Emotional Freedom Technique

Last week I blogged about balancing the body's energy centers, also known as chakras, to help with both emotional and physical ailments. This week I want to write about another technique used to balance patients' physical and emotional energy. Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), also known as tapping, uses acupuncture points, that when tapped can help people release emotional and physical stress in the body. By applying pressure to the acupuncture points, EFT works on the meridians of the body to release emotional energy and because emotional stress can impede the natural healing of the body, once blocked energy is released, physical issues, chronic pain, or diagnosed conditions can get better.

EFT started in the 1990s by Gary Craig and here's a video demonstrating it.

EFT can be explained in these simple steps
1. Identify the Issue:
Make a mental note of what is bothering you. This becomes the target at which you "aim" the EFT Tapping Basic Recipe. Examples might be: Sore shoulder, my father embarrassing me at my age 8 birthday party or wanting to do well on a test. Be sure you are only targeting one issue at a time. As you will learn later, trying to combine issues in the process will compromise your results.

2. Test the Initial Intensity:

Here you establish a before level of the issue's intensity by assigning a number to it on a 0-10 scale where 10 is the worst the issue has ever been and 0 is no problem whatsoever. This serves as a benchmark so we can compare our progress after each round of the EFT Tapping Basic Recipe. If, for example, we start at an 8 and eventually reach a 4, then we know we have achieved a 50% improvement.

For emotional issues, you can recreate the memories in your mind and assess their discomforts.
For physical ailments you can simply assess the existing pain or discomfort.
For performance issues you can attempt the desired performance level and measure how close you come to it.

3. The Setup:

The Setup is a process we use to start each round of Tapping. By designing a simple phrase and saying it while continuously Tapping a point that is located at the center of the fleshy part of the outside of your hand (either hand) between the top of the wrist and the base of the baby finger. In this way you let your system know what you’re trying to address.

When designing this phrase there are two goals to achieve:

1) acknowledge the problem
2) accept yourself in spite of it

We do this by saying:

“Even though I have this _______________, I deeply and completely love and accept myself”.

The blank above represents the problem you want to address, so you can just insert things like:

This headache:
“Even though I have this headache, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.”

This fear of heights
“Even though I have this fear of heights, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.”



4. The Sequence:

This is the workhorse part of The EFT Tapping Basic Recipe that stimulates/balances the body's energy pathways. To perform it, you tap each of the points below while saying a Reminder Phrase that keeps your system tuned into the issue. I list the points below followed by a description of the Reminder Phrase:

Karate chop (KC): not pictured.  

Top of the Head (TOH)
Beginning of the Eyebrow (EB)
Side of the Eye (SE)
Under the Eye (UE)
Under the Nose (UN)
Chin Point (CH)
Beginning of the Collarbone (CB)
Under the Arm (UA)

The Reminder Phrase is quite simple as you need only identify the issue with some brief wording. Depending on your issue, you might say the following at each tapping point....

"This headache",
"My father embarrassed me",
"This difficulty in singing that high note."

Begin by tapping the karate chop point while simultaneously reciting your setup phrase three times. Then, tap each following point seven times, moving down the body in this ascending order:

• eyebrow
• side of the eye
• under the eye
• under the nose
• chin
• beginning of the collarbone
• under the arm

After tapping the underarm point, finish the sequence at the top of the head point.

While tapping the ascending points, recite a reminder phrase to maintain focus on your problem area. If your setup phrase is, “Even though I’m sad my mother is sick, I deeply and completely accept myself,” your reminder phrase can be, “The sadness I feel that my mother is sick.” Recite this phrase at each tapping point. Repeat this sequence two or three times.

5. Test the Intensity Again:

Finally, you establish an "after" level of the issue's intensity by assigning a number to it on a 0-10 scale. You compare this with the before level to see how much progress you have made. If you are not down to zero then repeat the process until you either achieve zero or plateau at some level.

Sometimes we are highly aware of what is bothering us and so figuring out what phrase to tap is easy but at other times it can be difficult. Since I believe this is a strong tool to help heal I have seen where a patient picks the wrong phrase of words to tap and so EFT actually has a negative impact on the patient. So to help prevent this I muscle test the chakras first and then depending on the chakra that is weak find a positive affirmation that makes the weak chakra change to strong. Then while tapping the patient is to say that affirmation at every point to help reset the chakra energy. Patient repeated report feeling lighter, breathing easier and physical relief after tapping this way.  EFT is a great tool to help with any feelings of stress to get both the mind and the body to relax and heal.