What is EFT

EFT tapping is a peak performance, global healing tool which works to improve the natural energy flow throughout all parts of our physical, emotion, mental and spiritual life. EFT works with both the emotional and physical expression of problems to improve performance and its prime intention is to explore to the core of the issue, to find the root cause of the problem and thereby collapse the underpinnings that hold it in place.

Rather than use needles as in Eastern Acupuncture, in EFT we tap with our fingers on these Acupuncture/ energy points where the points tend to be most powerful. Along with the tapping we verbalize what we are thinking. We must give the mind the truth of our feelings of what is at the core of the issue. This causes an unwinding of the hidden or old, mental and emotional aspects and allows them to come into our awareness, but this can take patience and exploration. So many emotions have been suppressed over our life time and as the thoughts come up, we tap on them and verbalize the feelings to acknowledge them. These two components, tapping and giving voice to what we feel are part of the basic process of EFT.

Eventually this takes the intensity of our reactions out of the memory through regular tapping sessions enabling us to remember the memory without the emotional connection to the trauma associated to it, without the psychological reactions which has caused us suffering and discomfort through disease.

The field of psychology is changing with the excitement of EFT’s rapid and powerful results for all kinds of conditions, emotional and physical. EFT complements other healing modalities beautifully and was designed by Gary Craig, a Stanford graduate engineer and a performance coach who understands that emotional issues affect performance in this world.

Scientific research by Candace Pert, Bruce Lipton, Dawson Church, to name a few, tell us that all the experiences we encounter in our lifetime are stored in emotional energy in the cells of our body. They agree that our body is the subconscious mind, our physical body can be changed by the emotions we experience and molecules of emotion are directly affecting how we think.

During the course of our lifetime, our body has kept a perfect copy of every thought, word and emotion which has been stored as cellular memory. Our lives reflect the information held in that field of cellular memory. We become what we think and feel. This collective field formed by all the individual cell memories is stored in the subconscious mind and the way our inner voice speaks is through our body. Our body is our subconscious mind.

You can use the common analogy of imagining that your body is like a computer to understand how EFT works and that everything that has been stored in your cellular memory is your operating system. The cellular memory is held in the hard drive, all the cells of the body. Stored within the cellular memory of the body are all the conscious and subconscious patterns of behaviors. Our subconscious mind is like a tape recorder that holds our memories, our sensations, our attitudes, our behavior and most importantly our beliefs. Whatever beliefs we hold, whether from our parents, family members, schools, social groups, cultural or religious communities, they are unconsciously directing us throughout our life until we make a choice to do something different. They are held in this hard drive of our body.

Whenever something new is experienced, your computer instantly searches for a way to respond and pulls information from the old outdated software program, much like going to an old filing cabinet. Now we can understand why we have habits and reactions of a child without even being aware of it.

If you grew up in a family environment that was dysfunctional or abusive, or if you experienced major traumas, for example, bullying by your siblings or school mates, you carry the imprint of all these memories and everything that was a part of that experience. All emotional feelings, conscious or unconscious carry out through frequency waves filled with negative emotions that formed from these events and they influence all our activities and decision making, all our performance in life. The most traumatic incidents that happened with the strongest emotion are the strongest programs to change using conventional methods. EFT has been very successful in addressing these intense programs, gently and effectively.

Through the tapping procedures coupled with the voicing of our feelings, those old ‘default’ patterns stored in the cellular memory, then releases the emotional intensity, reducing and reducing, reducing and reducing until a new and improved software system is downloaded.

Now the hard drive of our operating system, our health, autonomic nervous system, heart rate, blood pressure, breathing etc. can operate from a new program and even if we think back to events that use to trigger huge emotions, now we can think about them free of the emotional entanglement of the past. Or in the case of suppressed emotions, they are uprooted, recognized and released. The memories sitting in the hard drive of our body have lost their sting, the cellular memory has been altered.

The ancient art of acupuncture and its use of needles on the meridians or energy pathways of the body has been documented for well over 5000 years. Now we can tap safely and comfortably on specific release points which are real physical points, very tiny points on the skin, with our own fingers on the face, torso and hands. The energy system of the body is the very foundation of Emotional Freedom Technique.

These energy meridians, or energy highways of information act like a transportation system and when the circuits are disrupted, emotional and physical discomfort is experienced.

On a physical level, we feel this disruption in some parts of the body experience. Tapping with our fingers on these specific spin points clears this ZZZZT and in this way EFT restores the flow and balance of energy through the channels and we can feel more vitality, greater physical performance and strength.

This can be understood when a muscle is chronically tensed through stress related activity, lactic acid can cause muscle fibers to go into contraction and seize up. This creates blocks of tension at certain points in the body and these pressure points are the areas where acupressure tapping is most effective for relieving pain. As a result, the fibers of the body begin to relax and elongate, impressing and increasing the capacity of the blood to flow and the white cells to flush out stored toxins.

