I participated in a free online ten day summit learning about and practicing EFT Tapping, produced by Nick Ortner of The Tapping Solution.  EFT is the acronym for ‘Emotional Freedom Technique’ and it is the practice of tapping on nine acupressure points of the body related to the meridian acupuncture points as known in Chinese medicine.  The reasons for doing tapping are many and include:  stress and pain management, weight loss, clearing past trauma, dealing with limiting financial beliefs, even enhanced athletic performance and the list go on!  The summit is in its ninth year (offered annually in February) and has had over 2 million participants in that time.  Apparently, this tapping thing is catching on, which makes sense because science is beginning to back up the outcomes with more and more published studies showing up in medical publications.

My simple understanding of how EFT Works:

Many times people experience strong negative reactions/emotions each time they revisit a painful memory.  Tapping helps to release the intensity of the negative emotions by sending calming signals to the amygdala part of the brain.  When negative emotions (fear, anger, anxiety, etc.) arise the fight or flight state is triggered which originates in the amygdala.  You can not exist in a state of calm while simultaneously triggering the fight of flight response.  That is why tapping is effective.   Tapping while thinking about the stressful event (or pain in the body) rewires the brain signals to associate calm feelings with the stressful event, therefore no longer triggering the amygdala into the fight or flight response when the stressful event comes into mind.   For some people, they may simply tap for pain relief or weight loss, but then discover a deeper layer – an emotional aspect that is causing the pain or extra weight which may not be known or even connected to the pain/weight at first glance.    Which leads to tapping to clear the emotional aspect and in the process the physical pain is often relieved or at the very least lessened.  It takes time and more than one session, but there is science backing up the validity of the practice.

My experience with EFT:

I found the practice to be very relaxing as it sends calming signals through the body to the brain.  I felt more calm and relaxed after a few minutes of tapping.   Anybody can do it and you don’t need a facilitator, plus you can try it out for free.  There are a ton of YouTube videos on how to do it for any reason you may consider trying this practice.  For me, my experience was that I was tapping to relieve physical pain and in the process forgotten memories surfaced. I hadn’t made the connection that the two were related but tapping did in fact lessen my physical pain.   If you are interested in learning more about EFT and why it works or how to do it check out this link:   thetappingsolution.com .

Yours Truly,

~Brandi