Healing From ME: More Benefits of the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)

In my last article, I was writing about the many ways in which the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) can be used, whether we are suffering from illness or not. I wrote about how it can be useful for tapping on physical or emotional symptoms, how it can be used for "clearing" limiting beliefs ("I'm not the sort of person who can do... " or in the case of a condition like ME "I'll never get better. I've tried so many things, and nothing has ever worked") and adopting more powerful, empowering beliefs ("others have got better, so why can't I? I am open to trying new ways to heal myself."), and how it can be used to work through and eliminate fears and phobias.

As I said last time, I am at a time in my life where I seem to be using the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) a lot myself, and a lot with clients. And one of the other ways it can be used which is incredibly powerful is to affirm the positive in one's life. So, for example, if you are in a happy or joyful state, you can tap on some or all of the points and literally tap that high vibration into the cells of your body. Or you can use it with affirmations -literally saying the affirmations as you tap. Or you can use it with the Law of Attraction and visualisation - tapping as you are in touch with what you would like to bring into your life can "super charge" the attraction process.

A lot of people ask at this point - how is it possible that the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) "clears" the negative stuff when you tap on it, and yet strengthens the positive? From what I have read, there are no definite answers to this. One possibility is that when you tap on the positive, you often have a little voice in your mind saying: "No! That's not possible." Or "you'll never be able to do that!" (more on that below), and that the tapping works by clearing that negative voice. For me, it's less important to know how it works than to know that it really does work - and this is my experience from working with these positive affirmations and statements myself and with many clients.

Now, back to those little voices. One way to strengthen the positive or the affirmations is to pay attention to what is happening in your mind as you affirm the positive. As you hear that little voice saying "you'll never get better" or "you won't be able to do that" or "people like you aren't good at that kind of thing" - just bring that into the tapping, and you'll soon find that the power of those self sabotaging thoughts and voices diminishes. And diminishing the power of those little voices can lead to very deep healing.

The last thing I want to say about the Emotional freedom Technique (EFT) is that it is a tool which can be used in a session with a trained therapist like me, or on your own. When I work with clients, I am often able to see things that you can't see yourself (blind spots - and of course I have them too! And that's one reason why I regularly work with other therapists); also, I am trained in energetic patternings, so can often see how particular physical symptoms have manifested from the energetic, and be creative in helping you move through them; finally, I am quite intuitive when I am working with clients - which often leads to deeper results.

Having said all this, I love to teach my clients the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) because it is such a powerful self help tool. It can be used when you are in the "grip" of a painful emotion such a sadness, grief or anger, and it can also be used at times when you're not actually in touch with the emotion but you are using it as part of a planned approach to letting go of something. It's something that really helped me when i was really ill with ME- I used it for physical symptoms such as fatigue, brain fog, inability to concentrate and making healthier choices with my nutrition, but it was also incredibly helpful for working on beliefs around getting well and recovering.

It's now a key part of the way I work with people recovering from ME.