Tap into Joy
Although, this article is more specifically about “tapping”, I want to offer a few ways to tap into joy generally. Joy is a more specific state than happiness. We can be happy about many things, but joy comes specifically from living a righteous life. God means for all people to have joy, and a fullness comes through our belief in Christ. Joy is also a choice. The Bible tells us that no man can take away our joy. We can know if we are living in accordance with the Spirit because joy, along with love, peace, gentleness, longsuffering, faith, meekness, temperance are fruits of the Spirit.
Choose joy? How do you do that? One key way to feel true joy is to acknowledge what there is in your life to be grateful for. Feel gratitude and joy will follow. Two months ago, I decided I wanted more joy and more of all things good in my life. I wanted to begin by being grateful for what I have now. Gratitude raises your energetic vibration. I started a gratitude journal. Each day, I find ten things to be grateful for. I don’t always get exactly ten and I don’t always write every day. It’s not about perfection. But, when I am at my computer and I think of something I am grateful for, I open the gratitude file and start writing. The funny thing about gratitude is, once you get started, you think of more, which creates more gratitude and more joy.
Here is one of my first entries.
“Aug 29, Sunday was really wonderful. I had a change of heart after Sat and during sacrament meeting I prayed something like this. Heavenly Father, I am so thankful for (my family, I listed them all). If that were all I had in life, I would be so thankful. But, I have health, and I can walk, and I can smell and taste and hear and see and feel. And if that were all I had, I would be so grateful. But, I have family and friends and the church and an opportunity to serve and my savior. And if that were all I had, I would be so thankful. And yet, I have a home and furniture and a car to take me places and a computer to learn anything I want and many time saving machines to make my life easy And if that is all I had, how blessed would I be, but I have even more. So much more that I can’t list it all. And as a result I had the greatest outpouring of joy I have felt in a long while. I just wanted to smile and felt so happy. Gratitude is a wonderful thing.”
This works equally well with negative experiences. You just list them in a way that turns them around. I don’t have room to share the experience that happened only three days later with my septic tank, but you can email me at help@ldseft.com if you really want to hear a bad situation that I was thankful for in many ways.
EFT is a tool for releasing negative emotions and experiences that block you from being the child of God you were meant to be and fulfilling the measure of your creation. There are two wonderful procedures to help facilitate this. The first is called the Personal Peace Procedure. Make a list of all the negative experiences or people in your life. Each day, choose one and use EFT to dissipate any remaining negative emotions about it. If there aren’t any that you can connect to, just list the ones you felt at the time and go through the process three times. Pay attention to any new thoughts or memories that come up in association with the tapping and work on those. By the time you get to the end of your list, and probably much sooner, you will have peace like you’ve never known. This is because you have removed the specific emotional drivers that keep you from the joy you seek.
The other technique is one that Carol Tuttle calls the Emotional Joy technique. While “normal” EFT can be stated in the negative with great results, this technique comes from a point of being positive. Take a positive poem, a personal proclamation, or write out I am statements and begin tapping. I like to start with, even though I am NOT perfect, I deeply and completely accept myself, or I am a child of God. Then at each point, you tap a positive statement. Because there are 8 points, I like to tap in multiples of 2, 4, or 8, so I can end on the 8th point. If you choose 2 or 4, you just alternate them.
(1) Eyebrow (EB), I am grateful for my life.
(2) Side of Eye (SE), I am grateful for my Savior.
(3) Under Eye (UE), I am grateful for my husband.
(4) Under Nose (UN), I am grateful for my children.
(5) Chin (CH), I am grateful for the knowledge I have of healing tools.
(6) Collarbone (CB), I am grateful for financial prosperity.
(7) Under Arm (UA), I am grateful for every blessing that comes to me.
(8) Top of Head (H), I am grateful for all I have learned in my life.
You can have as many statements as you want, and you don’t really have to end on the head, but I always feel better when I complete the “round.” If you have questions about EFT, the Joy Technique, or anything else I have mentioned here, contact me at help@ldseft.com or see my website, www.ldseft.com
Dawn