The “set-up” statement in the EFT tapping protocol allows the emotion to simply be as it is, without resistance or rejection of our self.

Tapping on these specific points in combination with verbalizing our feelings is a powerful form of self-acceptance that allows stress to be reduced and grief for example to find a healthy level by letting the past go, making room for relaxation and calm. Through this simple yet profoundly effective technique we are able to restore the mind-body connection and a renewed sense of well-being that bring us into heart resonance and congruency to what we value most, a joyful, abundant and full-filling life.

Also there are meridians that run through the finger tips, so when we tap, we activate both the meridians at the place we are tapping on and the meridians in the finger tips. Tapping on these highly conductive points along these pathways now allows energy to flow through the body creating balance, harmony and a return to conscious decision making. We now have a life tool for self-regulating emotions and returning our body to a state of homeostasis.

Many who have suffered for weeks, and months, maybe even years, going through countless medications and a variety of alternative modalities, looking for the right combinations that will work for them to ease their pain, have found EFT to help them in what could only be termed as a miracle. EFT tapping puts the control over your destiny back into your own hands.

When the body’s electromagnetic field has been interrupted through highly charged emotions, there is a compromise in a person’s health and well-being. EFT Tapping aims to restore calm and a return to balance and harmony. Research using EFT has shown that the stress-hormones, Cortisol and Adrenaline are rapidly reduced. Depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, digestion and sleep disorders are some of the consequences of elevated Cortisol and Adrenaline.

EFT – is one way to exercise your courage

You have genes for courageous acts within you.  Along with the fight/flight/freeze responses that are inherent in your life-saving programs – you also have risk-taking, immediate action, rise-above the situation life-expanding programs.  You are the creator of your new reality and you can feel the fear and do it anyway!

Another bonus to EFT Empowered Choices, it allows you to meet yourself in the moment

What exactly does that mean, to meet yourself in the moment? Whenever a negative emotion surfaces, or pain or disease arises, rather than pushing it away, you simply honor it and tap on the situation. By meeting the feeling, the pain, the anxiety in the moment, you can liberate yourself from being controlled by it.

Research is available that shows the health benefits of laughter are wide-reaching. Studies have shown that laughter can relieve pain, bring greater happiness, increase immunity and slow down the aging process. I am sure that each one of us can attest to how much better we feel after watching a funny movie for example.

Hormones: Laughter reduces the level of stress hormones like cortisol, epinephrine (adrenaline), dopamine and growth hormone. It also increases the level of health-enhancing hormones like endorphins. Laughter increases the number of antibody-producing cells we have working for us, and enhances the effectiveness of T cells. All this means a stronger immune system, as well as fewer physical effects of stress.

Sometimes we may be in a place where it is very difficult for whatever reason to shift a perception that is not serving us. We may even admit that we are sabotaging our recovery process, but we just are not going to change this particular view. I have seen Gary Craig, founder of EFT, bring humor into such cases and in one instance, everything shifts with the laughter that takes place.

Humor is known for its healing abilities. Using humor in EFT reduces the stress on the practitioner during intense therapy and the ‘burn-out’ effect that can take place over long periods of discovery and exploration.

In EFT, since we speak directly to your body and not your mind, you don’t have to believe it will work in order for it to work. It doesn’t matter if you are tapping on yourself or receiving EFT coaching by a facilitator, you can be completely skeptical and it still works.

The results I have seen in my own experience with EFT are remarkable which creates belief in the process and impacts the restorative process that EFT offers. There are now volumes of scientific research on the power of EFT to clear trauma, stress and other diseases. Again we stress it is not a substitute for professional medical advice for care.

The deeper the issue, the more important it is to seek out someone who specializes in therapeutic service. A well-qualified EFT and Energy Therapist /Practitioner can help to guide you through your problems, because they are trained in the psychology of how it works and will navigate you to the core issues that once worked with, will facilitate quick recovery and progress. They know how to collapse the underpinnings of the trauma and stress related issues. Positive affirmations are but a small component to the restoration of calm and peace. You must give the mind the truth of what really is the root ground issue and that may take some patience and exploration in tapping, much like the analogy of peeling an onion. A proficient coach or practitioner knows how to navigate safely, and effectively, yet it may take time.

Many people are unlikely to take themselves into areas which feel uncomfortable but a good therapist will provide the safe environment for this to take place. An experienced EFT practitioner knows how to initiate a shift in the way you view the world and has a wealth of understanding and awareness of the psychological landscape. With that in mind, using EFT as an ongoing process allows us to clear out the old traumas, and welcome any new challenges with a healthy, productive attitude and then if some negative thought arises, we can meet ourselves in the moment and tap on the issue. It is that simple. If it takes more exploration, I am here to be of service to you.

