More and more these days I have been getting the intuition to have a heart to heart conversation with people I feel hurt by or have some other conflict with. This has had a profound deepening effect on my relationships and I find that they are actually made stronger through challenge and require vulnerability and openness to pain even though I have such great tools to clear strong emotion by myself.

(You may also enjoy this talk by researcher Brene Brown on the power of vulnerability in relationship).
Here are the top 5 things I have learned that have proved helpful for me in having more loving and authentic relationships.

1. Energy work is not a get out of experience free card. Even when you know EFT (or do EFT with a professional) and you can tap to clear reactions and heavy emotions it is still necessary at times to have conversations where you feel vulnerable and emotional with people in your life.

2. Successfully navigating conflict or hurt feelings can deepen a relationship quickly. Ultimately your relationships will be deeper and stronger if you are willing to be honest and vulnerable and have those challenging conversations. It can feel counter intuitive but I have found that navigating through challenge, hurt feelings or disagreements actually helps me develop more trust and feel more cared for and caring in my relationships.

I avoided arguments and relationship challenges most of my life by being nice or just not saying anything. I was afraid that if I did bring up hard stuff I would be abandoned or the person would become angry and defensive and things would get worse as seemed to happen when I was a kid. This made my relationships pleasant but distant and I often felt I was walking on emotional eggshells.

What I have found as an adult though is that people respect and care about how I feel and are often very willing to change and hear what I have to say as long as I am respectful of them in the process. I actually have a friend who does not feel close to people in her life until they have had some sort of significant argument because she feels she cannot trust them until they have navigated some difficulty.

3. Navigating challenging conversations is not just about being willing. There is some skill involved that you can learn.

Here are some pointers to get you started.
a. Ask the person if they have time to talk. If this is not a good time, make an appointment with them.
b. Tell the person you care about them. Express that the relationship is important to you and you want to keep it before going into the problem so they know that this conversation is not going to end the relationship.
c. Stay as calm, present and connected in yourself as you can.
d. Make “I” statements instead of blaming or telling them how they feel. Example, “I felt hurt when you were late yesterday. I don’t think you did that on purpose but I felt hurt by it.”
e. Be willing to listen to their side as well as communicate clearly what you need. It is very likely that you will be surprised by their response. So much of what we think is true is actually a projection from our past experiences. It is quite likely that the other person’s perspective and response to you will be different than the story you have told yourself about it. This also gives you and the other person an opportunity to be compassionate and gives you both permission to be more authentic in general.
f. Don’t underestimate he power of a heart felt apology on yourself or on the other person. This sounds simple but often is not so easy.

4. True connection in relationship happens when both people are coming from a grounded place in their own being. Giving up who you are, trying to please other people all the time or pretending keeps the relationship shallow. It also creates resentment and robs the other person of authentic connection. Staying out of co-dependence is very challenging but is where real connection lies. Two whole people sourcing their actions from their own center is where we connect.

Getting to know yourself deeply is a requirement. Then learning to stay connected and true in yourself even around others (EFT can be very helpful in the process). Our deeper presence is the only place we can truly connect with another.

5. Love and forgive yourself in the process. Be a good friend to yourself within your relationships. No-one does these things well all the time and if we can be loving and forgiving to ourselves we can learn, grow and evolve within our relationships. Deepening our relationships as well as our own self knowledge and connection.

I think that being with other people in a true way is one of the best and most important parts of being alive. I wish you all the best in having true connection with the people in your life. Love, Fraeda

From an article called The Link Between Trauma and Kindness by Gina Hillier about the work of Joan Boryesenko.

Stage 1 – Separation from the Known World
“This [stage] is very well known in anthropological literature and it’s a spiritual archetype, as well,” Joan begins. “You can see this occurrence in spiritual stories cross-culturally when the hero or heroine is separated from the known world.

In some way the earth opens up and swallows you. At that moment of separation, essentially you die to who you were and haven’t yet been reborn to who you might become.”

Stage 2 – The Liminal Phase
“The second phase is what anthropologists call the liminal phase [Latin for "threshold"].You’re on the doorstep of becoming something totally new or different. This is the wandering-in-the-wilderness phase. You don’t have your bearings and all your old beliefs and opinions just disappear on you. That can be a good thing because our opinions can become idols that we worship. They sometimes become ruts instead of open spaces of possibility. It’s a very frightening time, one of uncertainty. I always think of it as sacred time.

