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Articles & Ideas

General

A Useful Series on Borrowiing Benefits

Important Note: This article was written prior to 2010 and is now outdated. Please use my newest advancement, Optimal EFT. It is more efficient, more powerful and clearly explained in my free e-book, The Unseen Therapist™.  Best wishes, Gary

by Gary Craig

In this series, we are going to expand on the Borrowing Benefits concept and visit the impressive results gained thus far. We will get "behind the scenes" of this fascinating process and discuss not only its fine points and how-to's but its caveats and possibilities as well. If you are not familiar with the Borrowing Benefits concept click here for a detailed explanation.

Part 1: Introduction and Impressive Statistics
Part 2: Getting to very deep issues
Part 3: How to approach a 100% success rate
Part 4: Success using video sessions
Part 5: Many benefits from one workshop
Part 6: Guidelines for Borrowing Benefits workshops

Borrowing Benefits Series - Part 1:
Introduction and Impressive Statistics

Hi Everyone,

If I had my way about it, every healing practitioner in the world would be required to learn EFT's Borrowing Benefits procedures. It would be a mandatory course in Universities and no health oriented licensing board would issue a license without the licensee demonstrating skills in this vital process.

That's not just a dream or an idle thought. I think it is virtually certain that Borrowing Benefits (or some version of it) will someday take this kind of prominent place within the healing arena. Those who attended our recent Borrowing Benefits workshops would certainly agree. There is nothing like it...anywhere.

It isn't perfect. It doesn't completely clear everyone's issues.... on every topic.... forever. There's even a significant caveat regarding its proper use (explained next time). But what it DOES do goes way beyond anything I know of in the emotional healing fields. With it we can substantially reduce.... or completely clear.... unwanted emotional issues for a roomful of people at once. And with those clearings come new levels of personal peace, fewer physical ailments and a gentler, kinder planet.

I have now delivered Borrowing Benefits to over 600 people in 7 audiences ranging from 15 to 170 attendees. This article, and the series to follow, are designed to give you the results from those audiences as well as the motivation to apply this procedure for others.

You can also apply it to yourself NOW. You don't have to wait for a Borrowing Benefits workshop or a specialized video set. You need only pick a bothersome SPECIFIC EVENT from your past and tap along with some of the full length sessions already appearing on our video sets.

Here's an overview of our recent Borrowing Benefits workshops (statistics to follow).

In Borrowing Benefits we bring a volunteer up on stage for a live session on an emotional issue of their choosing. We reduce that issue down to the SPECIFIC EVENTS underlying the larger issue and tap on those. Each member of the audience then writes down a SPECIFIC EVENT of their own that may or may not be related to the on-stage issue (usually it is NOT related). Then, while I work with the person on-stage, the audience members tap along with us. They tap the same points and say the same words as though they were the person on stage. When the session is over everyone revisits their SPECIFIC EVENTS and compares its intensity with the intensity existing before the Borrowing Benefits session.

I have completed over 30 such on-stage Borrowing Benefits sessions with a wide range of issues (no two issues were the same). After each session, I asked the audience two questions. The first question was....

"How many of you experienced a noticeable improvement in the SPECIFIC EVENT you tapped on?"

For most healing procedures, a 30% positive response under these group circumstances would be considered impressive and a 50% result would fall into the WOW category. By contrast, the worst result I received when I asked that question of our Borrowing Benefits audiences was........80%. Most of the time 90% to 95% of the audience raised their hands.

The second question I asked was....

"Of those who had noticeable improvement, how many went from a relatively high number to zero"

I consistently received a 40% to 50% response to that question. Sometimes I asked attendees the next morning to tune in to the SPECIFIC EVENT for which they had Borrowed Benefits on the previous day. Because a little time went by for further resolution, the percentages of those who went to zero rose to around 60%.

On the last of my 4 day Borrowing Benefits workshops in Flagstaff, Arizona, I asked the audience to keep a worksheet of their 0-10 intensities (SUDS rating) both BEFORE and AFTER working on them via Borrowing Benefits. This way we would have a clear written record, rather than just raised hands.

