The following articles by Jo are available on the EFT Universe website:

Multiple Chemical and Food Sensitivities Healed

Common Sense uses of EFT to clear Food Sensitivities

Enhancing the EFT Setup Statement

Tips for when having difficulty accessing feelings

Using EFT when a specific word triggers you

EFT, CFS & Autoimmune Disorders

What to do when you can't find your own specific issues

 

For comprehensive details on using EFT, it is recommended that you download and print and bind the free book You CAN Heal with EFT to refer to over time as you use EFT more and more.

 

For additional EFT articles, select from the list below.

 

 

Note: You can also find articles on EFT by various guest writers here and stories of personal healing journeys by guest writers, some of which include tips on using EFT here. There are also general healing articles that may be of interest to you on the General Articles tab.

 

So if you are looking for a simple way to deal with ongoing anxiety check out the information on SET, a very simple self help method that can work very rapidly and very effectively for some people.

 

I have been experimenting with some ideas that EFT expert Silvia Hartmann wrote about in a recent EFT Newsletter, and have found this to be very effective. Silvia talks about the idea of proxy tapping for our past selves, and healing across the different time periods of our early life. You can read the Silvia’s article on the emofree site.

A really powerful use for this that I have discovered is working with really key writing on our walls (key messages we took on board that dictate how we behave now). I recently had something happen that caused me to worry intensely about something, and when I felt the worry as tightness in my chest I realised that I really needed to sit down and do something about it. I’ve been trying to break my worry pattern for years and while it has improved a lot, the tightness was letting me know I had some way to go!

I started by pulling out a copy of Silvia’s article, and thinking about events that could have resulted in writing on my walls to do with worry in the different time periods she suggests (pre-birth, birth, first 6 months, 6 months to 2 years, 2 to 6 years), and came up with the following list (note that the items on the list are of course based on my own perception as I grew up, and may bear little resemblance to reality in some cases. When we are working with healing, it’s our perceptions that matter, not what was in actual fact the case):

• My mother was worried that some medication she took while pregnant with me would affect me
• My mother was quite isolated during the pregnancy and my early years, and had a lot of worries
• As a first time Mum, my mother was probably worried about the birth
• I was born two weeks late and there may have been a link with that and being worried about the birth
• I was born very stressed and malnourished with the umbilical cord wrapped three times around my neck
• I was taught by my mother’s actions that the natural first response to anything upsetting was to worry

I also made a list of conclusions I had drawn about worry as a result of my upbringing and came up with:

• I considered my parents to be very responsible people
• My parents first response to any uncertainty was to worry
• Therefore “Responsible people worry, that’s what they do”

I then used another method I sometimes use to flush out additional writing on the walls – thinking about how a person without your writing on the walls handles a similar situation. This led to me thinking about how my partner was handling the same situation, and flushed out the writing on the walls that:

• It’s irresponsible not to worry! (While intellectually I was appalled at my conclusion, emotionally I was convinced that I was in the right and my partner was indeed being completely irresponsible trusting that it would all work out in the end!)

I decided to combine the sort of tapping and phrases that Silvia suggested in her article, with doing the 9 gamut process very slowly for each trauma, something else I have been experimenting with and finding very powerful. Sometimes I type up the starting statements that I am going to tap on, in order to allow myself to just “follow along”instead of having to think up the words as I’m tapping. This is the process I mapped out:

1. Start by tapping on the top of the head and talking to the baby and young child inside of me to let them know what I would be doing, and thanking the parts of me who have been keeping me worrying to ensure that I’m a responsible person. (To start with acceptance and make sure all parts of me realised this was a team thing, rather than something I was trying to “get rid of.”)

2. Even though this baby was bathed in worry while in the womb, from when her Mum was worried about the affect on her of the medication she was taking for a short time,from all the things her Mum worried about while pregnant with her, I now deeply and profoundly love and accept and heal this baby. (Setup on karate point then rambling through the points with the various parts.)

3. 9 Gamut process for worry in the womb

4. Tapping through all points with the phrase “I now deeply and completely HEAL this baby of all effects of worry sustained while in the womb”

5. Even though this baby was affected by all her Mum’s worries leading up to, during and after the birth, and was so worried about being born that she was two weeks late, I now deeply and profoundly love and accept and heal this baby. (+ Rambling through the points including statements like “born into worry and stress”)

6. 9 Gamut process for worry about being born and associating life with worry because I was born into worry and stress

7. Tapping through all the points with the phrase “I now deeply and completely HEAL this baby of all the effects of worry sustained leading up to, during and after her birth.”

8. Even though this child was taught to worry and not to trust, I now deeply and profoundly love and encourage this child to trust(+ rambling through points)

9. 9 Gamut process for being taught to worry as first response

10. Tapping through all the points with “I now deeply and completely HEAL this baby of all effects of being taught to worry as the first response to anything upsetting and let her know that it’s safe to trust.”

