I recently ran across an article about EFT or Emotional Freedom Technique and decided to take a class at Unity Church in Charlotte taught by Jan Luther of the Rejuvenation Station. When I arrived their were 15 people mostly women with about 4 men. The teacher was very confident and knowledgeable about this technique and had us fill out a form about someone who made us feel bad at anytime in our life.
We then told her the words and feelings that we used to describe our negative experience such as fear, anxiety, sadness, anger etc. Jan then formulated some affirmation we were to repeat as we tapped on certain areas on our body (meridian points)
Looking around I felt totally ridiculous tapping my face and repeating what the teacher was saying. It almost felt like we were playing Simon Says.
Anyway, we did it twice for about 15 minutes total and against my expectations, I actually felt a little better. Maybe it was the positive affirmations or maybe the tapping distracts from my negative mental chatter… who knows, but it seemed to help. You can also do it for other people… might try it on my partner.
You can get more information and a free ebook with more detailed techniques from the founder Gary Craig at his EFT Home Page
Here is some more detailed information from Wikipedia:
Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) is a psycho therapeutic tool that intends to relieve many psychological conditions, including depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, general stress, addictions and phobias. The basic EFT technique involves holding a disturbing memory or emotion in mental focus and simultaneously using the fingers to tap on a series of 12 specific points on the body that correspond to meridians used in Chinese medicine. The theory behind EFT is that negative emotions are caused by disturbances in the body’s “energy field,” and that tapping on the meridians while thinking of a negative emotion alters the body’s energy field, restoring it to “balance.”
Here is as video on EFT by the same director as “the Secret”:
