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Q & A Series on using EFT

Hi Everyone,

In partial response to my recent call for questions regarding uses of EFT, I submit the following list of questions and answers.

Q & A on using EFT--Part 1

Hi Everyone,

This is Part 1, to be followed by Part 2. You should find them interesting and, in this Part 1, professionals and serious students should pay particular attention to the last one (on forgiveness).

Hugs, Gary

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Q. What have you and others done to assist clients to increase their income? I have worked on myself with EFT and still never seem to make a decent living.

A. Collapsing barriers to abundance is not one of our "one minute wonders." Those with financial "limits" usually recognize the many built-in forms of conditioning that they have bought into over their lifetimes. Self talk such as...

--rich people are greedy
--I will lose my friends if I make too much money
--I won't get into Heaven if I pursue money
--the pursuit of money will suck up my life and I won't have time for anything else

...are all form of subconscious stoppers which must be addressed and eliminated before real progress can be made. How to do this is covered in my series on our web site entitled The Palace of Possibilities . It is brought to life even more in our video training set entitled From EFT to the Palace of Possibilities .

I also created a Building a Thriving Practice section on our web site which you might find helpful.

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Q. When tapping the fingertips, why do we skip the ring finger? People want to know this sometimes, and I don't have an answer for them.

A. You can tap the ring finger point if you want. It is on the same meridian as the 9 gamut point. It is normally skipped because, in the full Basic Recipe, the 9 gamut point is routinely tapped. However, many people do not use the 9 gamut procedure and thus can, if they wish, tap the ring finger instead. Please recall that in the EFT shortcut version, I don't use the finger points and thus the whether or not to tap the ring finger is a moot point.

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Q. Does smiling a *real* smile, when you get to the part of the affirmation when you say "...and I totally and completely accept myself" help with the success of the EFT process?

A. Beats me. I've never tried it. This is the type of thing you should try yourself and come to your own conclusion. It takes much longer to ask me and wait for an answer than it does to try it.

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Q. I am aware that I have about a million areas that I could be EFTing on. My weight, my career, well, you know the drill. I can't figure out how to address all my issues and still have time to work. Any suggestions?

A. Sure. This is an ideal candidate for our Personal Peace Procedure . Break your various issues down to the SPECIFIC EVENTS underlying them and collapse several of them per day. After 3 months you may collapse most, if not all, of the barriers involved.

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Q. Is there an appropriate way to combine EFT with EMDR?

A. I have high regard for EMDR and any other procedures that professionals find effective. I have never used it myself, however, and thus cannot answer your question with any authority. For your info, though, those that have training in both EMDR and EFT give me one of the following 2 responses...

1. They use EMDR to bring up the problem and then use EFT to either collapse the issue or collapse the abreaction that is sometimes involved with EMDR...OR

2. They abandon EMDR in favor of EFT with the comment that, "I can do the same thing with EFT only in a much gentler manner."

Please know that these responses are those of others. They do not represent my opinion. I have no opinion because I have never used EMDR.

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Q. I am wondering about EFT and individuals who have been abused physically and psychologically. While I support a therapist's efforts to bring forgiveness of oneself and others into the EFT session, there are times when forgiveness is 'pushed' by therapists, when the abuse (to the individual abused) is unforgivable.

A. You may not like this answer because to me forgiveness is the ultimate aim of all psychotherapy and thus .... as long as one is open to true understanding .... there is no such thing as an unforgivable act. There are heinous acts and regrettable acts and disgusting acts but, as long as one retains anger and unforgiveness about them, the result will be ongoing emotional and physical symptoms for the abused person. That has no value for anyone.

However, I see no excuse for pushing forgiveness (or anything else) on a client who is not ready for it. It may take many sessions to first turn hatred to understanding .... and then to forgiveness .... but, until forgiveness is truly adopted by the abused client, personal peace will not be found.

How can one retain grievances and expect to have true personal peace? The two are mutually exclusive. Whoever labels an act as unforgivable closes the door to personal peace on that issue and thus dwells in a "grievance prison" of their own making. This falls well short of quality healing.

I have dealt with many cases of abuse and, without exception, the abuser turns out to be someone with great personal problems. This is just as true for abusive parents as it is with psychopathic personalities ranging from Hitler to Hussein. With skillful questioning the client will come to this conclusion on his/her own (tapping helps with all reframes like this). Once the illness of the abuser is seen, forgiveness (and thus peace) is not far away.

