EFT is so powerful for dissolving emotional blocks and letting us do our ‘deep work’ that we may overlook its suitability as a simple relaxation technique to help us achieve peak performance.

I’d like to share a recent example, using EFT with a group of horseback riders who were preparing for a Hunter-Jumper show.

Preparation: An EFT Demo

I met with these riders in a group while they were doing a week-long riding clinic, and gave them a 15-minute introduction to EFT and how to use it. The group was all-female and included youth and adult riders of varying experience and skill levels. Some had received EFT instruction from me before, and others were new to it. A few of them were practicing to ride in a show four days later.

I asked the group for one example of a problem a rider was having in the clinic. One young rider, riding a lesson horse that can be notoriously stubborn, volunteered, “I can’t keep Blue from diving in off the rail” (meaning, trying to trot in to the center of the arena instead of following the fence around.) I asked her how she felt when that happened, and she said “Frustrated.” Excellent example, which I used to teach the group how to tap.

We tapped on “Even though I can’t keep Blue from diving in and it makes me frustrated, I’m a great rider.” Given that there were several youngsters, I chose this closing phrase rather than “I deeply and completely accept myself.” We did not use a Intensity Level (SUDS) to check this statement; I was going for a more generalized, group experience with these riders.

I had everyone check their body sensations after the round, and they each noticed some degree of relaxation.

As the class resumed, I also took a couple of the riders aside to show them how to tap while in the saddle. For horseback riders, EFT is a great modality because they can use it while mounted. (The rider’s safety comes first; the horse needs to be calm and still, the rider needs to have a hand on the reins, and there should also be a person on the ground to give a hand if the horse does become restless.)

While working, I periodically looked for Blue, the problem lesson horse, and noticed that things seemed to be going well.

After about half an hour, I checked in with Blue’s young rider for her perspective, and she reported that she was having no trouble keeping him on the rail. She also jumped him successfully as the class proceeded to practicing their jumps.

I then showed the riders two tapping points for the horses that often produce calm; different horses prefer different points. One point is on the horse’s forehead, roughly where the sworl of hair is, or what we think of the “third eye” spot; the second is on the horse’s upper lip, between the nostrils or about an inch lower (the exact spot depends on the horse, some horses will lip your fingers if you’re too close to the mouth, but will respond well to tapping higher on the nostrils .)

This was all the work I did with these riders in their clinic.

At The Show

Four days later, I attended the show to give a hand with the tapping for those who needed it. Two youth riders and two adult riders used EFT in real-time between rounds, to improve their performance. Each used it while mounted, either with me or with their trainer/instructor. The trainer and I watched the rounds, and worked with the riders on specific elements.

Results from this show:

• Sarah, a youth rider, was nervous in her first class, and it affected her performance and her placing. She had been tapping on generally doing well, but after placing last in the first class, she and her trainer then focused the EFT technique. They narrowed it from working on “generally doing well” in the show to the elements she needed to improve. Sarah went on to win a first place in her more-difficult canter flat class, executing her skills solidly.

• Emma, a youth rider moving up to Maiden Riders Division, wasn’t as relaxed and solid as she needed to be in her first rounds. Her horse refused a fence, and rushed a few others, due to Emma’s nervousness on the more challenging course. Her trainer zeroed in on her two-point position, (the position a rider takes when going over a fence) and told Emma that she was not getting into two-point which was affecting her jumping. Before her last class, Emma and I tapped two rounds specifically on her two-point position; in her last class, her two-point position was solid and her jumps were clean. She won Reserve Champion for the division, and the judge specifically complimented her two-point position in the last round.

• Helen, an adult beginning rider riding in her first show, placed last in her first class, struggling with an understandable case of nerves. To add to Helen’s challenges at her first show, she is from Russia and has only been in the US a short time. Her inexperience on horseback, language barriers, and show nerves gave her a lot to overcome. Between her first and second round she used her EFT skills, conquered her nerves, and finished 3d in the most challenging class of her division, the ridden pattern equitation class.

• The judge’s comment to the trainer/instructor on these riders: “All of your students’ rides got better as they went along.” This is significant because riders and/or horses often become tired as the show goes on. Either the rider or the horse, or both, are likely to become less organized and less focused toward the end of the day than they were at the beginning. To see a consistent pattern of improvement among a group of riders of different ages is rare, and a significant outcome.

• The trainer commented that EFT kept all her riders focused.

• Each of the EFT rounds used during the show was done in less than five minutes, while the riders were mounted. The riders had fun using their tapping skills!

