The most effective way to use EFT is to tap on specific events.
For many just starting out with EFT this can be the most difficult part of the process. I have seen more issues evaporate instantaneously by finding key related memories than I can recall.
People will generalize and clump specific events into “truisms”. For example the belief that all men are untrustworthy could have been formed by all the men you’ve been romantically involved with and they blur together in your mind. Another example would be when you believe that you aren’t good at attracting abundance. This may have been your experience so many times that it’s hard to choose just one. Starting with one example of when you lost money or of the one time a man betrayed you is the first step in creating a set-up statement to start your tapping with.
Here are some techniques that will help you get specific:
1. Ask yourself if you can answer the questions who, when, and where in your tapping statements. If you can’t, then you need to get more specific.
Incorrect – Johnny always showed up late and drunk when we were dating.
Correct – The time Johnny showed up 3 hours late and drunk to take me to Marion’s wedding.
The statement would be, “Even though I feel all this sadness in my chest when Johnny showed up 3 hours late and drunk to take me to Marion’s wedding” In the statement above the when is the date to Marion’s wedding, the who is Johnny, and the where was your apartment.
2. Tap on the Table Top while looking for the Table Legs. The Table Top and Legs metaphor was originally created by Gary Craig to describe the difference between a global issue (All Men Are Bastards) and the Legs (the night Johnny showed up late). The key to collapsing the Table Top is to work on the Legs. The exception to the rule to tap on the specific events only is when you can’t recall them.
To Tap or Pound on the Table Top you could say, “Even though all men are bastards, I deeply and completely…..” The key to this method is to tap on the points while intently listening to your mind. Usually your mind will bubble up examples of specific events related to the theme. Just note that tapping on the Table Top is only used to identify the specifics which you’ll need to tap on next.
3. Using the somatic experience to locate the memory.Many people find that an issue has a body sensation attached to it. When you think about the general issue of, “I’m not good with money” ask yourself where you feel it in your body? It could be a constriction in your breathing, a lump in your throat, or a knot in your stomach.
Create a set-up statement only focusing on the body sensation with the intention of being shown the connection to an event. For instance, “Even though I feel this tight knot the size of a golf ball in the center of my stomach, I choose to have my body direct me to the earliest memory it has of feeling that way”
4. Hire an EFT coach to guide the process and do the detective work for you. Many of us use intuitive skills to ask questions that will lead to relevant events. If your EFT practitioner doesn’t get to specific events to work on or doesn’t spend the majority of the time on specific events, then hire someone else! It’s often a sign of a poorly trained practitioner.
