A Frequently Asked Question & Answer about EFT

How do I use EFT for________?

Important Note: This article provides helpful guidelines for those who want to expand their EFT skills toward Mastery and thus go beyond the mere mechanics of EFT . It is for those wishing to handle the difficult-to-budge cases and develop the Art of Delivery. Fortunately, anyone can do this. You don't have to be a professional with 30 years experience. But you DO need to to be willing to study and to stub your toe and try again. Mastery of EFT is a common sense endeavor.

Hi Everyone,

This question usually comes up when someone mechanically applies The EFT Basic Recipe and it "doesn't work." The query takes many forms, examples of which are....

I have a client whom EFT has helped for many things...but not her insomnia. What's the best way to give her help for this sleep disorder?

Hey! I thought EFT worked on everything. However, I've tried it exhaustively on the numbness in my feet and only get temporary relief. What should I do next?

I read about others using EFT successfully for grief but I am unable to get beyond the deep sense of loss of my late wife? What am I doing wrong?

It can be puzzling to hit a dead-end with EFT after reading about, watching and experiencing so many EFT successes. That's why we include both successes and difficult-to-budge cases in our email list, web site and full-scale training videos. We want to give you the full picture ... AND ... provide ways to handle the difficult cases.

Dead-ends are not usually dead-ends. Instead, they are often opportunities to increase your Art of Delivery with EFT. Properly applied, EFT is nearly universal in the ailments it can address. Failures, in most cases, are not failures of EFT. After all, EFT is only a tool. Rather, they are failures of the EFT Practitioner to find the core issue OR to be specific enough OR to recognize when the client has shifted aspects, and so on. We cannot blame a wrench for not fixing a problem when the mechanic doesn't understand how best to use it.

Many who inquire about "How to use EFT for _______" are looking for step-by-step procedures for a specific person with a specific ailment. They want me to tell them precisely what to do in this specific instance so that EFT's magic can appear once again.

What is REALLY needed, of course, is NOT a precise procedure for a specific person with a specific ailment. Such an individualized procedure has limited use. Instead, EFT Practitioners must develop the facility to create their own customized procedures for whatever issues come their way. This launches the EFT Practitioner into a level of mastery and substantially expands their abilities.

Fortunately, there are some useful guidelines that can be followed so that the necessary Art of Delivery can be effectively applied by anyone willing to develop the skills. I will outline them below.

However, to develop this art YOU MUST BE WILLING TO STUB YOUR TOE. You must try and "fail" and try again. This is how you gain experience. It is how you learn. You learned to walk this way ... and to read ... and to drive a car ... and to become a good conversationalist. You learned your profession this way and you are still learning through trial and error. Developing EFT's Art of Delivery is no different.

Guidelines for Difficult-to-Budge cases

Overview: Some foundational "mental sets" that I use when approaching difficult-to-budge cases are....

1. Clients almost invariably describe their issues globally rather than as the SPECIFIC EVENTS that underlie them. Thus they tend to say "My problem is that I have great anger and fly off the handle easily" rather than, "When I was 9 my brother pushed me off a cliff" or "When I was 6 my mother slapped me in front of my friends" and so on.

2. If we can find the SPECIFIC EVENTS we can almost certainly collapse them and thus collapse the larger issue that they support. The SPECIFIC EVENTS are the table legs that support the table top (global issue). When the table legs are gone, the table falls.

3. When physical ailments do not respond well to the standard EFT Basic Recipe, I make the assumption that these ailments are caused by unresolved emotional issues. Thus unresolved anger, fear, trauma, grief, etc. manifest themselves in the body as ailments. These ailments go under labels such as overweight, cancer, headaches, addictions, ulcers and so on.

There are some obvious exceptions to this supposition. If someone drank a quart of gasoline, for example, I wouldn't conclude that their resulting problem was caused by unresolved emotional issues. On the other hand, I make this assumption even in places where medical evidence (such as an X-Ray or a blood test) clearly points to a physical or chemical cause and often achieve results despite the medical evidence. At no time do I advise the client regarding medical issues. I simply address the presumed emotional issues with EFT and observe the results.

For Emotional Issues: Here are several guidelines that should help you achieve results for most emotional issues.

1. There are countless approaches demonstrated within the extensive EFT materials. Study these examples and you are almost certain to find several useful approaches for your difficult-to-budge case(s). These examples include...

a. The countless number of live sessions that appear on our full-scale training videos.

b. The numerous live audio sessions that appear in The EFT Course.

c. The several transcripts of actual sessions that appear on the Transcripts Section of our web site.

d. The several hundred case histories that appear on our web site.

