As many of you are aware Gary Craig has announced his retirement from the EFT community that he helped to craft and create. Gary’s full announcement can be found on the EFT blog. For those of you who don’t know Gary, he is the one who crafted EFT out of his experience with Thought Field Therapy and other modalities.
In one of the advanced Emotional Freedom Techniques(EFT)/tapping classes I teach one full class is devoted to lessons we can learn from great change work professionals. Gary is one of the people I feature in the class. In that vain here are two lessons that can be learned from Gary’s work and two lessons that can be learned for Gary’s announced retirement.
1) Often The Best Solution Is The Simplest Solution
Evolving Thought Field Therapy/Thought Field Therapy(TFT) is an amazing tool set. It is very powerful in clearing both physical and emotional issues. For each issue it constructs a very specific tapping pattern to clear the issue. As powerful as this is, it takes a very skilled professional to be able to come up with that tapping pattern. Gary was trained in TFT, he recognized how powerful the tool was, and wonder if there was a way to make it simpler so it could be placed in the hands of the public at large. The outcome was EFT. EFT is elegant in its simplicity. I have taught the basics of EFT on the back of a napkin in a busy bar in less than five minutes.
We as people, at least I do, love complexity. We feel the more complicated the solution better the solution must be. The creation of EFT shows us that sometimes a simpler solution will accomplish as much as a more complicated one. Because of this model I ask myself, “Is there a simpler way to do the exact same thing?” before I take the first step.
2) Power of Generosity
As you read the many comments on the EFT web site under Gary’s announcement the word that appears over and over again is generous. Gary is a very generous man with his time and his talents. He provided his ideas and training very cheaply. Many of the resources were offered for free so that many could have access to the amazing tool that EFT is. Because of his generosity the community that built up around him responded in the same way.
His newsletter that was published every three or four days contained 3 new articles from practitioners from around the world sharing their insight while using EFT. It would be very easy for practitioners to keep their knowledge to themselves or to only share the information with their own readership. Instead they choose to share their knowledge with the community at larger hoping others could learn and grow from their insight.
The cynic might argue the reason people shared their knowledge on Gary’s site was because the traffic was so great hoping to use the exposure to build their own practice. This might be true for some, but it was not for all. When I would read an article I really like I would track the author down to see if they had other articles they had written or if they had their own newsletter I could subscribe to. Many times these articles were not written by practitioners, but by people who used EFT in their own lives and they wanted to share in hopes it would help others.
Gary’s generosity to the tapping community created a tapping community that was very generous in turn, not just with Gary, but with each other. I am blessed to have many new friends because of the community that wouldn’t have existed without Gary’s generosity.
3) You Must Take Care Of Yourself
Gary writes:
Finally, my physicians tell me that I have had a heart attack. I am unaware of when this happened and have no symptoms. Nonetheless, the tests show clearly that part of my heart has died. Accordingly, it is sheer idiocy for me to continue with the pressures of running EFT. To do so, is to risk another heart attack, stroke, etc. No thanks.
I can only image the struggle Gary went through as he made this choice. The number of profound healings that Gary has witnessed first hand and the countless notes he has received is mind-boggling. Walking away from something that he has cared some much about and given so much energy and time to in the last 15 years must be heart wrenching.
I don’t know if I could do this.
This is something I preach to my clients all the time and something Gary is living out in this choice: We must take care of ourselves before we can take care of others. If we are not safe and/or healthy then we are in no position to care for others. Often we feel selfish in making this choice, but we do others little good if we are sick. Our health is paramount to us being able to help others. Gary should be applauded for his courage in making this choice.
4) Physical Being A Metaphor For The Emotional
I experience everything in two ways. First, just on a normal level as human seeing how my surrounding and current stimulus affects me. Second, I experience things as a practitioner. I am asking myself questions about why are thing happening the way they are. As a practitioner I was struck by the following:
Also, as should be apparent to most of our seasoned readers, some EFT’ers have been hyping their products in ways that tend to erode the spiritual essence of the EFT movement. This has resulted in some behind-the-scenes disagreements, deceit and other negative experiences. At the core, I prefer peace to pugilism and wish to distance myself from these unnecessary “fame and fortune” energies. As you will see below, I’m leaving for higher ground.
…
Nonetheless, the tests show clearly that part of my heart has died.
I have some insight into what Gary is eluding to in this part of his note. I don’t know Gary personally (other than a few professional email back and forth), but do have a sense at how hard some of these situations were for him. It was a moment in which something he had created had grown well beyond himself and people were making choice that Gary himself would not make. In Gary’s mind these weren’t just practical choice of implementation of a protocol, but they were choices of ethics and virtue. It was very obvious in one of Gary’s blog posts that this was a heart-breaking situation for him.
It is amazing the way our emotions and physical body can mirror and match one-another.
He Will Be Missed
Gary’s presents in the tapping and change work communities are going to be missed. Even if you have never met or heard of Gary Craig but have learned something on this web site then your life (in ways unknown) has been touched by his work and generosity. I would not be doing this work today if it was not for Gary Craig.
