By Dr. Patricia Carrington

I always thought this was a great idea – in theory that is. I knew that we build our present sense of self and our basic confidence in life upon what we remember of our past selves, and that our happiness depends upon the past in this sense. We are always resonating with how we felt then and our memories of the past are the very building blocks of our present self-image and the way we feel about life.

Various therapies have tried to address this problem in the past, but none, in my opinion, have done it very effectively.

But now we have a new EFT technique aimed at accomplishing this goal which I am finding remarkably effective for my clients.

It is Karl Dawson’s technique called Matrix Reimprinting. As some of you may know, Karl is an EFT master in the UK who is now conducting trainings in this important method worldwide. His book on the subject, Matrix Reimprinting (Hay House Publishers) has just recently been released and is now available, but of course there is no real way of replacing personal training in this method.

I have been using Karl’s carefully constructed step-by-step approach for the purpose of tapping away the impact of disturbing memories (that's its initial step) and then constructing and "installing" an entirely new positive memory in its place. If done properly, the new memory supplants the original memory and becomes more available to our present self, supplying a new foundation for our life, the one we wished we had had.

Does this sound too good to be true?

I thought so, until I tried it on myself and with my clients and combined it strategically with the EFT Choices Method and a new technique I have been using with great success to alter limiting beliefs — you may have heard me speak about it — Ask and Receive.

 

How does Matrix Reimprinting work?

I cannot adequately explain the method to you without actually teaching it to you and I cannot teach it to you here. Karl Dawson takes a whole book to do this, and the method is very precise and very organized, but I am calling it to your attention because it is a major new way of using EFT. .  One good way of getting an authoritative overview of it is to read the chapter Karl has written on this subject in the excellent book (I cannot recommend it highly enough to any serious student of EFT) called EFT and Beyond. One good way of getting an authoritative overview of it is to read the chapter Karl has written on this subject in the excellent book (I cannot recommend it highly enough to any serious student of EFT) called EFT and Beyond.

I am not a certified trainer of the Matrix Reimprinting method but I do use it very often with my clients, and for the last two months it has become one of the major components in my six weeks individual therapy program. We often can rebuild a memory or two each time we meet, if that is what the person wishes to do.

For example, one client whom I have been working with reported many incidents in her childhood where her mother was completely oblivious to her needs and basically competitive with her because she was her father's favorite in the home. At my request for specifics, she remembered a distressing incident when she was about four years old.

She had been a lonely child with an explosive father and a very critical mother. Basically she had few playmates and little chance for much fun. One day she found a stray kitten in her yard that was lost and crying to be picked up. The kitten did have a watery discharge in one of its eyes but the child did not notice that. Delighted, she brought the kitten into the house, holding it tight against her chest. She sat on the couch in the living room with the little cat, petting it and cuddling it until her mother came home.

The mother's main mission in life, it seems, was to maintain an absolutely spotless home, and when she came in the house she cried out sharply when she saw the kitten with its runny eye and insisted that the child keep it away from her and the house, and confine it to her own room and they would see what would be done.

Laura kept the kitten locked in her room and fed it some scraps she managed to get from the kitchen. However, several days later, returning home from playing outside with a friend, Laura was greeted by her mother who told her that in her absence the kitten had “run away”. She knew at once from her mother's behavior and tone of voice that she was lying about this and once again the child's judgment was decimated, her hopes dashed, and she had lost her little playmate and source of warmth and comfort. She had much sadness about this incident when she recalled it.

When we used the Matrix Reimprinting technique for this scene, Laura was able to step into the past as her own present self and act as an amazingly understanding EFT therapist to her Little Self, once she obtained the permission of that self to do so (an essential step of the Matrix Reimprinting process is to obtain permission from what the method calls the “Echo” (that is the person’s former self at another age) to tap on them.

Laura used EFT to tap down the child's distress in a sensitive caring fashion, needing only occasional prompting from me. It always amazes me how often people know exactly what their Little Self needs. This is because they were once that child and according to Matrix Reimprinting theory, the child is still alive in the energy field or "Matrix".

When Laura's Little Self was sufficiently comforted and her distress level had come down to about a 3, Laura was ready to help the child reconstruct the scene along very different lines, the way she would have loved to have had it turn out.

Laura's new scene involved changing her mother's behavior. Sometimes clients will introduce a protective adult or other authority figure into this scene to speak for them and protect them — this may be an understanding relative that they actually had or another parenting figure or it may even be their present self come back to help them. This week one of my clients created a Guardian Angel for the reconstructed scene in this case the angel stepped in and protected the child when her father, in a blind rage, was running toward her with a weapon and screaming that he would kill the child. Now Laura saw the Guardian Angel standing between her Little Self and her father. The angel had her hand raised, stopping the father in his tracks and telling the child what to say to him. With other clients, I have known the child him/herself to be able to speak up to the parent very creatively, and thereby resolve the incident themselves.

In this instance, Laura "rewrote" her traumatic incident by having her mother enter the house in the first scene, see the little girl cuddling the kitten, and exclaim, "Oh my goodness! – Oh, how beautiful! How nice of you to help the little kitty!  Let's take it into the kitchen and give it some milk, – it must be very hungry."

In this new scene and the scenes which followed, the kitten was seen to enrich the child's life beautifully. After the reconstruction was completed — Karl Dawson calls this the “Reimprinting” process — it was installed within "the matrix" or heart of the child. After this was done it was, as usual, startling to see how the original event had now faded in importance for Laura. The newly constructed positive scene now came to her mind first when she was asked to think of the incident and it was much more vivid to her than the original scene. This is a typical outcome which I have tested in myself and in many others I have led through the process.

I find the creativity of the person themselves to be remarkable when they are reconstructing the scene. I may offer suggestions along the way which they can accept or reject according to their preference, but often they know exactly what needs to be done and can create the new scene in amazing detail.

How Do You Learn Matrix Reimprinting?

I have mentioned Karl Dawson's book, but obviously a technique as subtle and profound as this can much better be transferred in person, and often the presence of a practitioner experienced in the technique can be important as support and for giving direction in the technique. Karin Davidson, an AAMET Certified EFT Trainer in the US, teaches Matrix Reimprinting in this country and some of you may be interested in finding out about hers, and other trainings available in the UK and elsewhere.

Also, you should know that a couple of spots will be opening up in my Six Weeks Program for individual telephone therapy with me. These places will be available for one or two special people who would like to do some individual Matrix Reimprinting work with me on a one-on-one basis. This program is suitable only for those who have a serious commitment to their own well being.

Expanding EFT so that it reaches to new horizons and beyond is, I believe, the finest way to benefit from the many treasures that EFT has to offer, and Matrix Reimprinting is a new horizon..

Onward and Upward is my motto!

Warmly,

Pat