Unfortunately, I didn't make clear that they were to be handed in at the end of the workshop. As a result, some of the attendees discarded their worksheets or had them packed in suitcases before the closing moments of the workshop. Nonetheless, we still had 98 worksheets out of 160 people...an appropriately representative sample. These 98 worksheets represented 692 SPECIFIC EVENTS.

Please note that this "experiment" was not performed in pristine scientific fashion and thus did not use control groups or other rigorous data-gathering procedures. It was just simply people estimating their personal results from Borrowing Benefits. I compiled all the numbers and sent them to Jack Rowe, PhD for statistical analysis. For those of you that are statistically oriented, the results are given below.

To me, the most telling stat revolves around the "mean" (which is listed first). Basically, it says that the average participant started with their SPECIFIC EVENTS at an intensity level of 7.33 (on a 0-10 intensity scale (SUDs)) and, after Borrowing Benefits, that intensity fell to 1.54. That is a 79% improvement for just sitting in one's seat and tapping along with someone else's issue. To my knowledge nothing in the emotional healing field comes anywhere close to that result. It stands alone and it provides impressive possibilities for both individual and group healing.

More next time.

Hugs, Gary


Borrowing Benefits Statistics from the May 27-30 workshop in Flagstaff, Arizona

Borrowing Benefits Series - Part 2:
Getting to very deep issues

Hi Everyone,

An unexpected and extraordinarily powerful Borrowing Benefits feature showed up at my recent workshops. For many it was a BIG bonus. For a few, however, it was quite disturbing. Accordingly, I must put forward the following caveat for those teaching or using Borrowing Benefits:

Sometimes the Borrowing Benefits process brings into awareness some deeply felt emotions (trauma, fear, guilt, etc.), the intensity of which can be serious. Thus prudence suggests that Borrowing Benefits should not be conducted without access to a skilled professional. This is particularly so for persons with known emotional or physical frailties.

In my experience, these emotions come from formerly repressed memories OR from issues that had, presumably, been "dealt with" in the past. Borrowing Benefits doesn't appear to cause them (they were already there) but it does appear to unlock them.

Interestingly, about 20% to 30% of the participants experienced this unusual intensity from an issue that came "out of the blue". In my conversations with these participants, the vast majority were thrilled that it happened. While the emotions were uncomfortable (bringing tears and other forms of anguish) they were delighted to have this issue brought out into the open. Some completely resolved it at the Borrowing Benefits workshop and others took it home with them for further work.

This feature should not be understated. Indeed, it appears to be a vitally important part of the healing process that uncovers the "BIG ONE". Once resolved, this usually results in dramatic levels of new freedom for the client.

However, a small percentage (3% is my best estimate) had some extreme intensity that they were not able to resolve during the workshop or at home. As a result, they went into a "funk" for a week or two. Such persons are clear candidates for ongoing work on deep and serious issues.


That being said, let me provide you with an actual example of this phenomenon from Maryam Webster, one of our Borrowing Benefits attendees. Maryam's story centers around a "buried event" that had burdened her all her life. She says....

"...suddenly the memory that my birth mother had tried to abort me - not once, but three separate times - burst open in my mind."

How this was handled is the subject of Maryam's important story.

Hugs, Gary


By Maryam Webster

Hi Gary,

I attended the May 20-23 EFT Borrowing Benefits workshop in Flagstaff because I had been one of those therapists who'd had clients with excellent reactions to EFT but wasn't getting the reaction myself for my own issues. I realized that I wasn't personally getting anything out of the Borrowing Benefits sessions, though I'd been tapping consistently for two days.

GC COMMENT: In discussion with Maryam I learned that she wasn't making progress because SHE WASN'T BEING SPECIFIC ENOUGH. She was tapping on a specific event but the event itself was too long and needed to be broken down into its component parts e.g. the look in mother's eyes, seeing the door shut, my fear at the thought of being alone and so on. Once Maryam broke the events down into their smaller components, her results increased substantially.

MARYAM CONTINUES: As a result of my experiences in Flagstaff I have developed the following maxim...

