If you’re like me, you have a lot of fears, unsupportive emotions, aversions, or conflicting beliefs that prevent you from feeling good and moving towards what you really want in your life. What would you say if I told you there’s a technique you can use that could eliminate a lifelong phobia, a powerful aversion to a person or task or situation, and even physical pains and ailments in a matter of minutes? Not only that, but that you can learn this process in a few minutes for free? Sounds like a pretty kooky claim, right? Where’s my fast talking infomercial;) Well, I will say that in many cases this process will require persistence over time, but I have experienced instant results as described above on many occasions, at least 50% of things I’ve tried it on. Other things have taken more time, a week or two, to take effect. The process I’m talking about is called EFT, or Emotional Freedom Technique.
What I am about to tell you is really just the basic recipe. I’m not an EFT master, and you don’t have to be a master to get amazing results with EFT. This is a description of what is referred to as “mechanical EFT” Which means you go through these simple steps and you will get results… even if you are just reading off the paper and aren’t sure if you believe it will work. What I am about to tell you is really just the basic recipe. This alone is very effective. If you want it to be even more effective, or you want to learn more details, there are some excellent resources for you to explore at the end of this article.
What is EFT Anyway? EFT stands for “Emotional Freedom Technique”, though since it’s been named it’s been found to have profound effects on things that are traditionally considered physical ailments.
I describe it as a combo of acupressure and affirmations (I’ll explain the acupressure points in a moment). It’s generally considered a clearing procedure, meaning it clears out emotions and beliefs that hold you back from whatever you’re trying to make happen in your life, be they financial success, health, relationships, performance, phobias or aversions, or simply to feel better. Amazingly, EFT also has incredible effects on muscle tension, cramps, migraines, and has at least some positive effect on just about any ailment it’s been tried on. You can use it for little things too, like a phone call or chore you’re avoiding. It is very common that strong phobias, pains and other intense emotions are eliminated in minutes. Other times it may take a few extra repetitions. And some issues will need daily or weekly repetitions to maintain the effect, depending on what it its.
Using EFT for Physical Issues:
Reportedly, physical illnesses or injuries will heal more slowly than emotional things… However I’ve helped my wife use EFT to diminish debilitating menstrual cramps in a matter of seconds. The intensity of these cramps was really severe, at a level ten. She could not even stand and was on the brink of losing consciousness, her face went completely white. My wife is a wedding photographer, and we were in the middle of shooting the wedding party group shots when the cramps and nausea struck. The wedding party disbanded to go bring out the parents. Trina and I had only a few moments. We started tapping and before I even got past five or six points Trina was astounded by how much her pain and nausea and the feeling of losing consciousness subsided. At first she described the symptoms being reduced by 70% in a matter of about 15 seconds. Later she described it as going down by 80%.
The following month the cramps came back even more intensely, and Trina was getting really distressed about it. Luckily we weren’t shooting a wedding this time! When we finally got her calm enough to accept some tapping (I was tapping on her points for her this time) within five or ten minutes we got her symptoms down to nearly zero.
Another time Trina got a migraine after eating out with friends. Normally this means 24 hours of debilitating symptoms including nausea and impaired vision and a very painful headache and muscle pain. We got in the car and started driving home. As I drove I coached Trina through the process and the migraine was eliminated in about 10 minutes of repeating the procedure.
Wanna know how to do it now? Okay…
The Tapping Points:
Below I’ll describe the tapping points to clarify this illustration. If you’d like a free printable PDF with comprehensive point form instructions, email me at scott[at]moon-man.com (remember to put the @ symbol where I put [at]) and put "EFT Cheat Sheet Please" in the subject line. (See “EFT Cheat Sheet” at the end of this article.)
How to Tap: When you go through the procedure, tap each point rapidly and comfortably, 7 times or more until you finish the phrase. You can tap with several fingers at once to make sure you’re hitting the point if you like. And if your face is too sensitive, you can just do the body and hand points. Same if your hands are too sensitive… focus on the face and body. If the Karate chop point is not an option, you can rub the sore spots on the chest instead (Click here to see this explained in Gary Craig’s free manual).