11. Even though this child was taught that it is responsible to worry, I now deeply and profoundly love and encourage this child to know that trusting in the responsible choice. (+ Rambling through points)

12. Tapping through all the points with “I now deeply and completely HEAL this baby and this little girl of all the effects of being taught to worry as the first response to anything upsetting and let her know that the responsible choice is to trust.”

13. Even though as a baby and a child I was taught that responsible people worry, I now choose to know that the responsible choice is to trust. (Tapped this with three rounds: 1 - Taught that responsible people worry, 2 - The responsible choice is to trust, 3 - Alternating the two

14. 9 Gamut process for all remaining effects of being taught to worry

As I tapped the following additional things came to mind which I addressed as they came up:

• My mother was my protector and her response to anything upsetting was to worry, so I associated worry with protection.There was writing on my wall that said that the best way to protect myself from something was to worry.
• There was a part of me that felt it was not safe to stop worrying – I had pain all up the back of my neck that I needed to tap on before I could continue.
• I was born into worry and had a belief that you are only really alive if you are worrying about something.
• I realised that the writing on the walls was more specific than I had first thought, and that it was that the natural response to uncertainty was to worry.
• I was unable to tap on the part that it’s safe to trust and had to take a detour and deal with early events that had resulted in me taking on the belief that trusting someone results in you getting hurt. There were two key events that came up with this.

By the time I had finished half of this tapping I had burped and yawned so much,and accessed so many previously unknown feelings that I had to stop for the day. By this time I had completely stopped worrying about the previously “major” situation, and had realised that my partner’s approach was the responsible one.The following day I finished off the tapping to be sure.

While I won’t know whether or not this has really made a dent in my lifelong tendency to worry for a while, I know that I cleared a heck of a lot of writing from my walls that I didn’t even know I had and I have had an number of occasions since where I would normally have worried, which haven’t resulted in any worrying at all. I was also totally at peace with the situation that had caused so much worry that my chest had been tight, and surprise, surprise – it resolved itself the following day and it turned out my partner’s approach was the only sensible option! I have also had a marked absence of the voice in my head who is usually giving a running commentary on things to worry about which has taken me rather by surprise!

I seriously encourage anyone who is dealing with core writing on the walls to consider using the tapping in this way that Silvia suggests, and incorporating a slow and mindful version of the 9 gamut process each step of the way if it feels supportive to you. This sort of tapping on early messages is so incredibly powerful, it’s really getting to the root of so many of our current issues. If you would like to try this, here is a summary of how you could approach it:

1. Read Silvia Hartmann’s article to get an overview of the approach.

2. Brainstorm events that could have resulted in the writing on your walls for each of the age groups: (pre-birth, birth, first 6 months, 6 months to 2 years, 2 to 6 years)

3. Write down a list of conclusions that you may have formed about the topic you are working on as a result of your upbringing. If you would like to, also consider the view point of someone who doesn’t share the writing on your walls to see if you can find more writing on your walls to list down.

4. Create a tapping script to start the process, with:

a. Set an intention while tapping on the top of your head. Let the baby and young you know what you are doing. Tap to thank the part of you that drives the behaviour for doing what it has been to help you and invite it to work with you.

b. For each setup statement also create the words to ramble through with, note that you will do the 9 gamut process and use Silvia’s statement “I now deeply and completely HEAL this baby/young child of all effects of ….”

c. Finish with a Choices Statement that reflects where you would like to be now with the issue.

5. Incorporate new items that come to mind into the tapping as you tap through the script. If more specific thoughts come to mind, modify the script to also incorporate them.

6. If there is any blame or resentment for you with those who contributed to the writing on the walls, tap to clear these as well as this can reveal other issues standing between you and peace.

7. Enjoy your new found freedom from the lifelong writing on your walls!

 

The Movie Technique in EFT is an incredibly powerful one but at first glance some people seem to be put off it, either thinking that it’s too simple to work or too complicated to use! This tool is too good not to be in every DIY EFT’ers toolkit, so this article examines some of the common misunderstandings with the Movie Technique and gives some suggestions for dealing with it when it’s not working the way it should.

The instructions for this technique are deceptively simple:

1. Create a short movie of the event, run it through in your mind and give it a title and assess the intensity on the SUDs scale.

2. Tap on the Karate Point with “Even though I have this movie I deeply and completely love and accept myself.” (x3) then tap through all the points with “this movie.”

3. Re-run the movie in your mind without tapping and see if anything has changed and re-assess the intensity on the SUDs scale.

4. If the intensity is anything above zero, repeat steps 2 – 4 until the intensity is down to a zero.

In practice however people often have questions each step of the way.

It’s too simple to work

Some people feel that to simply pick one tiny part of their problems and tap on that is to exclude so much that it can’t possibly be useful. Whenever we use a new technique it can be helpful to have a bit of an understanding of how it works, so we can entertain the idea that as simple as it is it could be very useful in helping us to heal.

