Emotional Freedom Techniques
Have you heard of E.F.T.?
Emotions create an energetic response within our bodies. Each emotion will elicit different sensations within your body. As an example think of how and where you feel anger in your body compared to that of joy. Very different right?! These feelings or sensations are linked to the energies of the body. If it is a positive sensation it tends to support your natural energy flow. If it is a negative sensation it tends to hinder and disrupt your natural energy flow.
The body has many different physiological systems like the respiratory, cardiovascular, lymphatic, nervous and limbic. And the body has many energy systems also such as chakras and meridians to name a few. Chakras act like power generating centres and the meridians act like electrical wiring in that they help transport energy around the body to nourish vital organs. The meridian system is like a large circuit of wiring running through and around the body. When a "negative" emotion like anger is elicited it will send too much energy through certain meridians which throws the system out of balance via overflow, stagnation, reversal of natural flow, impingement etc. and can weaken the essence of the vital organs associated with the meridian and signals the amygdala in your brain to trigger a stress response. No major problem if you have practices in place which help you to calm back down, reset your amygdala, encourage the energies to flow strongly & naturally again enabling a return to homeostasis in a reasonable amount of time.
The biggest challenge is when an emotion is not assimilated well, is suppressed or is not honoured and allowed to express itself fully and is then stored as a memory which can, in the future, trigger your amygdala to elicit your stress response all too quickly sending your meridians amuck again. These potential chronic reactions to unresolved emotions can create patterns (habits) of poor energy flow through your meridians and therefore you may become stuck in an emotional state or find you are easily triggered back into the poor energy state. It is your perception to any situation which determines if you find the situation stressful or just information. Chronic stress will chronically mess with your energy and overall health.
Many folks do not realize how big of an impact chronic stress has on the quality of their life. It affects their physical and mental health, ability to think clearly, propensity to be forgiving, ability to be compassionate and slows the ease in finding happiness & joy. It doesn't have to be this way though!
This is where Emotional Freedom Techniques begins to shine because it can help you to release emotional patterns, negate the triggers of your amygdala and encourage your meridian energy system back to a state of balance. E.F.T. is a scientifically proven technique that works to rewire the brain by sending calming signals to the amygdala, the stress center of the brain, allowing both the body and brain to release limitations from negative experiences, emotions, thoughts and much more that hold us back from creating the life we want.
Are you still with me?
How does one do E.F.T. and how\why does it work? Good questions.
First. E.F.T. is done by brining to mind an emotion or problem you are dealing with. You then rate that emotion on a scale of 1 to 10. Ten being the maximum and one the lowest. For example if you are dealing with an emotion of anger, a rating of 10 might represent you are completely outraged. Then you identify specifically what the outrage source is or was. This is then used to create a specific set up statement, which should begin with the words Even though.... and end with something like I completely accept myself. From the set up statement a reminder phrase needs to be created too. Here is an example of a set up statement from our outrage example. "Even though I am outraged by Jacob's words and body language at the lunch meeting today I completely accept myself for who I am." The reminder phrase could be "Jacob's words". Now that we have our set up and reminder phrases you can start. Start then by envisioning the situation and allowing the emotion to well up within your body. As you are feeling the emotions start tapping on your Karate chop point and repeat your set up statement, out loud, 3 times then move along to the other tapping points to "tap", about 7 to 10 times on each while you say the reminder phrase out loud, proceeding through each acupressure point. At the completion of the round you check in with your 1 to 10 scale and see if the number has changed. Repeat rounds until you get your number back down to about a 1.
The "tapping" in our anger scenario works in that it creates a pattern interrupt of the type of energy being generated by the emotion "anger" and the tapping on the acupressure points begins to signal the amygdala you are safe and encourages your affected meridian energies to begin flowing more naturally again. E.F.T. can work to benefit headaches, pain, strong emotions and much more.
Depending on how deep rooted the emotion is it may take many rounds and many sessions to work out the emotion and clear the energy. It is always best to start with a small challenge and then work your way up to be able to tackle larger emotions.
I offer E.F.T. sessions, in person or online, in which I can guide you to learn the tapping points, create solid set up statements and help you adjust to the emotions as they arise and change with subsequent rounds of tapping. And of course there are Emotional Freedom Techniques, in that pluralization of "techniques" know there are some other techniques which may be needed when things are bit "hard headed".
Click HERE to view my video on EFT for Trauma & Stress Relief from pent up emotions on my YouTube channel. If you wish you can subscribe to catch my latest energy medicine videos as they come out.
Wishing you Happiness, Health & Peace
~ Jeff ~