As with other new advances in technology no one knows all the mechanisms that cause Pro EFT to work so effectively. Here are a few of the mechanisms of action that we know about presently.
The foundational hypothesis of all EFT systems is, “All negative emotions are caused by disruptions of the energy system.” This energy system can be understood as a combination of the cellular, electrical, muscular, hormonal, circulatory, respiratory, and nervous systems of the body. All of these interrelated systems memorize specific disruptive patterns of response to a traumatic or disturbing event. You now feel the stressful fight or flight response whenever you are reminded of these events. These memorized patterns of distress remain programmed in our body including the unconscious mind even when we are not consciously thinking about them. In Pro EFT language the energy system is now disrupted away from the calm, peaceful, empowered response or “energy” that is our normal state.
Tapping on the specific acupuncture points in a specific order directs these systems to become calm and relaxed. In Pro EFT language “the kinks” are removed from the “energy” system. To explain this in terms used in western physiology, the tapping stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system. This response negates the fight or flight activity of the sympathetic nervous system. At the same time the parasympathetic nervous system response signals multiple systems in the body to produce calm and relaxation. The blog post on this website “Does the Tapping in EFT Really Work” presents some scientific validation of this from a study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology. Links to the study are provided in the article.
Another established feature of how Pro EFT works is covered expertly in Dr. Bruce Lipton’s book, “The Biology of Belief.” In this very readable book on cellular biology and epigenetics Dr. Lipton explains that the DNA inside every cell is programmed to respond to our emotional states. Love and safety feelings cause the DNA strands to lengthen and this allows the production of the protein structures needed for life inside every cell. Fear, stress, and anger cause the DNA strands to compress and severely limits the production of these proteins. Impaired cellular protein production means impaired function in every system of the body. Chronic stress causes both physical and emotional illness as a result. This ongoing programmed stress ages us prematurely as we go decades without enough new proteins to replace the cellular proteins we lose everyday.
The major systems of the body also respond to this sympathetic nervous system stress response. Tooth pain from jaw clenching. Headaches from jaw, head, and neck tension. Throwing your back out from poor skeletal alignment with muscle tension. Digestive problems begin to arise. The list goes on and on of the physical and emotional damage that is caused by chronic stress. This damaging action is stopped when these memorized stress responses of the body are replaced with feelings of peacefulness, empowerment, and happiness. A relaxed stress free body is a happier, healthier, and younger body.
The book, “The Biology of Belief” also states that the processing power of the conscious and unconscious mind are not equal. The unconscious mind has a million times more processing power than the conscious mind. It is easy to guess which one wins anytime our conscious mind is tired, overwhelmed, surprised, or distracted. This is why despite our best efforts to consciously control how we feel and react we cannot stop the unconscious mind from getting it’s way eventually. It is just too powerful.
We have been told for the last hundred plus years that we just need to become aware of our unconscious thoughts and we will get better. Decades of experience where patients have gone through gut wrenching explorations of their unconscious thoughts have produced generations of people who can explain in great detail why they are messed up. Most complain of little to no relief from this experience except feeling understood for an hour each week by their therapist.
The next idea we have been told is just to think positive, tell ourselves enough affirmations and we will change the programing that is giving us so much trouble. Unfortunately we cannot reason with our unconscious mind. This is because there is nobody home there. The unconscious mind doesn’t have consciousness. Reasoning with it is like yelling at your DVD player because you don’t like the movie that is playing. We must put in a new movie into the DVD player to have a new movie playing on the TV. We must put new programming in our unconscious mind to have a new set of positive emotions, reactions, and body sensations.
The scientific disciplines of psychoneuroimmunology, neuropsychology, and epigenetics are giving us a new understanding of what is going on here. When we are ages 2 to 6 the record button is on in the unconscious brain. This strongly correlates to the predominantly theta brainwave state of this stage in life. We learn our basic skills and they become recorded and then hardwired responses. After age 6 we progress toward more adult brainwave states that do not allow us to keep recording over and erasing our basic skills. This is a good thing when it comes to remembering how to walk without falling over, not so good when it comes to the impact of an emotional trauma. Very few conditions in adult life turn on the record button again. Unfortunately the altered state produced by severe stress and emotional trauma does record even more stressful data into our unconscious mind.
This produces problems for us from then on. For example the toddlers who felt terrified when lost at the store had increased chances of surviving childhood. Any time he or she became aware they were being separated and feeling exposed, the panic motivated them to find mom. They gradually learned not to become separated and exposed to the world because of the negative feelings this produced. The anger, fear, and guilt they perceived from their parents when they were disciplined reinforced this programming.
In our example, the same person as an adult might now feel panicked at the thought of public speaking. The adult wants to be comfortable speaking in front of a group, but the panic feeling comes up anyway. This is happening to the adult as the unconscious mind remembers how it felt to be exposed to the public and that feeling exposed and singled out is bad. These uncomfortable feelings cause them to make mistakes, have racing pulse, sweaty palms, and the feeling of butterflies in the pit of their stomach. This ends up proving the thought that public speaking is bad and they can’t do it. This creates a vicious cycle that left on it’s own will never end.
Pro EFT returns the body and mind to a predominantly theta state during each session. This allows you to record the responses you want to feel when exposed to your issue. This is done while simultaneously feeling calm and relaxed from the tapping. These changes are most often permanent for each aspect of a problem that is tapped to 0. This appears to be because once a response is hardwired back into the unconscious mind it is as difficult to change as ever. For scientific validation of this please see the seven to nine month followup testing in the article “Does the Tapping in EFT Have a Measurable Effect?” which is on the blog page.
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