Counselor Rue Hass on using EFT to help highly sensitive people celebrate their positive qualities
Rue Hass, M.A. is a counselor and Intuitive Mentor – and a Highly Sensitive Person. An EFT Master therapist, she uses Emotional Freedom Techniques with a variety of clients, including HSP individuals to “help them see what they and others might view as a ‘flaw’ as a ‘blessing’ or gift.”
The blog post EFT World Summit Day#6- Rue Anne Hass “EFT for the Highly Sensitive Person” continues, “Rue mentions somewhere in the course of the interview [see video below] that she considers herself to be ‘highly sensitive’ and further, that she also believes that it is the nature of many people in the helping field.
“Rue Hass finds EFT to be a great match for highly sensitive people, giving them the opportunity to reframe their flaws in a compassionate and positive light, and to begin to honour themselves for continuing to be sensitive in a de-sensitized and de-sensitizing world.”
Who comes first?
In her book This is Where I Stand: the Power and the Gift of Being Sensitive, Hass writes, “Who comes first? Deep down inside we are such good people. We are so committed to bringing goodness into the world. But actually for many of us, this is exactly what leads us to being so sick and so tired.
“More often than not we put our commitment to ’saving the world’ ahead of our own well-being. In fact, many of us have the unconscious belief that we must ’save the world’ before we can attend to our own needs.”
She continues, “Remember our wonderful ideal qualities:
* Internally deeply caring
* Deeply committed to the positive and the good
* On a mission to bring peace to the world
* Strong personal morality
* Often make extraordinary sacrifices for someone / something we believe in
“Interestingly, sensitive people often fail to include themselves in this mission. The other day when I pointed out to my client how good she is to OTHER people, she said to me in surprise, ‘Of course I would never let anyone else down! But it hadn’t occurred to me that I let MYSELF down.’
“Sometimes we intentionally leave ourselves off the list, in an attempt not to be ’selfish.’
“Self-ish? When someone mentions being selfish to me, I always reframe it. I say, How about spelling ’selfish’ with a capital S – make it ‘Selfish. I draw a big S in the air. The capital S stands for your soul. If you don’t take care of your soul,
no one else will So go on and BE SELF-ISH!! You have the right. You deserve that!”
Being sensitive is the kind of awareness that can save the world
On her author site Intuitive Mentoring, she writes :
Have You Ever Heard:
“Oh, you are just too sensitive!”
“You take things so hard!”
“Just let it roll off your back.”
“Why can’t you just let it go!”
And maybe even, “What’s wrong with you? You are such a cry baby!”You have probably thought they were right – there must be something wrong with you! Being sensitive is not only a real emotional temperament, it is the kind of awareness that can save the world.
I speak as a “highly sensitive person” myself. It has taken me most of my life to understand this temperament and value it for its gifts. In my work as an Intuitive Mentor I have worked with many people like you or your loved ones.If you’re reading this and feeling, “Yeah, that’s me, alright!” YOU are the help that is on the way, whether you are sensitive yourself, or partnered, working or interacting with, or the parent of someone who is sensitive.
This book [This is Where I Stand: the Power and the Gift of Being Sensitive] describes the physical, emotional, and spiritual challenges of the highly sensitive temperament, and teaches how to resolve and heal them using the self empowering new techniques of Energy Psychology, specifically Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT). It includes many personal stories of how to use this wonderful new method to transform your experience of being sensitive into feeling its true power and gift in you.
Using a supposed disability to stay safe and stuck
In her article Thoughts on Psychological Reversal, she talks about a man she worked with, who was challenged with ADD. “Tapping” refers to one of the main techniques of EFT therapy or self-help.
“The problem—’my learning disability,’ which over the years in this sensitive person had been a difficult challenge for him – was now something that was limiting his progress. Now he wanted to move ahead, but his unconscious mind had become committed to keeping him safe from failing.
“Way back there in his past, somehow, he had brilliantly but mistakenly turned his ‘learning disability’ into a strategy. Its positive intention was to keep him safe from a judging, critical world—in which he felt alien and ineffective.
“We tapped on all the statements we had elicited, using them as set-up statements, beginning of course with tapping on the side of his hand. He ended the session in a state of meditation, staring into the flame of the candle on my table, saying quietly:
“Whenever this confusion comes up now, I know I have a choice. I can always choose to honor the flame at the core of my being.”
Learn more about EFT at the site: Emotional Freedom Techniques.
