Using EFT Tapping Professionally

We welcome all healing professionals to incorporate EFT Tapping within their practice.  To get started, use the "Part I & Part II For Everyone" section of this Tutorial. It is written with Do It Yourself users in mind, but professional users would all begin here as well. Of course we expect you would use it on yourself before you try it on a client, so just be a Do-It-Yourself user until you are familiar with the process, and then try it with your clients.

Physical Issues:

if you are a Medical Professional, chiropractor, massage tech, or other kind of body worker dealing with physical issues, you can easily use the EFT Tapping Basic Recipe on those physical symptoms and see if you can get results. If you are working with chronic issues or diagnosed conditions, getting the most from EFT may require venturing into the emotional realm. If that is appropriate for you, then continue through the instruction, start using Tell the Story Technique on the issues, and continue on to the "Part III - Part V - For Advanced Practitioners" section. Otherwise, refer your client to an EFT Professional who can address the emotional components.

Emotional Issues:

Addressing emotional issues with others is a professional capacity and should not be taken on without consideration for the legal guidelines in your location. If you are already in business doing therapy or otherwise discussing emotional issues with your clients, then EFT will probably fit in nicely. We recommend The EFT Personal Peace Procedure for almost any case and you will have that tool in the "Part I & Part II For Everyone" section of this Tutorial. Get some experience with that and then explore the "Part III - Part V - For Advanced Practitioners" section for more.

The EFT Personal Peace Procedure

A Universally Useful Tapping Tool For Everyone

Now that we have a complete understanding of
(1) Specific Events - An Essential Concept Within the EFT Process,
(2) The EFT Tell the Story Technique, and
(3) The EFT Generalization Effect - A Big Step Toward Tapping Efficiency, let's put them to work with The EFT Personal Peace Procedure, a quality way to get lasting results with EFT.

Ideally, if you have a challenging issue in your daily life, you would treat it like a Tabletop and find the individual Table Legs or Specific Event(s) in your past that have led directly to it. Once the Legs are identified, you would use EFT to “remove” as many as it takes for the Tabletop to collapse, and then you’re free to move forward in your life without the challenging issue.

The above is the most ideal scenario and the EFT process does work this way for many people. If the related events are still clear in your memory and you are able to connect them clearly to your current issue, then EFT may be just that easy for you as well.

• But what if the memories you need are not presenting themselves?
• What if you have addressed all the events you can find but the issue persists?
• What if your issue is the result of several years of discomfort rather than just a few events?
• What if all of those memories blend together in a way that is hard to separate?
• What if you have more than one issue and the contributing events are all related to each other?
• What if the issue and the event have such a strange connection that you would never be able to see it on your own?

As it turns out, these challenges are common to most EFT users.
Emotional issues are complex by nature, and the Tabletop/Table Leg metaphor that you learned in the Uncovering Specific Events article illustrates that in part. However, navigating through a history of events to narrow in on the ones that relate to one particular issue can be a challenge. In reality, most of the issues that bother you today probably related to each other, and all of the difficult events in your past could be contributing to different issues in different ways. Many of those events might seem too small and insignificant to worry about, but after a few decades, those smaller disruptions do tend to pile up. With that in mind, we offer the Personal Peace Procedure, which is a way to systematically clear out the difficult events in your history, no matter which issue they are contributing to currently.

In essence, the EFT Personal Peace Procedure involves making a list of every bothersome Specific Event in your life and removing their emotional impacts one by one.  By diligently doing this you can knock all the Table Legs out from under all of those Tabletops, and generate the relief you were looking for as well as a refreshing sense of peace in your life. You’ll be surprised by how quickly you can get there – remember that the Generalization Effect kicks in and with the Personal Peace Procedure, we can watch it in action!

