Tapping Q & A with Gene Monterastelli - Get the most out of tapping and EFT

Future Choices

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I need to make some very important choices about my future. Is there anything I can do with EFT to help me make the “right” decisions?


photo by Paul Hocksenar

I love this question because often we only think of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) as a tool to help us with issues that already exist, such as dealing with physical pain, memories that still affect us today, and the emotions we feel in this moment. EFT is also a great tool for helping us to clear up issues so we can make better decisions for our future.

I believe there is a part of us that constantly inspires us to become our better selves, a still small voice inside of us that is fully connected in oneness with everything in creation. This still small voice has been given many names throughout time in every culture and every faith.

The problem comes when it’s difficult for us to hear this voice because it’s overwhelmed by a mix of louder worries, anxieties, and past experiences.

You will always have free will to make any choice, but EFT will help you to quiet much of the unhelpful noise of worry, anxiety and past experiences. This way you can hear the still small voice more clearly, inspiring you to be your better self.

There are three basic steps to achieve this.

1) Clear Resistance to Change
I was introduced to the idea of clearing any resistance to change by Maria and Ted Robinson.  If we haven’t made a change or a choice in our life, then more than likely there is some resistance to change. Reducing or eliminating that resistance makes sound decisions for the future, and follow-through on those decisions, much easier. (We will get to the specific resistance in the next step.) It is a good idea to begin any EFT tapping session about a future choice like this:

I need to make a decision about my future…Every time I make a choice it means that I’m making a change…Change is scary because change brings different…Different can be scary…There is some part of me that is resisting this change…It is resisting this change because it’s worried the outcome might not be the best for me….I thank this resistance because it is trying to protect me…But this resistance is making it hard for me to make the choice I need to make…The resistance is cluttering my mind so I can’t see clearly…I choose to let go of whatever resistance I have…I choose to know there is a still small voice in me that is going to lead me on the right path…I trust myself to make the right choice when I get clear…I give myself permission to let this resistance go…I give myself permission to trust my own judgment.

2) Clear The Emotions Associated With Making The Choice
Every time we make a choice there are two aspects of the choice that can worry us: the certainty of the outcome, and the magnitude of the choice.

Our level and worry is affected by the combination of these two factors. Typically the higher the level of uncertainty or the greater the magnitude of the choice, the higher our anxiety level is going to be. The lower the level of uncertainty and the smaller the magnitude of the choice, the lower our anxiety level.

Here are a few examples:

  • Trying a new style of food we have never had before: If you’re not an adventurous eater, the level on uncertainty could be very high. But you know you will be home in a few hours, so if you don’t like it you won’t starve. Therefore there isn’t a great deal of anxiety about your dinner choice.
  • Choosing a major in college: For some reason you have always known you were going to be a teacher. You love sharing your knowledge. You love watching people learn. You really enjoyed the chances you’ve had in the past to teach, even when you had an unreceptive class. By choosing to major in education you are going to be taking very topic-specific classes. If you decided later to change your major none of the classes are likely to be useful. This could put you a year or two behind, costing you time and money. Even though there is a great deal of certainty about the choice, the magnitude of the choice may cause more anxiety.

Every choice we make is going to have aspects of certainty and magnitude associated with them. These characteristics are also going to be very personal. One person might see a choice as being a very big deal (having a large magnitude) and another person will see the same choice as minor (small magnitude).

There are benefits to having varied levels of worry and anxiety. This encourages a cautious approach that helps us avoid completely impulsive or very dangerous choices. These worries and anxieties become a problem when they are the only thing we can hear. By bringing these into balance we are going to be more likely to hear the still small voice and make a better choice.

Each person is going to have a different set of worries, but it might look something like this:

I’m worried I am going to make the wrong choice…I’m afraid I’m going to get stuck with an outcome I don’t like…If I choose the wrong thing it could cost years of my life…If I choose the wrong thing it is going to cost me so much money, money I can’t afford to lose…I’m worried if I make the wrong choice I’ll have to start at the beginning again, and I don’t have the time or energy to do that….I choose to know I am not making a rash decision…I choose to know I have done my research…I choose to know even if I make the wrong choice I’ll learn from it and make a better choice next time…I choose to know even if I make the wrong choice I’ll be able to choose again…I’ve made lots of bad choice in the past that haven’t been the end of the world…I know the reason I’m worried is because part of me is trying to protect me from making a bad choice…I know this part of me is worried because it’s trying to protect me…But it is being over-vigilant. It’s preventing me from growing…I let this worry and anxiety step down…They are not needed right now.

