It was about 9pm on New Year’s Eve. I was sweaty and had a big smile on my face from dancing. A friend who knows what I do from Facebook (I promise not to insert my “why social networking is awesome” speech) and I started chatting. After hugs and wishes for good things in the new year, she asked “Why does EFT work?”
This friend is trained as a counselor and knows many healing modalities. She has just started using EFT and was already experiencing some results that got her attention. Like many people, she wants to know “what is up with this stuff??” It’s a very reasonable question.
Why does EFT work?
We have educated guesses, not answers.
On one level, the honest answer is “We don’t know.” People like Dawson Church at The Soul Medicine Institute are researching EFT now. A decade from now, we’re likely to have a much better understanding of the mechanics of energy psychology tools.
In the meantime, “We don’t know” is both not very satisfying and also, on another level, not completely true.
More than 30 years ago, Dr. Roger Callahan began practicing energy psychology in the United States. Since than, hundreds of thousands of people have conducted tens of millions of EFT sessions. Gary Craig alone has introduced over 1 million people to EFT through www.emofree.com.
While there is no definitive scientific answer about why EFT works, I believe that the embodied experience of the EFT community can help us understand this.
EFT is not the healer, love is.
In November 2009, Gary Craig did an interview with an Indian therapist named Jasmine Bharathan. Click here to read the interview. After two decades and countless of EFT sessions, Gary Craig sums up what many of us in the EFT world are coming to believe. He says, “EFT is not the healer, love is”.
Albert Einstein once said, “You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.” I am coming to see that at an energetic level EFT is largely a process that allows love and acceptance into the difficult places in our lives. By increasing the available self-love and self-acceptance, stuck energies begin to move through our system.
Yes, this is a simplistic explanation. In the coming years we are likely to learn much more about the detailed mechanics of different energy psychology tools. At the same time, if my grandmother Edy were around today, I believe that she’d: 1) be proud of the healing work I do with EFT and 2) understand that increasing self-love around painful issues would allow a person to get on with her/his life.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this in form of a comment below. Why do you think EFT works?
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Thank you, Paul. Lately I’ve been describing EFT as mindful process. When we become mindful of our feelings, positive and negative – we develop emotional awareness. By becoming actively mindful, using techniques like EFT, we honor the power of emotion in our lives and empower ourselves to make conscious change. EFT is a powerful change-maker. By entering into a process like EFT, we show ourselves that we “deeply and completely love and accept ourselves” – so I completely agree with you, Paul – it’s all about love. Hope this adds to the discussion! peace, Jade
I totally resonate with your explanation of why EFT works. . . lack of self-love is at the root of so many of our problems today!
Things don’t have to be so complicated . . . so much healing today is really rooted in love . . . love is stronger than any medicine, any theory, any thing! Thank you Paul for sharing your joy and your inspiration!
Hi, Paul -
After 8 years of using EFT (and healing numerous issues in my own life and assisting the healing in hundreds, if not thousands, more), I think that EFT works because it connects two things: where we are right here in this moment in time, and who we are in Truth.
What I mean by this is that EFT is a powerful bridge from the place of pain, loss, confusion to the place of Love, Clarity and Peace. (I’m not trying to sound airy-fairy here, but I’ve seen some pretty miraculous things happen using this powerful tool.)
EFT allows us to acknowledge where we are in our painful, confused state, and to state the Truth of Who We Are (deeply and completely loved, i.e., whole and complete, even in our painful, confused state). This space then allows an opening for us to begin to see something in a different light (a re-frame).
The tapping allows our energy to flow instead of being blocked as we stimulate the points on our bodies. And, the fact that there are studies now that show that the brain chemistry also changes when doing the tapping (and that it holds years later!) is just so delightful.
How does it work exactly? I think we’re going to find out in the years to come. I, for one, will be delighted to hear, but for now, I’m just so happy that it DOES work!
Jade: For many years I studied Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction approaches to healing. I absolutely agree with what you’re saying. Thanks for chiming in!
Brenda: That’s right – simplifying is often part of healing process. Your welcome re: the posts. It’s a pleasure.
Anne: Yes, I agree that EFT is often a bridge from the painful place we are starting from (I say I came to EFT on my knees) into the beginnings of a new, more loving and fun reality.
Thanks for the dialogue everyone!
Rev. Anne I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head.
More and more lately I’ve been seeing the emotional shift we are talking about occur without the use of EFT.
Okay, so maybe what I am about to say will border on EFT sacrilegious.
So if EFT is not needed, what is needed and what role does EFT play?
If we look at this from a Law of Attraction point of view, we picture the emotions as “senses” we use to navigate the process of manifesting our life experience. These emotions we “suffer from” are indications that we are stuck in a vibration that is creating a reality we do not care to live.
