Probing for the Core Emotional Issue

I have this chronic physical problem that has not responded to any treatments. I feel there may be an emotional cause, but I don’t know how to figure out what it might be. How can I use EFT for it if I don’t know the emotions behind it?

Gary Craig suggests that one way to probe for a “core emotional issue” that may be behind a stubborn physical symptom is to ask two companion questions: (1) When did you first notice this symptom? and (2) What emotional issues were happening for you at or before that time?

Working with clients, quite often these questions will focus them in on a specific period of time when their emotional world was dramatic, or chaotic, and almost certainly was a time when the client was not feeling safe. These times have an impact on our energy system. And since you probably did not use energy approaches to soothe your system back then, those disruptions often stick around to crop up in mysterious and painful ways in your physical and emotional body.

Tip: if you can’t pinpoint any emotional issues around the time the symptoms appeared, go back over the period 1-3 years prior. If you still can’t remember anything, ask friends and family what was going on during that time.

When something does come up, resist the urge to say, “Oh, that can’t be it!” Remember, we’re talking about energy disruptions here. Energy disruptions do NOT live by the laws of logic! Energy disruptions can be primitive, even pre-verbal. What we are looking for in these explorations are doorways. Not “truth” per se. We’re looking for a way to access the energy field, and our thoughts, physical feelings, and emotional responses are such doorways.

If these two companion questions do not yield any fruitful doorways to explore with EFT, I will often use another question:

What do these physical pains remind you of? And if that doesn’t click, ask yourself WHO do these physical pains remind you of?

With the answers to these questions, you have great starting points for your EFT work. If you would like to use these to really learn EFT for yourself, I encourage you to consider our team membership.

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