Here Are the Points:
- Karate Chop point: the edge of your hand on the pinky side, in the middle of the fleshy side part between your wrist and the first knuckle of your little finger.
- Eyebrow Point: the inner end of your eyebrow, near where the bridge of your nose meets your brow.
- Side of the eye: on the outer edge of the bone around your eye socket (orbital bone).
- Under the eye: On the edge of the bone just under your eye.
- Under Nose: between bottom of the nose and top of the lip.
- Under chin, in the divot between chin and lower lip.
- Collarbone: Under the bump of the collarbone where it meets the sternum, in the divot there.
- Under arm: on the side of the torso where the seam of a shirt would cross the bra strap on a woman, or would be level with the nipple for a man.
- Thumbnail point: Look at the back of your hand, with the fingers pointing up to the sky. Tap the inside bottom corner of the thumbnail (if it’s your left hand it’s the bottom right corner of the nail, if it’s the right hand it’s the bottom left corner).
- Index finger: same place as on the thumb.
- Middle finger: same place again
- Skip the ring finger and go straight to the pinky… same spot on that fingernail.
- Back of the hand: between and below the knuckles of pinky and ring finger, there’s a hollow spot. Tap there.
Here’s the Procedure:
1. Identify Your Issue. What’s bothering you or holding you back? Tune in to your issue, rate it's intensity from 1-10, 10 being most intense. What body sensations, emotions, self talk, mental impressions, memories, or fantasies are coming up? Write down a few of the most prominent aspects of it.
2. The Setup: Tapping continuously on the karate chop point (point 1 on the diagram) with all four fingers for good coverage, repeat 3 times "Even though I have this [state your issue and/or aspect], I deeply and profoundly love and accept myself." Saying it with emphasis and even emotion works better.
Use your own real words and expressions: Even if they involve swearing, primal sounds, physical gestures, mime, or grammatically incorrect phrases. The idea is to tune in to the feelings behind the words, and your own expressions are the best ones to do that.
3. The Sequence: tapping about 8 times per point (points 2-13), repeat at each point a short reminder phrase i.e. "this fear of heights" or “this tension in my lower back…”
A Note on Shortcuts: If you want to try a shortcut later, you can stop at the under-the-arm point and see how that feels, tuning in, seeing what comes up, and rating the intensity again, as described below. But for now, do it with the whole procedure for the sake of thoroughness to increase your chance of results.
4. The 9 Gamut: I call this “The Brain Gym Part”: This part may seem silly, and you’re invited to laugh through the whole thing if you like! The point of it is to activate different parts of the brain to get it involved in redesigning how it responds to your issue. Pointing your eyes in specific directions and humming a tune and counting are stimulating the various functions of the brain involved in cognition and memory/imagination/emotion access.
Tap point 13 (back of hand in the indentation towards the wrist between the first knuckles of the pinky and ring finger) continuously throughout this stage...
a. Deep Breath with eyes closed.
b. Open eyes looking straight ahead.
c. With Eyes only (your nose still points straight ahead) look hard down to the right,
d. Look hard down to the left
e. Roll your eyes all the way around in a big circle one way,
f. Roll your eyes all the way around the other way.
g. Hum a few bars of a song (like “Happy Birthday”),
h. Quickly count "1 2 3 4 5"
i. Hum a few bars of a song. Stop
5. The Sequence Again: Repeat the face, body and hand points with the reminder phrase.Tapping about 8 times per point (points 2-13), repeat at each point a short reminder phrase i.e. "this fear of heights" or “this tension in my lower back…”
6. Tune In Again: Take a deep breath and tune in again. Take note of anything that comes up for you. Any changes to how you feel about the issue, any new aspects you notice.
