Kay Christopher - Surrogate EFT

What is "Surrogate EFT" and How Can I Use It to Help Others?
by Kay Christopher, Certified Advanced EFT Practitioner & EFT Master Trainer

Surrogate Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) is meridian tapping done for the benefit of another person using yourself as the surrogate or substitute. It is very useful as it is not always convenient or possible for the person with the problem to tap or to be tapped on. Examples include infants and children, people who are not in proximity to you (in another city or country), people who are hospitalized or incarcerated and can't be visited, and pets and wild animals. (With surrogate tapping for animals you don’t have to learn where the meridians are on them. You can just tap on your own meridians and the animal will receive the benefit.)

Most people are familiar with the idea of prayer. Surrogate EFT is kind of like prayer but you use the tapping along with your intention for healing.

If this sounds a little strange or even unbelievable to you hang with me. Thousands of people all over the world are successfully using surrogate EFT and I have used it many times with great results for both humans and animals for a variety of issues. So please continue reading, then try it out for yourself.

Consider that Albert Einstein taught us that everything is energy, and quantum physics tells us that everything is interconnected. Scientists can take two subatomic particles and put them in relationship to one another, put them thousands of miles apart, and both halves of the pair are able to carry influences instantly between them, no matter how far apart they are, instantaneously (nonlocal, quantum entanglement {Bell's theorem}). It may well be that, at an energy level, humans and animals relate the same way. Perhaps we can affect one another’s energy field long distance through affecting our own. That seems to be what is happening with surrogate EFT.

You can use surrogate EFT (also called proxy EFT) to help others with physical or emotional concerns as you would using EFT in the standard way. You define the issue, rate it using the SUDS scale (subjective measure of 0-10 intensity with 0 being none and 10 being high), and proceed just as you would typically with EFT. However, with surrogate EFT, if you are not able to communicate directly with the subject, intuition becomes very important as a means to know what to tap on.

An example of this is when I was hired to work with a 3-month-old horse who had experienced a very bad reaction to some medicine she had been given. She had gotten very ill, had an extremely high fever, and was left traumatized by the event. Her owner described her as profoundly changed from the very self-confident joyful little filly she had known into an empty shell, “as if no one is home in there”.

When I went out to the barn and did EFT for this filly I tapped on my own body with the intention of the horse receiving the benefit. I connected with the filly, then tapped on all the emotions that seemed to arise as I did my best to intuit what she was feeling. It seemed she was frightened and sad and that she felt a host of other emotions as well. As I tapped and trusted what was coming intuitively the information I needed flowed to me. It took a while to tap on all of the emotions and related thoughts that came up but after I was finished the filly went out into the pasture and immediately kicked up her heels, as if expressing the exhilaration of feeling fully alive again. Her owner was stunned to see the difference in her beloved little horse. The filly was “back”, fully present and alert, and ready to take on the world again.

When you do surrogate tapping you have a choice in that you can do it “for” the other person or animal (as if they are separate from you) or you can do it “as” them (as if you are one with them). This is a matter of personal preference as surrogate EFT works equally well in either case.

You can also use an inanimate object as the surrogate and EFT will still work. I used a stuffed snowman to tap on when my 18-month-old great niece was crying and didn’t want me to touch her. EFT worked wonderfully to soothe her back into a state of peacefulness.

One note about surrogate tapping: sometimes in close relationships we are better off tapping for ourselves than for the other person. An example of this is a client who wanted to do surrogate tapping for her husband who was ill. The woman felt he wasn’t taking care of his illness properly. When we explored the issue further we discovered her anxiety was not really about her husband’s illness. Her previous husband had become ill and then died, and she was afraid she might be left alone a second time. After we did EFT for the woman’s fear and anxiety she no longer felt the need to do surrogate EFT for her husband. The issue was actually hers. After her EFT session she felt content to let him make decisions about managing his health care without her unsolicited influence.

Here is a simple procedure for using surrogate EFT. These instructions assume you already know how to use EFT and how to recognize “aspects” that may arise as you tap.

1. Decide on the issue you are going to address with EFT.
2. Rate the issue using the 0-10 SUDS scale. If you can’t ask the subject for a number it’s okay to use your intuition to determine a number.
3. Decide whether you are going to tap “for” the subject (as if they are separate from you) or “as” the subject (as if you are one with them). Both ways work very well so select the one that feels best to you.
4. Become as neutral as you can in order to become an open channel for information via your intuition.
5. Use the setup procedure and tapping sequence as usual, doing as many rounds as needed to bring the issue to a zero. Be aware of new aspects that arise and tap on those as well until you get to zero.

Surrogate EFT eliminates the need for being in close proximity to the person you would like to help and also eliminates the need for direct communication (especially important in the case of infants and animals). It is a very rewarding skill to develop and, as with any skill, improvement comes with practice. Explore the benefits of surrogate tapping and you will expand your ability to use EFT as a healing aid.

© Kay Christopher 2008. All rights reserved.