Emotional Freedom Techniques

Nov 5

10 min read

Emotional freedom techniques (EFT) is also known as “Tapping” due to the act of gently tapping on acupressure points on your body. Acupressure is like acupuncture except you are using pressure rather than a needle.

There are hundreds of scientific papers validating its effectiveness, and that number keeps growing, along with more anecdotal stories than anyone has time to read.

There is a lot of depth and nuance that can be applied to EFT. The following are what I consider to be the most essential elements. If you wish to learn more about EFT I recommend ‘The EFT manual’ by Dawson Church.

As always, see what works for you and take full responsibility for your own wellbeing.

The core principle

Essentially, EFT has you bring to mind something that doesn’t feel good while gently stimulating acupressure points on your body.

The stimulation of these points sends a calming signal to your brain and body.

Rather than simply trying to get rid of the emotional intensity, this process helps you fully acknowledge and feel what is going on inside. If things have been pushed down or forgotten, it helps bring them up. As the inner disturbances are felt in combination with a calming signal, they can be processed and released. Ultimately, it helps you find more freedom.

When used strategically, you can address root causes, limiting beliefs and broader challenges, helping you transform your life.

The basic recipe

1. Choose a specific negative experience (past, present or future). Eg: “Sam yelled at me, ‘Get it together!’”

2. Rate your current level of intensity around the issue on a 0-10 scale (0 being no intensity, 10 being maximum intensity). Note that you may feel this in your body such as a ball of anger in your chest, a pit in your stomach, tension in your shoulders etc.

3. The set up statement: Gently and continuously tap the fleshy part on the side of your hand below your little finger (shown in image below) with the tips of the 4 fingers of the opposite hand. It doesn’t matter which hand you use, you can even swap sides throughout the process. While tapping, say the following 3 times: “Even though _____ (insert problem), I deeply and completely accept myself”. Eg “Even though Sam yelled at me ‘get it together!’, I deeply and completely accept myself”.

4. Gently tap the 8 points (shown in image below) about 7 times each while repeating a brief phrase at each point that reminds you of the problem. eg: ‘get it together!’ The exact number of times you tap each point isn’t important, 7 is just general guidance. Typically you tap these points with the index and middle fingers of one hand. For points that are on both sides of the body, you just need to tap on one side, it doesn't matter which, you can even switch during the process.

The 8 points to tap and how to locate them:

Top of the head: imagine drawing a line from the top of your ears directly up to the top of your head. Tap the spot where both lines would meet, using four fingers of one hand: index, middle, ring and little.
Eyebrow: Where your eyebrow meets the bridge of your nose.
Side of the eye: On the outside edge of the eye socket (not the temple).
Under the eye: On the bony ridge of the eye socket, inline with the pupil.
Under the nose: Between your top lip and your nose.
Chin: On the crease between your lower lip and your chin.
Collarbone: Find the “U” shape at the base of your neck where the knot of a tie would be, go down about an inch and to either side about an inch. I recommend you use your whole hand to tap both points at the same time.
Under the arm: About 4 inches below the armpit. For men this is typically at the level of the nipple, for women this is typically where a bra strap crosses. Use four fingers or a loose fist.

5. See if there has been any change on the 0-10 scale of intensity or a change in emotion/physical sensation. Often, as we tune into what’s really going on, the intensity goes up before it comes back down.

6. Repeat until your intensity drops to a 0. Adjust your statements if needed to reflect changes you experience eg: if you started with “Even though I feel this intense red hot pain in my right elbow, I deeply and completely accept myself” after some tapping the sensation may have lessened, therefore your next round may be “Even though I feel this gentle soreness in my right elbow, I deeply and completely accept myself.”

Tailoring the process

Don’t worry about getting the “right” words, or identifying the exact level of intensity you feel. Just start tapping, acknowledge whatever you feel or think, and say the first thing that comes to mind. It doesn’t even have to be a proper sentence or a real word. It might include: “Even though Sam yelled at me, and it makes me feel so angry, and I don’t think this tapping thing is going to work, but I’m doing it anyway, I accept myself.”

You can also just tap while ranting or experiencing something distressing and it can help you to more fully acknowledge, process and release what’s bothering you.

You can do this whole process silently instead of saying anything out loud.

Instead of tapping, you can gently rub each point, or simply touch and breath at each point.

If there are points that bring you more relief than others, you can spend more time stimulating those. You can also skip points if they don’t resonate with you.

You can skip steps if they don’t help or get in the way, such as the setup statement or rating the intensity.

The core idea of the setup statement is to acknowledge the problem and combine it with a statement of self acceptance. There are many possibilities within this. If you don’t like “I deeply and completely accept myself” here are other variations, and you can create your own:

I accept myself.
I’m willing to accept myself.
God loves me.
I know who I am.
I’m OK, it’s over.
I’m here in this room.

If you aren’t able to tune in to how the problem feels, you can focus on how clearly you can see / hear the problem. Eg, focusing on how clearly you can see Sam’s face in your mind's eye as you remember her yelling, or how clearly you can hear her voice saying “get it together!”

Specific events and aspects

The most important thing to remember with EFT is that if you want genuine, lasting transformation, you need to focus on specific events and the aspects of that event.

You’ll know you have a specific event when you can take a mental picture of the moment in time when it happened eg:

That fight I had with my partner in the kitchen yesterday.
Last week, in the grocery store parking lot, feeling anxious as I looked at my low bank balance on my phone.
That time I fell from my bike when I was 10.
Talking with my boss about the problems with project XYZ today during the 10am meeting.
Imagining standing in front of the audience next week as I deliver my presentation.
Sitting on the couch 3 days ago, hating how I’m always exhausted and never get to do anything fun.

