Please note that this page is not meant to be a comprehensive
description of how to do EFT. It only covers a little EFT
theory and the tapping process. There is much more to EFT than in this
article. It was originally written for my clients to read before our
first session or before taking my workshops and teleclasses
in order to
save instruction time. However, it will give you a good start, and good
results are still possible even with this minimal understanding of EFT.
How EFT Works
We need to start by discussing the fundamental premise of EFT and
Energy Psychology:
"The
cause of all negative
emotions and beliefs is a disturbance in our body's energy system."
The energy system referred to above is the same energy system that is
used in acupuncture. Acupuncture talks about there being 14 energy
pathways in our bodies called energy
meridians. All of our negative
emotions, like anxiety, hurt, anger, shame and so on, are due to a
disturbance in one or more of these energy meridians.
These energy disturbances are linked to memories of painful events. It
is not the memory itself that is painful. Rather, when we think of the
memory, the associated energy disturbance gets activated,
which then causes the negative, painful emotions.
EFT works by intentionally activating an energy disturbance by thinking
about a painful memory or just feeling your feelings. While the energy disturbance is activated, you
tap with your fingertips on a standard set of 10 easily learned acupuncture points in
order to clear out the energy disturbance in the
affected meridians. As the disturbance gets cleared through
the tapping, you will experience your negative emotions actually drain
away. When the energy disturbance has been completely cleared, your
negative emotions will be gone. You can then think about the memory
with no painful emotional reaction! Problems in your life that resulted from the original experience will clear up as well.
It is essential that the energy disturbance remains activated the
whole time you are tapping in order to completely clear it.
Therefore, you have to keep your attention focused on the memory and
negative feelings while tapping until they are gone.
Getting distracted or thinking about two things at once can interfere
with EFT working.
Now that we have a basic understanding of how EFT works, we can learn
how to do the actual tapping procedure.
The Ten EFT
Tapping Points
The following diagram shows you the 10 points that we will use to clear
all energy disturbances with EFT. The ten points address all 14
meridians due to the fact that some of the points are located at the
intersection of two meridians. Since we are tapping on all meridians
when we do EFT, we don't have to worry about which meridians have the
disturbance in them. We are tapping on all of the meridians anyway.
See the tapping points diagram below. The names of the points starting
at the top of the head and going down the body are:
top of head, beginning of eyebrow, side of eye, under eye, under nose,
chin, collar bone, under arm, wrist, and karate chop
How to Tap on
the Points
- Top
of head:
Use all your fingers to "pat" the top of your head so that you don't
have to worry about the exact location of the point.
- All
the facial points:
Use two fingers on each point for the same reason.
- Collar
bone point:
The collar bone points are located just below the "knobs" at the end of
each collar bone. Use a flat fist just below your neck, where a man
would knot his tie, to get one or both of the collar bone points.
- Under
arm point:
This point in located on the side of your body a few inches below your
armpit. On a man it is level with the nipple. On a woman it is located
in the middle of her bra band. Use all four fingers running up and down
on the side of your body to tap on this point.
- Inside Wrist
point:
Notice the crease between your wrist and your hand on the inside of your wrist. The wrist point is
located three finger widths below the crease. Use your whole hand to
pat this point. (This point is not on the diagram.)
- Karate
chop point:
The last point on the pinky side of your hand is called the "karate
chop" point because it is the place on your hand you would hit if you
did a karate chop. You can tap this point any way that you like.
Note: For the points that are located on both sides of your body, it does not
matter which side you use. It's also okay to switch sides while tapping
or use both sides simultaneously. It will work any way that you do it. EFT is very forgiving that way.
The tapping on each point should be rapid little "thunks." I say little thunks
because you should tap hard enough to feel some percussion during each
tap but not hard enough that you will begin to feel tender after a lot
of tapping. You only need to tap each point around 4 to 6 times, though
more is not a problem. You won't need to count taps because you will be
saying a phrase at each point (see below). Just tap rapidly while
saying the phrase, and that will be enough taps.
The EFT
Tapping Procedure - The "EFT Basic Recipe"
- Select the problem that you would like to
address with EFT
Most
of our current emotional problems are due to painful experiences we had
growing up. Therefore, the most effective way to really heal current
problems in your life is to apply EFT to the painful memories that are
the
source of those problems. In addition, it is also possible to
apply EFT to relieve in-the-moment difficult emotions (e.g., anxiety,
anger, sadness), food and substance cravings, physical pain in the body
and many other problems.
