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EFT By Puja 0 Comments

8 reasons to join EFT International

 By certifying as a Practitioner and/or Trainer with EFT International, the largest EFT organization, practitioners gain professional recognition and credibility.
  1. Being affiliated with a reputable organization will add to your professional standing and validate your expertise in EFT.
  2. Membership in EFT International provides access to a global network of students, practitioners & trainers .
  3. EFT International upholds high standards and code of ethics for all its members. Joining the organisation demonstrates a commitment to professional integrity, ethical practice, and maintaining the highest level of EFT skills.
  4. Each member has to fulfil the annual requirement of 6 hours of mentoring and 30 hours of CPD which in turn shows that everyone, no matter what their expertise level, is required to continue to update their skills in EFT.
  5. Listing in practitioner directory – Members are listed in the EFT International Practitioner Directory, a verified resource for individuals seeking EFT practitioners. This directory increases visibility and provides a platform for potential clients to find and contact members directly.
  6. Research: The organisation actively promotes research on EFT. Also, members can attend the EFT international research symposium every year.
  7. Recognition as an Accredited and certified EFT Practitioner: Membership in EFT International signifies that practitioners have met the organization’s rigorous requirements for skills training in EFT. This recognition sets them apart as qualified and skilled professionals in the field of Emotional Freedom Techniques.
  8. EFT International Logo and Branding: Members can get access to the EFT International logo which they can use in their marketing materials, websites, and promotional ventures. This adds credibility to their professional status as an EFT Practitioner.
EFT By Puja 0 Comments

Benefits of learning EFT in a workshop

  1. Learning EFT is empowering. It is an excellent stress relief and relaxation technique, not just for yourself but also for your clients. The workshop is designed to facilitate the learning of EFT in a calm and regulated environment.
  2. EFT enables people to take charge of their emotional well-being. It’ll help you tap into your inner resources, build resilience and cultivate emotional and bodily awareness.
  3. EFT helps people identify and transform limiting beliefs that are holding them from reaching their full potential. The techniques that you’ll learn in this workshop will help you break free from these limiting patterns in your life.
  4. EFT is a tool than help in building emotional resilience and increase your capacity to handle stress. It equips participants with skills to navigate life’s challenges, bounce back from setbacks and maintain self-regulation.
  5. When you work on your limiting beliefs, you develop better frustration tolerance due to emotional awareness and self regulation technique, your relationships also improve as you learn to resolve conflicts and foster healthier relationships.
  6. It helps in boosting confidence and self esteem. Participants often report releasing self doubt, overcoming diffidence and developing a positive self regard.
  7. EFT workshop also takes you on a journey of personal growth and self discovery.
This workshop has EFT exercises, practice in pairs, group discussions to deepen the understanding and experience the power of EFT firsthand.
I’m a trainer of trainers with EFT International, the largest EFT organization led by dedicated volunteers who adhere to the highest standards of training in EFT. This workshop can help you not just to bring about positive changes in your life but also in that of others – friends and family.
EFT Physical issues • • • By Puja 0 Comments

Recovery from hysterectomy with EFT

After avoiding hysterectomy for the past couple of years, I finally made up my mind to go through it two months ago.

A little background

For years I managed my painful period with EFT. I had debilitating pain every month which left me bed-ridden affecting every sphere of my life. With the help of EFT, I was able to ease the frustration and angst that this caused, and take 5 days off every month to rest.

I was diagnosed with PCOD (Polycystic Ovarian Disease) at a young age and then with fibroids. Neither of these conditions were deemed serious enough for surgery, hence my doctor never suggested it. However, about 2 years ago, my doctor finally asked me to go for hysterectomy as my health was deteriorating and it was affecting my quality of life.

Last year when my period started getting worse and started coming twice a month, I knew that I had to decide quickly, but I was petrified of undergoing surgery. I wanted to be sure that I had exhausted all the possibilities of healing my uterus, which in my opinion, I had.

