We are continuing our features where we focus on our members who are using Emotional Freedom Techniques in the community.
Falguni Mather is an EFT Trainer and Advanced Practitioner, and also an integrative psychotherapist focusing on somatic therapy. She volunteers with a centre working for the refugee community in Hong Kong.
What is it about EFT that makes it such an effective tool for working with this group?
If you think about this community, some of the words that come to my mind are dependency and helplessness and a complete lack of control because they are at the mercy of government programmes and NGO’s for everything, so they have very little charge of their lives.
EFT is such an empowering tool, to help regulate themselves; to find a pocket of calm in their day, sometimes to sleep better at night, which is a huge deal. It gives them agency, which is so important.
With so many diverse circumstances and needs, how do you tailor your EFT to the different individuals or groups?
It is about meeting them where they are at. You have to see who is in front of you rather than only seeing the tools that you have that can help this person.
For many of them, English is not their first language, but when we start to tap, I will often ask them to tap in their language. This gives them that sense of agency. Also, the body resonates most with the language that we think in; it seems to have better efficacy. That is really powerful.
I’ve also tapped with clients just doing tap and breathe, so we’re not actually saying anything. Because the current struggles are so intense, we stay gentle.
Can you share a powerful EFT story for anyone you worked with within this community?
One particular client had a lot of trauma before arriving here. There was hypervigilance, a lack of trust and living from a very high sense of fear. At the start, they needed me to accompany them coming in and out of the centre.
If I look at them now, they have so much more confidence in themselves, in relating to others, they are employed, and they are really doing so much better in life.
The community who supports the refugees – how do you support them?
I have tapped with them as a group, so they have experienced it and they are happy that the clients are helped as well, as it helps their work.
Recently, I developed a self-care workshop for the staff. EFT was a big part of this workshop and they all really embraced it, and they’re telling me how they are using tapping.
Do you have feedback from clients and how they have found the process of working with you using EFT?
They are delighted to have something that they can use at home, that’s the biggest feedback. It’s so helpful for them to have something that they can do. Particularly for sleep, because there are a lot of sleep disturbances, and they find that very useful.
During Covid, the centre and I created a 5 minute video, demonstrating general tapping for stress and they sent it out to the community. It was such a wonderful way to be able to help them.
Thank you to Falguni for sharing this information about your work.
We wish you continued success with your work with this community in Hong Kong.
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