light. Feel free to modify the rampage to fit your situation.

What we do by rampaging in this way is put our attention for an extended time on good-feeling thoughts about what we want. As you do this–as you have just done by reading the above–you transform the way you think about the topic. You will never be able to go back and worry about the situation in quite the same way as you did before.

Feel free to re-read the rampage a few times. Change it to make it yours. The more you do, the more shift you can create.

(c) 2011 Chip Engelmann

Because many of my readers are practitioners–EFT practitioners, Meridian Tapping Practitioners, Life Coaches, and Law of Attraction coaches–I am dedicating today’s article to an upcoming event that could create, revitalize or even save a business.

Frank Butterfield is inviting the public to attend his Client Train Express – for FREE!

Starting on March 1st at 10 am EST, the Communion of Light will lead us on a series of 28 rampages designed to help us use the Law of Attraction to improve our client experience. Sometimes they will help us create; sometimes they will help us allow. Each will build upon the other, but you don’t have to listen every day.

These 15-20 minute daily rampages are a flow of words that demonstrate the thoughts that manifest and allow clients to come into our experience. It starts with, “If we were in your physical shoes, this is what we would say.” The Communion of Light brings us into their powerful vortex, and from within this vortex places our attention upon the vibration that helps to bring the clients we wish into our practices.

Abraham says that if you can focus on a topic for 17 seconds, you initiate a change in your vibration. If you can focus on a topic for four times that, 68 seconds, you attract more thoughts, which creates a permanent change in your vibration. These rampages bring more than 60 times that 17-second focus, every day for 28 days. Imagine the difference your enjoyable daily listen could make for your life and business.

It is free, it’s a no-brainer. Take advantage! I’ll see you there.

(c) 2011 Chip Engelmann

Last week we talked about how we delete, generalize and distort our sensory data, including the language of a conversation, to fit our world-view.

So far we’ve been using as our example a “friendly conversation.” But suppose someone is doing something you don’t like, something that really pushes your buttons. You really want them to change so they stop pushing your buttons. Let’s further suppose that you are an extremely good communicator and the person actually does stop doing what pushes your buttons.

Have you accomplished anything? Chances are very slim that you will see the evidence that a change has occurred. Julie gives the example that she caught herself ribbing me about needing to make a certain phone call, after I had not only made it but told her the result the day before. Her generalization that I tend to forget domestic to-do’s, combined with her deletion of the result, led to the distortion that I had not followed through.

But more is at play here than harmony in your outer relationships – it is your relationship with yourself that you see reflected in others. If you are in pain and that pain is expressed through your thoughts, you will find evidence to reinforce and justify that pain. This is simple Law of Attraction. Thoughts attract like thoughts.

You literally attract a person to show you the emotions that are creating conflict within yourself. In other words, you will find a person who pushes your buttons. For example, if Jane harbors strong feelings of self-anger, she will attract people to yell at her. If Bill has low self-esteem, he will find people who put him down. If Sandra has deep feelings of guilt, she will find people to punish her.

So if the other person has indeed changed, but you are still vibrating your pain, you will generalize, delete, and distort the data until what occurs is your buttons are still getting pushed.

No one can change enough to make you feel better. Blaming others simply keeps you stuck in a no-win situation.

The good news is, you are the one who can change your world. No need to go through the clumsy and uncertain project of changing someone else! Incredibly soon after you change your habit of thought, you will see signs that your situation has improved.

For example, a doctor friend moved from one unappreciated position that demanded 70-hour work-weeks to another position that turned out to demand 80-hour weeks. Recognizing the pattern in her personal history, she decided that she was now going to come first. Soon she found her dream position — where her talents are valued and she has time for her family — and, as a side benefit of having experienced such contrast, she fully appreciates all aspects of her new situation.

It is your world and you are the master. What happens in someone else’s world is beyond your perception and irrelevant. You are a being of light and love and, as such, can do anything you can imagine, and changing a habit of thought is easily within your imagination.

