The names of people and Agencies in this article or study MAY have been changed to protect their identities.

Article #2020       THREE KEYS TO EFT MASTERY,

by Nancy Gnecco, LPC, EFT Master

Almost anyone can learn to practice EFT successfully, and even teach it to others
with phenomenal success. Mechanical EFT which is taught in the Basic EFT Course
Instructional Video Set, plus study of the free manual downloaded from the EFT website (http://www.emofree.com/downloadeftmanual.asp) are all that is needed to get started. You don’t have to be a therapist, counsellor, or social worker to be successful with Mechanical EFT. You don’t even have to believe that the techniques will work. You will still get results for yourself, family, friends, and, if you are in any of the helping
professions, you can use EFT effectively within your current practice whether you are a
life coach, a doctor, or clergy. Why, then, the focus on “mastery”? The answer to that is
simple. Once you have experienced initial success you will want to improve your skills.
Success breeds success, and I guarantee that you will want more of it.

The second part of The Basic Course will take you through what to do when EFT
doesn’t appear to work. You will want to revisit the “Overview” on the first CD
reminding you about “aspects”, psychological reversal, the importance of persistence -
even Energy Toxins and The Collar Bone Breathing Procedure which are seldom used,
but are valuable to know about on the rare occasions when you experience impediments
to success.

But MASTERY! What are the keys, the skills, knowledge and techniques that
will take your work from mechanical to clinical to mastery? The keys really aren’t
secrets at all. They are stressed over and over in all of the Instructional CD’s. Mastering
the concepts in these and the Tutorials on the EFT website will give you all the skills
needed for mastery. Three of the most important concepts in EFT are being specific, the
mind-body connection, and testing your results.

BEING SPECIFIC
Tutorial:  http://www.emofree.com/tutorial/tutorbtwo.htm

Clients generally come to us with “global” issues – general complaints such as
anxiety or depression, or even chronic pain. In order to learn to be specific we need to
look at what has happened in the person’s life that has brought them to therapy. Rarely is the presenting problem the real issue. More often it is a symptom of something much
deeper and more profound. Natalie presented with an eating disorder totally unaware of
repressed memories of sexual abuse as a child. Rene came in wanting to work on her
abusive relationship with her husband, a very real and present issue, but based in an
extensive history of witnessing her father demean and abuse her mother.

Before someone develops chronic emotional distress of any kind, there have been
many, sometimes hundreds, of specific events that have contributed to the disorder.
Usually, there is a “core issue” , often something that happened a long time ago, maybe
even in utero that traumatized the Being. When this happens the body is thrown into a
primitive response of fight, flight, or freeze. This original issue may be a huge trauma, or
something as simple as the look on a parent’s face, or the feeling of abandonment by a
baby who cries and no one comes.

A “core issue” effects a part of the brain called the reticular formation which
regulates arousal, attention, and awareness1, setting up the energy system to become extra sensitive to any trauma or event that is reminiscent of the original one. Due to the Law of Attraction2, what we focus on we get more of, so the person grows up with a pattern of “attracting” or being sensitized to events that are reminiscent of the original one. Each successive episode contributes to the pattern which eventually leads to the emotional disorder: the anxiety, the depression, the insomnia, the “mother issues”. This pattern is what is referred to in EFT as the “table top”, or the global description of the problem. The “table top” is held up by all of the specific events that have contributed to the emotional disorder. These are the “table legs”. When one lives with a dysfunctional
emotional pattern, negative core beliefs are formed about one’s self and about the world. These dictate the way the person interacts with the world. In Palace of Possibilities3 these negative core beliefs and learned limitations are called the “Writing On Our Walls”, and they are the “truths” by which we live. Common negative core beliefs are: “I am not loveable. I am not good enough. I don’t have enough (money, time, energy, health).”

A core belief is the accumulation of the “writing on our walls.” A pattern, or
psychological disorder is not specific. It is the “table top”. When you hear the words
“always, all, never, recurring, constantly, all the times that…” you know the client is
telling you about a “table top” – a global issue that is being held in the energy system by
many “table legs” or specific events that have happened over time. In order to collapse
the “table top” and receive emotional freedom on the issue, we need to collapse the
“legs” that are holding it up. A specific event is one in which the client can fill in the blank in the following sentence:
THE TIME WHEN…………………………………………….

Sometimes clients have difficulty with this request. The pattern, verbal abuse for
example, was so prevelant in Irene’s childhood that no single specific event stands out.
Often memories have been repressed, and clients need our help in narrowing down a
specific event. “The time when my parents always fought.” Is not a specific event.

