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19e. Face the hard parts.
In a sense, the centerpiece of this program is to face the "hard parts", the life situations that are difficult to handle. It is the idea that you, within your imagination, place yourself in the difficult or seemingly impossible situation and stay with it until your mind finds a way of dealing with it.
Although it takes a certain degree of faith that your mind will generate answers and strength, I have found that a person's mind always, without fail, finds something useful when it is seriously looking for solutions!
When nothing seems to be happening, it is usually just a matter of sticking with it, even past the point of not knowing what to do next. For example, let's say that a person has distress about going to the dentist. Perhaps the first imaginary visit to the dentist does not go so well, even though they spent a lot of time thinking about it. A very useful way I have found to stick with a problem until it is resolved, is to move forward in time to the next dental visit, and then the next, and the next, and so on. After all, if one scenario ends in failure, it still would not make sense to just give up and be content being a victim of the situation for the rest of one's life, now would it?
If you have a lifetime of dental visits ahead of you, proceed through them one at a time until you get tired of the old way you have been handling it, and you will naturally start looking for better alternatives. Not thinking far enough into the future may be one way of avoiding the hard parts, but there is another reason for poor results - not facing your fear.
The only way to stretch your mind to its greatest potential is to give it a challenge. If your processing does not seem to be working, you may not be presenting a big enough challenge to yourself. For example, let's say that you are working on your distress about your spouse or partner engaging in some behavior that you find highly annoying or worrisome.
Perhaps, as you become calmer through your processing you also become aware that to take a stand with your partner on this issue may mean that they decide to leave the relationship. By facing your fear, you would imagine that they, in fact, do leave the relationship and, with further tapping, you discover that you would survive and be fine.
Your fear of losing them dissipates, and even though this may never actually take place, you are stronger just knowing you could handle it. Now, you will address the original problem with your partner from a place of confidence rather than fear, and you will be much more likely to resolve the issue with your partner in a constructive and creative way.
In short, any time you find yourself feeling worried or afraid of some event, purposely imagine that it really happens, so you can face the fear and go beyond it. Because this process is purely a mental exercise, nothing can actually hurt you. There is no harm in examining the things you are afraid of, but you will gain invaluable information and insight to empower yourself.
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