- The "Reminder Phrase"
Come up with a short phrase used to refer to
the memory or problem, the more specific the better. We call this the "reminder" phrase because we will use it
during the tapping process to stay focused on the memory. One way to
create a phrase is to give your memory a title, like the title of a
movie. (For more information on creating effective reminder phrases,
see the last section, Picking Good Reminder Tapping Phrases, at the bottom of this page.)
- Rate the Pain or Intensity Level
Assess on a 0 to 10 scale how painful the
memory is or how intense the emotion or pain is, where 0 is no pain at all and 10 is the maximum pain you can
imagine. It is not important that this number be very accurate. It
will
only be used to generally track our progress, so don't worry about
being exact.
- Perform the Set-up Affirmation
You do the set-up affirmation by saying a self-acceptance affirmation
three times while tapping on the karate chop point. The self-acceptance
affirmation has the following form:
"Even though _________________, I deeply and profoundly accept myself."
The blank is filled in with the reminder phrase that you came up with
in step 2.
- The EFT Tapping Sequence
Perform two passes through all ten points:
Say
the reminder phrase while quickly tapping on each point. You will
say the reminder phrase once per point. This is just the reminder
phrase without the "even though" and "I deeply and profoundly accept
myself."
It is important to stay focused
on the memory or feelings while tapping on all of the points. When you have done
all ten points, you have completed one pass through the points. Repeat
this for a second pass.
The combination of the Set-up Affirmation and two passes through all of
the points is considered the EFT Basic Recipe.
- Reassess the Pain/Intensity Level
Reassess the pain level of the memory on a
scale of 0 to 10. If the tapping is working, your pain level should
come down around 1 - 3 points per basic recipe. It may come down even more.
- Perform Another EFT Basic Recipe Until Done
Repeat steps 4 through 6 to apply another EFT
basic recipe to the memory. However, if your pain level came down at
all, then we change the wording of the set-up affirmation and reminder
phrase a little bit to acknowledge the progress that has been made.
The set-up affirmation becomes:
"Even though I still have some _____________, I deeply and completely accept
myself."
The reminder phrase becomes:
"Remaining
__________________"
You keep applying the EFT Basic Recipe to your painful memory until the
pain level, including all of the associated emotions, goes down to
zero. At this point, that memory will be completely healed.
Using this minimal version of EFT, you will tend have a 30 - 50%
success rate. There is more to learn about EFT in order to get much better
success rates (mine is around 95% at this time). If the tapping process doesn't work for you after
several
tries, please
read my article, What to Do When
EFT Doesn't Seem To Work, which can help you get better results.
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Picking Effective EFT Tapping Phrases
When first learning EFT, one of the most common questions is "what
words do I use for the reminder (problem) phrase"? I know that this was
confusing for me when I was first learning.
I have written a separate article for understanding how to come up with good phrases to use for tapping that you can read here:
Using EFT to Heal Painful Memories
EFT is most effective when applied to memories of
specific events in your life. These early memories are the root causes
of our current day problems. The memory should be a short specific event whose
duration is measured in minutes.
The method first taught for working
with a memory is to give it a title, like a title of a movie. The title
should include what was upsetting about the memory.
For example, let's say that your father yelled at you when you were
crying with the classic "stop crying or I'll give you something to
really cry about" line. One possible title for this memory could be
"Daddy
yelled at me for crying." This will probably work well if you are in
touch with the painful feelings associated with that memory.
However, there is an approach that I find even more effective.
Often, painful memories include some key sentence spoken by the parent,
like in the example above. The sentence with the parent's tone of voice
and facial expression will usually capture what is most painful about
the memory. Unless the memory is already on the verge of being too
painful, it is often helpful to get in touch with what is most painful
about it so as to more thoroughly heal the experience.
In this case, I usually have my clients use the parent's actual
sentence as the tapping phrase. I will have my clients say the phrase
as if they were their parent and encourage them to use the same facial
expression and tone of voice.
"Even though 'stop crying or I'll give you something to really cry about',
I deeply and completely love and accept myself."
You would then repeat
"stop crying or I'll give you something to really cry about"
at each tapping point with the parent's tone of voice and facial
expression. This is a powerful way to more fully access one's feelings
while tapping and will result in a deeper healing experience.
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