Why I Love Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)

I remember the day I first learned EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique). An instructor in a digestive health seminar was teaching it because of the brain-gut stress connection. He told us that going through this acupuncture point tapping/movement sequence (sometimes just called “tapping”) would help take the emotional charge off whatever was bothering us.

That day, I was in emotional turmoil and was extremely angry about something. I thought, “Okay, weird tapping thing, let’s see what you can do with this.” Before going through the sequence, I was absolutely furious. After the sequence, I checked my anger level, and it was gone! I couldn’t even find the anger anymore. I could look at the issue that had made me so angry with perspective and neutrality.

A few years later, I had several house-call clients with anxiety. They would call me when they had an acute anxiety or panic attack, and I would come over and help them through it. Nothing worked like EFT to help people free themselves from an intense fight-or-flight emotional state.

Nowadays, I use EFT in tandem with intuitive counseling. Intuitive counseling changes perspectives and perceptions and fosters understanding of root causes. But sometimes, when an issue is really triggered, you need a tool like EFT to clear the emotion so that the person can get out of acute distress. It works whether the issue is anger, grief, anxiety, or any other stuck emotion. It doesn’t remove the desire to change the underlying situation; it just takes the charge off the issue so you can approach it more easily.

I’ve never seen a negative effect from using EFT, and I often teach it to my clients so they can do it at home. It just takes a few minutes per sequence and, unlike EMDR, requires no equipment. Even people who have tried an abridged version of EFT are startled by the effectiveness of the complete sequence.

Again, it’s hard to believe that something this simple can be so effective. You can even use EFT to consciously attain specific emotional goals, which I teach in my advanced meditation class. But EFT is most valuable when discharging acute emotional states, either in a session or at home. Come in for an Intuitive Counseling session, and I’ll be more than happy to share the miracle of EFT with you.