Sweet Miracles

My EFT Level II workshop is this Sun and i’m still brainstorming for the material. It’s more of having to organise the material and its delivery. I know i have LOTS to share… question is what and how. I sure hope the participants are going to be asking questions, cos that is usually what keeps the show alive. It’s going to be a small crowd this time round… abt 20% of my 2 EFT Level I workshops combined, but it’s ok. It’s still a good start and i never wld have guessed that i wld be doing an EFT Level II workshop now if you were to ask me 6 mths ago. i DID manifest for doing workshops though… and i’m really blessed and thankful that the universe responded (as they always do), and i’m given this opportunity to share this part of me that i love.

EFT Level II is going to consists of 2 parts. I’m wondering if i shld break it up into 2 workshops in future, cos 1 part can be relevant to anybody, as it is abt the Palace of Possibilities, that focuses on breaking through your personal limitations with EFT and fulfilling your highest potential. The 2nd part is based on Being The Ultimate Therapist DVD and bits from other DVDs. This part would be more relevant to those in the helping field as it focuses on dvelving more deeply into the ART of EFT, and how to skilfully use it with other people.

I have sorta worked out some parts of POP, so tonight (or rather this morning) i’m going to list out all the techniques i have either learnt from the newsletters or Gary Craig, or have come up with myself, that can be applied in an EFT session. Probably i’ll be compiling this into handouts for the participants and do as many demos as possible, cos from personal experience, live learning beats book learning hands down. Goodness knows how much material i have brought back from workshops and courses that have remained unread. The most valuable and sustained learning i get is actually from watching live demos and audience discussions, so i guess that will be my main mode of teaching for EFT Level II.

Okie, shall start my list of techniques now:

1) EFT with Gestalt therapy.

I like to invite relevant parties to sit in the remaining chairs of the counselling room, and get the client to talk to them while tapping on their karate chop point. If appropriate, this can also be done with the client’s eyes closed, which is sometimes preferable because i can tap on all the points for them. Usually, they are so engrossed in ventilating their feelings that the tapping doesn’t distract them, and i have come to believe that tapping is another form of induction (a term used in hypnosis) that can help them focus more deeply on their inner experience.

This can be powerful therapy, even without EFT, as it is often extremely liberating for the client to express all the unsaid pain to the other party. The healing effect is amplified with EFT, as i believe EFT can releases the resistances and help words to flow out more smoothly, and clears the emotional baggage along the way. Gestalt therapy is a wonderful way of using EFT because it kinda brings the issue to the here and now, and as long as the client is willing, i find that most clients are able to talk to the invisible party as if he or she is really here.

Occasionally, i have to remind the client not to talk to me, but talk to the person directly, but most of the time, even if they look at me, they do address the person directly and emotions often pour out.

I sometimes use the techniques from 5 PATH Hypnotherapy Forgiveness of Others, which include dialogue with the other party, usually in a very harsh manner, to elicit forgiveness from the client. This is not my natural preference, though i can be very stern if i want to, as i find it a little manipulative, but i must say it can be quite effective.

2) Going through the layers with EFT

This is EFT incorporated into a technique from The Journey Process by Brandon Bays. The powerful part of this technique is that it encourages the person to keep focusing on the strongest emotion, which in itself IS therapy. The words i use go something like “Find the strongest emotions or sensations in your body… gently place your focus on them… allow your breath to bring you deeper into the emotion or sensation until you get to the very core… when you reach there, just stay there, and note what new emotions or sensations arise…” In the meantime, i tap continuously on the client. I keep this very flexible because diff clients respond differently to this technique. For one, i have a client who doesn’t tell me what she experiences, but she would cry profusely, and i’m not sure if she even knows why she is crying. To her, the tears are a sign of healing and she is happy with this therapy. The client i mentioned in the recent entry CAN describe very well the layers of emotions she went through, so i can do the Setup Phrase with her using her words, and then proceed to tap on the rest of the points using some variation of the script above.

It’s not pure Journey for sure, but this aspect sure works very well with EFT because it brings the client deep into their suppressed emotions, and EFT helps to clear them. This is not a technique for finding out more about the client’s problem. I can sit with a client using this technique and have no idea what their problem is, and to me, that’s no problem at all! If the client keeps coming back, i can only take it that the therapy is helping. If it’s gd for the client, that’s gd enough for me.

