Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT)
- EFT is the healing and self-mastery tool of our new age
- EFT simply put
- Conventional medicine always lags behind
- The electrical aspect of our being is the key
- Clearing the charge corrects the issue
- Meridians are our electrical fuse box
- Improperly processed stress “shorts us out”
- Self-sabotage can be an electrical issue
- Cognitive shifts occur amazingly fast with EFT
- EFT uses what science knows about intention
- How I can help you as an EFT specialist
EFT is the healing and self-mastery tool of our new age
Imagine a process that could clear away the pain of deep emotional or physical trauma without ever having to talk about the issues that are causing you pain. Imagine getting rid of phobias without having to tough it out. Imagine resolving cravings and addictions, regardless of what they are, without having to depend on your willpower. Imagine being able to reduce or eliminate physical pain and clear up chronic conditions simply by the act of lightly tapping on certain parts of your body. And imagine using this very same process to increase your performance in sports, sales, public speaking or any other area related to your career.
I bet you’re thinking it sounds too simple to be true. Not only is it true, but this process was able to substantially clear up, in just a few sessions, the post traumatic stress disorder in Viet Nam veterans when over thirty years of taking medication and going to weekly intensive therapy hadn’t worked.
This consistently effective and incredibly simple process is called Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT). Its ability to clear up issues with speed and painlessness is unprecedented. EFT is an approach to healing and self-mastery that has gained attention from medical and personal performance professionals the world over, often succeeding when everything else failed. I can confirm this to be true because of results I continue to see in my clients -- results I often find astounding.
EFT, an evolution of Thought Field Therapy, was developed by Gary Craig, a personal performance coach in California and student of Dr. Roger Callahan. Callahan, a cognitive psychologist, discovered that negatively emotionally-charged thought created blockages in the energy flow through the acupuncture meridians, which in turn created emotional and physical disturbances. By directly treating these blockages, the emotional and physical disturbances disappeared. Callahan’s process was highly complicated, needing different tapping sequences for different emotional states or physical issues. Craig refined Callahan's process and made it user friendly -- easy enough for a child to learn, yet with the ability to handle far more issues successfully. As a psychotherapist and coach, I was drawn to EFT because of its simplicity and effectiveness. As an energetic healer and homeopath, I also know that when the human energy field is blocked, it can lead to emotional and physical illness, and EFT is the perfect compliment to energy healing and homeopathy.
The name EFT is a misnomer. Although its name makes it sound like its just for emotional issues -- and I suspect that Craig had initially thought that that was EFT’s major capacity -- since then EFT practitioners have found that it’s just as impressively effective for physical pain and illness. The reason that EFT is equally successful with physical and psychological issues is that all mental, emotional and physical pain and illness comes from the same source: a disruption in the human energetic field.
Conventional medicine always lags behind
Conventional medicine ignores the existence of our energetic field and asserts that everything about our psychological and physical functioning is related to our body chemistry. Pharmaceutical companies want you to believe that, but it’s not true. This is why medications have a dismal track record for healing anything. The real source of psychological and physical pain and illness, already discovered in the 1930s by Saxton Burr, a professor of anatomy at Yale University, is a disruption in our energetic field. Scientists noted that the human energy field is affected by, and also affects our body chemistry, thoughts and emotions. It surrounds and permeates our body, acts as a scaffolding for all our cells and is electrical in nature. It’s the electrical nature of our field that is intimately involved with and responsible for our well being.
The electrical aspect of our being is the key
If it weren’t for us having an electrical aspect to our being, diagnostic tests such as electrocardiograms and electroencephalograms could never be done. And anyone involved in sports knows how important the body’s electrolytes are. The sports drink industry makes millions because of it!
Physicists have determined that our cells function as oscillators. An oscillator is a vibrating source of energy that produces an electrical frequency. In essence, our cells act as infinitesimal oscillators that vibrate and emit specific electrical frequencies that dictate cellular division and repair. Emotional or physical trauma and illness can disrupt the cells in the body and hinder their ability to emit the proper signals. The affected cells’ frequency changes and they become “sick.” If we are basically healthy our healthy cells “reset” the frequency of the sick cells. They do this through a process called “entrainment.” This is similar to plucking a note on an instrument and having a neighboring instrument begin to resonate the same note without ever being touched. But, with each psychological and physical trauma or illness there is a residual amount of “sick” cells that do not successfully get converted into healthy functioning ones. As the proportion of dysfunctional cells in an area begin to predominate, they become the dominant frequency and entrain the cells around them to now vibrate at the sick frequency. In this way, any dysfunctional patterns get communicated cell to cell, creating an increased disruption to the normal electrical flow in the area. The disruption in the electrical flow in an area of cells eventually manifests in physical and emotional dis-ease. Unless the energetic flow is reestablished, the changes in the area become increasingly irreversible and pathology takes hold. This is how something acute becomes chronic.
