Helping others take healing into their own hands
Roosevelt woman teaches finger-tapping to relieve anxiety and ailments
BY JENNIFER KOHLHEPP Staff Writer

PHOTOS BY ERIC SUCAR staff Faye Nulman performs an Emotional Freedom Technique on Tracey Ulshafer at the One Yoga and Wellness Center in East Windsor.

ROOSEVELT - People may have the power within their own fingertips to alleviate emotional stress and physical pain.

In a time when more people are discovering that their emotional health is inseparable from their physical health and that both require balance between the body and the mind, Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) is emerging as another means of self-help.

EFT requires using the fingertips to tap on specific points on the body while voicing positive affirmations to help clear out emotional blockages from and to restore balance to the body's systems. The process is easy to learn, and when memorized it can be done anywhere.

Once Roosevelt's Faye Nulman, a certified massage therapist with an office in the One Yoga andWellness Center in East Windsor, learned EFT and started experiencing its benefits, she incorporated the technique into her practice to help others.

Tracey Ulshafer, the owner of One Yoga and Wellness Center in East Windsor, taps on an energy meridian while demonstrating an Emotional Freedom Technique.

A person who regularly suffers from frequent headaches, Nulman used EFT to eradicate her reliance on headache medication. Since then, she has helped clients use the technique to relieve pain, indigestion, stress, panic attacks and adverse reactions to chemotherapy.

One of the most profound EFT experiences Nulman has had occurred with her client Erin Lichtman, of Millstone Township. Lichtman, who could hardly walk into the wellness center for her appointment one day, left skipping moments later after only three rounds of EFT.

"When I hobbled into Faye's massage room, I was hopeful that she could help me with my back pain, but I had no idea how much," Lichtman said. "I couldn't stand upright and was tilted to the side. I was in a great deal of pain. I was unable to lift or hold my baby."

Lichtman continued, "Faye performed EFT on me and literally within seconds, I realized the knot in my lower back was gone and the pain was nearly gone. Faye repeated the moments-long technique and my pain was completely gone. I was giddy as I left, not in pain for the first time in weeks."

The technique can also be used for shoulder, neck and other aches, fear, breathing and digestive issues, fibromyalgia, stress, anxiety, depression, addictions, weight loss and allergies, according to Nulman.

"Obviously EFT is not offered in lieu of a medical professional opinion," Nulman said. "I am not a doctor, nor would I pretend to be one, but EFT is a nice technique to have to work together with everything else out there."

Nulman said EFT works because most problems and ailments come as the result of unresolved emotional issues.

"About 85 to 95 percent of our issues are a result of something happening emotionally that has not been addressed," Nulman said. "Our unresolved negative emotions are major contributors to most physical pains and diseases."

Basic EFT requires a person to think about a particular stress, ailment, memory or emotion and to simultaneously tap on 12 specific points on the body that correspond to energy meridians used in Chinese medicine. The theory behind EFT is that negative emotions are caused by disturbances in the body's energy field and that tapping on the meridians while thinking of a negative emotion alters the body's energy field and restores it to balance.

Nulman teaches the abbreviated and elongated EFT sequences to her clients.

"I am able to pass the technique on and educate people with it to take responsibility for their own healing," she said.

She also helps clients who may not want to face pain or a problem alone, perform EFT.

"There's extra energy to draw from when you are working with someone else," she said. "Some things are a little too emotional to handle, and with someone else you don't have to look too closely into that mirror at first. Someone else can help do the verbalization or tapping or ask the necessary questions an individual might not think to ask or might not want to ask of themselves."

Nulman said the treatment is done with caution, so that additional problems are not created.

"I've had great success with clients who have come in for pain management and stress relief," she said. "There are no contraindicators. Even if you can't be tapped, there are ways to get around that."

Nulman, who has been a massage therapist for four years, said bringing EFT into her practice has been humbling, because the technique often replaces the need for a massage.

"The more I use EFT, the more I realize it is a stand-alone treatment," she said. "It's been humbling and gratifying at the same time."

Nulman trained in various forms of massage at Gentle Healing School of Massage in Cranbury before opening her own practice, A Kneaded Escape Massage Therapy. She is trained in Thai hot stem massage, integrated massage therapy, aromatherapy massage, and reiki, and offers a few spa treatments as part of her repertoire.

For more information contact Faye Nulman at (609) 918-0963 or visit theWeb site at www.akneadedescape.com.