What's New (to me) EFT

Emotional Freedom Technique, EFT, is a process introduced by Gary Craig, a Stanford engineer, in 1997. Recent work with war veterans has shown the process can be used to address Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
The woman sits comfortably in the chair in her home office. She taps on the outside of one hand with the first two fingers of the other hand and says “Even though I’m afraid of spiders I deeply and completely accept myself.” She says it twice more, concentrating on her fear. Then she moves her index finger to the inner corner of her eyebrow, and tapping lightly, says “My fear of spiders.” She repeats the words as she taps under her eye, under her nose, on her chin, just below her collarbone and under the arm. She follows it with the repeated phrase and a few taps on the top of her head. She brings her hand back to her lap. She has just finished her first round of EFT, and she is well on her way to being rid of her phobia. There’s a good chance she’ll even be able to say, after just this one try, that her fear is completely gone. And if so, she can expect it to stay gone.

Chip Engelmann, an EFT practitioner who combines EFT with Law of Attraction principles, has experienced hundreds of moments like the one in this story with clients like the woman above. His clients often come to him for help after years of trying more mainstream therapies without success.

“For me EFT is the clearing out of resistances that keep you from moving forward in life. These are things that keep you stuck. They could be anything from anxiety, depression, compulsion, phobias, anger that you’ve stored up throughout your lifetime, or physical pain. Anything that has an emotional component can be removed with EFT. It’s a system of tapping on acupuncture meridians to remove from the physical body those emotions that you’ve been storing,” he says. “The real key to EFT is not so much necessarily where you tap but what you’re thinking about, the emotions that you’re feeling when we’re doing the tapping.”

EFT instructions are easy to find on the web. Engelmann offers a short free ebook on the basics on his website www.chipeft.com. Most people, he says, even beginners, can take care of simple issues like eliminating sugar cravings or getting motivated to exercise regularly, without assistance. The time to look for help, he says, is when you’ve tried to work through an issue on your own and haven’t achieved your goal. He says good practitioners can have more than 90% success within their range of expertise.

“EFT is something that you can do on your own to a certain extent, and the reason I say to a certain extent is that most people have emotions that they repress from themselves, and if you are a person repressing an emotion how are you going to know? So you can do EFT on your own, but if you want to get real results at some point or another you’re going to have to work with someone else. Everyone, if they’re interested in it, should see a professional just to see how deep, how fast, a professional can go. “

Engelmann says practitioners use empathy and intuition, he calls it his connection to source energy, to gently dig for the root cause of behaviors his clients want to change. This sympathetic outsider’s view, he says, is especially important when the original incident was violent or full of strong emotion, because eliminating the current problem requires seeing and releasing all the emotions tied to the original experience.

“I see my job as getting that person to a point where they can view that trauma as if it was a black and white movie. They still have a memory of it but it doesn’t have the color, it doesn’t have the emotional impact. They can make decisions that are not based upon that situation that happened” he says.

Violent crime and other serious issues usually require a series of EFT sessions, with each EFT tapping round targeting a single aspect of the larger issue. “There could be anger at the perpetrator, anger at yourself for getting in the situation, anger at God for allowing this to happen to you,” says Engelmann. “So there may be eight different aspects of the anger alone. And that doesn’t even bring in shame, or fear, or guilt, or any of the other things that might also be associated with that type of trauma.”

Unlike mainstream talk therapy, once an aspect of an issue is cleared it rarely needs to be revisited. In a session, the client gives immediate feedback on whether a round of tapping helped by quickly looking for a shift in emotion. If the client feels the shift, it will likely be a long-term change. If the client feels only a partial shift or no shift at all, the practitioner uses the feedback to revise the statement at the beginning of a new round of tapping. Client and practitioner work methodically through all aspects until all are released.

If you decide to work with a practitioner, look for one who is experienced in the area you want to address. “Most EFT practitioners, once they start getting good at what they do, specialize” says Engelmann. “For me, I get a lot of people who come to me for pain. I also get a lot of people who come to me because they’re trying to learn Law Of Attraction and they want to get over the hump. They know that they’re doing it, but they’re not quite manifesting, so they’ll come to me and we’ll take care of whatever blocks are happening to that manifesting. Somebody else might specialize in some of the more difficult things which are anxiety, depression, compulsions, that type of thing. I know one lady that specializes in adoptee issues.”

The other big consideration when looking for a practitioner is how to determine when you’re done. Some practitioners set specific goals with clients. Others are open to working long term or on an as-needed basis on a number of issues.

EFT is a simple practice that can bring fast, clear results, even for beginners. Try it in a small way, and see what you can do to make changes in your own life. If you’re working with a physician or other professional, don’t abandon your current regimen without consulting with them. For more information, try the links below.

Find a Practitioner in our Directory:
http://www.myworldspirit.com/index.php/directory

Multi-DVD EFT courses with Gary Craig:
https://www.emofree.com/EFTStore/

 

This is good stuff. I use it from time to time.

 

That's good to know.
Thanks!