Tapping Your Way to Freedom by Diana Charabin House, London, ON

EFT or Emotional Freedom Techniques in London are healing modalities focused on the meridian system. The most commonly used and popular technique that people refer to around EFT is “tapping” or EFT tapping.

My friend Natalie Macneil, from She Takes on the World (http://www.shetakesontheworld.com), uses EFT with her coaching clients at retreats to help them resolve psychological blocks that are holdings them back in their businesses or careers. She was my first exposure to the technique, and she did some tapping with a group of us one evening where I saw people have significant shifts that lead to big changes in how they were living their lives. My intrigue around EFT led me and my husband to take the EFT level 1 and level 2 courses to learn more.

So what is EFT?

EFT uses the meridian system which is commonly referred to in Chinese medicine and is also called the channel network. The meridians are energy highways where Qi (or energy) flow through the body. The meridians are also used in Tai Chi and qigong – other healing arts. There are 12 main meridians and each meridian has a yin yang pair.

EFT practitioners work with the meridians like doing acupuncture except without the actual needles. EFT uses the acupuncture points that are closest to the skin that do not require needles but rather can be effectively tapped on with your fingers.

You can tap on any event that you wish you could have skipped in your life, anything that is bothering you, as well as physical symptoms, traumas, phobias, addictions or anything associated with negative emotions or memories. EFT is a very empowering tool that you can use on yourself and your friends and family to help release any blockages or unwanted emotions quickly and easily.

How it came to be:

EFT was adapted by Gary Craig from Dr. Roger Callahan’s Thought Field Therapy often referred to as TFT. Dr. Callahan was the original founder of tapping on meridians and famously cured a patient named Mary of intense water phobia. Dr. Callahan worked with this patient for over a year with little progress until he had the idea to get her to tap under her eye while thinking of her fear of water. The story goes that Mary ran outside and jumped in the pool and was cured.

Gary Craig, a master in Neuro Linguistic Programming became a student of Dr. Callahan and began to simplify the technique for ease of use and effectiveness. While TFT uses muscle testing, Gary removed this element due to concerns with accuracy. You can learn more about Gary Craig on his website www.emofree.com .

So how does EFT work?

By tapping on the meridians we focus our attention inwards and bring emotions and circumstances to the forefront. The intention of the tapping is to heal the body, mind and spirit by releasing the stuck emotion forever.

Tapping works with the subconscious mind which is linked to emotions. We then clear away the blocks that have corresponding impact to the body. Essentially during tapping, emotions are given the attention rather than being suppressed which gives them the opportunity to be cleared.

The things you need in basic EFT are:

1. What is the event? The more specific the better.

2. What is the emotion? Better to work with one emotion at a time.

3. Where do you feel it in your body?

4. What is the SUDS level (subjective units of distress from 1-10)

As an example, if someone was bothered by something their co-worker said the previous week, for instance “You didn’t do a good job with that report.” That would be the event. The emotion might be “frustration, sadness, anger etc.” They might feel it in their chest and the SUDS level would be a number between 1 and 10 that rates how much of the emotion they feel right now thinking about the event.

A basic set up statement would look like this:

“Even though I feel frustration about what my co-worker said last week, and I feel it in my chest, I deeply and completely accept myself.” This would be repeated three times while tapping on the side of hand point and then tapping through the other points.

The goal is to get the SUDS level down to a 0 before moving on to another event.

The different points that are tapped on are, as follows:

1. Side of hand
2. Top of the head
3. Top of eyebrows
4. Side of eye
5. Under Eye
6. Under Nose
7. Chin
8. Collarbone
9. Under Arm

Here is a great link to the video of EFT founder Gary Craig showing the basic recipe of EFT as well as all of the EFT tapping points. https://youtu.be/1wG2FA4vfLQ

Borrowing benefits

One of the interesting things about EFT is that if you are in a group setting and observing someone receiving an EFT treatment or administering a treatment there are borrowed benefits. In group EFT sessions, observers are asked to tap along with the person working through their issues. But it has been found that even just watching has benefits for the observer. This has been proven in multiple studies by Jack Rowe, PhD, who was a professor at Texas A&M where the mental health of participants of an EFT workshop had dramatically improved afterwards.

EFT and Chiropractic?

EFT is a complementary adjunct to chiropractic care, and once learned can be practiced at home, so as to enhance the effects of a chiropractic adjustment.

Personal Peace Procedure

If you dive into the world of EFT we highly recommend doing the Personal Peace Procedure. This entails writing down at least 100 events from your life that you wish you could have skipped and tapping your way through these one day (or a few at a time) until you have cleared them all. This is a very powerful way to clear yourself of emotions that have been holding you back.

Matrix Imprinting

A progression of EFT that has been gaining a lot of popularity is Matrix Imprinting with EFT. This technique was created by EFT master Karl Dawson. According to Alina Frank, it is effective for emotional and physical issues as well as helping achieve goals and dreams while dealing with core issues. Whereas EFT focuses on discharging the charge of a past event, matrix reimprinting focuses on transforming the limiting beliefs. It is used for addictions, phobias, negative beliefs, birth traumas and relationship issues.

Want to learn more?

Although there is a lot on the internet about EFT, caution should be taken with using google as your main resource and training for this technique. If you do use google for EFT, find videos of an EFT practitioner tapping along with a student as these are usually the most professional and high quality sessions rather than youtube videos where anyone has posted what they think a session should look like.

Although there are a lot of resources online with regards to EFT, I recommend going through the resources of AAMET (www.aametinternational.org) or EFT Universe (www.eftuniverse.com)

We highly recommend working with a licensed EFT practioner (There is a directory of practioners here: http://thetappingsolution.com/eft-practitioners/) or taking an EFT level 1 course before you start working on yourself. We highly recommend Alina Frank and Craig Weiner from EFT Tapping Training (http://www.efttappingtraining.com) but you should be in good hands with any AAMET or EFT Universe certified training.