Here is an example from a woman who was date raped in college. Her presenting
issue is a global “fear of men” conflicting with the desire to be in a loving, intimate
1 http://biology.about.com/library/organs/brain/blreticular.htm

2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Attraction

3 http://www.emofree.com/palace/palaceof1.htm (also on DVD)

partnership with a man . One of the negative beliefs she carries is that “All men want is
sex”. She says, “I can’t maintain a positive relationship with a man.” Leah wants to have
a nurturing, permanent relationship with a man, but whenever a relationship starts to
become intimate her fear of men kicks in. This is the “table top”: the fear of men. I ask
her to come up with a specific event that could have contributed to her fear, and she
responds, “My dad was a scary man. He hurt my mother a lot and she always ended up
crying.” When I ask her again for a specific event, and she responds that it happened
constantly. Here are some questions that can be asked at this point to lead Leah to a
specific event:
“Do you remember the first time it happened?”
“Is there one time that stands out in your memory as being the worst?”
“Forget about the childhood stuff for now, and think about the most recent time.”
“You said that ‘all men want is sex’. What does this remind you of?”
“When was the last(first) time that you had the feeling a man wanted sex from
you?”

“If the memories are all mushed together, imagine a scene as if it were a movie of
the abuse happening. It’s okay if you make up parts of it, and it’s okay if it’s a
combination of several events. Make the movie be of one scene only. Who was
there? What happened? Where were you? Give the movie a title. View the
movie in your mind as a single event.” This, of course, leads to The Movie
Technique which gently forces the client to become more and more specific.
Read about The Movie Technique on the EFT website in Tutorial #3 at
http://www.emofree.com/tutorial/tutorcthree.html

Together we build a list of specific events. Things that happened to Leah that are
serving as “table legs” holding up her belief that she can’t maintain an intimate
relationship with a man.
THE TIME WHEN we were eating dinner and my father didn’t like the food, and
threw his plate across the room and my mother cried. (Even though my father
threw the plate across the room because he didn’t like the food, and my mother
cried, I deeply and profoundly accept myself.)

THE TIME WHEN I went to the prom with Billy and we made out in the back of
his car, and he put my hand down to feel his penis, and I didn’t want to. (Even
though Billy wanted me to feel his penis and I didn’t want to, I deeply and
completely accept myself.)

THE TIME WHEN my boyfriend offered me a back rub, and I didn’t realize that
there were strings attached. My backrub was supposed to lead to sex for him.
(Even though my boyfriend offered me a back rub and then wanted sex, I deeply
and completely accept myself and the fact that I didn’t want to do it.)

THE TIME WHEN my father hit my mother and gave her a black eye, and she
told us she had run into a door, but I knew she hadn’t. (Even though my father hit
my mother and gave her a black eye, and she told us she had run into a door, but I
didn’t believe her, I deeply and completely accept myself.)

Eventually, by collapsing a number of “table legs” or specific events with a
common thread, there will be a generalization effect, meaning that the pattern of fear will
have been interrupted. When enough of the “table legs” have been cut off, Leah’s fear
of men will greatly diminished. She will then be ready to allow her desire for a kind and
loving male partner to manifest. If the fear of men returns, we know that we are not
complete with the treatment as new triggers, “aspects”, or “table legs” have presented
themselves.

The ability to tease out specific events and craft set up statements to accurately
represent them assures thorough treatment of the problem, and can make the difference
between mediocre results and outstanding, masterful results.

THE MIND-BODY CONNECTION
UTILIZING PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS AND SENSATIONS

Anyone who has been involved with EFT for any length of time is familiar with
the benefits available for physical pain and illness. The mind, the emotions and the body
are all connected, and work together to promote health and well being. Even the
American Academy of Family Physicians now states that “your body responds to the way you think, feel and act. When you are stressed, anxious or upset, your body tries to tell you that something isn’t right.”

When any of these three aspects (mind, body, emotions) is compromised physical
dis-ease can manifest. We now know that most physical problems, diseases and ailments have an emotional component, which, when released, can bring relief of pain and other physical symptoms. Sometimes that emotional component is the actual cause of the physical problem, as when unexpressed anger manifests as a headache; and sometimes it is a result of how a person feels about having the disease, the pain, the ailment, as in the depression one might experience when facing a life threatening diagnosis. Emotional Freedom Techniques is being used very effectively every day on the emotional components of physical problems, providing relief for many sufferers of pain and illness. The reason it is so effective is that it treats the true cause of the symptoms which is in the body’s energy systems. See http://www.emofree.com/tutorial/tutorpsixteen.htm for a tutorial by Gary Craig on using EFT with serious diseases.

