Tips On How To Apply EFT
EFT is remarkably simple to apply. Just customize the 1 minute Basic Recipe with a Setup affirmation and Reminder Phrase that aims at your problem. Then do as many rounds as necessary until the problem is gone. This easy process can be used, with persistence, to literally re-engineer your system. It will unload the fears, anger, grief, depression and other negative emotions that cause people to drive through life with their brakes on. And….along the way….it may give you relief from headaches, asthma, pain and a seemingly unending list of physical ailments.
This section of the course adds a few tips…some useful insights…so you can make better use of EFT. It takes you behind the scenes and helps you build a firmer foundation beneath your new skills.
Testing
You will notice on the videos and audiotapes that Adrienne and I are constantly asking people to evaluate the extent of their problem on a scale of 0 to 10 (where 10 represents maximum intensity and 0 represents no intensity whatsoever). This provides a benchmark against which to measure your progress. You might start at a 6, for instance, and then go to a 3….and then a 1….and finally to 0….as various rounds of The Basic Recipe are applied.
You should always measure the intensity as it exists NOW….as you think about it….and not as you think it would be in the actual situation. Remember, The Basic Recipe balances the disruptions in your energy system as they exist NOW while you are tuned in to the thought or circumstance.
Here’s an example of how it works. Let’s say you have a fear of spiders that you would like to put behind you. If there is no spider present to cause you any emotional intensity then close your eyes and imagine seeing a spider or imagine a past time when a spider scared you. Assess your intensity on a scale of 0 to 10 as it exists NOW while you think about it . If you estimate it at a 7, for example, then you have a benchmark against which to measure your progress. Now do one round of The Basic Recipe and imagine the spider again. If you can get no trace whatsoever of your previous emotional intensity then you are done. If, on the other hand, you go to, let’s say, a 4 then you need to perform subsequent rounds until 0 is reached.
Aspects
You might wonder at this point if getting to 0 while just thinking about a spider will hold up when you are actually confronted with a real spider. The answer is usually…. yes!!
In most cases, the energy disruptions that occur while thinking about the spider are the same as those when you are in the presence of a real spider. That’s why the original energy balancing tends to hold in the real circumstances.
The exception to this is when some new aspect of the problem comes up in the real situation that wasn’t there when you were just thinking about it. For example, you may have been thinking about a stationary spider that didn’t move. If that movement is an important aspect of your fear and…if it was absent from your thinking when the original rounds were done…then that part of the fear will arise when you see a moving spider. This is a reasonably common occurrence and it doesn’t mean that EFT didn’t work.
It simply means there is more to do. Just apply The Basic Recipe to the new aspect (moving spider) until your emotional response goes to 0. Once all aspects have been eliminated your phobic response to spiders will be history and you will be perfectly calm around them.
The notion of aspects is an important one in EFT. As in the spider example above, some problems have many pieces…or aspects…to them and the problem will not be completely relieved until all of them are addressed. Actually, each of these aspects qualifies as a separate problem even though they seem to be all lumped together. The fear of a stationary spider and the fear of a moving spider, for example, would seem to be lumped together. In fact, they are separate problems and need to be addressed separately by EFT.
Different aspects are possible with just about any problem you want to address with EFT. Sometimes they take the form of a series of traumatic memories such as memories of war, abuse or rape. Each of those memories may be a separate problem, or aspect, and needs to be addressed individually before complete relief is obtained.
Please understand that where several aspects of an emotional problem are present, you may not notice any relief until all aspects are reduced to 0 by The Basic Recipe. This becomes very clear when you compare it to its counterpart in physical healing. If, for example, you have a simultaneous headache, toothache and stomach ache, you will not feel healthy until all 3 are gone. The pain may seem to shift but it is, nonetheless, still pain. So it is with emotional issues that contain different aspects. Until all aspects are gone you may not feel you are getting relief even though you have taken care of 1 or more aspects.
Persistence Pays
As a newcomer to EFT, you may lack the experience to be able to identify specific aspects and address them individually with The Basic Recipe. That’s okay. You need only go with whatever feeling you are having and address that feeling with The Basic Recipe. Your subconscious mind knows what you are working on.
You might address this “feeling” with a Setup affirmation that goes… “Even though I have this feeling, I deeply and completely accept myself” and a Reminder Phrase that says… “this feeling.”
Please understand that the majority of the problems The Basic Recipe addresses are not laden with numerous aspects. Most problems are easy to identify and just as easily relieved. But just in case you happen to have one of those more involved problems and you are unable to identify specific aspects of it, then I suggest you do 3 rounds of The Basic Recipe for “this feeling” or “this problem” once per day (that’s about 3 minutes per day) for 30 days. Your subconscious mind has a way of bringing up what is necessary and you should have relief long before the 30 days are up. EFT, as you can tell, is… a very flexible process… and will often make progress on problems that are outside your awareness.
