Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT): What it is and What You Should Know

This interview is an excerpt from Kevin Gianni's Fountain of Youth Summit, which can be found at http://fountainofyouthworldsummit.com. In this excerpt, Dr. Carol Look shares on foundations of Emotional Freedom Technique.

The Fountain of Youth World Summit with Dr. Carol Look, author of Attracting Abundance.

Kevin: I am psyched to have you on board because some of this stuff is just so ground breaking and so awesome. Carol, let's start talking EFT. Let's get into how you started into EFT. And then we'll move on to an explanation of what EFT is.

Carol: Okay. I started as a hypnotist and a regular therapist. And one of my colleagues in my hypnosis class said, 'If you think hypnosis is good, you've got to try EFT. I didn't know what it was. And I read the advertisement and it sounded, frankly, too good to be true. It really did sound too exciting and I went to my first class ten years ago. And I practiced and practiced and practiced and practiced and kept getting results and I was very skeptical when I started.

But when I started having incredible results with my clients, and helped them feel empowered because they were using something within themselves, rather than another tool outside of themselves, and they didn't have to go to somebody outside of themselves, that just really sold me.

And I say to people, 'I wouldn't still be doing it ten years later, if I wasn't having shocking results.' I'm a very impatient and very skeptical person. So, if you're going to sell me something, it better knock my socks off right away.

And it was just really ground breaking for me, for my practice, for my clients and still is. In fact, it's growing because I get better at it every year, so I find the successes from it are even more exciting.

Kevin: So, tell me, as a skeptical person, let's lay the ground work for this, tell me how you learn to accept this. I mean, what was the tipping point?

Carol: The tipping point was what my clients said to me. So they would say, 'I don't get it. I've never felt this way before. I don't get it. What are you helping me do here? I've never been calm about the situation. I don't understand, Carol. I didn't eat this week in the way that I used to eat when I'm anxious. And so they kept coming back to me and saying something different. What are you doing? What is this weird energy technique? And so that really helped my own skepticism. Even though I helped myself with things as well. You know, you always have to see outsiders give you feedback about something. Especially something so strange as EFT.

I mean, that's how I start the explanation. I tell people, 'It looks weird, it sounds weird, and it's going to be uncomfortable to watch it, or do it on yourself.' It's just bizarre. But, if someone thinks it's bizarre and then they get a fantastic result, the bizarre goes out the window. Nobody cares anymore.

And I say to people, 'Look, I am so conservative as a traditionally trained psychotherapist. If I'm still doing this thing, if I'm still working with this, you've got to know it works.

Kevin: Yeah. So, let's talk about EFT. I mean, if you can give us maybe, 2-3 minutes on what it is and the whole principles behind it.

Carol: Okay. Emotional Freedom Techniques, EFT. What we're doing is tapping on places on the face and the body, in the same place that a traditional Chinese medicine acupuncturist would put needles, okay?

So all of your listeners who have been to an acupuncturist before, they know that they put the needles in the face and the body and the legs. What we're doing is tapping on those same places. And why would we tap there?

We're tapping on the end points of the meridian because we're cleaning out the congestion. Again, if you read a lot about traditional Chinese medicine, they talk about congestion in your meridian system. What are meridians? Meridians are channels, circuitry of energy and electricity that go through our body.

Kevin: Um hmm.

Carol: So, we have all these circuits and all these highways really going through our body that connect our organs and everything inside of us. And the meridians are these lines of electricity, basically. And what we're doing is tapping on them as we're focused on the problem. And that seems to neutralize, or metabolize, or just really collapse the problem. Because our problem, whether it's a craving, or a fear of success, or pain, our problems are energetically based, right?

Kevin: Okay.

Carol: Even though someone says, 'Oh, well, it's just a flu bug.' Uh huh. It is the flu bug, but how did you get the flu bug? You had to be energetically prepared and ready and susceptible to it.

Kevin: Okay.

Carol: You and I could go through three airports on a trip, and you would get the flu and I wouldn't. Why is that? Because for some reason, something; you know, I tell people I ride the subways all day. I ride the subways in New York and I have clients come in and they're sick. I don't get the cold until I'm energetically available to it.

So our problems; now cravings. Not everybody has cravings for cigarettes. Why do some people have it? Because there's a problem, there's a disruption in their energy system. Maybe you had the same car accident that I had. Maybe ten other people we know had the same car accident. We don't all respond the same way, because it's our energy and our vibration that effects everything.

Kevin: Right.