“Really unusual things can happen in the liminal period. For instance, unexpected allies can appear; rules about time and space part and you’re in another world. But it’s a dangerous place in terms of trauma. Many people despair, they get depressed, they commit suicide or give up in that space, while others transform. It’s been my interest for a really long time to look at what predisposes a person to transformation instead of despair. What makes people resilient?”

“People who respond to difficult events by blaming themselves for something or taking it personally, who think their bad luck is pervasive, that it’s the story of their lives and it’s permanent, these are the people who become helpless quickly,” Joan explains.

“They are therefore less likely to see opportunities and more likely to develop depression. The work of positive psychology is to help people say, ‘Okay, how does somebody who is more optimistic view this kind of terrible trauma?’ The answer to that, of course, is that an optimistic person is more able to see it as an experience for personal growth.”

Stage 3 – The Return
“The third part of the rite of passage is returning to the community transformed, with greater authenticity and wisdom than when they left, capable of offering a set of gifts that maybe you didn’t even know you had,” Joan continues. “There are unexpected gifts to be had, gifts of growth. We oftentimes see this with people who endure a difficult experience; they come back to enrich and inspire others, they set up centers for other people or contribute in some way, whatever it may be.”

I have found that the most unnerving stage is the liminal stage because of the feeling of extreme uncertainty. It is like letting go of the side and floating with very little to hang onto, conclude or plan. It is also the point where there is the possibility of deep evolution. What I recommend in addition to what is stated in the quote above is to be OK with the unknown, trust the process and have compassion for yourself – knowing you are in a very important transformational process.

When I started my healing journey with EFT and PSYCH-K I could tell I was transforming in major ways and for quite a while I was in the liminal stage without any idea of what to do next or what it would even feel like to be me after I changed. I committed to being present with the process of clearing and releasing all the past trauma, negative beliefs and emotion that I possibly could.

Before I was ready to heal I first came to the point where I could no-longer stand myself as I was and decided I was willing to let go of anything I needed to in order to heal (effectively initiating my own “Separation from the Known World”) and to find what was true in me. Then after several months of healing and change I began to have a persistent intuition to do healing work with others and began to clear what I needed to in order to help others. However, even after I decided to become a healer I constantly felt as though I was moving back and forth between the 3 stages over and over again with different aspects of myself going through different stages.

Part of being an evolutionary person is always being a little bit in one of these stages, or at least being open to the next shift and being willing to engage with it as best you can, letting life move you as life evolves creation through you.

Why self-care is not selfish:
a. If you are not healthy and vibrant how can you really be there for other people in a consistent, authentic, powerful way?
b. The more you take care of yourself and feel internally supported the less you will feel the need to cling to, project onto or manipulate other people into giving you what you want and need.
c. In taking care of yourself you become a role model for others to do the same. This is a huge gift.

In the past 2 weeks I have had a lot of experiences and realizations that have been deepening my understanding and ability to take care of myself.

Here are 5 insights I had for myself and an exercise you can do on your own that I hope will be helpful.

1. I need to dedicate myself to listening to what I need and taking action on it. Am I willing to listen to myself, support myself and be a parent to myself when need be? I choose to believe that I deserve to consistently take the time and energy to use the tools and resources I have to take care of myself. As I see it this is one of our basic jobs as a fully developed human.

2. Taking care of myself doesn’t necessarily mean doing what I want to do or what feels good in the moment. Sometimes it may require me to have difficult conversations or require me to admit something painful about myself.

3. Stop being overly nice, disappearing myself or pretending in hopes that other people will like me this way and take care of me without me having to ask or advocate for myself. When I take care of myself in a real way I can be honest and authentic with others because I am no-longer trying to manipulate them into caring for me (usually emotionally) by being how I think they want me to be. This way of being takes time to embody at subtler and subtler levels.

4. Part of caring for myself is requesting support clearly and directly from those who are likely to be able to give it. Most people want you to have what you need as long as the request is made in a positive way at a time when they are able to hear it (i.e. whining, complaining and dropping subtle hints don’t count) most people will do the best they can for you.

5. Self-care is a process and can only be engaged in authentically in the moment. Keep current with myself, adjust and follow intuition as I am guided.

