If you could know the magic you’re holding at your fingertips.
That’s really what surrogate EFT is. It’s a way of doing emotional release therapy for someone else — your child, your spouse, your parent, anyone you love — without them ever needing to come to a session. You tune into their emotional landscape, and on their behalf, we release what’s stuck.
I know how that sounds the first time you hear it. So before we go any further, let’s back up and understand how EFT itself actually works.
First, how does evidence-based EFT actually work?
We start with what you come with — your intention, whatever it is that’s feeling not right in this moment. From there, we tune in and find the memories, however long ago and however far back they are, that caused you to take on this belief, to feel this way, to attach this feeling to whatever it’s attached to. Anxiety and school. Anger and a certain person. Fear and a certain sound.
We go on a journey back through time — sometimes even to early baby memories — and we learn why we feel this way. And then we release the stuck emotion from those times.
Usually, that journey leads back to childhood. And in a surrogate session, we’re doing all of that — for someone else.
But how can I possibly know what caused it for someone else?
This is the question everyone asks, and I understand why. Here’s my answer: for your loved one, you already know so much. You know so much about their early years, and there is so much sitting in your intuition that you already have access to. On top of that, the EFT process itself helps us tune in, hone in, and intuit the important details.
It is very possible. And you will be able to do it for the person you love.
It’s my job to help you access those memories and feelings — so please don’t worry if you don’t know the answers before you come. You don’t need to. I will help you find them.
What to expect in a surrogate EFT session
We’ll be tapping — and yes, this can all be done over Zoom. I’ll be right there with you, guiding you through each tapping point, asking you questions along the way.
First, I’ll ask you to define your intention for that person. Then, as we say that intention out loud, we start tuning into what image they are showing you in their mind – how you imagine seeing them as you say that intention. We look closely at feelings stored in their body in that moment — because the body stores the emotion and the blockage, not the logical brain. This is exactly why you don’t need to walk in with answers. Your intuitive mind already knows.
Sometimes you’ll know exactly where a trauma came from. Sometimes you won’t have a clue. Both are completely fine.
We tune into the body and see what it wants to show us. That feeling in the body is what takes us on the journey back through time to where the issue actually started — whether it was one big trauma that caused the fear, the phobia, the block in communication, the anger — or whether it was many small memories stacked on top of each other. Maybe it was a parent saying the same thing over and over, giving a feeling of not being quite loved enough, or that big emotions weren’t okay — and that got absorbed slowly, through years of small, lowercase-t traumas.
It doesn’t matter which it is. Either way, we go on that journey back.
What to expect depending on who you’re coming for
Babies and very young children. This usually moves fast. In one, two, maybe three sessions, we can make a really dramatic change — because everything is so close to the surface for them, and because you are so strongly, closely connected to them. For a baby or toddler, I’d expect us to be doing real memory work from session one, getting clear pictures of where things started.
Toddlers. One of the most common things I see is a toddler struggling around the arrival of a younger sibling — because everything changes at once. It’s recent, it’s raw, it’s right there at the surface. We’re able to tune in and release the fear of change, the fear of being replaced, the fear of being left behind. It’s so common, and it responds so beautifully to tapping.
Older teenagers and spouses. This is also beautiful, deep healing — but bear in mind, often you’re doing this work for someone who has never done therapy before and isn’t used to being vulnerable or open about their feelings. So we go more gently, more slowly, and we build safety even though they’re not in the room with us. We have to gently tap through whatever resistance is there — and if you’re coming for surrogate work in the first place, it’s usually because this person needs healing but can’t quite get there on their own. There may be too much shame. There may be a whole lifetime of “that’s not how we do things.”
We meet them exactly where they’re at. For someone like this, I wouldn’t expect to land on young childhood or baby memories in session one — we’d simply be tapping through the resistance that’s there, gently, until it softens enough to let us in.
The ethics of surrogate EFT
It matters to me that you understand this properly before coming for a session.
In a surrogate session, we are always careful to choose an intention that is for the other person’s highest good — something they would absolutely want for themselves too, and that stays open to a feeling, rather than fixed to one outcome.
Here’s an example. Say a child is hoping to get into a certain yeshiva. We can’t set the intention as “I want him to get into that yeshiva” — that’s a fixed outcome, and it isn’t ours to choose for him. What we can do is set the intention that he feels confident in his learning wherever he goes, and that he feels connected to Hashem and to his own spirituality. That’s a feeling. And we can be sure he would want that for himself too.
We don’t choose outcomes. We hold space for feelings and healing that we know, with certainty, our loved one would want.
I like to describe surrogate healing as a very directed prayer. That’s really what it is — an intention, held with love, on someone’s behalf. If you sat and davened for your loved one, you’d see a shift. And on the flip side, if you sat and thought unkind thoughts about someone, that could have an effect too. Surrogate EFT is simply a very focused, very intentional version of that same energy, aimed carefully toward healing.
As for whether to tell them — that’s entirely up to you. Sometimes I direct clients to just imagine telling the person, “I’m doing this loving, healing work for you,” and picturing their reaction. That usually tells you everything you need to know about whether they’d want you to.
With spouse surrogate work, it’s sometimes preferable to say, ”I’m doing these sessions to help our marriage” which is most definitely true.
Case studies
The four-year-old who was terrified of the toilet
A four-year-old boy had developed a genuine trauma around doing “number twos” on the toilet. It was a battle every single day — he wanted to go back into diapers, and it was clear something deeper was going on than ordinary toddler resistance.
In one surrogate EFT session, we were able to identify a very specific memory from when he was much younger — something he’d witnessed that left him deeply afraid of using the toilet for that particular purpose. We tuned in, and we were able to fully reassure him.
His mother told me that over the following week, she realized he simply didn’t have the fear anymore. He asked for the diaper out of habit, but he gave in quickly and soon was going on the toilet at home, at other people’s houses, everywhere — with no fight at all. What made it so clear this had been a trauma and not just a stage: he was already toilet trained. He knew exactly when to go. He just couldn’t, because of the fear.
The teenage boy whose eczema flared under stress
This is a pattern I see often — eczema flare-ups in children that are actually a response to stress in the home, and not necessarily the child’s own stress.
With this teenage boy, we traced the eczema back to a period years earlier when the family was going through a hard time with an older sibling — a genuinely stressful stretch at home that his body had linked, back then, to eczema. Now, years later, as he was going through his own stressful period — changing schools, all the upheaval that comes with that — the eczema was flaring again.
It took one session. I want to be honest: the eczema didn’t disappear completely. I can do more for eczema but it would take several sessions close together. But the flare calmed right down and came back under control.
Healing a marriage by working on a spouse’s self-worth
This one took longer, and that’s to be expected when you’re doing surrogate work for an older person — there’s simply more layers to move through.
A woman came to me because her husband was struggling badly with his self-worth. It centered on work — he deserved a raise, he was putting in long hours, and it just wasn’t happening for him. Over several sessions, we went on an EFT journey back to childhood memories that were shaping his ability to speak up for himself and to know his own worth. Underneath it all was a deep sense that the world simply wasn’t fair to him, and that he couldn’t advocate for the things he deserved.
Session by session, we worked through it. And I heard back that he successfully negotiated a raise at work. He seemed happier, more fulfilled, more like himself, more passionate about what he did — and that shift didn’t stay contained to the office. It spilled into their marriage, into their home, into their whole family.
In closing
You are holding more power to help the people you love than you probably realize. You don’t need to be a therapist, and you don’t need all the answers before you walk in. You just need your intention, an open heart, and a willingness to tune in.
I’d love to help you on this journey — for yourself, or for someone you love who isn’t ready to walk this path on their own just yet.