There are several significant takeaways for amateur competition from this example:

• EFT was taught mechanically, and applied only to executing specific skills

• We did not work on any emotional issues, and we narrowly defined our desired outcomes: “Keeping Blue on the rail”, or “Improving my two-point”

• At the show, we kept the rounds short and we kept them fun

• Their trainer/instructor reinforced this tool, tapping with them or asking me to do so, and encouraging them to tap with each other. This helps give it credibility to the rider, who can then use it openly and with the assistance of teammates as part of her tool-kit

• Although the riders themselves knew they improved, the results and judge’s comments also provided an objective measure of how the EFT had helped

An added bonus for riders is that horses look for coherence in humans; that is, when biological systems such as brainwaves and heart rhythms become regular and synchronized. This gives a focused and relaxed energy that the horse, a prey animal expert at picking up on energy states, responds to. The horse can then also relax and access its own skills, and the team of horse and rider reinforces one another positively.

Thus, the use of EFT with easily-quantifiable goals and a focus on relaxation and skill-execution helps both horse and rider.

These results can be generalized to any sport or hobby. For amateur competitors, the relaxing and focusing aspects of EFT may be all they need to allow them to access the skills they have practiced at home and accomplish their goals.

Ange Dickson Finn is an AAMET-certified Level 2 EFT Practitioner. She is based in the Houston, Texas, and works with clients over the phone and via Skype. Ange has helped clients with issues including physical pain, health and well-being, work-related stress, equestrian sports and relationships. Visit her on the web at www.TapIntoYourself.com or www.RideWithoutFear.com. Contact her via email at ange [at] tapintoyourself.com.

Dr. David Feinstein’s original article, Energy Psychology: Snake Oil or Designer Tool for Neural Change? included this account, reprinted with kind permission from the November 2010 issue of the Psychotherapy Networker.

In 2006, psychologist Caroline Sakai conducted a study of Energy Psychology treatments with 50 Rwandan orphans. The outcomes, recently reported in The International Journal of Emergency Mental Health and summarized in the article, vastly exceed those of any previous peer-reviewed study of a PTSD treatment in terms of speed, degree of effectiveness, and percentage of subjects who were helped. Here, Sakai describes the experience of one of the study’s participants, a 15-year-old girl who was 3 at the time of the 1994 genocide:

She’d been hiding with her family and other villagers inside the local church. The church was stormed by men with machetes, who started a massacre. The girl’s father told her and other children to run and to not look back for any reason. She obeyed and was running as fast as she could, but then she heard her father ‘screaming like a crazy man.’ She remembered what her father had said, but his screams were so compelling that she did turn back and, in horror, watched as a group of men with machetes murdered him.

A day didn’t pass in the ensuing 12 years without her experiencing flashbacks to that scene. Her sleep was plagued by nightmares tracing to the memory. In her treatment session, I asked her to bring the flashbacks to mind and to imitate me as I tapped on a selected set of acupuncture points while she told the story of the flashbacks. After a few minutes, her heart-wrenching sobbing and depressed affect suddenly transformed into smiles. When I asked her what happened, she reported having accessed fond memories. For the first time, she could remember her father and family playing together. She said that until then, she had no childhood memories from before the genocide.

We might have stopped there, but I instead directed her back to what happened in the church. The interpreter shot me a look, as if to ask, “Why are you bringing it back up again when she was doing fine?” But I was going for a complete treatment. The girl started crying again. She told of seeing other people being killed. She reflected that she was alive because of her father’s quick thinking, distracting the men’s attention while telling the children to run.

The girl cried again when she reexperienced the horrors she witnessed while hiding outside with another young child–the two of them were to be the only survivors from their entire village. Again, the tapping allowed her to have the memory without having to relive the terror of the experience.

After about 15 or 20 minutes addressing one scene after another, the girl smiled and began to talk about her family. Her mother didn’t allow the children to eat sweet fruits because they weren’t good for their teeth. But her father would sneak them home in his pockets and, when her mother wasn’t looking, he’d give them to the children. She was laughing wholeheartedly as she relayed this, and the translator and I were laughing with her.

We then went on to work through a number of additional scenes. Finally, when she was asked, “What comes up now as you remember what happened at the church,” she reflected, without tears, that she could still remember what happened, but that it was no longer vivid like it was still happening. It had now faded into the distance, like something from long ago. Then she started to talk about other fond memories. Her depressed countenance and posture were no longer evident.

Over the following days, she described how, for the first time, she had no flashbacks or nightmares, and was able to sleep well. She looked cheerful and told me how elated she was about having happy memories about her family. Her test scores had gone from well above the PTSD cutoff to well below it after this single treatment session, and remained there on the follow-up assessment a year later.

Read the original article, “Energy Psychology: Snake Oil or Designer Tool for Neural Change?”

Today was rather interesting. I am an elementary school counselor, and I have a student who comes to me because he has difficulty controlling his anger. He often yells that he has anger problems. He also hates the tapping. He thinks it is dumb.

So today he came again and was talking about how everybody else makes him mad, that he can’t help it, that his body just takes over, that he is just so mad!