   Self-Care Exercise: Once a day for the next week or periodically throughout the day tune into yourself and ask, “How can I best take care of myself right now?” You will be surprised at the types of things that come up.

   Some of the things that have come up for me have been; take a nap, work all day till this project is done, take time to listen to my friend, let myself cry in public, take a deep breath, stop daydreaming and get some work done, drink more water.

One day I was thinking about a client and how I could help them. I began to notice that if I turned the insights I came up with into a possible message for my own life it often was just what I needed at the time. I hope this is a helpful tip for tapping into your own hidden brilliance:

Whenever you are talking to other people and giving them guidance or suggestions take note. (Or if you are just thinking of someone and thinking you want to give them some suggestion or guidance.) Then ask yourself, “If this guidance was for me how might it apply to me in my life?” Notice and trust what comes.

Often it is easier to hear something when it appears to be for someone else. This may be one way that your guidance is speaking to you. There is often less resistance to hearing a message for someone else than for ones self. You will be amazed at the brilliance of what you come up with.

In the book she has a Section on STDs. Top 10 Spiritually Transmitted Diseases which is an expansion of an article she wrote by the same title. It is quite eye opening and quite funny. I saw myself in these…not too flattering but I guess that is the point.

The other day I was lost in my head trying to figure out what I “should” do as I create the new version of my business. I was in a cloudy mental battle with myself about trying to get it right and trying to get my business to perfectly line up with my spiritual beliefs and personal insights. Can you say suffering? Yikes, I think fighting yourself is a form of personal hell.

I suddenly had the presence of mind to stop and sit in silence, feeling my presence in the body, knowing my mind was taking over and trying to control everything. I looked over and picked up this book and read some of what is quoted below. As I read I felt some anxiety about telling the truth to myself about how far I have to go and what is really involved but as I felt into and through that a lot of peace came.

Her writing reminded me to have compassion for myself as I am still just beginning the journey with no end, at least in terms of understandable goals. An honest walk along the path is really what it is all about. I asked myself what am I really committed to? What am I doing on this path?

Once I was tuned back in, my heart reminded me that I am really here to evolve myself and others and love people more and more. If I get into my head I can get side tracked by aspects of my mind that want to force it, make it happen, get there and I need people Mariana to bring me back to my senses.

I personally have never quite resonated with the idea of trying to get “enlightened”. As much as I have been searching for truth and asking the deeper questions of life from a young age it just never felt right that there was an end goal to get to in this lifetime. I felt I could get closer and closer, getting underneath some of the illusions and over time release more and more layers of the false self but I was skeptical of the final goal idea.

When I read her section “Enlightenment is beside the point” it really hit home with me and resonated with some of what has felt more true to me. I am still integrating what I learned from her and will be for a long time (lifetimes?). She clearly points out all the places we can fall out of integrity and into ego and illusion. Discernment, compassion and humbleness are invaluable on the journey.

I also love that she emphasizes not just spiritual practice but the need for psychological healing and growth. She and others call this waking up and growing up. It seems to me that life is naturally moving towards both of these, on a very long, very winding road and it is best to pay attention to both.

Here is a passage that I found both down to earth and profound. I hope you find it useful. I very much recommend the book.

“Rather than holding on to an imagined concept of enlightenment as a product that can be attained, it may be more helpful to consider spiritual awakening as an endless process of progressively deeper levels of integration…

What if enlightenment were less about fireworks and eternal bliss and more about dissipating the illusions we have about what life itself is? About becoming more authentic, compassionate, and real – and stop our pretending? About letting the protective layers of our personality structure to crumble? And becoming progressively more effective agents of transformation and the alleviation of suffering in the world, beginning with ourselves? In my years of practicing, interviewing, and researching spirituality, I have come to believe that although different paths have different goals, an authentic and integrated spiritual path should make us more real and human, not less.”

-Mariana Caplan, PhD, Eyes Wide Open p.19-20

“From Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak

Vocation does not come from willfullness. It comes from listening. I must listen to my life and try to understand what it is truly about – quite apart from what I would like it to be about – or my life will never represent anything real in the world, no matter how earnest my intentions.

[Vocation] is rooted in the Latin for “voice” … It means a calling that I hear. Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am. I must listen for the truths & values at the heart of my own identity, not the standards by which I must live – but the standards by which I cannot help but live if I am living my own life.”