The concept of “Chasing The Pain”, first introduced in the Steps Toward
Becoming The Ultimate Therapist Workshop, also on DVD, is a very simple procedure
that can be used with any pain or discomfort. Simply stated, “Chasing The Pain” is the
process of doing EFT for the presenting physical complaint, and then treating whatever
comes up during treatment. Often, the pain will change location, quality or intensity.
When it does, it is a good indication that there is at least one emotional cause or
contributor. It is believed that as we reduce each pain we are collapsing the emotional
issues behind it. “Chasing The Pain” can take two forms. The first is to just follow the
pain, tapping the EFT sequence whenever it changes location, or whenever the quality of
the pain has changed. The second is to investigate the emotional contributor. Some
leading questions that can redirect the focus to the emotional components are:

“If there were an emotional cause for this pain, what might it be?”

“If your pain/symptom could speak to us what would it say?” Joanne Skywatcher
has written an excellent case study using this question and it’s success with a
woman who has shoulder pain.4

“If this physical problem were a metaphor for something going on in your life
what would the metaphor be?” An example of this is the client who presented
with a stiff, painful neck. When asked, “Who in your life is being a pain in the
neck?” he was easily able to recall a recent incident in which his wife had been
badgering him to complete a project at home that he had been resistant to doing.
“She’s a pain in the neck.” We treated the statement, “My wife is a pain in the
neck.” and the tension in his neck went from a SUDS of 7 to a SUDS of 3. To get
the SUDS to 0 required only one more round of EFT this time tapping on, “My
wife in my neck.” To see an example of this watch Video 8 in the Mastering EFT
Instructional Video set. You will see Gary working with Maerbel who has pain in
her face “like a claw”. An experienced EFT practitioner, Maerbel understands the
mind-body connection and talks about her paralyzed arm as her body’s message to
her to “Slow down, or else.”

When the emotional contributor has been cleared, very often, we can check back
in with the original pain and find that it has disappeared entirely or has greatly
diminished. An excellent illustration can be found in the last example of Physical Issues
on the 3rd video in the second part of The Basic Course. The woman develops sudden,
extreme pain while driving home after one of the EFT workshops. She has been speeding
and sees a police car with lights on coming up behind her car. She thinks she is being
pulled over for speeding, but the police car passes her. The fear that she was about to be stopped for speeding has caused her pain, even though it didn’t actually happen. At home she is able to release a significant amount by herself, but arrives at the workshop the next day with residual pain in her neck and shoulders, all of which is handled by addressing the anxiety and fear she felt the day before with the incident with the police.
There is another very important use of the mind-body connection in EFT. When a
client presents with an emotional issue sometimes we don’t think to investigate how that

4 http://www.emofree.com/Pain-management/shoulder-pain-say.htm

issue is manifesting in the body. Just as we can eliminate pain and other physical
symptoms by tapping on the emotional contributor, we can also relieve emotional issues
by tapping on the physical symptoms those emotional issues are creating in the body.

I was working with a woman recently who identified a trauma related to an event in
which she had to bail her husband out of jail. The predominant feeling was fear and the
intensity was an 8. When the fear came down she reported that what she felt now was
anger. Noticing her restricted breathing, I asked her to drop her awareness down into her body to see where her attention was drawn when she thought about the anger. She
reported difficulty breathing and compression in her chest. We tapped on these two
physical sensations and then checked back in with the anger which had gone to a 0
without ever addressing it directly. I asked her to try to get the anger back, and she
couldn’t. She was then able to tell the entire story of the event without any distress.

An example of being specific and utilizing physical sensations to relieve emotional
issues can be seen on tape # 14 in the instructional video series entitled, Steps Toward
Becoming The Ultimate Therapist. You will see Gary Craig working with a man
complaining of “Bashful Bladder” – the inability to urinate in public restrooms. Looking
for a “core issue”, Gary asks the participant to pick out a single event that may have
contributed to this problem and make a movie of it. The movie brings up physical
sensations and Gary spends a lot of time tapping on them. First there is tension in the
chest. The tension in the chest becomes constriction in the throat, which then becomes
sadness, moving back to the emotional realm. Ultimately, the participant is able to tell
the story of being teased by other boys in the locker room, and the extreme shame he felt because he had developed slowly in puberty. Having carried this shame with him for
more than 20 years, he reports that he now has emotional freedom on that event.