Clearing the charge corrects the issue
Even though it took physicists to confirm this vibratory aspect of our being, you can hear the intuitive acknowledgment of that truth in phrases we commonly use such as, “I get bad vibes from that guy” or, “I feel we resonate on some level.” Scientists noticed that just prior to an illness or emotional disorder manifesting there was a change in the electrical charge in the energetic field. They concluded that if the field could be brought back to a normal charge, just as the person’s energetic field was changing, the pain and illness, as well as the emotional discomfort could be resolved more quickly. And, if it was corrected soon enough, it could probably be prevented altogether.
What science was just discovering in the twentieth century, ancient traditional healing therapies had proven long ago. Not only had traditional healers discovered the human energy field and its nature, they had also proven beyond a doubt that balancing the energy field resulted in faster healing of all types of issues.
Meridians are our electrical fuse box
The idea that parts of the body function as oscillators is ancient as well. Traditional healing practices have confirmed that the human energy field is a result of the workings of a hierarchy of oscillators, the largest of which roughly correlates to the nerve plexi of the body. These major energetic centers emit a dictating signal that is picked up by the organs in their vicinity. Each organ has its own oscillating center that picks up and transmits the dictated signal to the cells of that organ, and the nervous and circulatory system that feeds it. Next in the hierarchy is a network of tiny oscillators that are referred to in Chinese medicine as acupuncture points. It’s this network, which resembles the circuits in any electrical diagram, that connects the organs and parts of the body in a meshwork of interconnected bioelectrical circuitry known as meridians.
Despite the fact that ancient traditions have spoken about the physical energy field for centuries, it probably will take just as long for science to confirm another fact that healers know to be true: each human being has more than one energy field. Just as the physical energy field and its oscillators are a result of the chemical workings of the physical body, each person has a mental energetic field that results from the workings of their thoughts, an emotional energetic field that results from the workings of their emotions and a spiritual energetic field that results from the workings of their higher aspirations. Each of these energetic fields have their own oscillating centers. Just as the physical energetic field vibrates at a collective frequency, each of the other fields and their centers vibrate at their own collective frequencies. The acupuncture points and energetic circuits replicate in each field as well. And, just as the physical energetic field surrounds and permeates the physical body, the mental, emotional and spiritual fields and their centers interpenetrate and surround the physical form.
Improperly processed stress “shorts us out”
Any stimulus that asks us to respond to it is a “stressor.” A simple example of this would be walking outside into the winter air, causing us to grab our coat. If we didn't cover ourselves in response to the frigid air, we would quickly get very uncomfortable. The physical discomfort would be a signal to us that we had to do something about it to get our system back to normal. If we waited even longer our system would begin to shriek at us that we were freezing. All stressors work the same way. In this case we were able to consciously make a choice about our response. But most of our stressors don't come to our awareness, and if we had to think about each one and how to respond, we would have no time for living. So, we process our stressors and respond to them mostly unconsciously. Stressors that we properly process have no impact on our energy field, but improperly processed stress disrupts it and “shorts” it out. Our greatest source of improperly processed stress are the thoughts that we have that are connected to negative emotions. Beliefs of “I can’t,” “I’m not good enough,” “What’s the use?” and many others are things we say to ourselves daily, and these types of thoughts actually cause blocks in our energy system that create disruptions of the electrical flow in our meridians. Blocked meridians result in a variety of emotional and physical experiences that include fear, anger, self-doubt, self-criticism, depression, phobias, pain, muscle tension, illness and the anxiety which underlies all addictions.
Self-sabotage can be an electrical issue
Just as important is the fact that disrupting the energy flow hinders us from following through on our intentions. Remember all those New Years resolutions that get broken barely after you’ve made them? That’s because one part of you is going one way and another part is going the other way. One part of you says, “I’m going to cut out sugar, not smoke anymore, promise to get on that treadmill, won’t procrastinate,” and on and on. Instead, you find yourself with a candy bar in one hand, a cigarette in the other, not exercising and procrastinating yet again! The list can be endless in how we can sabotage ourselves.
Self-sabotaging behaviors come in all forms -- like the most noticeable examples just mentioned, to very subtle self-sabotaging feelings of doubt that put tension in your muscles just when you’re about to compete in a sport. Muscle tension also can create a greater potential for injury and longer recovery time.
