Think of EFT as ‘psychological acupressure’ – gentle tapping on acupuncture points while tuning into and talking about the problem.

During a traumatic event, we experience fight, flight, freeze responses, associated with the amygdala part of the brain.

At the moment of trauma, many of the bodies systems actually shut down, apart from the senses, which become heightened.

The body and mind experience threat; this very specific form of ‘danger’, whatever it may be, i.e. physical violence, rejection, betrayal, humiliation or helplessness for example, is remembered vividly and encoded in the body, to protect you from future incidences of similar experiences.

The body and mind ‘remember’ all the details and then remain on high alert to similar threats for the rest of your life.

For example, if during your childhood you had authoritarian parents who controlled and restricted you, you may exhibit behaviours in adulthood associated with an inability to express yourself, a fear of asking for what you want or a lack of self-belief, because you unconsciously hold the belief that you are not entitled.

In our primitive past, we would have coded ‘tigers in the bushes’ type situations, but now, in the present day, we are coding masses of ‘dangers’ because we live in a high pressure society with multiple threats to our wellbeing.

These ‘past’ situations, even though they are effectively over, unconsciously remain energetically open, to ‘keep us safe’, which can wreak havoc with your wellbeing and freedom. Consider, for example, the flashbacks and loss of sleep that a war veteran experiences.

This Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is an extreme version of what we all experience when we think of a painful past experience.

When you are asleep and dreaming, your body has identical physiological responses as if you were experiencing that event in actual reality. So if you were dreaming that you were falling off the edge of a cliff, your body doesn’t know that isn’t real, so it behaves as if that is really happening. Your body thinks it’s real. So your body thinks! Your body is conscious. It is this consciousness that you are tapping into with EFT.

In the same way, the tapping and simultaneous talking about the trauma tunes you in physiologically to that original coding of the event in your body and mind, you are effectively accessing and surfacing that same unwanted energy. Your body doesn’t know that that is no longer happening, just like with dreaming. So when you bring awareness and new energy into that old situation with Inner child work or Parts work, the two processes I use with EFT, your body has to let go of the intensity!

These are just unconscious patterns, the tapping switches off the fight, flight, freeze responses specific to your issue and you are switching off the triggers – you are free!

If these blocks remain and are not released, you can start to manifest emotional and physical symptoms which restrict your life and cause you to have limiting beliefs about yourself and your potential to move forward. You can end up having a heightened sensitivity to so many aspects of life, that life itself can become difficult and unmanageable.

EFT’s effectiveness can also be attributed to a huge reduction in Stress Cortisol Levels, more so than any other intervention tested to date, as published in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. In a randomized controlled trial, 83 subjects were randomly assigned to a single session of either EFT, talk therapy, or rest. Their cortisol levels were measured via a saliva test before and after the session. The researchers hypothesized that successful therapy would lower stress and that this would be reflected biochemically in a reduced level of salivary cortisol and psychologically in reduced levels of anxiety, depression, and other symptoms of psychological distress. The results showed that cortisol levels in the rest and therapy groups decreased by an average of 14%, while the EFT group decreased by 24%. This decrease in this physiological marker of stress was also significantly correlated with a decrease in anxiety, depression, and other psychological symptoms as measured by a standard psychological assessment tool.

The team were so shocked by the significance of the results that they ran the tests again! 

Bringing relaxation into the body and mind by reducing cortisol to this degree, puts the body and mind immediately into a ‘healing’ state.

While tuning into your negative experiences while in a relaxed state, you are effectively reprogramming yourself. You are setting up new neuropathways!

The mind body connection is now largely accepted and acknowledged even by traditional doctors; that emotional disharmony is a key cause of physical symptoms and disease. Just look at how stress affects your body. Look again at that word; dis-ease!

EFT is described as peeling the layers of an onion. For example, after anger has cleared, there is often sadness and loss underneath. You learn to feel the dominant emotion change into something else, then you work on that.

Perhaps you are thinking this is too good to be true!

It is new!

Everything that is mainstream was new once.

EFT feels like an evolutionary step forward! This is an exciting time.

I use 2 separate processes within EFT sessions depending on what issue you are facing; either Parts work or Inner child work. For further information about which may be appropriate for you see the information on the EFT tapping training session page here or fill in a free 15 min consultation form here