Today I planned to drive out of town to do some shopping – but my paycheck, which I’d mailed to my bank, isn’t there yet. So the money I wanted to spend is suspended in time, waiting to be delivered. I’m grounded.

This caused a physical reaction – a narrowing and darkening of vision along with heat in the chest and arms, and of course there was accompanying emotional pain. I was worried about my finances! What if my check was lost or stolen? What if it never arrived? What a worry-wart I can be! Though life is full of disappointments, there are also ways to overcome them.

And what a great opportunity to use EFT, Emotional Freedom Techniques!

I used the setup phrase: “Even though my money hasn’t arrived at the bank yet and I’m worried about it, I deeply and completely accept myself.” Then I tapped using phrases like “worry about money” and “disappointment because the check isn’t there yet”, and “very upset because my check is not safe at the bank”.

It is such a simple thing to deal with life’s disappointing moments with EFT. Rather than going off on the kids, the spouse or the neighbors, we can use EFT to instantly feel better about whatever’s upsetting us.

The uses for this technique are endless. Having it as a tool to call upon when we’re disappointed and upset is a gift to us.

If you haven’t used EFT yet, I’m happy to tell you, it is easy to be effectively dealing with disappointment by using this simple system of tapping on energy meridians while vocalizing and concentrating on what you’re disappointed or upset about.

To Do EFT:

Start with a setup phrase that describes what you’re dealing with – your exact feeling of disappointment. Start the phrase with “Even though…” and add to that, “I deeply and completely accept myself.”

Examples:
Even though I gained five pounds, I deeply and completely accept myself.
Even though my grandchild broke her arm while I was watching her and I feel responsible, I deeply and completely accept myself.
Even though my husband broke his promise to take me out to dinner, I deeply and completely accept myself.
Even though I got an F on my test, I deeply and completely accept myself.
Even though I didn’t get the job I wanted, I deeply and completely accept myself.

After you formulate your setup phrase, you’ll repeat that entire sentence out loud three times while tapping on what we call the karate chop point, which is the side of the hand near the little finger. Or you could say it while rubbing the sore spot about four inches below your shoulder. (You’ll have to experiment to find the right spot.)

When that’s done, start tapping on energy meridians – in the same locations acupuncturists use to insert needles. Don’t panic! We’re simply tapping, not using needles! The locations on which to tap are clearly explained in Gary Craig’s free ebook on EFT. See the link below. We tap on each spot seven to ten times then go on to the next.

After tapping on my problem this morning, dealing with the disappointment of having an insecure money situation, I felt a lightness. A burden lifted from me. The fear dissipated. I felt free – emotionally free – of my financial worries.

I believe that you too can experience emotional freedom by using the techniques explained clearly on Gary Craig’s DVD’s and in his free e-book. I read the book and bought the DVD’s, and have been living a happier, more joy-filled life ever since.

* Learn EFT at home! Get Gary Craig’s FREE pdf e-book now!

I’ve had a fear of crossing bridges for a long time. It started with a fear of heights which eventually included bridges, possibly starting around the time of the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989. If you recall that tragedy, it included the collapse of a double-decker freeway I’d been on many times as I was raised in that area, as well as a section of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

Last year I started doing EFT and one of my first projects for emotional freedom was to recover from my fear of bridges and cliffs. I live in a long, deep river valley and there are several highway bridges east of here that have frightened me for years. With the encouragement of my boyfriend, Bob, I did a lot of EFT and recovered from my fears, at least, while he was driving. *

Just yesterday I was driving on a road west of here that I’ve called “The Five Bridge Road” for six or seven years now. It involves driving along high cliffs and there are five bridges, two of which have frightened me severely, so much that I’ve avoided that road by driving a little further and taking the freeway to go around it.

My boyfriend doesn’t believe in driving further and spending money on driving over Anderson Pass just to get to Yreka. “Why not take the short road – it’s only eight miles!” He is so practical. So yesterday while I was driving I decided to do just that, hoping that my fear of bridges was gone thanks to EFT.

I had no problem getting over the first two bridges, but as I approached the third, my old feeling of tightening up around my arms and heart started, and I pulled off the road right before crossing the bridge. “I can’t do it,” I said.

“Why not?”

“There’s something I didn’t tell you,” I said to him. “I found out this week that someone jumped off that bridge recently.”

