Using EFT for Forgiveness In Four Quadrants
It's been said that holding on to negative emotions such as anger, sadness, disappointment, fear, jealousy, etc is like holding hot coals. The person holding them always gets burned! Here's a way to DROP THOSE COALS!
Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) has been proven to be a tremendous tool for removing negative emotions. Shortly after the 2001 EFT conference in Flagstaff, I was helping a client and, as we worked through a phobia, I intuitively used four different aspects of forgiveness to help her remove the intense negative emotions surrounding the event that caused the phobia. Reflecting on that session, I have developed a semi-structured procedure that has proven to be highly effective with every client I have used it with. I call it “Forgiveness in Four Quadrants.”
Prior to that session, I had occasionally used a forgiveness frame in helping clients deal with individual issues. There are many articles on the emofree.com pages that refer to forgiveness. Gary Craig discusses it in the EFT tapes and uses several variations of “forgiveness” in set-up phrases. I am also grateful for Dr. Larry Nims' wonderful articles on forgiveness. Dr. Paul Durbin has also written some interesting and thought provoking articles.
One of the presuppositions of NLP is that, “People always do the best they can with the resources they have available at that time.” Accepting this presupposition makes it much easier to forgive people who have disappointed us. While all major and minor religions have a forgiveness component and there is a spiritual aspect to forgiveness, I do not believe a person has to be religious to benefit from forgiving others or himself.
While most people acknowledge the importance of forgiveness, it is sometimes extremely difficult to truly forgive on the unconscious level. So many times I have heard a client state, “I thought I had dealt with that.” “Forgiveness in Four Quadrants” provides the practitioner and/or individual an effective way of forgiving at the deep unconscious level.
Failure to forgive those who disappoint, harm, or otherwise “trespass” against us can lead to a multitude of negative results. It would be impossible to list all of the negative results, but they can include: increased stress, psychosomatic aches, pains, and aliments, weakened immune system, irrational reactions, and so many more. What happens if we fail to remove a small splinter and disinfect the area in a timely manner?....discomfort, infection, gangrene, amputation, and possibly even death. I teach my clients to use the EFT procedure in a simple four-quadrant routine to utilize the power of forgiveness to clear out the splinters in their lives.
“Forgiveness in Four Quadrants” describes forgiving the offender for harming us, and then forgiving them for the effects their act caused us. We then forgive ourselves for the harmful reaction to the event and finally forgive ourselves for allowing the negative reaction to have affected our lives.
It is not necessary to do each quadrant individually. Combining the first two quadrants is easy and logical. Quadrants three and four can also easily be combined. That allows the process to be accomplished with only two set-ups.
Granted, taking the time to find the issue, and then taking the 45 seconds to a minute to do a round of EFT, might add a few minutes to the session. I have found taking those few extra minutes to address the forgiveness issues to be very valuable and effective.
| Quadrant 1 Forgive
the offender for committing the act. |
Quadrant 2 Forgive
the offender for the harm their act has caused you. |
| Quadrant 3 Forgive
yourself for your reaction to the act. |
Quadrant 4 Forgive yourself for allowing your response to aggravate the problems. |
The following three case-study examples of how I have used “Forgiveness in Four Quadrants” with different presenting problems illustrate the process. For anonymity, I will call the clients, Jane, Tom, and Dick. Because I don't record my sessions, the set-up phrases and comments are not verbatim, but are as close as I can remember them.
I first used the “Forgiveness in Four Quadrants” with Jane. She had an intense bridge phobia .
I was in the process of asking her, “If you were to imagine being out on a bridge, how uncomfortable would you be?” when she had a sever abreaction.(It was the fastest and most severe abreaction I had seen.) After she was back to a calm state and had collected herself, she related that when she was only four years old, her father threw her off a bridge “to teach me how to swim.” We discussed some of her feelings and emotions about the event and that led to tapping to forgive her father and herself. We tapped using the following set-up phrases that just came intuitively.
1 st quadrant: “Even though my Dad was really stupid when he threw me off the bridge, I forgive him...he was doing the best he could do.”
2 nd quadrant: “Even though my Dad's stupidity caused me massive problems for 35+ years, that's okay, I forgive him.”
At this point there was a significant reduction in her feelings toward her father, but other issues surfaced, and that led to what I now call quadrants three and four.
3 rd quadrant: “Even though I was really scared about being thrown off the bridge, that's okay, I was only reacting like most kids would. I forgive myself for not trusting my stupid Dad.”
