There is an extensive list of therapies that are being use to help individuals deal with emotional and mental disorders. These include cognitive behavior therapy and exposure therapy. Then there’s EFT.
EFT stands for emotional freedom technique. It is different from all the common therapies you’re familiar with as it involves acupressure or energy tapping, as well as affirmations or subliminal messages.
The technique is based on the principles of chi or proper flow of energy. The body is filled with several energy meridians. However, they can be blocked, which can cause an imbalance in the energy flow. In the process, you suffer from a disease or you become emotionally unstable. Instead of needles, you remove these blockages through tapping with your fingers.
How Do You Do It?
One of the good things about EFT is you can do it alone. After all, you only need your fingers to do it. What you simply need to do is to tap those pressure points in different parts of the body (which you will learn later on). Ideally you should use the tips of the fingers, not the finger pads, since they are the ones that have the acupuncture meridians. Needless to say you’ll still achieve success if you’re going to use some finger pads, especially if you have very long nails.
Some would use two fingers, the index and the middle finger, for tapping. Both belong to the same hand. However, it’s still possible to utilize both the index and middle fingers of both hands, so you can cover more areas.
The areas that need to be tapped include the following:
- Top of the head
- Eyebrows
- Sides of your eyes
- Under your eyes
- Chin
- Collarbone
- Under your arm
- Wrists
For the technique to be very effective, you have to follow the sequence to a T.
Tapping, however, is just half of the equation. One of the secrets to the effectiveness of EFT is the use of affirmations or subliminal messages.
These are positive statements that help influence or change your manner of thinking. They are utilized along with the other conventional therapies, especially cognitive behavior therapy, as well as hypnosis and visualization.
Every tap corresponds to a particular affirmation or subliminal message. For example, if you tap the top of your head, you also say, “I accept who I am despite the pain in my head [or my migraine, or my headache].” The purpose of saying this is to embed in your subconscious that the issues you have, physical or emotional, don’t define who you really are. You can still accept yourself without any guilt, embarrassment, or pain.
If you have a hard time saying and tapping at the same time, you can make use of subliminal messages downloads, which are already available online. You can also play a series of affirmations straight from the CD or perhaps watch a video.
EFT may not work immediately, and that’s all right. You just have to exercise some patience.