This EFT Tapping method is simple:

1. Make a list of every bothersome Specific Event you can remember, using the criteria put forth in the Specific Event Article, namely:
• It is a short “movie” from the past, preferably at least a few years ago (childhood events are usually best).
• You are able to give it a title, like “the time when…”
• 1-3 minutes long at the time it happened.
• Contains at least 1 emotional crescendo.
• Has a beginning, an end, a plot and characters.
• Note: You should be able to find at least 50 events.  Many people will find hundreds.
2. Beside each movie title, rate the intensity of each event from 0-10. Examples:
• Dad hit me in the kitchen (8)
• I stole Suzie's sandwich (5)
• I almost slipped and fell into the Grand Canyon (7)
• My third grade class ridiculed me when I gave that speech (8)
• Mom locked me in a closet (7)
• The time Mrs. Adams told me I was stupid (6)
3. After the most intense events have been neutralized, cross them off the list and look for the next most intense ones. You may notice additional events coming to mind as you tap. Add those to the list and address them accordingly.
4. After every 5 events or so, go back through your list and re-evaluate the intensity ratings for each item. As the Generalization Effect kicks in, you will see that the events you haven’t even addressed yet are likely to become less and less intense.
5. If you clear one Specific Event per day for 3 months you will have resolved 90 events. Imagine how many of your Tabletops could be collapsed or weakened as a result. Can you imagine how much better your life would be without them? It doesn’t have to stop there. If you truly understand the benefit of clearing out any event from the past that is still carrying disruptions, then you can keep adding to the list and keep clearing events until you run out. And remember that the Generalization Effect will jump in and help you.
6. Most people will start to feel significantly better after addressing a few dozen events, but even if you have more and it takes a year or two to find freedom from the emotional or physical limits you struggle with today, isn’t that worth the effort?  And here’s a bonus - if you can do all of this work on your own then you get to achieve that freedom for free.

Tips

• If you cannot get a 0-10 intensity level on a particular movie then assume you are repressing it and apply 10 full rounds of EFT on it from every angle you can think of. This gives you a high possibility for resolving it.
  While making your list you may find that some events don't seem to cause you any current discomfort. That's OK. List them anyway. The mere fact that you remember them suggests a need for resolution.
• When the list is complete, pick out the most intense events and use the EFT Tell the Story Technique on them one by one until your intensity drops to zero. You may need to go through each event a few times to find all the Aspects and reduce them all to zero. At that point, you may notice that you laugh about it, feel neutral about it, or just "can't think about it anymore."

Cautions

If your history includes long term abuse or highly traumatic events, you may find that listing them all out causes you additional distress. If this is the case, then make a shorter list, maybe 5 at a time, of events with lower intensity, and get to the others when you feel more comfortable.  In addition, consider getting help from a properly trained professional who can manage your distress along the way.

If you are taking medications, you may feel the need to discontinue them. Please do so ONLY under a qualified physician’s advice.

Positive Side Effects

As you work through the events from your past in order of intensity, you may not be zeroing in right away on the exact causes of the issue from which you most want relief. However, there will be positive results along the way, and if you notice them, you will know that personal peace is starting to emerge in your life.
EFT results, no matter how we find them, are sometimes very subtle, and it is easy to overlook them or attribute them to your natural growth process. To help us see the changes as they are happening, it’s time to make a second list – one for anything in your life that could stand some improvement. Common examples are as follows:

• Sleeping habits - quality of sleep or hours per night
• Eating habits – junk food cravings, vegetable intake, sugar or dessert habits
• Other Cravings – coffee, cigarettes, wine/beer
• Level of stress related to work
• Frustration in traffic
• Relationships - spouse, children, in laws, relatives, co-workers
• Muscle tension or pain/Flexibility
• Blood Pressure
• Breathing capacity
• Eyesight
• Memory
• Stamina
• Confidence
• Propensity to laugh or smile

Anything in your life can start changing for the better as you clear out the old disruptions. Once you have your “wish list” for any positive changes that you would welcome, find a way to evaluate each one before you start tapping. Maybe you write down the hours of sleep you are getting on average, or the cups of coffee you have each day, length of time you can be on your feet without pain, or the level of frustration/emotional pain (0-10) that you feel in any particular relationship.

