EFT Forbidding Tactic (Article)
By Dr. Patricia Carrington
We all know how effective EFT is when all is going well with it. The correct EFT statement often makes all the difference in the way we react to a given situation or person.
However, each of us sometimes comes up against a stubborn inner voice that says, “I won't!” (or something equally forceful) to indicate its refusal to comply with our conscious, well-intentioned suggestion. This “I won't!" can take place even while the EFT self-acceptance phrase (“I deeply and completely accept myself…”) is being repeated, or it can undermine any EFT Choices phrase you might make.
How We Can Push Our EFT Sessions to the Limit (Article)
By Dr. Patricia Carrington, EFT Master
"I feel better now. It's okay." that person says as they prepare to leave your office (or home) with a word of thanks for your help. They have brought their stress level down from an initial 10 (on the 0 to 10 intensity scale) to a much more desirable number such as a 4, or perhaps a 3, after doing several rounds of EFT. They feel they "don't need any more".
Solving the Mystery of Borrowing Benefits in EFT (Article)
By Dr. Patricia Carrington
I was recently reminded of the remarkable effects of the EFT tactic that Gary Craig calls "Borrowing Benefits". He was telling about an experience he recalled from an EFT conference in Chicago several years ago.
What Are Gradual Step-by-Step “Choices”? (Article)
By Dr. Patricia Carrington
The Choices Method is a rapid highly targeted method for getting more precise results with Meridian Tapping. Correct?
Well, most of the time. Certainly the Choices method can cut right through resistance of the kind that may be encountered with the default self acceptance phrase "I deeply and completely accept myself", and go straight to the heart of the matter.
Allow Yourself to Forgive: Use the EFT 1% Solution – (Article)
By Dr. Patricia Carrington
I cannot tell you how often people have told me that they simply cannot conceive of forgiving some other person for destructive acts that person has done –– even if they have tried using EFT for this problem. They feel that to do this would be paying mere lip service to the concept of "forgiveness", it would not come from their heart.
Why Keep an EFT Journal? (Article)
By Dr. Patricia Carrington
There are so many ways that we can increase the value of EFT in our lives that it is always surprising to me that people don't use most of them. One of the most effective ways to do this is to create what I call an "EFT Journal". If you're willing to take the few simple steps required to set one up this can make a substantial difference in the way in which EFT impacts your life.
Use the Remarkable “Opera Technique” With EFT – (Article)
By Dr. Patricia Carrington
You may never have heard of the instant defusing properties of the "Opera" technique, but this method is one of the most effective ways I know to take the charge off a verbal attack made against you.
Using EFT to Change a Basic Perception of Life (Article)
By Dr. Patricia Carrington
I find that even very experienced EFT'ers often fail to use EFT to change the basic ways they view life. This is probably because most of us have difficulty seeing the forest for the trees. We can recognize the details of our lives and we know how we respond to them, but we can be quite unaware of the underlying assumptions about life and people that are actually running our lives.
Improve Your Self-Esteem by Tapping the Positive (Article)
By Dr. Patricia Carrington
Many of us have known for some time that we can use EFT to increase self esteem by tracing the myriad beliefs that may be corroding that self-esteem and tapping to reduce or eliminate them.
This can be helpful, but were we to try to neutralize every negative belief that most of us hold about ourselves, that would be a lifetime's work.
Use the Rule of 5 for Maximum EFT Benefits (Article)
By Dr. Patricia Carrington
It is all too easy to walk away from an EFT tapping session too soon, just because you feel “a little better”. This happens all the time and results in many people failing to get full benefit from EFT.
How can you make sure you will keep going with EFT when you feel you want to pull back from doing it for some reason, even when continuing might bring you a much greater benefit?
Supercharge Your “To Do” List (Article)
By Dr. Patricia Carrington
An exciting new use I have discovered for EFT is its application to a "To Do" list.
Why do we need help with a "To Do" list in the first place? The reason is that while "To Do" lists are very useful, they have a quality of "forcing" about them, which can easily cause resistance in all of us. No one likes to be forced to do anything, even by our own selves, and if you will pick up a "To Do" list that you have made and look at it, you will notice something very interesting when you think about putting it into effect.
The Power of Backing Up in EFT (Article)
By Dr. Patricia Carrington
In this article, I want to talk about a strategy I find particularly valuable when conducting EFT sessions with clients, and also when using EFT simply for myself. I call it, for want of a better name, "backing up in EFT", but there may be other designations that would be even more fitting (I'm open to suggestions!)
Using Personal Resource States in EFT (Article)
I am increasingly impressed with the effectiveness of using what are called "Personal Resource States;" a Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) term and concept, with EFT. The result can be excellent. By accessing personal resource states and inserting them into the set-up and reminder phrases of EFT, we can often make breakthroughs that might otherwise not be possible.
Use EFT While Waiting On The Phone (Article)
By Dr. Patricia Carrington
Did you ever save up a bunch of EFT tapping statements to use when you have a spare moment during the day? It's like having a package of almonds or other crunchies in your pocket to munch on when you’re hungry.
Why Use EFT On the Phone
How to Use Role Playing in EFT (Article)
By Dr. Patricia Carrington
Role playing is an accepted strategy that can be used in therapy sessions to help clients learn how to handle a feared situation in a more constructive way. The therapist will ad lib the role of the antagonist (although later he/she sometimes reverses roles and enacts the role of the client), and the client usually plays their own selves. Traditionally, it’s a form of emotional re-education, but when used along with EFT (I’ve been using it this way), it can often change actual behavior in a dramatic manner and affords the therapist a superb opportunity to assess the effectiveness of the tapping right there and then. Here’s an example of how this works:
Borrowing Benefits with EFT Study – (Article)
By Dr. Patricia Carrington
Borrowing benefits Is a powerful EFT technique. Do its results hold up over time?