Be Specific Where Possible
It is best, of course, to be specific whenever you can. That way you can efficiently zero in on an exact fear, pain, memory etc., and eliminate it from your limiting baggage.
Sometimes we lump together a number of specific problems under a larger heading. This can handicap your progress with EFT. For example, most people would like to have a better “self image” but don’t realize that the term is a general label which serves as a catchall phrase for numerous specific problems (e.g. memories of abuse, rejection, failure and/or fears of various kinds).
Someone who has been subject to severe rejection as a child is likely to feel inadequate in many areas of their life. This contributes to their poor self image by causing energy disruptions (and hence negative emotions) when they face potential rejection.
Accordingly, they consistently feel “not good enough” when given opportunities and tend to stay stuck where they are in life. When lumped together with other negative emotions, self image problems become more widely generalized and the person feels stopped in even more areas.
I use a metaphor to put self image and other general emotional labels into proper EFT perspective. I liken the general problem to a… diseased forest in which each of the underlying specific issues is a negative tree. The forest, at first, is so densely populated with trees that it may seem impossible to find your way out.
To some, it may even seem like a jungle. When we neutralize each specific negative event in our lives with The Basic Recipe we are, effectively, cutting down a negative tree. Continue cutting down these trees and, after a while, the forest will have thinned out so you can walk out of it rather easily. Each toppled tree represents another degree of emotional freedom and…if you are persistent with The Basic Recipe…you will gradually find your negative responses subsiding. You will find yourself at ease…and calm…when faced with new opportunities and you will be guided by a new sense of adventure rather than by a fear of not being “good enough.”
One very helpful concept here is to break down problems into the specific events that underlie them and use EFT on each such specific event. For example, if you have anger because your father abused you, apply EFT to specific events like, ”When Dad hit me in the kitchen at age 8.” This is often superior to using EFT on the more global issue of “My father abused me.”
Perhaps the biggest mistake made by newcomers is that they try to use EFT on issues that are too global. They may make good headway with persistence but they are less likely to notice the results right away. As a result, they may quit too soon. Break the problems down into specific events and you will notice results on those specific events right away. Doing this also addresses the true cause and is usually more efficient.
The Generalization Effect
That being said, I want to acquaint you now with a fascinating feature of EFT. I call it The Generalization Effect because, after you address a few related problems with EFT, the process starts to generalize over all those problems. For example, someone who has 100 traumatic memories of being abused usually finds that after using EFT… they all vanish after neutralizing only 5 or 10 of them.
This is startling to some people because they have so many traumas in their life they think they are in for unending sessions with these techniques. Not so…at least not usually. EFT often clears out a whole forest after cutting down just a few trees.
For an example of this Generalization Effect review the case with Rich, the first Veteran on the “6 Days at the VA” video included with this course.
Try It On Everything!!
This course is replete with case histories. Their purpose is to imbed within you how EFT works in the real world. There’s a whole section on them in this manual and the videos and audios contain many more. They span issues…
**from the fear of public speaking to intense war memories, **from chocolate cravings to insomnia and **from hiccups to multiple sclerosis. I know of no limit to the emotional and physical problems which can be addressed by EFT.
Accordingly, I TRY IT ON EVERYTHING!! and urge you to do the same. People are forever asking me, “Will it work on _____?” and I always respond with, “Try it!” I have given up being surprised at the results. Headway is usually gained.
However, this “Try it on everything” idea must be interpreted with common sense. It’s purpose is to expand your awareness of EFT’s possibilities. It is not a license to act irresponsibly. Accordingly, you should not try EFT on serious mental illnesses or anything else UNLESS you are properly trained or qualified in that area.
EFT in a Nutshell
I value clarity and strive to inject it into what I teach. To me, the ultimate evidence of clarity is being able to reduce the subject matter to a simple paragraph. I have done that with EFT. What follows is…
EFT in a nutshell
Memorize The Basic Recipe. Aim it at any emotional or physical problem by customizing it with an appropriate Setup affirmation and Reminder Phrase. Be specific where possible and aim EFT at the specific emotional events in one’s life that may underlie the problem. Where necessary, be persistent until all aspects of the problem have vanished. Try it on everything!!
That’s it. That’s the essence of what you are learning here. If you would like an expanded version of this summary you will find it on the next page. There I include….on a single page….The Discovery Statement, The Basic Recipe and EFT in a Nutshell. I call it EFT on a page. You might wish to use it as a quick reference until you master these procedures.
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