Anxiety is one of the more difficult emotions to traverse as it manifests in various forms throughout our everyday life. EFT can decrease the negative emotional charge underlying the anxiety.
With EFT it is important to be as specific as possible when determining what it is you’re working on. There are very different kinds of anxiety. Work anxiety, family anxiety, money anxiety and future-related anxiety to name a few. Generally all anxiety stems from a past event that was either difficult or traumatic. However, sometimes you can have a hard time pinpointing the exact circumstance. That’s ok. You can still work on the anxiety as you are currently feeling it.
Coming up with the set-up phrase is a key component of relieving yourself of the effect anxiety can have on your life. (For how EFT works in a nutshell go to How to Do EFT). If you simply state “I feel so anxious” it isn’t specific enough about the kind of anxiety you are experiencing.
Some examples of specific set-up statements:
“Even though I am anxious about interacting with Uncle Mike at the family reunion…”
“Even though I would get anxious every time I took a math test in Ms. Grady’s class…”
“Even though this anxiety feels like two bags of bricks on my chest…”
If you are having a difficult time getting specific just go with the feelings you are having in your body associated with the anxiety. “My head feels like it’s going to explode…My legs are shaking with anticipation…These butterflies in my stomach…” Sometimes dealing directly with the body sensations can help take the level of anxiety down so that you can then see what’s underneath.
When you are feeling anxious it can feel like too much to identify specific circumstances. Another phrase that can help clear the pathway is:
“Even though I feel too much anxiety to get specific about the cause of this feeling…”
Rate it on the 1-10 scale and try several rounds until you get down to a two or three. Then re-investigate the anxiety. Once you have gotten a chance to take the charge down, being able to observe it may give you deeper insight into the underlying core issue.
The key is to feel into the anxiety and meet it where it’s at. Once you can minimize any sensations in your body that are uncomfortable you can then get more specific. Do you have any memories of when you felt this anxiety before? If you were to give this anxiety three descriptive adjectives what would they be?
You don’t need the set-up phrase to be perfect but you do want the impact of its language to feel true and accurate. Something else to note is that anxiety may feel different than worry or nervousness. How I define anxiety may be oppositional to how my best friend views the feeling. It is a subjective experience for a general feeling state we all go through.
Take a moment to note what makes you anxious in the present moment. What feels the biggest, the most true or intense? Work on that first.
When we are able to identify and name our emotional states with specific set-up phrases the process of EFT goes a lot smoother. For a reminder of how to do the Basics of EFT go here.
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