How To Tap: The tapping solution seminar I took and what i gleaned from it. FIRST DRAFT
THE IMPETUS
I’ve had problems with emotional regulation all my life. Each new oncoming obstacle felt insurmountable to me no matter the size of it. If I was late for work it meant the end of my livelihood, if someone broke up with me i’d never find love, if i stubbed my toe the world was CLEARLY against me. Being from a family of mental health (my mother was a child psychologist) i’d been intuited with the practices of mindful thinking, mentalizing, restructuring thoughts for some time. In many ways life was about react/response for me. Of course the problem with this would always be my perception of reality is skewed given my imbalance and predisposition towards assuming the worst of myself and others (it didn’t help that sometimes I was right!). To make a long story short I ‘d tried medication, therapy, TMS, and even hypnotherapy. No matter the method I’d come back to this base of feeling terrible and incapable. Recently I received an email forwarded to me by my mother about the Tapping world seminar.
I’m sure everyone has that one person in their life, whether it be familial or friend, who sees their pain and does the best they can to uplift it. With me it is my mom. The email invitation showed a bunch of smiling faces and buzz words such as “innerpeace” and “transformation”. Immediately i was suspicious but I read on to find it was free. “Why not?” I thought. It turned out to be a much needed reframing for me.
To be honest i’m not an expert, I only viewed a series of seminars over 10 days but I will offer what I know. Relief is something we all need and for me this offered some.
Step 1. Identify The Negativity
The basis of the tapping, or emotional freedom technique (EFT), is to embrace the negative feelings or thoughts plauging your body and mind and moving them out of your body through manipulation of meridian points. The meridian essentially being where your bodies energy is stored. First identify a stressor in your life, it’s important to focus on one at a time. Once you’ve identified that gauge what your bodies response to it is on a scale from 0–10. 0 being this doesn’t harm me at all and 10 being this is destroying me.
Step 2. Begin to Tap on the negative
Pick a phrase or statement directly addressing the pain or problem. For example if your worried about money “All these money problems worrying me” and repeat this while tapping the meridian points below.
karate chop (KC): small intestine meridian
top of head (TH): governing vessel
eyebrow (EB): bladder meridian
side of the eye (SE): gallbladder meridian
under the eye (UE): stomach meridian
under the nose (UN): governing vessel
chin (Ch): central vessel
beginning of the collarbone (CB): kidney meridian
under the arm (UA): spleen meridian
Starting with the karate chop tap your hand, then your eyebrow, side of the eye, under eye, chin, then collar bone, side of torso, and finally the top of head while repeating your identified problem. This might sound like reenforcing the negative feeling but it’s actually addressing the stressor in a way which allows oneself to move through it with the next step.
Step 3. Embrace the negativity, move past it
Repeat the tapping pattern but instead of addressing the negative, this time embrace yourself and honor the feelings currently coursing through you. If your mad acknowledge it, if your sad you should say it. After that accept that feeling and remind yourself that your still whole and lovable all while moving through the meridian points. While the phrase you come up can be your own I suggest looking up prompts on youtube or google to speak along too. After you do this cycle of tapping take a deep breath and gauge what your body’s response is to the initial stressor again.
For me I was surprised how much of an effect it had, as my numbers went from 8 to 4 about a relationship of mine ending. Tappings main selling point beyond it being free and easy to do by yourself is that it can also be applied to physical problems, financial problems, really anything that is stressing can be tapped on.
Step 4. Loose the feelings
While it definitely comes off as sort of earthy crunchy the process has alleviated much of my stress and allowed me calm in turbulent times. I’m skeptical by nature but this reminded me that it’s often better to approach emotions with an arm wides open mentality, even the difficult ones. When you acknowledge something upsetting you take a piece of it’s power away loosening it’s hold on you and your actions. Or at least that’s what i’ve come to belive.