Emotional Freedom Technique – commonly abbreviated to EFT – is a modern and growing form of personal development and therapy.  EFT is a simple but effective technique somewhere in between hypnosis, meditation, and acupressure. You can learn it in a matter of minutes and use it for instant stress relief, for self-development, attitude and behavior development, resolving personal problems, and restoring life balance.

EFT is about returning the mind, body and feelings to a state of balance and harmony so you are not limited by negative emotions. Even though we are ‘designed’ to recover from unpleasant experiences or thought patterns, nevertheless we can be affected by recurring emotions from past events such as relationships, trauma or loss. We can also be affected by ongoing or future events such as work-related stress, interpersonal problems, depression and various kinds of anxieties. These negative emotions, if not released out of the system in the proper way, can be stuck to your energy field and your body, rather than dispersed. Even if you try to ignore them, they still affect your lives.

How it works:

EFT requires ‘tuning into’ the issue and then gently tapping on specific acupressure points to with your fingers to release negative emotional states, thereby helping with almost all of our life problems, including our physical issues. The significant aspect of tapping is that you often experience shifts within minutes. For example if you carry anger towards someone who has hurt you in the past, you would be asked to think about them… and notice how you feel. You do not have to relive past events, just be aware that the negative feeling is there. Once ‘tuned in’ to that feeling, you tap those acupressure points (shown in the diagram, 5-10 times each point), and say a few things that also help disperse the emotion from the system… and you will immediately feel relief from that anger… neutralize it so it no longer carries emotional charge… and you never have to feel it again. The sentence to repeat while tapping is “Even though i feel …… , i deeply and completely love and accept myself.”

Gary Craig (founder of EFT) expresses how EFT works in a slightly different way which is easier to understand. His catch phrase is:

“All negative emotions are caused by disturbances in the body’s energy field”.

He describes it as follows: when you think about a negative memory or feeling, the body’s acupuncture meridians become blocked, a bit like a hose becoming kinked, and this blocks the flow of energy to parts of the body. The result of this is that you feel the negative feeling. By tapping on specific acupuncture points, whilst are deliberately focusing on the negative memory you “un-kink” the hose.

From an experiential perspective, as this is happening, the emotional charge is falling away. Once you do this for all the feelings connected with a negative past memory, the next time you think about that same event or experience, the charge has reduced or gone – in fact minutes or even years later you find you can’t get upset about that same memory. And this is something that can be hard to believe unless you experience it for yourself.

This has enormous implications. It means that it is not the traumatic or unpleasant past event that causes the negative emotions and feelings associated with it. This can’t be the case, as after Tapping away all the negative charge on the event, the individual thinks about the event and can’t get upset even if s/he tried! Nor is Tapping causing repression – in fact Tapping can release the energy that represses emotions (one thing to bear in mind for severely traumatic past experiences that have been numbed or suppressed!).

It appears that in the moment of a trauma (small or large) something is stored in the energy system connecting the event or experience to emotions or feelings. It is for this reason that we feel negative emotions when we think about a negative past experience. Once the energy system is re-balanced with Tapping, there is no longer any connection and the individual is free from the effects of the trauma.

Typically, once the charge has gone, the individual has a completely different relationship to the event, and finds it much easier to understand and have forgiveness, thereby enabling complete closure and resulting peace. This doesn’t mean though, that they agree with what was done, just that it is completely released.

Sources: Peter Donn –  http://www.london-eft.co.uk/

An Introduction to EFT: 

Basic EFT Tutorial:

Find other EFT videos on youtube to watch. There’s a lot of stuff out there.