EFT & Sin and its Emotional Impact

Recently, a friend of mine phoned to discuss Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT).  Brenda (name changed) is a devout Christian woman, as I am, but she had concerns about an audio she had, at my request, listened to recently.

She outlined that concern in one statement, “It sounds like to me that we are healing ourselves” when using EFT.

That statement is the second most common Christian response to EFT.  I sadly hear it much too often.

Is this concept of healing ourselves the underlying dichotomy between humanism and Christianity?  Are humans taking credit, proudly, for what God performs, denying the Creator His due?

I think so. Humanism has been around since the Garden of Eden days. Man trying to replace God with anything that comes to mind, eliminating from us humans any responsibility for acting morally and uprightly, doing what in our minds is correct, or relativistic. Man makes the rules, not God.

George Gaylord Simpson, the late paleontologist of Harvard, wrote:

“Man stands alone in the universe, a unique product of a long, unconscious, impersonal, material process with unique understanding and potentialities. These he owes to no one but himself, and it is to himself that he is responsible. He is not the creature of uncontrollable and undeterminable forces, but is his own master. He can and must decide and manage his own destiny” (1953, p. 155).

However, Scripture says in Romans 1:28: “Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done”.

And again in Romans 1:25:  “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator”.

St. Paul said it well in these 2 Scripture verses. Man rejects God and His eternal teachings, creating his own warped, misguided, immoral mind and misconstrued behavior, tainting everything around him with these untruths.

Humanists have set forth their creed in Humanist Manifesto I (1933) and again in the Humanist Manifesto II (1973), stressing a belief system that man’s ideas are the most important, and denouncing anyone who has faith in a personal God and Savior as out of touch with reality. They write:   “We believe, however, that traditional or dogmatic or authoritarian religions that place revelation, God, ritual, or creed above human needs and experience do a disservice to the human species. Any account of nature should pass the tests of scientific evidence; in our judgment, the dogmas and myths of traditional religions do not do so.… We find insufficient evidence for belief in the existence of a supernatural; it is either meaningless or irrelevant to the question of the survival and fulfillment of the human race.… Promises of salvation or fear of eternal damnation are both illusory and harmful. They distract humans from present concerns, from self-actualization, and from rectifying social injustices. Modern science discredits such historic concepts as the “ghost in the machine” and the “separable soul.” Rather, science affirms that the human species is an emergence from natural evolutionary forces. As far as we know, the total personality is a function of the biological organism transacting in a social and cultural context. There is no credible evidence that life survives the death of the body” (1973, pp. 15-17).

Note the comment of “pass the tests of scientific evidence”.  Once again, humanists hearken back to the philosophy of 16^th century Rene Descartes, who dismantled the centuries old theology of an integrated human, one that was physical and spiritual. We are not God or gods, as new age thinking suggests, but we are spiritual beings that also possess a physical body. Humanists believe no God exists, nor does man have need of Him.  Reason and intelligence will rule the day. Ethics are situational. Relativism reigns supreme. What any individual feels or thinks to be right and good is then right and good for that person, no matter how it affects or impacts anyone else around the person.

This relativism opens big cans of worms, such as any behavior should be tolerated because what God says about that behavior is irrelevant. One of the biggest impacts is in the area of sexuality. Humanism allows every sexual sin. In fact, they actually encourage the expression.  Nothing is harmful. It opens the door to homosexuality, abortion, incest, free divorce, etc. Everything is permissible; nothing barred.

What happens to a Christian’s moral base when, in a momentary lapse, (s)he falls for the relativism of the humanist? Sin is committed against the Creator. Eventually, when the sinner repents of that sin and knows Jesus’ forgiveness, there are occasions when the guilt or remorse still seems overwhelming. Those emotions are so disturbing that they interfere with the believer’s worship and prayer life.

Don’t panic!  We don’t heal ourselves, but God does, as He has implanted in you a method for dealing with those emotions & their possible physical effects, finally and for all, laying them at the foot of the Cross, where they belonged all along, because Jesus has already paid the price. That method is EFT.

 We give God the glory and praise for healing us. God put the tapping mechanism in us for healing & we simply do the EFT process. God heals!

As a Christian EFT practitioner, I have assisted many of my brothers and sisters through this & other clearing processes. Emotions resulting from earlier abortions, divorce, incest, sexual abuse, rape, etc. can many times be ameliorated through tapping. I would be honored to tap with you and teach you this process for moving out some spiritual blockages in your life.

For more information, go to  www.eftforchristians.com

To schedule a free 15 minute consultation to see if EFT is right for you, email me at EFTforChristians@gmail.com

Always remember to take complete responsibility for your own health and well-being.  Contact a medical professional, if necessary.

Sherrie Rice Smith, R.N. (Retired)
Certified EFT Practitioner
Author of EFT for Christians
EFTforChristians.com

Why We Tap Negatively YouTube Video: EFT for Christians

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evp0Pa_s9JA

EFT is not a substitute for your own personal physician's emotional or physical care, so please consult him/her directly with any of those needs.