Note: This may be similar to Gary’s chasing the pain technique because his focuses on sensations, and in my script, i include emotions, sensations AND thoughts. Basically, any possible manifestation of the blockages in the body. In fact, i also learnt from Carol Look, EFT Master, abt just going with the client’s thoughts that pop up during tapping. It’s the client’s inner experience that leads the session, because that’s the body’s indication of what else needs to be healed. So consider this Going through the layers as a consolidation of all that i have learnt from these various masters (it’s always cool when i can integrate all my learnings into one!).

3) Creative visualisation with EFT

Disclaimer: this is what i think creative visualisation is, cos i have never learnt it from someone who claims to know creative visualisation. If the term is self-explanatory, then hopefully i’m on the right track.

I LOVE this technique cos it’s so fun! I first stumbled upon it in the EFT newsletters, where pple shared the NLP technique of getting the person to describe the emotion in terms of location in body, colour, shape, size, mass, etc. It’s a bizarre question to many, and i was initially reluctant to use it with clients, but as my confidence in myself as a therapist grew, my confidence in my clients grew as well and indeed, most clients that i use this technique with are able to respond very well.

One gd sign that the client will respond to this technique is that he is able to locate the emotion in his body. If a client cannot do that, then i bypass this technique altogether. When i have gotten enough info from the client about the symbolic manifestation of this problem (as much as needed, no need to press for complete info), we tap using the client’s description and it’s great fun to observe how the problem shifts, often in terms of colour and size.

Sometimes, i even ask the client, if this object can talk to you, what might it say. Note, however, that this is a pretty abstract question and only the highly imaginative client can answer. But no harm trying, and even the one-word answers are valuable info to tap on. In fact, even if the client says i don’t know, that’s also a potential area to tap on: Even though i don’t know what this black mould is saying to me…

I started to extend my use of this technique, almost by accident. One client described herself as not wanting to open the door in her heart. I grabbed hold of that analogy and asked her abt the door, her location in relation to the door, who she thinks might be outside the door, etc. Through tapping, she eventually went from her initial need to keep holding the doorknob to make sure nobody opens it, to her willingness to open the door halfway and stand a distance away from the doorknob, without the anxiety to close it again. She had a divorce recently, and we didn’t have to dvelve into the painful details. This process was lighthearted and almost like an adventure.

Another client mentioned her sensitivity to pple overstepping her boundaries. This was during a demo, and given the time constraints and the globalness of this issue, i was wondering how to proceed. Suddenly inspiration striked (i’m actually at my best when “performing” therapy in front of pple!), and i asked her to imagine the protection that she put up against the rest of the world. The image of a balloon came to her mind, and it was a balloon that has been scratched, torn, bruised, stretched, etc. A very sad image, and i really worked it during the tapping, paying attention to all the damage that has been done to the balloon cos even i felt sorry for the poor balloon. I also hinted to her that she didn’t trust that the balloon wld protect her, and she received the insight that she was prob responding to pple in an aggressive manner even before they stepped on her boundaries, so part of the damage done to the balloon cld be her fault. After every round, the damage lessened, and the balloon actually started to become more transparent, though the client felt safer inside.

My thinking, which i didn’t express to her, was that we set up boundaries because we don’t feel safe to be ourselves, and while the boundaries protect us, they also keep us away from the rest of the world. Thus, the fading away of her balloon may represent her increasing security, and willingness to connect to the world. I didn’t want to say this as it was a demo, and i didn’t want to put out ideas which may create confusion or doubt for her or the rest of the participants, but the participant feedbacked to me that this session was very helpful to her.

4) Goal setting with EFT

I used to think this was a toughie, because how would we measure whether we have been successful with EFT since we are talking about something in the future. I got this idea from Gary from one of his demos, where he got a participant who wanted to lose weight, to imagine herself at her ideal weight. She couldn’t get any image at first, and by the end, she was at least able to imagine a slender lower body with a floaty skirt.

Again, i stumbled upon another variation of this idea during my workshop demo. The client had money issues and i had him imagine his desired figure, and how distant it felt from him. It started off as being very far, and stirred up a lot of negative feelings in him. When we ended, it was reachable, and now he was neutral about both getting it and not getting it (this was specific to his context only).

I find this a wonderful and versatile tool that can be applied to almost any issue. It’s also fun to observe how the image of the problem comes nearer to the client, becomes clearer, and sometimes the content of the picture changes too. For a client with a weight loss issue, i asked him to imagine himself at his ideal weight which he was able to do, and with every round of tapping, the picture not only came closer, but the ideal weight him was smiling more, started dancing, and ended by rolling on the floor laughing. Haha… very reflective of the jovial personality of this particular client.