Within specific events, you received input through your 5 senses, whilst also having thoughts and emotions. These are called ‘aspects’. With EFT, we can address each aspect individually.

Some examples of aspects you could tap on:

Hearing the footsteps of my partner stomping into the kitchen.
Hearing my partner say “look what you've done!"
Feeling the wheel of my bike slip out from under me.
Hearing my brakes as I tried to stop the fall.
Smelling the freshly cut grass that I fell onto.
Seeing the specific bank balance on my phone while sitting in my car yesterday.
Tasting the coffee I was drinking as I was looking at my bank balance.
Thinking “what am I going to do?” as I looked at my bank balance.
Hearing the frustration in my boss's voice as he told me what needed to be done for project XYZ.
Seeing the exhaustion on my bosses face as we spoke about the project.
Feeling exhausted on the couch yesterday.
Thinking “I never get to do anything fun” while I was on the couch yesterday.

Note that you’re always tapping on how you feel / think now. Essentially, you’re focusing on any detail that brings up emotional intensity or feels seared in your memory, and integrating / freeing yourself from that. The detail can be objectively observable such as falling from your bike, or a subjective detail such as what you were feeling as you were falling from your bike.

Sometimes it’s worth getting even more specific. For example, rather than focusing on the angry look on your partner's whole face, you might focus only on the angry look in her eyes, then address the angry expression her lips were making etc.

Sometimes it's better to not say anything but instead tap while focusing on what you saw during the event, or playing the sound of what you heard on repeat in your head. This way you’re focusing on the core elements: exposure to the problem + tapping to send a calming signal during that exposure.

Addressing root causes

It is often said that the problem isn’t the problem. As you're tapping, one or more memories might pop into your mind, as though out of nowhere. When that happens, it is often a root cause that is contributing or completely creating your current suffering. Tapping on this root cause will typically help free you not only from the current discomfort, but also future similar discomforts.

If no memory naturally comes up, you can tune into how you are currently feeling, and see if you can trace that feeling back to a previous time in your life when you felt the same way. The event at the root cause may seem completely unrelated, but it often has thematic relevance. Tapping during this process can help.

What if you want to free yourself from things that aren’t single events? What if you’re feeling anxious about not having enough money? Consistently find yourself feeling hopeless about the future? What if you have limiting beliefs such as “I’ll never succeed at anything in life", “I’m not enough”, “No one will ever want to be with me” etc?

In these cases, a very useful metaphor is that of a table. The table top represents the issue you want to address such as “I’m not enough” and the table legs represent the specific events that occurred to create that issue. If you reduce the intensity from the events (table legs) the table top (your broader issue) will typically fall.

Simply tap while focusing on or saying the table top issue. See if any memories come to mind. If not, tune into how you feel when you focus on the issue, and see if you can trace that feeling to a specific event.

Once you have an event, you tap on it, addressing any aspects that hold emotional intensity as before. You may have other events that come up as you do. These are likely other table legs.

Note that this metaphorical table can have anywhere from 1 leg to 100+ legs. However, even if there are many table legs, you don’t necessarily need to tap on every single one before the issue falls away. Much like a real table, if you remove a few key legs, it can unbalance it enough for the whole table to fall.

When it’s very intense

Note: Before you attempt addressing something very intense on your own, make sure you have some experience with tapping on everyday challenges. You may also consider working with an appropriately trained and skilled practitioner.

If there is something that is bothering you and it’s very intense, it is often best to not go into all the emotions of it right away, as that can overwhelm you and make things worse.

Instead, simply guess at how intense you think it might be, if you were to emotionally go into it.

It can be useful to give the event an innocuous name that helps remind you of what you’re tapping on, but doesn’t bring up emotional charge, eg: “The time at the beach” instead of “Almost drowning at the beach.”

Whether you use a title or you simply guess at the intensity without anything else, you can then go through the rest of the steps using the information you have. A set up statement could look like this:

“Even though there’s this event, and if I went into it would be a 10/10, I deeply and completely accept myself.”
“Even though there’s this event ‘the time at the beach’, I deeply and completely accept myself.”

Take another guess at how intense you think it might be. Repeat the process until you guess the intensity would be around 3 or less on the intensity scale. Then you can work on it as normal.

This approach can also be used for ‘normal’ events that aren’t necessarily highly intense. See how it works for you.

Box technique

It may also be useful to imagine the event at a distance to help reduce emotional intensity, such as imagining placing it in a box and burying that box in some distant location. Then you simply tap while describing the box, eg:

“Even though there’s this metal box that’s one meter squared, with a big red padlock on the front, and it’s buried at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean, I deeply and completely accept myself”.

Top of the head: “This metal box”

Eye brow point: “It’s one meter squared”

Side of eye point: “At the bottom of the Atlantic ocean”

Etc

As before, after some tapping you may notice some changes. In this case, the box may turn from metal to wood, it may shrink in size, you may feel OK having it in your back garden rather than the bottom of the ocean etc as the intensity lessens. Simply adjust your words to articulate your current experience.

Finishing a session

Using the visual of a box can also be used at the end of a tapping session, if there is still some intensity and you don’t want to carry that with you into the rest of your day, you can tap through the points while imagining putting whatever is unresolved into a box and putting that box in a place that feels good to you, which you can then come back to at a later time.

In closing

That’s the core of emotional freedom techniques. Keep in mind there are more techniques within it, and nuances that can help you work with different challenges. Whilst there is a structure to it, you are facilitating a very natural ability for your being to process and release things that have gotten stuck in your inner world. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.