7. Rate the Intensity Again, see if it went up or down. Don’t worry if it went up. It probably means you’ve revealed an aspect you hadn’t thought of. This is good because it means you can tap for that aspect and lessen or eliminate it. Make a note of it on your list and tap for it. If you’re not sure what it is you can say “Even though I have this thing that I don’t know what it is, I deeply…” The procedure works on the emotional charge you feel, not on the words per se.
8. Repeat the whole procedure... for specific aspects until your intensity rating goes down significantly, Ideally get it to zero. This time your setup and reminder phrase should say “even though I have this remaining {insert issue or aspect here} I deeply and …” This helps your subconscious acknowledge that the intensity is changing and moving downward to zero. You will probably be able to get it to zero quite often. Go through again, tapping for other aspects.
What’s an aspect? Aspects are scenarios that accompany your issue. If I’m tapping for an aversion to my accounting, aspects of that aversion would be:
a. Feeling stupid like I did in math class throughout my schooling
b. Frustration with my software
c. Tension in my shoulders
d. This deep burning sensation in my chest and belly
e. This emotionally charged phrase “I HATE this!!” running through my head.
f. Clenched Jaw
g. Feeling like “I don’t have time for this!”
(Can you tell this one is a big issue for me?;-)
You can experiment and say a different aspect for each tapping point if you like, to cover more ground in a single round. However, if an aspect is really strong you may want to focus strictly on it for the whole round. Example: say you started with a global issue like “Even though I have this fear of heights, I deeply and…” Perhaps a particular aspect will come up that seems really strong contributor to your intensity… “Even though I feel dizzy on the balcony…“ or whatever.
Shortcuts: There is an art to using shortcuts. Stopping at step 3 comprises one shortcut and often is enough knowledge to do the job. Going through the whole long process helps take care of psychological reversal, which is fairly common, and is discussed in detail in the manual and courses. For now I’ll just mention that, to my understanding, psychological reversal is the phenomenon of gravitating towards the opposite of what you want. Part of this full procedure… the setup part, I believe… is especially designed to un-reverse the psychological reversal. There's a great explanation of Psychological Reversal (P.R.) in Gary Craig's manual.
As you go through the process feel free to giggle, snort, say joke affirmations like "Even though I'm not sure this goofy EFT thing is going to do anything..." Have fun with it and approach it as an experiment. The worse that can happen is nothing. And apparently you don’t even have to believe in it in order for it to work. So if you’re skeptical, just go through the procedure and for the time being pretend that it really does work and see what happens.
I’ll give you another story…
I’m a professional illustrator and a comic book artist. I’ve been searching for ages for a way to apply my love of visual and written communication to help people make real and direct changes in their lives. I’d decided I wanted to create training materials for people like myself who are interested in radical self development. I decided that this was my mission, my reason for being alive on this Earth, with these illustration skills and this passion for the tools of personal growth. Working with trainers of the caliber of Paul Cutright or T. Harv Eker was fast becoming my dream of dreams.
The first time I learned about EFT I was listening to an audio set created by said multimillionaire trainer and owner of Peak Potentials Training, T. Harv Ecker. The set was called “Wealth and Wisdom” and featured many guest speakers. One was Paul Cutright giving a presentation of EFT, where he taught the audience what I’m teaching you here. I tapped along with the recording while Mr. Cutright had the entire audience tapping for their issues. I was really intrigued. So much that I listened through the whole two hours again, and this time I took notes. I drew a picture of myself holding my arm in a position so that all the tapping points were visible at once, and I numbered the points. Later it occurred to me to email this image to Paul Cutright and see if I’d get a response. Did I ever! He loved the illustration! We volleyed emails for a while, talking about art and photography (Paul and I both come from a fine art background) and then he asked if I’d be interested in illustrating his newly revised manual! “When can we talk on the phone?” he typed.
