By Daniel J. Benor, MD

TWR is an outstanding self-treatment for pains, stress, anxieties, distress, cravings, limiting beliefs and more. It has been a blessing to me in my past practice of psychiatric psychotherapy and current practice of wholistic healing – addressing body, emotions, mind, relationships (with other people and the environment) and personal spirituality. It is easy to learn and simple to use, yet profoundly effective. You simply alternate tapping on the right and left sides of your body while reciting an affirmation.

People report relief of troublesome symptoms, memories and thoughts – often within minutes, even when these have been present for many years. However, as with other energy psychology therapies, there are times when the progress of releasing becomes blocked. The intensity of the issues being worked on refuses to shift any further. In these cases, the easiest approach is to massage the ‘releasing point’ (also called the ‘sore spot’), an acupressure point that is below the mid-point of the collarbone. Having done that, the issue will then continue to release with further rounds of TWR.

With a minority of issues, massaging the releasing point does not prove helpful. Several other possible steps are detailed in my book, Seven Minutes to Natural Pain Release. If none of these work, you would then consider whether any meta-anxieties or core beliefs might be lurking in your inner file drawers from past traumatic experiences.

Such fears need not be extreme in their origins or severity in order to be very uncomfortable or even disabling.

Tom did well in his job at the bank because he was a perfectionist. It was rare indeed for him to make any errors. That was the good news for his employers. The bad news was that Tom was constantly hyper-vigilant about his job performance and his self-criticisms when he made the slightest error were excessively harsh. He did not accept the praises he received at work, and was always worrying about messing up in some way.

TWR was partially successful but failed to relieve more than just a little of his self-criticisms, reducing them from a 9 (out of 10) to a 7. None of the routine measures for dealing with blocks was successful, until we looked for meta-anxieties. Tom immediately observed that he had a core belief that if he let go of his obsessive worrying then he expected this would lead to his making more errors and being rejected – just like his father never accepted his best performances but always found ways to criticize Tom and ask why he had not done even better in some minor aspect of his achievements.

Using TWR to release his residues of anxieties of failing, established in his childhood experiences with his father, Tom then found that TWR completely cleared his obsessive concerns about making errors at work and about having to be super-perfect.

Once a core belief like this is identified, this limiting belief can be addressed with TWR. Once it is cleared, the primary anxiety itself will be released from what has locked a person into that fear, and it will then continue to respond to TWR until it is eliminated.

Meta-blocking core beliefs

Just as the meta-anxieties and core beliefs are at a meta-level to the original issues, there can be yet another layer of blocking beliefs that lock in the first layer of core beliefs and make it difficult for us to change them. I call these ‘meta-blocking core beliefs.’

You might be holding onto the caution such as, “If I don’t keep an edge of anxiety, I won’t study as hard and am bound to do poorly or even fail.” Or you might have had a serious trauma such as a mugging, auto accident, or rape that left you with fears of going certain places or of trusting other people. The cautions in such cases might be “If I go out in the dark, it’s dangerous.” or “If I get turned on with a man I might get raped again.” These sorts of inner cautions can produce serious anxieties or even disabling fears.

Going a step further, we may lock ourselves into the fear reactions by telling ourselves, “I’ll never put myself in danger like that again.” or “I can never trust myself to be safe if I let go of these worries and fears.” I call such cautions and fears ‘meta-anxieties.’ These are fears of letting go of our fears.

Here are a few generic examples:

“If I let go of these core beliefs or meta-anxieties I won’t be [safe/ accepted/ loved] by [in situations similar to the original trauma/ by my family/ partner/ significant others/ group of religious affiliation]!”

“If I don’t have these [anxieties/ fears/ negative beliefs] I won’t be the same person, and I couldn’t handle that.”

“[God/ Christ/ other religious figure] won’t accept me if I [change/ let go of] these beliefs.”

“I’ll [burn in Hell/ be excommunicated] if I [deviate from/ let go of] these [Laws/ Commandments/ rules].”

Once you identify these meta-meta-anxieties or meta-core beliefs, you can choose to address them in the same ways that you would address primary issues or core beliefs, releasing them with TWR.

Theo, a 42 year-old businessman, had been severely abused as a child by his alcoholic father and neglected by his very passive mother. Growing up in a rough neighborhood, he had to learn very early to defend himself from bullying and beatings by local gangs and rough neighbors. He was discharged after less than a year in the army after a variety of misconduct charges.

Theo was lucky to find an employer who had been a marine and who took an interest in helping him. This was the first person who had ever genuinely liked him, and Theo responded by giving his best to his job. In time, with the help of a loving wife as well, he set up his own business and was comfortably well off. Though he was known to have a quick temper, he was usually apologetic soon after he vented his feelings and was able to get along ‘tolerably well’ with business associates, friends and his wife’s family.

Theo was distressed to find he was unreasonably jealous of the attentions his wife gave to their children, to which he responded with uncontrollable verbal outbursts. Fearing that he might hurt his wife or children in anger, he came for help.

TWR helped Theo reduce his copious buried residues of angers, hurts and fears from his difficult childhood, but only to about a level 4.5 out of 10. We worked on his meta-beliefs that if he didn’t keep an edge of anger showing, he would not be safe in the world, and his negative load was reduced to a 2 but would decrease no further.  It was not until we identified his meta-meta belief that he was ‘not a man’ if he wasn’t macho and didn’t stand up for his needs, and used TWR to clear this too, that he was able to release all of his remaining buried feelings down to zero.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised, as have many of my clients, to find that meta-anxieties and core beliefs, as well as meta-meta-anxieties and meta-core beliefs may respond to TWR with surprising ease. Often, they can be cleared even more easily and rapidly than the original issues that led to identifying these meta-level messages and obstructive rules.

In summary:

Meta-anxieties and core beliefs have been known to block releases of problems. It is helpful to be aware that in a similar manner, there may be yet another layer of blocking beliefs and disbeliefs that lock people into their first layer of such beliefs. It is also good to know that all of these blocks to being and becoming who we really are can be released with TWR.

Your feedback on this article is welcomed .

Dan
[email protected]

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