By Michal Zohar

Dear beloved Gary,

It took me some time to put into words the letter I'd had alive in my heart for so long. I feel that I was reborn and I have been living a new happy life since I met this wonderful technique, which is one of the greatest gifts humanity has been given. And the way you chose to share it, is most generous and heartful and I feel that is an indivisible part of the great healing power of EFT.

All this may sound exaggerated to some readers but is the simple truth as I see it. I suffered from food addiction for 15 years. It was a kind of compulsive overeating that dominated my life. I was never very fat, because I have a good metabolism and I managed also to have "breaks" or "good days". But the weight problem is just one part of the suffering that a compulsive eater is going through.

Although I had periods of time when I didn't engage in compulsive eating, it was always "there", around me, like a "jail" that was present at all times. I tried a few kinds of therapies, and without any direct connection, I also invested throughout these years a lot of my time and energy in the inner work - spiritually and emotionally. I cannot say that I only suffered and that I didn't make any progress. Of course I did. But it was all "inside the problem". I learned to live with it and found areas where I evolved and felt well.

But the "problem" was like a shadow that covered everything. In the process of trying to heal, I knew that the eating is not THE Problem and I understood a lot of the underlying reasons; and many times I felt I am so ready to be without it, but it persisted. I actually felt it was like a "software" in my system and that I can't get to it. I feel that in a way I knew that the right solution was to combine the consciousness with the level of the cell/ energy/ body, where the "commands of behavior" were still imprinted, but couldn't find the way to do it. Until I was ready...

I heard about EFT from my dear father, a clinical psychologist who uses energy techniques in his practice. The minute I set my eyes on the manual I started crying. Yes. Before I even really experienced it I felt I met my way out. the "missing key" to unlock the door to freedom.

At the beginning, after watching the DVDs, I tried on my own, but I couldn't go deep and I understood I needed guidance. Luckily I met the most amazing EFT expert - liana Weiler (who also wrote a few articles that were published in your great website), and we started a magical journey. After only 8 meetings, I felt that the walls of that "jail" were not there. The "compulsive overeating episodes" were simply gone. It is not that I had the strength not to go to the refrigerator - I just didn't go there.

As can be said in the EFT language - the energetic disruption that caused it just didn't exist anymore. It was not available even if I wanted it. Since then I have been working on different aspects of my addiction and many side effects that have accumulated by living like this for so long.

Here I want to emphasize that although it was seemingly a very fast process, I feel (and Ilana does too) that it was so because I was very "ripe" after many years of inner work, and, on the other hand, (as mentioned above), it was only the "eating part" of it that subsided so quickly and I still had much to work on afterwards. As I see it, one should not stop when the "problem" subsides, but continue until all the area around it is "clean", and till he or she learns how to live in the new "room" of the "palace of possibilities". Otherwise, it can surface again in the same way or in a different costume. I feel that on many occasions it is more difficult to be in the "light" than in the familiar "comfort darkness".

All this time I have also worked with limiting beliefs and I am experiencing changes in other areas such as financial and professional. My life completely changed, and still is changing - on all levels. I started working as an EFT practitioner myself. Although I haven't obtained your certification yet, I've watched almost all the DVDs and I am an enthusiastic reader of the materials in your and other websites. I also attend most of Ilana Weiler's workshops, which I really recommend to everyone who wishes to deepen his or her art of delivery of the EFT and to understand the subtle ways of working with it. I introduced EFT to most of my friends and family members and many of them are also experiencing a real deep life change.

No words can express the gratitude I feel to you and to EFT. You have a special place in my heart, and when I tell people about EFT I always refer them first of all to you and to www.emofree.com.

My hope is that EFT will reach more and more people around the world because we all need it. I see it as my life's mission to spread the news about this technique and I am doing the best I can to be a sincere and loyal representative of it wherever I go. And regarding your last talk about the Open Hand Policy: I connect to every word and I will try to be the best "team player" I can be Thank you, beloved Gary.

With love,
Michal Zohar, from Israel.

P.S. I am working with Ilana Weiller on a detailed document of the process I have been through with her guidance, and I hope it will be done soon for the benefit of all.
I attach here a translation of the letter I wrote some time ago which sheds some more light on my journey. It is for everyone to read if you decide to put it in the website.
Also, everyone who needs support or wishes to ask questions is most welcome.

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Dear Gary,

As I said I also translated a letter I wrote in Hebrew in September. it is more difficult to translate than to write straight in English so it may have flaws. i paste it here as well in case you want to post it too. It describes somehow different aspects of the process.
thank u again
i love u very much,
Michal

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A Letter for the New Year

Every year in this time [New Year] I am looking at the year that has passed, express gratitude for what I have received and wish myself everything I still long for and haven't manifested yet. For many years I mainly prayed to heal and be freed from the 'jail' I had been in for so many years.
The jail of my eating disorder, that accompanied me for 15 years, had become part of me, colored every spot and part of my life.

I always tried to ask for healing from a sincere and real trust, but to be
honest: as time passed I didn't really believe that I am able to experience real healing and change in this matter.

This year I stand astonished and deeply grateful for the gift I had been given.
Till recently I could barely believe the change that occurred. And today I feel that when I am talking about the person I used to be, I am talking about someone else. It is me, but as if from a different life. As if I am telling a story and not really describing a memory that belongs to me.
I know today that this is real, natural. And the heart expands and cherishes this gift - this new life.

It was a fascinating journey and it wasn't easy to believe.