When we experience something traumatic our brain locks in all the details of what happened. Our brain already knows what needs to be healed in order to release the trauma of the event. When we create a movie and give it a title we are essentially running through the event and then say to the brain “Ok, when I say I’m referring to everything that we just watched.” Then when we tap simply with the title of the movie the brain clears all the details that were included in the movie. This is why this technique has helped so many people to clear so much trauma so quickly – the brain has all the details and in far finer detail than we can verbalise. Instead of simply tapping on the aspects that we consciously remember, when we use the Movie Technique we are clearing all the aspects, whether we know about them or not. I believe that this is what makes this technique so powerful.

Step One – Creating the Movie

When we create the movie it is very important to keep it short (at the very most it should take no more than 2 minutes to run and usually it can simply be a few seconds). This ensures that we are being very specific, which is how EFT works best. In most cases there are only one or two or maybe three real spikes in intensity in an event, so if we keep the movie to one spike of intensity (which is why we keep it short) we are sure that we are being specific. Some people get caught up in trying to get an accurate title for the movie – it’s important to remember that you aren’t going for an Emmy award, the title is simply a short phrase that you are giving to your brain that represents the visual movie you just ran.

When assessing the intensity of the movie, it helps to really tune in to what you feel in your body as you run the movie, as this helps you to monitor the changes in intensity after tapping through each round. If you can, getting a rating on the 0 – 10 scale is very helpful but if you find that it is easier to simply go on gut feeling and the feelings in your body as to when you are done, that works too.

It is very important to note that if viewing the movie in your mind is likely to be traumatic for you, it is better to start with using The Tearless Trauma Technique to bring down the intensity of the movie before viewing it. It is not only unnecessary to go through the trauma in a way that is upsetting for you, but is also counterproductive as it further traumatises you. Using the Tearless Trauma Technique is far more supportive in these circumstances.

Step Two – Tapping

With this step you simply follow the instructions to the letter. Some people feel that they have to be creative and narrate the movie as they tap or find explanations for how they felt etc. This is not only unnecessary but can also detract from the power of the technique – the technique works so well because it takes advantage of the fact that the brain has stored all the details and knows what to work on. When you tap simply with the movie title you are sending a powerful message to your brain that you want to clear all trauma associated with that event. If we talk our way through the movie as we are tapping it can be effective, but it’s not using the Movie Technique! If you want to tap into the power of this technique, simply tap through each point with “this movie”. The only time you need to use specific details is if you keep re-running the movie and finding you get stuck on one point. See discussion further on in this article if this is happening for you.

Step Three - Re-assess intensity

For this step you DO NOT tap, and instead simply close your eyes and view the movie again. Note if there have been any changes at all, and if any particular details are more or less prominent. Re-assess on the SUDs scale and note any changes in the feelings in your body as you view the movie.

Step Four - Repeat until intensity is at a zero

For this step you simply keep tapping in the same way, however you use the words “this remaining movie”. If you are finding that the intensity level isn’t dropping or is only coming down in very small increments it could be an indication that there is a part of you that is reluctant to let the trauma of the event go because it perceives letting it go to be dangerous for you. This can happen because a part of us stays frozen at the time of the event and so has a limited perspective on what is beneficial for you and what isn’t. If the intensity just isn’t coming down, try doing a couple of rounds through using the following phrases as a guideline (if more suitable phrases come to mind for you, or more specific phrases, use them instead):

Karate Point:

• Even though a part of me is afraid to let the trauma of go, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
• Even though a part of me feels it won’t be safe for me to let the trauma of go, I …
• Even though a part of me isn’t ready to let go for whatever reason, I ….

Through the points:

• Part of me is afraid to let go
• Perhaps it feels it isn’t safe for me to let it go
• Part of me isn’t ready to let go
• It doesn’t feel safe to let all of this go
• I thank this part for protecting me
• And doing all it can to keep me safe
• I honour this part for all it’s doing
• To ensure that I’m OK
• And I ask this part to consider
• Working with me to find a way
• To let go
• Because holding onto it is causing me pressure
• And I’ll be safe and protected once this trauma is cleared
• Thank you for working with me
• To help me let this go
• I’m ready to let this go

If this tapping doesn’t result in the intensity coming down, you may also want to explore the following themes:

• Even though a part of me feels I don’t deserve to let this trauma go, I…
• Even though a part of me doesn’t believe it’s possible to let this trauma go, I …
• Even though I will feel guilty if I let this trauma go, I ….
• Even though I won’t be able to blame this trauma when things aren’t going well in my life if I let this go, I …
• Even though I’m just not ready to let this go yet, I …
• Even if I never let this go, I …

If as you re-run the movie you keep finding yourself locked onto one specific detail, it can be supportive to do a few rounds with the Basic EFT Recipe to clear that particular aspect and any associated emotions, then go back to working with the movie. If you are stuck on one point of the movie it will be an indication that this aspect requires further exploration.