As you tap through your events, keep checking in with this list and keep track of all the items. Some may shift right away, others may improve later, and you may notice other positive changes that weren’t even on the list. By using both of these lists in tandem, it is much easier to keep going with a process that may be on the longer side for some people.

Can you imagine what it would feel like to truly be at peace with everything that has ever happened in your life? How about being at peace with half of it? Even that would make an enormous difference for most people. Imagine how different the world would be if everyone cleared out the garbage from their past. Not only would we all feel better physically and emotionally, we would be able to understand each other and feel compassion without all of the issues in the way.

Thoughts on Other Uses Of The EFT Personal Peace Procedure

This simple Tapping concept could shift the entire healing field and, if adopted by every healing practitioner and patient, would likely (1) dramatically increase our healing rates while (2) precipitously dropping our costs.

Please note that this idea completely ignores chemical causes such as those propounded by the medical model. That's because EFT often produces improvements in clients where drugs and other chemical solutions have failed. This is not to say, however, that drugs, proper nutrition and the like don't have their place. Indeed they do. They can often be vital. In my experience, however, our unresolved Specific Events are often nearer the foundational cause for illness than anything else. Thus they deserve our high level attention.

Qualified EFT'ers are well aware of EFT's ability to cleanly wipe the negative Specific Events off of our mental walls. This is the area wherein our highest success ratios appear. To date, however, we have focused our efforts on those negative Specific Events that underlie a given ailment such as a phobia, headache or traumatic incident. This is good ... very good ... and we should continue doing so. On the other hand, why not use EFT on ALL the other Specific Events that may be lurking behind our more generalized (but VERY important) issues such as (to name a few)....

• Self-image
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Persistent insomnia
• Addictions
• Emotional Overeating
• Compulsions
• Feelings of abandonment

As you eliminate the emotional baggage from your Specific Events you will, of course, have less and less internal conflict for your system to deal with. Less internal conflict translates into a higher level of personal peace and less emotional and physical suffering. For many, this procedure may result in the complete cessation of lifelong issues that other methods have not touched. How's that for peace in a paragraph?

The same applies to physical ailments as well. I'm talking here about everything from headaches, breathing difficulties and digestive disorders to AIDS, MS and Cancer. It is becoming more widely accepted that our physical maladies are caused (or contributed to) by unresolved angers, traumas, guilt, grief and the like. Until now, however, there hasn't been an effective way to eliminate these health bandits. We can mask them with drugs, of course, but true cures have been hard to find. Fortunately, EFT now provides elegant Tapping tools that will aid the serious health practitioner in eliminating the root causes of disease.  Always consult qualified physicians regarding your use of EFT for physical issues.

The EFT Personal Peace Procedure here is NOT a substitute for quality EFT training nor is it a substitute for quality help from a skillful EFT practitioner or qualified physician. Rather, it is a Tapping tool that, properly applied, is capable of wide ranging relief (quality training or quality assistance will add to its effectiveness). Its simplicity and far reaching effectiveness give it candidacy as a mandatory method for anyone seeking help for even the most difficult of problems.
It may be used:

• As "homework" between sessions with a physician or therapist. This is certain to accelerate and deepen the healing process.
• As a daily Tapping procedure to clear out a lifetime of accumulated emotional debris. This can enhance self-image, reduce self-doubt and provide a profound sense of freedom.
• As a means to eliminate a major contributor (if not the sole cause) of a serious disease. Somewhere within one's Specific Events are those angers, fears and traumas that are manifesting as disease. By addressing them all, you will likely cover those responsible for the disease.  Always consult qualified physicians regarding your use of EFT for physical issues.
• As a useful substitute for finding core issues. If you neutralize all the specific issues you will have automatically included core issues.
• As a means for consistent relaxation.
• To become an example to others as to what is possible.

A few minutes per day with the EFT Personal Peace Procedure can make a monumental difference in school performance, relationships, health and our quality of life.  We hope this common sense Tapping process becomes a worldwide routine.