4 th quadrant: “I forgive myself for allowing this fear to interfere with my enjoyment of life for the last 35 years. I've been doing the best I could do.”
The whole process took a maximum of 20 minutes. I then asked her to access her memory of her dad throwing her off the bridge and used the phrase, “does it make you uncomfortable?” She went inside, reviewed the memory, and then looked at me as said, “No more than reading about it in a book.”
At the conclusion of that session, Jane stated she would go over a bridge near her apartment the next day, and let me know how it went. She called me early the next morning to report that she had driven over the bridge in total comfort five times on the way home!
Tom had called me to work on eliminating Panic Attacks . Tom confided that when he was eight years old, his fourteen-year-old cousin had assaulted him. He had never told anyone. In addition to the fear, guilt and shame from the event, he also felt guilty for not telling his parents when a couple of other kids reported the cousin. When Tom was eleven years old, the cousin was sentenced to life imprisonment for sexual assault.
We worked through quite a few issues and then finished with “Forgiveness in Four Quadrants”
1 st quadrant: “Even though my cousin was a perverted criminal who took advantage of me, just an innocent kid, that's okay, I forgive him.”
2 nd quadrant: “Even though his actions have caused me guilt, fear, shame, and all kinds of problems, I can still forgive him. In fact I deserve to forgive him so I can get on with my life, free from these past problems.”
3 rd quadrant: “I forgive myself for having kept this secret all to myself and not allowing loved ones to help me resolve the conflicts I felt. I was just a little kid and didn't know better.”
4 th quadrant: “ I forgive myself for allowing the guilt, shame, and fear from that violation of trust, violation of law, and violation of my innocence to have so negatively impacted my life, and I can let it go.
In subsequent sessions, Tom reported being free from the feelings of anxiousness and panic. When he accessed the memories of the assault, he stated that his SUDs level was “practically a zero. It's a part of my life. I wish it hadn't happened, but since it did, I just accept it, learn from it. I realize by letting it go, I am moving on.”
A few months before I worked with Dick, he had been in a bad car wreck. We were addressing some Post Traumatic Stress and Pain Issues resulting from that car wreck. After the interview process, we used the following set-up phrases to work through the four quadrants.
1 st quadrant: “Even though he blew that red light, totaled my car, and really hurt me, I forgive him....it's in my best interest to forgive him.”
2 nd quadrant: “Even though I am out $7,500, and still have some pain in my neck, shoulder, and arm, that's okay, I forgive him. Even if he was a careless fool, he was doing the best he could do...and I choose to sue him without feeling any animosity toward him.”
3 rd quadrant: “I forgive myself for having allowed myself to have been so angry and so scared when that careless S-- O- B----- hit me. I was just reacting like most people would have reacted.
4 th quadrant: “I forgive myself for having allowed the fear and anger to have delayed my healing. But that's okay, because I choose to let go of all negative emotions and speed up my healing, even while I sue him.”
Dick reported his aches and pains had virtually disappeared. A few weeks later, he called to let me know that while giving a deposition in his lawsuit, he was surprised at how calm and comfortable he was.
These above examples are only samples of how I have been using the “Four-quadrant Forgiveness” protocol. I urge you to try it out. I think you'll find it highly effective.
I have found the forgiveness in four quadrants to be very effective in dealing with grief issues.
Many times, there are issues that continue to cause the survivor problems long after the “natural” grieving process would normally have passed. Of course, there will always be memories that cause feelings of sadness or loss. Using the analogy of a forest, in addition to the “big tree” (memories of the lost love one) there will be many smaller and not so small trees. If we begin cutting down those smaller trees, and continue cutting them down, eventually the forest becomes a meadow with some trees in it. Cutting the smaller trees down allows sunshine to flood the meadow and lets new growth thrive instead of being stunted.
To stimulate thinking about cutting the smaller trees imagine one of the worst possible scenarios. A loved one is a victim of homicide. Perhaps the survivor is not yet ready to forgive the perpetrator. That's okay; start cutting down the smaller trees, such as:
I am sure you can envision many more issues that might come up. When enough of the smaller trees (issues) have been cleared, it is very conceivable that there might be a willingness to even forgive the perpetrator. Even if the survivor never gets to the point of forgiving the offender, by clearing out the smaller trees there will much more sunlight flooding in and they will gain more peace in their life.
If you are not currently using a forgiveness protocol, I would encourage you to use the “Forgiveness in Four Quadrants.” I would appreciate any feedback, ideas, questions, or comments.