3) Clear The Emotions Associated With Getting The Outcome You Want
We can be of two minds about an outcome. On one level we can see the outcome as a real positive and at the same time see it on another level as a real negative. For example, we might want a promotion at work. On one level this is great because it means a raise and more prestige. On another level it means we have more responsibility and we have more opportunity to make a fool of ourselves.

It is important for us to weigh all the pros and cons of any outcome, in any decision-making process. The problem comes when we can only focus on the negataives, the cons. Even if we can’t name the cons they will affect the choice we make. Whatever part of us knows the cons is going to fill us with limiting beliefs, making it harder for us to make the best choice.

EFT is a great tool for cleaning up these penalties of success. There are two ways we can do this.

First, there will be the cons that we know. These are going to different for every person and every choice, but here is an example of how you might tap on this:

I’m worried that the new job is going to give me too much responsibility…If I have more responsibility I have more chances to screw up again…If I do this right, people are going to expect me to do it right again in the future and I may let them down…My family thinks this is a bad choice because they don’t understand my passion and think I’m wasting my life…If I get what I want it’s going to take more time, and I may have to give up the things I love…I think I want this, but it might not be as great as I thought, and I may be disappointed with the outcome and feel like I’ve wasted my time and money…What are others going to think when they hear this is my dream?

Second there are going to cons that we don’t know. They are emotions that simply interfere with our receiving the inspiration we need to hear. In this case there is a very simple technique we can use to bring these emotions to the surface.

Remember the words we use in EFT are not magic; they are only useful in helping us to stay focused on the issue we are working on. If we are thoroughly focused on our issues, we don’t need words to stay focused, so we don’t need to say any words.

In this case we are dealing with emotions that we can’t necessarily name, but we need to create a situation in which we can feel those emotions intentionally. This can be done in two ways.

The first way is to tune in to others who have walked the path you are considering. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths to relax. Once you’re centered and relaxed think of someone who has successfully walked that path. This could be someone you know very well, or it could be a stranger. Start tapping. Just move through the tapping points. As you do this tune into every aspect of this person’s life. See him making the choice. See her living the life. Pay very close attention to everything that comes up in you.

Very common thoughts are:

  • They had it so easy. It may be harder for me.
  • They have talent I don’t have.
  • I’m jealous of their success.
  • They make it look so easy.
  • They didn’t have the obstacles to get there that I’ve had.

As long as you’re thinking about the life you think you want, with all of its pros and cons, you will be clearing resistance and interfering anxieties and experiences. If you can identify sources of resistance, you can tap directly on that, but even if you don’t, you will be clearing out the noise that is making your decision difficult.

The second way you can do this type of cleaning is to go through the exact same process, but this time see yourself living the choice. See yourself making the choice. See how you feel making the choice. See how you feel while living the outcomes of your choice. See how the people in your life react to the choice you’ve made. Hear what they say. Read their minds. Make sure you see it working out in the best way possible.

As you do this it’s very likely you’ll have these types of thoughts:

  • I could never really do that.
  • People are going to think I’m a jerk because I’m doing what I want.
  • People may think I think I’m better than they are.
  • People are going to be jealous of me.
  • I’m not talented enough to do that.
  • I’m going to look so foolish when I fail.

Again, as you are able to name specific fear, anxieties, and limiting beliefs, you can tap on them directly. But as long as you are feeling the emotion, even if you can’t name it, and your tapping will clean up the noise that is making your decision difficult.

Be Persistent
Frequently, the roots of our fears and anxieties about making big changes in our lives are very deep. I would recommend that you do this every day for several days. You might even want to continue right up to the moment you make the choice. This will ensure that you deal with every new worry or anxiety that might arise, as you get closer to the decision.

Over time if you do this you will find that there is less and less noise in the decision-making process. Instead over time there is going to ever-increasing clarity. Are you going to get to the point where every choice you need to make is obvious? Probably not, but the more noise you clear out the more likely you are going to hear the voice of inspiration. As you hear and follow this voice of inspiration you will end up almost effortlessly in the place you need to be.

Emotions and Physical Pain – AKA:Can Pain Be Our Friend?

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I have heard a lot of talk about how pain can have emotional issues.  Is this true?  If so can I use the pain to discover and work on the emotional issues tied to the pain?

[Note from Gene: I asked Pennsylvania-based EFT practitioner Chip Engelmann to answer this question. Chip does a great job explaining the reasons for pain and how we can use it to identify some of the emotional roots. Make sure you check out Chip's website, ChipEFT.com for many great articles, ebooks, and recordings of past teleseminars.]


photo by santacrewsgirl

First, we have to assume that pain has a purpose beyond creating misery. Surely we understand that the pain we feel when we put our hand into a flame is what stimulates us to move our hand out of the flame. In that case, pain is a stimulus to take action to avoid harm.