Some of the ways people find the movie changing as the intensity comes down are:

• The details that were sharp and clear become more vague or fuzzy
• The worst part of the movie no longer seems to even feature in the movie
• They find that they go from being in the movie to watching it as if it was happening to someone else
• It simply becomes one of many memories that don’t have an emotional charge
• It goes from colour to black and white, or from having a loud sound track to none at all

When working with a major trauma it is also common for people to first only be able to view the very start of the movie, then each time they check back in to it they move a little further through the event, and they keep doing this until they have cleared the entire event.

As with all of EFT it is very important to test the event you are working on well when you believe that you are at a zero intensity. Run the movie in as vivid detail as possible and really try to get the intensity up to be sure that you are clear of it before concluding that you are finished with tapping on this particular event.

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Many people have turned major trauma around using this technique and many of them were initially very sceptical, thinking it wasn’t possible to clear such major trauma so quickly and relatively easily. Some people are afraid that they have so many traumatic memories that they will have to spend the rest of their lives tapping to clear them. It’s important here to understand what is known with EFT as “The Generalisation Effect.” If you aren’t aware of this important concept with EFT, download a free copy of the book You CAN Heal with EFT and read the section entitled “The Generalisation Effect and the Table Top”.

EFT practitioners regularly witness the amazement of someone they have introduced this technique to suddenly finding that something that has been so traumatic for them for so long no longer seems to be hooking their energy. Fortunately this powerful technique doesn’t require a practitioner to assist you unless you really want to work with someone, as your brain takes care of the details for you with the movie and you don’t even need to think of what to say. If you haven’t given it a go yet, I seriously recommend trying it. This technique has proven to be very powerful time and time again.

 

When we meet someone we are very attracted to and want to have a romantic relationship with, we take the time to get to know them. We listen to their stories and spend time finding out what is important to them. We can make the choice to learn how to love ourselves unconditionally and do the same thing for all parts inside of us. We can honour them by spending time finding out how they feel and what is important to them. We can honour them by listening. And in doing so we are honouring ourselves and living unconditional love, the greatest healer of all.

 

* Basic Instructions and Benefits written by Karl Dawson

Once you have spent some time with the above resources, you might find something helpful in your learning of Matrix Reimprinting in the article Tips for Using Matrix Reimprinting.

 

EFT has given me the freedom of great health after nearly two decades of chronic illness. Without that freedom I couldn’t have even considered undertaking something like fire fighting training. And now it’s enabling me to deal with the issues that come up during the training. If there’s something you’d like to be able to do but are afraid to try, tap. Be open to the tapping taking you in a direction you would never have suspected (like your birth for example) and you will tap your way to a freedom you would never have thought possible.

 

In summary, Matrix Reimprinting, like standard EFT, is a rather forgiving technique, and we each find our own ways of working with it. The important things to remember are that the ECHO is the client, always respect the ECHO, and be persistent if necessary. While this sort of healing can seem very strange to some people, the latest scientific findings of scientists like Bruce Lipton are showing time and time again that the information that is held in our energy fields is so powerful and it IS creating our lives now. When we work with Matrix Reimprinting and our imagination, we are directly changing the information held in our field, and that flows through to our physical and mental life now. Done with respect, this sort of healing truly moves mountains in our lives!

To learn more about Matrix Reimprinting, you can listen to another great interview of Karl Dawson on the EFT World Magazine page. There is also an interesting article by Karl explaining the science behind Matrix Reimprinting.

 

This list of questions is not conclusive, there are many different questions you can ask yourself to ascertain whether or not it would be best to continue working with your current practitioner or finding a new one. If you are not sure whether you are working with the best practitioner for you, simply use the questions above as a way to explore how you feel and come to your own conclusion as to the best way forward.

 

There are several things that are important to understand when dealing with chronic anxiety. Without an understanding of these elements, our approach can lead to more upset and fail to help us to heal with EFT. This article addresses some of the most important aspects of working with anxiety.

1. The need for support

Chronic anxiety by its very nature suggests that a part of us feels afraid and unsafe. Anxiety is a response to not feeling safe feeling our feelings. It is a valid response due to things that have happened to us in the past. It is very important for us to honour that a part of us doesn’t feel safe and realise that we need to proceed with gentleness, compassion, patience and empathy. This is not always easy to do on our own, and is often a lot easier with the support of an experienced practitioner. For more on this, see EFT practitioner Marian Mill’s article Forget Stress It is Trauma that Kills, which gives a good explanation of why we often need support in our healing process.

If you are dealing with chronic anxiety, please seriously consider doing a few sessions with a practitioner who is experienced with dealing successfully with anxiety (this is a specialised area, one that not all EFT practitioners, no matter how experienced they are, are equipped to deal with.) If you feel that this sort of support isn’t possible for any reason, I strongly suggest spending some time tapping on your beliefs around this and seeing if you can’t find a creative way to have a session with an experienced practitioner. It could make life a lot easier for you. Some practitioners offer a free first session so that you can find out whether their approach would be supportive for you, so consider exploring this option as a way to get started.

