Allow Yourself to Forgive: Use the EFT 1% Solution (Article)

By Dr. Patricia Carrington

I cannot tell you how often people have told me that they simply cannot
conceive of forgiving some other person for destructive acts that person
has done even if they have tried using EFT for this problem. They feel
that to do this would be paying mere lip service to the concept of
"forgiveness", it would not come from their heart.
I agree that the act of "forgiveness" is all too often only lip serviced and is
entered into by a person who feels they must "forgive" someone (or fate),
perhaps for religious or ethical reasons. To truly forgive however, especially
when one has deep resentment, fear or anger about a "wrong" that has
been done, is one of the most difficult and "non-intuitive" things that we are
ever asked to do.
The reason for this is that the act of forgiving is actually not an act at all in
the ordinary sense of that word. When it happens it does so naturally as a
result of letting go of resentment against the other party, and the desire to
punish.
Webster's New International Dictionary and the Oxford Dictionary of the
English Language, both define the verb "to forgive" as "to give up
resentment against or the desire to punish; to stop being angry with; to
pardon." It is quite clear that their definitions of forgiveness refer to the
result of letting go of anger or resentment or a desire for revenge.
Forgiveness, then, is basically an absence of these negative emotions, not
an act in itself.
This makes for difficulty, however, when we attempt to use EFT to "tap in"
forgiveness because it is much easier for people to hold on to something
than it is to let go of it. Ask someone, for example, to place a book on a
table, and more than likely (if they have no special reason for not doing so)
they will find it easy to comply with your request because they are being
asked to do a direct and simple act.
However, ask that same person to "let go" of a book they might already be
holding and they may well resist that request, or at least hesitate to carry it
out until they give considerable thought to the consequences. They will
probably consider possible outcomes that come to mind and will try to
decide whether it is safe and advantageous for them to let go of the book
(perhaps it will fall upon the floor and get damaged? Maybe they will be
"pushed around" or otherwise manipulated by you if they comply with this
request? etc.). The result is that this person may be reluctant to let go of
the book.
I am reminded of the way newborn infants display an amazingly powerful
grasp reflex; they can hold on with enormous strength to a finger or object
within reach and not let go of it for a long time sometimes their fingers
will have to be pried loose from the object. This grasp reflex may well be
due to some inherited instinct that helped newborn humans to survive when
we were tree dwelling primates. It is likely that the newborn had to be able
to grasp onto their mother or onto a tree branch to avoid a disastrous fall.
Whatever the reason, however, the fact is that it is usually easier for us to
hold on to something that it is to let go of that same thing, and because of
our use of language, we have a strong tendency to hold on to remembered
wrongs, and seemingly cannot pry ourselves loose from thoughts about
"justice" and "punishment" for a wrong. We cling to such thoughts
tenaciously for long periods of time, sometimes for a lifetime, and it is not
surprising that we hear stories of vendettas that carry on from generation to
generation in certain countries, with a revenge motive controlling the lives
of the people caught in it.
How then can we bring about "forgiveness", which basically involves a
letting go of resentment and giving up of the wish for revenge? It is not
easy Even if we EFT.
Because forgiveness is actually something that happens automatically and
naturally when resentment, anger, revenge, and a desire to punish have
been relinquished, I am going to suggest a way in which EFT can be used
to lessen or eliminate resentment and the punishment motive, thereby
creating the natural state of forgiveness which is, in fact, basically an
absence of the need for revenge.
Since there is much reluctance in people to letting go of resentment and
the need for retribution, I have found it far more productive to approach this
task in an indirect manner, little by little, in what are called "baby steps".
One way I have found extremely effective is to break up the revenge motive
into tiny manageable pieces. I call this the "Divide And Conquer" tactic.
Here's how it works:
Suppose that one person has been deeply hurt by another person in the
past. If you ask
Person 1 to "forgive" that other person, it usually seems impossible at first.
Even if you ask her or him to "let go" of any resentment they have toward
the other person, it still tends to feel impossible. How, they reason, can a
person just let go of resentment at being deeply hurt if theyve been deeply
hurt?
A way to get around this trap, one which I find to be extremely effective, is
to BREAK UP the "letting go" process into tiny chunks, so that you first
prove to yourself that your conviction (i.e. that it's impossible to let go of
your resentment) is simply not true, that resentment can be let go of in little
pieces which of course paves the way for a much greater letting go to
come.
The way to do that is this:
When you formulate your EFT statement, end the statement with a Choice
to "let go of only 1%" of your resentment" (you can even add the phrase,
"and keep all the rest of it" if you wish, that can be very reassuring). Here is
how this might go.
You would create an EFT statement such as:
"Even though I'm outraged at what ________ did, I choose to let go of 1%
of my (anger, resentment, etc.) against ________ , and keep the rest."
If you use the "1%" solution" this way, you will probably find yourself able to
let go of such a ridiculously small portion of your resentment . After all, it is
not difficult to ask yourself to give up 1% of it, and you are still allowed to
retain most of your righteous anger!
However and here is the secret to this approach if you are able
genuinely to let go of 1% of your resentment (your anger and desire to
punish etc.) then you will find your self in a very different state of mind than
you were before you started tapping. Something that seemed impossible
before will suddenly have become easy and nonthreatening and possible,
even if on a very small scale. By letting it happen at all, you have actually
opened a door to letting go of your resentments totally.
As I wrote about this in my book Releasing:
A little "release" is always a big "release".
By using this simple maneuver, you will have abandoned a deeply
entrenched belief, a certainty that you cannot under any circumstances let
go of your resentment!
I have many times seen this simple strategy (letting go of 1% of the
resentment) result in a person's ability to suddenly be able to entertain the
possibility of letting go of all of their resentment. Once relinquishing a
desire for revenge is seen as being possible, the road has been cleared for
you to release your entire resentment/punishment motive. When you let go
of your tenacious hold on the conviction that "justice must be done at any
cost", and punishment must be meted out for you to be at rest, you will
have lifted a tremendous emotional burden from yourself and be able to
move ahead constructively with your life.
You may decide that you don't want to see that particular person again or
don't want
to put yourself in that kind of situation again, but you are now free to
choose what is really best for you. This is because the emotional charge
has been removed from the situation. Now you will have "forgiven" that
person in the true sense of that word. The revenge motive will have
evaporated, and because unforgiveness depends on that motive to keep it
alive, it too will have melted away. You will have "forgiven" this person or
circumstance or fate, and can go on from there to build a new relationship
or another better relationships, or whatever you desire.
I strongly recommend that you use this EFT "1 percent solution" when the
need to forgive is resistant to any other approach. It can often be all that
you need to do.
Page 2 of 2
By Dr. Patricia Carrington
I cannot tell you how often people have told me that they simply cannot
conceive of forgiving some other person for destructive acts that person
has done even if they have tried using EFT for this problem. They feel
that to do this would be paying mere lip service to the concept of
"forgiveness", it would not come from their heart.
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