The information in this post assumes that the reader has a basic understanding of how to tap using EFT. If you have never done EFT before or are not familiar with common terms and abbreviations used with EFT, please visit the How to Use EFT page of this site for more information on how to tap with EFT.
Do you realize that the assumptions people have made about you throughout your life can actually become impediments to your academic success? They can, even if you don’t consider the people who are making those assumptions as being particularly important or influential to you.
This point became apparent to me when I was working on my doctorate at Harvard. Though I had already known considerable academic success, I found being at Harvard to be one of the most challenging experiences of my life. It wasn’t that the coursework was any more challenging. The challenges I was dealing with were about something else entirely. They mostly had to do with who I believed I was and what I believed I ought to be doing with my life.
I received confirmation of this when one evening I received a phone call from someone I hadn’t heard from or spoken with since I was a small child. It was Andi, an old friend of my mother’s, someone my mom liked to hang out with when I was just a kid. My family had moved quite a distance from this woman when I was 10, and I don’t recall having had any interaction with her after that.
I really don’t remember why she was calling or how she found me. But I do remember something she said while we were talking.
After expressing her joy that I remembered so much about her and the times I had spent at her house as a child, she asked me what I was currently doing in my life. And I answered her honestly; I was working on my doctorate at Harvard.
There was a long period of silence. And then she said, “I don’t understand. How did this happen?”
“How did what happen?” I asked.
“We don’t go to Harvard,” she said. “Are you lying to me?”
Andi had made assumptions about me, even though she hadn’t seen me since I was a child. But it occurred to me that the way she had talked to me, the way she had interacted with me, every encounter she had ever had with me, had been influenced by the assumptions she had made about me. And one of those assumptions was that I would not go to Harvard.
When we act in ways that are incongruent with people’s assumptions about who we are, we are sure to hear their judgments about our behavior. And those judgments can be enormously painful. Reflecting on Andi’s words, I wondered what other people who had watched me grow up were thinking. As the first person in my family to graduate from college, I knew I was different from them, and that that difference was not something people were always willing to fully embrace.
Just knowing that by pursuing our academic success we are not behaving within the boundaries of other people’s expectations for us can create enormous energetic blocks within us. We might wonder if people will see us differently if we succeed in this unexpected pursuit. We might worry about whether those people will still be able to love and accept us if we are. We might wonder if anyone at all will find us lovable if we behave in ways that disrupt the expectations of those who first taught us about love.
If you are aware that, in pursuing academic success, you are behaving in a way that defies the expectations that were set up for you as a child, here is a tapping sequence you might want to try. Be sure to have your journal nearby to record what comes up after tapping.
A tapping script that might help you to succeed in school
KC: Even though they didn’t think I could succeed in school, I deeply and completely accept myself.
Even though they didn’t think it was important for me to succeed in school, I deeply and completely accept myself.
Even though they didn’t support me in my efforts to succeed in school, I deeply and completely accept myself.
EB: They didn’t think I could succeed in school.
SE: They didn’t think it was worth it for me to try.
UE: They didn’t think I could succeed in school,
UN: and they weren’t willing to support my efforts to succeed in school.
CH: Because they didn’t think it was important for me to succeed in school.
CB: Because they didn’t think I could succeed in school.
UA: They didn’t think I could succeed in school.
TH: They didn’t think I could succeed in school.
EB: I wonder if I could succeed in school anyway?
SE: I wonder if I could succeed in school because I think I can?
UE: I wonder if I could succeed in school because school success is important to me?
UN: I wonder how I would feel if I began to succeed in school?
CH: I wonder if it’s okay to defy their expectation?
CB: I wonder if it’s okay to be someone they didn’t think I was?
UA: I wonder how I would feel if I really am a success in school?
TH: I wonder how succeeding in school would make me feel about my opportunities in life?
EB: I choose to succeed in school.
SE: I choose to stop worrying about how others are going to see me if I succeed in school.
UE: I choose to succeed in school.
UN: I choose to stop listening to old voices that said I couldn’t succeed in school.
CH: I choose to stop listening to the voices of people who said school was not for me.
CB: Because I’m choosing to succeed in school,
UA: And those voices aren’t helping me.
TH: I choose to succeed in school.
Now take a deep breath.
Tapping on this script may free up some old memories of things people said to you in the past, or even ways they behaved, that conveyed to you that it wasn’t okay for you to succeed in school. Pay attention to your thoughts and dreams. They’ll provide you with hints about what to tap on next.
When you are completely congruent in your desire for academic success, when you are not wasting your energy (either consciously or subconsciously) paying heed to the voices from the past that made you believe you couldn’t or shouldn’t succeed in school, then your academic success will become much easier to achieve.
Here’s a metaphor for thinking about how this works. Imagine that each and every person is born with a divine spark, a tiny light that glows within their heart. Imagine that achieving happiness in one’s life depends on keeping that spark lit, and eventually even fanning it into a giant flame.
What fans the flame of that spark? Experiences that are completely congruent with it. People who are very satisfied with their lives have likely always kept that light lit. They were raised in environments that provided everything they needed for the spark to become a flame.
But most of us have experiences that dampen the flame, because these experiences simply aren’t congruent with the inspiration that comes from the light within. Maybe we grow up in environments that feed us a lot of rubbish, which we internalize as truth. All that rubbish diminishes the spark by keeping it buried under layers of debris. That debris can come in many forms. Mainly, it comes from an environment that isn’t congruent with the divine spark within.
Of course, the rubbish doesn’t necessarily come from cruel intent. I don’t believe Andi mean to cause me harm. I simply think she had a worldview that limited the future she could image for me.
I’m also certain she wasn’t the only person in my environment who had limited views of the world that in turn were translated into limited expectations that I could have of myself.
Who in your life has given you a message that is incongruent with the vision you have for success? Have you ever been pegged as someone who doesn’t go to college?
Try tapping. It’s the fastest way I know of removing the rubbish that is diminishing your internal light.