My adrenaline went through the roof. To me this guy was/is a rock star and a wise master in one. And now he wanted to work with me… of all people! The morning we were to talk I was beside myself with nervousness. My heart was beating so heard it was bouncing off my lungs and making my voice shake like crazy. I couldn’t talk to Paul Cutright like this! I felt like a freaked out teenager, not a professional communicator. I could not calm down with meditation or deep breathing, or even jogging… and I was running out of time. So I decided to try this EFT thing. I Put the Wealth and Wisdom audio on and let Paul Cutright’s voice guide me through the procedure, saying “Even though I’m REALLY nervous to talk to Paul Cutright today, I deeply and profoundly love and accept myself!”
Within three rounds, about five minutes or so, my nervousness went down to zero. The phone rang. For an instant I felt a teeny bit of that nervousness again, but as soon as Paul said hello I was totally fine, just like talking with any other client. Since then not only have I never been nervous to talk to Paul, I’m also no longer nervous to talk to other new potential clients who I have loaded some sort of great importance on, including a famous author, a majorly big-time literary/entertainment agent, and an extremely prestigious publisher I was working on a deal with. These people would have had me shaking in my boots before. Now I’m able to chat with them like a normal person and build sincere relationships with them. I can tell you right now this has had a major beneficial effect on my career.
Experiment and Be Persistent:
So try it out, be persistent, and have fun with it. Take a peek at Gary Craig’s Website (http://tinyurl.com/h7vrd), download the free startup package, which is basically his manual as a printable eBook, and a subscription to his extensive, informative, and inspiring newsletter.
Paul Cutright, EFT Master and coach, has an excellent 5 day course (About an hour per day) that you can use to become really good at this. Paul’s course is great because it’s relatively short and is very practical… plus I really like Paul. He’s an amazing coach (he’s actually my coach now) and it totally comes through to you in the audios. I was able to complete the course in only a few days part time. After that I had no problem getting great results coaching friends and family through the process, helping them heal in a variety of ways, all of them simple and fun, many with instant results. It includes downloadable videos, audios, and manuals. A lot of the course (and the most effective part, imho) consists of the 5 training MP3s that you can play on your way to work, on your lunch break, while exercising, or whatever. It covers Gary’s Manual plus another manual by Christine Sutherland. click here to learn more about Paul's 5 day course
Gary Craig is the creator of the EFT process. He has a free manual, newsletter, and lots of free info on his website that you can use to learn more about the process and its applications. I’ve read the manual and used that material to great effect in helping others to benefit from this. Click here for that free starter package. If you want further training to really see this in action, you can watch some of Gary's training DVD videos where you can se him treating real cases with EFT, and see the reults. They're an extremely valuable learning resource for a surprisingly low price. Click here to see the DVD page.
Carol Look is an EFT Master and trainer with a book called “Attracting Abundance with EFT”. As of this writing I haven’t gone through that course yet, but I’ve heard great reports on it from other EFT practitioners and it’s definitely going to be required study for me in the very near future. I’ll be buying the eBook, since it also comes with a bunch of extra electronic resources, including guided practices with audios on MP3. She also has a series of recorded radio shows you can listen to for free where she interviews other trainers and you can learn a lot there too.
And I’m Scott Mooney, illustrator, communicator, healer and student. These and an ever growing roster of other tools that I’ve found extremely helpful in my life can be found here at my site at http://www.artofselfdev.com/.
EFT Cheat Sheet
I've created an EFT Cheat Sheet for you, with comprehensive point form instructions and a very clear illustration, plus all the reference links in this article, all placed on a single printable Acrobat page. Fill out the Cheat Sheet Request form at the top of the sidebar here and I'll email you with the download instructions. requesting it via the form also signs you up for a series of six tutorials on ways to use EFT on various common issues, including procrastination and addictions. In exchange for this I’d like to be allowed to send you information via email that I have found valuable in my journey of personal development. I promise I won’t share your information with anyone else. I’ve made it my mission to use whatever talents I have at my disposal to support people who wish to grow and learn and prosper. This article and the EFT Cheat Sheet and tutorials are part of that mission.
Cheers!
Scott Mooney
http://www.moon-man.com/
http://www.artofselfdev.com/
