Tapping Q & A - Getting the most out of tapping and EFT

One of the great things about tapping is that it can be used for a wide range of physical, emotional, and even spiritual issues. But that breadth brings with it the struggle of knowing where to start when there are so many things that you could tap on. Recently, I received this email from one of my readers:  I've been tapping on and off for years. Recently, when tapping, I am quickly lost in a qua...

There is nothing more frustrating than knowing exactly what to do and still not doing it. When this happens, your critical voice kicks in, shaming you for being lazy and undeserving of transformation because of your lack of action. The hardest part of this type of failure is knowing what is possible but failing to take action. And it isn't down to external forces preventing you…it is all happening...

Our subconscious mind confuses the difference between how we were treated and who we are. When someone left us off an invitation, we did not just file away the fact that we were not invited. We wrote a story about what it meant. They don't like me. I'm not interesting enough. I'm stupid. Over time the circumstance fades, but the story stays. It stops being a conclusion and starts feeling like a pl...

A client came to me recently and said something I hear more often than you might expect: "Gene, I've been trying to tap on my own, but this problem just feels too big. I don't know where to start." My answer surprised her. I told her she was right. The problem actually was too big to tap on. But that wasn't a verdict on whether tapping could help. It was a diagnosis of the approach she was using....

I love that tapping can be done independently of other people. You can use self-guided tapping, a tapping resource, like tap-along videos , or tapping scripts. Since tapping is something you can do on your own, it is logical to ask "If I can tap on my own, why would I work with a practitioner?" This is a more complicated question that it might seem at first glance. This is a question about skill,...

Tapping for fear and anxiety was my own entry point into EFT almost 20 years ago, when I was struggling with social anxiety. In this post I want to walk you through exactly how I use tapping to right-size fear and anxiety so they stop running the show. The method is simple, it works in the moment, and you can use it the next time worry shows up. TL;DR / Key Takeaways Tapping for fear and anxiety i...

One of the most difficult times to tap is when you have had a major emotional backslide. You are tapping daily and feeling the breakthroughs during your sessions. You can see positive change happening in your daily life. AND then, out of nowhere, you have a crappy day. The progress you have made seems to evaporate overnight and even the smallest things are driving you crazy. Part of you wants to t...

How long does tapping take to work? It's one of the most common questions I get, and the answer is the most unsatisfying one in coaching: it depends. In this post I'll show you why that's actually the most useful answer I can give you, and how to use it. TL;DR: How Long Tapping Takes to Work How long tapping takes to work depends on the issue you're tapping on and how you define success. A 90-seco...

Recently, I was working with a client who said, "I just wish I understood what the university is trying to teach me." This is a sentiment I often hear from my clients. Learning from our past mistakes is good and valuable. When we are able to see what went wrong and why it went wrong, we can act in new ways in the future. Sometimes it feels even bigger than that. It isn't just learning from a past...

Subscribe in: Apple Podcast | iPhone | Spotify | Pandora | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio   | YouTube If you have ever finished a round of EFT tapping and found yourself yawning uncontrollably, you are not imagining things. In 18 years of working with clients, this question lands in my inbox almost every single month. It is actually one of the top search terms that brings new readers to TappingQandA.c...

It is hard to sit down to tap when you have been battling a stubborn issue for a long time. Without seeing progress, maintaining momentum and motivation is challenging. You may struggle to know what to tap on because it seems as if you are working on the same aspects over and over again. At a certain point, it feels like you are tapping on autopilot and your motivation flags. In my experience, the...

If you have ever sat down to tap and thought, "this isn't going to work for me," you are not alone. That single thought stops more people from healing than any technique ever could. Knowing what to do when you don't think tapping will work is the first step toward getting unstuck. TL;DR: Key Takeaways The thought "tapping won't work for me" is almost never about tapping. It is a protective story y...

