EFT & Standing in the Gap - Depression

EFT & Standing in the Gap

Ezekiel 22:20 reads, “Thus I have searched among them for someone who could build a wall or stand in the breach before me to keep me from destroying the land; but I found no one”.

God always looks for someone, a Christian, to stand in the gap for another. Who is available? Who is willing? Sadly, today, not many people are. We are too busy, too pre-occupied with our own lives in this rattle trap hectic world.

Many times, when this Scripture verse is cited, it is always used in conjunction with intercessory prayer for an unbeliever. I want to take the context a bit further. Prayer is absolutely essential, without a doubt. God wants us to ask and He is faithful to answer, but the step further I’m discussing is actually physically standing in the gap for the hurting person.

What is bringing this thought forward is I have a friend from church that is having an awful time, right now, with depression.  No one wants to hang around a depressed person. It’s nasty. They cry, whine, talk negatively, and just mostly wish they were dead, to put it about as plainly as I can, as a R.N.  How do I know this? I’ve been in this dear sister’s shoes before myself.  Not only did the emotions of depression near drown me, but it went even a step further. I wanted to be dead. I wanted out of my misery, and eliminate myself as the source of misery for everyone around me.  I hated myself. I was angry at everyone and everything. The pain was nearly unbearable.

So, what happens when a person feels this way?  Everyone avoids them!  Unless you have experienced firsthand, or known someone close to you who has been depressed, you have absolutely no idea what to do or how to help a depressed person. The last thing you want to do is spend time with them. You run in the opposite direction as quickly as you can.     

However, all this does to the depressed person is to make them feel more isolated and depressed, compounding the problem. They don’t care about themselves, and, now, it appears neither does anyone else. It is a horrible position to be in.

I would like to suggest a solution. A useable, concrete, viable solution to the problem - teach the depressed one to tap. Yes, use Emotional Freedom Techniques on the symptoms!  The more they cry, the deeper they are feeling the effects and emotions of their depression and sadness. Tap, and keep tapping until the crying breaks. It works.  The person will eventually stop crying, and you have begun the process of changing those negative neural connections within the physiology God created, directing them toward a healthier and optimistically balanced outlook on life.

I want to go one step further. Tapping on people with depression-like symptoms takes perseverance; it must be repeating over and over until relief is obtained. Not only does the saddened friend feel overwhelmed, but they also feel very much alone. I would suggest asking them if company is something that strengthens them, giving them hope that someone actually cares.  If so, then offer to come visiting every other day and tap with them, keeping their spirits up and the neural connections moving in the positive directions. Often, EFT appointments are made every week or every other week, allowing the neurons to revert back to those deeply set negative positions. Try tapping frequently, encouraging your sad friend to do so for themselves if they are able. Offer, if you have time and the inclination, to simply sit with them quietly.

If the friend is having a particularly bad day when all it seems they are able to do is cry, try tapping on them. Just sit quietly and tap for them on whatever meridian points you can comfortably reach, without getting yourself into too many body fluids.  If you can only use the top of the head point, side of the eye, and the K-27 collarbone spot, it is good enough. Just keep tapping until the crying ceases. It will. I promise. You have just helped move a mountain of emotional garbage without ever really knowing what was involved in it. You don’t need to know the exact issue(s). All that is important for EFT to work is for the person to feel what s(he) is feeling. If they are crying, they are feeling the pain! The body and subconscious knows exactly what is going on and exactly what the person is experiencing, meaning it knows what it needs to clear and which emotions to move out. The Holy Spirit does all the thinking work; you just tap.

And while you tap, pray for your friend. Pray for healing and wholeness. Quietly pray or pray out loud- whatever you feel comfortable in doing.  “Confess your sins to each other and pray for one another so that you may be healed” James 5:16.

You have just stood in the gap for a friend!  Physically stood in the gap, as you have no idea what your friend is really thinking or feeling about life and death, unless they have chosen to share that with you. All those sadness based emotions must be moved along into the dustbin of history, if your friend is to heal.

