During my Level 1 and Level 2 workshops last month, I was reminded again and again how important it is to be specific when we’re tapping so we achieve permanent results with EFT.

When I was teaching the participants Gary Craig’s Personal Peace Procedure, many of them came up with life-long beliefs which were very general, as opposed to specific events. For example, ‘I’ll never be successful’, ‘I’m not good enough’, and ‘I’m undeserving of achieving my dreams’.

Although this is what they may have felt very deeply, these beliefs are ‘table tops’ – very global with any number of underlying aspects, or ‘table legs’. If we only address the table top when we tap, we’re unlikely to clear much because the table legs beneath are still standing upright, demanding attention.

The table legs are the reasons why a person feels the way they do, or believes something to be true: in the person’s mind, the table legs are the evidence.

So before you start tapping, take a moment to consider this question:

What is the evidence to support this belief … what is the truth underlying it?

Then write down the memories (the table legs) you have which created the belief in the first place. For example:

• My Grade 4 teacher told me I’d never accomplish anything
• My rather left the family home when I was 7
• My mother told me she wished I’d been a girl
• My grandmother told me we were “just poor immigrants”

Rate the intensity of each memory as you think about it. Note how your body feels as you recall what you saw or heard or experienced.

Then start tapping on the memory with the highest intensity until it holds no charge for you, and move on to the next one. You will be addressing each ‘table leg’ so that when you have finished, the emotional charge of the ‘table top’ will have dissolved.

Getting clear and being specific when you address a problem is the key to successful EFT. Just consider all the reasons why you feel the way you do, or why you hold the belief you do, and use EFT on those.