If you, for whatever reason, feel you aren’t able or don’t want to work with a practitioner, you will need to become more informed and learn ways to take care of yourself throughout the healing process. One way to assist is to ask a trusted friend if they will sit with you as you tap, this can make a big difference in us being able to feel safe enough to tune in to the issues. Note that we often feel safe enough to do the tapping on our own, and yet hit blocks in clearing issues when we do so. This is because the feeling of being unsafe is often at a subconscious level – we are often completely unaware of how a part of us feels at a conscious level. Another possibility is to find a tapping buddy, there is a free online resource that enables you to do this at Tapping Buddies.

2. Anxiety as a form of protection

It is very important to understand that anxiety is serving a valuable purpose for you, and simply trying to get rid of the anxiety is likely to only make things more difficult for you. If we suffer from chronic anxiety it means that we have experienced things in the past that were simply too big for us to process, and so a part of us holds the feelings for us in order to protect us from being overwhelmed by them. It is very common for people with chronic anxiety to be unable to access any feelings, even around what were very traumatic events, and this lack of ability to feel often upsets people when they are new to EFT. It is so important to understand that the lack of feeling is a form of protection and we need to do EFT in a way that honours the need for protection.

Here is an analogy that can aid in understanding this important concept. Imagine that a person has gone through some traumatic events, and felt totally unsupported as a child. This person has a friend who loves them very much and wants to do all they can to protect them. This loyal friend will stand between the person and anyone or anything that could upset them, ensuring that their friend is safe and protected. If someone wanted to help them and simply tried to get rid of the friend who had been protecting them all this time, all that would happen is the person would become even more afraid and anxious as their only form of support is taken away from them.

This is exactly what happens with EFT if we approach it with the attitude that we just want to tap away all our anxiety. While this is an incredibly tempting approach when we are hurting and afraid and so want to heal, it is totally counterproductive. It is far more supportive to gently start supporting the loyal friend and gaining its trust, before trying to approach the person and deal with the core issues that are causing the anxiety. When we are working with EFT on our own, this means spending time doing very gentle tapping to let the part of us that is protecting us from feeling know that it is safe now. We need to gain the trust of that part of us, before we start trying to address the source of our anxiety. Seeing this part of us as a loyal friend who loves us and is working hard to protect us can result in a major shift in attitude and approach, and help to open doors that are simply slammed in our face if we approach that part of us as an enemy that we want to get rid of.

This is the area where it is often so much easier with the support of an experienced practitioner. However if you are choosing to work on your own, you will need to find ways to have the patience and compassion necessary to hear how the parts inside you feel, before going on to address the source of your chronic anxiety. Here are some resources and ideas that may help you with this:

Listening to our emotions

It is important to understand that emotions are messengers. Once we truly hear the message of it the emotion is able to move through (emotion = energy in motion). But if we don't hear the message, the emotion gets louder and louder. Compare it to hunger. You start to feel hunger pangs, they get stronger and then you eat and they go away. The body has an amazing way of letting us know what is going on. It does the same with all emotions as it does with hunger - it draws your attention to something that really does requires your attention. If sadness comes up for example, and we sit with it and hear it and hear the message it has for us, then the sadness dissipates, just like our hunger. If however we don't hear the message, it will get louder and louder to attract our attention. When we feel anxious, it is likely that if we tune in to our body we will feel that anxiety physically somewhere in our body. If we can tune in to this feeling in our body and sit with it, giving it the time to share its message, we can really make a big difference with our approach with EFT.

When you are feeling anxious try stopping tapping for a bit, and sitting down and closing your eyes and gently placing your hand over the physical feeling that arises in your body when you feel anxious (there may be more than one place that you need to work through this process with). Now talk to that place in you like you would a frightened child. Gently say hello and let it know that you hear that it's hurting and you are wondering if it would be OK for you to just sit quietly with it for a while to see if you can understand how it feels. You may be surprised at what it reveals to you, you may have memories come up or beliefs or emotions, whatever comes up see if you can stay with it with empathy and then ask that place inside you if it would like to feel better. When it's ready you can tap on the emotions/memories etc, and use language linking it to the physical sensation in your body.

Remember here that attitude is everything. Imagine wanting to talk with someone who is shy and hiding in their house. If you bang on their door and demand entry and keep banging and expecting them to come out and talk, you may frighten them so much they won't open the door. If instead you let them know you are there and that you'd really like to get to know them, and patiently sit outside periodically letting them know you are still there, in time they may feel safe enough to open the door a little. If they do, it's best not to jam your foot in it and immediately demand answers, and definitely not a good idea to judge anything they say or tell them they are silly for feeling as they are. Tread carefully with empathy and you may find a friend inside yourself with some answers to what you would benefit from tapping on.