Stand in the gap for them. Tap for them. Pray for them. Sit with them, even if it is in silence. Be a presence for them, as Jesus is for us. We are told to do what we can in the natural world, allowing God to take care of the supernatural one. Believe for a healing for your friend until they can believe it can happen for them. “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be ours” Mark 11:24.  For those of us who know EFT, God equips us and commissions us to move forward and heal others. St. Augustine said it best, “Without God, we cannot. Without us, God will not."

Jesus stood in the gap of sin for us when He went to the Cross on Calvary to give us new life and set our feet on the pathway to heaven. It’s the least you can do for a fellow Christian, or anyone else, for that matter!

For more information, go to  www.eftforchristians.com

To schedule a free EFT coaching session, email me at eftforchristians@gmail.com

Always remember to take complete responsibility for your own health and well-being.

EFT & Trust in God

Wow, is God really exploding some of His truths into my consciousness! This is almost scary!  I pray often for the Wisdom of Solomon, and I know that many times I understand far beyond what I probably should, or see what is really happening below the surface, in situations around me.  At times, it is a heavy responsibility because, if I speak out with the truth, I’m ignored or rejected. I believe this is a true gift from the Holy Spirit – it is discernment, a rare gift.

Does it make me more special than anyone else? Nope!  Everyone has gifts of the Holy Spirit. The only question is:  are we willing to submit to His holy will and use them for the glorification of His Kingdom? One gift is no better or any worse than another. St. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 12: 4-6 & 11, “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them.  There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord.  There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines”. God gives us exactly what He wants us to have, but the point is we must use what we are given. I mean used actively for the furtherance of His Kingdom here on earth.

My heart is nearly overwhelmed with God’s truth of the past several days. I’m trying to figure out, well, the Holy Spirit is doing the work here, how to make a Christian EFT model, one that can be implemented easily & quickly into the churches nationwide - something understandable with simple concepts on all aspects of the science & psychology of all things EFT.

I’m working with a particularly “difficult” client right now, not that she is being difficult, but that her negative life process is so deeply embedded from years and years of depression. This in & of itself makes this a tough case, but it all goes one step further. She, and I shall call her Edith, is some prominent in the community. Edith is a Christian who is in a rotten place in life, not by any choice of hers.  I need to make Edith’s faith plain to her as we use EFT. God is showing me how He wants Christian EFT to go through Edith’s pain.

The other “difficulty” here is as much as I want to divorce my own personal feelings from this tapping case, I find myself slipping back into some of my old patterns of self-doubt and fears, too.  I’ve tapped about all this, and I’ve rebuked satan & covered myself with the Blood of the Lamb, but the doubts linger. What if I fail? What if I screw up here? What if EFT lets me down? What if Edith’s disease process is so bad that not even EFT can pry it loose? On and on I go with the internal questions.

I have a small squadron of my personal prayer warriors standing behind me, as I do these tough cases. I would never even consider doing any of this work without having myself covered in prayer, and with this woman even more so!

I’ve prayed now for 3 years for God to reveal what & how He wants me to use the EFT that He has given me. I feel He wants me to produce a specifically Christian brand of EFT for the churches, something most denominations will be comfortable with, no matter how liberal or how conservative. When I started developing this I had absolutely no idea what it would look like. None. I had an offer of a free website, specifically for Christians, and I jumped on that. I won’t turn down something free. Once, the website was agreed upon, I embarked on writing all these blogs, as a free blog was also part of the website deal. As I write God just explodes in my head, one idea after another, stuff I would have never, ever thought of myself. Wow, is God amazing, or what?

However, in this process, and in this new “difficult” case He dumped onto my lap, I’ve realized/learned a few new things.

This is an added dimension of trust that I found in me. I never realized it was there, and I know it is enhanced by own personal EFT work. This is a God thing!  This is not of me. As I work daily at this new website and blog, and now this new case with Edith, I realize how vulnerable I feel. I’ve just opened myself up once again to rejection and fear of failure. Today, I realized (while having iced tea with a dear sweet young gal & her 2 beautiful little daughters) exactly what I’m feeling. I’m scared I will screw this all up. That was a huge fear of mine as a child, well into my adult life. It kept me tied up, holding back from doing what God wanted me to do. I couldn’t even trust Him to make stuff work out.

