Increasing your effectiveness with EFT, part 199.
Some people reach a painful point in their healing where every framework they try eventually becomes another reason to criticize themselves.
They might explore mindfulness, IFS, somatic work, tapping, inner critic work. At first, there is hope, but then something shifts. A monitoring voice begins to evaluate the process:
Am I allowing the feeling properly?
Am I in my body enough?
Am I doing EFT right?
Am I being authentic or performing?
Very quickly, the method that was meant to help becomes another performance with rules. The result is anger, shame, exhaustion, and even more dysregulation than before.
Even trying to rest can become another task to fail at. Even “letting go” can turn into something that must be done correctly. The mind starts thinking about thinking, observing itself, judging itself, and trying to control the whole process.
If this sounds familiar, you are not broken. You may be dealing with a very protective pattern.
When the Healing Process Gets Hijacked
In the context of complex trauma, hypervigilance and self monitoring often develop as survival strategies. At some point, carefully tracking yourself and your environment may have helped you stay safe.
Later in life, that same strategy can turn inward. It begins monitoring your healing. It scans for mistakes. It evaluates whether you are doing therapy correctly.
When that happens, the work can start to feel like torment instead of support.
One of the most helpful shifts I have seen in these situations is changing what we treat as the focus of the session.
Giving the Microphone to the Inner Critic
Instead of trying to silence the monitoring voice, we invite it in.
Rather than tapping on grief or anxiety (or any other feeling) while fighting the thought “you’re doing this wrong,” we tap directly on that experience.
For example:
“When I try to do EFT, there is a part of me that says I’m failing at this, and this is where I’m at right now.”
“There is a voice constantly monitoring whether I’m healing correctly, and it feels exhausting, and this is where I’m at right now.”
In EFT terms, the self attacking loop becomes the next layer of the onion. We give the microphone to the inner critic.
This is important. We don’t argue with it, we don’t try to soften it, and we don’t try to fix it. Instead, we let it say what it wants to say while tapping.
Often, the pressure decreases simply because that part finally feels heard instead of fought.
And when the critic comes back, which it usually does, we give it the microphone again.
If it shows up every session, it gets the microphone every session.
If it interrupts every round of tapping, we include it every round of tapping.
Each time we do this, we are expanding our capacity to sit with the experience instead of escalating into another layer of self attack. And that is still progress.
Shifting From Performance to Presence
Over time, this approach helps reduce the belief that something is fundamentally wrong with you or that you are failing at healing.
The goal shifts from “I must do this correctly so I can get better” to “what is actually happening in me right now?”
If what is happening is frustration, hopelessness, or a strong internal “I can’t,” that becomes the focus.
“When I think about trying this again, my whole system says I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, and this is where I’m at right now”.
Meeting yourself at that exact point tends to make a difference, because the more we can meet ourselves exactly where we are, the more effective, safer and gentler our experience with EFT is going to be. Part of my role as an EFT practitioner is to help you do this, because it’s not always easy to do it on our own.
Less Agenda, More Safety
When every solution has started to feel like another problem, reducing agenda (to whatever degree is possible) can help. That does not mean giving up on healing, it means allowing the work to start from wherever you truly are.
Healing in this context often looks like chipping away at the intensity of the inner judge. It looks like giving the microphone to the critic as often as necessary. It looks like expanding your ability to tolerate the thought “I’m doing this wrong” without collapsing into shame.
If every framework has turned into self attack, you are not alone. This is actually more common than you might think.
Sometimes the most effective step forward is to include the part that says you are failing.
When that part is finally heard, something in the system begins to feel a little less alone.
And from there, healing can move at a pace that feels safer and more sustainable.
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I’m Bruno Sade, a clinical psychologist and Certified Advanced EFT Practitioner. I help you release emotional triggers and build sustainable confidence in a safe space tailored to you.
If you’d like to experience a free EFT Tapping session in exchange for a brief market research interview, click here.