REVIEW:

In this article you learned how to use the Personal Peace Procedure.

• There are a variety of common reasons why many EFT users have a hard time getting to the core of their issue.
• Making a list of events in your past that still carry intensity can help you navigate through your own issues and systematically clear them out.
• While you are working toward resolution on one issue, there are often positive side effects in this process that provide unexpected relief on other issues.
• Personal Peace Procedure is something you can do every day. Clearing one event per day would lead to 90 events cleared in just 3 months.
• A greater level of Personal Peace can not only relieve existing issues, but can prevent new ones from developing.

The EFT Tell the Story Technique - The Workhorse Tapping Method

One Easy EFT Tapping Tool That Automatically Integrates Everything You've Learned To Date

 

 

If you’re doing high quality EFT, then addressing Specific Events - An Essential Concept Within the EFT Tapping Process will be the centerpiece of your work. Just like anything else, resolving a Specific Event means clearing all the Aspects so that we don’t leave any intensity behind. The Tell the Story Technique is the most comprehensive way to get there, and is the workhorse technique that will likely dominate your in-depth work.

The idea is very simple. Just narrate a bothersome Specific Event as though it was a story and stop to do The EFT Tapping Basic Recipe whenever you get to emotionally intense parts of it.

I provide some guidelines below but, in essence, that's it! Each of the stopping points in the story represents another Aspect of the issue that, on occasion, will point you to even deeper issues. This can save you a lot of detective work and, conceptually, it is about as easy as it gets. Further...

...it automatically integrates everything you have learned
about Aspects, Testing and Being Specific.

I mean all the critical parts of EFT's in-depth work are contained within this one easy-to-use method. The opportunities for Testing unfold naturally during the process and the element of Being Specific is automatically included because you are telling your stories about Specific Events. While Specific Events are Aspects of global issues, each event has Aspects of it own, which are presented at each stopping point in the story. This allows you to be even more specific without sophisticated detective work. By simply following the instructions, this tool will allow you to cover all the bases in step-by-step fashion.

It will take some practice and you will likely stub your toe a bit before you master it. But once you own this process you will never again rely on just The EFT Basic Recipe.

Here are a few guidelines to enhance the EFT process

First, choose the event: Find a Specific Event that, typically, lasts one to three minutes and contains at least one emotional crescendo. If you still need help finding them, review the previous article on Specific Events.

Take the edge off: Before actually telling the story, check out any intensity you may have about actually doing the narration. If your intensity is at 5 or above it is worthwhile to do a few global type rounds of The Basic Recipe to take the edge off.

"Even though I'm nervous about telling the story....."
"Even though I'm afraid of what might happen when I tell this story...."
"Even though I don't like this whole thing....."
"Even though just starting the story gives me the jitters...."

An easy reminder phrase for any of the examples above might be “this story” or “telling this story.”

Do as many rounds as necessary until your intensity about telling the story drops to 3 or less.  This serves to "take the edge off" and allows you to proceed more comfortably through a highly charged event.  If you start to tell the story and the intensity rises to an uncomfortably high level then perform the above routine again.  Repeat as often as necessary.

How to Tell the Story

A.  It's best to Tell the Story out loud.  That tends to bring the story more to life and helps to bring the important issues to the surface.  You can tell it to a mirror, a friend, a wall or talk to an imaginary friend (smile).

 

B. Start at a neutral point when there is nothing to be concerned about. An example might be having lunch with a friend just before having, let's say, a car accident. This tends to ease you into the experience.

 

C. Most importantly, you must STOP telling the story when you feel any intensity whatsoever.

 

D. At each stopping point, use the EFT Basic Recipe to address that intensity and, once released, continue the story to the next intense moment.

 

Stopping is critical to the success of this procedure. Most people are conditioned by conventional techniques to "be courageous" and to "feel the feelings" and to "be brave and gut through it." Thus, if you don't stop when intensity arises, you are likely to go right by an important healing opportunity. So, to repeat...

 

...if you don't stop,
you have missed a healing opportunity!