Tapping before surgery

In order to prepare myself for surgery I did a lot of self-tapping and a few sessions with tapping buddies.
Some of the aspects were:
“Even though I’m not sure if this surgery is the right choice, ….”
“Even though I’m scared of surgery,…”
“Even though I’m afraid of general anesthesia, ….”

All this helped in going through the numerous tests and checkups calmly. I was in a Zen like state on the day of the surgery.

But things went downhill right before surgery, emotionally.

When the nurses were prepping me for surgery, they messed up the IV and the intense pain along with the unkindness of one nurse broke my resolve. I was crying right before surgery but I kept tapping on my finger points throughout. My surgery went longer than usual due to some minor complication. The two days that I spent in hospital after surgery felt like a punishment! It was my first hospitalization and I was not prepared, and in a lot of pain. I had tapped so much for undergoing surgery but I forgot to address the aftermath of surgery. In my naïveté or wishful thinking that everything would be miraculously okay after surgery, I didn’t factor in the recovery phase as being difficult.

At one point, the pain was so debilitating, that I tapped on:
“Even though it’s so debilitating, and I feel like I might die, I’m surrendering to the pain and this process.”
This helped calm my nerves and I was able to tolerate more pain as the painkillers were not that effective initially. The rest of the stay in the hospital was filled with small mishaps that left me feeling helpless. These small t’s (traumas) added up and I spent the next 2 months tapping on all of it.

 

Struggling with symptoms 

As I struggled with ongoing pain, digestive issues, toothache from hell, and food poisoning, during the two months, I frequently felt hopeless and overwhelmed. My biggest fear was ending up in the hospital again.

Some of the aspects I tapped on were:
“Even though my suffering doesn’t seem to end, …”
“Even though I’m not sure when it’ll end, I want to remind myself that I am recovering in small ways everyday.”
“Even though I feel like I’m being punished, …”(This brought up some childhood hurts and I worked on them)
“Even though I’m so angry at the nurses for how unkind they were, … “( Tapped on the VAKOG of this experience)
“Even though I felt hopeless and helpless during my hospital stay, …”
“Even though it’s been a very challenging journey, I would love to have some compassion for myself.”
“Even though I might end up in the hospital again, and although the chances are slim, if it happens it happens. I choose to now come back to the present moment.”

Following a daily tapping routine

I incorporated some positive statements and cognitive shifts into my daily tapping routine. I would tap every morning on these statements:
“I’m safe at this moment.”
“I’m recovering.”
“My organs that were affected by the surgery are healing.”
“Healing is slow but it’s definitely happening.”
“I’m allowing my body to take its time to heal. My body knows how to heal. I choose to trust my body.”

Overall, the whole process was very stressful and there were multiple small t’s that had to be addressed, but due to the tapping, I was able to find many tiny moments of calm and peace during this time as well. I was able to appreciate the resources I had, and whenever the discomfort lessened I drew and read a lot.

Tapping, a real gift


EFT has been a life saver for me and continues to be helpful as I struggle with ongoing fatigue and stomach issues. A self regulating as well as relaxation tool, EFT’s USP is its adaptability to any situation.

In my opinion, using EFT on a daily basis for self-regulation when you are going through a physical or emotional hardship is the best gift you can give to yourself. While you cannot change the external circumstances, you can certainly heal what you are going through internally and give yourself hope.

I’m glad that EFT gave me the strength to undergo surgery as it’s only after the surgery that we found additional multiple fibroids which went undetected in scans and would have led to complications in future.

 

Anxiety EFT By Puja 0 Comments

Handling Intrusive Thoughts

Intrusive thoughts are repetitive, anxiety provoking, and frustrating. You feel as if you are losing control – you don’t want these thoughts and yet they suddenly come up and bother you, and the more you try to get rid of them the more they persist.

Let's take a look at why the brain produces thoughts.