"If necessity is the mother of invention, specificity is the mother of success."

I needed to get much more specific.

The central issue that I came to Flagstaff with was an inexplicable lifetime feeling of rejection. As a therapist myself, I'd mostly dealt with it in my own therapy process, but this feeling came up lately in preventing me from doing several things I badly needed to do - fear of rejection was a stopper for no reason I could fathom.

In one of the Flagstaff Borrowing Benefits sessions, I was tapping quite peacefully along when suddenly the memory that my birth mother had tried to abort me - not once, but three separate times - burst open in my mind.

This was not information I had known or had a faint clue might have been the case. I was adopted at birth and had been told little about my birth mother, but now I was seeing her, and seeing through her eyes. I could see the entire scene - both from within the womb as "me" and also from above and behind my birth mother. She was tremendously agitated and snarled to the midwife "Get this THING out of me. Get it the hell out!"

Me "in the present" was shocked at her intensity of emotion and remembered instantly the previous two abortive attempts, one made with an herbal drink and one with a chemical douche. This current attempt however was in the early third trimester and was made with instruments of some kind. In the womb, I distinctly felt the instrument jam into a vertebra (which I had severe trouble with later in life), and recoiled.

The midwife realized that my birthmom was further along than she said and refused to continue the abortion to conclusion. It was horribly painful both physically and emotionally to me as the fetus. I relived the whole thing in a flash during Borrowing Benefits at the conference, began to weep uncontrollably and had to leave. I tagged Loretta Sparks (an emotional assistant Gary had provided) before I left and she came outside to work with me.

Now I had horrifying and in-my-face confirmation of the reason behind feeling from childhood that I was "bad" - while my (adoptive) mother constantly told me I was a good girl. Of feeling rejected, of feeling "less than", of never feeling safe, of failing and feeling like I would never be "good enough". Loretta and I worked through the feelings of terror, of not feeling safe, tremendous rejection, and the attendant feelings of "not good enough" simply evaporated. Magic!

Like many who had similarly impactful responses, I am profoundly grateful for this experience. My gratitude centers on feeling the sense of a lifetime's heavy burden - one I didn't know existed until very recently - completely removed. The energy this has freed up has been staggering and I now have been able to do things I simply couldn't have contemplated before to do with promoting my business, feeling whole, being even sweeter and gentler to myself and increased healing for what is now a broken back - I was hit by drunk driver fifteen years ago, and it broke my back in the exact area that fetal vertebra was jabbed. Now I can feel this area, like the rest of my life, growing stronger every day. And I am very, very grateful for EFT and the Borrowing Benefits practice. This is magic made real!

Sincerely,

Maryam Webster


Borrowing Benefits Series - Part 3:
How to approach a 100% success rate

Hi Everyone,

I know that "How to approach a 100% success rate" is an aggressive title and I thought long and hard before actually committing it to print. My thoughts, however, had nothing to do with the truth of those words. Rather, I was concerned about their acceptance.

Many cannot accept this possibility because they have "bought" that 100% success rates are impossible and thus misleading to the public. Such sinister proclamations are, they think, the wayward words of charlatans and evil doers who falsely build the hopes of the hopelessly afflicted and then walk off into the sunset with their pockets filled with gold.

Sigh!

Please understand that what I am discussing here is NOT put forward as the ultimate cure for cancer or schizophrenia (although the door should not be closed on those possibilities). Rather, it is put forward as a highly efficient way to handle the debilitating SPECIFIC EVENTS in one's life that, in many cases, cause or contribute to everything from OCD and addictions to depression, cancer and schizophrenia.

Further, we need to define success if we are going to properly claim near 100% success rates. Thus success, for these purposes, means....

An obvious emotional improvement
in the SPECIFIC EVENT being addressed.

Often (but not always), this results in bringing the unnecessary emotional charge on the SPECIFIC EVENT down to 0.

Given this definition....AND....EFT's ability to handle SPECIFIC EVENTS, approaching 100% success rates is quite feasible.

