How I got started with EFT

Adventures in energy psychology for stress relief

I can very clearly recall the first time I heard about the fascinating topic of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT). It was in the fall of 1998 while I was teaching an advanced post-graduate acupuncture seminar in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

I had just finished a two-hour explanation of a very complicated aspect of the Five Element Theory, and was walking across the hotel lobby where the seminar was being held. One of my Alternative Medicine students stopped to thank me for making the complicated subject so easy to understand and for the enthusiasm I put into my lecture. As he reached into his shirt pocket to remove his business card, he said he would like to return the favor. Scribbling hastily, he wrote “emofree.com” and “energy psychology” on the back of the card. He explained that EFT is a stress relief technique that is an energy healing therapy in a class of its own.

We all know what we have been told to think when we are told something that sounds too good to be true. For that reason, I soon forgot the conversation. Perhaps a month later, I was again teaching acupuncture in a different city when I put my hand into my coat pocket – the same coat I was wearing in Pittsburg. I found the business card with the odd website name. What I recalled most about that conversation from a month earlier was the young fellow’s enthusiasm and confidence. He was positive that something totally free, this EFT thing, without any doubt in his mind, could have a sure and positive impact on my life. Even though I am sure he tried to explain a little about EFT, as most people do, it was his enthusiasm and confidence about EFT energy healing therapy that I remembered most.

When I got home this next time, my curiosity and sense of obligation made me finally take action on my promise. The first time I visited the website of Gary Craig, I got lost in the simplicity and beauty of how he presented this intriguing subject. He gently offered great hope and lofty expectation without resorting to high promises or exaggeration. I was impressed by Gary Craig’s relaxed and honest writing style.

Since I have practiced acupuncture for almost 35 years, and taught it as a Diplomate of the International Academy of Medical Acupuncture and a Diplomate of the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, even before I used EFT for the first time I was fully comfortable with the basic idea. In fact, I taught how acupressure point stimulation of the tsing points, bah wai, the Du and Ren Extraordinary meridians, as well as beginning or ending points of the Bladder, Stomach, Gall Bladder, Kidney and Spleen meridians that all course through the brain, could influence emotions and bring stress relief for anxiety, fear, depression, addiction, phobias, and other negative emotions. All of these familiar points are the tapping points used in EFT.

For example, the “karate chop point” is actually a powerful and popular acupuncture point, in Chinese known as Houxi, or Small Intestine 3 in the western system of naming acupuncture points. Another example, the “collar bone point,” in Chinese is known as Shufu, or Kidney 27; it is the last point on the Kidney meridian. All points used in EFT, if fact, are classic and popular points frequently needled and stimulated by acupuncturists for thousands of years.

Unlike many people who are skeptical about EFT, as a Master Acupuncturist it all made perfect sense to me. In the past, I had many remarkable cures of client’s emotional issues while using traditional needle acupuncture, but only in a general sense. Never had I heard that such fast and specific results could be expected with traditional acupuncture. The greatest question I had concerned the ability of EFT to release and neutralize a specific type of emotional stress related to a precise event.

And so, I downloaded Gary’s free 80 page copy of “The EFT Manual” and started to read and learn. Then I downloaded several hundred pages of case studies from the worldwide contributors who share their knowledge of EFT therapy with all of us. From that time forward, I have made it a point to constantly learn all that I can from the many wonderful EFT practitioners around the world.

Soon I discovered that Emotional Freedom Technique can be done face-to-face in an office setting or while doing EFT telephone sessions. There seemed to be no limit to the range of conditions that responded favorably to EFT by phone, so I naturally gravitated in that direction since patients seemed to prefer working from home for many reasons. After perhaps a few EFT telephone sessions, most people should notice the typical phobic response is noticeably and clearly more calm and controlled. Within perhaps one or two follow up EFT sessions, the phobia is totally gone – usually.

EFT telephone sessions made considerable sense even as I was first learning about the intricacies of this stress relief technique that works rapidly to reverse most all of the negative emotions I could throw it. Now, most of my day is spent doing EFT on phone with people from all over the world.

My journey with EFT therapy leads me deeper and deeper into this fascinating subject. I am most happy and grateful that my clients benefit from our journey together.