If I could have only one therapy or self-help tool, it would be EFT/Tapping. EFT/Tapping is a simple tool created by Stanford–trained engineer Gary Craig over 20 years ago. You can learn tapping in five minutes. With a little practice and training you can proficiently use EFT to deal with every emotional reaction.
Emotional Freedom Techniques (“EFT” or “tapping”) is a simple and powerful self-help method based on research showing that trauma contributes greatly to disease. Tapping uses elements of cognitive therapy and exposure therapy and combines them with acupressure, in the form of fingertip tapping on 12 acupuncture points. This technique can be learned in minutes and used to treat a myriad emotional and physical issues.
Like other seekers, I have attended countless workshops and devoured materials on self-growth, spirituality, energy work, and healing. The one tool I would not be without is tapping.
There are many ways you can use tapping to transform your life, starting now. Here are just a few:
1. Know thyself
Edgar Cayce counseled his students to know themselves and take personal responsibility for what happened in their lives. With EFT, we can do exactly that. By learning to understand and manage our emotions, we can take a more empowered perspective approach toward our lives and assume responsibility for ourselves. We can resolve old dysfunctional beliefs, patterns, habits and emotions and change our experiences by changing how we show up in your lives.
2. Update your subconscious beliefs
Edgar Cayce said the subconscious mind is a “storehouse of memory patterns” (Thurston, A Search for God, Book 1). He pointed out that most of the memory patterns in the subconscious mind are limiting and self-centered and contain patterns that avoid risk and resist change. Scientist, Bruce Lipton, suggests that the subconscious mind controls 95% of our life. Using EFT, we can follow emotional reactions back to the related limiting beliefs in the subconscious mind. Once the anchoring emotions are released, beliefs generally update automatically to more functional, positive ones. In EFT language, we call this a cognitive shift. These shifts accompany most effective tapping sessions.
3. Use your experiences as opportunities to grow
EFT is a great tool for spiritual growth. Cayce counseled that “we are here at this time because our eternal souls have need of certain experiences in the earth plane” and that experiences are not “problems” but “opportunities” for a particular development of a soul’s needs (Source: Cayce materials). By tapping on our difficult experiences, we can use these experiences as opportunities to grow and learn.
4. Have better relationships
Edgar Cayce taught that we need to accept other people as they are. This is hard to do when we have emotional reactions to their behaviors. We can tap and remove our reactive energy, thereby getting closer to a neutral response with others. This allows us to have more understanding and compassion. It also leads to more clarity about setting boundaries with others. One of my clients became reunited with her estranged father and his family after tapping through the anger and resentment she had held toward him for many years.
5. Clear daily emotional reactions, such as anxiety, frustration, and irritation
We all have emotional reactions. It’s part of being human. We often think of emotions as intrusive and unwanted. However, once we learn how they work and what to do with them, we can see that emotions are useful. By tapping away emotions as they arise, we keep our bodies free from stress and the accompanying elevated cortisol and adrenaline levels. We can keep our minds and hearts clear and we can more easily stay present and grounded.
6. Grow spiritually and find the master teacher within
We can gain a new understanding of the mind/body connection and how our thoughts and emotions affect our bodies. By clearing emotional reactions and related physical symptoms, we can shift the underlying limiting beliefs. Eliminating drama, pain, and negative thoughts with simple tapping exercises will pave the way to move up the emotional scale toward higher level emotions, like peace, calm, bliss and inspiration. Our spiritual self can expand, and we can connect with the master teacher within.
7. Achieve meditative states and improve your sleep
With EFT we can quiet the body and the mind by dealing with disturbances that interfere with achieving deep meditative and relaxed states.
8. Manage physical situations
According to Edgar Cayce, the physical body holds the entirety of our experience as a soul. We can use tapping to address physical symptoms by identifying and clearing emotional contributors to physical pain. I have supported clients through difficult health challenges by helping them reduce the fear, stress, panic, and other disruptive energies that their bodies are holding. I have used tapping to help clients through surgeries, childbirth, difficult diagnoses, and other challenging situations.
9. Deal with whatever life brings your way
I have helped clients in physical, financial, and emotional distress using the simple tapping approach of tuning in to the emotion and tapping gently on several prescribed points. “Mary,” once sad and childless, is now a mother. “Rose,” once single and desiring a spouse, is now married. “Marty,” once facing life-changing surgery, is fully recovered and has resumed a normal life. EFT can be used to improve any situation that is causing an emotional reaction.
10. Use tapping to support your affirmation practice
You can simply add tapping to your affirmation practice to calm the body and remove resistance to affirmations. For example, you can tap gently through the tapping points while stating the following affirmations that relate to Edgar Cayce’s A Search for God, Book 1.
Cooperation: I choose to be a channel of blessings.
Know Thyself: I choose to know the light inside myself.
What is my Ideal: I choose to see the highest truth in others?
Faith: I choose a pure, faithful and open heart.
Virtue/Understanding: I choose virtue and understanding.
Fellowship: I choose to remove all barriers to meaningful connections.
Patience: I choose patience.
We are witnessing heightened emotional reactions in our environment today. It is the perfect time to incorporate a tool into your life that will help you and your family navigate challenging situations. We are all having our own unique reactions to current events because we all have different backgrounds. Regardless of your personal experiences around politics, the pandemic, and other uncertainties, tapping can help you not only cope, but thrive.
Learning and reviewing EFT in a group setting is especially powerful. I hope you can join the upcoming EFT Training Workshop. We will meet on January 21, 22 and 23, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. You will learn everything you need to know about EFT!