The Emotional Freedom Technique, or EFT, has become one of my
favorite techniques in Emotional Healing. Let’s talk about what it is,
how it works and how you can start using it for yourself.
EFT is
the number one method that I recommend for self-help when it comes to
Emotional Healing. And it's usually one of the first tools that I use
when something comes up in my own life. I was also very surprised to
find how well EFT worked on physical pain, including headaches.
Visit www.emofree.com to download a free copy of the EFT manual.
Gary Craig
The
creator of EFT, Gary Craig, is an amazing individual. As an educational
background he's an Engineering graduate from Stanford University. He
quickly abandoned the Engineering path and went into business selling
insurance.
Gary was also a student of Personal Improvement
Psychology. He applied the teachings of self-improvement and eventually
became a financial success in the Finance Industry.
Along the
way, he studied with Dr. Roger Callahan. Dr. Callahan’s theories of
Energy Meridians became the core of his Emotional Freedom Technique.
(As
a side note, in his EFT training videos and newsletters, Gary Craig is
so "personal" that he makes you feel that you know him as a close
friend.)
Energy Tapping
EFT is based on the theory that emotions stay within the body as stuck energy (see also The Energy Body). By gently tapping on specific points on the body we're able to stimulate and release these stuck energy pockets.
The
Energy points used in the Emotional Freedom Technique were modified and
streamlined from Dr. Callahan’s original methods. These points follow
the same Energy lines (known as Meridians) as are used by the Chinese
Acupuncture healing methods.
By lightly tapping with two fingers
on these points while allowing yourself to feel the emotions of a
situation, you’ll find that the emotion will begin to dissipate, often
after only one round of tapping.
Emotional Freedom Technique Training
EFT
requires very little training to begin using it successfully. Gary Crag
even offers the complete EFT manual online at no charge. And his
training videos are the most reasonably priced training that I’ve ever
seen.
One small note about the Emotional Freedom Technique
training videos; as highly as I really feel about the system as a
whole, the Introductory videos are not exactly Hollywood-quality.
Unlike the marketing video above, the EFT Basic Course is excellent
material, but once you overlook the "homemade" quality you won't be
disappointed.
One downside to the EFT training materials and
newsletters is the sometimes "over-hyped" stories of miraculous
recoveries. Even though I've experienced some amazing results with both
myself and with clients using EFT, I still always encourage
conservative expectations.
I'll sometimes have people that have
had life-long issues that have read Gary Craig's newsletter and expect
to have full recovery in one round of tapping. And while the Emotional
Freedom Technique is one of the fastest approaches to Emotional
Healing, I still always encourage people to have moderate expectations.
I've
found that the secret to using EFT successfully is to first allow
yourself to feel the emotion that you want to be rid of. By feeling the
emotion, and then tapping through the sequence of points it's easy to
monitor if it's working or not.
As an example, if someone is
experiencing anxiety I'll first ask him to allow himself to feel the
emotion of anxiety. I'll then ask, on a scale of 1-10 how intense are
the feelings.
I'm usually hoping that the feelings are at a
level 8 or higher. This helps us to know if the technique is successful
or not when we're done. We'll then use the tapping sequence to release
the emotion of anxiety until it gets down to Zero.
What
frequently happens is that one emotion will release but another will
come up. Anxiety might be covering feelings of anger, which is covering
sadness, etc. When this happens each emotion is worked through and
released in succession until we're down to a level Zero in all
emotional intensities.
This is where I find EFT to be the most
valuable is in digging out the hidden issues and underlying emotions.
But this isn’t always possible to do alone by yourself, especially when
it’s time to go into those dark and scary places inside.That’s why I
offer one-on-one personal sessions. Together we go into the places
where it’s too much to do alone. We may use the Emotional Freedom
Technique, or other methods, all with the intent of releasing the
hidden intensity.
If you’re ready to start releasing emotions
and begin to live a life free of emotional pain and suffering I invite
you to visit my Personal Sessions page. I even offer a free trial session so you can find out if working together will be right for you.
Related Articles:
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Healing Methods and Techniques is where we start to use all of the
Spiritual Healing principles that I’ve been talking about in previous
pages...
The Aura, The Energy Body and Emotional Healing The
Aura and the Energy Body may seem New Agey but it's actually an
important part of healing emotions. The Aura reflects the Energy Body
and that's where most of the emotional problems begin...