I realized today that EFT has taken me beyond all that, at least for today, and that is all God asks of us – walk with Him one day at a time, trusting Him the entire way, to deal with whatever befalls us. As I have tapped away my childhood issues, God is faithful to me. He has opened up an entirely new level of trust & dependence on Him. I see where, and I knew this before, but it never stopped me from worrying, my failure and possible rejection has absolutely nothing to do with me.  This is huge! If I have complete and total dependence on Him, then, if failure occurs, it is His will for His purpose that it happens. I’m not a failure in His eyes, no matter what other men think. I’m a failure only if I fail to do as He bids me do. I fail if I allow myself to fall into disobedience to His holy will.

Now, don’t get me wrong, intellectually I always knew all this, but today, for the first time in my life, I feel this! I finally get it!  Something has changed in my physiology! EFT tapping has changed something, making it now a part of me. God is at work.

I’ve cleared out enough emotional garbage that God can finally use me for His eternal purposes. Most of the self-doubting worry is gone. And I mean really gone, as in vanished. I think I have arrived at the place where the lilies of the field live!  Matthew 6:25-33 reads:
 “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?  Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin;  and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.  Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?  For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you”.

I’m not called to look down the road a hundred miles, I’m only told to take one step at a time within the will of God, & seek His Kingdom first. I have no need to know what is ahead, and now the past is disabled, thanks to EFT. All that counts is the present. God has the past and God has the future (“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” Matthew 6:34).

I need only concern myself with the here and now – live in the mindfulness of the present, enjoying every minute God has allowed me to have on this earth. And the here and now is listening to the beckoning of the Holy Spirit, His instructions for my life, and then stepping out in faith & follow exactly those instructions. It means being completely and totally yielded to Him in everything.

What a spot to find myself in!  I’ve never been here before. I think it is pretty neat! Will I falter again & resume worrying? Possibly, but God has given me a wonderful tool in EFT. When worry or doubt sets in, I stop, excuse myself from the conversation, and head to a remote, quiet place and tap. What do I tap? First, I repent of the worry & doubt, and then I tap & pray, asking God to once again restore unto me His precious peace and confidence in knowing that I am walking in His perfect will. Psalm 51:10-12 reads: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.  Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit”.

What an amazing place to be, now that I’m 60 years old! The bottom line here is this: As I have tapped my way into internal cleanness, dredging up & discarding all of my emotional junk, God has honored me by blowing open a spiritual component to my Christian life that I never dreamed possible. Maybe this is the stuff, dimensions that the Christian mystics and fathers have spoken of in eons gone by. I knew nothing of it. How could I?  They were so buried under my pain and hurt and negative feelings, nothing good could penetrate them. I’ve picked and prodded myself, peeling away layer upon layer, of useless emotions, arriving at a spot I desired, but never thought possible. This may well be the peace that passes all understanding that St. Paul talks about in Philippians (“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” – Philippians 4:6-7). If it isn’t, then what in the world does that look like? I’d surely be anxious to know, wouldn’t you? Peace & trust, what a wonderful place to dwell. Thank you, Lord, thank you!

If you are interested in finding out how to get to this trustful place in your life, email me. I would love to show you how to do that with EFT. It really does work as I say it does. God be praised!

For more information, go to  www.eftforchristians.com

To schedule a free EFT coaching session, email me at eftforchristians@gmail.com

Always remember to take complete responsibility for your own health and well-being.