Now, if we move our hand two feet above the flame and leave it there, eventually that becomes painful too, and we remove our hand. But the stimulus for removing our hand was more about addressing the pain and less about the possible damage. In fact, the further we are from the cause of a pain, the less likely we will see the actual cause of the pain, and the more likely we will react only to the pain rather than to its cause. A headache may develop in response to an emotion triggered hours before. Arthritis pain may stem from an emotional reaction that began decades ago. It is easy to see how the cause of a pain can be overlooked.

And more often than not, we do overlook it. Frankly, stopping the pain is as far as we care to go. For the purpose of healing, however, addressing only the pain is about as effective as covering the oil light on your car with duct tape when it starts to flash. Maybe you won’t be annoyed by the light anymore, but you also won’t stop your engine from seizing and totaling your car. But for better or for worse, pain usually won’t go away permanently until we get the message that it is trying to tell us.

Luckily, we’re not alone in our search for the emotional causes of physical pain and illness. Research has established certain physiological connections between emotion and illness. Anger has been shown to affect the liver. When we are angry, we create toxins that our body must deal with. In fact, a single breath of an angry man produces enough toxins to kill a Guinea pig. The organ that is responsible for clearing toxins from the body is the liver. The drug of choice for an angry person is alcohol. Long-term exposure to alcohol or anger puts excess stress on the liver.

Sad people tend to crave carbohydrates, especially sweets. Long-term exposure to a high-carbohydrate diet results in insulin resistance and diabetes. Sadness is known to affect the pancreas, which produces insulin.

Another approach we can use to detect the emotional causes of pain is to look at the symbolism of the different parts of the body. The hands grip, so a pain in the hand is generally a problem with holding onto something. Likewise, the intestines are the part of the body that eliminates waste. So if we have a problem with the intestines, it too is usually a problem of holding onto an emotion. However, the intestines are deeper in the body than the hand, so they would represent holding onto a deeper emotion. For another example, our feet are used to move us through our world, so a pain in the foot would be associated with a fear of moving forward.

Lastly, we can look for clues about the body in sayings from the past. “That really galls me,” is an expression revealing that slow-burning anger affects the gall bladder. “You expect me to swallow that?” is a reaction toward someone you feel is “feeding you” a lie, which affects the throat. A person who is constantly criticizing is “riding you.” If they do it enough, you get angry and yell, “Get off my back!” That anger is stored in the upper back. A person who doesn’t get what you are trying to tell them is a “pain in the neck.”

What we are seeing here is that the location of a pain can tell us a lot about the emotional circumstance that caused the pain in the first place.

Perhaps the best roadmap to the emotional roots of physical pain and illness is a book by Louise Hay, Heal Your Body.  I constantly use this seven-dollar book as a springboard to solve emotional puzzles. Louise Hay looks at all the body parts and a variety of major diseases, and gives us the emotional counterpart to each. Her insights may not cover every situation, but I’ve always found them to be in the ballpark.

So you ask, “How can I figure out what’s behind my pain?” The first step is to use Louise Hay’s book and look up the location of the pain. Now look at which side of the body it is located on. Typically, a pain on the left side of the body will have to do with a relationship, and pain on the right side of the body has to do with finances, career, etc. I say typically, because it’s flipped in a very small percentage of people: the right side will represent relationships and the left side financial matters.

Sometimes pain is located in more than one part of the body. The two pains may not be related, but more often they are related.

One woman I know complained of a pain in her left hand. Louise Hay would say that this pain represents holding onto an issue. Since it is on the left side, we can assume it has to do with a relationship. She also complained of a pain that starts in her neck (Hay says: failure to see the other side of an issue), and moves to her jaw (anger) and throat (anger). I also saw this woman rubbing her left knee (stubbornness and inflexibility).

Let’s consult the old sayings. Remember, the throat is about swallowing a lie, and you clench your jaw to resolutely move forward.

Now let’s put it all together. What we are looking at is a breach of trust in a relationship where the partner did something to break that trust – something pretty bad. The woman stubbornly refuses to hear the other side of the story because there simply is no excuse for what happened. Any excuse, therefore, would be something she could not swallow. She holds onto this anger, and it is triggered on a regular basis.

Since her emotion is manifesting in several locations, we might assume that the emotions behind the  event or series of events are pretty powerful. This description could represent something that happened in a past relationship, like infidelity. Or it could be a childhood trauma. Sexual assault is a possibility.