The brain produces automatic negative thoughts. This is because the brain is wired for survival. When our ancestors were hunter gatherers, they were always on the lookout for threat. For example, their thoughts were something like this, "Is this a poisonous snake?"," Is that a poisonous fruit? Is it edible?", "I hear a rustle, shall I hide or take out my spear?"

Even though we're now living mostly in cities and while the chances of being bitten by a snake or eating a poisonous fruit has drastically reduced unless we’re mind numbingly zoned out, our brain is still very active and produces a myriad of thoughts.

The brain produces ANTS (Automatic Negative Thoughts) and we have a tendency to get hooked on to them. These thoughts are mostly judgements, evaluations and are catastrophic in nature, and not facts. They just get generated endlessly.  These thoughts also get blended with visuals and sounds. So, you may have a visual thought of falling down the stairs as soon you start descending the stairs. It may frighten you, but its purpose is to help you stay cautious. However, when you get hooked on to these thoughts by engaging with them, suppressing them or by paying too much attention to them, it can lead to chronic anxiety and hypervigilance.

Here are some tips to handle negative thoughts that are weird, strange, related to self-harming, harming others, gross or sexual in nature and that come out of nowhere.

  1. Know that these thoughts aren't facts. Tell yourself - these aren't facts.
  2. Do not react to the thoughts. Most people end up questioning their thoughts or themselves. “How can I have these thoughts? They're weird. Ugh! What's wrong with me?” This line of questioning exacerbates the thought and they become intrusive.
  3. Reverse the thought in your head, it'll lose its power as Susan David suggests in the book, Emotional Agility. For example, if you're thinking this continually, “What if I harm myself?”, reverse it. Myself-harm-I-if-What. The brain knows the new thought is gibberish and the thought will lose its power.
  4. Practice calming your mind regularly (Diaphragmatic breathing, tapping, Progressive muscle relaxation etc. can help).
  5. If you're anxious, then the thoughts will be more in quantity. They could be full blown colorful pictures- that float in your head. Hence, calming your body is equally important as the mind and body aren’t separate. What affects one affects the other. Tapping can help a lot in relaxing and calming your body.
  6. Usually, there is a theme underlying these thoughts. For example, some thoughts can be catastrophic in nature, like falling down the stairs or more self-harming like, “What if I cut myself with a knife? ”or evaluative - “What if I’m being judged by these people on the street?” Write down your thoughts and explore it with a psychologist. REBT can be very helpful.
  7. Affirmations can be very helpful too. Repeating or tapping on positive affirmations by Louise Hay, such as the ones given below, can be helpful too.

I calm my thoughts and I am serene. I feel safe to be ME
I lovingly protect myself with thoughts of joy and peace.
My thoughts flow freely and easily. I move through ideas with ease.
I relax and let life flow through me with ease.

Here’s a sample tapping script for intrusive thoughts. Best to make your own script and tap with your own words for tapping to be effective.

For more information on tapping, click here.

On SOH- Even though I have these thoughts that stress me out, I accept myself.

Sequence of Points – I’m afraid of these thoughts

But these thoughts can’t harm me.

I’m scared of these thoughts.

But they’re just thoughts, not facts.

I choose to be calm and focus on my breathing when they come up.

I choose to trust myself that I won't do anything. These thoughts will not convert into action.

I choose to let these thoughts pass/go by themselves.

EFT Research By Puja 0 Comments

EFT Research (Part 10)

EFT Research (Part 10): Borrowing Benefits, Group Treatment

I am back with another study, and this is called Borrowing Benefits: Group Treatment with Clinical EFT Is Found to Be Associated with Simultaneous Reduction in PTSD, Anxiety and Depression Symptoms. This was published in the Journal of Evidence-Based Integrative Medicine in 2018.