Serious students study these demonstrations over and over again and learn new subtleties each time. These demos are, by far, the most useful training aids available for those wishing to master EFT.

2. SPECIFIC EVENTS: Although many emotional issues can be relieved by addressing them on a global basis (e.g. Veronica's abandonment issue and Jason's betrayal issue as shown in The EFT Course ), it is much more efficient to break the issues down into the SPECIFIC EVENTS that underlie them. This is demonstrated repeatedly in the "6 Days at the VA" video from The EFT Course.

For more on this vitally important subject see...

The importance of being specific and

The Movie Technique: A tool for being specific

Also, some SPECIFIC EVENTS are too long and thus contain several crescendos within them. Each of these crescendos qualifies as a SPECIFIC EVENT and thus should be addressed separately. An example might be "the hateful look in my mother's eyes." If you break an issue down into appropriately small SPECIFIC EVENTS, you should approach 100% success rates when applying The EFT Basic Recipe to them.

If a client cannot recall a SPECIFIC EVENT, tell them to....

make it up!!

This "made up" SPECIFIC EVENT is not really a complete fiction because it comes from within the client and, in many cases, contains aspects that are otherwise difficult to access. In this way it can be more useful than a real one.

3. Global issues such as "anger at my abusive parents" often have hundreds of SPECIFIC EVENTS underlying them. Fortunately, It is not necessary to apply EFT to several hundred SPECIFIC EVENTS to resolve the problem cleanly. Just resolve 10 to 30 of them and a generalization effect usually occurs that serves to collapse the whole issue.

4. Clients frequently resolve issues and then, unbeknownst to both the EFT Practitioner AND the client, they shift to a related issue (aspect). The client does not usually distinguish between the old and new aspects and lumps them together as "the same issue". This can result in the client reporting "no change" when, in fact, there were some important changes.

Please review the article on our web site regarding aspects for more info on this important topic.

5. Practice and develop facilities with the following time-tested EFT procedures. Master these, along with the ability to reduce issues to their underlying SPECIFIC EVENTS, and you will have tools to approach almost any emotionally based issue.

a. The Tearless Trauma Technique for a relatively painless way to approach a potentially intense issue.

b. Borrowing Benefits for a way to do quality work while tapping along with someone else (or along with a video taped session).

c. Personal Peace Procedure for a way to get underneath almost any broad based (global) issue.

d. Tell the Story Technique for a way to be thorough.

For Physical Issues: Below are several guidelines that should help you achieve results for most physical issues. Where appropriate, they should be done in coordination with a qualified health professional.

1. Many times we can achieve results simply by directly addressing the symptom. Example..."Even though I have this pain in my shoulder......" This is simple, easy and can relieve symptoms quickly.

2. However, if the above doesn't do the job then look for emotional issues that are causing the symptoms. Ask the question, "If there was an emotional contributor to this physical symptom, what might it be?" Sometimes the client will claim they don't know. In this case ask them to guess. You may be surprised at how often the guesses are accurate.

Often the physical ailment is a manifestation of some unresolved and important core issues. In this case deep emotional work is indicated (use the guidelines in the previous section). One question I like to ask in order to uncover these core issues is, "If you had life to live over again, what person or event would you prefer to skip." This will almost always take you down useful avenues.

3. If the symptoms "come back" then I consider two possibilities.....

a. This particular symptom is a "weak spot" in the body wherein various emotional issues manifest themselves. A common example would be one's stress that "shows up" as stiffness in the neck and shoulders. It can be anywhere in the body, however. Headaches, back pains and stomach discomforts are only a few of the possibilities.

b. Something else is driving the symptom. Male impotence, for example, may be driven not only by unresolved emotional issues but also by overloading the body with sugar (or some other dietary insult). If you are satisfied that you have exhausted the emotional contributors then look for other causes.

4. A common sense item: While EFT may help relieve physical symptoms it will NOT counter the long term effects of continuously devastating one's body with sugar, caffeine, tobacco, alcohol, drugs, pesticides, preservatives and so on. While these addictive issues can be addressed with EFT, it should not be assumed that one can relieve symptoms with EFT and thus permit the ongoing abuse of the body.

In summary, let me emphasize that the use of EFT for difficult-to-budge cases is an art form. There are no "for sures" in the human system but there ARE useful guidelines and approaches that, when mastered, can provide the EFT'er with the ability to address almost anything.

Hugs, Gary