The process of releasing these emotions is a matter of examining these emotions, accepting them, becoming okay with having them, and accepting yourself as a being who created a perfect emotion for the time/space. In this state, we can release the vibration and therefore the emotion and physical manifestation.
EFT gives the rest of us a bridge. Although I am sure someone will come up with physical explanation (someone always does), for the moment, EFT gives us something we can wrap our mind around.
Even thought most of us don’t know how acupuncture works, we have seen it does, so if EFT is like acupuncture, then it must work too, and we have seen it does.
Coincidentally, EFT is a process that allows the person to examine these emotions, accept them, become okay with having them, and accept yourself as a being who created a perfect emotion for the time/space. Tapping gives a verification that we actually did something and makes it concrete.
And somewhere in there, as we rush to get to the tapping part, we get to “deeply and completely love and accept ourselves.”
Chip,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this! As I’ve done more and more sessions, I’m seeing this happen increasingly often Chip – the shift is happening without needing to tap. You were one of the first to mention this and opened up my mind to this possibility. And, I absolutely agree that EFT is great bridge into new possibilities that we want to be living but aren’t sure how.
Happy New Year dude and thanks for your thoughts!
How beautiful Chip. Lots to think about. I notice this when I am in a therapy session and we spend the hour talking and don’t get the EFT in, there is healing as they sense my acceptance of them just as they are . . . and then they feel (maybe for the first time in their lives) their own acceptance of themselves and their issues and emotions just as they are feel so much better. The healing is beginning. I still believe that EFT in working through the actual energy system of the body goes beyond talk therapy. It shows up in the feeling of lightness and tingling in the physical body and the feeling of being farther away from your issues and more in touch with who you really are.
Oh, Chip – You sacrelegious person, you! I LOVE IT! And it is sooo true, that when you look at it from a LOA point of view, you are using EFT (or whatever other method of shifting your vibration that also works) to move the vibration from one of discord and distress to one of acceptance and harmony.
It’s a simple moving up the emotional scale to a higher level of vibration.
I fully agree with you and Brenda about how little EFT is actually needed in many of the sessions I am using these days. It’s as though the energy of alignment is present in those sessions and because that is the intention from the start, that’s what happens – whether we use EFT or not. (Still, there are those times when ya just need to pull it out, aren’t there?)
EFT is truly two things: the tapping and the detective work. It seems to me that as we get very skilled in the detective work, less and less tapping is needed, and sometimes not at all. (Gary Craig is a perfect example of this, too, by the way.)
I had a great conversation with my chiropractor recently: he said that sometimes when he gets home after a long day, he sits down and imagines the energy he feels in his acupuncture sessions, and that soothes him. (I call that “connecting to the energy of _____” and you could insert EFT here, or a bath, or swimming, or running, or, or, or… whatever makes you at peace or happy.) To me, this is what we’re doing: we’re connecting to that healing, loving energy and thereby manifesting it in the moment.
The stronger our connection to that energy, the more quickly the vibrational shift is made. The challenge for our clients is to learn how to hold it themselves. (But isn’t that the challenge for us all?)
What a delicious discussion! Thanks so much!
I agree Anne – DELICIOUS. Thank you everyone!
Valuable information and excellent design you got here! I would like to thank you for sharing your thoughts and time into the stuff you post!! Thumbs up
Late as usual. I see most of you posted ere 6 months ago.
I came across EFT about five years ago during a bid to stop smoking. The therapist used a combination of hypnotherapy and tapping.
Thie therapist seemed very sincere and really tried to help me stop but to no avail.
However some years later when I came across EFT once again, willing to give it a try on its own I realised why it hadn’t worked before for me.
Sadly I am one of those people who are immune to autosuggestion. No matter how hard I try to yield to hypnotherapy, the technique simply puts me into a nice and relaxed state but thats about it.On the occasion I was first taught EFT immediately being woken from a deep hypnotic state of relaxation. I was not alert enough to understand the technique.
Guess its horses for courses.
As an ex veteran with combat trauma, PTSD, I searched for help for years.
Becoming a Buddhist regard as the start point of my journey to acceptance and healing. By helping others, keeping myself in good all round shape I am now very happy.
Since everything is a function of the Buddha I embrace any technique that I find beneficial to myself and others.
EFT certainly works.
I don’t know if any of you have found that certain people react more quickly to EFT than others despite their level of trauma . However virtually in inverse proportion to hypnotherapy not being much use to me EFT is the exact opposite.
I respond to this wonderful technique incredibly quickly and steam through issues at the rate of knots. For this I am blessed.
Joy of the day to you
P
Hi Peter!
One of the wonderful things about a blog post is that it lasts through time. So, your comment is right on time!
Like you, I find hypnosis relaxing without seeing lasting results with it. But rather than believing one technique is right for all people in all situations, these days I’m all about using what works for you in the situation you are in right now. It brings me great joy to hear that EFT is working so well for you! Thanks for sharing your experience Peter!
Warmly,
Paul