Hi All,

I have bee using Faster EFT for some time now and it works very well.

I had a question though. Robert G Smith always advises to used the following as the fundamental question i.e "How do you know you have a problem?"

I understand that this brings to the forefront, the memories of the supporting evidences for a certain belief to exist.

However why is "Why" not such a good question?

Also could it be that we first ask "why do we have this problem" and once we have come up with a few answers to that, we further break those down into "How do you know?" for each one. Would this be a better approach or the one advised by Robert G Smith - "As is"?

Thanks everyone for your contributions :)

asked 28 Dec '11, 11:00

Sourabh's gravatar image

Sourabh
2.1k1857

closed 30 Dec '11, 12:19

Kathleen%20Kelly's gravatar image

Kathleen Kelly ♦♦
(suspended)


In Robert G Smith's paradigm, a problem (limiting belief) is a combination of "something you feel strongly" + "proof". When you change the feeling and the proof, you automatically change the problem (limiting belief).

You already have easy access to the "something you feel strongly" bit because...errr...you feel it strongly :)

So all you really need to know now to knock down the problem permanently is the "proof" i.e. the reasons that someone is using to convince themselves of the truth of the limiting belief.

Asking How do you know you have a problem? will give you those self-justifying reasons in an instant. It's a question that everyone can answer quite easily.

If instead you were to ask Why do you have a problem?, it's now much more difficult to answer and is going deeper into the issue than is necessary to clean it up.

For example, if you ask someone Why don't you have lots of money?, they would perhaps have to think back to their childhood and their early experiences with money. And they still might not be sure that was the original cause of the problem.

But asking instead How you do know you don't have lots of money?, well that's always easy to answer for people...

  • My boss doesn't pay me enough
  • My rent is too high
  • My partner spends too much
  • I pay too much tax

...and so on...

Going into the Why? would work also but Robert G Smith's underlying drive (which I agree with) is to always go for the quickest and most efficient method to get you the results.

You don't want to spend the rest of your life cleaning up your life so far :)

It's not necessary to know the original cause of the problem to clean it up. You only need to know what reasons the person now thinks they have a problem so the How do you know? question is sufficient.

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answered 28 Dec '11, 12:45

Stingray's gravatar image

Stingray
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1

I had a funny analogy pop in to my head after reading your great answer Stingray .If a bird "does his business" on on your newly washed car you don't think about why you car but how you are going to remove it.

(29 Dec '11, 09:50) ursixx

@Stingray: Thanks, that was as awesome as ever! :) Also wanted to ask, in the ME-4 and ME-5 that you have shared, you have mentioned that we should as the question "why don't I have what I want". Would the relevance of "why" and "how do I know" change in those kind of experiments? What makes "Why" a more compelling question there? Thanks so much :)

(29 Dec '11, 09:58) Sourabh

@Sourabh - It's a fair point you are making. I see the "Why don't I have what I want yet?" question as basically equivalent to "How do I know I have a problem?" ... I see it as just eliciting a string of reasons without necessarily demanding the ultimate one. That's the way I try to portray it in my examples. If someone does interpret it as meaning instead "Give me the ultimate cause of what has given rise to the problem" then it's probably overkill. But like I mentioned in the answer, it will still work but it doesn't need to be that in-depth. I guess there's nothing lost except some time.

(29 Dec '11, 11:37) Stingray

Is this not a bit like treating the Symptoms instead of the Cause.Or is it just to evoke the feeling and then Eft will do the rest.Thanks :)

(29 Dec '11, 13:33) Satori

@Satori - Yes, it's about conjuring up the feeling and neutralizing it because thought and feeling are closely linked

(29 Dec '11, 16:50) Stingray

@Stingray: That makes sense. Thanks. However do you think that asking both the questions. First why and then how (breaking down each why), would probably lead to more holistic set of reasons and evidences? And would that we worth the effort. I understand that I might be getting too involved in cleaning up thoroughly, but this is just for my understanding. So that an effort taken to clean an issue once could be made more effective by putting in just a little extra work. Or you would rather think that either one of these is more than sufficient? Thanks :)

(30 Dec '11, 02:48) Sourabh

@Sourabh - I can't see any reason why that idea wouldn't work, though there's a possibility that you might eventually find yourself reinventing the ME-4 questions/approach :) What Robert Smith does is to basically spend at least an hour having a client dredge up all problems in all life areas that currently bother them. Then he systematically drills down into each one to activate the underlying emotions (skipping the "why?") and then cleans them all up one by one, or in one go (using the Super Power Quick Tap). That's basically a "whole life clean-up", which is what I think you are driving at?

(03 Jan '12, 05:56) Stingray
showing 2 of 7 show 5 more comments

This reminds me of my Avatar teaching I learned. It did a similar question to the "How do you know you have a problem?" question. Avatar's says "What would someone have to believe to experience that?" It digs and digs until the problem is revealed as just a belief that has nothing to back it up because the core circle is found "I believe this because of that and I believe that because of this." It is a hopeless circle that the only way out it to see it only exist because you believe it does and feel you deserve it. In other words "It is there because I know it is, and I know it is there because it is there." Once we reach this point where we are at a "Because I say so" point we know it is nothing and can release it.

It is really amazing how the English language if we change one word it opens up entire different thought process. Here is an example: "Why does this car work?" You might say it is in good shape it has has everything is in working condition. Now ask "How does this car work?" Now you can say there are gears with a drive shaft the turn the wheels. These gears are powered by pistons moving up and down, this up and down motion is connected to a bar that is shaped similar to an s a piston is connected to each curve so that when the one side is down the other side is up. Gasoline is fed into the chambers that shoot the pistons down through tinny explosions caused by the spark plugs setting the gas on fire in a timed sequence. The explosions propel the pistons down which turns the S shaped bar that it connected to the wheels that make the car move.

You can get very detailed with "how" compared to "why." Why has a tendency to go into self pity and blame where as how makes you think of causes like a detective digging for answers and clues.

link

answered 01 Jan '12, 10:22

Wade%20Casaldi's gravatar image

Wade Casaldi
36.9k428102

edited 01 Jan '12, 11:28

In EFT and FasterEFT the idea is to tune in to the negative vibration and tap on the points to change the vibration. The vibration that is bothering you is the one that you acheive now, so you only need to look to the recent past or current situation to tune in to the vibration now. By answering how you know you have a problem, it brings up the current problems tuning you in to the vibration that you want to tap out. If you go back and answer why you have a problem, you will get results, but it will take more work. It's like if you have the math problem 1+1+1+1=4 and the numbers are our issues. You can go back and work on each 1 and get them resolved individually. You might find that after tapping on two or three, all four get knocked down, or you might have to do all four. Or you can work work on the 4 and take out all four at one time.

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answered 03 Jan '12, 09:23

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Fairy Princess
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