Articles - 04:
• How to take care of lifelong guilt with EFT. *
• Online links: CFS-ME and YouTube videos. *
• Removing multiple Guilt layers. *
• Self-Doubt: Removing fear and lack of self-acceptance. **
• Technical article: Influencing peptides with EFT. ***
• Wording: Severe infection, Mara Protas. **

How to take care of lifelong guilt with EFT
http://www.emofree.com/Articles2/lifetime-guilt-relief.htm
Ilana Weiler (Israel)
E-mail: weilerilana@gmail.com

Chaya is a very close friend of mine and a real lover of EFT.
While checking for "unwanted" behavioral patterns, she claimed to always be feeling, in some way or another, "guilty". Even when she is unhappy with someone else’s deeds she would somehow feel guilty.

I decided to use muscle testing for the Behavioral Chart that is used in the One Brain technique which is actually an emotional barometer. I find it very beneficial at some cases. So the results indicated sorrow and blame, and self punishment.

We tapped for:

Even though I always feel guilty …

This round helped in bringing the emotions up to the surface and Chaya felt her level of intensity to be an 8 on the scale of 0 to 10. I asked her where in her body she could feel that guilt. It was located in her stomach.

Even though I feel that guilt in my stomach …

A few rounds of the EFT shortcut version her feel nausea in her stomach.
I asked her what was the first time she remembered feeling guilty.
She said, "Since I was very small, maybe from the age of 3 years. Since my sister was born."

I asked why she felt guilty.
She said that her sister was the "good" girl … easy to satisfy, hardly crying.
And she was the "bad" girl. This brought an intensified feeling of pain in her stomach ... it felt like a knot.

Even though, I have this knot of guilt in my stomach …

We tapped on the EFT points repeating the following:
this guilt … this knot of guilt … guilt in my stomach … she was the good girl … I was the bad girl … guilty … she was easy to please … I was not … these guilt memories in my stomach.

Now Chaya said she was no longer suffering from pain in her stomach,
but she felt tightness in her chest. Chasing the pain seemed to be the right thing to do.

Even though I feel tightness and constriction in my chest …

We tapped on the EFT points repeating the following:
EB – tightness in my chest.
SE – hard to breathe.
UE – this guilt.
UN – tightness.
CH – this guilt makes it hard for me to breathe
CB – can’t breathe
UA – this ancient guilt
TH -- it is in my chest.

On the Gamut point:
I felt guilty since I was so small.

Top of head:
Feeling guilty makes my breathing constricted.

Even though, I was born guilty, I accept myself. I love myself.

Even though I think babies are guilty for the way they are born for who they are when they are born, I choose to forgive myself.

We tapped on the EFT points repeating the following:
EB – I was born guilty.
SE – this was my fault.
UE – what kind of a baby was I?
UN – I am guilty.
CH – guilty baby
CB –
UA –
TH –

Before ending that round, Chaya looked at me and said,
"No, it is not my fault. What baby on earth is guilty for anything?
All babies are "pure" and innocent.”

Now we tapped just for the positive
… all babies are innocent, It was not my fault etc.
Big smile. Tears of relief coming down her face.

This could have been the end of the session, if her level of intensity was down to zero. But I wanted to be sure about the effectiveness of our work. A specific event was needed. I asked Chaya to try and recall one. As she did, she suddenly felt an unbearable pain in the centre of her back the back point of the heart chakra. It was freezing cold and painful and she was shivering. I placed my hand on that spot, but she could not bear it. I tried leading her through some guided imagery in order to heat the place with no success. So, tapping was the right thing.

I tapped on her while she repeated,
"cold, freezing cold, painful"
… for a few good rounds, before she could feel the place warming up and a sense of tranquility .

"What was that?” she asked.
My intuition helped here … I guessed it was a release of pain that was stored in this place. It was a release of body’s memories.

“Why am I punishing myself?” Chaya asked.

She was relaxed and it seemed that we did not need to get the details of that specific event. It need not be a verbal process. It was such a strong physical reaction that the body remembered. We checked for her feelings, body sensations, all was relaxed and clear.

A week later I spoke to her.
"I feel so relaxed. I was able to stand straight and hear all kinds of remarks made by my partner without feeling automatically guilty. We had a conversation about the issue that was brought up, but I feel like a different person."

CFS-ME and YouTube videos, online links.

EFT and Tapping (No Time for Myself)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWI5xSGC6uU Annie, 3 min, 24 seconds, 2005+,
Getting over the last hump to getting well.
Difficulty coping with any stress.