Sometimes i will prescribe the image for the client. For e.g., for a client who wanted to work on academic success, i asked him to imagine his paper with the grade he wanted. When the paper came closer and finally ended up in his hands, i felt a thrill for him! Other times, i will leave it to the client to decide how they want to enact the scene that best describes their goal. This depends on time constraints and client’s ability though the latter is usually preferable.

5) EFT and use of physical props

To apply the above technique for children, it may be helpful to use actual objects to connote the distance. For e.g. with a very young girl who didn’t like her brother, i told her that if her brother was sitting in the chair across the table, and now she has the choice of staying in her chair, choosing a chair further away and going up to her brother to hug him, which would she choose. Eventually, she was able to choose to hug her bro. Guess if i had toys or props ard, i cld use them too.

I think i have to credit this concept to Jeffrey Zeig who used anything and everything available for therapy. In one of his demos, a client had a dilemma to choose between his dreams and his obligations. Jeffrey loaded his lap with nearby books, papers, stationary, and hilariously topped it off his own shoe and sock! Of cos, the whole class laughed to tears, and so did the client though his was probably mingled with tears of helplessness. He continued to talk about his obligations, and Jeffrey put a chair right in front him. When the client talked somemore about his obligations, Jeffrey pushed the chair even nearer towards him. To me, that really demonstrated the power of using physical objects as an analogy. Credits also go to EFT newsletters cos i rem reading a contribution or two that demonstrated this technique as well.

I managed to apply this with Mr Gua Gua one day, during one of the coerced (yes, coerced!) EFT sessions with him. We worked on his physical discomfort and i had him describe the characteristics to me. He said it was quivering, so i put out my fist in front of him and shook it, and asked him if this is how it was like. He said yes. I asked him to tell me what it looked like to him. Being the typical uncoorporative client he was (though he was slightly more coorporative tt evening) , he said he didn’t know. I said, doesn’t it look like a time bomb waiting to go off? He looked at it again and went… oh yeah…. , which was my cue for us to tap on, even though there is a time bomb in me waiting to go off…

With another client who described her physical sensation as pulsating. I showed her my hand opening and closing and asked her if it looked like this. At that time, i didn’t know what an opening and closing hand looked like, and personally, i think it is impt for the therapist to not have all the answers, but to companion the client to examine the process with a open and curious attitude. She had no idea, but it came to me that my hand was clutching, grasping, and this was the perfect analogy for this client who was always worrying and unable to let go. She didn’t quite get it… on hindsight, i wld have slowed down the pace a lot more to give her time to process. But this is definitely a very useful way of working with clients, and when used effectively, can arise to powerful ah-has for the client.

Come to think of it, this is not quite an EFT technique, but rather a lead in to using EFT. To make it more EFT-related, i wld have to keep checking in with the client abt the change in the state of the problem/physical prop after doing EFT which might be possible. This can be even more challenging than creative visualisation… but it would force both the client and myself to think out of the box. The potential is definitely there.

6) Parts Meditation Therapy with EFT

The ideas on this are from Gary Craig, EFT newsletters, Jeffrey Zeig and one of the presenters from EFT Specialty Series 1DVDs. It is impt to acknowledge that there are always contradictions in our thinking. A part of us may want to get rid of the problem, but a part of us may want to keep the problem. A part of us may want the solution, but a part of us may be afraid of obtaining the solution.

One way is to deal with this is to acknowledge all the parts and tap on ALL of them, both the “good” and “bad” (there may be truly no such thing). “Even though a part of me wants this and a part of me wants that, I accept both parts and choose to merge them together as one.”

In relation, is our ability to go to and fro between 2 different options which often appear to contradict.  Jeffrey Zeig as well as that trainer from Specialty Series taught me that it can be helpful to lay them out side by side. The latter guy asks the person to visualise them side by side, and keep tapping until one of them appears brighter, clearer, nearer, etc, and i think the idea here is for the person to resolve some of the ambivalence. My understanding would be that the tapping would clear some of the distortions that the person have abt both options, and this would naturally lead to some sort of decision. Hmm… i think i need to rewatch that video again.

As for Jeffrey, he asks the person to put their hands palm facing upwards and literally weigh each option in their hands. Somehow, there tends to be a difference in weight while which gives us more info abt this issue and we tap accordingly. Sometimes i also check for the distance between the hands, cos it doesn’t always have to be an either this or that situation, and after the tapping, the client may find that both hands can come together – he can have the cake AND eat it.

I must say that these ideas aren’t as well developed as the rest but that may be because how this applied depends very much on the context. There is no definite process here.

