EFT / Tapping : Part II
As I mentioned in my last post on EFT, it’s a simple technique we can all use ourselves for various issues. You can search for just about any challenge you’re facing and likely find an example of someone using tapping to help.
If you are being diligent and actually doing the tapping (knowing about it and believing in it are great, but you have to actually do it for it to be effective!), you may have experienced some great progress on some things. It may seem to be really helpful for some things but for some reason not others. Or it could seem to not be helping at all. Why is that?
Why Isn’t it Working?
There are a number of reasons, and why it can be helpful to work with a practitioner rather than going it alone. It could be that your set up statement isn’t quite hitting the mark. The set up statement is the “even though X, I love and accept myself,” or, “even though X, I accept how I feel,” or “even though X, I choose for things to be different.” If you’re not feeling any/enough movement, you can try adjusting the ‘even though X’ part. Maybe it’s not quite accurate or pertinent enough.
Another consideration is that you may be resistant to what’s going to come up. We all have intuition and on some level know what’s what. Some things that come up during tapping can be really old and you may not want to acknowledge them. If you know that down deep, you might not want things to go that way. Until you get used to the process, you might try less significant issues, or work with someone who can guide and support you. If you are dealing with significant trauma it is definitely recommended to work with a practitioner and not try to work through it on your own.
If you are finding that you have some resolution, but not enough, you could be moving on toward the positive a bit too soon. With EFT it’s easy to want to focus just on what you want to happen, but we need to allow ourselves to become aware of, honor and accept our feelings, then let them shift. If your level of intensity hasn’t shifted much or at all, there’s more work to do before moving to more positive outcomes. Often just in allowing the feelings to surface and be dealt with, while tapping, we can feel them decrease and change. Sometimes they begin to seem insignificant, or it feels silly that there was ever an issue. It’s common for people to cry while tapping, but just as likely to start laughing at the absurdity.
More Thoughts on EFT
Here are a few tips on alternative tapping techniques to increase your success rates. If you are tapping for, or while you have, a headache (this works wonderfully…I use it often for headaches), tapping on your head might be the last thing you want to do. You can simply massage or hold the points rather than actually tapping on them. Your energy is still affecting the blockages, as is your intention. In fact, if you’re in public especially, you can just imagine tapping the points without actually doing so, and you can talk in your head rather than out loud. Put your intention on each point and visualize connecting there, while saying the set up and subsequent statements to yourself. This is particularly good in stressful situations or crowded places if you’re feeling overwhelmed.
If you try these adjustments and still find that you’re just not getting results, it could be time to connect with a practitioner. Considering all of the research out there showing that it’s effective, it’s probably not that it’s just not working. I have a level II EFT certification (EFT info here) , as well as a Masters in Counseling, so I have many tools for creating successful, supportive tapping sessions. Good luck!