I am very moved by your words Gene! They are insightful, kind and generous. I too, wondered if Gary’s heart problems are a result of his feelings of betrayal . .. broken heart. I have no doubt that whatever Gary’s future plans are . . . they will involve healing man and woman kind!
Warmly,
Brenda Strausz
Gene~~~
Brenda has expressed my feelings about you and Gary exactly as I feel them, so I won’t repeat. Great post!
((((( Hugs )))))
I love the point you make about simplicity. It seems we do have some wiring about things that are more complex being better than things that are simple. We put more trust in the expert who understands complex things than we do in someone who has a simple solution.
It took someone with an engineer’s focus on efficiency to simplify TFT to EFT yet still complex tapping algorithms persist (such as Gallo’s MET http://alturl.com/n9ep )
Gary’s retirement statement asked us to stop focusing on the how of tapping, which is so simple with EFT, and instead focus on the how of getting to core issues.
Gene, I think your insights are spot on.
Gary has experienced a lot of emotional pain in the past year or so…It’s sad that he also has experienced physical pain to the point of choosing to leave something wonderful that he created.
Personally I use EFT with almost all of my Hypnosis clients and every day I see how powerfully and quickly EFT works.
Gary will be missed in the EFT world he created.
Yours is one of the few EFT sites that offers so much for free…
keep up the great work Gene. You make a huge difference.
I do EFT with groups and single people as a volunteer-
i learned it from Gary!
His goodness is unbelievable- not many angles like him.
For this reason i appreciate your column.
i feel that you have the true spirit of EFT-helping people, not trying to get rich because of this help.
Keep up your good work! G-d bless you!
With all the hoopla we’ve read about Gary’s retirement (from others, not Gary), your comments, Gene, are the most kind and insightful.
I learned EFT several years ago and got Gary’s DVDs.
As a parent, I can imagine how it’s been for him, to see his ‘baby’ going in directions that would break his heart. Sometimes you just have to step back and live your life in another arena as he’s doing. I hope he can find a measure of healing wherever and however he goes.
Thanks Gene, you’re the best, cream of the crop.
I still use stuff I learned from your tele-class, every single day!
Keep up the good work (sounds so trite, but I mean it!)
Thanks, Gene, for your words. I am 71 now. As an ordained Lutheran minister, serving both as a parish pastor and a chaplain in university, hospital, hospice, and long-term care settings, I have met, studied with,and befriended many people in the helping professions. I believe none have been more generous — or have shown more practical genius — than Gary. In addition to his seminal work in and contribution to meridian-based therapy, he stands tall as a simply exemplary human being. I am both saddened by his “leaving” — selfishly and for us all — and also by the lesser spirits among us who have contributed to his pain. With you and many others I extend to him my deep thanks and appreciation, wish him the very best, and hold him in my prayers. We all have our flaws, and I imagine that includes Gary too. Nonetheless, from my own religious tradition, I think it is no great stretch to refer to this man — primarily in witness of his positive spirit and his enormous generosit — as “Saint Gary.”
Warm Regards to you, Gene.
Ron
Hi i dont know gary but i do have his dvds and i feel like i am losing a friend after watching the dvds he made you feel good. I really wish him all the best and he wont be forgotten
Great article. Gary and his generosity will be missed. I think one of the other posters was right about the broken heart.
I really appreciate the free information you put up on your website. I can’t tell you how many “newsletters” I get who are just selling things. I really look forward to your newsletters.
Hi Gene.
I agree with your well written and considered statements regarding Gary’s retirement. I haven’t met Gary but I feel connected to him through his wonderful DVDs and newsletter which are so full of information and his generosity of spirit. It is through his site that I have also been connected to other EFTers like you.
I also truly appreciate your site and all that you offer on it.
Gary will be sorely missed, but the tapping therapy lives on.
I am thinking it’s time to return to TFT and continue my work with Roger. He seems to be going strong.
My other choice would be Meridian Tapping Techniques.
We’ll see what arises in 2010.
My best to Gary.
Okay am I the only one thinking this…but if EFT is such a useful tool for stress and in many cases physical ailments, why can’t Gary use EFT to deal with the stress problem so that he wouldn’t have had the heart attack or to heal from it afterward?
This to me is a glaring area that no one in the EFT world is comfortable talking about. So now he cannot use his own technique to solve his stress and health problems but that is the mantra that is being preached about the benefits of using EFT by him to everyone else. Something doesn’t smell right here. Please will someone explain that to me?
Thanks.
Skeptic,
Thanks for the note. You are not the first person to pose this questions. Know that I don’t know Gary personally and have any details on what he has gone through or what he is doing right now. With that being said, I would respond to this a few ways.
1) We are going to physically break down. Maybe this is my own limiting beliefe, but we are not going to live forever. Today we live to a much older age than we did hundreds of years ago. This is because of the improvement of many areas of health, but the body is still breaking down. Sometimes physical pain or injury is unavoidable.