One of the things I realized as we talked is how much my presence practices and listening to intuitive guidance in the moment helps me in times of intense evolution.

I believe there is a natural force in the universe that creates deeper levels of creativity, unity and consciousness. This could be called the evolutionary impulse. If I am present and not contracted, trying to control what happens from what I think things “should” be like from my world view (necessarily a construction of past experiences), then I am truly open to being moved by this force.

“A problem cannot be solved from the level of consciousness that created it.” Albert Einsten

At this time in history especially I think many old structures are breaking down and it is less and less possible to live in our old ways. These shifts feel really big and no-one really knows what will happen.

In systems theory there is something called a bifurcation point creating a phase shift. This phase shift happens in a system without warning and even when it begins to happen it is completely unpredictable what it will look like after the shift is over. Sometimes the shift is so extreme that the system becomes unrecognizable.

A system can be anything – a person, culture or ecosystem. What then is the best way to prepare and allow a shift to take place? For me being present and allowing change to move through me while responding to life as it happens has been the best advice.

EFT has helped me a lot in being able to do this. Having parts of yourself trapped in the past can create a drag on your process of evolution because they keep you reacting to the present as if it were the past and manifesting past experiences in the present. Also these parts limit you to the level of consciousness that you had at the time the upsetting event happened, often in childhood. Once released you are more open to true evolution.

Early on in my healing process when I was using EFT and other healing techniques I felt so changed at some points in my process that I didn’t even know my own mind anymore. This was a real challenge and I had to remind myself to let go and trust my system to reorganize at a higher level.

When I found EFT I was desperate to change and I was willing to not know what it would be like to be me in the next moment if it meant getting out of depression and what I call “emotional groundhog day”. This process was only scary when I resisted or thought I should have a rigid idea of who I was or how things were supposed to be.

The thing is these shifts (as I talk about above) are non-liner and not necessarily understandable in rational terms. My understanding is that what holds this all together so we don’t loose our minds when our old paradigms are released is the background Awareness which is what we actually are. Going through this process illuminated this truth for me and as I continue it reminds me of what is eternal in me.

In the next 5- 20 years I think the world we live in will become unrecognizable on a personal and planetary level. What a true journey we are on together! Miraculously when we let go of the side and float, grounded in the moment – healing, transcendence and evolution somehow happens. I hope these insights into my personal process were helpful to you. Much Love, Fraeda

My understanding of this quote is that the more evolved and complex something is the more consciousness it has. Consciousness is God/Source/Universal Mind, experiencing itself through creation. Love is another word for the drive towards connection and complexity that is inherent in the process of life.

“…not your aims and actions are primary, but the state of consciousness out of which they come. Fulfilling your primary purpose [awakening] is laying the foundation for a new reality, a new earth. Once this foundation is there, your external purpose becomes charged with spiritual power because your aims and intentions will be one with the evolutionary impulse of the universe.” Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

Earlier today I was listening to another teleseries connected to these women. It was about healing, learning and growing so a person can attract their life partner/ “soulmate”. Debbi Ford, a well known author, was being interviewed about how to work with internal shadow parts that are either in pain and blocking love in a person’s life. These shadows may have also made commitments or vows, keeping a person in resistance to attracting their romantic “soulmate”. I have found this concept of the shadow very helpful in the past and use it with EFT sometimes. During the interview Debbi lead us through an exercise she created to connect us with whatever shadow was up for us at the moment keeping us alone or blocked from love.

As I did the exercise I connected with a shadow part of myself that seemed to be about 7 years old. The belief of this part was that she was alone and disconnected from other people. This shadow part also had the idea that she had to do everything for herself and that there was no-one to see her or connect with her. The feeling was that – being alone is my identity, my lot in life and I have to resign to that.

I then began doing EFT on these thoughts and feelings and felt some release as different aspects came up. After about 10 minutes I became aware of a powerful energy that wanted to come through the 7 year old but had been closed down and bottled it up until this moment. The energy was lovely and strong and vast. As I tapped on the fear of feeling this energy and allowing it to come through it began to really flow into and through my body. It was a vast, open space of powerful feminine energy. I had a felt sense at the time that this energy had a deep capacity for relatedness, connection, softness, receptivity, nurturing, joy, care, well-being, vitality and powerfully holding space.

