How Two Fingers Can Change Your Life: Emotional Freedom Technique

Front-first into a snow bank with my grandparents. Side-swiped in a little compact with my friend’s priest. Rear-ended while in a median. And crashed into the underbelly of a speeding truck.

I crunched through four car accidents before I turned 18–always as a passenger! Since then, I’ve been a fearful rider; I feel fine when I drive, but when I’m in someone else’s car, I feel paranoid, vigilantly watchful (eg “look out for that car,” “you see that stop sign?,” etc), and often terrified. I’ve been an annoying side-seat driver and felt bad about it for years, but it never seemed like something I could help. My solution for many years was to just always be the driver.

This May, I was in Mexico City, riding in one of those super speedy, “what lane?” type of cabs when I thought of trying Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) on my car fear. After a couple rounds (taking ten minutes), I felt my stomach settle down, and I lost my cold sweat. I was able to relax and not worry about getting in an accident. Which, thank god, was great, because how does my worry keep us from getting in a crash?! It doesn’t. It just makes me miserable.

So what is EFT and how can you get some?

EFT is a short and simple method of saying a few words and tapping on some accupressure points on the upper body. Done slowly, it takes about five minutes for one round, and sometimes, all you need is one round to alleviate an issue.

I often use EFT with clients, and on myself, as a way to immediately reduce or eliminate a charged, unhelpful emotion. I say “unhelpful” because sometimes emotions are there to be felt and processed–they’re a necessary part of a learning experience. But my car fear, for example, was just a phobia…a short circuit in my energy/brain/body that wasn’t helping me in the slightest.

EFT is a tool that has changed my life and helped me de-traumatize and boost the capability of my clients. If you haven’t yet experienced its power to help you, I’m happy to introduce you to it for free. Just shoot me a line or give me a call and we’ll arrange a 20 minute demo, no strings attached. It’s my way of contributing to world peace, because, in the immortal words of Elle Woods, “Happy people just don’t shoot their husbands. They just don’t.”

If you want to know more without having to chat with me personally, you can watch me demonstrate EFT at the BizJam conference in Seattle.