Perhaps there is something in your life that you wish didn't affect you quite so much. It might be anxiety that seems to take over, a symptom that immediately triggers fear, pain that dominates your attention, a phobia that stops you doing things, or a difficult memory that still carries an emotional charge.

Perhaps you've lived with unpredictable health for so long that you've become frightened of what your body might do next. Whatever it is, imagine being able to think about it, experience it or face it without having the same intense reaction.

That is what we can work towards with EFT.

Think about the thing that is bothering you right now and what would change if it simply didn't have the same hold over you anymore.

Perhaps you could think about a difficult memory without feeling that familiar wave of emotion, or notice a symptom without fear immediately taking over. You could go somewhere you've been avoiding and feel confident that you can handle it, or get into bed without your mind replaying conversations, worries and worst-case scenarios.

Imagine experiencing pain or an uncomfortable sensation without your whole body bracing against it, or facing a situation that once felt overwhelming and realising, "Actually, I can deal with this."

That is what we are working towards with EFT. It isn't about pretending difficult things haven't happened or convincing yourself that everything is fine. It is about reducing the emotional charge attached to something so that it stops taking up so much space in your life.

When that happens, there is more room for the things you actually want: more confidence, more calm, more freedom and more trust in yourself and your body. Instead of organising your life around what you're frightened might happen, you can start getting on with living it.

EFT can be used to work with many different problems. You decide what you would like to bring to the session.

That could include:

• Anxiety and persistent worry
• Chronic stress and overwhelm
• Physical pain or uncomfortable symptoms
• Fear around symptoms or health
• Fear of another flare
• Poor sleep
• Phobias
• Difficult memories or past experiences
• Situations that trigger a strong emotional response
• Frustration or anger
• Something you simply feel unable to move past

If you've been living with chronic illness, perhaps there are things you've gradually stopped doing because you don't trust what your body will do. Travelling, eating away from home, exercising, making plans or simply going somewhere without immediately thinking about where the nearest toilet is, how you are going to react to the food, or how your body might respond to the environment can all begin to feel more difficult.

Sometimes the physical problem is only part of what you're carrying. There can also be years of fear, frustration and anticipation built around it, and that is something we can work with.

Equally, what you bring to a session doesn't have to have anything to do with your physical health. We start with whatever is bothering you.

Emotional Freedom Techniques, usually called EFT or tapping, combines focused attention on a particular problem with gentle tapping on specific acupressure points on the face and body.

Rather than spending the whole session talking about what happened or analysing why you feel the way you do, we work with the response that comes up when you focus on it. At the beginning, I'll usually ask you to give the intensity of that response a score from 0 to 10.

Then we begin tapping and keep checking what happens to that intensity as we work. The question we are exploring is simple: can we change the way you respond to this?

I use EFT myself, which is one of the reasons I decided to train in it and incorporate it into my work.

One of the things I find particularly interesting about EFT is that we aren't trying to erase what happened. We are working with the emotional or physical response attached to it.

You may still remember the event, recognise the symptom or encounter the situation, but imagine being able to do that without experiencing the same intensity of fear, sadness, anger, discomfort or anxiety.

The event hasn't changed, but your response to it can. When that response changes, what you feel able to do next can change too.

Imagine making plans without automatically thinking about everything that could go wrong, or going somewhere you've been avoiding because you feel more confident about your ability to cope.

Imagine noticing a symptom and dealing with what is actually happening rather than immediately jumping ten steps ahead. You could think about something from your past without feeling as though you're right back there, or have a difficult day without allowing it to become a difficult week.

If illness has gradually changed the relationship you have with your body, there is another important outcome we can work towards: rebuilding trust in your body.

The goal isn't to create a life where nothing difficult ever happens. It is to feel more able to deal with those difficult moments without them having the same power over the rest of your life.

Ultimately, I don't want you to spend your life organising everything around fear, anxiety, pain, symptoms or something that happened years ago.

The aim is to help you get to a place where you can make plans because you want to make them, go places because you want to go, rest without your mind racing, and experience a symptom without immediately fearing what comes next.

It could mean being able to think about the past without feeling as though you're still living in it, or simply having greater confidence that when something difficult happens, you can handle it.

That is what we are working towards with EFT: less fear, less emotional charge, greater confidence and more freedom to get on with your life.

For a limited time, I am offering a small number of complimentary 45-minute EFT sessions while spaces are available. Get in touch if you are interested. 

You don't need to know much about EFT beforehand or prepare your entire life story. You don't even need to arrive with the "perfect" thing to work on.

Just bring one thing you would like to feel differently about. It could be a symptom, pain, fear, phobia, stressful situation, difficult memory, anxiety or something completely different, and we'll take it from there.

If you'd like to experience a complimentary 1:1 EFT session with me, get in touch to find out more.