EFT Emotional Freedom Techniques Article

Peak Persuasion With EFT

by Silvia Hartmann

 

In case you haven't heard, EFT, or Emotional Freedom Techniques, engineered by Gary Craig from Thought Field Therapy, is the hottest thing in Personal Development today.

It is a simple technique - so simple, indeed, that young children can learn it in a few minutes - and it only does one single thing: It removes emotions. Now that might not sound so impressive at first, but consider this:

* What stops someone from thinking clearly?

* What causes internal conflicts?

* What causes "problems with people"?

* What stops someone from being powerfully congruent in their communications with others?

Yes - Emotions. Fear, usually, of something or other. But there's also anger, rage even, bitter resentment, depression, hopelessness - you name it.

Imagine for a moment you could remove these emotions - what would you have left?

You would be set free to act and do, to think clearly and precisely, and to be able to respond with your best mind forward to the challenges of life.

Hence "Emotional Freedom Techniques".

If you don't know the basic EFT protocol yet, there is a link at the end of this mail to an animation and a site that explains it so you can go right ahead and try it for yourself. For this article, I am going to consider the uses of EFT in the persuasion context.

"Fear Is The Mind Killer"

Whatever your outcome desire or context of persuasion may be, let's start with the thought of your endeavor first - thinking about the persuasion you are going to initiate, who it will be with, what the challenges inherent might be. Then, there is the question as to whether you believe that you have all the resources necessary to be successful in your endeavor; finally, there is the whole set of "outcome fears" I will discuss a little later.

Firstly, get a general sense of what the overriding feeling is about the endeavor as a whole. In many cases, as you think of particularly challenging persuasion situations, you get a visceral (or kinesthetic) response right away:

• - Your heart beats faster
• - Your palms may turn moist
• - There's a pressure in your head, throat or heart
• - Your thoughts speed up and become unorganized as you flick in your mind from one thing to another.

These are all, of course, physiological signs of stress. It's important to know what your own personal signs of stress are and to recognize it when it occurs, so you may take control and treat this right away. It clouds your thinking and will cause bad decision making, missing important pieces of information from the environment and low/unpredictable performance in whatever it is that you do.

This is the first place where you would want to apply EFT. At this starting point, as we consider the coming situation on the whole, you do not need to name any particular aspect yet and you may do the technique quietly whilst simply thinking of the situation that is causing the stress.

After each round of EFT, take three deep breaths and check your physicality for the actual sensations of fear and stress. When you feel light and easy, balanced once more, we can turn to the specifics of the situation.

Specific Blocks To Peak Persuasion Remember that EFT

specifically deals with the removal of blocking emotions. It doesn't teach you how to talk hypnotically but what it will do is give you the space to be the best you can be, whatever that best may represent. I have found it fascinating to note over the years how that individual "best" is usually much, much better than people ever thought they could do. For example, a single traumatic memory removed and the fear alleviated does more for a public speaker than three years of intense study of how to be an excellent public speaker!

I am telling you this to really have you understand that whatever time you spend on removing mental and emotional blocks to your performance is time most efficiently spent, indeed. If you want results, this is the place to leverage your efforts, first and foremost.

Below, a list of possible problems and blocks to Peak Persuasion. In your own context, go through this list and just wonder if any of these might apply to you, then make a note to treat this specific topic with EFT until it is resolved and you have regained clarity on the issue.

1. Past Failures - CrimeLine

In my work with people in the persuasion business and salesmen and lovers in particular, past failures are the No.1 cause for mental contortions and reflex like fears and unconscious sabotage. Make a list of your worst past failures and arrange them in historical order. I call this the "CrimeLine" - when that has been cleared, you will find an incredible surge of energy not just on your persuasion topics, but all kinds of other performance related topics (yes, including that one).

If you find yourself resistant to tapping away emotions of shame and guilt over having been incompetent, stupid, useless, etc. etc. I must remind you that: "Negative emotions do not protect you. Common sense does." You can also, of course, tap away the resistance to tapping a negative emotion away before you start.

