Who Is Really Driving Your Life? How FasterEFT Works with Automatic Responses of the Mind

We like to imagine that most of our decisions are made consciously.

We think about a situation, consider our options, and then make a decision.

But if we observe ourselves for a while, we may discover that a large part of our day does not work like that at all.

Someone says a particular sentence and we immediately become angry.

A problem appears and before we have even had time to think about it, we already feel tension.

We have something important to do, but automatically reach for our phone, open our email, or find something else to distract us.

We meet someone and within seconds we have a feeling that we like them, dislike them, or cannot trust them.

In moments like these, we are not creating our response entirely from scratch.

Our mind is using what it already knows.

And this is where working with FasterEFT becomes interesting.

We Don't Have to Think About Everything

Automatic responses are not a flaw.

Quite the opposite. Without them, everyday life would be almost impossible.

When you first learn to drive, you consciously think about almost every movement. The clutch, the gears, the mirrors, the turn signal, the steering wheel.

Years later, you may arrive home and barely remember the last few miles of the journey.

That does not mean you were unconscious.

It simply means your mind no longer needed to give every familiar action your full conscious attention.

We develop automatic responses in other areas of life in a similar way.

And that is where problems can sometimes arise.

Because something we once learned as a useful response may no longer be useful today.

The Mind Works with What It Already Has

In FasterEFT, Robert Gene Smith often works with the idea of internal references.

We can think of them as memories, images, sounds, feelings, beliefs, and experiences that our mind uses to interpret what is happening in the present.

When someone raises their voice, for example, we do not respond only to the volume of the sound.

Our mind very quickly evaluates what a raised voice means to us.

For one person, it may mean almost nothing.

For someone else, it may remind them of conflicts from childhood and immediately create tension.

The same stimulus.

A different internal reference.

A different response.

What Robert Gene Smith Calls an "Imprint"

In FasterEFT materials, we may also encounter the term "imprint" – something like an internal impression left by an experience.

We do not have to imagine this as a literal file stored in one particular place in the brain.

A more practical way to think about it is as the combination of what we carry forward from a particular experience.

What we saw.

What we heard.

How we felt.

What we began to believe about ourselves, other people, or the world.

And, perhaps most importantly, the meaning we gave to the whole experience.

The event itself may be long gone.

But the way we learned to respond because of it may continue.

The Past Does Not Have to Be a Conscious Memory to Affect the Present

Imagine someone who was embarrassed several times while giving presentations in front of their class at school.

Twenty years later, they have to present a project to a few colleagues.

They may not consciously think about school at all.

Yet when they imagine giving the presentation, their heart begins to race, their stomach tightens, and a thought appears:

"What if I mess it up?"

The present situation is not the same.

The people are not the same.

And the person is no longer the same child.

Yet their system may still be using the old experience as a reference for what to expect today.

The past therefore does not have to appear as a conscious memory. It can be present in the way we automatically respond.

If We Change the Reference, the Response May Change Too

This brings us to one of the central ideas behind FasterEFT.

If a present response is supported by a particular memory, image, internal statement, or physical feeling, we can begin working with that material.

This is not about erasing the past.

What happened, happened.

But the way we respond to that experience today may change.

The memory can remain without producing the same intensity of fear, anger, shame, or pain when we recall it.

And if our mind has been using that memory as a reference for present situations, our response to those situations may change as well.

FasterEFT Is More Than Tapping

When someone sees FasterEFT for the first time, it is easy to get the impression that the entire method consists of tapping with your fingers on several points on the body.

Tapping is the visible part.

But an important part of the work is what we are paying attention to while we do it.

What are we imagining?

What memory is present?

What are we saying to ourselves internally?

Where do we feel the reaction in our body?

What do we expect to happen?

And what does the situation mean to us?

Robert Gene Smith uses several different approaches within FasterEFT to work with these responses.

Quick Tap: Working with a Response That Is Present Right Now

One option is simple tapping on the points used in FasterEFT while experiencing a specific emotional response.

We do not necessarily need to know its entire history.

Perhaps we are feeling stressed before a meeting.

Perhaps someone has made us angry.

Or perhaps our stomach tightens when we imagine a particular situation.

Instead of spending a long time analyzing it, we can pay attention to what we are experiencing right now and go through a short tapping process.

Then we return to the same thought or image and notice whether anything has changed.

Is the feeling just as intense?

Does the mental image look the same?

Does something else come to mind?

Sometimes the next thought or memory that appears can show us where to continue.

Power Word: Creating a Different Automatic Association

Another interesting principle involves working with a word that we deliberately associate with a particular desired state.

Our minds create associations all the time.

A particular song can take us back twenty years within seconds. A smell can bring back a memory of our grandmother's kitchen. A single name can change our mood.

If associations can develop automatically, we can also intentionally learn to create new ones.