Sherrie Rice Smith
EFTforChristians.com 
Certified EFT Practitioner

Stress and EFT

Our invaluable fight-or-flight system is regulated by the HPA axis which refers to three organs:  the hypothalamus, the pituitary, and the adrenal glands. This is our body’s way of coping with stress. The pituitary gland and the hypothalamus are located within the limbic brain, and the adrenal glands sit atop the kidneys. When the amygdala (located in the old, reptilian brain, e.g. our fear/alarm center) perceives an immediate threat, rather than sending the signal along to the neofrontal cortex (our conscious brain) for logical processing, the HPA axis releases stress hormones – cortisol and adrenaline – into the bloodstream. These chemicals induce quick energy, raise our heart rate, direct blood away from digestion and other less-essential bodily functions, and reroute blood to our extremities and muscles so we’re physically equipped to fight or run. The advantages offered by the rapid response of our HPA axis are clear. We often don’t have time to think our way out of a dangerous situation – we instead need to act immediately and our primitive brain does just that for us before we have time to consider and process all the variables or implications involved. 

In times of danger, this chemical mix is necessary to help us fight or run; however we can also get locked into a state of chronic stress when the adrenal glands don’t receive a signal to stop producing these hormones which are designed solely for limited application. Unlike acute stress which serves a positive purpose in getting us out of danger quickly, chronic stress is very destructive to our health. Long-term exposure to stress has truly horrific consequences for our bodies.

Among other things, chronic stress increases the damaging effects of free radicals in the neurons of the hippocampus, causing damage to the mitochondria. The hippocampi neurons themselves die from the damage, making creative learning nearly impossible. The mind/brain is now out of balance, causing us to feel paralyzed. We cannot think or feel appropriately, nor can we conjure up solutions to get us out of the rut we now feel trapped in. Our adrenal glands become exhausted, causing us to feel drained and worn out.

This overuse of stress hormones keeps us stuck where we are as we simply cannot learn from old experiences and move ourselves forward into new ones when caught in this cycle. The repetitive nature of this stress wiring instead leaves us stranded right where we are, going nowhere, and mired in the past.

This is where Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT, tapping) can play a vital role.

In order to protect ourselves from long-term, chronic stress damage to our bodies, we must reset the hippocampal rhythm. For decades, scientists wondered what actually controlled the cortisol output in the adrenal glands during stress. Most researchers were surprised when they determined the hippocampus was the adrenal glands master controller, and also its own hangman – as it turns out that high levels of cortisol actually damage the hippocampus, yet the hippocampus controls the amount of cortisol released by the adrenal glands during stressful periods!

When infants and children are traumatized in early life, the hippocampus becomes sensitized to increased cortisol. In fact, cortisol levels are often programmed into children in their very early years. As children become more and more stressed as they grow older, more and more cortisol is pumped out of their adrenal glands to deal with this ever-elevating levels of stress. As the cortisol levels rise, the hippocampal mitrochondrial neurons die off due to free radical damage, leaving the child with less cortisol control, less memory, less reserves to deal with future stress, and little to no creativity as to how they might proactively address distressing situations and resolve the problems they’re facing.

So…how can we learn to lower these hippocampal set points?

Using a stress-relieving modality like EFT is a step in the right direction. EFT lowers cortisol levels. One study alone has shown that one hour of tapping drops cortisol levels 24% (Church, Yount, & Brooks, 2012).  That’s huge in contending with this chronic stress loop which results in our minds and bodies being awash in cortisol.

EFT can reset these cortisol or “circadian” rhythms within approximately 3-6 months of establishing regular, routine tapping. Our bodies will reregulate themselves -- if we give them some help.

As we tap, EFT releases the hippocampus and the amygdala triggers. The tapping signals to these brain structures that we are safe. When we tap and recall the negative events or memories in our life, we lower the cortisol around the event, thus informing our subconscious that the witnessed or felt event is no longer happening in the present tense, nor does the event any longer have control over us. We simply neutralize the sensory information that was previously driving our unwanted behaviors and stress.

I invite you to give EFT a try. Attending EFT Level 1 & 2 classes is a wonderful way to immerse yourself in the understanding of how EFT actually works, and will provide you with a bevy of tapping practicum along with a solid basis of how to tap for yourself and for those you wish to help.

As an author of EFT for Christians (http://www.EFTforChristians.com/) and a retired R.N. with 5 years’ experience as a certified EFT practitioner within this field, I’ve seen my own life completely transformed by this gentle but incredibly effective resource -- and in my work with clients, I see EFT consistently delivering similar life-changing results. My EFT classes are being held in Milwaukee.  Please see my website for all the necessary details (including discounted hotel arrangements):  www.EFTforChristians.com/classes.html. 

God created this physiological system of ours to work this way, so I'd welcome the opportunity to meet you and personally teach you how to tap!

EFT is not a substitute for emotional or physical care by a qualified medical personal. Take personal responsibility for your own health please.

Sherrie Rice Smith, R.N (Retired)

EFTforChristians@gmail.com 

Huffington Post Who is Ultimately Responsible? Life Matters, and EFT Just Might Help!

Emotional health matters. Abuse matters. Read this story please, as it has a twist you aren't going to expect.

Please learn to tap effectively! There are other Ali's out there who are waiting for your help.

Thank you!

Sherrie Rice Smith, R.N. (Retired)

Certified EFT Practitioner

EFTforChristians.com 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-demon-inside-who-is-ultimately-responsible_us_57f560b9e4b0568704999ceb?