Sometimes when we try this approach we have all sorts of thoughts like “this is a waste of time”, “let’s just get on with the tapping”, “I can’t do this” etc. If this happens for you, simply acknowledge those thoughts and if they are really persistent you may need to sit with them and how they feel in your body before coming back to exploring the emotion. While this may seem a slow process, it is helping us to build the foundation without which we may be unable to heal.

Talking to the frightened parts inside us

Sometimes no matter how long we patiently listen, the message still isn’t accessible to us. When this happens a different approach is needed. Betty Moore-Hafter’s free teleclass and supporting booklet “Creative Language with EFT” are really great resources to help us to learn new ways of talking to the frightened parts inside us. You can download these fantastic resources from www.creativeeft.com. In the teleclass and booklet, Betty gives lots of different ways that we can use language to address our subconscious. This is very powerful healing. To see how powerful this can be in practice and understand more about this, read Healing my 15 year old self – she just needed to be acknowledged on Betty’s website.

3. The source of anxiety

For chronic anxiety it is unlikely that the cause of it will be found in current life circumstances. Most practitioners find that anxiety has its roots very early in life, sometimes our time in the womb (as a fetus we share our blood with our mother through the umbilical cord and experience all the same chemical reactions as she does, so if she is going through something traumatic or sad, we will feel all those feelings too), a traumatic birth, or events in the first 6 or 7 years.

What we think of as traumatic as an adult often results in many events that are traumatic to a fetus/newborn/young child being overlooked as possible contributors to our anxiety. For example people often think that there was nothing traumatic in their birth, but on further investigation it is found that due to the way we, as a newborn baby, perceived things, something that was very traumatic happened to us. An example of this was with a woman I was supporting with EFT who was sure that she hadn’t experienced anything traumatic during her birth. She mentioned that when she was 24 hours old her mother was taken into intensive care, but her grandmother stayed with her the whole time so it wasn’t traumatic. I invited her to consider tapping with me on it anyway and although she was sure it wouldn’t help, when we did tap all sorts of emotion and fear came up and she realised that at 24 hours old she thought that her mother had died and was never coming back and that she would die as a result of this. Clearing this trauma and its associated beliefs resulted in a major shift for the woman on both the emotional and physical levels. She realised that from that time on in her life, she had always been extremely anxious when someone she loved withdrew from her, even if they simply left the room during an argument.

Chronic anxiety often originates from a lack of bonding immediately after birth, and this can arise from many different circumstances. If for example your birth was a caesarean and your mother was unconscious she will not have been able to be there to bond with you in those first crucial moments. This can also happen a little later on when a woman has post-natal depression and is unable to truly be present to her feelings and you. These sort of circumstances can set up a life of chronic anxiety as the infant part of us is triggered by events in our current life and responds with the fear of an infant – as an infant if your parents are not there to protect you, you feel very unsafe. While it seems strange that as adults we have the same reactions, in circumstances that are not in fact unsafe, the infant or child part of us who hasn’t been able to resolve the early issues is triggered and causes us to react as if we really are unsafe.

It is likely that if you are suffering from chronic anxiety you will need to explore the origins of it early in your life. However remember that this sort of exploration should only be undertaken once all parts of you feel safe in doing so, and may be much easier with the support of an experienced practitioner. If you are choosing to work on your own, and you feel that you have gained the trust of all parts of you (you are able to access how you feel without being overwhelmed by them or feeling totally removed from them), there are several approaches you could take:

* Silvia Hartmann’s Proxy Tapping – this article is an excellent resource for anyone wanting to work through their childhood and clear events that are still impacting on them. If you decide to work through this, be sure to keep checking in with how you feel all through the process, proceed carefully, and if at any stage it feels like you are blocked or afraid to feel what happened, stop using Silvia’s approach and go back to tapping for safety and assuring all parts of you that you hear what they are saying. As you work through Silvia’s tapping, really reflect along each step of the way on any beliefs that you may have taken on about yourself or the world, particular beliefs around your safety, and tap on any of these that come up.

* Karl Dawson’s Matrix Reimprinting – this is a technique that is very helpful in getting to the core of our behaviour and feelings. It is often easier for people to work with than standard EFT when dealing with traumatic events, and has proven to be very helpful for people who are aware of the traumatic events but unable to access their feelings surrounding them.

* Tearless Trauma Technique – If you are working on your own with traumatic events, it is essential that you understand this technique. If you find yourself unable to approach your healing on your own in this way, then you will need to call on support from an experienced practitioner or a friend who understands EFT and this technique well.

4. The need to address beliefs

One common way for people to do their own healing with EFT is to work through the Personal Peace Procedure. This fantastic tool works really well for a lot of people, however in some cases of chronic anxiety on it’s own it is not enough to really clear all the drivers of our anxiety. This can be for at least two different reasons and if we bear these in mind while working with the PPP, it can be a really powerful tool for us.

