Inquiry · “You Are Not Your Thoughts”
Aiming at the Memory
Point attention at the specific memory or image holding an emotion (not just the surface feeling), so the right material is addressed and its trigger no longer fires.
Aiming in 5 lines: Bring up the problem and notice how you know it’s there — a sensation, image, or memory. Point your focus at it; let a specific scene surface; rate its intensity 0–10. That scene is your target — hand it to the tap loop, then re-aim and re-check what changed. The work is in directing attention to the activating memory, not in any “energy.”
What it is
“Aiming” is FasterEFT’s targeting stage — the step before tapping where you decide what you are actually working on. Smith’s claim is that a surface feeling (anxiety, anger, a craving) is held in place by specific remembered experiences — what he loosely calls “the records” the subconscious holds.
Instead of treating the feeling in the abstract, you aim attention at the memory or image carrying it, so the right material is addressed and the trigger that fires the feeling can be loosened. Importantly, Smith says you don’t need to know the “root cause” intellectually — you just notice how you know the problem exists.
This file covers the targeting/inquiry move only; the release loop is in and the reframe is in.
The Method
A faithful summary of Smith’s “aim” teaching:
- Bring up the problem and notice how you know it’s there. Smith: “Noticing how you know it’s a problem is the aiming process.” You’re not analysing causes — you’re locating the felt evidence: a body sensation, an image, a specific memory, a self-talk phrase.
- Point your conscious mind at it. “You aim with your focus. In other words, wherever you point your conscious mind, that’s where you’re aiming.” Holding attention on the feeling lets the subconscious “access the records it holds that are connected to that feeling.” 3. Let a specific memory or image surface. Often a concrete scene appears — the originating or representative memory carrying the charge. That scene becomes the actual target (not just the vague mood).
- Notice its vividness/intensity. How strong is the image, how loud the feeling, where is it in the body, how big is the number 0–10? This is the baseline you’ll re-check after tapping.
- Hand it to the release loop, then re-aim. Tap (see the tapping-sequence file), and during tapping deliberately take focus off the memory onto the fingertips — Smith’s defractionation, said to break the memory’s “trance.” Then re-aim: bring the memory back and notice what changed — is it dimmer, further away, less charged? Repeat until the trigger no longer fires. (Sourcing note: “aiming with focus,” “noticing how you know it’s a problem,” “the records,” and “defractionation” are FasterEFT’s taught terms; this is a faithful paraphrase with short fair-use quotes.)
Source & Lineage
Robert Gene Smith teaches “aiming” as the front half of every FasterEFT session. It blends EFT’s “tune in to the problem,” NLP’s attention-to-submodalities, and a hypnosis-flavoured model of the subconscious.
The clinical cousin is memory reconsolidation / imagery rescripting, where a memory is deliberately activated before it can be updated — though FasterEFT borrows the surface form without the controlled clinical framing. → originator; related inquiry; combined overview.
Common refinements
Aiming at a vague mood instead of a concrete scene. The work bites when you locate a specific memory/image, not a fog.
- Hunting for the “real root cause” intellectually. Smith’s point is the opposite: notice the felt evidence; the originating scene often surfaces on its own.
- Aiming but never re-aiming. Without bringing the memory back to re-check, you can’t tell whether the trigger actually softened.
- Over-aiming at heavy trauma alone. Deliberately activating serious trauma without support is exactly the wrong context for self-help — see Safety.