Learn EFT in 5 Minutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQp0kA5a5OI
2006, CraigBrockie.com
5 minutes, 16 seconds
Secrets to happy, healthy, and wealthy.
Kevin Trudeau and Dr. Mercola both recommend.

01. Focus on a concern or problem.
02. Rate how that has you feel (intensity scale of 0 to 10).
03 KC - Find and tap the Karate Chop point on the hand.
04. Say, while tapping,
"Even though I am ... I deeply and completely accept myself." 05. TH - Tap a series of points on the top of your head
---- while thinking about the problem/concern.
06. EB - Tap both the inner eyebrow points while talking about the problem.
07. SE - Tap on the side of the eyes points and repeat.
08. UE - Tap under eyes and say and think about your problem.
09. UN - Tap under the noise, above top lip in center, and say ..
10 CH - Tap in the middle of the chin, while saying ..
11 CB - Tap on the inner ends of both colarbones, while saying ..
12 UA - Tap on side under arm and level with nipple (male) " "
13 Continue with other spots as per manual or website diagram.
14 Quantify after each set how much your intensity of feelings is.

How to do EFT Tapping
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7d_7Dkco0M
by Leon Jay, 2006, 4 min, 30 sec
www.EFT-Therapy.com

Clear limiting beliefs, increase success/abundance.
Chronic illness, physical pain relief and reduction.
Fears, Phobias, Traumas.

1. Detail your concern: Who, When, What, Where.
2. Measure the intensity of the feeeling on a scale of 1 to 10
3. Create a Setup Phrase
-- "Even though I have (this) ... I deeply and completely accept myself."
4. Set out a Reminder Phrase:
-- "(an acknowledgement of the problem ".. sharp pain in shoulder")"

5. Tapping Points:
UW - Under wrist
TH - Top of Head
EB - Eyebrow
SE - outside of the Eyes
UE - Under the eye
UN - Under the nose, middle of top lip
CB - Towards middle of collarbone
UA - Under arm on side of torso
TW - Top of the Wrist
UW - Under the Wrist
KC - Tapping on the outside heal of the hand. Finish with a deep breathe in and exhaled.
Re-evaluate the intensity rating felt.
Repeat the tapping cycles until level falls to Zero.

Self-Doubt: Removing fear and lack of self-acceptance.
http://www.emofree.com/articles/self-doubt.htm
By Steve Wells

I believe if the world's ten greatest problems were lined up, self-doubt would be one of them. Self-doubt underlies our deepest frustrations in not moving our lives forward. It is one of the greatest stoppers to human potential there is. It is what we need to overcome if we are to achieve our goals and it's also what we must move through if we are to gain peace with ourselves.

Doubt and fear go together like hand in glove.
Self-doubt is often mixed with fear although it can also stem from lack of self-acceptance. Inability to overcome self-doubt leads to inaction, and inaction - particularly on important life goals - over time leads to frustration and anger at self. In its strongest form, self-doubt can lead to self-hatred, even disgust.

In my peak performance work with athletes and business people, I have not worked with a single person who hasn't had some elements of self-doubt. And along with everyone I know, I've suffered with this problem myself. I find working with myself leads to some of the greatest distinctions for helping others, so once again I'm going to "bare my soul" and describe one of my more recent "learning experiences" in the hope that - as with the other work I've described in the area of self-acceptance - this will assist you on your own journey.

The story begins with a workshop I ran last year.
On the third day of the workshop, due to a damaged pipe in the area, the water failed to flow, the toilets clogged up and the air conditioning system failed, leaving us in oppressive heat for the rest of the day. My session in the afternoon was less than perfect in these conditions and - despite the positive feedback from participants and reassurance from my good mate David Lake (who has to say good things like this, after all he is my friend!!), I felt terrible after the session. I flew home that night feeling down on myself, and quite miserable.

I decided I needed to do some work on this issue, so I immediately took out my notebook. I find in doing personal work with EFT that journaling the issues as I go really helps. When at home I do this on my computer, typing the issues and concerns onto the screen as a starting point, and typing out any significant thoughts and feelings that come up as I tap. There's definitely something in this process of getting the thoughts and feelings onto paper or onto a computer screen. It is also a real affirmation of the changes you've made to go over these writings weeks or months later and marvel that you could previously have even entertained such negative ideas.

So there I was on the plane, feeling totally disgusted with myself. In our work, Dr David Lake and I have found exaggeration, particularly of the negative (although it can also be used productively on positives) to be a particularly powerful tool for not only gaining perspective on problems but also to ensure that we access the most damaging negative thoughts and beliefs for tapping on. The exaggeration helps not only to focus the issue and bring it to a head, but also to offset the intensity of the damaging thoughts and feelings.

