Becoming Procrastination-Free

This blog, as all of my blogs, has not turned out how I intended it. I come here to put my thoughts down on paper, to share things with others who are like-minded, but I set myself goals (like the 100-day challenge :( ) and don't see them through, including such goals as writing in my blogs daily (not EACH blog daily, but just each day on A blog). There are all kinds of things out there that help people and the recent one that has been an eye-opener is what I would like to share with you today. It has provided such a sense of peace and clarity that if I can make this a daily habit, I think it will do me wonders.

What is it?

Tapping!

Tapping is a term used for what you do during Emotional Freedom Technique (aka EFT) sequences. You are tapping your fingers on various meridian points. I was first introduced to this by a DVD I stumbled across at the library, The Tapping Solution (available at The Tapping Solution).

Just following along with them was amazing and every now and then since watching, I would think to do some but I felt like I didn't really know what I was doing and didn't remember to do it most of the time. The idea of doing it never completely left me and I ended up putting a hold at the library on the book by the same name. This page The Tapping Solution Book Page has all kinds of information on the book. Basically, it's a guide for everything you need to get started in tapping, as well as different situations where tapping can be useful. There are also things like identifying beliefs and blocks. It's so good!

I did not get a chance to finish going through it (well, is that true? I probably had plenty of time but used it elsewhere) before it had to go back to the library, but it just resonated with me. This is a book I have on my Christmas wish list now. Or I might not wait. ;)

A breakthrough today came from watching an interview with Nick Ortner on The Aware Show. Just tapping through with them, I, again, felt the relaxation and decided this is something that I need to add to my daily routines because I can instinctively feel how it will help me. I found Nick on Facebook and followed him and found a great post on things to make sure you are doing when tapping. One thing he said was to do it for 15 minutes at a time. Okay, so I set a timer and decided I wanted to address the feelings leading to procrastination lately. My procrastination level has been HUGE. Tapping through things and writing down each step of what I was addressing was just amazing.

I started off looking at my frustration with my procrastination, in terms of cleaning and writing and just not getting any work-related things done. This led to dealing with feelings of being overwhelmed with there being so much to do, which then led to the feelings of being confused about where to start, how to know what to work on. I then felt sadness because I felt like I wasn't living up to my potential and was being a bad role model for my kids (who would've thought addressing procrastination would get so deep??). I started asking myself why, why did I procrastinate like this? Why did I need an outside-imposed deadline? Why did I wait until it had to be done? Here I am, nearly 40, and I've only, today, identified at least part of where my procrastination comes from: it was a coping mechanism in my childhood, a way to avoid having to do things I didn't think I should have had to do (I was asked to do a LOT of things that, to this day, I still feel it was unfair to ask of me that much, but that's a whole other issue, one I may need to address in tapping!), to protect myself from demands and whims. I waited until the last minute for school things a lot of the time because I could say, "I have homework," and it would be true because it was there, waiting to be done, but not getting done. I developped a habit of waiting until the imposed deadline was upon me and still do this today with so many things. I still have work to do on this to deal with the feelings surrounding this all--even now, I feel stress in my stomach thinking about some of this--but it has, at least for today, helped me turn some things around. I've already made better food choices this morning than I have been this week and I'm sitting here writing a blog post! Do you know what I've been doing all week instead when I'm not busy with children or things that have deadlines (like making supper by a specific time)? Pretty much playing Facebook games. I even played Facebook games while making supper last night. I admit, I played a Facebook game this morning while listening to the parts of the interview where there wasn't any tapping going on, but I haven't touched the games since and just want to keep moving ahead with my different goals, which I feel I will have to tap on again as the stress rises into my chest with the thought of not knowing what to pick next to work on. I actually believe that feeling this stress is a good thing because I think I've been just burying it all week, hiding it behind Facebook games!

In any case, if you feel you have blocks, feel stressed, anxious, need to work on achieving better health, better financial state, anything, if you are looking to be blocks-free, stress-free, I highly recommend you look into EFT/tapping. Check out The Tapping Solution website and see all the stuff that's there, for free, to get you started: what it is, basic instructions on how to do it, videos, research information,  EFT articles and so much more. And anticipate I will post again about progress made with this technique. :)