Finding a balance between taking responsibility for our lives and taking too much responsibility for what is going on is a tricky matter. Taking too much responsibility may seem like a silly notion, but it can happen in many ways. One of these ways is when we refuse to allow ourselves grace or forgiveness. We recognize that we have made a mistake and then, whether consciously or unconsciously, we decide that we are not allowed to get past it. As part of our penance we beat ourselves up, ...
One of the ideas that really makes my clients bristle is the possibility that their self-sabotaging behaviors are guided by their system's well-meaning intention to keep them safe. They question, "How is it possible that my subconscious mind thinks it is trying to keep me safe when all it is doing is making my life harder?" That is a great question because it feels counterintuitive that our desire to be safe is actually holding back our progress. This week in the podcast, we explore why ...
For some issues, tracking progress is simple. I can tell if my desk is less cluttered, if I can lift more weight while working out, or if I am making more sales in my business. That is because these examples are measured in hard metrics, or in other words, cold, hard numbers. Changes that are measured in soft metrics are more difficult to track. For example, it is much harder to quantify growth in my self-esteem or confidence. Much of the transformation we are trying to achieve with ...
One of our biggest struggles in creating transformation and change in our lives is those moments where we know WHAT to do, we know HOW to do it, and we know WHY it is valuable to take an action…and yet we just don't. It is obvious what the next step is and for some reason we don't take it. Then, as a bonus, we beat ourselves up for not taking action. So as well as not moving forward, we feel bad for letting ourselves down. This week in the podcast we explore where this resistance comes ...
One of Marianne Williamson's most cited quotes starts "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure." It is quoted so often because of how deeply it resonates, speaking directly to the contradiction that is part of our lived human experience. On one hand we want to live an authentic and rich life…on the other hand, our subconscious mind just wants us to be safe. This desire to be safe keeps us small because if we are small, then ...
Letting ourselves down is one of the deepest betrayals that we humans can experience. It feels like such a harsh gut punch when it is something we know we should have been able to do. After we let ourselves down in such a powerful way, our subconscious will do everything in its power, through resistance to take action so as to keep us safe. It reasons that since it was so painful to let ourselves down, the way to avoid that pain in the future is simply not to commit to something ...
The words change and improve are very close in meaning. While both are associated with transformation, they do not mean exactly the same thing. Improvement is about keeping something but doing it in a better way; change is about doing something in a new way. In the transformational arena we long for change, but in doing this we sometimes diminish the value of improvement. This week in the podcast, I explore the difference between these two ideas, when we should seek to improve or to ...
Not all stress is created equal. There are those hyper stressful times, like driving on icy roads in a snowstorm at rush hour. It is super intense in the moment and then when it ends, it is over! Then there is the low-grade stress of something that is taking a long time and is hanging over your head. The example I think of from my own life is doing my business taxes. I'm not especially good at doing my taxes because I only look at the task once a year; it is also a big deal and if I ...
One of the most consistent struggles my clients have is coming up with the "right" words. The problem is, there is no such thing as the right words when it comes to tapping. Instead there are words that are useful and words that are not. I am consistently surprised at some of the tapping phrases that end up being useful. One example is when we tap on phrases that intellectually we know to be false. When I ask my clients to tap on phrases that they know aren't true, it creates a natural ...
Grief is unlike other emotions when it comes to tapping. We can tap to step out of every other negative emotion, like anger, jealousy, frustration, or feeling overwhelmed. But grief is something that we will feel forever. Twenty years after a loved one has died, we will still feel pangs of grief. Instead of leaving grief, our relationship with it and how we live with it evolves over time. That is why we need a different approach when tapping for grief. In this week's podcast, I ...
We often refer to tapping for stress and feeling overwhelmed as emotional first aid. That is because we are applying a tool for quick relief in the moment in the same way we would use first aid for a physical injury. But there is one key difference between first aid and emotional first aid. When we are physically injured, our first thought is "I need to take care of this right now!" When we need emotional first aid, we are so caught up in our emotions that we don't realize we need to do ...
A number of years ago I was visiting my friend "Mike" and his family. Mike asked his youngest son, who was about five at the time, to tidy his room before dinner. His son replied, in the most overwrought and dramatic voice possible, "But whyyyyyyyyyyyy? I am just going to make it messy again!" I can relate! There are SO MANY tasks on my to-do list that I dislike doing and there are even some that I despise. In this week's podcast, I share some simple ways you can clear your ...
There is a huge difference between bouncing back from being tired and being exhausted. When we are tired, we simply need to refill our tank. When we are exhausted, we first have to recover from being exhausted before we can even consider refilling our tank. In this week's podcast, I share seven simple ways you can help yourself when you are feeling exhausted or emotionally drained. And the great thing about these seven ideas is that you don't have to do them all in order to bounce ...
One of the hardest parts of being a caring person is witnessing others in pain. When we see someone struggling, it feels natural to want to step in and help. With that being said, there is a fine line between being helpful and taking responsibility for someone else's suffering. This becomes doubly hard where emotional burdens are concerned. While we might be able to assist with practical struggles, we can't pick up someone else's emotional struggle. In this week's podcast I ...
There is this moment in every tapper's life when we move from "This tapping thing is amazing" to "Oh my goodness there are soooooo many issues for me to tap on. Every time I clear one issue I find four more!" It's easy to feel frustrated and demotivated when this happens. You might even stop tapping altogether because it feels like the tapping is creating more problems than it is solving (when we know it is really just uncovering what is already there). This week in the podcast, I share ...
Over the years, so many of my clients and students have told me that two of the biggest obstacles preventing them from sitting down to tap are having too many issues so that they don't know where to start, and the fear that their emotions will be too big to handle when tapping. It makes total sense that these obstacles make it hard for us to tap because they are both rooted in our subconscious mind's wish to keep us safe. When it comes to having too many issues, the subconscious mind is ...
Even though we might not be conscious of it, every time we sit down to tap, our desire is for total, instantaneous, eternal transformation. While our desire makes a lot of sense, there are two obstacles in our way. First, we don't always have access to total, instantaneous, eternal transformation. For better or worse, sometimes transformation just takes time. Second, swift transformation isn't always the safest way for us to move forward. This week in the podcast, we explore our ...
Sometimes tapping feels nothing short of magical! We are struggling with an issue or an emotion and then, after a few rounds of tapping, we feel so much better. This transformation can feel profound to the extent that the world actually looks different. (That is not an exaggeration. My clients often report how the world literally looks brighter and more welcoming after tapping.) Then there are those issues where despite putting in the time to tap, nothing changes. We try different ...
One of the fundamentals I repeatedly return to when I am working with clients or teaching practitioners is: We emotionally respond to the world in the way that we describe it. That is to say, the words we use when talking about our lives impact how we feel about our lives or a particular situation. Recently, I have started adding the word "feel" when I describe what I am thinking, feeling or experiencing at any given moment. This has created a powerful shift in how I perceive situations ...
For the longest time, I found tapping for feeling overwhelmed one of my most frustrating issues. The reason it was so frustrating is because no matter how many times I tapped for overwhelm, it always came back. Sometimes it came back multiple times in the same day. When we aren't making the progress we want, it is easy to get frustrated with the fact that "I have to tap for overwhelm again!" We not only lose faith in tapping for that particular issue, we may also find our faith in tapping ...