You’ve Been Using EFT the Wrong Way

[00:00:12]EFT, emotional freedom technique, tapping, is often taught as a way of getting rid of symptoms, to reduce anxiety, to clear trauma, or to change how we feel.

[00:00:24]But here I want to talk about how to use it in service of allowing, because actually this is what is happening naturally anyway.

[00:00:32]We don't have to make it happen, we have to allow it to happen, and that requires surrendering to what is here.

[00:00:40]So, if it's used in the way to try and make something happen, it can unfortunately become another form of control, another form of of suppression, another way the ego from our conscious mind tries to manage the nervous system, rather than [clears throat] to listen to it and allow it to regulate naturally by expressing in the very uncomfortable ways it is, through symptom and activation. This is not how we are suggesting you use it here.

[00:01:07]We are [snorts] using EFT tapping as a co-regulating presence, a way to stay with what is arising in the body, so that it can unfold and complete naturally, guidance guided by the self, sequenced by nature, at the capacity of the nervous system, and that the ego will allow to integrate.

[00:01:27]The tapping is not used to make anything go away. It helps us stay present whilst it is here.

[00:01:36]So, we can [snorts] be in the presence of it in the present.

[00:01:40]So, how can EFT support allowing?

[00:01:44]When intense symptoms, intense emotions, fear about emotions, anxiety fronting for repressed survival charge for emotions that haven't been felt, have been buried in the shadow and now coming through behind our symptoms, behind the sensations.

[00:02:01]>> [snorts] >> As they arise, the problem is rarely the sensation itself.

[00:02:09]Often, we feel unaccompanied, and this is why we have to learn to allow, and this is why as we learn to allow, EFT can be a helpful way of not of establishing a witness to it, which of course is what allowing is. We are not the thing we experience, we are the are the experience of it, and we meet the experience differently, which of course is not to resist it or interfere with it.

[00:02:33]So, historically for us, when these sensations first arose and the emotions behind it and the circumstances that caused us to repress it, there was no one there to help signal it was safe to coregulate with us if we were very small. And so, the nervous system learned to panic, to clamp down, repress, dissociate, and of course, what should have been allowed to express got held in the system, bound, waiting for a moment to now discharge, which it is, through our symptoms and sensations.

[00:03:04]>> [snorts] >> And EFT, used carefully, provides a rhythmic, bilateral input, a sense of presence and continuity, reassurance without argument, and permission for experience to exist.

[00:03:20]It's a great accompaniment to what should be happening naturally, but we have a skittish ego that thinks that what's coming into con- into cons- consciousness is dangerous.

[00:03:32]And this is to say, effectively, it's okay. It's okay. We allow, we choose.

[00:03:37]And it tells the nervous system, which is operating on a map from your younger self, that actually, now what we're feeling is okay, even [snorts] if it wasn't then.

[00:03:47]And this alone just supports allowing.

[00:03:50]And of course, we're allowing all the time anyway within our schedule.

[00:03:53]So, before we begin, just to state clearly what this is not.

[00:03:57]This is not EFT to make trauma clear, or get rid of symptoms, or calm ourselves down, soothe ourselves, force surrender, or override fear.

[00:04:09]It is effectively to allow ourselves to experience what's here. It's a way to stop resistance.

[00:04:17]>> [snorts] >> Nothing's being fixed. Nothing is being rushed. Nothing is being changed, except we are allowing it rather than resisting it.

[00:04:25]>> [snorts] >> And if we feel overwhelmed at any point, just stop.

[00:04:29]So, how to use EFT in this way?

[00:04:33]You can do it anywhere, wherever you are, sitting, lying down, as a symptom arises. There's no correct way. You don't need to believe anything or feel calm, quite the contrary. You don't need to do it perfectly.

[00:04:46]It's honest contact with what's there.

[00:04:49]And it will be rising.

[00:04:52]So, firstly, name it. Fear, sensation, whatever it might be. This is happening in the present moment.

[00:05:00]Nausea, overwhelm.

[00:05:03]Sadness, tightness, pain, heat, whatever it might be. You're not analyzing it.

[00:05:09]You're not looking for it. You're just recognizing that uh that's here. Or you can just say, "That."

[00:05:15]Which is my preferred way of always teaching these things.

[00:05:18]>> [snorts] >> "This is here."

[00:05:20]That's it. You don't have to label it any more than that.

[00:05:24]It's reducing the internal conflict immediately.

[00:05:29]You've created a space of contact.

[00:05:30]You've acknowledged that something is coming into consciousness.

[00:05:36]And to start with, many of you will be aware of this, we have this setup statement.

[00:05:41]Tapping on this point here, the karate chop point, some people call it.

[00:05:45]And you repeat the following effectively, and you can adapt the wording so it feels true for you and what's coming into consciousness.

[00:05:53]So, even though I feel this, you can name the sensation, the nausea, whatever, or just even though I feel this, I deeply and completely love and accept myself and I allow this to be here.