Let me begin by explaining a little bit about borrowing benefits. Borrowing benefits is a phenomenon where you will find a reduction in the intensity, the emotional intensity of your own issues if you are tapping along with a group, a video or a live demo, and especially where the client’s issues are similar to that of yours. Also, borrowing benefits can be used as a strategy where you set an intention to work through your issues. In this process, you will be picking up an issue, giving it an intensity and putting it aside, and then you will be focusing your attention fully on the person that you are tapping with. After the session is over – the tapping is over – you will find a reduction in the intensity of your own issue. This is called borrowing benefits.

This study was to demonstrate the relationship between PTSD, depression and anxiety, and the sample size was 81. 81 people participated in five two-day workshops, and all groups used borrowing benefits, where the facilitator was working with the client while the group was applying self-tapping. The participants were assessed on 9 specific conditions, the Positive Symptom Total and the depth and breadth of psychological distress, the General Symptom Index. Physical pain and addictive cravings were also measured, and reductions were observed on all measures, and gains were maintained at six-months follow-up with the exception of the Hostility subscale.

Use of Borrowing Benefits in EFT training classes: 

This shows that borrowing benefits definitely works, and I have seen it in my trainings where if I am doing a demo with a trainee and I ask the group to note down an issue, give it a number, put it aside and focus their full attention on the demo and tap along with us using the words that we are using in that demo, there is a reduction in the emotional intensity of their issues even though they weren’t actively focused on it.

Link to video:

EFT Research By Puja 0 Comments

EFT Research (Part 9)

EFT Research (Part 9): The treatment of Combat Trauma in Veterans

This study was about – The treatment of Combat Trauma in Veterans using EFT: A pilot protocol, and it was published in the Traumatology journal in 2010.

There were 11 veterans and family members who were assessed for PTSD and these veterans were from the US military service personnel coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan with PTSD. These measurements were taken 30 days prior to the treatment and right before the treatment, and the participants were given EFT intervention for 5 days. When the post test was done, there were significant improvements in the symptom assessment, and the PTSD checklist military.

The gains and the improvements were maintained at the 30-day and 90-day follow-ups. These improvements were in General Symptom Index, anxiety, somatization, phobic anxiety and interpersonal sensitivity. A one year follow-up of seven of the participants was done, and same improvements were observed. After EFT, the group no longer scored positive for post-traumatic stress disorder and the symptoms severity had already reduced and the gains had helped. 

Watch the video here:

EFT By Puja 0 Comments

EFT Research (Part 8)

EFT Research (Part 8): Efficacy of Acupoints stimulation vs sham points

This was published in the Energy Psychology journal in 2015. It’s called EFT for stress in students: A Randomized controlled Dismantling Study. This present study had two goals:

  1. To determine whether or not EFT could quickly reduce stress symptoms in college students
  2. To compare the efficacy of the acupoint stimulation to the stimulation of sham points. The comparison was between the acupoints that are used in EFT and sham points which are not acupoints.

56 participants were assigned to either EFT or the sham group and these were university students. And they were assessed for nine common stress symptoms before and after a single 15 to 20 minutes group intervention session. And these sessions were held on the campus in groups of five to ten students. Both these groups – the EFT and the sham group – were given a script containing eight sets of stressful cognitions, centered around the feeling of overwhelm and hopelessness and ending with a positive statement. The EFT group participants stimulated the actual acupoints that are used in Standard EFT, while those in the sham group used the sham points.

The pretest showed no significant difference in the stress symptoms. Post test, which is after the intervention, showed that the EFT group had a symptom reduction by 39.3% and the sham group showed a reduction of 8.1%, which shows that the stimulation of actual points is superior to the stimulation of the sham points. And this demonstrates that acupressure is an active ingredient of the EFT protocol, and it is not placebo.

