HEALTH and wellness mean big business in our global economy. Modern lifestyles have taken us off the right track, with fast foods, a polluted environment and high-tech stress. An increasing number of worried, tense, tired, anxious and depressed people are willing to spend time and money in order to feel energized, healthy and happy.
Exclusive resorts, spas, wellness centers, health clubs and the ever-present media exhort us to take care of our minds and bodies. And that of course comes with a price.
So the amazing success of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), devised by Cary Craig, is understandable. The EFT Manual can be downloaded from the net and furthermore, the healing therapy is easy to perform and only takes a couple of minutes. It involves no pills, no needles and no pushing or pulling the body! It all seems too good to be true until one actually gets hold of a manual.
Gary Craig, a Stanford engineer, confesses that 40 years ago he realized that the quality of our lives is directly related to our emotional health, the foundation beneath self confidence which itself leads to achievement in every walk of life. As a result, during four decades, he went searching for the tools that would help people. He eventually came to the conclusion: “The cause of all negative emotions is involved with the body’s energy system.”
The human body has a basic electrical nature. Walk briskly across a carpet and then touch a metal object! This reaction would not be possible if the body did not have an electrical side to it. Furthermore, the electrocardiograph and electroencephalograph record the electrical activity of the heart and the brain. (Incidentally, the brain generates enough electric power to light a 20-watt light bulb.) Our human electrical systems are thus essential to our physical health.
The knowledge of the existence of energy channels that run through the human body is not new. The Chinese discovered them 5000 years ago. The energy channels, also known as meridians, are essential to Eastern health practices such as acupuncture and acupressure. The energy flows throughout the body but it remains invisible to the eye. When a TV is switched on, we hear sounds and see images yet we don’t see the electricity.
“In the same way, EFT gives you striking evidence that energy flows within your body because it provides the effects that let you know it is there. By simply tapping near the end points of your energy meridians, you can experience some profound changes in your emotional and physical health. These changes would not occur if there were no energy system. Western medical science tends to focus on the chemical nature of the body and has not paid much attention to these subtle, but powerful, energy flows until recent years. However, they do exist and are attracting an expanding group of researchers” explains Craig.
He has devised a method which is easily accessible on the internet (www.emofree.com) and is also extremely easy to learn and perform. It consists basically in tapping certain areas of the face, the chest and the hand which correspond to specific meridian points.
The tapping effect is similar to acupressure which is commonly referred to as acupuncture without needles. Acupressure uses finger and even hand pressure to stimulate the flow of energy flowing through the body along pathways called meridians. Completely safe, acupressure has no known side effects. EFT which is derived from acupressure is equally safe, simple and inexpensive because it can be performed by the individual for immediate relief of pain. Symptoms often fade away in a matter of minutes although, occasionally, there is a delayed reaction for a few hours. But one is warned that relief from the underlying disease can take days, weeks or months so one should be persistent.
“The surprisingly good relief from physical pain obtained through EFT is easy to understand in light of the emerging attitudes toward the existence of the mind-body connection. What more obvious proof could one want than to watch changes in both mind and body occur as a result of tapping on the body’s energy system? But the evidence goes even deeper than this. Applying EFT for emotional issues often bring on the cessation of physical problems. Breathing problems go away, headaches vanish, joint pains subside and multiple sclerosis symptoms improve. The list of physical improvements brought about by Emotional Freedom Techniques is endless,” insists Gary Craig
Too many of us do not have the slightest idea of how to maintain good health. When we feel sick, we rely on our doctors to cure us. What we forget is that the cure lies within us. It is up to each one of us to acquire the knowledge about what our bodies need in order to function properly. It is essential to take an active part in maintaining one’s health and treating disorders and practicing Emotional Freedom Techniques is an easy way to start doing just that.