This time, I decided to try things a little differently. I told him that he did not have to tap, but he did have to pay attention. I would just tap on myself, if that would be ok with him. It was. I also asked if I could be him. He agreed.

So I began with,

Even though I’m so mad that I can hardly stand it, I’m still ok. All this anger. I deserve to be angry. I should be, with all of the garbage that I put up with. I probably should be even more angry than I already am.

All the while, he is playing with toys. I remind him that his part is to pay attention. He agrees. So while I am going through this anger protocol, he begins to add to it, little things like. “Yup, that’s right.” “Yah, I should be.” “You know what else they did to me?”

After about 5 minutes of this at the most, he has a shift. He starts telling me how good he is feeling. Then he tells me what a great counselor I am and how he has told his brother, who he says has the same problems, that I really help him. I incorporate into my tapping that “I am a great kid, and I really like this nice feeling.” “Maybe I can choose to have a good rest of the day.”

He left me with a completely different demeanor.

Talk about surrogate tapping!

Monica Broadfoot Johnson
www.eftgetsubetter1.com

Last week my daughter took four days of nature classes in Yosemite National Park. On the second day I helped chaperon the group of eight kids. We began to hike up a steep trail toward the top of Yosemite Falls, but one little girl, “Anna”, age 9, was really holding up the group. She kept repeating that she “hated heights” and wanted to go back down right now. She would only walk very slowly, and only with the teacher holding her hand.

When we stopped for a break I could see the teacher was frustrated and at a loss, so I asked the little girl if she’d like me to help take away her fear. I told her that was my job back home and it was very easy and wouldn’t hurt at all.

After some hesitation she agreed and I had her tap on her karate chop point with the set up statement:

“Even though I have this fear of heights I’m a great kid.”

We tapped the short cut points with “This fear of heights” but about halfway through, another little boy shouted “does anyone want my apple?” totally distracting Anna.

I had to ask for her attention again to complete that single round of tapping. Nevertheless, when I asked about her fear, she in a very matter of fact voice: “It’s gone.”

And it was! No more problems hiking.

The other chaperon was very excited by this success. He asked if this EFT only worked on children? This made me laugh since I rarely get to work with kids in my practice. He told me his wife, “Jane” had a severe height phobia and I agreed to work with her back at our camp the next morning.

When I asked Jane to just think about heights in the most general way, she reported her anxiety as an 8 out of 10. A round of tapping on “this fear of heights” only brought it down to a 7. Not much improvement. I added in the 9 point gamut, but got no real change.

I asked how she knew it was a 7 and she said there was a heavy feeling on her heart. So we began tapping on “This heavy feeling on my heart” and after six or seven rounds we got it down to zero. It took some persistence!

After that I asked her for specific situations that had triggered her fear. Climbing to the top of a ladder, to get into her attic, was a big one. Especially the feeling of falling over backwards. She started about a 7 again, but this time it only took three rounds, which included “This falling over backwards feeling”.

The next memory was about going on a carnival ride with her son. Even though the ride was “only” about 15 feet high, and she trusted it enough to put her son on it, she’d been in tears the whole time and very embarrassed by her fear.

I had her tap the karate chop point and say:

“Even though I was afraid of this dumb kiddie ride…”

and at that point she began to laugh. She laughed and laughed harder until tears were running down her cheeks. Her husband looked at me in astonishment. I’m used to sighs and yawns, but this was a huge release of energy. We never got past the set up statement because she said all the anxiety was gone.

I asked her to vividly imagine various scenarios—standing on a cliff edge, at the top of a wobbly ladder, etc. She said she could maybe get up to a “2” so we did one more round of general tapping.

Luckily there was a fairly large boulder right next to the campsite. I had her climb up to the top and stand on the edge, about 10 feet off the ground. No anxiety. I had her husband hold onto her coat while she put her feet right on the edge and closed her eyes. I had her imagine she was on the edge of a precipice. No anxiety.

It had taken nearly an hour—no one minute miracle this time, but we called it a success.

That evening her husband came up to me and said he had “photographic evidence” on his digital camera. The pictures showed Jane climbing the very steep and sheer path up to Vernal Falls, then standing a foot away from a vertical drop (she was still using normal caution). I was elated, but it wasn’t till the next day, when I hiked up that path myself, that I really got how successful we’d been.

I’d have to say we were three happy campers!

Rob Nelson
www.TaprootsEnergyPsychology.com

I am teaching horseback riders to use Relaxation Tapping, aimed primarily at fear issues. Fears are a huge block for riders. Of course, since horses are such exquisitely sensitive animals, they quickly pick up on our anxieties and often fulfill our worst fears!

I taught tapping to a group of riders of all ages this summer, in a lesson where the riders were practicing jumps. One rider, that day, stood out for me, and taught me a lot about trusting intuition and letting the process work through me.