 

Watch the video here:

EFT By Puja 0 Comments

EFT Research (Part 6)

EFT Research (Part 6): Stress and Anxiety Management for Students and Staff in School Settings

I found an interesting chapter in the book called “Promoting Mind-Body Health in Schools: Interventions for Mental Health Professionals”. The chapter’s name is  “Emotional Freedom Techniques: Stress and Anxiety Management for Students and Staff in School Settings”

EFT is an effective stress and anxiety management technique that can be used for students and school personnel and employees, and even a few sessions of EFT can help students to reduce their anxiety, the fear of failure, increase their performance, self-esteem, and this chapter “examines relevant EFT research and the use of EFT with school-age children and adolescents, and it also discusses the importance of formal training in Emotional Freedom Techniques for school practitioners and ethical considerations.”

I wish that I knew EFT in school because as a student, I remember the enormous pressure. There was academic pressure, this fear of failure, low self-esteem and what not. 

Citation

Gaesser, A. H. (2020). Emotional freedom techniques: Stress and anxiety management for students and staff in school settings. In C. Maykel & M. A. Bray (Eds.), Promoting mind–body health in schools: Interventions for mental health professionals (pp. 283–297). American Psychological Association
Link to the book: https://www.apa.org/pubs/books/4317526
Watch a short video on this: https://youtu.be/OU63UICUZ2s
EFT Research • • • • By Puja 0 Comments

EFT Research (Part 5)

Effects of EFT on the reduction of Chronic Pain in Adults, a pilot study

This was published in the Energy Psychology: Theory, Research, and Treatment journal, and this study examined the effects of EFT on pain reduction in 50 adults and these adults were enrolled in a three-day EFT workshop.

There were two scales that were used: One was the Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS) and the other one was Multidimensional Pain Inventory (MPI) and these were used to measure the pain.

FINDINGS:

There were reductions on each of the PCS (Pain Catastrophizing Scale) item’s scores such as rumination, magnification and helplessness. There was a reduction even on the total PCS score.

On MPI (Multidimensional Pain Inventory), improvements in pain severity, interference, life control, affective distress and dysfunctional composite were noticed. A six months follow-up was done and the reductions held over that period of time on PCS scale and only on one item of the MPI, which was the life control item.

EFT helps in reducing pain intensity and it also helps the participants’ ability to live life with their pain. The reductions in pain were observed at a one-month interval. In the follow-up which was done after a month, there were reductions in pain but that didn’t hold on a long-term basis.

However, the findings reported that that there was an increased sense of control and ability to cope with the pain. Obviously since this was only a three days’ workshop and although after that, in the follow-up, there were reductions on several items on the PCS and one item of the MPI, but the reduction in pain did not hold in the long term.

The reason for this is that you need to be persistent when it comes to EFT for pain, which means we need to continue applying EFT. The benefits, like this study showed, are that there is an increased sense of control – you have an increased sense of agency, you don’t feel helpless, you are not always ruminating or magnifying the symptoms and at the same time you have an increased ability to manage the pain.

However, in order to keep the severity of the pain low, you also need to work on the emotional contributors of the pain. For example, When did the pain start?  You can check out my YouTube series on EFT for Physical Issues.

Full paper: https://energypsychologyjournal.org/effects-emotional-freedom-techniques-eft-reduction-chronic-pain-adults-pilot-study/

Watch a short video on this.

EFT Research By Puja 0 Comments

EFT Research ( Part 4)

⭐️EFT Research ( Part 4)

🖌Title: EFT in the Treatment of Unhealthy Eating Behaviours and Related Psychological Constructs in Adolescents: A Randomised Controlled Pilot Trial.

This study was designed to see the impact of EFT group treatment program, a six-week program upon eating behaviours, self-esteem, compassion, and psychological symptoms in a group of forty-four students.

These students were randomly assigned to the EFT or the waitlist control group.
Results at the follow-up, and these findings support that EFT is really effective.
✔️Improved eating habits
✔️self-esteem improved
✔️Compassion increased

EFT, also know as tapping, can really help in encouraging healthy eating behaviours in adolescents and in adults, and there are several studies which also talk about how EFT helps with when it comes to anxiety, school performance etc.

📚Published in “The Journal of Science and Healing” in 2016

You can also watch a video on this

https://youtu.be/aewAqpgXzFA