Increasing your effectiveness with EFT, part 219.
One of the most discouraging experiences when doing EFT is feeling like you are putting in the effort, noticing a little relief while you tap, but then finding that the underlying issue doesn’t seem to improve very much.
Perhaps you feel calmer for a few minutes afterwards, but the next day you find yourself back where you started. After a while, it is easy to begin wondering whether the issue is simply too deeply rooted to ever change.
If you’ve ever had that thought, you’re certainly not alone.
One thing I think is important to point out is that experiencing even temporary or partial relief is actually an encouraging sign. It tells us that the issue is responding to tapping. The challenge is that some issues are relatively simple, while others are much more complex. By “complex”, I don’t necessarily mean more severe. I simply mean that they are made up of many different pieces, each one carrying its own emotional charge.
You can think of it as trying to solve a puzzle. Working on one piece may help, but it doesn’t necessarily complete the whole picture. Over time, as we gently work through more of those pieces, the issue often begins to shift in a more noticeable way.
One of the reasons this process can take time is that there are often several different layers asking to be heard.
For example, there may be beliefs about how possible (or not) it is to resolve the issue itself, such as, “Maybe this will never go away because my childhood trauma runs too deep”. That belief can carry a lot of emotional charge, and it can become a valuable target for tapping in its own right.
Sometimes there are also identity-related fears. A part of us may wonder, “Who would I even be if I didn’t have this problem anymore?”. Even if we consciously want to heal, another part may experience the possibility of change as unfamiliar or even frightening.
There can also be fears about what might happen if the issue were to resolve.
For one person, healing might feel like letting someone “off the hook” for the pain they caused. Someone else may feel that letting go of grief means loving the other person less. Another person may fear that becoming less guarded will leave them vulnerable to being hurt again.
These concerns often make perfect sense once we take the time to listen to them.
Self judgment can be another important layer. Sometimes people carry shame about having the issue in the first place, or about the younger parts of themselves that still feel wounded. Those feelings deserve the microphone just as much as the original problem does.
And very often, there are specific memories or younger selves carrying emotional wounds that are still waiting for some attention. As those memories gradually lose their emotional charge, the larger issue often begins to soften as well.
This is also one of the reasons why working with an EFT practitioner can sometimes be helpful, especially when dealing with long-standing or complex issues. Through the questions they ask and the way they follow what comes up during the session, it is often possible to uncover important aspects that were outside of our awareness and therefore never became targets for tapping.
Sometimes these hidden pieces emerge because of a question the practitioner asks. Other times they arise organically while we are already tapping on something we know about. In my experience, once enough rapport and a sense of safety have developed, clients will often remember experiences, beliefs, or younger selves that had never come to mind when tapping on their own. Those newly uncovered aspects can sometimes become key pieces of the puzzle, allowing meaningful progress where previously the issue seemed stuck.
The common thread running through all of these examples is that anything connected to the issue that carries emotional charge can become a useful place to tap.
At the same time, we want to be mindful of the “cup of tea” analogy that I’ve mentioned in previous articles. Our goal is to connect with enough emotion for the tapping to have something to work with, but not so much that we become overwhelmed. If, at any point, the cup of tea starts becoming boiling hot, it can be helpful to gently back away.
One simple way of doing this is to continue tapping silently while shifting some of your attention toward something that feels neutral or pleasant. You might notice the sensation of your fingertips tapping, the feeling of your feet on the ground, the view outside your window, or even think about your favorite animal or television show. This often helps send cues of safety to the nervous system, allowing you to return to the issue more gradually.
Another question that comes up quite often is what phrases to use while tapping.
When we are working on our own, it can sometimes feel quite difficult to come up with the “right” setup statement. Fortunately, the words themselves are not what make EFT effective. Their purpose is to help us connect with the emotional charge we want to process.
For that reason, if you already find yourself emotionally tuned in (perhaps you’re crying, feeling anxious, or caught in a loop of rumination), you can simply begin tapping silently while allowing yourself, to whatever degree is possible, to feel what you’re feeling and think what you’re thinking. There is no requirement to come up with a perfectly worded setup statement before you begin.
Some people also find it helpful to imagine they are talking to someone they trust. Rather than trying to construct formal tapping phrases, they simply vent or rant about what is going through their mind while they continue tapping through the points. In many ways, this resembles what naturally happens during an EFT session with a practitioner.
When an issue has been present for many years, meaningful change often comes from patiently exploring it from many different angles. Every time we give another emotionally charged thought, belief, memory, fear, or younger part the microphone, we create another opportunity for the emotional charge surrounding the issue to become a little lighter. Those individual shifts may seem small in the moment, but over time they can begin adding up in ways that are difficult to appreciate when we are only looking at today’s tapping session.
That said, when it comes to doing EFT, it’s not always easy to do it by ourselves. If you’d like some support exploring what’s coming up for you, you can learn more about my approach at brunosade.com.
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I’m Bruno Sade, a clinical psychologist and Accredited Certified Advanced EFT Practitioner. I work online with people around the world, helping them reduce the emotional charge behind difficult thoughts, memories, and triggers.
If you’re curious about experiencing EFT in a guided session, I occasionally offer a free EFT tapping session in exchange for a brief market research interview. You can sign up here.