 

You are looking for Aspects here and this process often brings them to the surface without your having to dig. How perfect! Remember, we are looking for thoroughness so we want to "tap down" every ounce of the intensity involved.

Please recognize that each stopping point is an Aspect of the story and each such Aspect should be addressed as though it was a separate event.  So, in the interest of being specific, you want to target one emotional crescendo, (Aspect) at a time with the Basic Recipe.  So, for each emotional crescendo (Aspect)....

 

A. Estimate a 0-10 intensity rating on this part of the story.

 

B. Keeping in mind the “accident example” from the Finding Aspects article, design your Setup and Reminder Phrases to target the part of this emotional crescendo that caused the intensity (note that the emotion involved is mentioned in the Setup phrase. For example:

 

“Even though I was furious when she said that to me…”

 

“Even though I cringed with fear when I saw that horrible thing…”

 

“Even though I felt guilty when that cop was chasing me…”

 

“Even though I was really angry about that…”

 

C. Use the EFT Basic Recipe and keep evaluating intensity before and after each round until the intensity is down to zero or a low tolerable level.

 

D. Each emotional crescendo might have a few Aspects of its own, so once you use the EFT Basic Recipe on the most obvious one, go through that part of the story again to see if there is still intensity. If so, repeat the step above.

 

E. Once the intensity has been released from that crescendo, resume the story and look for another stopping point. Also, be aware of your possible tendency, while telling your stories, to jump ahead to the most intense crescendo(s). You know what is coming in your story, of course, and thus you will often access the emotions before actually getting to that place in the story. Just treat this intensity as you would any other stopping point.

 

F. Once you have tapped through all the intense moments of the story then start from the beginning, Tell the Story again, and stop for any intensities that may arise. Don’t be surprised if there is still more to address ... just be as thorough as you can.

 

G. Repeat this process until you can tell the story nonchalantly ... like it was a shopping trip. This should collapse all or most of the Aspects.  For good measure, Tell the Story tomorrow morning or next week to see if anything is left.  Sometimes, letting time go by will bring up remnants (Aspects).  If so, repeat the process until you achieve a more thorough success.

EFT Testing Methods - Going Deeper Into the Tapping process

You can use any of the Testing methods that you learned in the previous article on Testing Your EFT Tapping Work, but an often used one for a Specific Event is Vivid Visualization. Once you have been through the event aloud and have reduced the most intense crescendos by Tapping, you can again go through the event in your mind, one frame at a time. Look for those intense moments and exaggerate the sights, sounds, colors, sizes, etc and really try to get yourself upset. As soon as you find more intensity, do some more tapping on whatever you have found and then try it again. Keep going through it vivdly until you can no longer get upset about anything in the event. However, do not continue with this Vivid Visualization if your previous tapping has not brought the intensity down to manageable levels.  In this case it is best to seek a qualified health professional.

You can also use the Testing methods of Props or an Actual Situation if those are appropriate for the event. If you are successful with digging up intensity with any kind of Testing, again, use The EFT Tapping Basic Recipe for whatever comes up until you cannot get upset about the event.

Tell the Story Tapping Tips

Measuring Intensity:

Your 0-10 measurements should reflect how much intensity you have NOW when you remember what happened THEN. We cannot change the intensity you felt at the time, but we can release the intensity you feel about it now.

I don’t feel intensity on my event:

Your emotional intensity can show up in a variety of ways. Most people will recognize their intensity right away, but if you don’t, check to see if there are any changes in your body sensations. Tension, shortness of breath, or discomfort in any part of the body can be used as a measure of intensity as long as it shows up only when you recall something in the event.

If you notice that the quality of your breath changes when aspects show up, then use Constricted Breathing Technique until the breath is back to normal and continue through the story.

You might start by tapping through an aspect of the event that you assume would be distressing in some way and then notice what changes after you tap. You may notice that it feels softer, less tense, or somehow easier to remember, and that would be an indication that you have released some intensity.

Tapping will usually help the intensity feel clearer to you, so do what you can with a few events, get used to how your body responds to intensity, and it should get easier as you go.