A medical diagnosis is often helpful. If a pain is due to arthritis, we can add the emotion of resentment to the mix. Arthritis in the knee would indicate an incident in which the person was both resentful and stubborn. Inflammation would add anger to the mix. If your hand was swollen with arthritis, you might be holding onto an incident that makes you angry and resentful.

Cancer would indicate that something was eating away at you. Often cancer is associated with anger, but it can also stem from grief, as in the loss of a loved one. The location of the cancer is a good clue. Pancreatic cancer might indicate grief, while liver cancer might point to anger. However, pancreatic cancer could also indicate anger associated with sadness, as in the case where a best friend ran off with a spouse.

While it is possible to come pretty close to detecting an emotional cause just by analyzing physical symptoms, listening to what people say and noticing how they say it is invaluable. People will express the emotion that they are resonating with. You will hear it in their voice and see it in their face and body language.

Last but not least, trust your intuition. When you start looking for the source of a physical pain, check with your intuition to see if the direction you are going “feels right.” If not, take another tack.

It’s a good idea to work with a partner or practitioner who might have insight in this area. As with all things emotional, it is often easier to read someone else than yourself, and for someone else to read you than for you to figure out yourself.

EFT can be used throughout this process. If you don’t know the cause of a pain, tap on the image of that pain and you’ll probably get a measure of relief. If you can guess at emotional causes, tap on those. But keep your intuition open, because a memory may stir, or a feeling that reminds you of an incident, and these are your true leads. Tap on them, and be specific and thorough. Once the anger is gone, you’ll find hurt. Once the hurt is gone, you’ll find guilt, and so on. You can see why, as a rule of thumb, traumatic events and “core issues” should be handled with the help of an EFT professional.

The truth is, people don’t really come to me for help with a past trauma. They don’t think about that trauma. That trauma is packed away tightly in their back closet so they can function today. Clients come to me with problems and pains that have manifested in their lives today. And as we open the closet to make a repair, the trauma falls out, ready to finally be resolved.

So can pain be your friend? When your pain reveals your emotions, it allows you to take care of yourself on a deeper level. After all, what are friends for?

I Feel Tired After Tapping

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Has anyone mentioned to you that they feel REALLY fatigued after an EFT session? I have had about three sessions with clients where some really amazing core issues moved. At the end of the session the clients felt quite tired after. Is this normal?


photo by Brian Barnett

It is important to remember when we using Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) we are changing the energy system of the body, energy that is used to power all of the body’s systems and functions.

Whenever we do anything that expels a great deal of energy, especially something we don’t normally do, we need to rest so the body can rebuild the energy it just used up to perform the task. This is true for physical (after a workout when we haven’t worked out in a while) and emotional (after a long cry) circumstances.

A couple of things are at play when we do EFT for especially emotional core issues.

First, making changes at the core level for very profound issues use a great deal of energy. EFT is a simple process to and doesn’t take much time or effort, but we are still using a great deal of energy to make that change.

Second, deep core issues almost invariably involve dysfunction in the physical body or our emotional state because something is blocking the flow of energy. At the point of the block there is a build up of energy because the energy can’t move in the way it would like.

A good way to think of this is to imagine a clogged pipe. At the point of the blockage pressure builds up over time. When the blockage is originally removed there will be a great rush as the pressures is released all at once. When we clear an energy blockage with EFT the same thing happens. The build-up of energy at the point of the blockage is released, leaving the person feeling a deficiency of energy.

When an EFT session clears a partial blockage we feel energized and ready to take on the world. We can see the change in ourselves, we can see a brighter future, and we sense our energy flowing better in the body. But there are also going to be times when doing EFT work is going to leave us very tired. In my experience the feeling of being tired is going to happen most often after working on very deep core issues, but that is not always the case. When we do any sort of energy work it can leave us tired.

When I am working with clients, I check in with them every ten or fifteen minutes to see how they feel energetically. I have also found that certain clients get tired in different ways. Some never get tired, some tire slowly over time, and still others seem to go from high energy to no energy in a moment.

Whenever I have a client end a session very tired I recommend that they pay special attention to drink a lot of water for the next eight hours and that they shouldn’t do anything too strenuous until they feel more energized.

Physical Therapy/Range of Motion

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After an accident I have had physical therapy and I’m doing better. As part of my therapy I am supposed to do sit-ups/leg raises, but the strain on my lower back is too much and the next day I can barely stand up or bend over. I know as I do more therapy it will get better, but I was wondering if I could use EFT to do the sit-ups/leg raises to build my muscles?


photo by Matthew Fang

Here is a similar experience I had with a client which I think will shed light on what you’re doing. I was working with a dancer who had a hip injury and was having trouble doing a turning dance move.