Adversarial communication falls under the heading of habits of thought. If you use your perception of the conversation as a “mirror,” it will very blatantly tell you which thoughts you are thinking that aren’t serving you. Although this recognition is easy, it is a learned process and must be practiced. You must realize that the bad-feeling emotions you experience are vibrationally aligned with the thought that produced them. By realizing that the bad-feeling thought you are thinking does not serve you, and by letting it go or changing it, you shift your reality and the nature of that particular adversarial interaction.

[You can learn more on this topic in the free version of Tame Your Demon: How to Be Okay with Where You Are When Your life Sucks.]

(c) 2011 Chip Engelmann

I can relate.

I know how you feel.

Been there; done that.

Hearing these expressions reassures us that we are being heard. That the person we are talking to knows what we are thinking. That we are communicating. Unfortunately, this could not be further from the truth.

Each of us creates our own world through our thoughts, and these thoughts are unique to each of us. In fact, our thoughts are not even remotely similar to anyone elses. Our thoughts build upon our perceptions and interpretations of our experiences–all unique to us. Our world, therefore, is like no other.

All our senses do is interpret vibration. We convert those vibrations into nervous impulses that are sent to our brain for processing. Our brain then pigeonholes the incoming data into our memories of previous experiences in order to make sense of them. We think we are accurately interpreting data, but in reality we are — as scientists tell us — deleting, generalizing, and distorting the data to make it fit our world view. This can be demonstrated.

Read the following phrase.

We instantly recognize the familiar phrase as being part of the saying, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” And so our brain deletes the second “the” to make it fit our preconception of what we thought we were reading. Look at it again.

As shocking as this may or may not be, it is completely irrelevant. You, me, everyone creates their world exactly the way we think it is. We chose which of our thoughts to emphasize, and by doing so we control our creation. We are indeed powerful creators. In fact, all you see, sense, think, and imagine is your creation.

So when we communicate, does the other person really understand what we say? Highly unlikely! There are just too many variables.

What happens is, you issue forth a sound vibration that you feel represents your experience. The listener interprets your vibration — deleting, generalizing, and distorting until it fits their world — and then relates it to an experience the listener has had.

The listener then reports back, “I can relate” – which is true, because they just mangled the data to make it relevant.

Then they either let you continue or tell their experience to you. You then mangle what they say to fit your experience. In this way, two powerful creators are expressing different world-views that the other cannot see.

One of my favorite funny movie scenes is where two characters are having a conversation that would seem to make sense, but in fact each is talking about something completely different. That’s pretty much how real-life communication works.

This is not to say that conversation is pointless. Conversation may be fun – the focal point of love, entertainment, expansion and delight as visions in one person’s mind call forth visions in the others’ and new juxtapositions and possibilities light up.

Okay, so far we’ve been using as our example a “friendly conversation.” Suppose someone really pushes your buttons. You really want them to change so they stop pushing your buttons.

Next week we will discuss the dynamics of “adversarial” communication.

(c) 2011 Chip Engelmann

Step 5 — Consistently Look for What Feels Better

No matter where you are or what your situation, you can feel better. If you are feeling joy, you will find that there is a joyous joy that feels even better. If you are feeling triple rotten, then you will find that double rotten feels better in comparison.

Notice a distinction here. Most of us, when we feel bad, want to feel “good” — not “better.” We feel bad about feeling bad. That is too bad, because it is much easier and more useful to try to feel better than to try to feel good. No matter how awful you feel, just within reach is a better–feeling thought. And if you consistently (or inconsistently) move toward better–feeling thoughts, pretty soon – much sooner than you think — you will be feeling pretty darn good.

In terms of turning your life around, some people try to do too much too fast. It’s like shivering in winter and thinking of sweating in summer – the leap is so great that part of you doesn’t believe it’s relevant. In the same way, people who try to go from feeling crappy to feeling happy just don’t have a way to get there. They don’t believe it is possible, they can’t see it and they can’t feel it.

But just as winter gently gives way to spring and then summer, the solution to the great “gap” between where we are and where we want to be is to take baby steps. How? Find a thought or action that feels a little better, but is still within the realm of believability.

Two ways to feel better

Now, generally speaking, there are two distinct methods of feeling better when you are not feeling good.