This form of forgiveness, by the way, does not create agreement with the abusive behavior nor does it condone such acts. It does, however, allow the client to "see through" the abusive acts to the regrettable conditioning of the abuser. It allows love and understanding to replace hate and ignorance. Very healthy .... in my opinion.

Q & A on using EFT--Part 2

Hi Everyone,

Here are more responses to questions that I asked for awhile back. Scroll through them and read the ones that seem most useful for you. I have made some keywords bold to aid your perusal.

Hugs, Gary

P.S. You might wish to spend extra time with the 6th Q&A. It involves using EFT with children.

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Q. Someone running another email list said they had spoken to acupuncture and acupressure practitioners and that EFT and other tapping protocols were dangerous, esp. for pregnant women. Although I can't imagine that is true (I think you are too upright a person to promote something that would/could be dangerous to anyone without a lot of warning) I would like a slightly better answer than "I trust Gary."

A. I have heard this concern many times over the years, although I have never heard of a report where tapping actually created the supposed problems. To the contrary, I have heard reports of many benefits for "morning sickness" and the various discomforts relating to pregnancy and childbirth.

However, I am neither an acupuncturist nor a physician and so, where material concerns like these are raised, I provide an informative discussion on our web site. You will find it in our Frequently Asked Questions section. Ultimately, of course, the responsibility for one's use of EFT belongs to the user.

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Q. My niece has been diagnosed with schizophrenia. What can EFT do to help schizophrenia? Where near northeast PA can we get some help for my niece?

A. Just about every question you can ask is already answered on our web site. Just go to our web site search engine and put in the word "schizophrenia" (without the quotes). Several articles will come up that contain information on that subject. You can also find EFT practitioners around the world (including Pennsylvania) by clicking on the Find an EFT Practitioner link on our home page.

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Q. What type of license is required, if any, to legally use EFT in a business? What title could you legally use? Life coach or advisor, minister?

A. The various state/country laws differ widely on this subject and I am in no position to give legal advice. Consult a knowledgeable attorney and/or query the professionals already in the field that reside in your state/country.

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Q. My client had great success with EFT on our one and only session. Afterwards he called me stating that EFT contradicted his religious beliefs and didn't want to continue. What to do?

A. This "EFT is against my religion" objection is not heard very often. I know it seems to be a formidable wall but it is, in actuality, a major opportunity. If you can reframe THAT one, you can reframe almost anything.

I've encountered a handful of religious objections over the years and was able to make progress with most of them. Interestingly, the reframe is almost always built into the religion itself. Religions tend to be loaded with conflicting interpretations and thus, depending on who is doing the interpreting, opposite conclusions are easily seen.

By asking questions about how EFT appears to contradict the religion you can learn of your client's interpretation. It is often a short step from there to a plausible and congruent reframe.

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Q. When should a client do EFT for an anxiety attack?......in the morning?....at the onset of an attack??

A. We've had many successes using EFT for anxiety attacks. Consider two possibilities....

1. Tap at the onset of, or during, the attack. As a practical matter, this is what people usually do and it often serves to "bring them down" much more rapidly than waiting it out. Sometimes it takes seconds and sometimes it takes 10 or 15 minutes.

2. In the longer term, consider using EFT to collapse the cause of the attacks. Thus, discovering the SPECIFIC EVENTS of guilt, anger, fear, etc. underlying the anxiety attacks and resolving them with EFT can remove the foundation out from underneath the problem.

Some anxiety attacks, in my experience, are actually an allergic-type reaction to some food or other substance on or about the person. You might wish to attempt collapsing the reaction using EFT or choose to avoid the substance.

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Q. What do you do with children who don't talk much, if at all, or won't do the tapping for themselves?

A. Children often respond very well to EFT and usually enjoy it but, in my experience, you must make a game out of it if you expect them to participate fully.

My favorite way to use EFT for children is contained in my article A "must" EFT procedure for children wherein, among other things, I say...

The basic idea is simple. Every night, while children are being tucked into bed, parents should ask...

"Can you tell me about your good and bad thoughts as well as the good and bad things that happened to you today?"

Then, as the events are being told (both good and bad), the parents should lightly and lovingly either tap or gently rub the EFT points.

Properly done, children love this procedure ... AND ... if it is done every night when they go to bed, they will collapse most of those daily emotional issues that tend to accumulate over a lifetime. Resolving them nightly produces a much more peaceful, well adjusted child. What a gift!

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Q. What if a person cannot say, "I deeply and completely love and accept myself," on the set up?

A. You can, instead, have them say, "I'm open to the possibility that I could love and accept myself" or just simply, "I'm OK."