As a psychotherapist and transformational coach, I employ an array of healing modalities and strategies with my clients. Today I am sharing one of my faves, that I use with great success personally and professionally. It is called Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), which you may know as The Tapping Solution from my pals Nick, Alex and Jess Ortner.

EFT emerged in the US in the early 60’s, but the self-help practice of meridian tapping is ancient, used by many cultures and is based on the Chinese meridian system. The way an acupuncturist uses needles on the meridians to alleviate physical issues, tapping on the meridians while feeling negative feelinga, alleviates emotional issues. I discovered the power of EFT after earning – what I now refer to as – my PhD in Fear. Many of you know my, year of fear story, so I will not repeat the details. I will say that after a series of traumatic events, death of a parent, cancer diagnosis and being held up at gunpoint, I was paralyzed with fear.

I used EFT, along with other trauma work, to free myself from the prison that fear had created. Now I teach thousands of clients and students how to transform their fear into Freedom. I use several therapeutic modalities, including EFT, to help people decode and release fear. Tapping or EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) combines acupressure with psychotherapy to help clear out any negative energy that may be causing you physical, mental or emotional pain.

This highly effective technique has helped hundreds of thousands of people all over the world learn to clear limiting feelings on their own, and it’s free! If you want to learn more about tapping, check out TheTappingSolution.com, a site created by my incredible buddies, the Ortners.

But, before you do that make sure to watch the video below where I created a guided tapping routine for you, focused specifically on fear.

What I love about tapping is the permission you give yourself to embrace exactly what you are feeling at any given moment. Most of you have been brought up to believe that some feelings are good and others, bad. When you label your feelings, you begin to make yourself wrong for feeling anything other than happy. This can lead to self-doubt, frustration, anger and anxiety for having the ‘wrong’ feeling. So naturally to avoid feeling those things, you block or try to force your emotions. However, in doing this, you are blocking yourself from experiencing the full range of what is means to be human. And you all know:

What you resist, persists. @terri_cole (Click to Tweet!)

Accepting that anxiety, fear and anger are part of life, normalizes those experiences. So, while these feelings may not be the way you want to feel, they are valuable. Tapping teaches you that you can love and accept yourself, no matter what you are feeling.

Tapping is a simple yet powerful technique that almost anyone can use. It may take some getting used to, but once you start feeling the effects, tapping may quickly become one of your go-to freedom tools. Keep in mind there is no perfect way to tap.

To begin simply use the steps below.

1. Acknowledge an emotion you want to explore and rate how intense it is from one (mild) to ten (very intense).
2. Create your set-up statement. To do this use, four fingers on one hand to tap the side of your other hand between the pinky and the side of the wrist. Your set-up statement should sound something like this “Even though I am terrified, I love and accept myself”.
3. Repeat some version of this statement three times, while continuing to tap the side of your hand. There is no specific script in tapping, so don’t worry about your set-up statement needing to be exact.

Now you are ready to begin your tapping sequence.

4. Start at the top of your head by tapping in the middle, continue tapping in that spot while you verbally acknowledge your fear. For example “I am feeling so much fear”.
5. Move your tapping to the outside corner your eye near your temple (left or right) and being a new statement acknowledging your fear. For example “Ugh this fear.”
6. Move your tapping to about half an inch below your eye. Begin a new statement, for example “I am so sick of this fear”.
7. Move to the spot in between your nose and upper lip and tap. Begin a new statement.
8. Move to the spot right below the lower lip. Tap while you speak a new statement.
9. Begin tapping right below the collarbone about two to three inches from the middle (on either side). To find this spot move your fingers just below the bone until you find the spot that feels a little softer. Tap on this spot while making a new statement.
10. Move the side of your body, if you are a woman this spot is where your bra strap would be, below your underarm. Tap on this spot while you make a new statement.
11. Once you are done, take a deep breath and on a scale of one to ten, rate the level of intensity of the feeling you just tapped on.
12. Continue these steps for as many rounds as feels good to you or until you get to your desired level of relief.

Now that you have these steps and the video above, I encourage you to make tapping part of your weekly, if not daily, routine. Imagine feeling the freedom to embrace any and all emotions, while loving yourself fully and completely in spite of anger, frustration or even rage. Self-love and self-acceptance are possible, you just have to be willing to use the tools to get there.

Happy tapping and as always, take care of you.

Love Love Love

Terri

Terri Cole is a licensed psychotherapist, transformation coach, and an expert at turning fear into freedom. Sign up for Terri’s weekly Tune Up Tips and follow her on Twitter.

Image courtesy of Bob Prosser.