You're Not Going to Believe This, but That's Okay

Call it an endeavor of springtime.  I've been working the ground for awhile now, mentioning the idea of EFT here and there around Gather, without causing much noise.  Now it's time to walk out with my digging stick.

My crop won't be evenly spaced because it doesn't grow in straight rows, and I already know the germination will be poor.  In fact, nothing may come from this first seeding at all, but sometimes it takes a long, long idea for an idea to germinate.  I don't know how many times I've gotten away with that excuse when I have found out that something I thought was my idea turned out to be something my wife had suggested quite some time before.  EFT seems way too easy and too good to be true, especially if you're only reading about it.

It helps if you know something about Chinese medicine--acupuncture and the idea of meridians, or lines of slow-moving cellular energy in the body which can be tapped into with needles to decrease the places where said energy is blocked from flowing, overloading the tissue in that area.  It's always easier to shift a paradigm if you have some frame of reference to use as a fulcrum to shift your belief.  EFT harnesses this knowledge but without needles or specialized training.  You can learn to do it yourself in a matter of minutes, and probably spend years refining that knowledge.

It stands for Emotional Freedom Technique.  It's got a very scientific history but has been popularized by Gary Craig, who has created an amazing network of practitioners, among which is a large number of MDs.  It typically begins with a very clever treatment of something called "Psychological Reversal," a disconnect between conscious desire and subconscious intent.  The correct affirmation treats that, and the rest is really just tapping on a series of acupuncture points with two fingers, and a series of eye movements to access different sections of the brain.  I am of course glossing over a few details, but it is not at all complicated.

So what's it good for?  Practitioners say "use it on everything" and they really mean it.  The easiest thing is to treat anxiety that comes from a known, focused cause, like fear of heights, public speaking, snake phobia or test anxiety.  Athletes use it for the tension that triggers muscle twitches when the pressure is on, but you can use it for anything that bothers you.

A story in the Wall Street Journal on Friday, July 13^th, 2007 says that "Emotional Freedom Techniques were no more effective than a placebo" in treating mental illness.  The paragraph concludes with a quote about "snake oil salesmen."  Either the paper or the directors of the study couldn't get the name right; it's "Technique."  There is no plural, so that casts doubt on how well-trained they were, but tapping for "mental illness" would be a sure way to set up failure, because with EFT it's all about finding specific aspects of a problem to work on.  If you use it to treat depression, for instance, there could be many individual components which would need to be tapped.  I'm here to tell you that it has worked hundreds of times for me.

I have been practicing EFT on myself, on students, on friends and on colleagues for about two years.  I've seen some dramatic results and I've run into dead ends where I couldn't make it work, but mostly I've seen good results for a large variety of problems.  The "discovery statement" behind EFT is that any negative emotion represents stored negative energy in the body, and that is what EFT works to release.  I've used it for old failures that were like knives sticking me from the past and for insomnia, for nerves before a concert and for anger bottled up in me.  I've helped kids with claustrophobia and test anxiety, for fear of a class or dislike of a teacher or subject.  I've even treated two members of my school administration for anxiety over public speaking.  They told me it helped.

Because our emotions are somehow connected to our nervous system, EFT can even have a remarkable effect upon pain or illness.  I have treated myself and others, plus a trip to the website will reveal a host of stories about using it in this advanced way.  I've used it on myself for sugar cravings and it worked.  It's effective for helping people quit smoking and it's amazing for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

If you've read this far, you may still be quite skeptical, and that's okay.  It's on your radar screen now, and I can guarantee that somewhere in the not-too-distant future, that blip is going to get a lot larger, perhaps to the point where you won't be able to avoid it.  While this movement is not yet known to the public at large, it's big, and it's spreading swiftly because it's so easy to make it work and it's so powerful when it does.  Then someday you're going to see it demonstrated and you'll be hooked and you'll want to start telling other people about it.  They are not going to believe it either, but now that you know how this goes, you're not going to mind it either.

If the idea has already germinated in you, visit emofree.com for more information.  You can download the 60-page manual for free; they encourage you to spend $60 on the 8-DVD set to really work it well.  Good luck!