Often people think of shadow parts as only being negative but they may not be. According to Debbi Ford, and I have found this before too, sometimes there are shadows that are positive parts of ourselves or positive experience that we suppress and have been unwilling to allow to come through us at some time in the past. What I discovered in this session with myself was that at the age of 7 I was not willing to allow this energy to come through because I didn’t understand it, felt overwhelmed by it and was worried that the people around me wouldn’t like it.

As this energy began to come through me in the session some fear arose. I started to talk to the child as my adult self and ask what it felt and what it needed to be able to allow this power to come through (this is a great way to access the feelings and truth of the part so you get all the aspects that need to shift in order to get a full clearing and resolution). What became clear from talking to the part was that I had been afraid that this power would overwhelm people, that they would want to shut me down. I feared that the people around me would want me to be smaller, weaker, harsher and more contained than this energy wanted to be and there was resistance in the 7 year old part to allow it through for these reasons. This may have been true for the 7 year old or it may have just been a perception I had at the time, ultimately it doesn’t matter. I then did EFT for these fears and concerns and they began to melt away as the energy came through more and more and the EFT release the disruptions from my system.

This, for lack of a better term, “feminine energy” did not really feel like Fraeda/me-ness. It was more like the sense that the divine feminine aspect of my higher self was wanting to express itself into this world through Fraeda the human. I don’t even know if this makes sense but this is as close as I can come to the felt experience of this newly discovered energy. There were quite a lot of tears that came from reuniting with this energy, like part of my life force had been bottled up and was being re-united with.

At the end of the session I soaked in this energy coming though me and extending several feet from my body, for about 30 minutes. It is one of the loveliest energys I have ever had come through me. I just really like it. It is pure, authentic, unafraid, and has a really deep sense of well-being within it. I tapped some EFT rounds to open my mind, body and spirit to this energy and to integrate it into my being in a healthy way. It is now the day after and I can still feel this energy in my system, wanting to express itself in the world through me and I feel that I have the grounding and skills to embody it as I was meant to in this life.

This idea of shadows and also positive shadows or suppressed parts of ourselves can be very powerful for those who want to deepen their use of EFT. I encourage those who are serious students of EFT to explore using EFT with other techniques such as this (while taking complete responsibility for your own well-being of course). It can really magnify the power of both. Let me know how it goes! I always love to hear from you…

Before starting the tapping session I was reading in chapter four in A New Earth about how the ego (that false, mentally created, limited sense of self) operates. The following passage from this chapter sparked something in me and lead to a short but very fruitful self-led tapping session…

“Any conceptual sense of self – seeing myself as this or that – is ego, whether predominately positive (I am the greatest) or negative (I am no good)…Whenever you feel superior or inferior to anyone, that’s the ego in you.” -Tolle

This egoic way of relating to oneself and life (and how untrue it is) is obvious to most people in the case of possessions such as, “I am better than that person because I drive a nicer car.” But this tendency is often overlooked in ourselves when the comparison is more subtle or not physical. For example a person’s ego may say, “I am more spiritual, and therefore better, than that person because I meditate more or I am superior to other people because I give money to charity”. The underlying structure and false identification with the thing, concept, or action as ones identity, is the same in both cases. However, according to Tolle the only difference is in the content of the comparison.

As I read this passage I saw and felt the truth of his statements in the workings of my own mind as I have done in the past when reading about the ego, but this time I decided to really investigate it. As I did this I could feel my mind wanting to compare myself to other people and find myself superior in an effort to get attention and value in the hopes of feeling complete and important in the future. I also could feel that my mind had done this my whole life as a basic part of its functioning. At the same time I could feel in my Being that this had never really worked to make me feel deeply happy or complete. Any good I felt from these judgments never really lasted and I noticed that as a result I would always have a strong feeling of separation and fear ultimately creating suffering in my life. I also noticed that part of me (my ego) didn’t want to stop doing this. It felt that it couldn’t stop without being annihilated or becoming nothingness which triggered fear in me. As I know from EFT, “All negative emotion (such as the fear I was experiencing) is caused by a disruption in the body’s energy system.” So I had the idea of using EFT on the fear of letting go of this mental/egoic pattern of wanting to feel superior in general instead of tapping on the specific judgments which is what I have done in the past. Here are the phrases I started with:

Even though I feel the need to make myself superior to other people to have value and add something to myself to feel important, lovable and admired I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

