Emotional Freedom Technique is a simple, easy to learn acupressure technique that helps calm your body and ease stress and anxiety. I learned about EFT when I was in high school and I have been using it ever since to navigate challenging jobs, relationships and experiences.
The founder of EFT, Gary Craig, stated that the cause of all negative emotions is a disruptions in the body’s energy system. This ties into eastern medicine beliefs and relates to the energy meridians that many believe flow through the body.
In the past 10 years, there has been extensive scientific research into the mechanisms behind tapping to try to explain in more scientific terms why it works.
To put it simply, EFT works! I have personally used this tool for nearly 15 years with myself and others and have seen the wonders that it can work for anxiety, stress, fear, sadness or any other negative emotion that we experience in response to the people or circumstances we encounter. I could make a list of the endless issues that I have seen EFT successfully address, but it wouldn’t be comprehensive enough. No matter what you are personally dealing with, please try EFT.
Here are the simple instructions:
- Select an issue to tap on (physical, emotional, or limiting belief). Make it as specific as possible by identifying specific parts of an event or specific emotions. You can tap on global issues (“I’m incompetent”) but specific issue tapping (“Friday during happy hour, the boss said, you’re the worst employee I’ve ever had.”) is more likely to result in lasting and permanent results.
- Establish a SUDS level (subjective units of distress). Assess your current level of distress or guess what it would be if you tuned in. 10 is extremely distressed, 0 is not distress.
- Setup. Repeat 3 times while continuously rubbing the sore spot or tapping the karate chop point. “Even though I have this _________ (name the issue being as specific as possible), I deeply and completely accept myself.” You can use a different acceptance statement such as “I’m ok.”
- Tapping Sequence. Tap about 7 times on each point while repeating the reminder phrase “this ______ (name the issue)” at each point.
- 9 Gamut Procedure (Optional). Continuously tap on the gamut point and keep your head still, while looking forward, and while performing these 9 actions:
Close your eyes.
Open your eyes.
Look hard down to the right.
Look hard down to the left.
Roll your eyes in a circle,
Roll your eyes in the other direction,
Hum two seconds of a song.
Count to five.
Hum a few seconds of a song. - Repeat the tapping sequence going through all 7 points.
Additional Rounds. Continue with more rounds, repeating steps 1 through 4 above, until the SUDS is zero. Remember to change the set up affirmation for each round (Even though I still have this ___) and the reminder phrase (this “remaining _______”) each time you do another round to reflect the fact that you are addressing what is left of the problem. This is different than what you started with and the setup needs to address the issue/problem as it is at the start of each new round.
