Being treated unfairly, especially at work, can really rattle your confidence and cause you to question what you consider to be “true” about yourself and your work environment.  I sure wish I had known about the emotional relief that is available through tapping earlier in my career!  I’d have used it a lot, especially those times when circumstances rattled by self-confidence and self-worth!

Years ago, when I was working for a high-tech company, I had a run in with “Jon” the manager of another department.  I was working on a project that had been approved by my manager and I was rather proud of the progress I had made and the results I was generating.  I chose to share with “Jon” what I felt to be my latest win on the project because I was feeling pretty proud of the way it was going.

His response was to “cut me off at the knees” by telling me what I was doing was “totally unacceptable!” He then proceeded to rant about what I should be doing instead and how I’d better get things fixed up his way and fast!

Needless to say, that response totally blindsided me and left me (and my ego!) deflated and hurting.  I felt that what he said to me in his emotionally charged response was totally unfair, and I was left feeling that all of the hard work and progress that I’d made on the project was totally blown off by him as worthless.

I sulked my way back to my office cubicle in the other building with my tail between my legs feeling upset and deflated.

I guess that the good news was that he had been so rude about it that I was feeling almost as pissed at him as I was feeling emotionally battered.  The anger at being treated unfairly drove me to make sure I let my manger know what had happened.   So I found my boss, and told him what had happened.  (I left out any comments about my emotional hurt of course! This was a “fact based” engineering company after all, which had little place for any of those messy emotions.)  My boss reaffirmed that what I had accomplished, and my plans for the project, were the correct path and that the other guy was wrong (and a known “hot head!”)  It felt good for my manager to stick up for me, and he assured me he’d have a talk with “Jon” about who I actually worked for and how “Jon” didn’t have any business sticking his nose in this part of the project!

I felt victorious!  At least for a few moments…until I realized that I’d still have to be interacting with “Jon” around the office and later in the project.  That left me hesitant and wary every time I had to be around him for months.  That incident really damaged the working relationship I had with him.  The other people his department knew he was a “hot head who flew off the handle” because many of them had experienced it themselves.  But that still didn’t make it right, or “fix” the issue and restore the damage done to our work relationship.

Today, if that sort of thing happened to me, I would be much better prepared to cope with it and would be able to release the emotional upset fast by using the Tap And Bitch technique!

[Disclaimer: As always, you must take responsibility for yourself.  This information is for educational purposes only. Read the full disclaimer here.]

Through the lenses of 20/20 hindsight, here’s what I would do now if I were in that situation again….

Starting with a setup something like this (while tapping on the Karate Chop Spot):

• “Even though I feel totally deflated and crushed by what “Jon” said to me in his rant about MY project, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.”
• “Even though I was feeling proud of what I’ve accomplished on my project before “Jon” cut me off at the knees with his self-serving, judgmental rant about things he knows nothing about – heck, I’m not even in his department! – I deeply and completely love and accept myself anyway.”
• “Even though I was totally blindsided by his unqualified, venomous, ranting about my project, which he has nothing to do with at this point anyway,  and this issue is getting far more of my time and energy than it deserves, I deeply and completely love and accept myself anyway, and I choose to release it’s influence on me, especially because MY manager said I’m on the right path!”

Next, while tapping through the points (EB, SE, UE, UN, CH, CB, UA, Top) several times, I would start out by really bitching about what I was feeling about “Jon” and the situation.  I would really focus on taking the edge off of it and reducing the emotional upset.

In this kind of a situation, after taking the edge off,  I’d want to make sure I was “saying it like it is” when it comes to my actual feelings.  Being “politically correct” and “saying things nicely” would not be nearly as effective in clearing out the emotional charge around the upset as it would be to really dig in and voice the thoughts and emotions I would be feeling.  The idea is to connect with the emotions that are actually there, in order to release it through tapping, rather than sugar coating it prior to banishing it to the dungeon of past hurts and upsets, never to be looked at or acknowledged again.

I would continue tapping to address the emotional upset with the F.R.A.M.E. in the way I show you in the Tap And Bitch Technique Training inside the members area.

• FEEL: I would do at least two rounds of tapping through each of the points while describing how I was feeling about what happened.
• RESPONSE: Then I would do another few rounds of tapping while describing my response in the moment (what I did at the time) and then at least another round while describing what I wish I would have done at the time now that I have 20/20 hindsight on the issue.
• ACTIONS: Then I would do another round of tapping while describing the actions I took during and after the event – things like what I said (or didn’t say but wanted to say!) to him at the time, as well as details about the conversation with my boss. I would also tap my way through describing how I feel about having to take those actions!
• MEANING: Next, I would tap through a round or two describing the meaning that you assigned to the event – both during and after the event.  I remember that in the moment while “Jon” was ranting, it triggered me back into old patterns of thought, and I “decided” that his ranting meant that “I could never do anything right!”  And furthermore, this meant that “even when I was feeling great about what I was doing and making progress, I was only fooling myself because I was only a matter of time until someone would come along and point out that I was doing it wrong.”  (I don’t know about you, but I certainly would not want those thoughts, and “assigned meanings” to stick with me as “truth!”  Fortunately, some of the emotional charge around those viewpoints dissipated quickly after the incident, and even more left when I was being reaffirmed by my boss.)  This would probably be a time when I would want to continue to do multiple rounds of tapping until I had really let these thoughts and feelings go.  I could tell by the way that I was triggered in that moment, that there were likely a number of underlying “earlier similar” incidents that needed to have their emotional upset eliminated too. If I had any flashes of insight as to what they were, I would either write them down for tapping later, or if they were really “up” in the moment, I’d continue tapping and F.R.A.M.E. them as separate incidents too.
• EVENTS: Finally, once I was pretty sure I had released as much of the emotional charge on the incident as I could find, I would continue to tap as I described what happened in vivid detail.  I would do this in order to test and see if there is any emotional upset left.  If there was, then do would some more tapping.  If there wasn’t, then I would check to see if there were any other “earlier similar” situations that came to mind so I could tap them into oblivion also!

For those of you who like to tap-along with someone, here are links to a Tap-Along Video, Audio, and Script in the members area that addresses the upset around “Being Treated Unfairly.” You can start “borrowing the benefits” while you tap along.  Simply take a moment to get really clear about, and focus on, something similar that happened to you, and still has you upset, before you start tapping along with the program.  Go through it a couple of times if necessary, and be sure to F.R.A.M.E it with your own words.