I had her visualize herself doing the move. I then asked her how much of the move she was doing. 100% was the move at full speed and flawless. Anything less than full speed or full movement was rated less than that. We then tapped on the aspect of the trouble she was having. These ranged from feeling too stiff in the visualization to worrying that the move was too fast and she was going to fall. We tapped on whatever was short of 100%. Then she visualized herself doing the move again. We repeated the process until she got to 100%.

She was then able to repeat the process on her own, but she didn’t need to do this many times as the hip issues went away very quickly after we started doing this work.

I would have you do a similar visualization. Imagine you are doing the sit-ups/leg raises. Tune in to how easy or hard it is for you. What are the worries you have about doing the exercise? Is it going to hurt, take too long, or ache in the morning? Then tap on these issues.

[Note: This question came in a few weeks ago.  I answered the question directly and this is part of the e-mail received back.

After a week of tapping and visualizations I am able to reach to my knees — which is more than I've been able to do in almost one year. My stretches aren't painful and (oddly or not) the soreness that should be there due to inactivity is far far less. Say a 5 on a scale of 1-10, ten being I'm not moving out of this bed, heating pad or not. Thanks again!]

How long to tap, how many session to tap, getting 100% clear

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How long should I use EFT on an issue? Is it important that I tap on an issue until it is 100% clear? How many sessions should I work on the same issue?

There are a number of things to consider when approaching these questions. Let’s take these questions one at a time.

How Much Work In One Session?

When it comes to how long to tap in one session it is good let our bodies be our guide. When tapping we are doing energy work. We’re clearing energetic blocks, causing energy to move around and through the body. This can be draining. Typically people can tap for about an hour before they need to take a break, but if you’re working on something very emotional, you might need to tap for less time to avoid a state of exhaustion.

Each person is going to react to EFT in a different way. I have clients who will have lots of energy one minute and the next minute they are completely exhausted. Other clients will slowly become more and more tired. Listen to your body. It will tell you when you need to stop.

As a side note, if you do find yourself particularly tired after a tapping session, make sure that you keep your system hydrated. When your body is tired you know you’ve moved a lot of energy, and water is essential for your body to re-energizing.

Do I need to get 100% clear?

The amount of time you should spend tapping on an issue is going to depend on your purpose. Let’s look at the examples of killing a craving and getting over the fear of public speaking to examine the different objectives we can have with tapping.

When I deal with a craving my goal is not necessarily to be completely free of the craving, but to be free to make a good choice. My comfort food is Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. I often crave them at about 9:30 p.m. as I’m getting ready for bed. The craving peaks at about an 8 on the SUDs scale. My goal is to be sure I can make good choices about what I eat. Just one or two rounds of tapping reduces my craving to a 1 or 2. The craving still exists, but I won’t give in to a craving that weak.

Again, my goal was not to eat the candy. Therefore I’ve reached that goal. Because I am going to easily make the choice I want to make, I don’t need to do any more tapping.

In comparison, when I’ll be speaking in public my goal is to be anxiety-free when I speak so I can do my absolute best. It is 10 minutes before I am to step to the microphone and my level of anxiety is at an 8 on the SUDs scale. After a few round of tapping my anxiety is down to a 2, but it’s still there. Since my goal is to be completely free of anxiety and I am still at a 2, I’ll keep tapping until I’m at 0.

Ultimately, the goal of EFT is to feel or act differently. Sometimes this will require us to be completely 100% clear to make that change. There are going to be other times where we don’t need a 100% clearance to change our state or choices.

I’ve been working on pain management with a client. For her it’s enough to get the chronic headache that is a 7 or 8 down to a 2 or 3. At that level it’s a manageable amount of pain because she no longer feels it all the time.

How many sessions do I need to tap on one issue?

Again, this is going to depend on the issue and your goal for that issue.

The rule of thumb I use is, “Keep coming back until you know it’s gone.”

The issue we’re working on can have varied and deep roots. Just because we feel clear on an issue after one session doesn’t mean it’s gone for good. Instead we may have just cleared enough for this moment. When it comes to working on big issues (self-esteem, trauma, chronic pain) it will normally take a number of sessions.

Any issue worth spending time on is also worth coming back to until you’re sure it’s gone. This is one of the reasons I encourage my clients to take notes when they tap. When you have notes on the issues you’ve worked on and the phrases you’ve used, you know you can come back to it and be sure it’s cleared.

I would keep revisiting an issue until you can revisit three separate times with no reaction at all.

Summary

Remember, there are no cut and dried rules for how much and how long you should tap on a specific issue. The most important thing to understand is why you want to clear the issue. When you know why you are doing the work, then you can more accurately gauge when you’re ready to move on to something else.