What I was going to say was ...

Even though I discovered EFT late in life,I still deeply and completely love and accept myself,believe in and respect myself.

What I was going to say was ... I am just back from those chores ...the stuff in the town ..there was a long slow queue in the Post Office because the girl from the "herbolisteria" had lost a packet so,while Bilquis was waiting to pick up more photos of her grandchild and send a packet of coral and lapiz lazuli back to Ibrahim ,I popped into the Oficina de Recaudacion,which happened to be right beside where I was parked,and made enquiries about how to do the papers necessary to make it possible to have my van towed away and scrapped.Yes,European beaurocracy has come to Spain!Afterwards we did some other bits and pieces and here I am again in front of the old lappie.
What I was going to say was .... about the use of the phrase at the beginning of the basic recipe.Gary Craig et al use "Even though ...(whatever) ... I still deeply and completely love and accept myself." This seems to be the main reason why,at least from the NLP side of the therapy (NLP as many of you will know are the initials for Neuro Linguistic Programming now more commonly known in the more extended form as "Affirmations") EFT works.One is telling oneself at a deep level of consciousness that,despite all those negative and hurtful experiences and messages which went in at an early age (and later),one still loves and accepts oneself.
Now I have been following a Sufi Sheikh (or trying to!) and listening to and reading his teachings for over twenty years and,one of the most important things that he ever said, for someone like me , is,That you can't really love God unless you love yourself,and you can't really believe in God unless you believe in yourself and that when you believe in yourself you will respect others in the same way and respect for others passes through respect to the Creator. Therefore I often use the phrase "I deeply and completely believe in and respect myself." alongside that which is recommended by Gary et al.
This morning in fact I was using just this phrase a bit and I feel a surge of empowerment,as at something completely new, when I try it.I would say that loving oneself and believing in oneself go hand in hand,though it would seem more necessary perhaps to start off with the love side because so many emotional problems are rooted in the need for that love and especially self-love.
It is very difficult sometimes to bring oneself to say these phrases,especially as one generally,or specifically at the time,does not believe it at all! However it seems to be that the saying of the phrase/s and the emphasis with which it is said (some therapists even recommend almost shouting it sometimes!) affects the efficacy of the technique.
Personally I rarely say it even out loud because I do so much of my work in bed when I wake in the early hours of the morning and I do not want to wake my wife.However it would be interesting to go somewhere else and do it more emphatically.I have to add that I am so timid still with these things that I am a little bit embarrassed even to be overheard in my own home and,after all Bilquis is the only one there to hear it!