Even though I am afraid that if I don’t keep trying to accomplish things to add something to myself in the future I will be nothingness I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

Even though I see that this hasn’t worked to get me what I really want, but I don’t think I can stop because this is part of the structure of the human ego and I don’t know how to let it go, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

After a few rounds of tapping the fear started to clear and a deep sadness came. The sadness came from realizing that trying to feel superior was really a yucky feeling and has separated me from other people, keeping me from seeing the vitality and beauty of each person. I began remembering times when I was with people and didn’t judge them in my mind and instead was able to be present and enjoy the Life in them. I was flooded with joy remembering how deeply satisfying, real and true those times were. It then became clear that my Being really wanted to show up for that kind of experience much more than living out this old need to label other people and create a mental image of myself as superior or inferior to them.

I then began to feel some remorse and self-judgment for judging other people and causing myself so much pain because of this compulsion. I then tapped on the regret, sadness and self-judgment and did some crying as I tapped.

Even though I have judged a lot of people instead of seeing their beauty and the spark of their being I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

Even though I have missed out on a lot by doing this and created a lot of suffering for myself and other people and it feels really sad I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

Even though the separation I felt was created by my own mind and I suffered the consequences and am blaming myself and feeling sad I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

During this tapping round another concept from Tolle’s book came to mind. According to Tolle the ego structure is not personal. It is part of every human ego and hence a person does not need to judge themselves for it. They will pay the consequences of it however, but it isn’t a personal problem, or anything that the person did “wrong”. After remembering this I then tapped on forgiving myself for the pain I had caused myself from living this ego pattern. I also used “the choices method” to let this pattern go, now that I could feel how useless it was.

Even though I have been judging people as superior or inferior for my whole life, I recognize this is part of the pattern of the human ego and not a personal problem. I have been suffering the consequences of doing this but I see that it is part of every human ego and I forgive myself deeply and completely.

I choose to release this pattern from every level of my mind, body and spirit. I choose to open to being present with each person in the moment and allowing myself to see the beauty and Life that is there.

After these last tapping rounds I came to a feeling of great peace and calm. The idea of giving up needing to feel superior to other people did not feel frightening anymore, nor did I feel sad or judgmental towards myself about what I had done in the past. I am not going to expect that I will never again have a thought of comparing myself to another, or that I will never think that I am superior or inferior, but it feels very possible that when I do, I can recognize it and let it go rather than cling to the judgment. This tendency also feels weaker, like a lot of the energy has been taken out of it. It also feels very true that I do not need this ego pattern to keep my identity from being annihilated. It feels much more true to me that being Life and a part of humanity, created from Source, and enjoying each person in the moment is more satisfying than any thought I could have in my mind about being superior or inferior to anyone.

After the tapping session I remembered this quote from earlier in A New Earth that expresses the place I came to at the end of the session.

“Everything, a bird, a tree, even a simple stone, and certainly a human being, is ultimately unknowable. This is because it has unfathomable depth. All we can perceive, experience, think about, is the surface layer of reality, less than the tip of an iceberg. Underneath the surface appearance, everything is not only connected with everything else, but also with the Source of all life out of which it came…When you look at it [the thing or person] or hold it and let it be without imposing a word or mental label on it, a sense of awe, of wonder, arises within you. Its essence silently communicates itself to you and reflects your own essence back to you.” – Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth p. 25-26

I very much recommend for serious students of EFT to use it as a tool in conjunction with any spiritual teaching that speaks to and resonates with you. I find that a lot of people do not live what they know in terms of spiritual beliefs because of emotional blocks similar to the fear I had about letting go of the mental pattern I described above. In my experience it is very possible to use EFT in clearing the blocks to opening more deeply to the Truth within us. Any time a “negative” emotion is keeping you from moving forward or letting go of the past in any capacity, including spiritually, you know that there is a disruption in your energy system – there is nothing wrong with you! If you are comfortable using EFT it is very possible to use EFT to move through the emotion to the other side where you can more fully open to and embrace the concepts of any true spiritual teaching. I am very excited about the possibilities in using EFT this way as in my experience there is a lot more intellectual knowledge of spiritual truths than there is embodiment of them. I have used EFT this way for myself and several clients and it works quite elegantly. Good luck and remember to take complete responsibility for your own use of EFT. I would love to hear any comments that you have!  -Fraeda