Conquer Your Stress with EFT

Firstly let me make it clear that stress makes you sick, stupid and powerless. I know that might sound somewhat drastic but so is the epidemic of stress that blights our modern life. Anyone can be stressed at any age from babies to the elderly.

We rush through our days, eat the wrong food, have unpleasant and scary things happen, put up with less than inspiring jobs and even worse less than fulfilling relationships, so what can you do about improving things?
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It is easier than you think to make a start towards getting a life that does fulfil you and makes you happy. Just believing that it is possible is a major step for many people. We have all developed beliefs about life and how we must live it, throughout our lives, however most of these beliefs are set up in our childhood and lots are based on incorrect, missing or simply outdated information. ​

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So when you find yourself unable to ask your boss for that well-deserved wage rise it may well be because you are running an old belief all the way from when you were 5 years old and were told off by your Mum or Dad for always wanting things, you know the ones, ‘I want doesn’t get’ or ‘you can’t always get what you want’, these long standing beliefs stop us asking for what we truly deserve and what we are worth.

What can we do to change something like this; firstly you need to be aware of it so every time you feel yourself doing something you don’t want to do or not saying something you want to say, feeling anxious or afraid ask yourself these four questions:

• What emotion are you feeling?
• Where do you feel it in your body?
• What are you telling yourself and is it true?
• How old do you feel?

Emotions that you feel in your body are an indication that your body’s energy system is distressed and that energy is not flowing freely because it is blocked in some way.
There are many simple and easy ways that we can all use to increase the flow of energy in our energy body and help reduce our stress levels:

• Move about, dance, run or walk.
• Practice yoga, tai chi, meditation or mindfulness
• Spend some time in nature or with animals.
• Listen to music or play a musical instrument.
• Making changes to what we eat and developing healthy eating habits.
• Changing our lifestyle to incorporate more things we enjoy doing.

However I have found that while all of those methods are great there is one way that I believe really can offer us all a safe, easy and quick way to manage our fears and anxieties, to increase our energy flow and increase our sense of wellbeing in the moment. That method is EFT, shortened from Emotional Freedom Techniques or just ‘Tapping’.
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EFT works directly on the energy system by tapping on up to 14 acupressure points on the head, upper body and hands, see the diagram below to find where the points are.

Take a few minutes now to have a go at tapping gently on each of the points while breathing in and out slowly and deeply and see how much calmer you feel.
Now you can try adding how you feel while you tap for example;

 ‘I feel anxious about......’,
‘I feel sad about....’,
‘I feel angry because...’, 
‘ I feel afraid when.......happens’,
‘ I feel stressed about........’.

Tap as many rounds of the points as you need until you start to feel more relaxed and comfortable, you can then change your negative emotion to how you would like to feel, for example;

‘I feel  confident when I...’
‘I feel happy......’
‘I feel calm when.......’
‘I feel capable of....’

If you practice EFT regularly, tapping until you feel really happy and confident you will notice that you are starting to change some of those old beliefs that have been holding you back into more positive beliefs and behaviour.

If you are having a lot of emotionally overwhelming problems that stem from unpleasant memories, very recent trauma or really long standing issues tapping by yourself may not be enough and you will need to get some help from a registered EFT Practitioner like myself.
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Happy Tapping
Barbara Saph