Carol: So, it doesn't matter what your symptom is, the energy; you know, we have our body's, we have the bones and the vascular system and our skin and our breathing apparatus, and then, what's behind all of that? Energy. Things come through our energy first. So if you're phobic of driving over bridges and I'm not, well, what's the difference? The difference is us. It's not the bridge. Same bridge. Same bridge, same town.

Kevin: Right.

Carol: So what we like to say to people is it is acupuncture without the needles. Or, psychological acupuncture. So you have to be focused on the issue. You have to be in the energy field. You have to be in that head of it, of the problem. And then while you're there, while you've called up the file, you tap and say words, so that your brain can reprocess what the problem is and what you've been working with.

That's why, you know, some people will say, 'Carol, how can you use this for attracting abundance and for pain control and for stopping chocolate cravings?' Because it's the same thing that we're getting, we're getting to the bottom line. We're getting to the foundation of all our issues. And the foundation is a disruption in the energy system.

Kevin: So you're saying that the ancient Chinese medicine has talked about congestion in the meridian channels for a long period of time. Now these are some of things, that you just mentioned, are some of the things that are manifested from that. What are some of the other things that come about from this 'congestion'?

Carol: Well, it could be low energy. It could be the Chinese Master that I see now, downtown in New York, he's written several books on breast cancer.

Kevin: Okay.

Carol: And so, cancers, diseases, susceptibility to diseases, pain, cravings, anxiety, the incredible incidence of anxiety in our society, it's really, really high. I don't think it used be that high 100 years ago.

Kevin: Okay.

Carol: So, you know, these disruptions, what happens, these disruptions happen in our body, at this energetic, electrical level. You know, if you don't have electricity in your body, if they can't hook you up to an EKG or an ECG, you know, you're dead, right?

We are full of electricity and energy. And what happens is it gets, basically the wiring gets a little faulty, you know?

Kevin: Uh huh. Uh huh.

Carol: Depending on what you've been exposed to. What the subconscious communication in your family is. What the pollutions are. How you eat. How you think. How you're taught. Basically, our wiring needs retuning and I love using that phrase for people. We can rewire the brain.

Those are current theories right now about the plasticity of our brain and how we're able to really neutralize traumas. I mean, really incredible traumas that have happened for people. And many times, what are people doing when they overeat, over drink, over, you know, look at the computer. What are they doing? They're trying to numb their feelings.

Kevin: Okay.

Carol: Well, where do the feelings come from? The feelings come from high anxiety, or childhood abuse, or some kind of trauma, as I said. You know, a car accident, or witnessing something painful, or having a loss, grief.

So there are many things that we bump into as humans that need to be cleared in our system. We can't just walk away and say, 'Oop. No problem. That didn't bother me. That car accident, no problem.' We can't walk away that way. It gets lodged in ourselves and every cell in our body.

Kevin: Hmm.

Carol: So, we're using this tapping technique. A lot of people call it the 'tapping technique instead of EFT. We're using the tapping to rewire and neutralize and normalize your reaction.

Kevin: Now, the old story is to change some of these things that you're mentioning, anxieties and all of this, is to spend a lot of time
with them. Now, EFT deals with things very efficiently, in most cases.

A lot of people could probably say that that is kind of strange. They
might not believe that. What do you have to say for both practices, in terms of, the old way to look at this and now EFT as maybe skipping over some of that?

Carol: Well, the old way, traditional psychotherapy is about insight and talking and reworking the trauma. And sometimes, it still works, right?

Kevin: Yeah.

Carol: I still have people coming to me for regular psychotherapy. And they don't want to do any of the alternative methods. And frankly, we're quite used to spending a long time discussing and talking about our problems.

EFT gets, cuts so quickly to the chase. Because we're going to the energy, we're going to the problem.

Kevin: Okay.

Carol: We're going right to the heart of it with the tapping and the wording and the focus and the intention and attention that I have seen problems that are supposedly 'longstanding' disappear quite quickly. And I mean disappear. One of my famous stories, I just tell it all the time, because I love it, is doorman, who had migraines for 25 years.

Kevin: Wow.

Carol: He hasn't had one in six years because of the tapping.

Kevin: Really?

Carol: Migraines that made him lie down, go to bed, the doormen would say, 'Oh, God! That's Angel, he's in bed again because of his migraines.' The made fun of him. Now they make fun of him because sometimes he taps.

(Both laugh) But this, 25 years of migraines are gone? How do you make sense of that?

Kevin: Yeah.

Carol: How do you make sense of these people losing weight for the first time? They've done 47 diets. It's not that they've lost weight for the first time, but they've kept it off for the first time.