While there may be other reasons for the success I have obtained in combining EFT tapping and modern meditation, here is what I have observed over the more than 25 years that I have been experimenting with using these two techniques for my clients and groups.
Meditation provides a constant stabilizing effect that supports the periodic troubleshooting action of EFT/Tapping. Meditation brings a special type of enforced rest each day to the person who uses it — one that is easier for the average person to observe than are vague therapeutic prescriptions to “take it easy and get more rest,” and it is quite different in its effects from just napping. It therefore has a special value for many people. I find that “meditative rest” gives a more solid basis to one’s EFT work. After commencing meditation, people tend to become steadier emotionally and better able to handle any difficult problems that may arise during their EFT sessions. They are also more apt to bring up core problems to deal with during EFT, ones they might have felt unprepared to tackle before.
Meditation Reduces Anxiety
Although we frequently see EFT reduce anxiety dramatically, I find that it is only the person who consistently uses EFT every day to target their anxieties who, in the long run, becomes less prone to unreasonable fears in general ( i.e. who overcomes generalized anxiety). Unfortunately not too many people have the persistence needed to chip away at overwhelming anxiety using a targeted technique such as EFT, and it is very valuable to help such people get a running start on their anxiety-reduction by using a global technique such as meditation to reduce their overall level of anxiety. Since meditation does not target a specific problem the way EFT does, it allows the entire body, mind and spirit to find a peaceful space to be in so that EFT can do its work.
If a person’s anxiety level is too high to sustain the gains made with EFT for a long enough time to allow them to “take hold”, I usually teach that person Clinically Standardized Meditation (CSM) and we often see the benefits of doing this within the first week. At that point, the regular practice of meditation can turn the tide in my EFT work with that person. It can enable a person to work “with” in an EFT session instead of having to be rescued repeatedly from a state of deep anxiety. Regular meditation can therefore be a great help in sustaining the benefits of EFT.
Meditation for Physical Illness
Another area where I find the use of meditation combined with EFT to be extremely valuable is for stress-related illness. We have learned a great deal about the possibilities of using EFT in this area and the advantages of adding meditation to the therapeutic “mix” for this purpose are impressive.
Research shows that many stress-related illnesses respond extremely well to meditation. These range from bronchial asthma to high blood pressure, to heart conditions, to high cholesterol, and to many of the addictions, to name but a few. Treating a physical condition with EFT and meditation (a winning combination in my estimation), the person gets help from two different directions at once; EFT targets the core issues that need to be dealt with, and meditation lends both physiological balance and spiritual support to this process.
Sleep Problems May Need Both EFT and Meditation
Sleep problems have been shown by research and clinical reports to be so responsive to meditation that if I have to decide whether to use meditation or EFT to start with for this condition, I usually choose meditation as the first line of attack because of its remarkable physiological relaxing effect. Research has shown that meditation has an excellent ability to counteract insomnia and my clinical experience strongly confirms this. However, eventually I tend to use both methods combined for this purpose. Meditation gives the person a quieter and deeper sleep, often quite soon after they learn it, and EFT can then target specific bouts of wakefulness and deal with the deeper problems in the person’s life that may be causing the insomnia in the first place. Again, a winning combination.
I find it extremely useful to add meditation to a client’s EFT treatment if impulsive outbursts or chronic irritability are an important part of the picture. It is extremely useful to obtain the general lowering of irritability that comes with meditation so that we can move more easily from issue to issue with EFT.
Conclusions
To sum up the use of meditation together with EFT, we might say that this combination allows the person to approach any problem from two different angles at once –– the global approach of meditation melding with the specific approach of EFT, each technique augmenting the other. And, as the old saying goes,” The whole is (often) more than the sum of its parts.”
Dr. Patricia Carrington, EFT Master