The class learned EFT on a break, then went back to work practicing going over small jumps. I was watching the class when I caught sight of Sarah, an 8 year old rider. She was furiously tapping her collarbone, and reported that she had butterflies in her stomach. I asked if she wanted me to tap on myself for her, but she said no.

I began to talk to her about the butterflies and she told me she felt nervous. She said, “I don’t like being around people, it makes me nervous, and I’d rather be alone.”

I smiled and assured her that I often felt the same way, trying to build rapport. It was pretty clear I wasn’t succeeding, though, and I began to anxiously pray for some guidance!

By this time, she had tears in her eyes. Great, I was making things worse. Finally my intuition and EFT began to work through me, in an interesting way. It occurred to me I had been staring intently in her eyes, trying to read her affect. The cardinal rule for frightened animals popped into my head: staring directly at them will increase their anxiety. I realized I should take the pressure off in the same way I would with a horse or dog: by facing slightly away and not looking at her. I dropped my gaze to her horse, and asked again if I could tap on myself saying the phrases for her. This time, she said yes.

I stood near her horse’s neck and touched his shoulder, looking at him and with my body angled a little away from Sarah, who was still mounted.

I stayed faithful to her words and tapped a round on, “Even though I don’t like being around people and I’d rather be alone, I’m an awesome kid.” I checked with her when we finished. She said it didn’t help much, but I noticed the tears were gone from her eyes and she changed her focus from the people to the horses. She told me, “No matter which horse I ride, these horses keep trying to buck me off.”

We made this our next round. This time, I tried including some emotionally-laden phrases, including

“Even though these horses scare me…”
“Even though these mean, bad scary horses keep trying to buck me off…”
“I don’t like it, I don’t like these horses trying to buck me off…”

We tapped a few rounds with me saying these various statements as we went around the points.

Next I tried “Even though I don’t trust these horses” but felt intuitively that I needed to check that. Sarah’s response was, “I do trust them, but I came from another barn, and I’m not used to it here yet, and it makes me nervous.” (Interesting how clearly her aspects showed up and she was able to articulate them for me.)

So I tapped on that while she watched. I saw a tiny yawn, so I stopped. Even though she did not say she was feeling better, her whole affect changed. She perked up, and shifted her attention from me. She was no longer focusing on me, no longer seemed concerned, and transformed into a wiggly little girl wanting to spend a little more time on her horse. She even wanted to ride through the course of jumps again. The entire session had only taken about 5 minutes.

The lesson for me was, the changes were so quick and so subtle, they might easily have been missed. Again comparing it to working with animals, I realized that I needed to really notice these physical changes and not push beyond the moment of success–adults might be tolerant of that, but not kids. It reminded me that healthy children take the state of emotional equilibrium for granted; once they’ve achieved it, they’re simply off to the next thing, not exclaiming over how good it feels to be free of their problem.

A follow up from five months later: Sarah came up to visit with my horse as I saddled him, and I asked her about school. She told me her teachers yell a lot. I reminded her about the tapping and said she could use it for that when the teachers got her upset. She looked at me like I was a bit slow in the head, and said, “Oh, yeah, I use it all the time!”

Sarah taught me a lot about relaxing and letting the process work through me.

Ange Finn

This article is available in Spanish. Go to the Spanish translation.

I recently did a weight loss class for a group of elementary school teachers in which I taught them EFT. The next week, one of them reported to us on how she had been using tapping with her kindergartners. Each morning the children have a sharing circle to start their day, and their teacher helps them focus on good thoughts and positive feelings. Now she is incorporating a simple version of tapping.

In their sharing circle, the teacher tells the children, “Let’s tell your body to have a peaceful day.” Then she has them tap on the Karate Chop spot and say three times, “I’m going to have a peaceful day.”

Then she tells them, “Let’s tell your mind to have a peaceful day.” She has them tap on the Top of Head and say three times, “I’m going to have a peaceful day.”

The teacher told me she is not sure the whole tapping procedure would be an easy sell to parents or administrators, so she prefers to keep it simple. The version she has created is easy to blend into their morning ritual. She thinks it is releasing stress and helping the kids get a good start to the day. And now they are all familiar with tapping so that if she needs to calm a child, she can say, “let’s tap again to get rid of that anger so you can have a peaceful day.” Then she can guide the upset child in some tapping.

One of the wonderful features of EFT is its flexibility. I often tell people that EFT can be woven seamlessly into whatever approach we already have and that it will simply enhance whatever we are already doing. This teacher seems to have a very gentle and supportive approach in her kindergarten class. It is beautiful to see how she found a way to creatively bring in some EFT, and how this daily dose of tapping is supporting their classroom goal of everyone being able to have a peaceful day.