I have been beating the drum for many years about BEING SPECIFIC with EFT. In more recent times I have urged EFT'ers to break down emotional issues into the SPECIFIC EVENTS that underlie them. When this is done, we are addressing the true causes and not just the symptoms. While there is a skill to doing this, those that have done so have watched their success rates climb impressively. They are also doing deeper, more meaningful work.

I have found, and demonstrated consistently, that applying EFT to the smallest component of a bothersome memory almost always works. In fact, I haven't failed to gain success in this way over my last 200 attempts. This idea has the potential to substantially improve EFT's success rate AND pave the way for healing in areas previously thought difficult or impossible.

This is particularly useful....even critical .... within Borrowing Benefits. Why? Because the audience members (clients) are prone to tap on global issues UNLESS they are clearly instructed to zero in on SPECIFIC EVENTS. Thus, absent proper instruction, Borrowing Benefits clients will tend to shift around within their global issue and not notice the results they are getting.

Here's more about the concept...

Most clients present their emotional issues in very global manners. They say things like, "I feel abandoned"... or..."I'm always anxious"... or... "I was an abused child"... or... "I hate my father" and so on. To them, THAT is the problem and THAT is what they ask the therapist to fix.

But, despite this perception of the client, THAT is not the problem. Instead, those feelings represent SYMPTOMS of the problem. The real problem is the unresolved SPECIFIC EVENT(s) that CAUSE the larger issue. How can one feel abandoned or abused, for example, unless there were SPECIFIC EVENTS in one's life to cause those feelings (e.g. mother walking out of the house or father administering a beating)? Those feelings just don't appear out of the ether. They must have a cause.

If we consider the larger issue (e.g. abandonment) to be a table top then the table legs represent the SPECIFIC EVENTS that support the table. Obviously, if we reduce an issue to the SPECIFIC EVENTS supporting it and then collapse those table legs, the table top will fall for lack of support. This way we address the true causes (the SPECIFIC EVENTS) and not the symptom.

Unfortunately, many EFT practitioners still apply EFT to the table top and not the causes. Thus they might start with....

"Even though I have this feeling of abandonment...."

Being too global like this is the number one error made by new EFT'ers (and some seasoned ones, too). Interestingly, this will sometimes get results but it is not nearly as thorough or precise as going for the supporting table legs (causes). Also, because this global approach lacks precision, clients are more likely to report that their issues "came back." What appears to "come back," of course, are unresolved pieces (table legs) that were not previously addressed.

In addition, approaching an issue in such a global manner creates an environment wherein the client often "shifts" from event to event. Since the client and the EFT Practitioner are often unaware of these shifts, the EFT practitioner will often misread the client's responses. This can also lead to some unexplained and sudden client intensity. It is difficult enough to deal with this in one-on-one sessions but it is even more difficult during Borrowing Benefits where you have little or no one-on-one interface.

Soooo, you can be much more accurate and achieve greater success rates if you reduce those global issues (table tops) to the SPECIFIC EVENTS (table legs) that cause them. Examples for the global issue of "I feel abandoned" might be....

The time my mother left me in the shopping mall at age 8.

The time my father told me to leave home when I was age 12.

The time my 3rd grade teacher gave me that "I don't care about you" look.

These SPECIFIC EVENTS are much easier to deal with than the global issue and, so long as the client is properly instructed to stay with them (without shifting), your success ratio on those SPECIFIC EVENTS should be very high (approaching 100%).

Two points about this idea that deserve special note....

1. There can be hundreds or thousands of such SPECIFIC EVENTS underlying a larger issue (table top) and thus, theoretically, addressing them all can be a tedious process. Fortunately, you do not have to address every SPECIFIC EVENT to collapse the larger issue. You can usually do the job by collapsing somewhere between 5 and 20 of those table legs. This is because there is usually a commonality or "general theme" among all those SPECIFIC EVENTS. Thus, after appropriately collapsing a few of those table legs with EFT, a "Generalization Effect" occurs that serves to collapse ALL the legs.

This Generalization Effect is described and displayed in our "6 Days at the VA" video (part of The EFT Course ).