Open EFT Letter to a Depressed Friend

As difficult as it could possibly be, try your best to tap for 15-20 or more minutes a day, tuning into whatever it is that the Holy Spirit brings to mind for you (I have literally tapped thousands of hours for my healing - it had to be a priority to me, or I was simply going to end up a physical wreck - I know where I was headed). If you can do so, whenever a feeling of one sort or another washes over you during the day (or night), if you can do so, stop right then and there and start tapping, calming yourself. Slow deep breaths of 4-5 seconds in, holding for 2 seconds, and breathing out for another 4-5 seconds does similar stuff by dropping us into that alpha/theta brain wave area where we tend to be a bit steadier. Its similar brain waves to those who meditate. EFT drops us into that same brain wave state, too. It's your way of telling the limbic system to quiet down. It understands that language! I have no idea how long this will take, but after you have done enough of this, and you will never know how much is enough until the feelings break up (which isn't really too helpful for you!), call me & I will teach you, if you so desire, the next steps in EFT. The manuals tell us to get specific on events. That's what I would show you - some shortcuts and ideas of how to clear all that out of your memories. Remember, EFT doesn't remove memories; EFT just pulls the emotion out of them, neutralizing them by calming down that limbic system where the stress trigger lives in the body - yours is working overtime! Anyway, tapping globally, as we have been doing, is ok when the pain is high, but, if you can do it, tapping on specific events will undermine the stress level much more quickly. By specific I mean, grab hold of a very detailed memory of your past. Pull it into your head with all its glory, and then tap out of that memory every single emotion involved in it. Just tap the emotion, if you want to say something - at each tapping point. No need to get fancy. Simply works. If EFT calms you in the moment, then it should calm you long term if enough is done. Try something else, if you want - say "I'm so happy" at each tapping point. Obviously, it isn't true, but sometimes it confuses the subconscious enough to switch neurons around. I would have gotten to that with you eventually. There is another technique that is part of Dr. Patricia Carrington's (former psychology faculty member @ Princeton University who has used EFT for 20 years) Choices Method where she alternates between the positive and negative tapping statements at each tapping point. "I'm so happy", or "I'm so depressed", or any variations of that, or "My life is wonderful", etc. There are a couple of reasons why this sometimes helps - my favorite answer is the technique so confuses the subconscious that it simply gives up the ghost because it, literally, doesn't know what the hell you want! Remember, the subconscious is literal, linear, & logical. By constantly telling it negatively, without tapping, how you feel, it just encodes that deeper into the cells because it thinks that is what you want. It's why "talk therapy" rarely works because there is no tapping going on, or some other release method used. It's also why clinical psychologists by the dozens are switching from talk therapy to EFT! Talking without tapping drives the emotion further into us. http://eftuniverse.com/component/content/article?id=9000 Anytime, you are on the phone or talking to anyone about how you feel, tap! Use those finger points I showed you, if you can't tap on the body or head points. This technique is called "Tap and Rant" or "Tap and Complain". We all do it, but make sure we tap while we "vent" (the old psychology term)! I tap on my finger points during the sermons in church. Brad asks if I'm upset. No, I'm simply tapping. Tapping, just to tap, is therapeutic (we could get into the quantum physics of what goes on when tapping, too). The "bodymind" understands what we are doing. It's like a hug to our own self. I tap all the time. Tapping when I'm happy or joyful, encodes that into my cells, too. I want God's joy encoded! Out with the old; in with the new! It took time, nearly 2 1/2 years for me, but I'm there, or nearly so! Some people do this in a matter of weeks Like I told you, there are dozens of different EFT techniques, and I mix and match them, along with different energy modalities. In other words, there are 100s of things that can be tried. I only showed you a couple. I did as I was led by Holy Spirit to do. Here is the EFTUniverse.com website with other "depression" cases listed. I haven't read them, except for the above one from Valerie Lis. http://eftuniverse.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9313 Remember, too, with depression, one of the hardest things is to recognize that you might feel a bit better with EFT. Because the pain is so deeply embedded in those cells, and the cognitive pattern so set in what seems like cement, noticing an improvement is one of the issues with depression. Watch carefully please. EFT makes very, very subtle changes that you yourself may never notice, but Pastor or the girls might. It is very subtle in many cases. I warn clients of this...someone else may notice before you do! If they do, they are correct. I tell clients to see if they can beat their families in noticing their personal changes! Pay close attention to how you feel. The changes are most likely there; you just have to see them, and then allow God to build on them. Thank you for the privilege of tapping with you! Please let me know how you are doing. You are in my prayers and I have put you on a couple of permanent prayer lists in other states. There are prayer warriors out there on duty before the Throne of God 24/7! For more information, go to www.eftforchristians.com To schedule a free EFT consultation coaching session, email me at: eftforchristians@gmail.com Always remember to take complete responsibility for your own health and well-being