A number of Gatherites have been working with EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques), and more are beginning to use it for self-healing and situational healing as well. I'm a newby at EFT and am taking my time trying out healing different areas of my body and life. I could move along faster, but feel it's important to take time to integrate information about what I'm leaving behind as well as getting used to living without the pains and blocks I'd been accumulating.
Many of us discover as we move into our fifties and sixties and beyond, that we don't mind getting older - GROWING older - but we really don't like aging! Some of the effects of aging are downright depressing. I'm motivated to study EFT in part because I'm hoping to be able to alleviate some of the stiffness and aches and pains which suddenly seem to "belong" to me - just because I'm in my sixth decade.
A few days ago I spent quite a while going through EFT procedures helping to release stiffness and soreness in my spine. I discovered a lot about some of my hidden thought processes and emotional storage locations in the process. The end result is that I'm not quite finished getting all of the stiffness released, but I'm totally amazed at how much more flexible my spine is, and how little stiffness is left. In the morning I'm actually quick getting out of bed - no more easing my body over to the edge, watching how I bend, and taking time to straighten up. That's not a good scenario, but at least I hadn't gotten as far as the worst-case scenario I've endured several times.
Today I've got time off and will work at getting the rest of the spinal area cleared, with the energy flowing freely again. From my little experience with EFT so far, I believe that's entirely possible.
I'm publishing this article in the hopes that other EFTers will chime in with their own self-healing experiences and expertise, and also so that other newbies like me can ask questions which might in the end help us all.
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Comments: 43
EFT sounds interesting, though... I certainly have plenty of aches, pains and stiffness to work though!
Mark - here's the link - EFT
This is what Emotional Freedom technique does for me. I call EFT "tapping" because we tap with our fingertips on the acupuncture positions on the energy meridian to release stuck negative energy in those areas due to emotions we have not let go of. Sometimes, these are current emotions, such as fear or anxiety, and sometimes they are old emotions from childhood issues. Either way, EFTworks.
Telling how we framed our statement and at what point we felt release is helpful to others who are just learning to use EFT to heal themselves.
Just FYI, I have the group settings set so that I have to ok the articles but people may freely join the group. I'm oking every article that is on the topic of EFT and healing. My goal is simply to see that other worthwhile articles don't find their way here unless they are about EFT and healing. *All EFT articles no matter how newby will be accepted.*
We hope to have questions posted here that some of us with more experience can give our opinions on. And we can refer the writers to EFT founder's website. www.emofree.com
Welcome to EFTworks.
Welcome to personal healing technique. The group name is EFTworks and I hope if you haven't done so, you will sign on with us and share your experience if/when you choose to use EFT. I hear you about the electronic funds transfer issue, however, if you google the three capital letters you find first sites about Emotional Freedom Technique.
I highly recommend the newsletter which is sent free to your outside email from that website. Lots of case histories and success stories. BTW they don't bug you or sell your address, they are not about the money. The manual is a free PDF file download from the website as well. There are DVD's for sale that contain videos of Gary doing group healing demonstrations on any number of chronic, serious health issues. Anyone who wants to create a practice of helping others with this technique should make use of the DVD's but they are not necessary for self help, anyway, they are available free on the website separately sorted by health issue types. He's into spreading the word, not making the buck.
Again thanks for commenting on Carolion's article and we hope to have you join EFTworks group. We can all use healing and healing ourselves will help heal our country and the world.
EFT is eminently practical and just plain useful. There are no miracle cures in terms of beliefs and gurus and magical formulae, etc. This is just ordinary energy work. Really. Lol!
I spent time this afternoon releasing more of the soreness in muscle, tendon, and ligament attatched to tailbone, and am quite pleased at the increased range of flexibility in that part of my spine now.
Karen - I really look forward to hearing what you discover with this. It will probably feel very familiar, since you've used acupressure. What I've noticed is the vital importance of the polarities in the focus statement:
"Even though I still feel some pain in my [whatever], I love and accept myself completely and deeply."
For people who've tried affirmations and can't get them to work, it's possible that their minds and ethical systems work better with a statement that includes the pain as well as the love. It feels right to me, anyway.
Mugg - here's a big dose of encouragement.
I have to admit, I am not a very good team player. When something turns in to a liturgy and a system begins to build around an experience I seem to back away but I still love and accept myself fully. Oh, bad joke.
Karen - I haven't seen any of the videos. I'm not even halfway through the manual (and may or may not watch the videos.) If the method is useful - and I'm finding it is - then I'll keep working it and mentioning it. I never get along with any kind of sales pitch either, whether religious or new age beliefs or commercial applications - no thanks, no way. So I appreciate your comment in that direction.