2. Sometimes the SPECIFIC EVENT is too long and has so many pieces to it that it should be treated as a separate table top. The example given above....

The time my mother left me in the shopping mall at age 8

...is such a candidate.

Why? Because it is likely several hours in length and probably has many pieces such as....

The fear of being all by myself.

The fear of all those big adults walking around me.

The guilt I felt for what I might have done to cause this.

The "I don't care look" in mother's eyes when I arrived home.

And so on.

Each of those pieces can be a SPECIFIC EVENT all by itself and should be addressed separately.

There is an art to properly identifying which issues are table tops and which are legs, but that comes with time and experience. When in doubt, go for the smallest pieces. Your success rates will go much higher when you do. I've seen entire issues collapse by just addressing a small but important piece such as, "the hateful look in father's eye." Sometimes the entire global issue can be reduced to a 2 second SPECIFIC EVENT and collapsed in moments with EFT.

Choosing the SPECIFIC EVENT can be crucially important for some people during Borrowing Benefits. That is why instructions need to be so clear.

More next time.

Hugs, Gary


Borrowing Benefits Series - Part 4:
Success using video sessions

Hi Everyone,

One of the most important features of Borrowing Benefits is the ability to do quality healing at home in front of a video screen. Just tap along with a quality EFT session on video and substantial improvement is likely.

This feature is of profound use for EFT Practitioners because it permits deeper and wider client healing in less time. Clients can view the EFT video sessions (either in or out of the office) and tap along. This will often bring up important core issues which, in the skilled hands of a proficient EFT'er, can usually be resolved efficiently.

Tam Llewellyn-Edwards gives us proof of this "Borrowing Benefits via Video" idea with an actual experience. He and his wife, Mary, conducted 3 Borrowing Benefits sessions, the last of which was successfully done via video. Their results are given in Tam's article below.

Hugs, Gary

P.S. I make some augmenting comments within Tam's message.


By Dr. Tam Llewellyn-Edwards

Hi Gary,

We had another successful "Advanced EFT" Course at Tickhill, UK last weekend. Again we had two demonstration sessions - one by myself and one by Mary (my wife). Both were very successful with almost all those who "Borrowed Benefits" obtaining significant falls in their 0-10 intensity ratings

The one failure was an attendee who, in one of the demonstrations, was working on a very global issue and found no reduction. Of course, the "Basic EFT Routine" does not always work on global problems and we often need to deal with specific aspects one by one. So this may not be such a surprise.

GC COMMENT: It is my recommendation that Borrowing Benefits always be done on SPECIFIC EVENTS (the more specific the better). Doing so provides a greater opportunity for clients to achieve noticeable success and less chance for them to "shift around" from aspect to aspect.

TAM CONTINUES: The third demonstration at that workshop was of interest as "you" were the therapist (on video)! Mary & I did the usual pre-framing and had the attendees select a problem (one with a clear single aspect) and evaluate their 0-10 intensities. We then ran the video of you working with the lady who had "pits on her face" from the "EFT to the Palace of Possibilities" videos.

The result was that everyone had a significant drop in intensities for their own specific problems. From this experiment it is clear that "Borrowing Benefits" works well via TV. This opens intriguing possibilities of using the method for very large audiences via TV or for single remote clients by sending them a video to play, possibly during a phone session.

GC COMMENT: I know I have previously suggested the use of Borrowing Benefits for television audiences because of its huge potential for mass healing. However, I must now suggest caution and conservatism in this arena because of the possibility that a few percent of the tv audience may "tune into" truly deep issues and thus may need access to professional help.

The idea of using Borrowing Benefits at home for single clients has substantial merit. This permits much "out of office healing" as well as the ability to discover deep issues for "in office" work. If clients tune into some intense issues they have access to the practitioner via phone.

TAM CONTINUES: The only adverse comment was that the time you spent not tapping but talking to your client disrupted the "Borrowing Benefits" session. This problem will be removed when you have available the dedicated "Borrowing Benefits" videos.

Hugs

Dr Tam Llewellyn-Edwards


Borrowing Benefits Series - Part 5:
Many benefits from one workshop

Note: This is about the ability of Borrowing Benefits to reach into deep, lifelong issues and produce quality resolution.