One of the topics that I have been coming back to again again this year is trying to find ways to make it easier for you to start a round of tapping because once you start it is much easier to stick with it. This week in the podcast I share with you one of my favorite and simplest tapping techniques which is a "one step tapping process". When I am teaching people how to tap this is what I teach th...

If you have ever finished a round of tapping and felt more upset than when you started, you are not doing it wrong. In fact, when you feel worse after tapping, it usually means something productive is happening underneath the surface. This is one of the most common questions I get from listeners, and the answer changes how you interpret every round of tapping you will ever do. Key Takeaways Feelin...

We emotionally respond to the world based on the way we describe it. What this means is that your subconscious mind is taking cues about what is going on, not based on what you are thinking, but based on what you are saying. The most common version of this is a generalization. You might say something like "Everyone at work hates me." This probably isn't true, but you are going to walk into your wo...

Why I Don't Use the EFT Setup Phrase (And What I Do Instead) If you've watched any of my tap-along videos, you've probably noticed something: I never start with the classic EFT setup phrase. That's a deliberate choice, and I get asked about it all the time. In this post, I want to explain exactly why I skip it and what I use instead. TL;DR / Key Takeaways The traditional EFT setup phrase ("Even th...

It can feel so discouraging when you have great tools at your disposal, like tapping, that you know will have a positive impact on your life…but you are not using them. This leads to self-recrimination AND hesitancy to use the tools in future for fear of failure, which means double the regret. Every six or eight weeks, I set time aside to tap on all the emotions I feel for not tapping as much as I...

If you have been tapping for any length of time, you have probably asked yourself: when am I actually done? You get some relief, the intensity drops, but the issue is not completely gone. Knowing when to stop tapping on an issue is one of the most common questions I hear, and the answer is simpler than most people think. TL;DR: Key Takeaways Knowing when to stop tapping is not about reaching a SUD...

Fear is our most basic emotion. Simply put, fear is our internal guidance pointing out what might harm us so that we can stay safe. We commonly think of it in terms of fight, flight, or freeze. All three of these responses are designed to shield us from danger. We fight to defend ourselves, we run away (flight) to avoid it, and we freeze so that the threat can't see us. When tapping for fear, we u...

Subscribe in: Apple Podcast | iPhone | Spotify | Pandora | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio   | YouTube You sat down to tap and nothing changed. If tapping is not working for you right now, I want you to know two things: this is normal, and there is a specific process you can follow to break through. In my 18+ years as an tapping practitioner, I have walked hundreds of clients through exactly this momen...

One of the reasons we resist taking action is that some actions simply can't be taken back. Our subconscious mind keeps us stuck because it's trying to figure out the perfect thing to do, but because the future is unknown, it's impossible to be certain. This leads us from thinking about the best choice, to stalling on making a choice, to things getting worse because we aren't doing anything at all...

Subscribe in: Apple Podcast | iPhone |  Spotify | Pandora | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio   If you have ever finished a round of EFT tapping and felt a wave of sadness wash over you, you are not alone. Feeling sad after tapping is one of the most common experiences people report, and it is also one of the most misunderstood. That sadness is not a sign that tapping failed or that something went wrong....

The perfect time to tap is in the moment, when you are overwhelmed with emotions…and it is also the hardest time to remember to tap. That's mainly because remembering to tap in the midst of strong emotions is difficult, but it is not the only reason. The second, powerful reason why you don't tap in the moment has everything to do with how you were taught to tap. When most of us learned to tap, we...

One of the conundrums of tapping is the fact that you tap because you want to feel better, but you aren't as good at tapping when you feel bad because you are in a lower resource state. To put it another way, when you need tapping the most, you are the least effective version of yourself as a tapper. But just because you aren't at the peak of your tapping abilities does not mean you are destined t...

It is all too common for tappers to look back at their path to healing and think, "What on earth was I doing? I know better than that! Why do I keep making bad choices when I know exactly what to do?" This comes up most often in my individual coaching sessions when my clients talk about reaching for distracting behaviors instead of tapping. They know at the moment that the best choice would be to...