EFT is completely safe, and non-invasive. There are no known negative side effects. Clearly there will be certain situations that a well-qualified energy therapist will be able to handle better than a lay person which includes :

Every individual has a different way to move energy. Some people will yawn and some people will burp. These responses can be entirely involuntary. In my experience these effects can actually help to guide me to the next step or to validate that we are making progress. This automatic release of energy is considered as a good sign in the use of various energy systems. Yawning can happen even after sessions. Others will feel a tingling somewhere in their body, a shiver or even goose bumps. Sometimes people will want to sleep and may even sleep for long periods after an EFT session. People have been known to feel slightly light-headed.

While tapping, a pain may shift from one location in the body to another. In EFT we consider this as the surfacing of another aspect and will focus on tapping where that pain is located and how it feels.

In 1997, an informal questionnaire was put out to 250 therapists asking for descriptions of significant abreactions with EFT or TFT. Out of an estimated 10,000 applications of these energy tapping procedures only 20 such cases were reported. This approximates 2/10 of 1%. This informal questionnaire is not put forward as an official study and therefore does not suggest that there is minimal risk involved. Anyone using EFT must assume full responsibility for their results and seek appropriate advice if needed.

Each person is different with unique circumstances and experiences, no one can tell how long because of the layering of events spread over an entire lifetime. As we mentioned earlier, change can happen immediately, but in most cases it may take a number of sessions of coaching. When people practice self-care by tapping as emotions surface this helps a great deal to speed up the process and greatly helps between coaching sessions.

The advantage of using EFT with the varying disorders such as depression or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, (PTSD) is that the long-term therapy process is often shortened by months or even years with long-lasting, often permanent results. Physical ailments such as headaches, backache, stomach upset, painful joints, to name a few, act as manifestations of deeper emotional issues.

While EFT can be self-taught and administered, it usually takes a professional facilitator to get to the multi layers of core issues. This professional exploration with a coach can take many sessions to facilitate a correction to the ‘short circuits’ of the body’s learnt response or negative emotions. All this is done through sending kinetic energy through the fingers and voicing the truth.

EFT has been endorsed by Deepak Chopra, MD, Donna Eden, Jack Canfield, Cheryl Richardson, Bruce Lipton, PhD, Dawson Church, Candace Beebe Pert, Dr. Joseph Mercola and David Feinstein to name a few

Athletes can use EFT to restore their emotional balance after injury, the shock and often denial that may occur. They can and are encouraged to participate in their own recovery process. They can use EFT tapping to keep up their confidence, vitality and high performance.

Stacey Vornbrock is a pioneer in the use of EFT with injury recovery issues.

EFT for children can be wonderful, gentle, soothing, quick, light-hearted and even fun. A Magic Buttons Bear was actually created to assist children and to offer surrogate healing with amazing results. In many situations, children take to learning EFT much faster than adults because they are eager and willing to try new things and don’t need to know how it works, they just want to feel better.

I am also delighted to say, I found a grade one teacher in Mexico whose little ones use the EFT Tapping in the classroom and the results are staggering showing a marked improvement in being able to focus for longer periods of time, creating social comradeship and felt communication between the students and the teacher. It seems to create a whole paradigm shift in the way the children handle moment to moment events.

If client is non-verbal or can’t speak, like a child or animal, or someone with brain damage or impaired reasoning, Surrogate Tapping can be applied in these cases.

Surrogate or Proxy Tapping basically means that we tap on our self on behalf and benefit of another person. Surrogate healing using EFT works because energetically we are all connected and fundamentally One in Spirit.

Some examples where Surrogate healing made be used: when babies are separated in a hospital incubator; or when children are too active to sit still to be tapped on; or when any family member is a distance away; cases where the elderly and infirmed cannot take the tapping. The list of possibilities are endless.

It is important that the person who is offering the Surrogate tapping, be sure they are balanced and free of any emotional charge they might have so the integrity of the service is clear and appropriate. For instance, if it is a mother who is upset about her son or daughter, it would serve the whole dedication by making sure she has tapped on her issue first and then she can be objective and authentic as a facilitator.

If client is non-verbal or can’t speak, like a child or animal, or someone with brain damage or impaired reasoning, Surrogate Tapping can be applied in these cases.

For instance, if a person has a fear of having close relationships with the opposite sex, this may be an indication that some events early in life have caused a fear of close and intimate relationships. Words would definitely assist in unwinding the hidden aspects holding this condition in place so they can come up and be neutralized, allowing the person, to move forward and have close and meaningful relationships.

EFT is a gentle healing tool. If a person does not want to talk about the problem, we will talk about whatever they feel comfortable with sharing. EFT has excellent guidelines for these situations so re-traumatizing or re-enacting the painful events are not necessary. EFT has tools within the protocol that allow for a safe and conscious transition for those who come for coaching assistance. This is one of EFT’s greatest benefits, a compassionate environment to assist people is top priority.