At Gary Craig’s final Flagstaff EFT Conference I watched with interest as psychologist Jack Rowe diligently sought out the participants who had signed up for his study — most of the people in the room actually – to hand them their test forms for the SCL-90- R., a highly respected measure of psychological distress. His purpose in doing this was to study the effects of Gary's Borrowing Benefits technique on the stress levels of the audience.
The Value of EFT Homework (Article)
By Dr. Patricia Carrington
There is a saying in social agencies which goes, “Always meet the client where they are.” I remember my first clinical supervisor telling me about that. It translates roughly into the concept that as therapists we should never force our own ideas on the client or expect them to want for themselves what we want for them – we are to meet them where THEY are. The following case of Victor illustrates the wisdom of "meeting the client where they are" as well as the effective use of doing "EFT homework" between sessions.
Using EFT to Relax Muscle Tension (Article)
by Patricia Carrington, Ph.D.
I have long worked with relaxation methods and meditation methods which, each in its own way, create deep relaxation. However not until very recently did I think of using EFT as a formal “relaxation method.”
One of the things we find with relaxation techniques is that sudden relaxation can be threatening. If we are feeling tense, with our muscles tightened, it usually works better if we can move gradually into a relaxation mode. The reason is that muscle tension is a basic survival mechanism. Today it is often a misapplied effort at survival, however –– we are probably tensing up over something that is not life-threatening –– but in the primordial world where our ancestors existed for millennia, having properly tense, muscles when they were needed was often a matter of life and death. Whether or not one could supply enough muscle tension to fight for survival or to flee, was a crucial matter.
For this reason there is often something inherently threatening to a tense person in the idea of relaxing. It is though we would be ambushed if we were to relax!
This dilemma is handled in different ways with different relaxation techniques, but EFT is a particularly rapid change technique and I have found that if you want to relax muscular tension using EFT that the best way to do this is by using a three step process which goes as follows:
Using EFT to Manifest Your Desires – (Article)
By Dr. Patricia Carrington
As I’ve frequently done in the past , today I will be answering a question that is a composite one. It is one that has been asked of me from time to time by a number of different people, usually when I don’t have the leisure to answer it as thoroughly as I would like to. The question was this:
EFT for Prenatal Memories and Trauma – (Article)
By Dr. Patricia Carrington
Question:
In summary, the questioner asks how we can use EFT for a suspected core issue involving prenatal trauma. She refers to physical abuse her mother suffered when pregnant with herself (she has been told about this) and her own vague sense that this threatened her in utero. She asks how she can "get specific" about this issue when she has only vague body memories.
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Using EFT for Gratitude (Article)
By Dr. Patricia Carrington
I am always interested in new uses for EFT that may not yet been recognized. Many of us use this remarkable technique when things go wrong in our lives but fail to recognize that it can be used equally successfully to enhance what is already good in our lives. One such use of EFT is to increase the deeply affirming experience of being genuinely GRATEFUL.
Can EFT Help if You Don’t Know What You Want? – (Article)
By Dr. Patricia Carrington
Question
Can EFT help if you know that you are willing and capable but don't know what you want / have no vision?
Answer
EFT can indeed help but perhaps not in the way you expect. You would do well to first address the “tail-enders”, as Gary Craig calls the persistent objections in the back of our minds that often prevent affirmations from working.
Not knowing what you really want in life is far more common than most people think. A striking instance of this comes to my mind.
How to Use EFT to Change Negative Attitudes (Article)
By Dr. Patricia Carrington
EFT is a powerful instrument. It can even be used to effect a radical change in the way you approach life.
However, as we all know, it is not easy to change the way we react to certain aspects of life, because to us our attitudes seem to be carved in stone; unchangeable. I have found, however, that we can alter even fundamental views by using Personal Resource States in EFT. I have written extensively about the power of these inner resources that we all have within our memory banks, in my EFT Choices Manual, but I cannot emphasize strongly enough how important they are if we want to effect a basic change in our life.
Using EFT to Create Desirable Behaviors (Article)
By Dr. Patricia Carrington
In addition to its use for handling specific problems (by far its most common use) EFT can be extremely effective in helping you rid yourself of repetitive behaviors that don’t serve you well and replacing them with new behaviors that you’d love to have.
Use EFT To Tap In Your Successes Of The Day – (Article)
By Dr. Patricia Carrington
Of course EFT can be effective for targeting specific problems. We all know that and many of us use it very well for that purpose.
But what about changing fundamental personality traits such as your lifelong attitudes about your own self that can undermine your functioning? Can EFT affect these continuing problems?
Increasing Self-Acceptance through EFT (Article)
By Dr. Patricia Carrington
As we all know, self esteem is a major issue in many problems. It is often so central that the default self acceptance phrase used in EFT (“I deeply and completely accept myself”) or its equivalents, do great service in helping people overcome this core issue. Since I advocate using a “Choices” affirmation in place of this phrase for many issues (See the Choices Manual). I want to make it clear that I almost invariably use the standard self acceptance phrase where issues of self esteem, self blame, guilt etc. are clearly at stake. Because of the value of this phrase and of the concept behind it, I would like to offer a few suggestions on ways that we can, when that is necessary, perhaps make it even more valuable.