What is EFT?
Everybody wants to be free and happy, to feel peace and inner strength, to be bigger than the stress, traumas, and dramas of life. We want to meet the challenges of life with power, grace, and effectiveness. But we pick up stresses along the way, and sometimes we carry them around for years, not knowing that we can just release and let them go. We can literally LET GO OF PAIN AND STRESS, just like we would let go of a rattlesnake or the iron handle of a hot skillet. The key to this natural ability is in the body, and its natural powers of self-renewal and self-healing.
If you are like most people who can read this, you have probably learned to regulate your bladder and your bowels, so that if you get a certain feeling in your body you know intuitively exactly what to do. You simply identify the nearest bathroom and celebrate your body’s natural talent for managing and releasing solid and liquid waste. You’ve probably gotten so good at this that you left your diapers behind a long time ago, and you don't often have to change your clothes in the middle of the day because of any “accidents” like the ones you had when you were 2 or 3 years old. You learned to listen to the body's signals so well that you can probably sleep through the night for years at a time without having one of those “accidents.”
We Were Not Always "Potty-Trained"
But we did not always have this ability, did we? Just imagine what it would be like if you were never taught to understand and master your body processes so you always “handle your business” at the appropriate time and place—in the bathroom, at the toilet. Thank goodness someone taught us how to not physically “go all over ourselves,” or worse yet, “go all over others.” Thank goodness for parents, aunties, uncles, and grandparents that we could learn these important skills for a comfortable and hygienic life.
EFT: "Potty-Training for the Mind?"
The problem for most of us is that no one taught us how to deal with our emotional metabolism with the same efficiency and elegance that we deal with our physical needs. Nobody taught us the quickest, cleanest, and most efficient ways to deal with the emotional “waste matter” of life. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could NOTICE WHEN STRESS, TRAUMA, AND DRAMA IS ACTIVE IN YOUR BODY AND IMMEDIATELY ACT TO QUICKLY RELEASE AND LET IT GO, just as naturally and simply as going to the bathroom. Keep reading, and learn how to DO JUST THAT!
The primary tool we use to this miracle is called “Emotional Freedom Techniques” (emo.shinal free.dum tek.neeks), EFT, but lots of people just call it plain old “tapping.” EFT delivers on its name. It promises and delivers emotional freedom from ugly memories from the past, and from recent or recurring stresses and aggravations.
Whether you’ve experienced a relationship trauma, lost your keys (again!), got a parking ticket, bounced a check, or got pulled over in traffic stop, EFT can help you to face the situation with greater flexibility, power, and grace than you ever thought possible. It has been applied successfully to hundreds of thousands of cases, including with combat veterans from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Viet Nam, and with genocide orphans who survived the atrocities in Rwanda more than a decade ago. Because you can learn the basics of this powerful healing and learning aid in 15 minutes or less, you can begin using it right away to help yourself and others with an amazing range of emotional and physical issues. EFT has helped people with all of the following conditions:
Pain Relief …Anger …Addictions …Weight Loss …Anxieties …Traumas …Depression ...Fears & Phobias …Allergies …Respiratory Problems …Blood Pressure …Relationship Issues …Women’s Issues …Men’s Issues …Children’s Issues …Unfulfilled Dreams.... Prolonged Grief and Loss.
With competent instruction and supervision, supported by diligent practice you can develop mastery in the "art of delivery" of this potent tool. At that stage, EFT becomes a force, not just for changing your mind and your life, but also for tapping into the resources and the will to change anything and everything that desperately cries out for life-enhancing transformation in the wider world.
Yes, but What is this "Tapping" Thing?
You can think of EFT as an advanced form of acupuncture for your "state of mind," except - without needles. With EFT, we use light tapping with the fingertips on key points along the acupuncture meridian system while "aiming" our compassionate attention at the problematic emotions, beliefs, states of mind, and physical stresses that we want to change.
EFT is a gift to the world developed and made freely available to the world by Gary Craig--Stanford-trained engineer, performance coach and non-denominational minister. Craig's teachings represent a streamlining of an earlier, original discovery formalized as Thought Field Therapy, or TFT, by Dr. Roger Callahan. Callahan's own discoveries build upon the work of psychiatrist, Dr. John Diamond and his teacher, chiropractic doctor and researcher Dr. John Goodheart. Goodheart's developments are grounded directly in the modern transmission of the 5000 year old Traditional Chinese Medicine theory which works with the energetic system that we know as "acupuncture meridian system."
