Tapping, also known as Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), is basically a technique to rewire the brain.

EFT stands for Emotional Freedom Techniques, which is its proper but more tongue-tying name. The even more user-friendly term for it is Tapping, so called because it involves using your fingertips to tap on specific points on your head and body.

In simple terms, EFT or Tapping is a blend of ancient Chinese medicine and modern western psychology. You can think of it as like acupuncture without the needles and it can free you from persistent or inappropriate negative emotions, in other words, stuck or blocked nervous energy in one or more of your nerve channels, or meridians.

If you think of your energetic system as an energy motorway, then a past trauma is a little like a car crash or traffic jam on that motorway. Something is stopping the energy – or traffic – from flowing and this causes problems that can then manifest into physical issues.

How does EFT Tapping work? In the most simple terms, this light tapping on the endpoints of the primary energy meridians in your body sends a calming signal to the amygdala – which is the brain’s alarm bell and the trigger for the fight, freeze or flight response.

Whenever you’re in a stressful situation or you simply think of something that causes you stress – and for some people this could be just the thought of standing on the bathroom scales in the morning – then your body responds to this thought by pumping out stress hormones like cortisol and adrenalin, by diverting resources to your extremities and away from your non-essential functions like digestion, by increasing your heart rate and breathing to pull in more oxygen so the muscles can fight or flee. This process also sees the more creative and lateral thinking parts of the brain shut down so you’re operating from the primal lizard brain – in other words you actually become more stupid when you’re in the stress response and are unable to think of solutions beyond ‘run for your life!’ or ‘fight for your life!’

Every time you tap on a meridian endpoint, while going through the tapping process and focusing on the challenge you’re dealing with, you are sending a calming signal to your brain. This is what does the rewiring. The process brings up emotions and traumas and memories stored in the subconscious mind and body that are impacting your life in a negative way. It then clears them. We can also rewire the brain to release physical pain from our body as our bodies release the traumas and emotions that hold pain in place.
The biggest killer of better thoughts, feelings and actions is stress and the huge limitations that it puts on us. Research shows just how effective Tapping is at releasing stress and allowing your mind and body to function and full capacity. When we tap, we rewire the brain to make better decisions and take better actions towards whatever we want to achieve.
Think about any challenges you’re currently dealing with, whether they be with finances, weight loss, relationships, physical pain, overwhelming emotions, or whatever else you’re struggling with. For example with weight loss, could you be exercising more and eating better? Willpower does not work. The key is in rewiring our brain so that the way we think, feel and act is effortlessly different. Cravings for certain foods simply dissipate and our systems are no longer flooded with the cortisol that signals the body to hold on to weight. This is what Tapping does so beautifully. And it does this with all the areas of our life where we struggle.

If you’re new to the world of EFT Tapping, there are a myriad of excellent and free resources out there and I would encourage you to explore the work of these wonderful people – in particular I’d like to acknowledge the people who brought this incredible technique to the world, namely Roger Callahan and Gary Craig. Some excellent places for you to do further and more indepth research are the following websites:

www.emofree.com

www.eft-universe.com

www.TheTappingSolution.com

Here’s the brief overview though: EFT Tapping is an amazingly powerful yet simple – and free – healing technique that can have you shifting your life within minutes.

One of the keys to getting results from tapping is being as specific as possible. This means being specific your feelings, your memories, physical sensations, beliefs, details of events that happened to you.

For example, instead of  ‘I hate all this fat on my body’ you might change that to, ‘I really hate this fat roll on my belly that now hangs over the top of my old favourite jeans…’

What we’re looking for is emotion. Feeling is healing so be painfully truthful about things that elicit a raw, emotional response then explore the thoughts beneath these feelings. If there’s something seems too painful or something you just can’t bring yourself to admit or say out loud, that’s what needs to be looked at.

You know that phrase, ‘press my buttons’? We want to find your buttons and give them a good press! Then by tapping on them, we dissolve these buttons of yours so that there is nothing there to press.

We do this by tapping on your buttons from every angle – we want to bring those painful memories up and shine a light on them. To use the analogy of housework, you’ve got to be able to see the dirt so you can clean it up. Louise Hay said that so you know it’s true.

When you’ve got a painful memory, remember how it felt at the time and where in your body you felt it, remember the exact words someone said, remember the details of the scene through sight, sound, touch and smell. Perhaps you can see what you were wearing or whether you were inside or outside…

To give you an example of one of my fat-shame memories, I remember being about 11 years old and playing on the monkey bars in the school playground. Two of my classmates were there, Ian and Graeme. Both nice boys who I considered were my friends. In particular, I was friends with Ian who sat next to me in class and we made each other laugh all day.

So we were in the playground, I was holding onto a high bar and just swinging back and forth, but as I did my skirt blew up a little when I swung backwards. Ian and Graeme laughed and pointed and Ian shouted “ha ha thunder thighs!”

And I felt humiliated and embarrassed and it hurt my feelings because I liked these boys and thought we were friends. So when I tap on that, I fill in as many details as possible – how the iron bar felt under my fingers, how the wind felt on my legs, the blue and white print of my school uniform, the sound of the playground, how I felt the embarrassment and hurt like a burning in my chest, the sense of betrayal, and so on… and in doing so, I’m trying to find an emotional response. I want to bring up all that suppressed hurt and anger so I can release it.

And when the anger and shame is released, I’ve got the emotional space in my head to go back and tell the 11-year-old me that her thighs are strong and healthy and beautiful. They allow her to run, jump, play, dance, swing. I want her to claim back her power and feel proud of her beautiful legs.

Before I tell you about the five-step Tapping process, just two points to mention.

1. Notice when you’re resisting

Boredom, dismissal, distraction, avoidance and irritation are resistance in disguise. So, if you’re doing one of these tapping meditations and you start thinking, ‘this is stupid, what a dumb script and I hate the way she talks, what kind of stupid accent is that…’ then it may be that you’ve hit a pocket of resistance that needs exploring. Ask yourself, ‘Why am I resisting this? What’s really bothering me right now?’

Or if you avoid doing these meditations at all because you can’t find the time or because you tell yourself they’re not doing anything and are a waste of your time, that could also be resistance. Having said that, anything could be going on in your life so also cut yourself some slack. If you take three months to do all these scripts, it’s fine!

2. Emotional meltdown alert

If something comes up that feels just too traumatic for you to face alone, that’s where you might want to think about working with a professional EFT practitioner or other mental health professional.

To learn the five step tapping process, click here