Emotional Freedom Techniques, otherwise known as EFT, or Tapping is a mind/body self-empowerment technology that involves using your fingertips to tap on acupuncture points on the face and body while tuning into a thought, feeling, or belief that you wish to feel better about. EFT helps you explore, value, and transform your emotional reality. Tapping opens a space inside where you can shed any stress or disturbing memory from the past and heal yourself.
When you tap on acupoints, you're using the body's energy meridian system to send a calming signal to the limbic brain, which regulates your emotions, memories, and sensations of pain and pleasure. Whether you recall something traumatic from the past, or you presently find yourself stuck in a particularly stressful situation, the amygdala, the limbic brain's fear response center (fight or flight) becomes triggered. Your brain goes "offline," and inhibits your ability to think clearly, problem-solve, and make healthy decisions.
You might be wondering, so why does this happen? Imagine you're on a safari walking through the jungle and you see a tiger. Immediately, your hypothalamus sends a signal to the pituitary gland, which then sends a message to your adrenal glands to release the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol. Your heart begins to race; your pupils dilate, blood flow decreases in your digestive system for an increase in blood flow to your arms and legs. You are now ready to fight that tiger or run from that tiger, which is critical to your survival if you're in a jungle and there's a tiger. The problem with this response system is when every day you see the tiger at your job, or the tiger comes home from work every night, or you see many tigers while driving in traffic. Consequently, the fight or flight system becomes chronically over-activated. Instead of being an adaptive, life-saving response, it becomes maladaptive and damaging to the health of our mind and body.
The good news is that EFT breaks the conditioned response loop between the stress or disturbing memory to the brain's fight or flight response. Instead of thinking about an old trauma or your chronic daily stress and going into fight or flight, Tapping sends a calming signal to the amygdala and breaks the association between the stress or disturbing memory and the fight or flight response. In doing so, the distress is soothed and the disturbing memeory is able to become fully processed in the mind, while the body is able to relax where it once was holding the stress and tension. The disturbing memory may still surface, but it won't carry the same bothersome intensity and will be more like a fleeting thought. The stress that once sent you reeling will no longer have that same effect. Furthermore, you may even experience a different relationship to your stress and trauma. Perhaps understand it differently, or make a better feeling meaning out of it that is ultimately transformational.
If you're living with the painful memories of trauma, you may be thinking, "I don't want to go there because it's too painful and too scary." While this thought is entirely understandable, the truth is that EFT doesn't have to be another painful experience. In fact, as a highly-skilled EFT practitioner for trauma, my art of delivery removes the suffering and will never add to it. I use several gentle techniques to keep you safe, present, and grounded. You can heal from the most challenging memories without the risk of being re-traumatized. This gentle approach is a great kindness that EFT provides.
When you tap on acupoints, you're using the body's energy meridian system to send a calming signal to the limbic brain, which regulates your emotions, memories, and sensations of pain and pleasure. Whether you recall something traumatic from the past, or you presently find yourself stuck in a particularly stressful situation, the amygdala, the limbic brain's fear response center (fight or flight) becomes triggered. Your brain goes "offline," and inhibits your ability to think clearly, problem-solve, and make healthy decisions.
You might be wondering, so why does this happen? Imagine you're on a safari walking through the jungle and you see a tiger. Immediately, your hypothalamus sends a signal to the pituitary gland, which then sends a message to your adrenal glands to release the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol. Your heart begins to race; your pupils dilate, blood flow decreases in your digestive system for an increase in blood flow to your arms and legs. You are now ready to fight that tiger or run from that tiger, which is critical to your survival if you're in a jungle and there's a tiger. The problem with this response system is when every day you see the tiger at your job, or the tiger comes home from work every night, or you see many tigers while driving in traffic. Consequently, the fight or flight system becomes chronically over-activated. Instead of being an adaptive, life-saving response, it becomes maladaptive and damaging to the health of our mind and body.
The good news is that EFT breaks the conditioned response loop between the stress or disturbing memory to the brain's fight or flight response. Instead of thinking about an old trauma or your chronic daily stress and going into fight or flight, Tapping sends a calming signal to the amygdala and breaks the association between the stress or disturbing memory and the fight or flight response. In doing so, the distress is soothed and the disturbing memeory is able to become fully processed in the mind, while the body is able to relax where it once was holding the stress and tension. The disturbing memory may still surface, but it won't carry the same bothersome intensity and will be more like a fleeting thought. The stress that once sent you reeling will no longer have that same effect. Furthermore, you may even experience a different relationship to your stress and trauma. Perhaps understand it differently, or make a better feeling meaning out of it that is ultimately transformational.
If you're living with the painful memories of trauma, you may be thinking, "I don't want to go there because it's too painful and too scary." While this thought is entirely understandable, the truth is that EFT doesn't have to be another painful experience. In fact, as a highly-skilled EFT practitioner for trauma, my art of delivery removes the suffering and will never add to it. I use several gentle techniques to keep you safe, present, and grounded. You can heal from the most challenging memories without the risk of being re-traumatized. This gentle approach is a great kindness that EFT provides.