The process can be described as such:

From disbelief in a future change,
To growing trust that it is possible,
To a change which is happening and the fear to admit it, To a change which is completely obvious and the fear to say it out loud, To a change that is already here and when I start to talk about the "problem" in the 'past tense' I feel frightened by it, To a change which is already a "permanent resident", till it is no longer a "change" but reality, and then the difficulty to believe that it may be so, and if it is so - then not in my case, Till the days pass, allowing me to befriend with the New, which is simply a full complete release, and it becomes natural and normal - part of the everyday life.

And it can also be described this way:

From the fear that tomorrow I will be again "in the food", To seeing that actually the real fear is that tomorrow I won't be "in the food".

From the fear that I will always be like that, To the fear that I will be freed.
From the despair of this infinite jail,

To the fear of the space that will be opened if and when the walls fall, there come the longing to the intimacy I had with my problem, And when the lair of the "food" no longer exists, so what do I do in this open space?

Like an ant that was left without the stone that protects it. I will be burned.

And then, slowly, to befriend with this space, gently.
And it is even possible to rest a little bit and to do so many things that I couldn't do from "there".
And to be patient. I have time.
And to become grateful for everything,
Also for every difficulty that arises now because it is different, it is new.
Indeed for so many years I used to pray that my difficulties will be replaced; saying that I can bare everything but this.

And what made this change possible?
I feel it is grace, but also a merit. I can admit that I co -operated.
Even though the essential change did take place during this year, it also represents a ripening of everything that preceded it.
I don't regret that only this year I came across EFT, which was my key to the door that leads out. Because I know that everything is happening exactly as it should, there is a fine accuracy in the universe. I got to the key when I was really ready to go through the door it will open. All along these years and in my healing process I had to have a lot of courage, self honesty, willingness to see.
I had to have a lot of patience. There were moments when all I hanged up to was a very faint string of light, when darkness was all around. There were many moments I wanted to die.
Many times I felt that I became tired from the many different attempts to solve.
Surely I evolved and expanded through them, but they didn't really bear fruits - the fruits of real transformation.
Yes, along the years I learnt more and more how to accept myself with the problem, I managed to live beside it in a way; I found many corners of light, but above all the unfathomable suffering was dominating.
There were moments of despair.
When I saw I was entering the terrible swam of self-pity, I knew it is the most dangerous place, because that is where one gives up. I grabbed hold to other layers of my existence that could expand despite everything. I kept trying. to stand up again and again.
I guess that somewhere inside my being I kept on believing in real transformation, when the problem ceases to exist instead of just dealing better with it.

And in this year, probably when I was ready, I met another chapter in my journey. I didn't know that it will be the final chapter of this volume in the library of my life. I met the key to the last door of this life track:
EFT.
If I will be asked what was really underneath all this, what were the real problems that the addiction covered, or what really happened this year. what happened in this wonderful EFT process that was the final straight, but maybe also the first. If I will be asked, I wouldn't really know what to say.
Every session was filled with so many emotions, memories of different events, symbols and metaphors. different parts of me said their word.
Sometimes I felt I was being split to so many voices and identities within myself.

In a way I cannot really say what happened there, not because I wasn't completely there. But because I let go from everything I understood so far and I let the process lead me. I dedicated myself to it. I surrendered.
And it doesn't mean that the healing "came to me" as if my eyes were blind.
It is a journey of self-discovery, but one which lets the New unfold without involving too much the left brain or the cognition. And maybe for me it was an important element. And what is really important to me today is what happens to me in the bottom line. What manifests in the output of the day to day life. And as I cleared the way of what was disturbing, I am not interested in analyzing everything that went out. It can simply go. I completed this chapter. The gifts and lessons that I needed to receive from this problem have been already assimilated into me, and I don't need to remember them anymore.

I always had this feeling that this is how healing is supposed to take place. Not forcefully, not with effort of 'doing'. But simply to let that which is painful, disturbing, standing in the way - to be cleansed. And finally, this is what happened. Not will-power. Just consent to confront the pain and all which is really there. And not through torments, or "till the last drop of blood". But rather gently and easily (this is the beauty of EFT). Just to allow and to be patient. Because sometimes it takes a little time until what's on the surface, the symptom (what is seemingly the most
bothersome) subsides. We just have to cut enough sick trees in the forest.

I write these lines and tears are in my eyes.
And in my heart I kneel and bow in front of this grace n the knowingness that everything was given to me to bless me. And I hug both "Michals" -this one n her and they become one. And I am full of inspiration and joy to continue clearing the irrelevant and growing upward. And I welcome every challenge that will come and I accept myself as I am - whole within the imperfection.
I thank all the ones that were beside me and accompanied me in this chapter of this life, and in advance I thank all the ones that will participate later. To my special friends, to my beloved parents and sister, to my generous teachers, to the devoted therapists, to Ilana Weiler, to Gary Craig, to all the dear people I met along the way. And yes, also to myself that I agreed.
And to the graceful Divinity that made all this possible.

And I encourage whoever reads these lines, to proceed in his path to the dream of his life in the sense of a complete and full relief from the difficulty and even further - to a better and better space.
I know than many people experience that their problem is the most complicated and the most difficult. Often people believe in the possibility of change but not for themselves.
Believe me - I also used to think like this. I was sure it is so.
But because I was going through hellish torments, I allow myself to speak
decisively:
It is possible, for everyone. It is possible to be truly free.
It doesn't matter what is your technique or what tools you use, Do not stop trying until really the change will be such that slowly you will forget that there was a problem and it will turn into a dim memory from a different life. Don't take less.
And whatever you try, give it some time, don't leave too early.
With love and blessings,
Michal.