Since we don't need a strong intensity to work with the issue but we do need to tune into them it may seem paradoxical but its nevertheless true that tuning in via exaggeration ensures there is an element of distortion and dissociation that can offset some of the emotional intensity. The exaggeration process has several other benefits which I won't expound on now, but I will say that, particularly for problems involving negative self-evaluation I have found it a powerful tool for self-help as well as in therapy.

Prior to commencing tapping I wanted to get all of this out on paper, so I began a list of "101 Reasons Why I'm Inadequate". As it turns out I was only able to come up with 42 reasons, and some of them were repeated, but I thought that was probably sufficient for the exercise! It's funny how when you get into these negative states, a range of other "concerns" about yourself that don't normally bother you take on the quality of indictable criminal offences!

So apart from the upset about my presentation, my list included a range of general problem behaviours, such as "I yell at my kids", "I eat too much", and "I don't exercise regularly enough", through to more challenging problems such as "I have regrets in terms of a lot of stuff I've done in my life", through to problem beliefs about self and "the way I am", such as "I'm disorganised" and "I worry too much" to statements on life goals such as "I haven't achieved ultimate success in my life" and "I'm not a multi-millionaire yet". And of course, there was the triggering issue of the day "I didn't do a perfect job presenting today".

I decided that this list was too much to cover in one tapping session on the plane, and besides I didn't really want to do all that much tapping publicly, so I did what I often do in public situations and tapped mainly on the meridian point which works best for me which is the side-of-the-eye point. I also did several rounds of simply touching and rubbing the points, as well as several rounds of imagining the tapping. I did this as I read through each of the statements that I had written, internally restating them and exaggerating them, both within the set up statement and at each point. For example, instead of just making the statement "I yell at the kids", I exaggerated the meaning and consequences of this so that it became "Even though I am a terrible father ..."

When I began to focus on my "failure" at presenting that day I really "got stuck in", exaggerating how poor the performance was. Of course, this combined well with the tapping and as both the tapping and the exaggeration worked their magic I was able to put into perspective the events of the day, realising that not only was it a hot day but that I had also not had much sleep the night before and despite this the presentation was still ok (rather than being terrible) and many people would have thought it was quite good. I still knew that it could have been improved but I no longer felt so disgusted with myself over my "poor performance".

I still had my long list of personal faults however and I knew that the next time I had a negative experience like this similar thoughts and feelings would be provoked. So I took my list home to work with and at a time when I had a decent opportunity to work through these, I went to work on them.

So there I was with my list of personal failings or faults.
I started by lumping them all together and just inserting the statements into the set-up and repeating them in my mind as I tapped. I combined about 3 or 4 problem statements at a time in each set up statement, for example,

"Even though I don't exercise regularly enough, and I'm fatter than I should be, and I eat too much, and I haven't achieved ultimate success in my life ... I deeply and profoundly accept myself";

"Even though I'm not as smart as a lot of other people, I don't stick to a lot of things, and I'm disorganised I fully and completely accept myself;

"Even though I yell at my kids and I worry too much and I put things off and have heaps of things I should be doing I fully and completely accept myself."

I instantly smiled to myself when I began to combine these statements together, the juxtaposition providing the contrast to start putting things into perspective. I then began tapping, repeating one problem statement per point

(For example:.

Eyebrow: "I don't exercise regularly enough",
Side of eye: "I'm fatter than I should be",
Under eye: "I eat too much";
Under nose: "I haven't achieved ultimate success in my life";
Under mouth: "I'm disorganised";
Collarbone: "I don't stick to a lot of things";
Under arm: "I yell at my kids sometimes".

As is usual in the approach used by Dr. David Lake and myself I took a deep breath at the end of each round of tapping. We've found this provides a space for balancing, clearing, and processing. Of course, often the breath taken by clients at this point is spontaneous as it was in my case - I started to realise as I often have in doing this work that to "Name the demon" is to begin to release its hold.

As I progressed through the problem statements, I began to exaggerate both their severity and the consequences they would cause in my life. I took each problem statement and initially made the statement as I'd written it, then followed this with an exaggeration of the same idea and/or an exaggeration of the consequences of this problem in my life. Sometimes, when I noticed that there was some particularly strong intensity associated with a particular area, I continued the exaggeration further, stringing it out until I was able to gain some perspective.

For example:

"I'm disorganised" (My original statement) I followed with

"and that makes me completely and utterly hopeless"(exaggeration) and

"I'm a complete mess" (continuation of the exaggeration process).

