About EFT

new How tapping works:

We have reactive parts of our brain that instruct physical, mental and emotional responses to information/events.

This information may be received as: visual (sight), auditory (hearing), olfactory (smell), taste, tactile (touch), mental (thought/imagination).

The response that our brain sends out in reaction to the information (stimuli) is governed by the perceived level of threat, which is determined from out learnings.  The majority of these beliefs are adapted or learnt before the age of 7.

These beliefs are learnt through observation and experience within our environment.  Parents, grandparents, caregivers, siblings, teachers, authority figures and I am tempted to add here television and social media.

If the information/stimuli is perceived as a low threat or relatively safe we react from the executive part of our brain, in a logical, thinking approach type way.

If the information/stimuli type is perceived as a threat to our safety we respond from the older parts of our brain, the limbic brain and stem cell, the thinking part of our brain is deactivated, and we react from our subconscious beliefs. 

Emotions are made up or hormones.

1. Our brain signals the release of hormones/emotions depending on how we have learnt to react to similar threats through our programming and sends signals to our body to react in certain ways.  Fight, flight, flop or freeze.
2. There is a progression to these reactions, fight and flight, if they are unsuccessful as a protection strategy then flop and through into a freeze.
3. If the threat is great enough we may go straight into a freeze.

Tapping reverses these natural protective reactions:

1. Tapping calms the fear center of the brain, the limbic brain and the primitive reptilian brain.
2. In doing so tapping induces the release of ‘happy hormones’.
3. This allows us to come out of a freeze, flop, fight or flight reaction.

A 10 year Harvard Medical School Study reveals that tapping calms the amygdala:

https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2013/07/23/trauma-update-on-the-tipping-point-for-tapping-therapy

What is the benefit in going back and revisiting memories?

In order for us to survive, painful and negative memories are split and stored in different parts in our brains.  That is why some memories seem vague and not complete.  Each of these memories or parts of memories have emotion/s attached to them. If the memory remains unresolved, we keep producing those negative or stress hormones attached to that memory, the memory keeps running or looping at a subconscious and sometimes conscious level, in time these hormones play havoc on our physical and mental bodies. By revisiting the memory and talking about it (addressing the negative) we allow the body to release those negative emotions.  By tapping at the same time our bodies release positive emotions and calm the fear center of the brain creating a different or neutral response to the event.

Negative beliefs are supported by a number of validating events or teachings.  By working on and releasing the emotions on separate memories (events and teachings) we change our thinking around our beliefs and therefore our lives and actions/reactions.  If we release the negative learnings around memories that support the belief ‘I am not good enough’ we start to believe at a subconscious level that ‘I am good enough’, our actions and reactions will then validate this new belief.

Sometimes we are triggered by our senses rather than the thought or memory.

A certain smell or sound or taste may cause a fear response in us without us even realizing what the earlier memory or event was (and so are born allergies and sensitivities).  These are also a gateway for us for resolving negative experiences, and the reason that tapping often has such great success with phobias, allergies and sensitivities.

Tapping and Stress:

What is Stress?

In days gone by our ‘fear response and the release of stress hormones was caused by real time physical threat’.  Being attacked by wild animals, natural disasters etc.

Nowadays our fear response is still triggered by these things (or sometimes the thought of these things) and also by modern day happenings that may or may not be relevant. Long work hours, financial worries, living in a confined environment, relationship worries, environmental worries, peak hour traffic, not enough time, poor sleep, lack of exercise, poor diet, raising a family, modern technology, a polluted environment, unhealthy foods, alcohol, financial stress, work stress, bullying and the list goes on……  Our brain and therefore bodies react to these as if they were a threat, firstly in a logical thinking type of way and if the ‘stress’ continues and is not resolved in an emotional/reactive type of way or ‘fight’ and ‘flight’ (leading to anxiety) and then into a ‘flop’ or ‘freeze’ a shutting or slowing down – maybe depression.

What effect can stress have on us?

• Emotional outbursts
• Procrastination
• Indecisiveness
• Uncertainty
• Self doubt
• Weight problems
• Addictions
• Frequent illness
• Pain
• Heart problems
• Anxiety
• Sleeping difficulties
• Feelings of overwhelm
• Phobias
• Relationship difficulties
• Lack of motivation
• Lack of focus
• Social withdrawal
• Stomach upsets
• And more

Emotional Bank:

With regard to negative emotions our ‘Emotional Bank’ operates in the opposite way to our ‘Piggy Bank’.

The healthiest emotional bank has few or no negative emotions in it.

Without regular maintenance small daily events like ‘the car that cut me off’, ‘the children not doing their jobs’, ‘my boss changing his/her mind’, ‘that upcoming meeting’, ‘those household chores’ ‘I don’t know how I’m going to pay my bills’ can very quickly add up to the ‘pressure boiler’ stage causing an overflow of emotion (an outburst),  a sense of overwhelm and not being able to cope.

To achieve this we need to acknowledge and release out negative emotions, which is often easier said than done. 

Tapping and Anxiety:

Notice how your body reacts when anxious.

Sweating, chest pain, shallow breathing, restless legs, heavy arms.

These are all physical bodily reactions from the fear response and unreleased fear response. The body has not been able to release the need for fight or flight and is being triggered by reminders.  These reminders maybe triggered by any or all of the senses.