EFT: Energy Freedom Technique, a form of energy healing

Energy Healing

I practice EFT, Energy Freedom Technique, a form of energy healing. It involves tapping on the face and upper body, repeating a phrase (with long and short versions), counting, humming, and moving one's eyes -- all these help to activate different parts of the brain. This technique has helped with many mental/emotional issues, from returning soldiers' PSTD, to fear of swimming or flying, stopping drinking or smoking, and many other positive benefits.

Gary Craig is the Founder

EFT is similar to many other forms of energy healing, and is being promoted by Gary Craig via his site http://emofree.com; there you can purchase books and other materials. Learning the system is free, and some therapists use it as well (I saw one many years ago who did, more than a decade ago actually). All forms of energy healing which I've learned, to date, use deep breathing as a component, so there's something about increasing oxygen flow that is helpful.

It's a Sandwich

The process is a sandwich: there's a "bread" process that is performed at the beginning and at the end; and a "meat" process which is performed in the middle. It takes 2-3 minutes to perform the entire process, so it's something you could do in your car on a lunch break, for instance.

Note that while I'll describe all the points to be tapped below, you might want to check Gary Craig's site for pictures, and/or purchase his materials to help him spread the word.

Also, all tapping is performed with either all four fingers and the thumb, pushed together; three fingers and the thumb; or just the first two fingers -- whatever is most comfortable for you. I have a feeling that more energy flows when you're using more of your your digits, which makes sense to me, as other energy healing methodologies (which I may write about, please give me feedback?) use placement of the fingertips and deep breathing to cause the result. I think calling them "digits" is also helpful, as it's a digital world. :) (I.e., it's a place that you can touch.)

The Bread

The "bread" involves first selecting a long and short phrase. The long phrase is formed like, "Even though I X, I deeply and completely love and accept myself." (And, just typing that wells up some tears, so I know I need to do some more rounds!) The short phrase is just "X". For instance, if I wanted to stop drinking, the long phrase could be "Even though I drink more than I want, I deeply and completely love and accept myself." The short phrase would then be "I drink more than I want".

Perform a "karate chop" by tapping the edge of your palm between your wrist and the base of your pinkie finger, against the same place on the other hand. (If you've seen the "Friends" expletive gesture which the Gellers (Ross and Monica) developed, it's quite similar.) While tapping (once or twice per second, repeatedly), take a deep breath and say the long phrase; repeat three or four times.

Next, tap on various parts of the face, while saying the short phrase. I take a deep breath, and then while tapping about 8 times I exhale completely and say the short phrase towards the end. There are 9 places to tap (and, the last one which is on the wrist could be expanded to five separate ones, on each finger; I'll describe when I get to it).

Generally you use the same hand to do the tapping, but you could switch hands if it's more comfortable. It's only necessary to tap on one side, although you could perform two rounds, doing the first with one hand and the second with the other. The 9 places are:

1. Just above the inside of your eye.
2. At the outside corner of your eye.
3. Under your eye.
4. Under your nose (above your lip).
5. Under your mouth (above your chin).
6. The top of your sternum (middle of the chest, just below the neck).
7. Under your opposite armpit.
8. The top of your head.
9. The front of your opposite wrist, just before the palm.

The Meat

For the middle part, you will switch to tapping the back of your other hand, between the pinkie and ring fingers' knuckles, about an inch or so onto the hand. You will do this repeatedly throughout this section. Generally I tap 8 times between each of the exercises in this section, which are:

1. Stare straight ahead, with eyes opened.
2. Close your eyes, continuing to stare straight ahead.
3. Open your eyes, and move them to the upper left.
4. Move your eyes to the lower right.
5. Roll your eyes clockwise, one rotation (so after 4 taps I should be about halfway around the orbits, a term I find particularly amusing).
6. Roll your eyes counterclockwise.
7. Hum the beginning of "Happy birthday to you" (tune perhaps chosen due to copyright abuses? A story for another day...).
8. Count from 1 to 5.
9. Hum the beginning of "Happy birthday to you" again.

Need More Bread!

Repeat the bread part (again, taking a deep breath, and uttering the short phrase every place you're tapping on), and you're done!

When I reach the end of the second bread part, instead of tapping on my wrist, I'll tap on each of the five fingertips, starting with the thumb. It's not on the finger nail; it's more on the side of the finger -- like if you held your hand with the thumb up, palm facing the other hand, you'd then tap on the "top-most" part of the thumb, then the index finger, etc.

Progressive Rounds

One technique Gary uses to help with veterans experiencing PTSD, who may require several rounds before improving, is to ask "on a scale of 1 to 10, how bad is the issue right now?" before the first round. After the first round, ask the question again (and, you could write your answers down, and do it as a solo exercise). If it hasn't gotten to 1 (or 0, even better), do another round.

Keep doing rounds until it improves. Since they only take 2-3 minutes each, for a particularly difficult issue you could perform ten rounds in under a half hour -- again, potentially something that could be done on a lunch break.

Help Your Friends!

If you have friends who are depressed or going through a tough time, you can point them to this post and/or Gary Craig's site, or demonstrate the process for them. Let's all feel better about whatever it is we're doing! :)

Please Remind Me Of This?

As many of you know, I'm recovering from multiple concussions. The four major symptoms are forgetfulness, irritability, headaches, and sleep issues. The forgetfulness is the worst; I can no longer write software. In addition, I often go weeks without doing any EFT, because similar to "out of sight, out of mind", it's "out of mind, out of luck" or something. So, I'd greatly appreciate being asked, once a week or so, "Have you done any EFT lately?"

Thanks and blessings!