7) EFT and prayer

This one came to me most recently. Before, it has been mentioned in the EFT newsletters, but when i read that, i felt that the writer’s take on this was just another way of presenting how u can do EFT with affirmations which i have already been doing frequently. To me, prayers are affirmations addressed to a divine source. But recently, i have asked 2 individual clients do actual prayers while i tapped on them. I guess why i say actual, is cos i asked them to do it for themselves, rather than me wording the prayer for them. One said it aloud, the other did it inwardly, and my task for was just to hold the space and also tap their karate chop point, which i believes reinforces the prayer internally. I believe the power of prayer, esp when it is expressed in the client’s own words, so EFT + prayer is a potent form of therapy, if u will. If the client happens to be spiritual and there was some mention of spirituality during the session, this is a pretty gd way to wrap up a particularly intensive session.

EFT and the inner child

I got this technique from listening to an interview between Tania Prince and someone else whom i unfortunately can’t rem the name of.  The technique is from the latter. I apply it when the client is in touch with an emotional experience from childhood. Instead of focusing on the situation, i ask the client to focus on her younger self (and optional, use gestalt therapy by inviting the child to sit on one of the chairs). I have the client describe the younger self’s physical appearance like dressing and hairstyle, and remember to ask for the childhood name if any. Then i ask for the younger self’s facial expression and emotional state. Then we do tapping for the child. “Even though you are very angry right now, you are a good girl and Daddy Mummy (or the client herself, if parents happen to be inappropriate) love you anyway”. In doing so, EFT helps to validate the inner child’s emotions and allow the client to develop compassion towards that child.

Often enough, by the end, the child would be smiling. Sometimes it may also be possible to interview the child to find out more about how she feels, but i think this depends on how far the client is able to go with me cos again, it takes openness and imagination. It may also be impt to ask the child what can be done to help the child feel better. It may be a toy, a hug, getting the help of an adult, and i can incorporate this into the tapping process to empower the child with whatever she needs to resolve the pain within her.

It can also be nice to invite the child into the client’s own heart, with both parties’ consent of course, and i will suggest affirmations of the client’s heart being a safe and nurturing place, and the child herself will help the client to become more confident. This is a great technique again from 5 PATH Hypntherapy, one that i have used before and really like. My most memorable recall of using this technique is with a client whose whole face was blissfully radiant, as her heart transformed into a paradise with flowers and swings where the little girl was happily running around. We have done some forgiveness work with her father by then and I even had her invite the little boy of her father into the paradise as well, where both of them were running ard hand in hand. It still touches my heart to think of this.

9) Surrogate tapping for another person

I will only do this if i have cleared enough of my client’s issues, and have a gd sense of the other person’s issues. I will certainly not do this if the client requests for it, because the request in itself shows the client’s need to resolve his or her own issues first. There is nothing much to say abt this as it is regular tapping, except that the person being tapped for isn’t ard. Sometimes the client can be the surrogate, or there is no surrogate and we are doing something like remote tapping. If the client plays the surrogate, it can be interesting for both client and myself to observe how the surrogate receives info about our progress, like the SUDS number may pop up, or like the most recent case of surrogate tapping, the surrogate receives images that indicate the issues themselves or the effect of the tapping on the issues. If not for therapy, this is probably a gd way of tapping into one’s own psychic abilities too! Another benefit is that the person playing the surrogate also receives additional insight about that other person, and sometimes him or herself, which may be another reason why i choose to use this during therapy. Come to think of it, to be a surrogate, you need to tune into another person and be completely nonjudgmental and objective, which is actually the perfect way to connect to just abt anybody in your life. Not everyone can be a surrogate, but if the client can, i think it’s a great way to improve the relationship btw the client and the other person too.

Okie.. i think i have covered most of the tools of my trade, and that’s quite a list isn’t it? Hopefully i can cover it all during the workshop.

If not for anything else, i’m ready to return to bed for a couple more hours before dawn. I have already caught 6 hrs of sleep cos little boy went to bed at 8 pm and i fell asleep together with him. The poor boy has been sick for the past few days and he got red spots on his face and body today so i thought it was measles, but my grandmother said it doesn’t look like it. His temperature has been back to normal these 2 days, so if his body is cleared by this morning, i’m sending him back to sch. Sometimes, returning to your normal routine jumpstarts the body back to health. Unless the routine is something you dread of cos, but little boy likes sch so it shld be fine. I’m thinking of someone else… and he knows who he is!

PS: I realised i typed the subject wrongly. In Gary’s DVDs, it’s BeCOMING the ultimate therapist. I take this as a sign that my own subconscious is affirming its belief in me. Haha!