👆 Module 7 — The Basic Recipe | EFT Course
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Free Course by Everything IFS Academy | Therapeutic Modalities Series
Module 7 — The Basic Recipe
Today we're learning the Basic Recipe, the complete core procedure of EFT and the engine that every other technique in this course aims, refines, or builds upon. The previous lessons forged the parts: the points, the 0 to 10 scale, the opening statement. This lesson assembles them into the running machine, adds the one component not yet taught, the Reminder Phrase, and then traces the whole procedure start to finish through a single ordinary worry, with the actual numbers and the actual words included. By the end, a learner will know the entire shape of an EFT session, what happens at each step and why, and what the procedure looks like when a real person runs it on a real problem.
One historical note before the assembly. The version taught here is the modern shortcut Basic Recipe, the worldwide standard form that Gary Craig himself streamlined his method into. His original 1995 version had four steps and some additional equipment, including a curious procedure involving eye movements and humming, and that original belongs to this course's bonus lesson for anyone who wants EFT's first form. Everything below is the version the tapping world actually runs today.
The Recipe at Altitude
The Basic Recipe is five moves, always in this order. They are named here from altitude so the whole shape is visible before the close work begins.
Identify the target. Choose what is being worked on, in plain words. One issue at a time, and the more specific the better.
Rate it. Take a 0 to 10 reading of the issue's intensity right now, using the SUDS scale, and write it down. The scale, the gut-number craft, and the reasons for writing are all owned by this course's SUDS lesson.
The Setup. Speak the Setup Statement three times, "Even though I have this [problem], I deeply and completely accept myself," while tapping the Karate Chop point. The statement's architecture, its variations, and the hidden resistance it clears are owned by this course's Setup Statement lesson.
The Sequence. Tap through the eight points from eyebrow to top of head, speaking a short Reminder Phrase at each point. This is the round, the rhythmic heart of EFT, and the Reminder Phrase is this lesson's new component, taught fully below.
Re-rate and repeat. Take a fresh SUDS reading. If the number has not reached 0, run further rounds with slightly adjusted wording, re-rating between each, until it does.
That is the entire engine. Identify, rate, setup, sequence, re-rate. A complete cycle takes a couple of minutes, most of it in the round itself, and everything else in EFT is a way of choosing better targets for this procedure or adapting it to harder material.
The Reminder Phrase
The Reminder Phrase is a short fragment of the problem's name, spoken once at each tapping point during the sequence. If the Setup Statement was "Even though I have this dread about Thursday's presentation, I deeply and completely accept myself," the Reminder Phrase is simply "this presentation dread." Two or three or five words, said aloud at the eyebrow, again at the side of the eye, again under the eye, and so on down the sequence.
Its job is single and essential: keeping the mind tuned to the problem while the tapping happens. The Discovery Statement lesson laid the foundation this rests on, and every explanation of EFT agrees on the requirement: the work happens when attention and tapping run together, and attention is a notorious wanderer. Eight points into a rhythmic physical routine, an unsupervised mind is composing a grocery list. The Reminder Phrase is the leash. Each time it is spoken, attention is hauled back to the target, eight small re-aims per round, which is exactly enough to keep the whole minute on task.
The phrase is best understood by contrast with the Setup Statement, because the two get confused and the confusion is worth dissolving here. The Setup Statement is a full sentence with two clauses, problem plus self-acceptance, spoken three times at the Karate Chop point before the round begins, and its job is clearing the inner resistance to the work. The Reminder Phrase is a fragment, problem only, no acceptance clause, spoken at every point during the round, and its job is purely aim. The classic beginner error is reciting the entire "Even though…" sentence at all eight points, which does no harm but turns a one-minute round into a recitation exercise. Setup once at the start; fragment at every point.
The phrase is also allowed to breathe. It can stay identical at every point, which is the simplest form, or it can vary naturally around the same target: "this dread," "this dread about Thursday," "this sick feeling when I picture the room." Variation is fine and often helpful, with one boundary: every variant points at the same issue. The phrase exists to hold aim, not to tour the person's entire inner life in one round.
Running a Round
A round is the sequence from the tapping points lesson run top to bottom with the Reminder Phrase riding along: eyebrow, side of eye, under eye, under nose, chin, collarbone, under arm, top of head, five to seven taps and one spoken phrase at each, every location and finding tip owned by that earlier lesson. Roughly a minute, beginning to end, at an unhurried pace.
What a round feels like is worth describing, because beginners often do not know what to watch for. Frequently it feels like nothing in particular, just tapping and talking, with any change only visible at the re-rating, and that is a completely normal round. But the tradition has also catalogued a family of small signs that something is releasing mid-round, and experienced tappers learn to notice them: a spontaneous yawn out of nowhere, a deep sigh, the breath dropping lower and slower, shoulders unclenching without being asked, sometimes a brief welling of tears that passes like weather. None of these are required, and their absence means nothing, but when a Devon yawns enormously halfway through a round about his money stress, the tradition reads it as the body's punctuation, not boredom.