Hi Everyone,

I met "Marilyn" at the recent Borrowing Benefits workshop in Flagstaff, AZ. She had just finished crying in the hallway with "tears of joy" (her term).

As it turns out, she had spent many years of conventional therapy working on her issues with men regarding abuse, abandonment and incest. As a result she had many "cognitive insights" and "understandings" about these issues. Nonetheless, she still distanced herself emotionally and romantically from men and thus the problems remained unresolved.

Her "tears of joy" were because, through Borrowing Benefits, she genuinely resolved them. This was freedom. It was relief that finally cleared the way for a truly meaningful romantic relationship with her boyfriend, Donald.

It was easy to see the twinkle in her eye and I remember saying, with humor, "I think Donald owes me a Ferrari!" She smiled and said, " I think you're right!"

I just spoke with Marilyn on the phone and, indeed, her romantic freedom was generating ecstatic benefits.

She gives a brief synopsis of her Borrowing Benefits experience below. You should find it helpful when assessing the power of Borrowing Benefits to bring up, and resolve, important core issues.

Hugs, Gary

P.S. Please note that not everyone has Marilyn's quality experience. People vary in their responses to Borrowing Benefits and a few dip into strong core issues without immediate resolution. That is why I recommend Borrowing Benefits be done in an environment whereby access to a skilled professional is available.... just in case.


By "Marilyn"

Where to begin, Gary? I have thought so much about the recent Borrowing Benefits workshop in Flagstaff, AZ. I returned to the Saturday after, packed on Sunday and Monday, loaded the moving truck on Tuesday, on Wednesday drove the truck 180 miles to my new home. And yet with all that activity, can't stop thinking of the healing that I got to experience at Flagstaff. Here's a brief synopsis.

First issue: 22 years ago when my husband beat me, title of the "movie" I worked on: "Death, On It's Way." Cleared from an 8 to a zero, realized I had spent the past 22 years protecting myself from men, not allowing myself to be open to them (sexually and otherwise).

Second issue: 32 years ago, sudden death of boyfriend with whom I was deeply in love. Cleared from 7 to zero, realized I no longer needed to feel abandoned (had never realized the abandonment issue before that tapping session). Came to know that I no longer needed to fear abandonment in a relationship. Another plus to the relationship I now have with my boy friend, Donald.

Third issue: Being incested by my brother when I was 13 and he was 14 (40 years ago). I was very passive at the time, came to realize that never again will I just be passive and leave my body. Reality, came back to Idaho and Donald, fully present in love making for the first time in my life!!! What a reward!!!! Yes, Gary, you are right.... Donald does owe you a Ferrari!!!

Thanks so much for all your help.

I FEEL LIKE A NEW PERSON!!!!!!!! THANKYOU, THANKYOU, THANKYOU

Marilyn


Borrowing Benefits Series - Part 6:
Guidelines for Borrowing Benefits workshops

Hi Everyone,

This is the final installment of the Borrowing Benefits series and contains the detailed handout I used at a recent Borrowing Benefits workshop. It not only provides useful guidelines for maximizing benefits but it also outlines some of my own delivery techniques, beliefs and presuppositions.

You may wish to print it out or adjust it for use as a handout in your own workshops.

Hugs, Gary


Guidelines for Borrowing Benefits workshops
by Gary Craig

What is Borrowing Benefits?

It is a feature of EFT whereby members of an audience choose bothersome SPECIFIC EVENTS from their own pasts and obtain relief by tapping along with another person. That other person can be either on stage or on a video and can have an entirely different issue than the audience members. Nonetheless, the audience members use the same words and tap on the same points as the person on stage or on the video.

While this phenomenon is still in the experimental stage, it is believed that the audience members draw their own parallels from the on-stage person's issue and thus obtain similar relief as if they were tapping directly on their own issue.

Advantages of Borrowing Benefits

1. Entire audiences can achieve quality relief during one EFT session. There appears to be no limit to the audience size. It can be hundreds or thousands or millions. Care must be taken with large groups for the small percentage that are so emotionally frail that they should not attempt ANY healing procedure without the presence of a skilled professional.