* Lack of preparation

As discussed above, sometimes starting our healing journey by tapping on core events can cause parts of us to panic and feel worse. When this happens it suggests that the foundation for the parts of us feeling safe enough to address the specific issues has not been laid. For more on this see the comments in points 1 & 2 above, and the Tearless Trauma Technique, also discussed above.

* Not addressing core beliefs

For many people simply tapping on the events themselves is sufficient for healing to take place. However when we have a chronic pattern of anxiety, often we need to also address the beliefs that we took on about ourselves or the world as a result of our perception of the events. As we work through the PPP, we also need to spend some time exploring what beliefs we took on as a result of each event, these may be beliefs around our safety in the world, our not being lovable, our never being successful, etc. Even if we tap on all the traumatic events in our life, if we don’t address the core beliefs we took on as a result of these events, the chronic anxiety pattern can stay in place. If you are having difficulty identifying the beliefs to work on, consider working with an experienced practitioner. If you aren’t able to or don’t want to do this, you will need to spend time exploring what sort of beliefs you may have taken on. One way to do this is to use Matrix Reimprinting (see above), as when you use this process you are able to ask your younger self how they feel and often this results in core beliefs that need to be addressed surfacing.

5. The Generalisation Effect

Some people who have had a lot of sadness and hurt are concerned that they will have to tap through every single event that hurt them before they are able to heal. It is important to understand that this is not the case. A good example of this is some of the Vietnam veterans that Gary Craig and others have worked with. In many cases the vets are haunted by in excess of a hundred traumatic memories, and often after clearing only 4 or 5 of these events fully, they are no longer bothered by the rest. This is also sometimes seen insurvivors of ongoing sexual abuse – when they fully clear the very first or worst event, they do not need to address all the other events.

6. The Blunt Saw

Sometimes people use EFT and get very frustrated because no matter what they tap on nothing clears. It is important to remember that EFT is a tool, and like any tool the way in which it is used makes all the difference. An analogy that Gary Craig often uses is that our emotional issues are like trees in a forest, and that we need to cut down each tree systematically, making sure it completely falls, in order to heal that part of the issue (the forest representing the issue as a whole). An extension of this metaphor can help us to understand when EFT isn’t working. Imagine that you are trying to cut down that forest of trees with a blunt saw. No matter how persistent you are, how hard you work, it will take a very long time to cut down a single tree. In fact if the saw is really blunt, you may never get right through a single tree.

If you are tapping and nothing is clearing, it suggests it is time to stop and sharpen the saw. When dealing with chronic anxiety that means going back to the basics, and addressing why parts of us do not feel safe enough to heal. If we just stubbornly keep tapping without addressing these issues, it really is like trying to cut down a huge tree with a very blunt saw.

7. SET (Simple Energy Techniques)

There is a method that has been derived from EFT that can be very supportive in cases of chronic anxiety. It involves simply tapping on the finger points continually without the need for any phrases. While this method alone has helped some people to heal from chronic anxiety, in most cases it is best used as a support alongside of all of the above. To learn more about this method, you can read about it on the EFT Down Under website or listen to a free interview about anxiety on the EFT Revealed website.

 

This article will be updated regularly and contains links to various resources that are available free online that are all really helpful in aiding us to learn EFT. If you are busy and finding it difficult to find the time to listen to resources like these, but serious about your healing, you might want to consider downloading these interviews onto an MP3 player and listening to them while walking or gardening or shovelling snow, or whatever it is that is keeping you busy!

 

Anyone who has been a Self Healing Portal reader for some time, or has read You CAN Heal with EFT, will know that I am a big advocate of self healing. Just like with any type of DIY, the more we want to do, the more skills and knowledge we need to have, so this article is introducing some resources I have recently come across that really help take self healing to a new level.

It can be easy on reading the EFT Manual to think that EFT is pretty straight forward, just use the Basic Recipe and everything will resolve. Of course any of us who have been using EFT for some time know that while that works some of the time, other times creativity is needed to help us past the blocks to healing. One of the ways I’ve learnt to be more creative in my own approach is by listening to various interviews and teleclasses by different practitioners that are available free online, and incorporating some of their ideas into the tapping I do. In most cases I pick up one or two ideas that I can incorporate, which is great. However I recently discovered some resources that teach me a lot more than just one or two new ideas, they’ve each added a whole lot of new tools to my healing toolkit.

I’ve written recently about Betty Moore-Hafter’s free Creative Language with EFT teleclass and booklet (for an example of how the tips in the class helped me, see When Listening Isn’t Enough). Betty has some more free teleclasses coming up, (and for those who read this well after this newsletter has come out, check Betty’s website as she runs these classes regularly) that I really encourage everyone who is serious about self healing to join:

Creative Language with EFT - Wed. Mar. 4 (2 & 8 pm EST)

Secrets of Inner Child Healing - Tues. Mar.24, (2 & 7:30 pm EST)

But I Don't Have Time - EFT for restoring balance and spaciousness in our busy lives – Sun. March 22 (4 pm EST)

I have benefited a lot from the Creative EFT and Secrets of Inner Child Healing classes and am looking forward to the new class on restoring balance and spaciousness. Betty has a wonderful way of getting lots of information across in a way that it doesn’t feel overwhelming and leads the participants through tapping that really helps to bring alive the concepts she is teaching. Her classes are supported by booklets that give the tapping phrases so that you can refer back to them any time you need them.