Three stumbles account for most weak rounds, and naming them is half the cure.
Rushing. Points machine-gunned in thirty seconds, the phrase clipped to a mumble. Speed crowds out the tuning that does the work. The fix is pace: a round should move like a slow walk, not a sprint.
Going silent. The phrase quietly gets dropped after the third point, and within seconds attention has wandered off with it. Silent tapping with genuinely held attention is possible, and there are settings that call for it, but for most people most of the time, the spoken phrase is what holds the aim, and dropping it drops the target.
Drifting attention. The opposite failure: the phrase continues, but as a recitation, words running on autopilot while the mind is elsewhere. The words only work when they mean something each time they are said. A useful self-check mid-round is simple: is the problem actually present in the mind right now, or just in the mouth?
Subsequent Rounds and Adjusted Wording
After a round comes the re-rating, and the SUDS lesson owns what the numbers mean. The Basic Recipe's own contribution is what happens to the words when the number has dropped but not reached 0, which is the most common outcome of a first round.
The classic adjustment inserts one honest word: remaining. The Setup Statement becomes "Even though I still have some of this remaining dread about Thursday, I deeply and completely accept myself," and the Reminder Phrase becomes "this remaining dread." Small edit, real purpose. The wording now tells the truth twice over: progress has happened, and a remainder is still there to be worked. EFT's language always works best when the mind can fully agree with it, and after a drop from 7 to 4, "this remaining dread" is exactly what is true, while the original "this dread" is now slightly stale. The adjusted words keep the aim fixed on what is actually left.
Two cases call for keeping or changing the wording differently. If the number has not moved at all, "remaining" would be false, so the original wording stays put and the usual suspects get checked: pace, tuning, and above all the specificity of the target. And if the re-rating reveals that the feeling itself has changed character, the dread now wearing a coat of irritation, or a particular image suddenly louder than the rest, then the words change to match the new truth, because a new facet of the issue has stepped forward. Those facets are called aspects, a concept with its own full lesson in this course, and following them is one of EFT's central crafts. Rounds continue, words tracking the truth, until the number reaches 0, and the testing habits that confirm a real 0 belong to the SUDS lesson that taught them.
One Full Walk-Through
Here is the whole engine running once, end to end, through one ordinary problem.
Lena has been carrying a knot in her stomach for two days. The audit she is running will not be finished by Friday's deadline, and she needs to ask her manager, Marco, for an extension, a conversation she has been rescheduling in her head since Tuesday.
She sits down with it for a few minutes. First, the target, in her own words: not "work stress," but "this sick dread about asking Marco for more time on the audit." Second, the rating. She tunes in, pictures knocking on his door, and the gut number arrives fast: 7. She writes it on a sticky note: asking Marco for extension, stomach, 7.
Third, the setup. Tapping the fleshy edge of her left hand, she says three times, out loud and like she means it: "Even though I have this sick dread about asking Marco for more time, I deeply and completely accept myself."
Fourth, the round. Eyebrow: "this dread about asking." Side of eye: "this sick dread." Under eye: "this dread about Marco." Under nose: "this knot in my stomach about asking." Chin: "this dread." Collarbone: "this dread about asking for more time." Under arm: "this sick dread." Top of head: "this dread about asking Marco." About a minute. Somewhere around the collarbone she sighs, unplanned and surprisingly deep.
Fifth, the re-rate. She pictures his door again. The image has lost some voltage: 4. New round, adjusted words. Setup once, edge of the hand: "Even though I still have some of this remaining dread about asking Marco, I deeply and completely accept myself." Then through the points with "this remaining dread."
Re-rate: 2. And here something shifts. Probing for what is left, she finds the residue is not really about the asking anymore; it is one specific sentence playing in her head: he'll think I can't handle the job. The feeling has shown her a new facet of itself, exactly the kind of shift the aspects lesson of this course exists for, and Lena does what the recipe says to do: she lets the words follow the truth. Setup: "Even though I'm afraid Marco will think I can't handle it, I deeply and completely accept myself." Round: "this fear he'll think I can't handle it."
Re-rate: 0. She tests it the way the testing habits prescribe, deliberately and vividly: Marco's office, his face, the worst version of his raised eyebrows, trying on purpose to make her stomach knot. It will not knot. The whole scene has gone strangely procedural, just a conversation about a timeline that needs adjusting. She checks the sticky note, sees the 7 in her own handwriting, and books fifteen minutes on Marco's calendar for the morning.
Four rounds, perhaps six minutes, one sticky note. That is the Basic Recipe: not a ritual, but a loop, run with honest words and an honest number, until the number runs out.
Below this lesson, you'll find an Emotional Freedom Techniques practice built around one of the skills you just learned, along with a few ways to begin noticing and practicing it in everyday life this week.
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