Introduction To The Emotional Freedom Technique

If there was a quick, effective and permanent way to clear out your lifetime of "emotional hell" from your childhood, past relationships and traumatic life events, would you be keen to sign up?

Of course you’d be sceptical. I mean...is this even possible? As a sceptic, that was my first reaction too.

Enter the fascinating mind-body therapy of EFT; a unique and effective method of identifying, accessing and releasing tightly withheld emotions and beliefs from the subconscious mind, cells, energetic system and physical body.

The EFT process involves tapping on the ends of nerve channels on your face and upper body whilst repeating statements about the unhelpful emotion or belief you want to release, all the while keeping your mind focused on the event in your life that you associate these feelings with. The tapping resets the nerve channels to CALM, so that your mind is free to process the event, deem the associated unhelpful emotion or belief as untrue and release it for good.

The result is that you recall the same event from an entirely different perspective and without the associated emotional intensity and physical distress that you experienced before (e.g. crying, sweating, tightness in your chest, anxiety, a knot in your stomach). My clients often comment that after a round of EFT they feel incredibly calm, relaxed and "as light as a feather", with an inner sense of peace and comfort and the feeling that a whole new world of possibility has opened up for them.

Essentially, what my clients are experiencing in this moment is an unveiling of the depth of their human potential and as a therapist; this is an awe-inspiring moment to witness.

Our lifetime burden of unprocessed emotions often rears its ugly head as emotional eating, addictions (including exercise and strict diets), structural dysfunction, muscular tension that won’t resolve with massage or other physical therapies and play a part in almost every symptom and disease state known to man.

The emerging sciences of Epigenetics and Psycho-neuro-immunology are both supportive of this theory, revealing the intimate connection between humans and our environment as factors regulating gene expression. That is, these factors – such as stress and the thoughts we think - have the ability to switch ‘disease’ genes such as cancer on or off. This positions EFT as a unique tool for disease prevention and optimising our human potential.

And sceptics are always welcome.

This is a guest blog post by Janelle Castle, in-house wellness consultant at Absolute Sanctuary in Koh Samui, Thailand.