As I did this I began to smile and even to laugh as I tapped on the negative extremes. At the end of the round I was hit with the thought,
"I'm not all that bad a person really, these are just some negative beliefs I've latched on to!"

Of course, the paradoxical secret is not to "accept" such reframing statements either from your clients or yourself until they can be said and felt with total congruency. So I continued with:
"Even though I am an absolute failure
(Exaggeration of my original statement of "I haven't achieved ultimate success"),
"... and I'm a terribly abusive father"
(My exaggeration of "I sometimes yell at my kids"),

"... and I worry constantly for good reason because I have a lot of things to worry about"
(My exaggeration of "I worry too much").

Each exaggeration statement I made provoked both a shock of recognition as well as a slight resistance against the statement. We see this often in our provocative approach - when clients are joined in their negative position they become free to consider the other side of things. I've found it can work just as well when working with yourself on your own issues.

(Although I would like to caution you that if no positive reframes or emotional shifts come up after exaggerating your problems and tapping on them for a reasonable period of time you should consider going and working with a skilled practitioner and therapist - There's often a limit to how far you can go in self help, even though we don't know exactly where that limit is on any particular issue!).

I wanted to locate the areas of greatest intensity for myself so that I could gain maximum relief, although I was still doing general tapping at this point. It was my aim to initially "go with" the negative position rather than opposing it. That is, to accept the problem rather than deny it. I've been doing this so long in therapy it has become second nature to me, so I found it fairly easy to do for my own problems also on this occasion.

Since EFT works on the negatives, this is what I want to be focusing the tapping on, as this is what I want to transform by applying EFT to the negative "attachment" and releasing it. This may not sit well with other practitioners who prefer to always insert positives, however in my opinion often all that does is suppress the negative impulses and beliefs, lead to a loss of self-acceptance, and send the issues and problems underground where they can wreak havoc on our nervous system.

We tend to do tapping on positives only when there is a resistance to them and a negative intensity associated with them. As I mentioned, we believe EFT works on negatives. When it does so, positive thoughts and feelings arise naturally without needing to be "programmed in". I've found that acknowledging the "truth" of the problem, actually helps us to put it into perspective, and empowers us to more effectively deal with the problem. When that "truth" is hurtful or painful, exaggeration is a useful tool to reduce the emotional intensity and inject a shift in perspective. In my case I began to realise just how much my unrealistic expectations and tendency to criticise myself were the biggest problem. So here I was again, tapping for self-acceptance. (Grrrr. I thought I had expelled that demon!)

As soon as I realised this, I began to tap on my self-anger:

"Even though I'm putting myself down" and
"Even though I'm expecting too much of myself", and
"Even though I'm beating myself up (and I'm angry at myself for beating myself up)".

Its tremendously freeing to allow the negative beliefs to be there and tap on them rather than opposing them, and also to allow the opposing thought to be stated simultaneously, such as:
"Even though I'm beating myself up too much ... but I totally deserve it and if I don't stop beating myself up I'm going to get really mad at myself and beat myself up some more ...
I fully and completely accept myself."

True acceptance means accepting all parts of ourselves, and allowing each to have its voice.

After tapping on the fact I was
"Beating myself up" about all my problems I was touched with the thought that I just felt totally "at a loss" to know how to deal with myself at this time. After allowing this thought to be, and then tapping on it, I was immediately struck with the philosophical question, which was the real me, the observer or the observed? This was another clear indication that I had begun to shift away from seeing the problems as myself and myself as the problem. I'd begun to move beyond my previously contracted identity.

One thing I've realised is that the self-acceptance journey is ongoing, however each time that an incident or issue such as this has brought my own negative self-assessment to a head the tapping I've done on that issue has brought me closer to such experiences, the experiences Gary Craig called "God moments" in his Flagstaff workshop. When we realise this, then moving through our problems becomes the vehicle for our own self-expansion, and provides the doorway to new ways of being in the world.

2008-11-28 Newsletter
Technical article: Influencing peptides with EFT
http://www.emofree.com/articles/peptides.htm
by Vicki Hughes Life Coach, EFT-ADV
E-mail: sasha@bo
website: http://w.uk/

I read the very interesting article by Rebecca Marina, where she spoke to and EFT'd her own blood cells, and documented some rather remarkable changes in her blood, as seen via darkfield microscope photography. After reading about the changes she noted in her blood after applying EFT specifically to obtain a change in her blood cells, I came to a similar conclusion regarding the body's production of peptides. These remarkable little self-produced bio-chemicals are part of the body, just like the blood cells, and I concluded they may be every bit as responsive to EFT as the blood cells were.