FasterEFT can use what is sometimes called a power word – a word that we repeatedly connect with a particular internal state or useful reference.

It is not a magical word.

Its meaning comes from what we have learned to associate with it.

Laughter Can Change the Way We Represent a Problem

One of the more unusual techniques Robert Gene Smith uses involves laughter.

At first, this can sound strange.

We have a problem, so we are supposed to laugh at it?

The purpose is not to ridicule a painful experience or pretend that it does not matter.

The idea is to interrupt the way our mind is currently representing it.

When we think about a problem, we often simultaneously adopt a particular facial expression, posture, internal voice, and pattern of breathing.

Try thinking about something that annoys you and notice what happens to your face.

Then change your expression, straighten your posture, and deliberately try laughing.

The situation itself has not changed.

But the way you are representing it in your experience at that moment may no longer be exactly the same.

This Is Not About Pretending to Be Happy

It is important to distinguish this from simple positive thinking.

If we are afraid, repeating:

"I'm not afraid."

ten times may not accomplish very much.

If we feel worthless, saying "I'm amazing" may not change anything by itself.

Our mind may have plenty of internal references that appear to say exactly the opposite.

That is why FasterEFT is more interested in working with those references than simply trying to overpower them with another sentence.

If the emotional charge connected with an old experience changes, we may not have to force new thinking quite so much.

How to Discover What Is Really Driving Your Response

Choose one specific area in which you feel stuck.

It does not have to be anything dramatic.

Perhaps you keep postponing a particular task.

You have difficulty saying no to someone.

You are afraid to publish or share something.

You repeatedly become irritated by one particular person.

Now imagine actually responding differently.

You finish the task.

You say no.

You publish your work.

This time, you do not react to that person's comment in your usual way.

And then notice what appears.

Your reaction to the idea of change itself may reveal something very important.

"What Will Happen If I Really Change This?"

This can be a surprisingly powerful question.

If you want to become more successful, what will happen if you actually succeed?

If you want to say no more often, what do you believe will happen when you really do?

If you want to become more visible, what will it be like when people actually see you?

Perhaps an answer appears:

"They will criticize me."

"I'll disappoint them."

"I'll have more responsibility."

"People will think I'm selfish."

"I might fail."

And suddenly it begins to make sense why one part of us wants change while another seems to keep pressing the brake.

Unconscious Does Not Have to Mean Mysterious

When people talk about the "unconscious mind," it can sometimes sound as though there is a mysterious hidden entity inside us secretly controlling our lives.

We do not have to understand it in such dramatic terms.

Many of our responses are simply automatic.

We do not have to consciously remember every experience from which they developed.

And we do not have to consciously decide on every step involved in triggering them.

A particular stimulus appears and the response follows.

Something begins to change simply when we start observing that process.

An automatic process becomes, at least partly, conscious.

You Don't Have to Fix Your Entire Life at Once

The idea of "changing your life" can itself feel exhausting.

What exactly are we supposed to change?

Relationships? Work? Confidence? Health? Money? Habits?

Perhaps we do not need to deal with all of it at once.

We can begin with one specific response.

One memory.

One fear.

One situation in which we would like to respond differently.

And when working with FasterEFT, this kind of specificity can be much more useful than a general wish such as "I want to be happier."

Inner Change Also Needs an Outer Step

There is one more important part.

We can work with our fear of rejection, but if we never approach anyone, we do not gain a new experience.

We can work with our fear of failure, but the project will not finish itself.

We can reduce the emotional response connected with saying no, but nobody else can set the boundary for us.

Inner work may change the state from which we act.

But then comes the next part.

Doing something differently.

Those new experiences give our mind additional references that it can use in the future.

So Who Is Holding the Steering Wheel?

Perhaps it is unrealistic to expect that we will consciously control every thought and emotion we experience.

And perhaps we do not need to.

But we can begin paying attention to the reactions that repeatedly take us somewhere we no longer want to go.

Instead of asking:

"Why am I like this again?"

we can ask:

"What is my mind using right now to create this response?"

What image?

What memory?

What expectation?

What feeling?

And that is where we can begin working.

The purpose of FasterEFT does not have to be gaining absolute control over our own mind. It can be about becoming more able to notice an old automatic direction before it takes us somewhere we no longer want to go.

Our past experiences have given us an enormous number of internal references.

Some of them still serve us well.

Some may no longer do so.

And we do not have to hate or forcibly suppress the ones that no longer help us.

We can discover them, work with the responses they still create within us, and then begin creating new experiences.

Because changing the direction of our life does not always begin with one enormous decision.

Sometimes it begins with the moment we first notice what has been holding the steering wheel for us all along.

If you would like to explore emotional healing, personal growth, and the principles of FasterEFT more deeply, you can find additional resources and eBooks that may support your journey enter my store.