I decided not to go home for lunch - the snow outside is gorgeous and I happen to have brought my breakfast to work, so it became my lunch...
Wilhelmine - btw - I've been adding coconut oil to my morning oatmeal.
Karen--I wish I knew a little more about meridians myself. I read some detailed stuff years ago about how energy moves in a slow current through them, but my own experience is that it can also somehow move instantly through them, which is the feeling that comes in EFT.
There is also a phantom experience when the body just plain "remembers" but there is no longer the site. I would love to see us be able to bring help to those who suffer from chronic or phantom experiences. Since our body has so many back-up plans I think that the stimulation of the meridians can liberate those alternate routes. I am just thinking out loud here and still have so much to learn.
The best book I have for meridian charts and other charts as well is Donna Eden's ENERGY MEDICINE.
Of course I'm not an acupuncturist, so there have to be many more very detailed meridian books than this - but these charts are simple enough that anyone can work with them. That said, I don't have all the meridians memorized, even though I've known the knowledge would be very useful to me for a long time....Central and Governing meridians, and the Heart meridian, I know well.
This deafness is probably the next thing I'll be EFTing, and that's apparently associated with the Small Intestine meridian, so I'll be memorizing another one...
Karen - the phantom pain - I do kind of the reverse of that, since, as an empath, I often experience another's pain in my body, and I could swear it's my own pain. When this ability first opened up for me, sometimes I'd be feeling someone's pain for days or weeks before I actually met them. That's more under control now....Sigh - there's a reason for everything.
Sometimes I feel the pain of ghosts - of people who've crossed over. Talk about phantom pain! Lol -
I'll be in the middle of a session and suddenly my whole body stiffens up, joints freeze, the works - major arthritis. But I realize I'm in a session - so I'll ask my client something like "Did your grandmother have arthritis" - -
As soon as the right connection is made, then that pain moves out of me.
Which is why I know we can be much more efficient at moving pain and changing those pathways.
Some of this has to be related to what Eckhart Tolle calls the "pain body."
I looked up Energy Medicine on the web and see that there is a book, tapes and the like. Perhaps when next pay comes, I will explore that though perhaps my library may have it as well. I think that to understand the intent of a meridian will be helpful. My guess is that one might find that information experientially as well. I see in our surgical practice the effect of noxious stimulus. Related to reflexology...we do a lot of foot surgeries and most of our patients have significant nausea post op. As their intraoperative medications are the same as other surgeries, I feel that the agressive stimulation of the foot to the point of noxious stimulus may precipitate the nausea. I presented that to the Podiatrists and they laughed at my theory.
I downloaded the manual, but haven't finished reading it yet, so I can't talk about much experience as yet, but when I read the part about the sore spot, I started tapping around, trying to find it, and when I did, it really was sore. I was surprised, so I rubbed it, as suggested, and it doesn't feel so sore now. So now, I just need to memorize the other nine points to tap on, so I can get busy. But you know what intrigues me is the case studies Gary Craig talks about, especially the veterans. I'm enjoying the newletter he sends to me. I just need to discipline myself to get serious about doing it.
Turns out - with EFT's help - it's not, and not. (c:*
Karen - it's amazing - and somewhat insane - that podiatrists would know nothing of meridians! Not to at least have one of those little foot reflexology cards around that shows the energy maps of all the organs and body systems on the bottoms of the feet? Heavens! Of course foot surgery patients are disrupted - because foot surgery means every organ and system in the body has become unbalanced.
Oh well - Gee, if I were a podiatrist I'd have a giant foot reflexology chart on my consulting room wall, and then I'd learn to do energy checkups - or hire a good medical intuitive - to see what systems are out of balance, and get to work correcting the energy flows - and get that part of the healing taken care of. THEN if nothing else has changed, surgery might be a consideration.
Because of experiences I've had doing psychopomp work where I sometimes see a golden thread, or - as in recent work - a person who's crossed over who is busy untangling her whole family's golden threads -
I think HMMMMM.....
Golden thread: the story of a person's or group's self-healings..........
Knowing that our challenges are lessons given us by higher beings / our own higher self, as part of our spiritual growth process - so then the golden thread of the self-healing of our challenges is our sacred life story. The story of our soul's lessons.
The beauty of EFT is that one doesn't have to believe in it in order for it to work. I find that I often have to "remind" myself to use it on myself for issues that I help others with, too. (Even Carol Look has said that she didn't use tapping on her piles of clutter when she was actually de-cluttering her life, yet helping others with it!) Reading your article is a gentle reminder for me to be more habitual in my EFT habits! Warmly, Barbara