Cognitive shifts occur amazingly fast with EFT
The process of using EFT involves lightly tapping on acupuncture points while at the same time tuning into a psychological or physical issue. By correcting the disrupted flow of energy while holding the issue in mind, the energy field’s flow related to that issue is restored. When using EFT to resolve traumas or any painful issue, there is an almost immediate cognitive shift that occurs. Realizations that often take months to come to using conventional psychotherapy often take only minutes using EFT -- all without the analysis or catharsis and frequent retraumatization that conventional therapies entail.
EFT uses what science knows about intention
One of the questions that’s frequently asked is how EFT works on emotional and physical issues, even though the areas that are tapped on the body are the same for all issues. Craig, not a healer but an engineer, whose interest in developing EFT was to simplify the Thought Field Therapy process, often says he doesn't know and it doesn’t matter. Most people accept that, but if you’re like me, you want a better understanding. Because of my experience as an energetic healer, and thanks to the discoveries made by quantum physics, I believe I’ve deduced how EFT works.
Years ago discussions about the “power of intention” and the findings of quantum physics would have been considered more like science fiction than fact. Now, discussions about how the mind actually works, how we create and affect our realities with our mind and how we cause ourselves emotional and physical pain with our thoughts is being spoken about on TV talk shows. Thanks to the work of quantum physicists, we know that everything that is in our world is made up of the same substance: consciousness. In fact, physical matter (including you) is mostly empty. The atoms that make up matter are spaced huge distances apart. Yet, solid things don't just fall into a pile of atoms -- they hold their form. The matrix that holds all of life in its context is actually consciousness. This explains the ability of people to do seemingly “impossible” things such as bending a spoon with their mind. When questioned, the person says that they just “will it” and it begins to bend. Or, as the famous line in the movie The Matrix says it: “There is no spoon.”
Up until now as you’ve been reading this you were probably not aware of your left big toe. But if I said to bring your awareness to that toe, you would take notice of it. The only thing that would have changed is where you put your consciousness. Intention is the deliberate use of your consciousness to choose to make something happen. By moving your attention to something, you bring it into your awareness. In the case of your toe, you would now be more aware of your toe. What is probably happening is that by using your intention to focus in on a physical issue, you cause the physical component of your energy field to come into your field of awareness. It’s like choosing a window on your computer -- you choose it and it becomes the foreground. If you are focusing on a physical problem you are having, you bring the physical energy field into your “foreground” and the blockages in the energy circuitry of the physical component of your energy field comes up with it. By tapping on the EFT acupuncture points while focusing on a specific physical issue, you clear the blockages, and the physical issue you were focusing on begins to resolve itself. If you are dealing with an emotional issue and you focus on the emotional problem, you bring the emotional component of your energetic system, complete with its blockages into your focus. By tapping on the very same points you are now clearing the blockages of the circuitry of the emotional energetic field. This holds true whether you are bringing a neutral thought to mind or whether you are bringing a spiritual issue to mind. The commonality is your mind and the fields are within you.
As many of us know, our emotions affect us physically. This is reflected in language we use daily in phrases like, “You’re a pain in my neck,” “I feel heartsick,” “You stabbed me in the back,” and many others. If the physical issue is emotionally-based, bringing to mind the physical problem and tapping on the points won’t resolve the issue. Instead, we then have to focus in on the emotional component of that physical problem. When we do that we bring the emotional component of the energy field up, and by clearing the blockages in that field we find that the physical issue resolves itself much more easily.
This is, I believe, how EFT works and why it has consistent success with such a great range of issues. Ultimately, as Craig says, it doesn't matter if we know how electricity works. We just know it does -- and that’s all we need.
How I can help you as an EFT specialist
As an EFT practitioner I have helped my clients with many issues, among them the painful emotions resulting from trauma and abuse, physical pain and chronic illnesses and issues related to career and personal performance. I’ll help you to easily release these energetic blocks and you’ll find yourself amazed at how quickly these issues seem to melt away, leaving you with a sense of greater clarity, inner freedom, renewed vigor and better health.
The issues that EFT has successfully addressed could easily fill many pages. I’m very leery of overstatement. I’m a nurse and facts matter to me. I’ve been in the healing arts and coaching field for a long time and have heard a lot of hoopla about this or that supplement or process, but I must admit that I’m continually amazed by EFT’s results.
If you’ve lost hope that you can be helped with your issue; if you have addictive behaviors you can’t seem to get a grip on; if you’re looking for a method to boost your confidence, get rid of your fears, help you make those cold calls or if you just want to lower your golf score, contact me. Using this wonderfully simple process I will help you move your life forward faster than you ever thought possible.
Please call me for a complementary half-hour phone or office consultation to talk about how my integrated approach using Emotional Freedom Techniques, Psychosynthesis, Interactive Guided Imagery, Homeopathy, Energetic Healing and coaching can assure that your life is filled with only the best of your possibilities.