I feel too much intensity on my event:If this is the case, you may want to work on other, less intense events until the harder ones seem more manageable. Many events in your life are related to each other, so working on others will often help the harder ones become easier. If you are working with a history of abuse or trauma, you may want to consider working through those events with an EFT professional.

Another event or issue is coming to mind:

This is a form of switching aspects and is an indication that you have made good progress with the original event. However, before moving to another event, check the aspects of the original event and see how much is left to do. If you can, finish tapping on the event you started until all the intensities are zero and then move on to something else. If the new event or issue is simply too distracting, then switch to it if you like, but do your best to maintain a methodical process. Keep records of your intensity levels for any event you abandon mid-stream so you can come back and finish it later.

Also, be sure you can distinguish between events and issues. An event is a 1-3 minute segment of time, very specific and in line with solid EFT practice. An issue is a new Tabletop, supported by Specific Events, so you would want to break it into those parts before you start tapping. For example, if you are working on a 1-3 minute event where someone on the playground said something mean about your clothes, and then you realize that your mother was always critical in the same way, you do not want to start tapping globally on “Even though I feel rejected by my mother…” Instead, list out the individual 1-3 minute events you can remember where she made the critical comments and tap through those one at a time.

My event is longer than 1-3 minutes:

Most events will be longer than 1-3 minutes until you get used to narrowing them down. Many of the experiences you would consider “events” will actually have several brief segments within them that carry the emotional impact. They should all have some relatively neutral spaces of time in between, and those will help you separate one event from another.

My events all seem the same:

If there has been a pattern of similar experiences in your life, then the first step is to work with the earliest one you can find. For example, relationship issues often reveal patterns of behavior or emotional responses, and those patterns often begin in childhood. You can start by working on the current problem, but it will be sitting on top of so much similar history that you may have a hard time getting anywhere. It’s better to think about what the current problem reminds you of in your past, and go further back.

If you were in a long term situation in which the same painful things were happening on a regular basis, you can try to make up an event that would represent the common themes in each one, but it will be a lot harder to get each intensity to zero, and you may end up triggering too much intensity at once. The good news is that all of those events are closely related so they may all collapse together, but the bad news is also that they are closely related, and you may have a hard time sparing yourself the pain of feeling them all at once as you go through the process. Properly trained EFT professionals know how to help you contain events in these scenarios, so if you have a hard time getting through it all, you might consider getting some help.

Testing the Overall Issue:

The testing methods that you learned in the previous article were applied to your issue in general. However, when you start addressing specific events, the goal is still to make progress with the current problem. You want to test the events you address as thoroughly as you can, but set up separate tests on the overall issue to see if clearing the events is helping you make progress in the right direction.

The EFT Tell the Story Technique has several benefits....

1. The "story" provides a built in procedure for finding Aspects.

 

2. It allows the issue to unfold as gently as possible.

 

3. You can easily test at each stopping point and that allows you to know how you are progressing.

The following video is an example of the EFT Tell the Story Technique on an actual event.  As you will notice, this event contains two crescendos, each with multiple Aspects.  Most of the early Tapping rounds address the anticipation of the upcoming first crescendo.  In this case, the goal is simply to take the edge off until we get to the actual crescendo, so we aren't concerned with bringing those intensities all the way to zero.  Once we get to each of the actual crescendos, we are able to address individual Aspects and bring the intensity down to zero.

Can you identify the two crescendos and what Aspects were addressed for each of them?

THE EFT TELL THE STORY TECHNIQUE - WATCH VIDEO

REVIEW:

In this article you learned how to use Tell the Story Technique on Specific Events.

• This is an easy-to-use method to methodically clear the intensity from a Specific Event.
• It incorporates the concepts of Aspects, Being Specific, and Testing all in one tool.
• It allows the story to unfold as gently as possible.
• Once complete, Testing your work is easy to do with Vivid Visualization.
• Tips were also provided for unusual situations you may encounter with your own events.