Empathy vs. Compassion

“Wisdom without compassion is ruthlessness and compassion without wisdom is folly.” Fred Kofman “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.” Plato “By practicing compassion, we can become more resilient and improve our overall well-being. Bloom says, ‘careful reasoning mixed with a more distant compassion […] makes the world a better place.’” “The problem with empathy is the flip side that psychologists refer to as emotional empathy. That’s our yearning to not only understand other people but to feel their pain, too.” https://www.betterup.com/blog/compassion-vs-empathy We’ve discussed the difference between empathy and compassion on this board before, and I created a YouTube video on the topic. People who claim to be ”empaths” own a hard road, I believe. Feeling others’ pain” as a “thought” in our head rather than as a bodily sensation can help keep us from completely “sucking” up the other person’s physical problems/disease. Being empathetic is an attempt “to feel” the other person’s angst almost as much as if the originating event actually happened personally to us. Either compassion or empathy can lead to the same end we are trying to achieve - helping one another (Galatians 5:13, 1 Corinthians 10:24), but compassion is healthier because we aren’t carrying the actual emotional burden that gets our body into biochemical problems! This is worth reading. Tapping, I believe, can make us more compassionate than empathetic, keeping us healthier both physically and emotionally. And Jesus exuded compassion in His ministry by finding ways to help others without getting tied up in our human drama until the Father allowed Calvary. Sherrie Rice Smith Certified EFT Practitioner EFTforChristians.com Author of EFT for Christians 5 Book Series

Is EFT Tapping in the Bible?

Sometimes I have people ask me, "Is EFT in the Bible?" Well, of course, it isn't, nor is our automobile (wonder what Jesus would have ridden in on Palm Sunday instead of His donkey???!!), or airplane or refrigerator and washing machine, and we still use those freely. What is IN the Bible is lots of humans with lots of negative emotions that caused all kinds of societal fallout, as it does today. We are human, we have emotional turmoil, but it doesn't HAVE to rule us. Once again, God has provided everything we need, including a path out of emotional pain. The EFT tapping tool sits waiting for us to grab it and use it! Sherrie Rice Smith Certified EFT Practitioner EFTforChristians.com Author of EFT for Christians 5 Book Series

Emotional Pain Sticks to US

It’s indeed a bit like treating the symptoms vs. treating the cause. The “symptoms” are our emotional angst and possibly physical issues. The underlying “cause” (disease) is our trauma, big stuff or lots of little stuff, hurtful memories, and disturbing events in our life. Those emotional “causes” stick around in our cells where our unconscious mind puts them, completely unknown to us. Our cells can be equated to a house attic, storage unit, old barn loft, etc. We stuff items in any or all of those places, forgetting about them, until sometime possible catastrophic happens and NOW we have to deal with the stored up junk. Emotionally it’s the same thing. Bad stuff happens, we “get over it” (time doesn’t heal all wounds, sorry, folks!), move on and THEN our body starts yelling and our emotions begin to flare, forcing us NOW to deal with the past - all those things we stuffed in our emotional attic, barn, and storage unit. Tapping BEFORE we accumulate all that junk keeps the “storage” unit of our unconscious mind clear, clean, and uncluttered! Tap, tap, tap! Sherrie Rice Smith Certified EFT Practitioner EFTforChristians.com Author of EFT for Christians 5 Book Series

Early Infant Attachment and EFT

DR. AIMIE APIGIAN “Whatever the degree of regulation we achieved through relationship in the first 6 months of life is the degree that we will be able to connect with others and want to connect with others. The degree to which regulation did not happen through regulation in relationship with our mother reflects the degree that our system had to rely on the freeze response for state control. Attachment is the degree of internal regulation (or dysregulation) that we experience in authentic and intimate relationships to ourselves, others and the world.” Here again EFT tapping is often quite helpful! Sherrie Rice Smith Certified EFT Practitioner EFTforChristians.com Author of EFT for Christians 5 Book Series

Trauma and Memory Holes

Trauma sends our hippocampus (mind's historian that keeps track of events and time) off-line. The trauma is so hurtful the mind simply shuts it down! Trauma also shrinks the hippocampus up to 25-30%, particularly when one has post-traumatic symptoms, so it makes sense that many of us have big memory holes! The hippocampus comes on-line about age 2-3, if I remember correctly, but our amygdala (alarm center) is present in utero; therefore, we have alarms ringing in our mind before we have processes to figure out what is going on. It amazes me how much tapping we practitioners do on VERY early memories, some of them we swear happened before we were born, and as a practitioner, we just go with whatever the client brings to the tapping table. Sadly, science clearly shows us that we carry around so much epigenetic trauma from our ancestors! It's no wonder some of us are so burdened down with emotional stuff! Anyone have a tapping story to share around any really, really early memories? We'd love to hear them! Sherrie Rice Smith Certified EFT Practitioner EFTforChristians.com Author of EFT for Christians 5 Book Series

Early Childhood Trauma Tapped

DR. AIMIE APIGIAN “For the first 6-7 months of life, a baby still believes it is physically connected to their mother. This is why by themselves, they become dysregulated. Separation from a biological mother for any length of time in the first 2-3 years of life is traumatic. The earlier the separation, the earlier the trauma impacts and imprints feeling unsafe and insecure into the developing nervous system. The social standard of moms to receive 6 weeks of maternity leave is a very common reason for unknown attachment trauma. This will result in the features of the earliest shock to an infant’s system, the Connection- Attachment NARM style, which happens with an infant experiencing inadequate regulation during its first 0-6 months and having to adapt with the dorsal vagal freeze response. (1) 1. Schore, A. N. (2008). Right brain affect regulation: An essential mechanism of development, trauma, dissociation and psychotherapy. PsycEXTRA Dataset. https://doi.org/10.1037/e608922012-004” Sherrie Rice Smith Certified EFT Practitioner EFTforChristians.com Author of EFT for Christians 5 Book Series

EFT Tapping - God's Invention

“Our mind forgets what our heart refuses to remember.” And there is where our emotional pain tends to begin. Forgotten consciously; remembered unconsciously, driving our thoughts, actions, & physical sensations, controlling our very life. ……..until God’s EFT tapping enters our confined, limited space. And our Lord busts us out of that prison by His own healing invention! Sherrie Rice Smith Certified EFT Practitioner EFTforChristians.com Author of EFT for Christians 5 Book Series