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My heart rate beats double time. My palms sweaty. My breathing labored.
My follow-up doctor appointment is in fifteen minutes. My doctor will let me know if the cancer has further metastasized or if my body is healing.
What if it has spread? What do I tell my children? My husband? And, most importantly, what if I my doctor gives me a death sentence?
I am paralyzed with fear and cannot get out of the car. I am so nervous. So overwhelmed. My breathing becomes faster and the tell-tale signs of a panic attack set in.
What can I do to lower my anxiety and stress that I am feeling?
When you are feeling overwhelmed and anxious, dig around in your healing toolbox and dust off the science-based technique, EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique).
EFT is a necessary tool for your healing toolbox when faced with overwhelming and challenging situations. It will free you from stress, worry, and anxiety that can lead to debilitating dis-eases.
We are all faced with stressful, overwhelming situations in today’s fast-paced, crazy world! We are all running to keep up and as a result, anxiety and stress is at an all-time high.
As a Licensed School Counselor, the number of students with anxiety and depression have sky-rocketed in the last decade. And, Americans are sicker than ever! If this is not enough, disease rates are climbing. 1 in 2 males and 1 in 3 females may expect a cancer diagnosis.
Kids and adults are bombarded with the ugliness of the world through Social Media. The news is 24/7 and inescapable. Life is not getting less stressful!Instead, the craziness seems to be a big snowball careening down the hill and taking everyone with it in its path.
When the stress of the world is bearing down on you …”.tap” it out with EFT!
History of EFT
EFT was developed thousands of years ago with the roots of this technique being derived from acupuncture. The last 50 years, however, EFT has developed into an effective way to calm stress, anxiety, and promote emotional healing. When energy blocks are dissolved; your body is able to fully heal.
In 1962, Dr. George Goodheart, a chiropractor in the United States, started the development of EFT, or “tapping” as it is commonly called. Dr. Goodheart had studied the great benefits of acupuncture and wanted to apply it to his work.
What he found brought acupuncture to a new level without the needles. He deduced the same beneficial results were discovered by simply applying manual pressure on the acupuncture points by “tapping” with your fingers. Ah-mazing!
How EFT Works
Our Ah-mazing bodies are made up of meridians or energy pathways that connect your cells, organs, emotions and thoughts. A traumatic event and/or stressful circumstance can create a blockage in the electromagnetic energy system of the body. The discovery of EFT found that a memory or thought causes this disruption to the body’s system.
The beauty of EFT is you only need your fingertips to open up these blockages that were created. Your fingertips tap on the acupuncture or meridian points around the body.
“Tapping” balances these energy meridians that were blocked by an event that was emotionally disturbing. When you tap on these points, the emotional charge to the event disappears and the actual memory stays the same.
The tapping turns a disturbing event into an emotion that no longer brings up anxiety, and negativity, and stress.
(The above information is found at: EFT )
The Basics of Tapping
It’s time to use EFT! It truly will set you free as the name indicates.
What are we waiting for? Let’s learn about the basics of tapping!
Following are the meridian points to tap on:
- Karate chop on the side of the hand
- Between your eyebrows
- Side of the eye
- Under your eye
- Under your nose
- Under your chin
- Under your collarbone
- Under your armpit (where bra rests)
- Top of the head
These meridian points are tapped on until the emotional charge has disappeared or has decreased in intensity.
The tapping session could last for two minutes or as long as necessary.
7 Tapping Steps
Step 1: Focus on your Most Pressing Issue (MPI)
What is bothering you the most right now? Focus on the intensity of the issue. Where are you feeling it in your body? Do you feel hot, cold, pain, tightness? Whenever I feel stressed, I feel it in my neck’s right lymph node and my right breast where I had my lumpectomy. My lymph node and my breast throb with pain until my emotions are settled with tapping. It is very important to listen to your body and what it is telling you. We tend to ignore our bodies signals…and that is when dis-ease sets in.
Step 2: Measure the intensity
Now, it is time to rate your MPI. On a scale of 1-10 (10 being the highest level of pain and 0 feeling nothing), what is your number? Choose an issue that is greater than 5 so you are able to feel a difference after tapping. This number is called SUDS (Subjective Units of Distress Scale).
Step 3: Craft your set up statement
This statement focuses on your MPI, or most pressing issue. Keep your SUDS in mind while setting this up.
You do not need to find magical words to say for your set up statement. Instead, keep it authentic and what resonates with you and your MPI. Otherwise, it will not ring true for you and will feel awkward when tapping.
An example of a set up statement:
Even though I (describe your MPI), I am calm and at peace.
Step 4: Choose a reminder phrase
The reminder phrase is intended to be a phrase that reminds you of your pressing issue. Keep it short and simple when starting out. You may want to keep the same phrase when starting out. When you become more proficient, you may change it up.
