Blog 30: My personal journey with EFT Tapping

So I found Tapping. 

At the time, I was reading lots of books about self-development and self-growth. About positive thinking, moving forward, and becoming the version of yourself you want to be. About feeling how you want to feel at the end, as if you were already there.

And it was all well and good. I was practising the suggestions and exercises the authors mentioned, like affirmations and positivity.

But then I came across EFT Tapping, and it was all about exploring and expressing how I was feeling inside at that moment.

At first, I thought, “No, that's not a good idea. Definitely not a good idea to say what I'm feeling inside…”

I had just got divorced after many years of living together, sharing our lives and having two incomes – mine and his. And then I found myself trying to figure out life on my own, with just my single income to pay all the bills.

Money was a huge thing for me at the time. It still plays a considerable part in my life now, but back then, oh my, it was massive. There was so much tied to money.

The reality was: I was so scared. Scared of everything, really. And I was angry. Angry about how things were.

So, when Tapping came along and invited me to tap (literally) into what I was actually feeling, I initially resisted it. It meant no more hiding it, no more pretending it wasn’t there, no more pushing it down or trying to be positive. It was asking me to acknowledge what was really going on inside me.

And I truly opened up while tapping. Still a bit skeptical, but also very hopeful that this could really help.

With Tapping, I found it was OK to be raw and human. To be emotional and confused. To speak aloud and express myself.

After a few rounds of brutal honesty and openness, I started feeling a sense of relief. A bit of breathing space. A feeling of release.

Because, for me, sometimes just talking about something isn’t really helpful. It can actually make us even more agitated. The more we talk about it, the more we reinforce what we're thinking, what we're feeling, and the story we're telling ourselves about what's happening.

And it’s possible that, instead of gaining clarity, we end up getting even more caught up in it. We can zoom in so much that we lose sight of the bigger picture, and we can find ourselves slipping further into some level of victim mode.

But I felt that I could talk about what I was feeling while Tapping. Combining the verbal expression with the physical tapping on the acupressure points became a way for me to express myself safely.

It was like having a ‘container’ where these emotions could come up. Not something that limited or restricted me – quite the opposite. It was a protected space where I could let it all out, freely.

It was okay for me to say what was wrong, to be really, really open about how angry, fearful, and doubtful I was. Because I knew I wasn't just repeating the emotions. I wasn't just venting. I wasn't simply making myself more convinced of what I was thinking and feeling. I was working on it. Saying it aloud was part of a process – and that made me feel empowered, because I was actually doing something practical about all of it.

Within this ‘container’, something started to happen. The more I said things out loud, the more I tapped, the more I felt them releasing. It was as if they were actually leaving me.

This framework allowed me to give myself permission to have these feelings, even though a part of me was still scared of going there. The part of me that didn't think it was a good idea to express these feelings, because we should be thinking positively, right? Because we hear that we attract what we think, and that we get what we focus on.

And I do believe it – I really do. Focus and attention play a massive role in our perception of the world. But I also came to realise that it makes no sense to pretend that what's inside us isn't there.

Because when you're trying to build a whole structure of positivity on a foundation that's unstable, firstly, it takes too much effort, work, and energy. And secondly, there's no guarantee that eventually it won't collapse.

It's like building a house of cards, constantly adding things on top and trying to balance everything out so it doesn't come crashing down. For me, that's how it felt. A tower without a strong foundation – and life kept adding more stuff on top of it.

More situations, more people, more things. It just keeps piling up.

And, funny enough, the situations that come along often seem to be more aligned with the stuff that's already in there than with what we want rationally.

There are enough books out there explaining that it's not just about what you consciously think or what you rationally affirm to yourself. It's about what you're actually feeling. That deep feeling that feeds your being, your becoming, your assuming, your identity.

Tapping became this safe ‘container’ where I could truly be myself. Sitting on my living room floor, with my two dogs sleeping on the sofa, I could really say everything that was happening inside – as ugly as it was, and as much as I wished it weren't there.

And for me, there was a lot of anger and a lot of fear. 

I used Tapping for everything else I was feeling too, but those were my two main emotional words. I told some people at the time that I “angry tapped” – because I was tapping so forcefully on the points on my body. I used to think, “Oh my God, I'm going to get some purple patches on my face.”