I’d been at work a few days before when a co-worker, who was reading the newspaper, discovered that a friend of hers had died. She started crying, then made some phone calls. Before long she found out that the boy, who was only 18, had jumped off the Pioneer Bridge. Now there I was, looking at the place where a sad and dejected gay teenager had jumped off, and it was like another aspect of my fear came to me. Someone had told the girl I worked with that lots of people had jumped off that bridge in the past, and I was wondering if my long-standing fear of this place had anything to do with my sensitivity. Maybe I’d been picking up the feelings of despair and depression around the bridge, and that’s why it had always frightened me so badly.

My boyfriend got out of the car as I sat there doing some emergency EFT on the feelings I was having.

Setup phrase: “Even though I’m afraid to drive across the bridge because of what happened here, I deeply and completely accept myself.”
Tapping: Distress over what happened…

I had to repeat this twice, then I knew I could do it. My boyfriend got back into the car and I drove across the bridge, without a twinge of fear. There was a wreath hanging in the middle of the bridge, a sad testament to the tragedy that had taken place and the suffering of the people he left behind.

* Learn EFT at home! Get Gary Craig’s FREE e-book now!

Anxiety comes from free-floating fears that keep us from our greatest happiness. We cannot be totally happy while we’re worrying about things that might happen, that haven’t happened yet. Too many of us are kept back from total happiness in life because of anxieties, whether rational or not. Either way, they have to go – and this is one thing EFT is especially good at defeating.

EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) can eliminate blockages along the energy meridians; these blockages cause various types of problems including emotions and some types of pain. If you don’t know how to do the ‘basic recipe’ tapping procedure, it is fully explained in Gary Craig’s free e-book on EFT. There’s a link to the free e-book on the front page of my site, EFT Joy.

During a recent meditation I realized that in order to cleanse our auras, we must eliminate bad attitudes. When I questioned how I, as a healer, could help people do this, I learned I should be cheerful and tap on all fears that keep us from feeling our complete happiness.

Go ahead and try it. I did. Picture yourself in a condition of complete joy and happiness. Bliss. Feel it.

If there’s anything blocking you from feeling your total happiness, consider what that is. I quickly realized I had some free-floating fears that kept me from being able to feel cheerful all the time.

So I started with this EFT setup phrase:

“Even though I have fears that keep me from feeling totally happy, I deeply and completely accept myself.” Then I repeated the words, “I deeply and completely accept myself.” I realized that the first time I said those words I questioned it but the second time it really settled in and I identified with deeply and completely accepting myself, totally and absolutely, without a doubt.

For those not familiar with EFT: while saying the chosen setup phrase three times, we either tap on the ‘karate chop point’ on the side of our hand, or rub the ’sore spot’. You really have to get that free e-book to understand where the sore spot is at.

After doing the setup phrase I used a kinesiology technique to determine if the setup message was working. (It might not have worked right if I were experiencing a reversal. Reversals are also explained in the free e-book.)

Next I started tapping on the energy meridians commonly used in EFT. While tapping on these points I repeated the word, ‘fears’. The common points for tapping are the eyebrow, side of the eye, under the eye, under the nose, chin, collarbone, under the arm, thumb and fingers. (All locations fully explained in the free e-book.)

After working through this complete ‘basic recipe’ I reassessed my anxiety level, and found that some residual fears still existed. So I started again, with this setup phrase, “Even though I still feel some of this residual fear that keeps me from being totally happy, I deeply and completely accept myself. I deeply and completely accept myself.”

Again I tapped through the entire basic recipe, but this time I paid attention to the points at which I felt the most effect. The collarbone point gave a huge response, plus I felt hits on this issue when I tapped on my middle finger, face points, and wrists. So I continued tapping, rotating through those points that seemed to directly correspond to the anxiety I was feeling.

I could do this easily because I was working on myself. If I was working on someone else with this issue I’d be relying more on my intuition to tell me which points were most effective for eradicating whatever the issue is.

After a few rounds of tapping, I suddenly felt a complete release of the issue. Immediately I filled with happiness because the fears keeping me from my total happiness were gone.

EFT usually eliminates fears forever. However there may be other aspects of the fear that will need tapping on, or there may be completely different fears that come up and cause new bouts of anxiety. Keep tapping! I believe we can overcome them all with EFT.

[Note: It is best to be specific about fears when we're doing EFT. In this example I was not at all specific. If I were to name the exact fear, EFT would be more effective in eliminating it. For example, “Even though I'm afraid of driving because I might have a flat tire on the freeway, I deeply and completely accept myself.” ]