1. Pivot to a better–feeling thought

The first is to use the thought that feels bad to “pivot” to a better–feeling thought. You basically tell a better–feeling — but still believable — story about that topic. You just go one tiny bit at a time. The way you know if you are on the right track, is that it feels like relief to think the new thought. It feels more expansive.

I can’t believe I screwed that up again. –> I wonder if it’s possible that my screwing that up has any positive consequence? –> What would happen if I didn’t think of this experience as good or bad? –> What if I let this whole thing feel downstream? –> You know what, I’m a being of light and love and everything is downstream. –> I think I’m just going to sit and milk this good feeling for awhile.

I describe this method in detail — especially for those in real emotional or physical pain — in my recent book, Tame Your Demon: How to Be Okay with Where You Are When Your Life Sucks. You can get the book here.

2. Jump to a different, better thought

The second method of feeling better is to think about a better–feeling subject. If you are worried about money, then think about how well your relationships are going. If you are worried about your health, look at how beautifully the sun reflects off the snow.

You might ask, “Isn’t that merely avoiding the issue? Shouldn’t I face the problem until I’ve worked out a solution?” No. From a Law of Attraction point of view, when you’re feeling bad, staying in the bad feeling will only serve to make the problem worse.

Very likely, you have spent enough time with your “problem” to know what it is you want. By feeling better, you are decreasing your resistance to the “problem” and allowing the solution to appear. The less resistant you are, the more open you are to noticing when it is time to take appropriate and effortless action to create the solution.

To this end I would like to present two exercises. The first comes from Abraham in Esther and Jerry Hicks’ book Ask and It is Given. It is called, “Wouldn’t it be nice if…” Forgive me if I don’t follow their method exactly.

Start by writing the words, “Wouldn’t it be nice if…” at the top of a page (or in your journal). For now, resist the urge to right major wrongs like, “Wouldn’t it be nice if I win the lottery,” or “Wouldn’t it be nice if I met my Soulmate and we lived happily ever after.” Okay if you must, but do it and get it over with.

What we are looking for here are small, believable things that could happen, but if they didn’t would have no consequence—in other words, stuff you have no investment in. For example:

Wouldn’t t be nice if…

• I saw a hummingbird today.
• My office mate brought me a Starbucks coffee.
• I got three compliments on my new hair color.
• I found a parking spot right in front of the hardware store.
• I saw something so incredibly beautiful I had to stop to admire it.

This exercise is very effective if you practice it daily. And it can be very powerful if you keep at it, as the effects build upon each other. Eventually you might add in “Wouldn’t it be nice ifs” that mean more to you, as long as you can remain non–resistant, expansive and easy about them.

• You are putting your attention on what feels good.
• Because your resistance is low, things on your list will start to manifest, and you can see — though your own experience — how the Law of Attraction works at bringing what you want.
• It feels good when these things manifest.
• If you were to imagine your life as a large, 5000–piece jigsaw puzzle, and every time one of your “wouldn’t it be nice ifs” manifested you got to turn over a piece, it wouldn’t take long before you could see the whole picture and your life would shift into a “better feeling” reality.

The second exercise is very easy and practical. It is simply this: every time you complete a project, whether that project is brushing your teeth or filing a report, ask yourself, “What is it that feels good (or better) to do right now?” And then do what comes to mind. If it doesn’t actually feel better, stop and ask again. If it does, complete the task and ask again.

The idea is to do those things that feel better because that puts you into the flow and keeps you in the flow. You will find that your projects are the most effortless you have ever experienced them, and more gets done than you expect — including those things that move you toward the resolution of your “problem.”

The hardest part of this exercise is remembering to do it. It is a learning, trial-and-error process to establish a new habit of thought. You may forget more often than you like, but that is no reason to beat yourself up. Eventually it will be second nature if you keep at it.

You’ve now reached the end of this series and your ship is already turning. Take a moment to appreciate the progress you have made since you started reading these steps. An easy solution may not yet have popped up in your life, but you have laid the foundation for what can be a very satisfying and enduring change.

Bask in that feeling. Milk it for all it’s worth.

(c)2011 Chip Engelmann