You have been there before. You are trying to make a change, like giving up sweets. The first day is hard. The second is harder. The third day, for some unknown reason, is really easy. You feel awesome. You are making progress. Real change is happening. Then along comes day four... You come home from work and you find yourself eating one little piece of candy. You think, "This is no big deal. It is only one piece." Then it is two, then four, and then the bag is empty and you think, ...
Creating the loving relationship we desire it isn't simply about finding a partner. We want to find our way to the right relationship that feeds and nurtures us. Unfortunately many people keep finding themselves in the same type of relationship that isn't right for them. In this conversation Stefan Gonick talks about what we can learn from our past relationship patterns and how to address our conscious and unconscious fears around them, thereby making useful action towards creating a ...
Over the last few weeks my Facebook timeline has been filled with memorials. First, a friend and colleague, Mark, died suddenly of a heart attack. Second, American sports news personality Stuart Scott died from the cancer he had fighting for years. The flood of kind words, memories, well wishes for the families, and stories of learning from the lives of the deceased was amazing. I discovered things about two men I admired that I didn't know. I was touched to know how the lives of so many ...
When I look at the work that I have done on myself since I discovered tapping I can distill almost every issue down to one thing. Being comfortable inside my own skin. When I am comfortable inside my own skin I am more likely to follow inspiration, I am more likely act with confidence, and I am more likely to see situations as they truly are. If any of those things are true at the time of action I will be much happier with outcome. When all three are true, amazing things happen. In this ...
A few weeks ago in podcast #149 we talked about the trouble with saying "I love and accept myself". As we discussed, sometimes it is hard to say and there are also times where it isn't helpful to say. It was a useful discussion you should check out. I was overwhelmed with the response to that podcast. I as I noted in the Best Of 2014 I received the most emails about this particular post in the whole year. One question came up again and again: "How exactly do I tap for self-acceptance?" Here ...
There are a number of books and movies that I revisit at least once a year. I do this because even though the stories and information are the same, I have changed and therefore they impact me in a new way. It might be the sixth time I have re-read a particular book, but it feels like there are passages that I have never seen before. As we come the end of 2014 I thought it would be useful to revisit some of the best of the best from TappingQ&A. If there is something from the site you ...
Surrogate tapping is a tricky topic. Tapping itself is difficult enough to explain, but trying to explain how I can tap on my body to promote change in someone else is a whole other level. At that point it sounds like we are talking about woo-woo crap that just can't be true. In the last few weeks I have witnessed some amazing things with surrogate tapping (or at least they appear to be the result of surrogate tapping). First, my sister regularly takes her dog Addison to the vet. Like many ...
Good morning, When I was a kid my mother would ask me wanted I wanted for Christmas and she’d always end the question with the addendum "and you are not allowed to ask for world peace." It's not that my mother didn't want world peace. She just knew that she wasn't going to be able to find it in my size in time for Christmas day. This year I have a different request for Christmas. My friend Laura Reach is an amazing tattoo artist. (I happen to carry hours of her work on my left arm.) ...
Often our biggest obstacle we have to using tapping in the healing process is ourselves. This plays out in two ways. First, sometimes a part of us doesn’t feel it is safe for us to heal. Since a part of our system doesn't feel safe healing we short circuit the healing process. When this happens we don't tap as much as we would like and always seem to have other things to do. Second, there are times when we are tapping for the "wrong issue" or have the "wrong expectation" of how the ...
My clients often complain that even though they tap regularly for their issues, there are times when their emotions get the better of them. The goal of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) is not for us to become emotionless. Our emotions are important because they allow us to feel in order to navigate the world and they are what give our experience richness. The problems isn't the emotions themselves, but when and how strongly they show up. In this week's podcast I talk about the ultimate ...
When Gary Craig first introduced the world to Emotional Freedom Techniques he used something he called the setup phrase. You would tap on the side of your hand or rub the sore spot and say, "Even though I have [insert issue] I completely love and accept myself." As time has passed and EFT has evolved most teachers of tapping fall into one of two camps. They are either insistent that you do this every time or they never do it at all. There are enough tapping teachers who are still sharing the ...
My walk home from Thanksgiving dinner took about a half an hour. It was a quiet afternoon and the Brooklyn streets were almost deserted. As I was walking I started singing Sinéad O'Connor's "Thank You For Hearing Me." I find it to be a such a profound and holy song (and I don't use the word holy lightly). It would perfect to tap along to today. ...
Between the bonus podcasts and the full show I have shared over 200 podcasts! It has been an amazing journey. I would like to thank: Adele Wang, Alina Frank, AnaMaria Herrera, Andy Bryce, Ann Ross, Brad Yates, Brittany Watkins, Carol Look, Carol Tuttle, Catherine Poole, Colleen Flanagan, Dan Cleary, Dawson Church, Deborah Miller, Dene Ballantine, Elham Kashefi, Gina Parris, Gwenn Bonnell, Gwyneth Moss, Helen Walker, Jake Khym, Janet Hilts, Jaqui Crooks, Jared Tendler, Jenn Goddard, Jesse ...
We live in a time of exceptionalism. Everywhere we turn we are presented with the biggest, the best, the greatest, and the most important. And it is not just coming from marketers. If you spend any time on social media you see people describing the best meal they have ever had, the greatest vacation of all time, and the most important thing they learned. We have come to a place where if it isn't the best then it must be a failure. Wanting To Be The Best All The Time Is Bad For Us I think that ...
I was recently having drinks with a friend and we were talking about my time teaching anger management in jail. She asked if I would teach her one of the tools I taught the guys. So I explained one of my favorites. She responded, "I can see how that tool would useful, but that is just about emotions generally. How is that tool an 'anger management' tool?" And she was right. Every tool I taught in jail was about having a healthy emotional response. Yes, the guys were looking to manage their ...
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a healing protocol that is gaining more and more acceptance worldwide. I see it very much as a cousin of EFT and tapping. In this podcast I interview Masha Bennett who is very experienced in both. She compares and contrasts the two protocols. In doing so she shares what tappers can learn from EMDR and what EMDR practitioners can learn from tapping. Regardless how much tapping training and experience you have you will learn from this ...
Recently my friend Rebecca Kane asked me about my approach to working with clients and how I structure my client sessions. It turned into a very constructive conversation. If you have ever wondered what a practitioner is thinking when they are doing a session and why they do what they do, here is your chance to hear my point of view. This is not the only way or the best way to do a session, but these are things I keep in mind to ensure I am keeping my clients safe and providing the best care ...
Personally, I don't like the terms alternative medicine or complementary care. The things we do either are working toward helping us to maintain and improve our health or they are not. Elham Kashefi recently watched her dear friend Tara succumb to cancer. During the time she was receiving treatment it became very clear that the medical system taking care of her was incomplete. The system was built only to respond to things after they had gone wrong and was only able to respond in a limited ...
According to Wikipedia the shadow is: In Jungian psychology, the shadow or "shadow aspect" may refer to (1) an unconscious aspect of the personality which the conscious ego does not identify in itself. Because one tends to reject or remain ignorant of the least desirable aspects of one's personality, the shadow is largely negative, or (2) the entirety of the unconscious, i.e., everything of which a person is not fully conscious. In Kris Ferraro’s client work she works directly with the shadow ...
Back in April Seth Godin wrote on his blog: You will never, ever run out of strangers. And so, the goal of perfectly pleasing an infinite number of passersby is a fool's errand. They come with their own world view, their own issues, their own biases. Not only is this true for a world full of strangers, it is also true for the much smaller group of people in your life. No two people you know are alike, have the same world view, or will be pleased by the same things. Every ...