It seems to be a recurring theme lately, accepting beliefs at face value that aren’t true. People frequently get their lives bent out of shape believing lies. These lies come from bad observations, unusual experiences or a belief in the infallibility of some authority.

I had a client who had a very ingrained belief that it was wrong to have more than two pieces of toast with breakfast. Since the belief didn’t cause him any pain and probably saved him from gaining a couple pounds, he never really examined it. But he mentioned his belief in session one day. He didn’t even realize his belief was a problem. Nor did I.

He was telling me about his day as we tried to zero in on what to work on that session. He casually mentioned that he had a couple pieces of toast for breakfast and that the bread was so good he wished he had more. I asked him why he didn’t have more. He told me it was because you can’t have more than two pieces of toast with breakfast. He said it with the same casual certainty as if he had told me the sun rises in the east.

I didn’t question his belief outright but I asked him to tap on “Even though I can only have two pieces of toast for breakfast, I deeply and completely accept myself.“

He thought it was an odd request but he humored me and did it. The amount of anger and tears tapping brought up from that setup phrase astounded both of us.

When he was a kid, his mother was probably trying to get him to eat a balanced diet when she told him he could only eat two pieces of toast with his breakfast. But the little four year old didn’t see it that way. He mistook it for an inviolable rule. His mother had inadvertently programmed not to eat more that two pieces of toast ever at one meal.

As he suddenly realized the stupidity of that belief. We tapped on his feeling foolish for believing this. Then we had to tap on the anger he felt towards his mother for inflicting this lie on him. Then we had to tap on forgiving her for inflicting that lie on him. Then we had to tap on all the anger and sadness he felt about all the times he denied himself a third or fourth piece of toast when he really wanted one.

I never met anyone before or since who had so much emotional upset connected to toast.

This session opened up the floodgates of unexamined beliefs about himself and his abilities, most of which were lies or at the very least based on nothing substantial. As we tapped, he saw how much he was unnecessarily restricting himself for no good reason in areas beyond toast.

The takeaway lesson is to question everything you believe. And I mean everything. If you find yourself trapped in an unpleasant or restrictive situation, ask what beliefs you have that are keeping you there. You can try tapping on, ” Even though I believe I must have this unpleasant situation in my life, I deeply and completely accept myself and my situation.”

We build our lives around beliefs that have little or no bearing in reality. Then we build other beliefs around a sense of reality that has no real basis to it other than our belief in it. We get into a self-perpetuating, vicious cycle that keeps us glued to dysfunctional beliefs and corresponding dysfunctional lives until we take a moment to examine what’s really going on.

As you do more tapping, you will start to see what beliefs you have that are total nonsense. You will probably have more than a few beliefs to tap on.

For complete directions as well as more ways to use EFT, read, Transform Your Life With EFT from Amazon.

It is also available from Smashwords for those who don’t have a Kindle reader.