2. If the session on stage or video is in-depth and of high quality, most audience members will benefit to a greater degree than doing EFT on themselves or with an inexperienced EFT practitioner.

3. Many audience members will experience relief in a relatively painless way because they are ostensibly tapping for someone else's issue "out there" instead of dwelling directly on their own difficult circumstances.

4. Many times the entire issue for an audience member is completely resolved. When there are pieces left over, a qualified EFT practitioner can finish it up with one-on-one sessions.

5. EFT practitioners can speed up complex cases by giving the clients videos to take home and practice Borrowing Benefits between sessions.

6. Some audience members may tune into otherwise buried emotional issues during Borrowing Benefits. When this happens a great deal of time is saved because it hastens the process of finding a core issue.

Disadvantages of Borrowing Benefits

1. In some cases Borrowing Benefits may not be as thorough as one-on-one sessions. The gap can be filled by a qualified EFT practitioner.

2. A small percentage of audience members may tune into some unexpected intensity and become uncomfortable. This is usually because THEY DIDN'T FOLLOW DIRECTIONS and strayed from their SPECIFIC EVENT. In any event, it is appropriate to advise audience members of this possibility in advance and advise them to bring professional help where merited. If you are doing Borrowing Benefits before a live group, you should have experienced EFT'ers in the room to help...just in case.

SPECIFIC EVENTS are the most important thing
to remember about Borrowing Benefits

The audience members MUST SELECT A SPECIFIC EVENT TO WORK ON. Unfortunately, most clients describe their issues too globally and your audience members are no exception.. Here are some typical examples:

"My mother doesn't love me."
"I'm an angry person."
"Sometimes I feel very intense or anxious."
"I don't want to put myself forward."

These issues are made up of underlying SPECIFIC EVENTS and it is these SPECIFIC EVENTS in our lives that form the foundation under our more global problems. For example, a SPECIFIC EVENT underlying "My mother doesn't love me" might be "The time mother left me in the shopping center at age 8 and I had to find my way home." These SPECIFIC EVENTS are the building blocks of the larger problems. Without them, the larger problems have no foundations.

Thus it is vitally important that audience members select, and Borrow Benefits for, a SPECIFIC EVENT. Otherwise, they will be tapping on some global issues and are likely to shift within them from aspect to aspect or event to event. This is begging for some audience members to have unnecessary emotional intensity. However, if they start with...and stay on....a SPECIFIC EVENT during the Borrowing Benefits session the following benefits usually occur....

1. They are much more likely to resolve that SPECIFIC EVENT and notice the relief.

2. They are much LESS likely to experience uncomfortable emotional intensity.

3. After one resolves a few SPECIFIC EVENTS underlying a more global issue, a GENERALIZATION effect takes place that serves to collapse the global issue.

How to conduct a Borrowing Benefits session

1. Before you start, PREFRAME THE AUDIENCE with some important features.

a. Explain the mechanics of the process as well as the items above under SPECIFIC EVENTS are the most important thing to remember about Borrowing Benefits.

b. Emphasize and re-emphasize the importance of using a SPECIFIC EVENT. Without this table-pounding-emphasis, people will tend to pick out a globally stated issue.

c. Emphasize the tendency for people to have some resolution of their SPECIFIC EVENT and then shift to another event or another aspect of the same event. Without this emphasis, many people will get resolution but will not notice it. They may say, "it didn't work" when, in fact, it worked beautifully

d. Describe the possibility that some audience members will come up with intense issues (perhaps unexpected) during the Borrowing Benefits procedure. Since the audience member is "tuned in" to the problem this is often a good time to temporarily forego Borrowing Benefits and begin repeatedly tapping the EFT points up and down the body. Often resolution will occur...perhaps of a major core issue.

2. Have each audience member pick out a SPECIFIC EVENT to work on and give it a title as though it was a short movie. This title should be written down and glanced at frequently (as a reminder) throughout the Borrowing Benefits session.

