EFT: At First Touch

EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) was founded by Gary Craig.  Using a mixture of acupuncture points that stimulate the body’s meridians (or energy pathways) along with guided focus on a certain problem, one can liberate the bad feelings associated with a certain thought, event, or even physical aliment if it is psychosomatic in nature. The fundamental notion in EFT is that negative feelings are produced by a blockage in our energy system. The reason that this is important to understand is that we don’t just think a bad thought and feel bad.  There is actually an intermediary step: between thinking a negative thought and feeling bad, our body’s energy system overloads, or goes “ZZZZZZZZT” as Gary Craig would describe it.  It’s then that we start to have the feelings that are associated with our body feeling bad in that very specific way.

So we think of a thought, our body reacts, and then we interpret our body’s reaction as a feeling.  Because of this definition, if we were to make the body feel calm and balanced, and then thought of something that normally bothers us, our feedback to react on that thought (through our instantaneous assessment of our body’s reaction) would be totally changed! 

For example, when feeling really happy, slouch your body over and in a depressed voice say “I’m really happy”.  You will find that you actually don’t feel as happy as you were before, because that body posture in and of itself relays conflicting negative feelings back to your brain.  Try standing up tall and smiling and saying in a confident voice “I feel hopeless”, and again you will get a body response that conflicts with the way you should normally feel when you access hopeless thoughts.  Another classic example is pretend to smile, and the longer you do it, the more natural it will feel.

So by creating a shift in the body’s response to a thought, we are able to liberate the negative feelings that are normally produced by it.  EFT is such a powerful tool that is often used in war-stricken countries, to help people with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).  Gary Craig has also used EFT to relieve war veterans of PTSD symptoms, and the military is now researching new techniques that can help soldiers overcome these types of traumas.

Have you ever seen the TLC program I Can Make You Thin with Paul McKenna?  Did you notice when they were tapping certain parts of their body?  Well, Dr. McKenna was using EFT techniques to help various individuals overcome weight issues and eating disorders. 

EFT has become an invaluable tool in my everyday practice.  It enables me to work with individuals who truly have a desire to change but are too overwhelmed to even know where to begin. I look forward to sharing EFT’s wonders with you!  Contact me today.