In her book, Get Rich, Lucky Bitch, Denise Duffield-Thomas, writes about using EFT, Emotional Freedom Technique to remove emotional blocks to being rich. Unfortunately, she never really explains how EFT works or how to do it.
Since she recommends it so highly, I have sought out an EFT practitioner to give me the hows and whys Emotional Freedom Technique works. Introducing the great, Mike Warwick.
Mike has very graciously offered to work with me for four weeks on my abundance mindset and removing emotional blocks to abundance in my life. I will be writing about my experience at the end of the four weeks but before that, I thought it would be good to introduce Mike and how it all works.
I met Mike through his Meetup Group, London Gratitude Group, where for just £5, he spent two hours teaching the basics of how to do Emotional Freedom Technique. After that one session, I was completely intrigued and needed to learn more about this technique.
Here are a few questions I asked Mike:
How does EFT work?
It helps us disentangle the confused and mistaken thinking we have about ourselves so that it’s easier to get in touch with who we really are, rather than who we think we are. It’s a way of finding yourself and uncovering the wisdom and clarity within each one of us.
That might sound a bit confusing and even wishy washy, so how does it work in scientific terms?
EFT is based on an understanding of the Chinese Energy Meridian system that acupuncture is built around. Instead of needles we use gentle tapping on meridian points and at the same time we tune into the problem that’s being treated.
The concept is that a negative emotion is being caused by an imbalance in the body’s energy system. When our energy system in balanced and flowing freely we experience both physical and emotional health. Along with emotional and physical health come mental clarity and the ability to thrive in society. When you’re thriving in modern western cultures, prosperity and abundance are pretty much part of the deal.
Why does it work with abundance?
Have you noticed how much of your life conforms with the way you believe it to be? That’s the way it works. We believe in lack and limitation or not deserving and then we experience it. Often here’s a big difference between what we’d like to believe, or even what we think we believe and what’s really going on inside of us. In my view it’s not necessarily a conscious thing but has a lot more to do with what’s going on in our subconscious mind. If you want to know what you really believe about abundance just look at the way things are turning out. EFT helps with finding and releasing limiting beliefs. It’s a case of seeing them for what they really are. They are thoughts. When our belief system shifts so does our experience of life.
Do we program ourselves not to reach where we want to be?
Generally I’d say no. Our belief structures come to us when we are very young and open and vulnerable. I think it can be very hard for people to realise that, although our parents don’t set out to limit our enjoyment and happiness – and really for most of us, their intention was the complete opposite – we rarely get through childhood without picking up a bunch of beliefs about ourselves that hurt.
We’ve just not evolved to the point where we truly understand the power of language on a young mind. Hearing “we can’t afford it” when we are young, it becomes a program – a default setting. Think of all the phrases we’ve got about money and wealth and prosperity. How many do you know that have a negative emotional charge that comes with them?
So we hear things and we also draw our own conclusions and most of this goes on before the age of seven and bingo, we’ve got patterns of thought and belief that we live with right up to the moment we choose to change them.
This is the good news, we can change our beliefs in a profound and authentic ways. EFT is a great tool for this.
How much tapping do you have to do before you start feeling different or getting results?
I don’t want to come across as misleading here. Sometimes you get a client who’s issue clears up almost miraculously with a few rounds of tapping and Gary Craig calls that a “one minute wonder”. These are genuine cases and a lot has been made of it online and elsewhere, however generally cases like this are the exception rather than the rule.
EFT is much quicker than conventional talking therapies, and you’ll feel it working as soon as you start tapping, but if you’re dealing with complex emotional issues it’s going to take time to feel like you’re getting the results you want. What we’re looking for is relief from emotional and physical suffering and you’ll commonly experience this in one session. What often happens is that one issue clearing reveals another aspect of the problem and so it typically takes time to resolve them all.
What I love about EFT is that it’s something you can do on your own either without a trained therapist or in between sessions. This puts the power in the clients hands and they can choose the pace they want to work at.
Do you have to be in the same room with a practitioner or can you do it remotely?
You can do it either way. I prefer to work over the phone or skype without the video. That way I get to tune into the client’s voice without any visual distractions. There is of course a lot of valuable information that you get when working face to face, gestures, glances and so on, but that also shows up in the voice. I think my musical background might play a part in my preference, but EFT is just as effective either way.
One thing I always say is that “there is no distance in mind”. For example when I talk in front of groups I’ll ask people to raise their hand if they’ve ever had someone pop into their mind seemingly out of nowhere and then the next minute get a call or a text or email from them. Every time, nearly everyone in the audience puts up their hand. This happens over and over again without variation. What does that tell you about the way we connect as humans?
I have taken up tapping. I found my sessions with Mike enlightening. When you work with a practitioner, you go much deeper into your underlying beliefs and emotional barriers than you would if you just do EFT alone. The sessions brought up episodes from my childhood that definitely could hold me back from abundance. It is quite amazing how things that were said to you when you were a child stay in your subconscious, become part of your belief system therefore your reality.
Let all of us know how it goes with this system. It sounds intriguing.