2) It is really hard to see our own stuff. One of the reason it is a great idea to work with a practitioner is because we are so close to our own issues that it is difficult for us to see the roots. It is much like we go to our friends for perspective on what we are dealing with daily. I work with a practitioner regularly because of this fact.
Just because we know something is good for us doesn’t mean we are going to do it. Ask any smoker if smoking is bad for them and they will be able to tell you exactly the toll it is taking on their body. Just because they know they need to stop smoking to be healthy doesn’t mean they are going to do it. I know there are lots of thing that I could be doing to be healthier that I don’t do.
No practitioner is perfect. We are all human. Just because we know what to do doesn’t always mean we are doing it.
3) Sometimes the best thing to do is leave. There are situations in my life that I could make less stressful by tapping, but it is just easier to move onto other things. Here is a silly example: I could tap to make the DMV line less stressful or I could just make my life easier and renew my car registration online.
Again, I don’t know the particulars, but it could have been time for Gary to move on to other things. Leaving things we love is hard thing to do. Leaving things we created is hard to do. This might a created the perfect opportunity for him to move on.
4) No one claimed tapping to be perfect. This is just the beginning of what we are learning about healing and the body. From this moment forward we know the least we will ever know again about the body system and healing. Every moment that passes more knowledge is gained and shared. The tapping montra is “try it on everything” not “it works everything, on everything, right away.”
5) We don’t know the full story. We have no idea what someone else has tried and what they have learned form their own work. We only have a snapshop in time. One blog post that was written on one particular day. Nothing more or less. We might be able to learn form this moment, but we would do ourselves, Gary, and tapping a diservice by making larger judgments about anything from this one moment (and our limited information).
Gene,
Thank you for your response. There are a few things I would like to discuss that you pointed out.
Your example of the DMV, albeit a simplified example for the sake of argument, was still a working example of your point. The only difference here is that EFT is also the source of GREAT joy for Gary as well as one of the strongest sources of stress due to numerous reasons. I would think this would be one of the most opportune times to use a mind/body technique to show the massive value of such a technique. Though our bodies will eventually breakdown one day, we also have prime examples of those who live well into 100. According to the mantra, it would only be our limiting beliefs and our thoughts perceived that would hold us back from 100. Why not eliminate the roadblock of stress so that you could experience more out of the pleasure side of the equation? In this case it seems he is just giving up and saying that the stress side will win and there is no way to beat it (so he is going to give up on the joy side of it).
With your DMV example, you find no pleasure from the DMV directly. Sure, driving is great, but standing in the DMV specifically does not derive you any enjoyment. In Gary’s case, EFT does provide him with a huge amount of joy. Spreading the word is obviously what he deems is his true life’s work. I am surprised, to say the least, that he is not taking the opportunity to apply it to a core issue.
I only consider myself skeptical because I have been using EFT on and off for a year and I have not seen any change in anything that I have used it on. I have probably watched hundreds of hours of videos to try different tapping technique, work with different reversals, amongst so much more and I have not had any movement. Even if I saw a placebo effect, that would be a victory to me because the placebo effect to me is exactly what I was looking for (mind to heal body). Unfortunately, I see it as being extreme optimism by those who say it works (for most people) and then the placebo effect for about 15-20%.
Any thoughts are appreciated.
i too have the same question skeptic. anyway, gene was right. We all gonna die. Gary probably use eft to handle the stress issues and it was effective but it doesnt mean that he will ever get sick. u see, no matter how healthy we are emotionally, time will come when our bodies will be destroyed by diseases and Gary’s time has come. Look, he was 70 now. Isnt it a good “age”? Gary stated clearly that it is wiser for him to avoid the pressure of running eft because his heart problem is his focus. Smart thing to do indeed!!!
finally, Gary Caig has already accomplished his mission – introduce eft to the world and change millions of lives. guess what? my life is one of those millions.
Very nice post!
Great article Gene! I only heard of Gary after he had retired and I was able to browse through the emofree website before it became eftuniverse. Gary’s love, expertise, and generosity were so evident in his website, I as a reader could feel it. Strangely, whenever I visit the eftuniverse site now, it always feels to me like there’s something “missing” even though much of the same info has been retained. I think your website captures the spirit of Gary and I’m grateful for it.
I’d like to respond to Skeptic and others with similar thought. Perhaps doing EFT helped GB let go of his “baby” and move on to what else life has in store for him. Sometimes you just need to move on. Life is impermanence. To assume that EFT did not work for Gary b/c he chose to leave EFT or to be skeptical about EFT b/c he had a heart problem just seems “incomplete” to me. At any rate, I wish Gary the best, he’s certainly deserving of it. Thank you, Gene, for all that you do.
So nice to read a forum where people maintain respect, even when expressing skepticism!! Thank you! I came into contact with EFT about 15 years ago, and through that time continued to have the perception of a great man doing great work! Gratitude for Gary’s presence in the world!!
Thank you Gene!
Robin