Over the years, I have grown familiar with and convinced of the power of our spoken words, which is one of the aspects of EFT that I believe is so effective. I have personally found that using a positive reframe of a negative situation, even before you believe it in your heart, combined with EFT somehow seems to cause it to become a heart-felt belief, and enables us to begin to believe our negative situation can in fact change. Patricia Carrington's Choices Method is a tremendous help with this.

In reading Molecules of Emotion by Candace B. Pert Phd, I learned something very interesting. She says, "Just recently, researchers at the National Institutes of Health have found a link between depression and traumas experienced in early childhood. Studies have shown that abused, neglected or otherwise un-nurtured infants and children are more likely to be depressed as adults, and now we have a way to understand the link between the experience and the biology. It all relates to something called the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis."

To summarize what she explains about this three fold axis:
the hypothalamus, which is part of our emotional brain, has axons that produce a neuropeptide called the cortical releasing factor, (CRF). When this peptide accesses our pituitary gland, the pituitary gland in turn will produce another informational substance known as ACTH. This substance then acts upon the adrenal glands which many of us know is responsible for releasing adrenaline, which sparks that fight-or-flight response we have all grown familiar with.

What is interesting is that this can all take place in a remarkably swift fashion, and the daisy chain of chemical reactions BEGINS with an emotion. It's like a flow chart:

You have an emotion,
the emotion causes the hypothalamus to create a neuropeptide called CRF
that causes the pituitary glad to secrete ACTH,
which in turn binds itself to the receptors in the adrenal glands,
which causes the adrenal glands to make a stress hormone, a steroid known as corticosterone.

Keep in mind a strong emotion does not have to be sparked by any actual threat or danger, but merely by the perception of threat or danger.

For example, if you were cleaning out your attic, where you knew there were normally several resident spiders, you could easily cause this chain reaction to start, completely apart from any spider whatsoever. If the dangling string from an overhead lightbulb were to brush against the back of your neck, as you were merely thinking about the possibility of meeting an attic dwelling spider, your hypothalamus would be off to the races to alert you to a perceived danger! You would be dancing a jig in your attic attempting to get the "spider" off of you, and it might take several minutes for you to calm back down again, even after realizing that it was just the string that touched you rather than a spider.

It is essential to recognize the profound and lasting results EFT provides where strong emotions are concerned. Stopping the negative emotion cuts off this daisy chain of chemical reactions before it gets started.

In Molecules of Emotion, Dr. Pert goes on to say....

"Ever since studies done thirty years ago, we've known that stress increases with increased steroid production. Depressed people typically have high levels of these stress steroids. In fact, depressed people are in a chronic state of ACTH activation because of a disrupted feedback loop that fails to signal when there are sufficient levels of steroid in the blood.

So the CRF-ACTH axis just keeps pumping out more and more steroids.
Autopsies almost always show a tenfold higher level of CRF in the cerebrospinal fluid of those who killed themselves compared to those who died from other causes ... We could say that CRF is the peptide of negative expectations, since it may have been stimulated by negative experiences in childhood."

"There are animal studies, for example, showing that monkey babies deprived of maternal nurturing, neglected or abused, in effect, have high levels of CRF and so have high steroid levels. Remember it's a feedback loop that is out of control. Depressed people are stuck in a disruptive feedback loop that resists any kind of drug therapy that aims at suppression of the steroids. Eventually there is so much CRF in the system that fluctuations of other peptides throughout the organism are curtailed, leaving even fewer possibilities in the range of behavior."

"In baby monkeys, this takes the form of failure to groom or repetitive behaviors that don't seem to have any purpose. In humans, the result can be extremely limited patterns of behavior and response, which eventually drive people into an emotional black hole ... the reason we can get stuck like this is because these feelings get retained in the memory --- not just the brain, but all the way down to the cellular level. This is how it works:

As CRF levels increase in highly stressed infants and children, the receptors for CRF become desensitized, shrinking in size and decreasing in number.

These changes happen when receptors are flooded with a drug, whether it's a drug your body produces naturally or a drug you buy at a pharmacy. The memory of the trauma is stored by these and other changes at the level of the neuropeptide receptor, some occurring deep in the interior of the cell at the very roots of the receptor. This is taking place bodywide. Although such changes can be reversed and need not be permanent, this takes time....the good news is that these findings let us see the potential for non-drug interventions, new kinds of treatments for mood disorders." (read EFT!)

