What is EFT?
Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) is a system of finger tapping acupuncture sites. EFT is based on the 5,000-year-old tradition of acupressure. It is based on the fact that the body has a complex series of energy circuits, or meridians, which run throughout the body.
EFT has nine easy steps. EFT is simple to learn. With a little practice, you will be performing each round in under a minute. I teach clients to “tap” their way to life’s solutions.
Many people are astonished at the results they see with EFT. Their questions are openly enthusiastic.
Others don’t quite know how to respond because EFT violates most of their beliefs about personal involvement. Their questions contain an element of caution…as though they are semi-open but still need to protect their existing beliefs.
Whatever their source, these questions are important to your education in EFT because they help fill in any gaps you many have in your understanding. For this purpose, I am displaying in this section the answers to the standard questions I have received.
What is EFT? And how does it work?
It means Emotional Freedom Techniques. It is based on the 5,000 year old tradition of acupressure. It is also based on the fact that the body has a complex series of energy circuits, or meridians, that runs throughout the body. Medical science acknowledges that this is true. The EKG and EEG proves it is so. Occasionally you can see it in the form of static electricity. You can feel it when you touch a hot stove, because the pain impulse is instantly transmitted to the brain via the nerves through the use of an electrical impulse.
When your energy system is blocked, it affects your body in many different ways. Some say that, “the cause of all negative emotions is a disruption in the body’s energy system.”
This technique is unconventional. As is hypnosis, but they both really work!
How do EFT results differ from a “quick fix?”
The label “quick fix” carries with it a negative connotation and is often used to label the questionable healing techniques of hucksters and cheats. The term goes hand in hand with the term “con man” and, when used, often brings about thoughts of suspicion and caution.
EFT offers rapid relief from numerous emotional and physical ailments without meriting the negative label “quick fix.” This is obvious to those clients who have experienced the results first hand. I use the term rapid relief instead of “quick fix” to put across the same idea but without the negative connotation.
Now here’s an important note: Throughout history healing techniques of various kinds have usually been slow and inefficient until someone finds the true remedy for the ailment. When the true remedy is found everything changes and the old methods become relics, of the past. Polio is a case in point. Until the Salk Vaccine was discovered, Poliomyelitis was considered incurable and all manners and medications and therapies (including the Iron Lung) were employed to help the sufferers. They didn’t do much, of course. They helped ease some of the damage caused by the disease. But that was about it.
And then came the Salk Vaccine. If did away with all the antiquated, inefficient attempts at curing Polio and replaced them with a true remedy. It was, indeed, a “quick fix” without the negative connotation.
The eradication of Polio is only one example where inefficient methods give away to true remedies.
Penicillin, for instance, has been another “quick fix” miracle drug that has provided instant cures for illnesses ranging from respiratory diseases to gonorrhea.
The examples go on and on, of course, but the point is that these procedures are replacing all the inefficient techniques used on behalf of emotional health. The fact that they give rapid relief to seemingly difficult emotional problems is impressive evidence that they represent the true remedy. If they took forever to very little then they should simply take their place among the other ho hum techniques of the past.
But they don’t. They hit the bulls eye and perform as a true remedy should. Quickly, easily, permanently.
Does it last?
This question is usually a companion to the above “quick fix” question. After all, the “logic” goes, any problem that can be relieved that fast must be temporary. Lasting results, at least in the minds of most people, must take time to produce.
Not so. EFT’s results are usually permanent.
The case histories in this course are filled with people who have had lasting results…even though the problem was relieved in moments. This is still more evidence that EFT is addressing the true cause of the problem. Otherwise, the remedy would not be so long lasting.
Please remember, however, that EFT doesn’t do everything for everyone. Some problems seem to reappear and that is usually caused by different aspects of the original problem showing up at a later time. The experienced student of EFT will recognize this and simply reapply The Basic Recipe for this new aspect. The experienced student will also break the problem down into specific events and apply EFT to those underlying causes. In time, after all aspects and specific events have been addressed, the problem usually goes away completely and does not return.
How does EFT handle emotional problems that are very intense and/or have been with a person for a very long time?
The same way it handles every other emotional problem.
To EFT, the intensity of a problem or how long it has been around is immaterial. The cause is always a disrupted energy system and using The Basic Recipe to balance it gives relief…regardless of its severity.
This question usually comes about because of the belief that intense and/or long resident problems are more “deeply ingrained” than other problems. Therefore it should take more effort to relieve them. This seems very logical when viewed through conventional approaches because conventional approaches don’t directly address the true cause.
Conventional approaches tend to take aim at one’s memories or other mental processes and ignore the energy system (where the true cause lies). When slow progress is being made it is convenient to blame the problem because it is presumed to be “deeply ingrained” or otherwise difficult to deal with. In this manner, conventional approaches can…and do…explain away ineffective results.
