Healing at Your Finger Tips
By Ruth Stern, MA
Are you someone who suffers from stress and anxiety? Chronic pain? Uncontrollable food cravings and overeating? Depression? Unresolved grief or anger? If any of these issues resonate with you, read on. In my journey as a therapist for over 25 years, I have always had a strong thirst for knowledge in ways to assist my clients to resolve their suffering and achieve true joy. And there are certainly many great techniques and approaches in the mental health field to address the above issues. In 2006, I had the privilege to learn about EFT (Emotion Freedom Techniques) and began to study it and practice on myself for severe cravings for sugar. What I found was quite amazing. After only a few rounds of the procedure my cravings would reduce significantly. So, I began using EFT with my clients on all sorts of things including phobias, peak performance, test anxiety, pain, anxiety and much more. And even better, this is one of the few techniques I learned that clients could do for themselves; creating significant results on their own.
What is EFT? EFT is one form of energy psychology. The basis of EFT is rooted in the principles of Chinese acupuncture. As Gary Craig states (the creator of EFT), it is acupuncture without the needles. He believes, “All negative emotions create an imbalance in the energy system”. So in the EFT protocol, the client taps on certain meridian points on the body. These meridian points are connected to all the organs in the body. We tap on the points to unblock the energy disruption, and often times you will observe clients rapidly reducing or eradicating their negative feelings or cravings.
About 6 months ago, I was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer – invasive type. After my initial shock and denial, the fear and sadness and overwhelming feelings of loss set in. I logically told myself that my hair would grow back and with reconstruction I would have “new breasts.” Soon the denial wore off and I was left with feelings of deep loss and fear which I had never experienced before. Fortunately for me, I had been using EFT and witnessed great results with so many clients. It was on my third day and I was feeling so weak and sick from a very toxic chemotherapy. I remember feeling this overwhelming helplessness and depression. I literally felt I could barely move my body. Imagine Raggedy Ann on valium….that was me! So…I began to tap on my weaknesses and fears. Within 3 rounds my energy began to lift. I didn’t even believe it at first, but I was able to get out of bed and feel much more normal. One of the key pieces that helped me throughout my recovery was tapping on positive statements, such as:
- Allowing the universe to send healing white light throughout all the cells in my body.
- Healing myself and being free of cancer.
- Seeing myself whole and healthy and vibrant.
- Seeing all my cells light up brightly.
Using visualization with energy meridian work can be very uplifting and powerful. EFT was my saving grace along with a great support system in my journey to heal. I thought that this was such an amazing gift I learned; to be able to make this recovery a journey of healing rather than of doom and gloom. Just like the law of attraction, which is based on the principle that one can attract positive (or negative) energy with our thoughts, EFT allows us to change or eliminate negative thoughts and energy. . The “law” states that you attract everything through your thoughts which become your focus and then it expands from there. It’s as if you are emitting signals out to the world and attracting positive signals back to you. So our life becomes a physical manifestation of the thoughts we have. If we are in a bad place in our lives, it is difficult to say positive statements and resonate with it. However, when you use an energy tool, like EFT, you have the ability in a sense to overhaul your system, balance the energy so that your brain can accept a new set of positive reframes. And then the gift you’ve given yourself is a shift from a dark place of negativity to hope or empowerment or simply pure joy!
