Correct Setup Phrases, Ecology & Gratitude

One of the key components to making Emotional Freedom Techniques work is a well-crafted Setup Statement, using the Choices format for ensured outcome. The Setup Statement you'll recall is in the format:

"Even though I have this (problem), I deeply and completely accept myself"

And the "Choices" protocol adds to that: "...and I choose to...."

What I would like to help you do is to format this statement so completely and happily that your ENTIRE SYSTEM (mental, emotional, physical, spiritual) gets behind this goal and makes it an irreversable victory, a foregone conclusion.

How do we do this? By making sure the Setup statement reflects what in Neuro Linguistic Programming is called the "well formed outcome". A Well formed Outcome is based on correct ecology. This means that whatever you want - your goal - must be in synch with what your body, mind and spirit want and need. If you're a shy, retiring sort and your goal is to become the next big rock star, you may well find yourself with an uphill battle. Ditto someone who wants to lose weight and decides they must lose a hundred pounds in three months. This just isn't medically feasible and would in fact be dangerous. Your body and mind both are going to fight you on it.

So the first lesson in crafting correct Setup Statements is to check your own internal Ecology on the matter. Here's how:

1. Identify the problem. Let's say you want to lose weight and that your initial identification of this problem is "this excess fat"

2. Ask yourself to get more specific. How much fat is it? How much do you want to lose? In this case we could say "I want to lose forty pounds". This is a negative statement as it's the same as saying "I don't want this forty pounds".

3. We know the subconscious mind that we're talking to responds much better to statements that are worded in the positive. Now, what is the POSITIVE side of this? Start with the phrase "I want .....". This will help formulate what you want into a goal that is more realistic to your body. In this case, "I want to weigh 130 pounds". But also, the mind hears best requests which are statements of current reality. So, state in terms that are positive and CURRENT. So - "I weigh 130 pounds".

4. But when? It could be forever, as far as the subconscious mind is concerned. So let's take a minute to break that down. First, by time. When do you want to achieve this? Let's say "In one year, I weigh 130 pounds"

5. This is a huge goal though, when you look at it in a lump sum! It may not seem to you to be achievable in the moment. So let's break it down even further. If you want to lose 40 pounds in one year, you'll need to lose 3.33 pounds per month. Just three and a third pounds! Well, you think to yourself, that sounds easy.

6. So the new , more Reasonable Goal becomes "One month from now I weigh 166.67" What's this .67 jazz?? My mind doesn't wrap around fractions very well! (neither do most people's) So use terms that your mind will understand. Just round it up a little bit to four pounds. "One month from now I weigh 166 pounds" Or round it down to three pounds - whatever feels good to you inside.

(A little medical news: two pounds a week is a safe and easy amount of weight to lose...and remember, most of this in the beginning will be water weight.)

7. Now that you have the Reasonable Goal in hand, you need to look at the Setup Statement again. We have:

"Even though I weigh 170 pounds, in one month I choose to weigh 166 pounds"

While that's great, it's still not as full and engaging as it could be. It's clunky and clumsy, and the Subconscious mind has gone to sleep before we get past the first six words, as the statement looks like it's going to be a double-negative. It's not, but the Subconscious, poor literal soul that it is, has no way of knowing that. It shuts off when grammar gets too complex.

8. Enter the power of Gratitude. This is the master key to creating and maintaining both physical and mental states out of thin air! If you're walking around whining and moaning about how bad your life is and are suprised nothing changes - THIS is why. Adopt an "Attitude of Gratitude" (and I always throw the complementary magic of love, joy and ease into the mix) and you'll be amazed how fast things change. Let's take a look at this new, more ecologically-correct Setup Statement:

"I am grateful (or "I give Gratitude") that my body is joyfully, easily and healthfully creating my ideal weight of 166 pounds this month."

The Subconscious just loves to be grateful. This emotion is like switching to "glide" because it makes everything that follows it in the statement very easy to do. "Joyfully, Easily and Healthfully" are sub-variants of the Gratitude function to the subconscious, so it will add those ingredients to the mix, effortlessly. Why did I say they are sub-variants of Gratitude? Because all of these emotions and physical/mental states can only exist when one is in the Flow, in synch with the Universe or what Wayne Dyer calls "the intention of the mind of God". Or Spirit, or Goddess or whatever you call the All-That-Is.

9. Modeling The Mind of God - Remember modeling clay? You pushed your finger in and it made a dent. You literally made an impression on the clay. Our bodies and minds are this way. When situations are evoked strongly, they push in and around on us and make impressions in different places in our minds and bodies. We can learn to "model" these states we are in so as to evoke them later on, when we need to. Right now we're going to model Gratitude, because it's one of the most Abundantly Creative states in the universe. Gratitude not only puts you closer to God, but quite literally IS God.

When you truly feel Gratitude, you are in what some religions call "a state of grace". When you are in Gratitude, you allow the presence of the Great Creator to flow through and merge with you. From this state, you can quite literally create whatever you wish, as long as it harms none and is something positive.

If you can't feel Gratitude about your current situation, bring to mind something or someone for which you are intensely grateful. Your significant other, child, parents, pet, job, living situation, or failing all else, the fact that you are still breathing and have food in your belly - these are all good places to start.

