“The world’s greatest Dad – again!”
"Kathy" tells her story about how she came to love her Dad all over again:
"In private
sessions with Baerbel, we discovered that one of my emotional patterns was feeling unsupported by those who claimed to love me.
This pattern appeared to stem from several incidents involving my parents, starting in my early teen years and continuing into my
college years. These included my parents' decision not to get braces for my very crooked teeth, their decision not to pay even
a small amount toward my college expenses, and my father's decision to quit his job (for reasons that easily could have waited another
year) and move our family to another state right before my senior year of high school (which caused me to give up several special
things like the editorship of my school newspaper, not to mention all my friends). In another incident, he refused to provide
me with transportation to a summer job, forcing me to walk miles to and from work when I was already working 60 hours a week to earn
money for college.
These incidents had been especially traumatic for me because before they occurred, I had always adored
my dad and probably even idealized him. I had thought he was "the world's greatest dad".
These old incidents were almost
forgotten until my dad became old and frail and started needing a lot of help from me. I found that I was feeling quite a bit
of resentment about things like having to use vacation time from my job in order to take my dad to a doctor appointment, or to spend
all day with him at the hospital. The thought that would go through my mind was: "You never sacrificed anything for me,
but now I'm having to make sacrifices for you." I tried not to let on to my dad that I was feeling this resentment, but the
fact that the resentment was there made it hard for me to feel the same kind of affection that I had felt for him in the past.
Baerbel and I tapped on these feelings of resentment during one of our sessions. The next day I had to run some errands
for my dad and take some things to his apartment at the assisted living facility where he lives. Before running the errands,
I tapped on the feelings of resentment again. Then, while running the errands, I decided to think about all the special and
wonderful things my dad had done for me, and with me, as a child.
I started listing them one by one -- the Nancy Drew books
he'd bring me every Friday evening when he returned from his on-the-road job, the stories he'd make up to tell me and my brother while
we would lie on a blanket looking at the stars on summer nights, the way he taught me to dance to the music of Lawrence Welk's TV
show on Saturday nights, the sweet things he said to make me feel better when my first boyfriend dumped me, and so on. Because
of thinking these thoughts, I felt no resentment while I was running the errands for my dad, and when I got to his apartment and saw
him, I felt real affection for him -- just like I used to feel! It felt so good to have that back."
"Kathy", Colorado Springs,
CO
Baerbel’s NOTE:
After our tapping on “Resentment” a noticeable shift had occurred in Kathy’s way of thinking about her
father. The shift enabled her to suddenly “remember” all the special things again that her Dad did for her; suddenly she had all her
positive, loving feelings back. EFT did it again!