"Remember the stressed-out monkey babies?
In another study to determine maternal influence, a group of monkey babies was raised by a fake monkey mother, a wire-and-cloth structure with milk bottles instead of breasts. The babies were fed but not touched, cuddled or held. They soon had all the signs of trauma and depression, as would be expected in light of all we've just talked about. But they were cured --- the stress symptoms reversed --- when researchers brought in what they called a "monkey-hug-therapist," an older monkey who constantly hugged and cuddled the stressed out baby monkeys. So what was going on? The hugging broke the feedback loop, sending the message 'No more steroids needed,' damage over and done with! The chronically elevated CRF levels came down."

This shows us very sweetly, the power of kind, physical touch.
Personally, I believe that is one reason some people obtain even better EFT results when someone taps for them, because the physical contact is a stress reducer all by itself. It also reminds me of the bumper sticker that says, "Hugs, Not Drugs." We would probably all benefit from a little hug therapy.

This information seems to offer us several approaches to managing stress.
One is to use EFT to neutralize the negative emotions that we are aware of by just tapping away at them one by one, so that they don't end up starting the negative chain reaction inside of our bodies. Another approach is to begin to use EFT to manage the way our bodies produce peptides, so they can work for us rather than against us.

Because I'm a fairly casual person, I have decided to have a very friendly and interactive conversation with my body. It sounds something like this:

"Hello Hypothalmus, It's Me!
I am letting you know that I know what's going on, and I am going to take care of this. There is no need to keep producing this negative expectation peptide, we are not in any danger."

"I lovingly request that my body stop producing any harmful peptides, and I declare that all of my cells' receptors are now free and clear to receive positive peptides."

"I lovingly request that my body begin to produce an abundant supply of health producing peptides, and I declare that all of the cells in my body are receptive to receiving their benefit."

"Even though I have been feeling negative, I choose to have my body produce every natural substance that will bring my physical and emotional health into balance."

Since my husband and I have been consistently using this approach with EFT, we have both noted a very marked leveling off of negative emotions such as anger and worry. We have been delighted to note that while these set up statements seem rather global, they have taken a large bite out of previously frustrating negative reactions. Is EFT actually helping to modulate our bodies' own chemical compounds? That will be for science to discover, but based on the results we are getting, I would be willing to say yes. I trust that scientists around the world are discovering more each day about the mind-body-emotion connection and we will all benefit from a more holistic approach to good health.

We are so amazingly and wonderfully made, God has placed within each of us everything we need to be healthy and whole, if only we know how to cooperate with it. Truly, what we don't know can and will hurt us. Ignorance is not bliss, it's the doorway to personal destruction. Living in the information age is mind boggling. I know we have merely taken the first few steps into the lobby of this healing high rise, but we are stepping into it, and we will continue to go upward.

Severe infection wording, Mara Protas.
http://www.emofree.com/Articles2/cat-bite-relief-mara.htm

The wife of one of my patients was admitted to the hospital with an infected arm from a cat bite she experienced the morning before. A little background: Her daughter had brought her cat over for her Mom to cat-sit. My patient's wife got up to let the cat out and then poured her a small bowl of milk. As she put it down, the cat bit her hand. She cleaned the bite, but by that night, it was swollen and she had a red streak going up her arm. She was quite ill and came to the emergency department. They told her the infection was in her bloodstream and it was very serious.

She thought she was going to die, and her right hand and arm were extremely red and swollen. They put her on IV antibiotics and admitted her. She could not close her hand or pick up anything with it. I went up to see her on my lunch break and offered to do some EFT to see if we could decrease the pain and swelling. When I saw her, she had had 3 doses of the antibiotics without much change in the symptoms and her pain level was a 9 on a scale of 0 to 10. I only had 30 minutes, and I tapped on her because it hurt her to move. Here are some of the things we tapped for:

Even though my hand is red and swollen and very painful ..
Even though it really hurts …
Even though I was afraid I was going to die ...
Even though I was trying to be nice and she bit me …
Even though I'm angry at my daughter for asking me to do this …
Even though I wish I hadn't agreed to do it …

We did several rounds for some of these and we also did the Movie Technique for the actual bite and the emergency room experience. We also included some forgiveness tapping for herself, the cat and her daughter in some of the setups. We added some choice statements asking her body to send an anti-inflammatory response and choosing to be able to move her hand normally.

Over the course of the 20 minutes we tapped, her pain went down to a 2 on a scale of 0 to 10 and we watched the redness and swelling decrease before our eyes. She was able to pick up a glass of water and bring it to her mouth.

Slowing down EFT can provide quality benefits.
http://www.emofree.com/Articles2/slow-down-eft.htm
Shelley Hawkins-Clark

Recently "Reed", a new client, contacted me because of frustration with not being able to lose 60 pounds that had crept up over recent years and because she felt unmotivated to finish her degree. We are still in progress. However, I wanted to pass on a couple of simple techniques that quickly opened up the doors for her.