When you are working with your own "CrimeLine", start with the older occurrences first. The reason for this is that sometimes, one particular incident, once cleared, collapses all the rest of them and you save yourself a lot of time that way.

The second most important block to Peak Persuasion is:

2. Outcome Fear or "It's Just a Different Kind of Pain"

People used to come to me for things like "fear of failure". Only, and interestingly, if you checked around a bit you'd find they also had a "fear of success" as well as a "fear of change" and on top of that, a "dread of no-change". As you can imagine, that kind of set up would cause some horrendous internal conflicts whichever way you turn, whatever you do and whatever your endeavor.

The key to Outcome Fear is to be emotionally balanced, whatever the outcome. This rests on the understanding that whatever the outcome is, you will be able to cope with it, as you have coped with all of these occurrences (failure, success, change and no-change) before, many times in your life.

In your notebook, draw a cross and put each one of the four possible outcomes into each quadrant. Consider each outcome in turn and tap for the specific fears related to that outcome and any particularly....

• traumatic memories
• limiting beliefs
• negative thoughts

...that turn up during the process.

Here are some more suggestions how and when to apply EFT:

3. Practical Matters or "The Telephone Is A Giant Spider!!"

Are there any practical matters in the situations you are planning to enter that cause a fear response? Think mild phobia and treat yourself as you would treat yourself if X were a spider. Can you congruently reach for the phone and "make that call" to the target? Watch yourself very carefully for any signs of resistance from your neurology and from your physicality, stop and treat yourself. Do NOT apply will power to overcome whatever the objections or resistance from your unconscious mind but once and for all, remove the reasons for the resistance instead.

4. The Mind Walk Technique

Consider the actual situation you will be entering in due course. Consider it carefully and in all ways, imagine how it will be. Start right from the beginning, like thinking about getting dressed to get ready to go (which is where some of the fears already begin). Walk through the whole process of assembling your materials, leaving your home, traveling to the place in question, walking in through the door etc. etc. and stop each time and as soon as anything in the Mind Walk is causing any kind of emotional discomfort and/or physiological stress response. Back up and treat that part of the Mind Walk, until you can do the entire thing and feel perfectly calm or even excited about it.

5. Changing The Other/s

An absolutely fascinating and near magical application of EFT is to tap by proxy on behalf of another. It produces change in your own neurology and it very often produces quite radical changes in the person that was tapped!

This is how you do it: You stand in for the person you wish to change and name their problems, whatever they may be, relating to you or that could interfere in the success of your persuasion efforts. For example, if you are trying to sell something to someone called Bob "who never buys on the phone", a set up would be: "I am Bob. I never buy on the phone." Then you tap as normal.

You can do this for entities as well as individuals, which is useful when you deal with large, faceless companies or a family system, replacing the individual name with the company/family name instead.

6. There And Then

This is simply the best. EFT is simple and quick and so you can take it "into the field" and use it at any time you need it. If you have done a fair amount of EFT, you will know which points need treating when you are in a situation (they "light up" and draw your attention) and you can just surreptitiously touch the relevant points even right in the middle of any given situation. If things go badly or you are losing your grip on the situation or your confidence, that will stop you from spiralling out of control and give you back your behavioral flexibility as well as restoring your peace of mind.

I trust the above has given you some ideas of how you can really energize your persuasion performance with EFT. There is of course, much, much more you can do with this deceptively simple technique and its infinite variations.

To try out the 2 minute Stress Release for yourself right now and to find out more about the full EFT protocol, visit or to order the book "Adventures In EFT" go to: https://StarFields.org 

Silvia Hartmann
Author "Adventures In EFT", "EFT & NLP",
"PowerFields" NLP, EFT, MT & Hypnosis Trainer
https://StarFields.org 

 

© https://SilviaHartmann.com 2002

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EFT Emotional Freedom Techniques

with Silvia Hartmann