The Tappers Dance

This weekend I taught my Foundations EFT workshop to a now confident and capable group of tappers. On the second day it was a delight for me to sit and watch them working with each other in pairs. Without hearing their words I could see an intricate play of movement and attention between them which reminded me of watching the balroom dancers that I wrote about in my first post.

Only its different. Watching the balroom dancers one (the man) was clearly leading and the other (the woman) was clearly being led backwards across the floor. Watching EFT I saw that though there is a clear difference between the two players it is a cooperative process of too and fro which starts with a dialogue. One, lets call them the therapist, asks questions and pays rapt attention to the one we'll call the client who answers, the interplay of questions and answers continue until the therapist raises her hands and starts to tap and offer short phrases. The client mirrors the movement and repeats back the words. Then after a few rounds of tapping the two return to the questioning interplay to test progress and find the words for the next phase of tapping.

The words used during the tapping are the words the client has just given the therapist. The therapist may appear to lead the questions and the tapping but the content is given to them by the client. Its a dance of cooperation. In a sense the therapist manages the process and the client manages the content.

Watching the group evolve from first uncertain and mechanical attempts in the first exercise to flowing, cooperative confidence in the fourth I see faces softening, hear laughter and there is a relaxation and gentle openness of expression between each pair, it becomes more and more difficult for me to work out which is being therapist and which is being client. These people are doing therapy, they are working on life long emotional blocks and traumas and yet they look like they are enjoying themselves and enjoying dancing together with EFT.

I've often used the teaching metaphor of the therapist as guide dog. Helping to cross the street but not deciding the destination. Walking beside with gentle guidance and never pulling on the lead. Now I'll use the metaphor of dancers but its just not ballroom!

Your thoughts?

Gwyneth

The Tapping News goes BLOG!

Dear Readers

The Tapping News is the newsletter that I've sent out once a month (or so, sometimes months accelerate without me noticing) for the last four years to those who have trained with me on Emotional Freedom Techniques workshops. EFT is also known as the tapping therapy because that is what we do. Well the Tapping News will still go out in Newsletter form but tonight I have taken this big step into the web of life and here I am BLOGGING!!!

On Friday a girlfriend and I went to The Craiglands Hotel which was our venue last year for www.eftmasterclass.co.uk and is where April's exploration of EFT and Brainwaves will be held www.eftevents.com only this time it was for a night out with the Idle Hands superb local jazz and soul trio. After an excellent meal we watched slightly envious as several couples glided around the dance floor with apparent ease. "Can you dance?" I asked and Linda confessed shamefaced that as a tall girl at school she had been a "boy" in dance lessons and now couldn't not lead! I laughed because that had been exactly my experience too. Every attempt to dance had failed because my body hadn't a clue how to follow and I'd crushed the egos as well as the toes of potential partners.

Of course I got to thinking about EFT. Could I tap to unlearn a learned behaviour? And if successful would I then have to learn the behaviour not learned? This seems to me fundemental to therapeutic change. We learn something when young which fits at the time then as our circumstances and environment change what was once a solution becomes a problem. Part of the change is the unlearning of the old solution and the other part is the learning of the new solution.

Your thoughts?

Gwyneth