And the regrets keep coming….
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
“This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. Women also spoke of this regret, but as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.”
Our generation has taken this work thing to a new level – and women are just as guilty of it now as men. Work doesn’t leave us alone and we don’t let it either. We invent and become addicted to computers, laptops, tablets, smart phones. We conference phone calls and now use video conferencing. Our children are even taught with this technology. Information, requests, demands – they’re all sent instantly and a reply or compliance is expected just as quickly.
So with this new, improved, faster paced work world (and yes, admittedly, our play world too but who’s complaining about that!), even time off gets invaded by work. Personally, I try to keep them separate. I remind myself that I’m on vacation and that while yes, the families I work with outside of UnTapU are in crisis, I need to take time to myself, that’s why there are three of us on a team! No set hours makes it difficult, because there is no office to clock in at, nor to even complete work at. Work with the families, do your research, phone calls, paperwork and such at home or wherever else you choose, but also whenever you choose as long as it meets the deadline. The phone is a distraction – my son doesn’t A) need to learn the habit of always being on a device, B) need to learn to be so rude to people, to not be present and value relationships, and C) need to see/hear the way work often affects me (I admit it, I want to throw the phone sometimes, a curse will slip out, or he’ll hear about how stupid people are before I stop myself).
This regret hits on some things that EFT can help us with. One thing is priorities, which I talked about before. Let’s get clear about what is important to us, then look at what we are doing with work. Hiding from something, someone? Avoiding, distracting ourselves? Is money an issue? Fear of failure? Fear of letting someone down (this isn’t just limited to a boss, manager, supervisor, this also includes parents, mentors, significant others, even kids)?
If we’re avoiding something by working so much, use EFT to face that person or thing, tap down those fears and the experiences that added up to the use of work as an avoidance technique. If it’s money, let’s explore the ideas we’ve grown up with about money, those limiting beliefs that have us chasing our own tails, running that treadmill, sweating our proverbial butts off, giving ourselves ulcers and other stress related diseases, and letting valuable relationships fall apart, missing important life events, while we’re too busy at work. EFT shifting those beliefs allows us to make different choices, use our money better, be open to more lucrative options available to us, and before long, the money is coming in and more time can be available for things other than work.
I tend to focus on relationships being a regrettable loss from working too much, but if I were to think of the things I’d put on my Bucket List, what I’d like to do, where I want to go, what I want to see and hear, accomplishments I’d want to list, and people I’d like to meet, I know that working too much can interfere with all of that. And working too much can also cause physical health issues, mental health issues. Stress related diseases and disorders are rampant! Sleeping problems, headaches, aches and pains, stomach issues, even heart disease and more, all things that are not only related to work stresses, but interfere with our quality of life both in and out of work. How we miss out on the good things because we’re hurting or too stressed to enjoy them! Such a shame!
But guess what can help decrease those things? That’s right! EFT. Reduce the stress – with the physical symptoms that come along with it – through tapping with EFT. That’s for both current stressors and for those previous experiences that we still carry with us. Boss is incompetent, often losing things you worked hard on and it’s getting more frustrating every time? Tap down that anger and frustration, tap about the first time you remember feeling so damn frustrated with them and the first time you ever felt that way. Then follow the memories that pop up after. Follow your Basic Recipe, Be Specific, and Check in on the intensity with your SUDS scale.
I’ve also talked about fear before in other blogs about the regrets of the dying. The fear that we might let someone down leading us to work so much, that can also be addressed with EFT. I believe fears like that come back to self esteem in a big way, and fear of rejection because somewhere along the way we learned that nothing we do is ever good enough, and we learn what our roles are in life – breaking out of them is unthinkable albeit desirable at times. When we tried and failed at something it only added to that fear, those self esteem issues. And EFT can most certainly help, by tapping down all those experiences, those memories, those movies that play in our minds when we think about times we felt not good enough, worthless, like a failure, etc. Even the ones we remember but think they aren’t upsetting anymore, they all get added to our list and we take the time to tap down the intensity of those memories so they carry no weight.
Tapping using EFT helps us lighten our burdens, unpacking some of the baggage we all carry. Sometimes I remember times I felt so heavy, so tired of it all. Not suicidal mind you, but just heavy. Heavy and tired, with no end in sight. Had I known about EFT back then, man oh man, I’d be a different person now! I imagine that along the way, with previous self-work, I’ve been slowly unpacking that baggage, but never as quickly and efficiently (or as truly effortlessly in an emotional sense) as with my own tapping experience using EFT.
So now we’ve journeyed together through all but the final, and first, regret of the dying. And so far, we’ve seen that EFT can help with all those things. Can’t wait to address the First Regret of the Dying…and then on to discuss more of my own personal work with EFT, work with clients using EFT, and busting out some quality rants about the frustrations of starting my own business to help other’s with EFT – and adding a mountain of stress to my own life to do it! Stay with me, join me for the first time, and check out UnTapU at https://tapintoempowerment.us for more info on EFT, links to great resources, or to book an appointment for your own foray into a lighter existence!
Tap Into Empowerment 
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