Notice how you feel when you bring this object of great and abundant Gratitude to the fore. Notice what your mind feels like, your body, where you breath is in your body, the shape of your mouth, the amount of tension or relaxation in your shoulders, neck, stomach and legs. You might want to make literal notes, so that when you are trying to evoke Gratitude later on, to power your weightloss or other goal, you can get there more easily. It's like making a map to a friend's house. Here is one such typical "map":

When I model my own state of Gratitude, I notice that my mouth is either serenely relaxed, or smiling beautifully. I don't have to look in a mirror to know it's a beautiful smile, I can feel it deep down inside me - it's not superficial and my jaws are relaxed. My shoulders and neck, where I tend to hold tension, are relaxed to a medium or profound degree. My feet feel utterly relaxed but my body is almost hyper-aware of my surroundings. My breath sinks down in my body to my abdomen and I find I am breathing deeply and fully, without effort. My eyes are wide opened if they are open, or very lightly closed if not.

My state of attention is acute and present oriented. My mind is calm and unaware of the passage of time if the state is continual and not broken by outside interference. I may hold a thought of the object of my Gratitude, but it is usually single-tracked thought - I'm not thinking many thoughts at once nor am I "multitasking" by having little side thoughts about the groceries, laundry or work I may have yet to do.

My mind usually evolves to being devoid of thought when I am in this state for a prolonged period. Gratitude always brings intense joy with it for me and if allowed to persevere more than a few minutes, becomes quite meditative.

That is one model of the State of Gratitude. Because I have studied myself in this state and know exactly how it effects my body, mind and spirit, I can call it up at will. This is especially useful when I am feeling unresourceful, upset or miserable. It is doubly useful when I wish to create a new or different state or situation for myself. Gratitude is the raw material of creation. Model this state in yourself and use that model to evoke Gratitude, Love, Joy and Ease daily for Optimum Health.

10. Course Correction. Let's go back to our ecologically-correct Setup Phrase:

"I am grateful that my body is joyfully, easily and healthfully creating my ideal weight of 166 pounds this month."

Some people balk at saying "creating my ideal weight of 166 pounds" because they say "that's NOT my ideal weight - the 130 pounds is my ideal weight! Ah yes. But for just this month, 166 pounds IS your ideal weight. Your Subconscious gets this. And will joyfully, easily and healthfully create it without further input from you. This is a completely ecologically correct phrase. The outcome is well formed

Notice that this setup phrase DOESN'T mention the current weight of 170 pounds - this is what you DON'T want to reinforce. Notice that it DOES mention the ideal weight which you DO want to reinforce. Especially when creating physical processes, include "healthfully" as part of every Setup Statement. This makes sure you don't get ill and suddenly lose to the weight you specify. Why? Because the subconscious mind is very literal, and sometimes it doesn't mind what route it takes to accomplish a goal. And how about being happy instead of miserable on your journey? That's where the joyful and easy make "losing weight" suddenly a fun and effortless process.

"But wait!" you say "Losing weight sucks! I hate diet foods and I hate exercise even worse!"

If phrases like this come into your mind, train yourself to swiftly think "Cancel that." Some folks swear by the Rubber Band Cure - wear a rubber band around your wrist and snap it every time you have to say "Cancel that". This will serve as a physical anchor, or reminder, to clean up your self-talk. And don't worry about the "how" (diet foods and exercise). Learn to let go of the how and your goal will magically materialize, easily and inevitably, as you keep tapping daily.

11. Ac-cent-uate the Positive. (E-lim-inate the Negative - remember that song?) When you "Cancel that." remember to reframe the phrase into the positive. In this example we focus on the things disliked with a little "sleight-of-mouth" to tunnel 'round the back of the subconscious and influence ourselves triple-whammy style. It's easy, here's a reframe you can pose to yourself as a question, over and over again throughout the day, when you feel that "healthy foods - yuck!" thoughtform coming up, with accents on the important words for your mind to remember:

"I wonder how much more EACH DAY, I will ENJOY the foods that deeply nourish my body, KNOWING how SLENDER my BODY is becoming DAY BY DAY?"

So if you read that just for the keywords the subconscious is going to hear first: "Each Day Enjoy Knowing Slender Body Day By Day" This doesn't make much sense to our educated forebrains, so we put the other words around it that help us parse the important stuff. "Foods that Deeply nourish" is tremendously important, and will be acted on by the subconscious. But
"Enjoy Knowing Slender Body Day By Day" is the core message. See how easy it is to craft these kinds of statements? Just take those primary core elements which you will emphasize verbally when saying the affirmation, and wrap them in the syntax of secondary core elements. The accent you place on the primary core elements when verbalizing helps deeply embed the instruction in the subconscious for even more rapid deployment.

Now here's one for the "don't-wanna-ain't-gonna-you-can't-make-me-exercise!" gremlin that keeps you on the couch:

"It's so WONDERFUL that I can MOVE EFFORTLESSLY and joyfully as my BODY finds its CORRECT proportions. Gosh, that STRETCHING feels so MMM-MMM GOOD!" (and if you haven't stretched lately, try it. It *does* feel "mmm-mmm" good!)

These may not sound like phrases you would say right now, but try them out. Customize your own reframing phrases and have a few ready to go on the things you know you say to yourself all the time.

Remember, the subconscious mind is always listening - it believes everything you say and does everything you tell it to do. If you tell it you hate exercise and don't want to do it, your faithful friend the subconscious will BEND OVER BACKWARDS to make sure you don't exercise - ever! So even though it may seem stilted at first, learn to modify your own self-talk to create the environment you want to accomplish the goals you need to.

Combine negative self-talk reframing with ecologically-correct Setup Phrasing for a one-two punch that will rocket you lightyears ahead to your goal fulfillment.

Have you tried this? Not tried it but think it's hooey? Write me! You can let me know what you think here, in the comment box below. I'd love to hear from you... :-)