I read all these stories about how people amazing results with EFT right away.  It's just not happing for me.  What am I doing wrong?

Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) is a wonderful tool.  It is easy to use, it can be used on many types of issues, and it can be done anytime anywhere.   But even with that being said, the main reason people first become interested in learning EFT is because they hear stories of how EFT changes lives. 

We all what to heal and improve our lives and are intrigued when we hear others are solving similar problems to the ones we have.

The stories that are told the most often are the stories of the "one minute miracle".

We have all heard these stories.  People who have fought with some physical or emotional issue for years only to have it go away in moments.  These are more than just urban legends.  I have seen it in my own practice.  These occurrences are frequent, but they are not the norm.  (I believe someday one minute miracles will be the norm as we continue to learn how the body/mind/spirit system works.)

Just because a one minute miracle doesn't happen doesn't mean EFT isn't working and it doesn't mean that we are doing EFT wrong.

Personally I think every round of EFT is successful regardless of the amount of progress that is made (even if no progress is made at all).  The reason I believe this is because with every round of EFT we do we receive some feedback that we can learn something from.  As an added bonus, a round of tapping is so short we receive feedback very quickly, helping us to adjust our approach for our next round of tapping, allowing us to move to healing quickly.

If we heed the feedback we are receiving with each round of tapping we can quickly move to resolving the issue at hand.

In my experience there are four typical outcomes to a round of tapping that give us information.

1) The pain/emotion reduce in intensity. 
Obviously, this is the best case scenario, because this is the ultimate goal we are trying to reach with tapping.  If the intensity decreases we are on the right track and should keep moving in this direction.

2) The pain/emotion increases in intensity. 
On the surface this would seem to be a bad outcome.  "We are trying to get away from an issue and now there is more of it?  That can't be a good thing?"  But it really is. 

When the intensity increases it simply means that we have tuned into the issue more than before. 

For example, my right knee is injured.  All day as I move around there is an ever-present dull ache.  The moment I sit down to take a break the pain seem to swell and become very sharp.  My knee didn't start hurting more the moment I sat down.  Instead, since my mind was not distracted with the tasks of my day my thoughts drifted to my knee and I became aware of how much pain I was really in.  It is not an issue of how much pain there is, but an issue of how much I am focusing on the pain.

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When I am tapping on an issue and the intensity goes up it is good news because it means I am on the right track.  It doesn't mean that the problem has gotten worse, but it means that I am now more focused on the issue than I was before.  Since I am more focused on the issue it is going to be easier for me to tap on the issue.

3) The pain/emotion changes in location, texture, or type. 
This type of feedback is very common.  A pain that started in our shoulders is now in our hip.  A feeling of anger becomes frustrations.  A sharp pain that felt like a stabbing pain now is a very warm dull ache.

It is easy to see how it would be hard to see this a progress.  If I am starting with a pain in my neck that has an intensity that is a 6 and after a round of tapping it is a pain in my hip that has an intensity of a 6, that doesn't feel like progress.

Any time we have a change in some characteristic of what we are working on it really is progress because the change signifies that we are moving down the right path.  There wouldn't be change if there weren't progress. 

Side note: When this happen it is important that we change what we are tapping on.  If the pain moves from the neck to the hip, the next round of tapping is going to be on the pain in the hip.  If the emotion changes from anger to frustration, then next round of tapping is going to be on the frustration.

The tapping we are doing should reflect the issue as it is in this moment as we start the next round of tapping.  

4) There is no change in intensity. 
At first blush this doesn't seem like it is desirable feedback, but in reality it is good news.  If we do a round of tapping and make no progress at all then we have learned the current set up is not right and we need to change something.

At this point we start to look to the reasons that EFT most commonly doesn't work.  Did we clear PR?  Are we hydrated enough? Are we being specific enough?

In this case what seem to be failure is good news because it is telling us we need to try something different.

It is all good news!
No mater what the outcome from a round of tapping it is good news.  With every round of tapping we are either healing or we are given more information about what the next step is to healing.

With each round of tapping you do remember to be easy with yourself.  One round of tapping costs you less than one minute of your day, it is easy to do, and no matter what the outcome is you are one step closer to healing.  If you don't have a one minute miracle take the information you have learned from this round of tapping and do it again.

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