An example of a reminder phrase:
This stress with my diagnosis…this stress with my diagnosis…this stress with my diagnosis…
This phrase is spoken as you tap through the 8 meridian points. First you will start with your setup statement with the karate chop. Then, you will start tapping on the 8 meridian points and speak your reminder phrase out loud.
Step 5: Tap through the points
- State your set up statement 3 times while tapping on the Karate Chop point (Choose the hand that is most comfortable for you. I take my right hand and karate chop on the outer part of my left hand; between the lowest joint of your pinky finger to above the palm area). Pick a level of pressure to tap that feels right for you.
- Move on to tap on the 8 pressure points while repeating your reminder phrase:
- Eyebrow
- Side of the eye
- Under eye
- Under nose
- Chin
- Collarbone
- Under arm (where the bra strap rests)
- Top of head
- At the end of the session, take a deep breath and then let it out.
- What is your SUD?
- If it is still high and your even has an emotional charge, keep tapping through the process.
- You are finished when your SUD is a manageable level or the emotional charge is gone.
Tap 5 to 7 times at each point. If you feel like you need to tap more, keep on tapping! There is no right or wrong. Whatever feels right to you! If you feel like you need to tap 30 times or even 80 times…keep on tapping until your reminder phrase sinks in. Then, move on to the next point.
You may tap on either side of the body; whichever feels best for you. You may even tap on both sides simultaneously. This is not necessary, however, as the same meridian channels run on both sides of the body.
No worries about getting this wrong! What is important is working through the process to bring your SUD down to a manageable level. Or, to where the situation no longer holds a negative charge when thinking about it.
Step 6: Check in
After completing your round, take a deep breath in and then exhale.
Check in with your body and your emotions.
What number is your MPI? Has it decreased? Increased?
If it has increased, keep on tapping. It is normal for people to need more than one round of tapping to experience relief; especially when you are just starting out.
Step 7: Test your progress
Test your results by focusing on your MPI. Has the negative charge decreased? If so, you are finished. If not, keep tapping.
(The above steps are found in Nick Ortner’s book, The Tapping Solution for Parents, Children, & Teenagers. Highly recommended resource!)
Tapping Exercise
Let’s put what we have learned together and tap out a situation.
Ok..let’s get tapping!
MPI: The stress of receiving a diagnosis.
- Karate chop on hand 3x while saying set up statement:
Even though I have this diagnosis, I love and accept myself.
- Tap on eyebrow meridian while saying your repeat statement (Why me?)
I have a lot of emotion around this diagnosis. Why me?
- Tap on side of the eye
I just don’t understand it. Why me?
- Tap under the eye
What have I done to deserve this? Why me?
- Tap chin (between lower lip and chin)
What is my body trying to tell me? Why me?
- Tap on collarbone
Is it because I never slow down? Why me?
- Tap under arm
Did I do something to hurt someone? Why me?
- Tap on head
I just don’t understand. Why me?
(The above round is tapping on the negative. When you feel a shift that the negativity is becoming less, it is time to move on to the positive statements)
- Tap on eyebrow
This is my body’s time to slow down.
- Tap on side of eye
It’s about living in the moment. Right here, right now!
- Tap under eye
Maybe I do not have to find meaning in this diagnosis right now.
- Tap under chin
I can wait to see how this all unfolds with love for myself.
- Tap on collar bone
This diagnosis is a wake up call.
- Tap under arm
I forgive and love myself.
- Tap on top of head
I’m loving myself, forgiving myself, and being patient with myself as I let go…
- Deep breath in and out
What is my MPI? Did the number stay the same? Keep on tapping? Did it increase? Keep on tapping! Did the number decrease?
You may stop when the emotional charge regarding the disturbing event is gone or lowered.
Congratulations! You have finished a round of tapping!
If you are struggling with what to say…pretend you are talking to a friend as you tap through your issue.
It should feel comfortable, the dialogue should flow, and it should be in your authentic words!
The goal is to bring a stressful situation into a neutralized emotion. The charge around the event should have no charge or be neutral.
If the intensity still exists around the problem…keep on tapping until you feel at peace with the emotion.
You can do this! It is worth taking a few minutes each day to tap out any situation that brings anxiety or stress. You may do it in the morning, throughout the day, and especially at night.
Before you go to bed, think about the day. Is there anything that happened that leaves you unsettled and upset?
Tap through the situations to relieve the meridian’s blocks in your body. These blocks need to be unblocked for your body to properly and fully heal.
You can do this! You are worth it!
Until then…keep on tapping!
Affirm:
I can learn new things! My body can heal itself using the right tools. I love my healthy body.
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