After managing accounting firms for 30 years, she is going back to school to earn her law degree, a long time love. She is well acquainted with EFT and has used it for several years successfully, but was feeling stuck and frustrated with her dying motivation in school and diet.

In our first conversation, she communicated that she struggles to rate her intensity because she doesn’t really feel it. She’s tapped on emotional issues with food and food cravings, but found she "mourned" the food, even though she cleared the cravings.

Also, accomplishment is very important to her.
Several times she communicated that she "should be able to do this," she’s a "smart girl," and made references that she could never measure up to how hard her parents worked and what they had accomplished. We started there with the "shoulds" and the general view that "life is hard," with some basic, but unimpressive progress.

As part of her homework, I suggested setup and reminder phrases that included more about the shoulds and "suppose tos," in addition to the idea that her feelings were in a little black box that she would consider opening — maybe she was trying to tell herself something. But equally, if not more important I think, than the phrases are a couple of technique recommendations I offered.

Since Reed was a driven person, I could tell she moved through the tapping fast and got the sense that perhaps she was not "with herself" in this process or that her emotions didn’t have the time to "kick in" or catch up to her. As she moved through the reminder phrases, I recommended she include tapping on heart chakra to access and move the emotion (this may not be necessary for everyone), the wrist points, and to slow the process down by staying at each point long enough to say several phrases. She could even "tell a story" as she was doing it.

She soon contacted me with great excitement at how things were opening up for her.
We are now accessing that little black box with great progress on a lifetime of losses never mourned, her relationship with food and her relationship with her parents. She is losing weight and making changes with relative ease. She is also making much more progress on the tapping she does on her own and discovering all sorts of things she’d "forgotten."

Improve your success rate by asking the right questions.
http://www.emofree.com/Articles2/ask-right-questions.htm
Carol Look, EFT Master

"So how do you know what to tap on?"
When I started asking more of the "right" questions, my EFT practice improved considerably. Practitioners need to establish rapport and ask questions that will get to the heart of the matter. This work is never one-size-fits-all. If you don't know what the "real" problem is, or the strongest emotional driver that's feeding your client's conflict, you won't be able to aim the EFT treatment in the right direction. If you aim the EFT treatment at the real issue, you dramatically improve your success rate and take less time getting results.

My favorite brilliant question of course is Gary Craig's

"If you could live your life over again, and there were something or someone in your life you would just as soon skip, what or who would it be?"

This gives the clinician immediate access to troublesome memories, relationships, and time periods in the client's life that the client might not have associated with their emotional conflicts or physical ailments. ...

1. How long have you suffered from this problem
----------- (conflict, ailment, disorder, concern...)? ... a life long problem or it just surfaced since a recent stressor in the client's life. ..

2. What was happening in your life before or during the time of diagnosis, or when you noticed this problem arise?

Our immune systems become weakened under stressful situations, and often we do not "connect the dots" between a family crisis or stressful employment situation and an emerging cluster of physical symptoms. Try variations of these statements:

"Even though I didn't have my first panic attack until after that terrible family fight, I accept myself and love who I am anyway ... Even though I didn't feel this pain until after I moved to the new home, I love and accept myself and my feelings ... Even though I started overeating because of my loneliness after the relationship broke up, I choose to feel calm anyway."

3. Who else in your family history has suffered from this?
We often identify ourselves with particular family members. Sometimes we are even told "You are just like Aunt Sara ..." or "You look just like your mother ..." (who, by the way, might have died of heart disease or cancer or something else...) These associations get caught in our clever minds, and we tend to live out certain suggestions.

"Even though I have taken on her ailments to be close to her, I accept who I am and how I feel ... Even though I am identifying with my father by having knee problems, I deeply and completely accept myself ... Even though I was trying to be like _____ by getting the same ailments, I choose to release this pattern now."

4. What would you be focusing on if you didn't spend time worrying about this issue?

One of my clients told me that if she stopped obsessing about food, she "might" have to take a look at her failing marriage, and she wasn't prepared to do that just yet. This is the information a clinician wants. This client's need to lose weight wasn't as strong as her need to avoid looking at her marriage. The EFT practitioner needs to know this or will think EFT doesn't work when actually, the reasons around the problem weren't explored deeply enough. Try setup phrases along the lines of:

"Even though I'm afraid to give up this obsession, I choose to relax and feel free about it ... Even though I don't feel safe when I'm not beating up on myself, I accept and love myself anyway ... Even though I don't feel safe feeling the depth of my loneliness, I choose to love and accept myself anyway."

