Have you ever experienced the overwhelming urge to jump ship, make an immediate change, get away from whatever is bothering you, live the life of your dreams and you cannot wait another minute? I call this the grasshopper effect. You feel like a grasshopper ready to spring and waiting is simply not an option.

If you analyze it a little, it may be the feelings of anxiety in your body that creates the sense of urgency around the change and not the change towards a goal. That can be evidenced as you call into view the pictures for where you do want to be and what you do want to do, and find nothing concrete. When you jump ship without knowing what you want that is different, you may find yourself sitting on the roadside saying, “Where was I going? What did I mean to accomplish with this move?” with no greater sense of happiness or fulfillment.

The grasshopper effect is reactionary; it urges a change that promises the anxiety will go away. And many of us follow its urgings to experience relief. It is like an addiction that draws you into dangerous territory but you experience the potential change as the light.

One way to impose a reality check on the potential movement is to quiet the anxiety with a tool called EFT or Emotional Freedom Technique. This works to deactivate the buttons that link you to the past and propel an irrational movement away from something. The second half of the reality check is a form of meditation called visioning. Visioning is a quieting of the mind and body and traveling in a dreamlike state to “view” that which you want to move towards. Then you can know if the change that is drawing you—making you feel like a grasshopper wanting to be in the sun—is right for you or not. Let’s briefly take a look at these two processes.

As the urgency to move away from something surges through your grasshopper legs, you can quiet its blind promise with the Emotional Freedom Technique or EFT. EFT was coined by Gary Craig and built upon the work of California psychologist Roger Callahan. The physical process utilizes a series of tapping on specific energy meridian points in the body while stating an affirmation that describes the prevailing anxiety generally or specifically. This deactivates the anxiety felt in the body returning you to a place of calm and clear-thinking. To achieve the desired effect, it is helpful to be experiencing the anxiety at the time—either as a memory or in the moment of its revelation—so you can feel the change taking place in the body and mind. The affirmation addresses the reason you are feeling anxious i.e. Even though I am feeling anxious, I deeply and completely accept myself, or, more specifically, Even though I am feeling anxious about ______, I deeply and completely accept myself. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this procedure, you can go to www.EmoFree.com to download the manual for free and for articles and videos showing the process. Though it sounds simple, this process is powerful. EFT has been used to reverse and negate the effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and calm the relentless cravings for everything from power to helplessness, from chocolate to sex. And it has an impressive lineup of endorsements from doctors, scientists, counselors, and healers.

For the grasshopper without a conscious knowing of where they want to go, I suggest visioning. This is a type of meditation that can both mediate the urgency to experience the change and provide a vantage point around the change. Visioning is a methodology for knowing the future relative to how you want to experience yourself in it. This is one of the most useful ways meditation can impact the life, as it gives you a vantage point for where you want to be and the character you need to enfold to experience the goal. With this information, you can make a clear decision for change.

A simple visioning technique utilizes meditation to calm the body and enter a drifting state of consciousness. You can accomplish this with meditative music playing in the background in a seated or reclining position. Then start to think about what you would like to put into action. See yourself starting to move in that direction. Notice where you are, what kind of person you are, how other people relate to you, what you accomplish, and how you feel about what you created. If you don’t like the results, go back to the spot where you departed from “feeling good” about what you were doing and say to yourself, “What could I do differently that would give me a different result?” Make those changes and replay the scenario until you both get the results you like and you like how you feel about yourself in that scenario. You can re-dream the situation as much as you like. If you aren’t able to find something that makes you feel good, you may want to table the change action until you figure it out.

EFT and meditation together can alleviate painful urgings felt in the life and deliver one to a clearer picture of what you are really trying to accomplish as the sense of urgency swells in your body. So when you start to feel like a grasshopper, take out your bag of tools and apply liberally before taking that next step. You will find the results of your lifetime patterns changing before your wiser grasshopper eyes.

September 24, 2008