[00:06:04]That's it. Or even though my body feels overwhelmed by now or my ego feels overwhelmed by now, I deeply and completely love and accept myself and I'm willing to allow and stay with what's here.

[00:06:17]Even though this feels really hard, I deeply and completely love and accept myself and myself and I don't have to change anything. I just have to allow it. And repeat it a couple of times. You are not trying to convince yourself. You are not trying to change anything. You are simply setting the relational frame as the allower. You're acknowledging what's there, stopping in the present and allowing it.

[00:06:41]And then we do the tapping sequence. So, we go to the standard EFT point.

[00:06:47]Probably watch other videos on that.

[00:06:49]They'll probably explain it better than me. But at each point, tap gently and repeat the simple phrase. You don't need to say everything perfectly. Less is more. It can simply be I have to take off my specs. Um you know, this sensation, I allow. I allow what's here.

[00:07:09]Even though I have this sensation, I completely surrender to it. I allow it to be here.

[00:07:15]Absolutely accept everything that's here. I surrender to my body's wisdom.

[00:07:19]That sort of thing.

[00:07:22]And look at the recipe somewhere else. Um I mean, I can do something on it, but just not now. I want here to explain how we would use the typical schema of going to these tapping points all the way around, but using language not to get rid of. Basically, to allow to allow to accept and not trying to get rid of. I'm I allow what my body does. I respect the self. I trust the self.

[00:07:52]I allow. I allow allow allow.

[00:07:55]And as you tap make your attention be in the body that is signaling as well that you are allowing what is there.

[00:08:05]You are not searching for sensation. You are allowing what is already present to be noticed and completely non-interfered with.

[00:08:14]>> [snorts] >> And as we continue tapping we are at just consistently introducing surrender. Not as instruction, but as permission.

[00:08:24]I allow what's ever in my body. I don't need to fight this. I don't need to understand this. I trust my body to unfold in its time. I entrust I I I trust nature. I completely trust the self beneath the ego sphere.

[00:08:39]If any of these statements feel untrue, that's fine. Simply notice the resistance and include it.

[00:08:44]Even that part of me that I don't trust, that doesn't trust is allowed.

[00:08:49]Just basically allow allow allow.

[00:08:52]So, way of staying in your body, it's the way of helping accompany the process in in [snorts] a moment of complete overwhelm.

[00:08:59]As we learn to allow, you're not going to need this eventually.

[00:09:05]You stay with this for a short window.

[00:09:07]Might be one round, might be two round, a minute, whatever.

[00:09:11]You're not testing yourself. You're not trying to make anything go.

[00:09:14]You are teaching safety through choice.

[00:09:16]I choose to allow.

[00:09:20]If intensity rises, if it's too much you can stop. I highly doubt that's the case, but it'll be fine.

[00:09:27]And you just come back to embodiment and carry on with the schedule as it holds you.

[00:09:33]This is completely acceptable.

[00:09:36]And after you've done it, you simply pendulate your attention away, go back to what you're doing, back to the job in hand, out of the bodily experience, into your environment, and carry on what you're doing.

[00:09:49]That completes it.

[00:09:50]And the nervous system learns, I can touch this, I can experience this in the body, and carry on.

[00:09:58]So, why does this work? Neurologically, rhythmic tapping reduces threat signaling. Bilateral import input supports integration, and you can do it with two hands as well, if you wish.

[00:10:09]Presence without interference allows prediction error.

[00:10:13]That which was seen as dangerous by the ego, that which was seen as and tagged as dangerous by by the nervous system, the hippocampus, the amygdala, our willingness to stay with it and allow it says, it's not dangerous anymore.

[00:10:26]And presence is key. And sensation is met rather than resisted.

[00:10:34]Incomplete responses begin to finish bit by bit, and fear loses its urgency.

[00:10:40]Psychologically, the ego is reassured.

[00:10:43]It's become less interfered, and it's retraining it to be an allower. The self leads, trust replaces control. Nothing is forced, nothing is interfered with, tried to get rid of, nothing is fixed, nothing is calmed, soothed. Everything is allowed.

[00:10:59]Do not try and use EFT to push through overwhelm, to calm yourself at all costs, to avoid feeling, or to force healing.

[00:11:08]>> [snorts] >> And if EFT becomes a way of making things go away, it has left the service of allowing, and it is not what we recommend.

[00:11:21]Excuse me.

[00:11:23]EFT in service of allowing is not about emotional freedom as an outcome.

[00:11:29]It's about emotional permission, which ultimately will lead to emotional freedom because your emotions, your true emotions, will come back online, which is what we're allowing to happen through the symptoms and the sensations, that which is regulating us.

[00:11:46]>> [snorts] >> It's permission for the body to feel.

[00:11:48]It's permission for fear to exist. It's permission for the nervous system to complete what was once interrupted. It's permission to the ego to be okay not being okay.

[00:11:59]The tapping does not do the healing.

[00:12:02]That's the difference. It simply allows you to stay present while the healing happens, and it keeps the ego out of the way and turns it into being an allower.

[00:12:14]And that is exactly what was missing the first time round.