"How do I get really good at EFT?"

By Gwyneth Moss

One of my students recently watched Gary working with Kim on the Borrowing Benefits DVDs. She turned to me and sighed "He's an artist! How do I get that good? Can I ever get that good?" Yes you can. Yes.

Each of us when we first come to EFT starts with the needle-and-thread that is the basic recipe. Then, though our own practice and repeated observation of Gary and others at work, we learn the simple stitches of the gentle techniques and the approaches to trauma. We learn detective work to uncover aspects and core issues and imaginative forms of testing to check our work. As practice continues we further develop rapport, flexibility and adaptability, we learn to use EFT over the phone and how to introduce EFT to individuals and groups. Progressing and practicing further we learn how to explain and teach these processes and skills to others. Through the repetition of practice and the challenge of real cases our skills develop into a channel through which art can flow.

Any artist whether painter, potter, pianist or cook must practice and practice and practice basic techniques until those get into the muscles and no longer require conscious thought. Art is created in the paradox of simultaneously being present and being not present. Any artist will tell you that in the moments of creativity they are not there, they get out of the way and the inspiration seems to come from nowhere, from beyond. However any art is also totally individual: a product of that person's unique qualities. It is as if art flows though us and like light though a lens it is colored and shaped by our uniqueness.

Dr Nick Baylis of Cambridge University says that "just about anyone with average learning ability is quite capable of acquiring a professional level of expertise in virtually any endeavor". What makes someone excel in the art of delivery of EFT is what makes any great artist. So how do we get that good?

Lots of Determined Practice

Committed practice is the single most important factor in how good we get at something. In practice we must be always aiming to improve, stretching ourselves and working near the limits of our comfort zone, neither too far beyond nor too far within our current level. In EFT this means working with lots and lots of cases so that the basic skills become second nature. Practice allows us to appreciate human individuality and to develop the flexibility to work in different ways with different people.

Patch Adams describes life as an endless repeating cycle of Intention, Performance, and Feedback. Those developing artistry pay crucial attention to Feedback. Clients may or may not give us direct feedback and whether they choose to or not, we have to review and appraise our work ourselves. Improvement is through learning and learning is through experience so in every experience we have to ask "what did I learn?" and "what would I change?" So show enthusiasm for feedback and don't be afraid to try something new or to stretch your comfort zone.

Dr Baylis says that 95% of us reach a plateau of competence after the first 100 hours of practice and then our progress levels off as we cease to challenge ourselves and remain well within our comfort zone. This can often be because as complete beginners we are not afraid of failure whilst once we start to develop some expertise we fear the humiliation of "getting it wrong" and stop taking the risks from which we learn. This plateau (which many reach at EFT level 2) is a rich mine of Writings on Walls and the 5% or so who are the true artists will find the motivation to climb beyond the plateau by clearing their own blocking beliefs. Any of us can do that, any of us can be that 5% and if you don't believe that, then start tapping.

My first therapy teacher Wilf Proudfoot said "I can teach you to be safe; your clients will teach you to be effective". I began to feel like a competent and confident therapist after my first 1,000 hours of client work but I didn't do that on my own, it also took the several hundred people who sought me out for help. A pianist can shut themselves away with a piano to clock up the 10,000 committed hours that make a professional. To get such practice in EFT we have to convince others of its merits and attract them to us. So an EFT artist also needs to be an artist of marketing and communication either in establishing and maintaining a private practice or in persuading an employer or not-for-profit agency to accept something new and seemingly weird.

A Shining Passion

All this practice and practice-building requires a heart-felt, deep, self motivating passion to fuel long hours of studying and marketing, to overcome set backs and to communicate at every opportunity. Passion is fed by a curiosity for learning and new experience and strengthened by enjoyment. Artists do EFT quite simply because they love it and gain a deep pleasure from the experience. Passion shines out of them and manifests as the creativity and intuition that builds on the foundation of practice and enables a truly individual style to emerge. Mohammed Ali said "champions are not made in the gym; champions are made from something they have deep inside them - a desire, a dream, a vision". Such passion comes from the heart and cannot be imposed by the head.

When we are working at the peak of our abilities and passion we are working from our strengths. Positive Psychology the brain-child of Professor Martin Seligman identifies 27 signature strengths of which we each exhibit three primary strengths and several secondary strengths. I would encourage all who want to become EFT artists to take the signature strengths questionnaire on the Authentic Happiness website and to build on their own individual strengths in their work with EFT.

Once they have developed competence and confidence in applying EFT, artists begin to play with their own ideas and to innovate. Creativity flourishes and artists develop their own ways of introducing EFT, their own reframes and their own teaching tools. Or they find specialties in working with children or cancer care or some such population where they feel at home and have a passionate vision for the possibilities of EFT.

A Rich Learning Environment

Developing skill in EFT is not done alone and artists have an insatiable hunger for learning. As well as the many clients who teach how to be effective, EFT artists surround themselves in a rich learning environment. They watch Gary Craig's DVDs over and over. They trawl the internet and keep thick files of articles. They go to workshops with different trainers and train in the related fields of NLP and psychotherapy. They read widely on human nature, psychology, philosophy (a rich source of reframes), spirituality and physics. They develop and maintain a spiritual practice that steadies and centers and expands consciousness. As we get ourselves out of the way and the healing art flows through us, it picks up fragments of this diversity of learning and experience that enriches our unique human filter.

EFT artists attract each other and become friends and tapping-buddies who offer support and encouragement and work on each others issues. They put themselves in learning environments like one of my trainees who walked into an Alzheimer's society meeting and said, initially unsure of herself, "I think I can help" and has since proved it.

Supporting Artistry

I help those who come to me for EFT Training to continue to learn after the workshops and to develop the habit of learning, by building a coaching program into the initial training. This requires them to do three assignments and to call me after each one. In the calls I stress that I am not an assessor but a learning coach and I ask them to tell me what they learned from the assignment and then do all that I can to make the calls enjoyable. We discuss the learning and I encourage them with further possibilities of continuing that learning. The third of their assignments is to do a Palace of Possibilities session for themselves: to identify and clear a Writing on their Walls. This assignment and the coaching call are designed to give them the know-how and motivation to climb beyond the learning plateau and to keep heading towards artistry.

So how do you get that good? You get that good through determined practice, shining passion and learning partnerships. And like climbing a mountain - you just keep going!

Gwyneth Moss