I’m not usually one for advertising but Betty’s Tapping Secrets You Can’t Do Without teleclass series is too good not to tell everyone about. The Tapping Secrets class is filled with wonderful language and different ways to use EFT with our self healing. Even with all the experience and learning I’ve had with EFT, I’m finding this class a refreshing way to learn new ways to further build my relationship with myself. Each week I’m learning new phrases and new concepts that build on top of each other and help me in my day to day healing. The class is already underway but it’s not too late to join, because you will receive the recordings of the past calls and be able to listen to them in your own time (if you do join the class I recommend listening to them in sequential order as they really do build on each other in a way that makes it easy to integrate the ideas into our self EFT). Betty has kindly offered a $20 discount to Self Healing Portal readers – if you join the class use the Coupon Code ABC123 to get this discount and you will get a four part teleclass and Betty’s new e-book for the cost of around a single one on one session with a practitioner.

I have been in touch with quite a few people lately who don’t have the funds to work with a practitioner, who really need some assistance on their healing journey. In each case I have found that the basics that people have learnt simply aren’t enough to help them to deal with chronic issues. Often people feel like EFT just doesn’t work for them, or that they have failed because they haven’t been able to make it work. In each case when these people get the information they need on how to approach the hurting parts inside themselves, things start shifting for them. Almost invariably these days I found myself wanting to tell the people I’m in contact with about Betty’s classes, because they incorporate so much of the information that we need to be able to take EFT from a mechanical process to an enriching and empowering way of rebuilding our relationships with ourselves.

For those of you looking to do more with EFT for yourselves, I seriously recommend you join these classes and give yourselves the gift of more tools in your DIY toolkit.

 

I've been doing a lot of EFT over the last two years since I first learnt it, and have really moved mountains in my life. I've literally gone from being crippled by fear I didn't even know I had and being chronically ill, to living a joy filled life with freedom I never would have imagined. And yet there are still a couple of long term issues that just haven't seemed to want to budge, no matter how much attention I gave them.

I recently listened to Betty's fantastic teleclass Creative Language with EFT and it resulted in a really big shift for me, and a major learning point.

I have worked a lot with my inner child at various ages, working through traumas and unresolved emotions, coming to peace on so many issues. I've learnt a skill called Focusing and combine that with the EFT, and over time have learnt to bring empathy to myself and truly listen to what the hurt parts inside me have to say. And yet I still had these two "stubborn" issues!!!

While tapping with Betty's Creative Language teleclass, suddenly I found tears coming to my eyes, and a sense that the wounded 15 year old inside of me had finally been reached, after trying so hard for so long. I simply stayed with the tapping and let whatever feelings needed to come up, and revelled in the contact with that hurt young woman inside of me. More tears, and more openings, as I tapped my way through the teleclass.

The following day I reflected on what had happened and it was suddenly so clear to me that any communication is about all the parties, and is about an exchange of listening and talking, in whatever way is most appropriate for the particular conversation. I realised that there has been something really big lacking from my communication with my inner 15 year old, despite my intending to bring compassion, empathy and patience to the process for as long as it was needed. It's like the equivalent of me having been patiently sitting outside the bedroom door of an actual 15 year old, assuring her I love her and accept however it is that she's feeling, and quietly waiting with empathy for her to be ready to speak. I've long had a sense that she wanted to, but that something was holding her back, most likely something preventing her from trusting me enough to open up.

I realised that what happened with the teleclass is that my inner 15 year old has been waiting all this time to hear phrases that she never heard from any of the adults in her life. She's been waiting, not for me to listen patiently for even longer, but for me to speak! She's been waiting for me to really connect with her and touch her heart with my understanding of how difficult it was for her, and how difficult it now is for her to open up and speak. She's been waiting to be respected and honoured for all that she went through. And while it's been my intention to convey all that through the patient holding a space in which she can talk, she wasn't able to truly trust where I was coming from, until she heard the words she so badly needed to hear.

It seems obvious now. Listening is so very important, but it's not the only aspect of communication. Just as we may sometimes need to talk more in a conversation with an actual teenager, sometimes we may need to take more initiative with our inner teenager, communicate to her in words while we tap, and allow her to simply feel instead of being expected to respond in words when she isn't yet ready to.

Wow!!! If you haven't listened to this teleclass yet, I seriously recommend you download it from Betty's homepage and tap your way to better communication with those hurting places inside you that maybe don't just need you to listen, and instead so desperately need to hear words they've been waiting to hear so long.

With much gratitude to Betty and her work.