5. How would you be spending your time if you weren't taking care of or managing this problem?

Several of my clients admitted to using a mild "chronic" illness as a way to avoid entering into new relationships. Their fears of intimacy and wounds from being "dumped" before were so great, that they avoided socializing because of the pain, discomfort, and complications associated with the illness. Examples of tapping sequences that would lead the client to more relief and the freedom to consider different options are:

"Even though I'm using my symptoms as a way to protect myself from being hurt again, I accept and love myself anyway ... Even though I'm afraid to even try a new relationship because of what happened last time, I choose to feel safe without these symptoms ... Even though I don't feel safe unless I'm hiding behind these problems, I accept and love all of me right now."

6. How would you feel if you didn't have this in your life?
One of my clients who was a heavy smoker for 30 years said,

"I would have no idea who I was, or what my identity would be if I didn't have a cigarette in my hand." Identity issues are critical, and need to be explored so you can aim the treatment at the right problem. You could tap as follows: "Even though I'm afraid of the loss and grief if I give up smoking, I choose to feel calm and peaceful anyway ... Even though I'll feel insecure and won't know who I am without this problem, I choose to feel free and relaxed right now ... Even though I need this challenge to feel important ..."

7. What is the downside of getting rid of this problem?
This is my favorite question, because while it often takes clients by surprise, the client is usually very forthright about giving more than one "downside." My client with financial difficulties said he is successfully avoiding being criticized by his siblings by "staying in the struggle." He knows that as soon as he breaks through the abundance barriers (and he knows EFT is the tool to do so) his family members will jump all over him for being "rich" and will then "hit him up" for money! This is one of those fears of not being "safe" that is a perfect target for EFT.

One direction of tapping setup phrases might proceed as follows:

"Even though I won't feel safe if I am wealthy because of what he might say, I choose to accept myself anyway ... Even though they won't feel safe or happy if I succeed, I choose to move forward anyway ... Even though I'm afraid to succeed because of their typical reactions, I deeply and completely love and accept ALL OF ME anyway."

8. What is the upside of holding onto this problem?
How does holding onto this problem help you or give you something positive? Like it or not, all of our problems and conflicts "do something" for us. We need to take responsibility for any secondary gains we might be receiving as a result of our limitations.

A lovely woman in a recent class was having violent dreams in the middle of the night and often ended up in the emergency room getting stitches from throwing herself out of bed and onto the floor in the middle of her nightmares. After tapping on the fears from the dreams, I asked her the "upside" of this issue. She said being "hurt" allowed her to take care of herself instead of running to take care of needy family members. Her injuries were "legitimate" reasons to stay home.

We tapped on "Even though I feel trapped and don't know how to say "no" to others, I deeply and completely ... Even though I feel as if I am boxed in by their demands, I choose to say no and feel safe anyway ... Even though I haven't found the right way to take care of myself YET, I deeply and completely accept all of me right now."

9. What is YOUR theory about why you haven't yet resolved this dilemma, cleared this issue, neutralized this conflict?

I know that all of my clients are brilliant and know the answers to these questions. A typical conversation following this above question runs something like this: Carol: "Tell me your theory about why you haven't resolved this problem yet.

" Client: "My doctor says ..."
Carol: "Yes, but I'm interested in what you think the reason is?"

Client: "My husband told me ..."
Carol: "OK, that's his theory, but what do you think is the block to recovery in this case?"

Client: "I read somewhere that people with this illness ..."
Carol: "I've heard that too, but tell me what your inner guidance/wisdom is telling you about this." (Long pause ...)

Client: "I am afraid to reach my potential because they will be jealous of me or hurt me ..."
Carol: "What happened the last time you felt like you had reached your potential?"

Client: "My husband left me."
Carol: "That would be a good reason to keep yourself stuck. Anything else?"

Client: "Yes, I don't want to have to live up to anyone's expectations. I just want to be left alone."

10. What happened the last time you were at your best?
Reached your goal? Got promoted? Won the award? Announced how happy you were in the new relationship? Looked fabulous? Said "no" to someone who was asking too much of you?

I love these questions, because the client sees the connection immediately. When I asked a client who was struggling with abundance this question, she told me that she was afraid to succeed again because when she got a huge promotion, she went home and told her parents, and the following week her mother died of a stroke.

"Even though I'm afraid something bad will happen again, like the last time, I deeply and completely love and accept myself anyway ... Even though it doesn't feel safe being successful, I choose to accept my talents and my skills ... Even though I'm afraid to embrace my power because of what happened the last time, I accept all that I am and appreciate what I offer the world." ...