3. Before starting your on-stage session, quiz members of the audience as to the SPECIFIC EVENTS they have chosen. You may be surprised at what people consider a SPECIFIC EVENT. By guiding some audience members in finding their SPECIFIC EVENTS, other audience members are more likely to be more accurate in their selection.

4. Ask the audience members to write down their intensity, on a 0-10 scale, regarding the SPECIFIC EVENT (some may be very intense about their issues and, in such cases, it is helpful to just have them guess at their 0-10 number--this is usually accurate enough). This intensity must be what they feel NOW as they tune into it and NOT what it WAS when it was happening. If they cannot bring up a 0-10 intensity (because they have repressed the event or "swept it under the rug"), then use the "Movie Details Method" described below.

Movie Details Method: This comes from Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and centers around a technical term known as Sub-Modalities. Despite the technical language, the concept is both simple and useful.

Typically, an intense memory shows up in your "mental movie" as being in vivid color, close to you and in sharp focus. You may also find yourself IN the movie rather than WATCHING it. Further, the sounds tend to be dramatic and loud while the feelings might be described in intense terms such as sharp, pounding, etc.

Interestingly, after successful rounds of EFT these movie details shift to less intense levels. The images tend to be fuzzy, black & white and in the distance. Also, you tend to be WATCHING the movie rather than IN it. The sounds and feelings also tend to fade.

Thus a client (or audience member) can evaluate the intensity of the movie details both before and after EFT and, by this exercise, get a good sense of their progress with EFT.

5. Then do a thorough and complete session with the person on stage. It is best to assume that one or more audience members are emotionally frail and thus start off with some globally stated Setups to "take the edge off." e.g. "Even though I have some problems..."

It is important that you remind the audience to glance at their movie titles from time to time. This tends to keep them tuned into their SPECIFIC EVENT. Also, insist that the audience say their EFT statements out loud and with emphasis. They will tend to mumble and this can detract from the ultimate result.

6. Instruct audience members that they may tune into an unexpected and/or intense memory during this process. Since they are obviously attuned to the issue they may choose to temporarily discard participation in the Borrowing Benefits session and begin tapping the points up and down the body repeatedly until they "come down". Experienced EFT'ers will recognize this as an ideal time to tap because it will often collapse...or substantially relieve...

7. When the on-stage session is completed, ask everyone that believes they have had resolution to vividly imagine their SPECIFIC EVENT and write down their current 0-10 intensity or the change in their movie details. If you have people in the audience that have exhibited unusual intensity, you may need to handle them individually. Often I will ask them to guess at their intensity and then try to imagine it if comfortable doing so.

8. Finally, go around the audience and have people relate their experience. This is good for the whole group. Almost invariably, those that have seemingly made little or no progress have shifted off to another movie or another aspect. When this occurs, it is VERY important for everyone's education to point this out (tactfully, of course).

Here are some of the presuppositions and beliefs
that underlie my own delivery of EFT:

1. Everyone does the best they can given their beliefs, experiences and background.

2. We are living in a worldly dream and our ultimate goal is to get out of it and enter the Peace of Eternity and God.

3. The client's goal is to have a better version of the dream.

4. Our emotional issues do NOT come from what happens to us from the outside world. Rather they come from our RESPONSE to what happens to us from the outside world. They are all an "inside job".

5. From The Palace of Possibilities...

a. The writing on our walls is our version of the "Truth" and it is very important to us...even if it is wrong.

b. We constantly consult the writing on our walls.

c. All arguments are between the writing on our respective walls.

d. Dreams may not necessarily come true but they always take you in directions.

Questions I like to ask....

1. How do you know that?

2. If there was (another) emotional issue causing this problem, what might it be?

3. What does that remind you of?

4. If you had life to live over again, what person or event would you just as soon skip?

Love, Gary

Postal address for EFT is: Gary Craig, PO Box 1393, Gualala, CA 95445
EFT physical address for UPS and Fedex is:
Gary Craig, 36808 Greencroft Close, The Sea Ranch, CA 95497

FOR MORE EFT HELP ...

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