EFT is a comprehensive approach to body/mind health that combines a cognitive element with a somatic, or body-based element. This holistic body/mind approach makes EFT especially effective in relieving both emotional and physical distress, and it often works brilliantly when nothing else will. EFT brings together the power of traditional Eastern wisdom on body/mind health and the spirit of Western innovation and experimentation. The resulting synthesis produces rapid, positive, powerful results in that are often nothing short of astonishing. EFT is an “out of the box” solution to the very big problem of human stress, trauma and drama.
How does EFT Work?
Well... EFT works very, very well. The scientific basis for EFT’s effectiveness is not fully known yet. Although it has proven profoundly effective in hundreds of thousands of cases in treating emotional and physical symptoms, there is no scientific consensus about how it works, why it works, and why, in rare instances, it doesn’t work. The good news is that it is very, very easy to actually make it work. We don’t know exactly what electricity is, or why it behaves the way it does, but we do know how to use it to power our radios, cars, light bulbs, and computers. We know how to flip the switches. EFT teaches you how to “flip the switches” in your nervous system to support your physical, emotional, cognitive, and spiritual well-being.
Common sense might tell you that that negative emotions are the direct result of negative or traumatic events, thoughts or memories:
EVENT = NEGATIVE EMOTION
EFT is based upon a single, but profound insight that directly challenges the traditional view. EFT founder, Gary Craig (one of my greatest personal heroes) calls this insight the “Discovery Statement”:
THE CAUSE OF ALL NEGATIVE EMOTION
IS A DISRUPTION IN THE BODY’S ENERGY SYSTEM.
So, EFT adds an additional step to the negative emotion equation:
EVENT + DISRUPTION IN ENERGY SYSTEM = NEGATIVE EMOTION
This so-called “disruption” is like static in your TV, or a short circuit in an electrical device. The emotional and physical pain and upset that we can sometimes feel, from the EFT perspective, is caused not by unwanted events, but by the disruption in the body’s energy system that the unwanted event triggers. This is why different people respond with different levels and qualities of upset when something bad happens, such as the early death of a friend, neighbor, classmate, or family member. If the memory does not cause an internal energetic disruption in the body, then there can be no emotional upset when we pay attention to that memory.
So, instead of trying the change the memories, or even the negative thoughts associated with them, EFT simply addresses and removes the “disrupted energy” component of a thought or a memory, allowing us to go forward in life without any of the negative emotion or pain from the original thought or memory.
Tapping does nothing to change the memory. In most instances, the details may remain exactly as they were - and sometimes we are able to remember details that used to be “too painful” to remember in the past. What tapping does is change the way we feel about negative events. Tapping can allow us to recall even severely traumatic events without being or feeling “re-traumatized.”
These memories become “something that happened,” rather than, “something which has destroyed my life.” EFT tapping gives us the ability to put traumatic memories of the past into the past where they belong. Just because mama used to slap me when I was a child (she didn’t know any better), doesn’t mean that I need to keep slapping myself 20, 30, or 40 years after she’s stopped. We can remember the past without being haunted, harassed, or burdened by it. For real.
For your own Good: Do not Dismiss this Gift.
EFT is not just another self-help tool. It represents a popular breakthrough in the human search for self-understanding and genuine personal freedom and self-mastery. It is not EFT itself which is important in this regard, but what EFT can help us to discover about the powers innate within us - It is a key to unlocking the emotional intelligence and radical personal resilience that can allow us to heal and transform ourselves and our circumstances. If you still have questions about what EFT is, and how it works (IF it works!?), you may call me, Victor Lee Lewis, for a free consultation. I also urge you to consider the work of other practitioners. It is good to get multiple perspectives on something so important as claiming authority over your won mind. One day, EFT may be known as one of many precious upstart inventions and discoveries that helped to save this beautiful and imperiled world that we love. It may be someday widely appreciated as a more a more profound discovery than the "discovery" of fire.