Tapping gave me this sense of freedom – to just say it, to just be angry, to be fully scared, because I felt safe enough to do so.

It had nothing to do with unleashing these emotions externally, onto others. It wasn’t really about what had happened, or what others did (or didn’t do). It was all about me. This was my private space to make sense of things, to understand myself more deeply, to review how I was reacting and how I’d rather respond.

Oh, and it’s such a simple tool. No complicated formula to learn or memorise. Just an invitation to keep going, keep going – for as long as I needed. Another reason why I loved it.

We are so used to believing that something needs to be complicated to work. Tapping showed me the power of accumulated simplicity. It was working deeply. Deeper than I had realised, in fact.

Because, interestingly, as we tap on the points, we’re actually communicating with ourselves. It’s a two-way interaction. As I was putting it all out there, there was a lot coming in too – signals being sent to my body and brain.

I didn't know at the time what was happening beyond my cognitive state – the interactions with the brain, the calming of the amygdala, the possibility of memory reconciliation.

I didn't know any of that. I just felt that after I had finished Tapping and been honest about how I was feeling, I could breathe more easily.

Another interesting thing is that, as I got into the flow of talking and tapping, new insights, ideas, and words also started coming up that I hadn't even realised were in there.

I am truly fascinated by how our brain and mind work. The connections we don't see. We are so intelligent. We are so wise. It’s like we keep collecting all these dots throughout our lives, and our brain and mind connect them in ways that they think will be helpful and make sense for our survival in the future.

Most of the time, we don't see the connections. Often, we don't even see the dots.

Then, with Tapping, I started realising the dots that were there. And slowly, I went on to realise the connections that my brain and mind had created between those dots.

Those were the conclusions, decisions, and rules that I had created – and was living by. And now, by spotting them, I had space and choice.

When all of that is in the dark, there is no way to change it. When I brought these things to light, when I allowed them to become visible in that protected, private space, I opened up possibilities. I gained the power to really change them and start making different decisions.

And so, for me, Tapping was a way of releasing all these emotions and really, really, really leaving them behind.

It was about having a self-help tool – one that made me so self-sufficient that I didn't need anyone else, and didn't need to pay for it.

I spent time, which is also a currency, but I was dedicated to myself. And I could really do that for myself. And that's why I love Tapping.

Some topics and emotions did take a while to release. I'm not going to lie. Sometimes I tapped on the same thing over and over. It’s a process. But it was worth it.

After such an amazing transformation, I was hooked on Tapping. Gradually, I started reading more books, and then I began participating in group sessions to see how others used it.

And then I invested in private sessions with an EFT practitioner. So, what changed when I started working with my practitioner?

There were questions she brought up that I hadn't thought of, which opened up new perspectives and helped me spot my blind spots (they are called that for a reason!).

By having somebody to actually interact with (up until then, I had been self-tapping), my brain started thinking differently, and that was both revealing and freeing.

And there is something beautiful about human connection, even if it's online. Having a real human being present with you, actively listening, giving you their attention, and helping you work through whatever you need to be there for.

I worked through a lot in my 1-to-1 sessions. It was like an accelerator. But I continued to self-tap between sessions. Oh, I am always tapping!

And then I went on to do the training, egoistically speaking, because I wanted to know more about how to use EFT for myself. EFT was so amazing that I thought, “What else can I do for myself?” “Where else can I apply it?” “How else can I help myself move forward?”

During the course, I did lots of practice sessions, and that’s when I came to realise that I really enjoyed being on the other side of the process. Being the practitioner, helping someone work through their emotions with a method that had been so transformative for me, was so gratifying.

Now I'm building a practice around an approach I truly believe in… Yes, I believe fully in it, like fully, fully, fully, fully, fully, fully.

So, what do I offer? I offer online sessions. My primary modality is EFT Tapping, but I am also trained in NLP and Time Line Therapy™ and bring in elements of the these techniques when appropriate to enrich the experience even further. They all work together so beautifully.

My personal path branched into a professional route, and I feel very humbled and honoured to share this method with others. I truly hope they can experience the benefits I've experienced – and continue to experience – myself.