We are now going to look at some of the key features of EFT Tapping to understand why it’s such a wonderful technique to incorporate into your everyday life.

It can bring quick results

EFT Tapping can often work very quickly on an issue that is causing you to feel upset and anxious as it brings a level of mindful awareness to what you’re experiencing and validates how you’re feeling. You therefore feel understood and heard. Feeling validated, or understood and heard, is an essential part of our ability to process a situation and be prepared to move past it. So often an issue lingers within us because we haven’t felt heard or validated.

It is gentle and can contain your emotions

EFT Tapping can help to hold gently but effectively, or contain, an issue for you while you are working through it over a period of time. If an issue rises up for you that is really quite emotionally upsetting, then you can tap and breathe through the issue slowly and with calm intention. As you tap, a signal is sent to the Amygdala that tells your mind and body that you are not under threat, so your body, mind and emotions start to calm down. Tapping is shown to have a similar effect on brain waves as REM sleep. People often find themselves yawning half-way through tapping.

However, if what you are facing feels overwhelming to you and you really feel as though you’re not ready to deal with the issue in that moment, then you can use tapping to  honour that, soothe your emotions and return to the situation another time. Once you have reflected on the situation with new awareness, you can either continue to use the EFT tapping skills you have gained or seek out a qualified EFT practitioner to support you and guide you through it. Give me a call, I’m here for YOU!

It works better if you are really specific 

Although it could be helpful to tap on something like procrastination or low self-esteem, they are considered more ‘global issues’, so to help to be specific, start tapping at times when you’re aware you are procrastinating or if you are facing an issue that you believe low self-esteem is causing, to use the examples.  This will help you to pin the global issue down to specific scenarios that you hope to overcome in future, but that you also know are a symptom of the global issue.

There’s often an initial event that happened, often when we were younger, that set this negative belief in motion. For the most part, those early memories are at a sub-conscious level so typically not easily retrievable in full by our memory, so there’s no need to go digging around looking for it. Just start tapping on events that are happening with you now and your mind will automatically sort out the background issues. Evidence of this includes gaining awareness of how present events that are part of a global issue affect you.  When you notice how the global issue hindered, hurt or embarrassed you in some way, for example, you can again tap on that too to clear the negative energy from your body, mind and emotions.

If your feelings become overwhelming and painful memories rise up, you may benefit from consulting a qualified EFT practitioner to support and guide you to a place of peace and freedom, so get in touch ~ I’m here for YOU!

Borrowing benefits

How about joining an EFT Tapping group? There are number of benefits in group EFT, not least economic, but also tapping into issues that others are tapping on, so sharing, or borrowing, the benefits. For instance, if you’re in a group and someone shares that they are feeling upset about an issue and the group leader is tapping through the issue with that individual, when the rest of the group taps along, they will benefit from the tapping as well. The rest of the group won’t need to repeat the words the individual is speaking while tapping, as they won’t necessarily relate, but just  the simple act of tapping will send a calming message to the body, mind and emotions of all the group members.  So, consider using this wonderful tool with friends or in support groups where sharing personal issues may be difficult.

The results are typically lasting

After EFT Tapping, the issue raised is typically resolved and the results lasting. If it’s a deeper issue that you’re working on, either by yourself or with an EFT practitioner, then it can take a few sessions to work through the many aspects of the issue. If, however, you find that an issue isn’t resolved, then usually it’s because there are other aspects related to the difficulty that need to be discovered. For more generalised day-to-day anxieties or stressors however, EFT Tapping is highly effective for reducing the heightened emotional and physical responses we experience and bring us to a calmer, more centred place.

You can tap silently  

Silent tapping is an essential tool when you’re in a situation where speaking out loud isn’t possible. Maybe you’re at work in a meeting and you’re finding it difficult; you can take some slow quiet deep breaths and tap on the finger points under the table. Or if you’re sat on a train and you’re thinking about something that’s upsetting you, again you can tap quietly on your finger points, the karate chop point or gently on your collar bone. You can either take slow deep breaths and bring your focus to your breathing or you could go through the set-up phrase and reminder phrases in your mind until you have processed the situation.

You can also silently tap if you can’t find the words, you don’t feel like talking, or you simply don’t want to talk about a situation.  Maybe you’re an EFT practitioner and your client does not wish to speak out loud but is remembering a situation and needs to remain connected and present with the memory. You can tap quietly on the client’s karate chop point or finger points and hold a space of kindness for them while they process the memory and move towards no longer having an intense emotional response to it.

You initially focus on the negative

This can sometimes feel unusual as you might feel as though focusing on the negative could increase the problem. I’m a firm believer in the use of positive affirmations, however, especially when in a relaxed state and brain waves are in the Alpha frequency, as in that state the subconscious is especially open to new information. There’s definitely a place for positive affirmations of course, but with EFT we focus initially on the negative issue or emotion as this is what we want to clear.

We also want to give our brains time to find memories that relate to that emotion or issue in our past so that they can be re-processed and cleared of their negative impact. As stated earlier, those negative issues may have been trapped in the body at a cellular level, when from the time of the initial cause to now we’ve not been able to fully process our difficult, confounding or traumatic experiences.

So, with EFT we tap on the negative emotion or issue first to highlight, isolate and validate it and give ourselves time to work through it and clear it. It’s often good to start with the most dominant negative issue first and once that appears to have subsided, work on another that may lay beneath.  Then carry on tapping round the emotions as they arise until your overall emotional response is calmer and we feel more grounded and centered.

It can be used with other healing modalities such as prayer, meditation and hypnosis

When I practice EFT Tapping on myself nowadays, I very rarely use it in isolation. I’m an avid meditator and believe in the power of prayer, so will often combine these with tapping to bring greater personal meaning and spiritual connection. For example, I may commit my meditation to God through an opening prayer and invite Him into my meditation time. As I’m meditating, I notice, without making a judgement, what rises up for me, and if I notice negative intrusive thoughts during my meditation then I’ll pause and tap like this, for example:

“Even though I have this intrusive thought that is unsettling me, I love and accept who I am. Even though I am having thoughts that are unsettling me, I deeply and completely accept myself. Even though I’m noticing that what happened yesterday is still bothering me, I deeply and completely accept myself.”

Then I’ll do a few rounds of tapping on whatever the issue is that is unsettling me, using the reminder phrase. I’ll also check in with myself throughout, asking myself (and God) questions, such as:

“Why am I getting this intrusive thought? Why is the situation from yesterday still upsetting me? What does this feeling remind me of? Do I have any healing that I need to invite today so that I can be free and continue on my journey into wholeness?”

If as a reader, with or without faith in God, you are wondering why I include spirituality in my EFT practice,  it’s because I believe that God knows everything about us and knows what hinders our experience of joy and freedom. He knows what has happened in our past and longs for us to experience healing and fullness of life. Therefore, if we invite God into our experiences, He will lead us to a spacious place within our self where we can find healing, love, peace and acceptance. 

I’ve had some incredibly powerful and profound experiences during meditation/prayer and EFT Tapping. God longs for us to be whole and experience fullness of life. He grieves with us when He sees our suffering and, I believe, wants us to experience healing.

Get in touch if you need some support. I’m here for YOU!

Love & blessings, Sam