When EFT requires persistence it is NOT because of the intensity or resident length of a problem. It is usually because of the problem’s complexity. Complexity, to EFT, means the existence of several aspects to a problem each of which must be relieved before total relief is felt.
How does EFT deal with one’s need to understand their problem?
This is one of the most astonishing features about EFT. A shift in a person’s understanding of their problem happens simultaneously with the relief. After EFT, people talk about their problem differently. They put it in a healthy perspective. The typical rape victim, for example, no longer carries a deep fear and distrust of men. Rather, she considers her assailant(s) to have the problem and in need of help.
People who use EFT for relief from guilt no longer take blame for whatever event gave rise to the guilt. Anger turns to objectivity. Grief turns to a healthy, more peaceful perspective about the death of a loved one.
Notice how you and others respond to your former problem and you will see what I mean. Your understanding shifts right along with the relief.
How does EFT deal with stress and anxiety?
In EFT, stress and anxiety have the same cause as all other negative emotions… a disruption in the body’s energy system. Accordingly, they are addressed with The Basic Recipe the same as any other emotional issue.
Anxiety has a specific meaning in clinical psychology. It refers to an intense fear or dread lacking an unambiguous cause or a specific threat. In EFT, however we give it a much broader definition to include that general state of uneasiness which is more commonly known as anxiety. Under that definition stress and anxiety fall into the same category.
Stress and anxiety tend to be ongoing problems because of the circumstances that create them are ongoing. An abusive family situation or a stressful job environment are but two of a long list of possibilities EFT does not do away with the circumstances, of course, but it is an important aid to reducing your anxious responses. In most cases, EFT will need to be used persistently (most likely daily) because the stressful circumstances tend to show up every day.
After a while, you should notice that your responses to difficult events is much calmer. Things just don’t get to you like they used to. You smile more. Your health improves and life seems easier.
How does EFT help with sports performance?
Ask any accomplished athlete and they will tell you emphatically that their mental set is critical to their performance. The difference between good days and bad days for the athlete is almost always due to emotional causes. Barring sickness, the athlete always brings the same highly skilled body into the field of battle. The only thing that changes is the effect that emotions have on the body.
Everyone, including athletes, has their share of negative thoughts and self doubt. By now you are quite familiar with the fact that those negative states of mind disrupt the body’s energy system and cause negative emotions. These negative emotions show up in the body in a variety of ways (pounding heart, tears, sweat, etc.) and this includes some tension in the muscles.
In athletics, timing is everything even the slightest tension in the muscles affects it. Hitting a baseball, tennis ball or golf ball requires perfect timing and being off by just 1/8 of an inch is the difference between hitting a home run and flying out…or hitting a killer sever of one that hits the net…or making or missing a putt. And so it goes.
Athletes are well aware of this problem and many hire sports psychologists to help them in this regard. Any negative emotion…even the mild ones and the subconscious ones…can be critical to an athlete’s performance.
EFT provides a remarkably effective solution to this problem. The purpose of The Basic Recipe is to neutralize negative emotions and their effects. One of the most common responses to it is that people feel relaxed which, by the way, is another way of saying that the tension has left their muscles. This is ideal for the athlete because it neutralizes any unnecessary emotional tension in the muscles without affecting the rest of their athletic ability. It allows their potential to flow through without being hindered by any resistance in the muscles.
Why does EFT give surprisingly good relief from physical problems?
This is easy to understand in light of the emerging attitudes toward the existence of the mind-body connection. EFT provides striking evidence of this connection. What more obvious proof could one want than to watch changes in both mind and body occur, as a result of tapping on the body’s energy system?
But the evidence goes even deeper that this. Applying EFT for emotional issues often brings on the cessation of physical problems. Breathing problems go away. Headaches vanish. Joint pains subside. Multiple Sclerosis symptoms improve. The list of physical improvements brought about by EFT is endless.
The logical inference from this is that EFT effectively addresses any emotional contributors to one’s physical symptoms. Once the emotional contributors are out of the way, the symptom subsides.
There are those, of course, who believe that one’s emotions or mental processes are the only cause of their physical diseases. I don’t know how to prove or disprove that notion but I offer the rather obvious fact that emotions, at the very least, substantially contribute to one’s physical health. And EFT is an efficient tool for relief in this regard.
One final note on this. You might wonder what is happening, “behind the emotional scenes” when you apply The Basic Recipe directly to a physical symptom (such as a headache) without zeroing in on a specific emotion. Stated differently, if the physical symptom is caused by some emotional issue then why does the physical symptom experience relief when no specific emotion was addressed?
This is unknown. There is much to learn about these techniques and the future, I’m sure, will bring us some exciting revelations on many fronts. For now, I believe that the subconscious mind brings up whatever emotional issue is contributing to the cause of the physical symptom. Applying The Basic Recipe automatically addresses the emotion.