To summarize:
If the client presents with a physical problem and you want to move to the emotional
components of the problem, ask:

“If there were an emotional contributor to this symptom, what might it be?”
“If your symptom could talk, what would it say?”
“If your symptom were a metaphor for something going on in your life what might
it be?”

If the client presents with an emotional problem, especially if the emotional problem is
too intense to talk about, and you want to “Sneak Up On The Problem”, you can move
to the physical realm with these questions:
“Where do you feel this emotion in your body?’
“Drop your awareness down into your body and see if your attention is drawn to
any place in particular. What is the sensation like?”

Always remember, when working with physical illness, that it is essential for the work
be done in conjunction with qualified health care professionals. Although we “try it on
everything”, often with astounding results, we are not doctors, and though we can balance
the body’s energy system, this does not take the place of medical care

TESTING, TESTING, TESTING

Testing our results is one of the primary skills taught in all the EFT instructional
videos and one that tends to be most under-used. Traditional psychotherapy seeks to
have the client gain insights into their problems, symptoms or behaviours. Traditional
therapists were not taught to test their results, because once we got the person calmed
down we didn’t want to trigger them again. I remember being taught in Polarity
Therapy never to allow the client to talk about distressing issues after the session,
because once we have the energies balanced we don’t want the person going back into
thoughts that could disrupt them again. The truth is that if we have truly balanced the
energies, nothing that we do or say will be able to bring back the distress. The ability
to bring back the distress is evidence that the issue has not been balanced energetically.

With EFT we are constantly testing to let ourselves, the practitioners, and the
clients know where we are. By testing we mean that we monitor the level of intensity
during treatment, and we deliberately try to have the person get upset again once we
believe we have collapsed the issue to an intensity of zero.

During treatment we want to monitor the level of intensity, so we ask for an initial
rating on a scale of 0 to 10 with 0 being no intensity at all and 10 being the worst it can
be. After each round of treatment we ask the client to check the intensity. “If your
anxiety was an 8 when we started, what is the level of intensity now?” If it is not zero
we know we have more work to do, so we complete another round of EFT on the
remaining intensity. “If it started at an 8, and went to a 3, where is it now?” If the
client reports that it is zero, or that they can’t find it, we want to know if we have truly
collapsed the issue so we ask the client to literally try to get the intensity back up. If
the client can, we have more work to do; if not we want to move to a different level of
testing just to be sure that the person truly has emotional freedom on the issue.

If we are using the Movie Technique5, we may ask the client to run the movie
again, making it as detailed as possible, or we may ask that the client tell the story of
the event, stopping if there is any intensity at any point. The “Tell The Story
Technique”6 is a very effective way to test our thoroughness, and to be certain that we
have addressed all aspects of the distressing incident. This technique can be seen
demonstrated on many of the EFT Instructional Videos, but perhaps the most dramatic
5 http://www.emofree.com/tutorial/tutorcthree.htm

6 http://www.emofree.com/tutorial/tutorltwelve.htm

is in The Basic Course: Part 1, Video 3, entitled 6 Days at the VA. The last example
on this video is of Robert, a Viet Nam Vet, who tells the horrific story of having killed
a child during the war. He has carried the memory of this event at a level 10 intensity
for over 20 years, one of many intrusive memories that comprise his PTSD. Using
EFT he is able to get emotional freedom from this memory in a very short amount of
time.

Of course, the best way to test anything is to test it in real life, and you will see
excellent examples of this in many of the instructional videos. You may want to
review “Dave and his Fear of Water” in the EFT Basic Course (CD Part 1 – 1b). This
video shows an entire session with Dave, who had a complex phobia of water, dating
back as far as he could remember. “Core issues” are uncovered, multiple aspects are
addressed, and the results of the EFT treatment are tested until Dave can actually go
into the pool and dunk his head under water.

In the May 26, 2006 issue of the EFT Newsletter Gary Craig gives a “Helpful
Hint: One trait of EFT Masters is the tendency to test their work before assuming
they are done. For example, have the height phobic look off the top of the tallest
building in town ... or ... have the trauma victim repeat a graphic sentence like, "There
was blood all over the place and I can still hear those constant screams" ... or ... ask
the headache sufferer to shake his or her head ... and so on. If any of these tests show
residual problems then you have more to do. This is important to know. Otherwise,
your work is incomplete and your client has been short-changed.”

To conclude, master ship of EFT is about the approach and the art of delivery:
getting specific, utilizing the mind-body connection, and testing our work being three
of the most important concepts.