EFT/Tapping Q and A with Gene Monterastelli - Emotional Freedom Techniques

Pod #405 How To End A Tapping Session

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How we end a tapping session is sometimes more important than how we begin it. At the beginning it is most important that we simply start tapping. With each successive round of tapping, we gain clarity about the issue at hand and where we should focus our efforts.

For me, there are two goals for the last little bit of tapping at the end of a session.

First, I often feel a little groggy and fuzzy brained when I’ve been tapping for a while, which makes sense as tapping often releases a lot of stored emotion and memories. It is important that I’m able to return to my day feeling calm and grounded.

Second, even though we have stopped tapping doesn’t mean the process of healing and transformation has ended. The new thoughts and beliefs we’ve connected with are still integrating even after the tapping stops. At the end of the session, I find it useful to remind myself that the process of healing and transformation will continue after a session. This recognition encourages me to come back and tap again and again.

By taking a few minutes to tap in this way, we can get the most out of our tapping sessions and also set ourselves up for success after the session.

You can find the full tapping script as a pdf of this audio over at Tapping Q and A Podcast Scripts and Transcripts.

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Why I hate (the name) Emotional Freedom Techniques

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Note: This article was originally shared on Sept 2nd, 2012 with the title “Why I Hate Emotional Freedom Techniques”. This is an updated and edited version of that article.

I have a confession to make. I hate Emotional Freedom Techniques.

OK, I don’t hate the tool, but I do hate the name.

In the beginning I hated the name because I thought it did the technique such a disservice.

Here we were being given this amazingly powerful tool that was changing people’s lives. It was helping them to release lifelong limiting beliefs, ameliorate chronic physical pain, ease deep-seated emotional issues, and eliminate cravings. It has brought relief to people in hospitals, in war-torn countries and disaster zones, and in prisons.

As a professional using EFT I thought the name “Emotional Freedom Techniques” undermined just how powerful a tool it is.

As someone who has used tapping for many years, I know what that freedom feels like after a powerful tapping session. The world feels new because we have released what has been holding us back. But this is the language of someone who has used EFT and experienced its benefits.

For those who haven’t used it before, it is easy to perceive EFT as something frivolous and unpowerful.

For a number of years I was given the opportunity to teach tapping as part of an anger management class in a county jail. One day in class I was telling the guys in jail about my disdain for the name and one of them piped up and said, “You’re right. It shouldn’t be called EFT. It should be BET: Balanced Emotion Techniques.”

It wasn’t just the fact the name was undermining its power, but instead the name wasn’t accurately describing what was going on.

The Goal Is Not To Be Free From Emotions

His comment made me think about the way I teach tapping. Over and over again I teach that emotions are not the problem. Emotions are not the enemy. Emotions are information.

Every time we feel an emotion, our system is just giving us information. When I feel sad, it is saying that something important is missing. When I feel angry, it is telling me that it perceives attack. When I feel frustrated, it is letting me know I am not getting what I want.

This information is both helpful and useful. The goal of tapping isn’t to be free of these emotions.

First, the goal of tapping is to make sure that emotions show up at the right time.

For example, it is right that I fear lions, but if I fear them so much that I can’t leave my apartment in Brooklyn because I know there is a lion ten miles away in the Bronx Zoo, then that fear is completely out of proportion.

Second, the goal of tapping is to make sure emotions are showing up to the right degree.

For example, when someone cuts me off on the highway the rush of adrenalin triggered will help sharpen my senses and help me to control the car and stay safe. If that rush goes on so long that it overwhelms my system and I end up on the side of the road crying for 45 minutes because I almost died, the reaction produced is out of proportion.

I want and need my emotions. They are an important part of how I navigate the world. I don’t want to be free of them.

What Is Important In The End

I have arrived at a point where I mostly just call what I do tapping, because I don’t tap in exactly the way Gary Craig originally taught. But again, that is less important.

What is more important is the fact that we have a clear understanding of what the goal of tapping is. For me, the goals are:

  • to help my emotions to show up in a proportional and well-informed way
  • to create the space to hear the message these emotions are trying to convey
  • to release any useful or limiting beliefs about about myself and the world
  • to take the actions I want to take with confidence

I know that if I tap regularly on my emotions, issues, and beliefs, then that will happen. If that happens, then it doesn’t matter if we call it tapping, EFT or Chad. It only matters that I am living the life I want.

Keeping Calm

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One of the highlights of my recent visit to London was getting to visit the Churchill War Rooms. It was amazing to get that close to history.

There and everywhere else in London where tourists gathered you could find recreations of the World War II posters “Keep Calm and Carry On”. Though little used during WWII (full history) it made its way back into the public eye in 2000.

Here are two fun (or cheesy, depending on your point of view) twists on the posters. Feel free to use and share them however you like.

Version 1

Version 2

My Holiday Embarrassment

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I spent the Christmas holiday in my home state of Wyoming. The last night I was home my sister asked if I could share a way she could tap for a friend who was grappling with a lot of difficult changes in his life.

I spent about 30 minutes talking my sister (and my mother) through the “Talk About, Talk To, Talk As If” tool.

My sister then asked if it would a good idea if we tapped for a family member, “Bob,” who was having a particularly hard time.

It hit me like a ton of bricks… not only could Bob use some surrogate tapping, so could so many people in my life. And not just the people who were having a really tough time.

In the “My EFT Year” project I am obviously making it a priority to look at my goals but somehow I had lost track of what was outside me.

Then my mother asked if anyone has ever tried tapping on world peace… and again I felt crushed by disappointment. I knew things like this had been done before (see crime reduction in Washington, DC).

Years ago I even created the website Tapping4Peace.com encouraging people to do just that.

I regularly tap surrogately for people who ask, but somehow I lost my way in just tapping for others in my life.

For the last week I have been finding a little time each day to tap for others. I am not doing anything too complicated, just thinking of a loved one and of all the wonderful things I would like to show up in their life, and tapping.

It only takes two or three minutes.

It is really that simple.

By doing this regularly it has changed my daily disposition and has helped me to act in a more loving way.

Give it a try.

It will only take two minutes.

And let me know below how it goes.

What EFT Has Taught Me That I Wish I Knew When I Was 13 (Tapping For Self-Respect)

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photo by Jack Lyons

I wasn’t the coolest of kids when I was in middle school. I was on the math team, had feet larger than my 6’ 2” tall father, and I had a mullet.

It wasn’t pretty.

I didn’t think my life was horrible. I didn’t think I was a total loser. I wasn’t a complete loner. But I knew my place.

It was fine for me to be my quirky, funny self around my fellow nerds (back when being a nerd wasn’t cool like it is today), but when I was around anyone of a “higher” social status I just kept my head down.

I felt that if I opened my mouth everyone would look at me and think, “I can’t believe what a waste of time he is. Why do we even have him around? Could he just leave!”

This is something that persisted well into my twenties.

I can still remember one particular moment whilst I was at university. I was on campus early for training for a job I had in the resident halls. During a long afternoon break I sat with two guys I worked with who were older than me (and both former military). The conversation lasted for almost two hours and I didn’t say a word.

I felt out of place…or more likely I “knew” my place, which was below everyone else in the room.

As I think back to that moment now I can still imagine what it felt like to be a little kid who is tagging along with the big kids hoping they don’t notice that I was there. (In my memory even though I was 20 years old my body feels 4’ 10” tall.)

Self-Respect

Recently the design blog swiss-miss.com featured the following quote from Joan Didon:

“Self-respect is a discipline, a habit of mind that can never be faked but can be developed, trained, coaxed forth.”

I really love this idea. It points to the fact self-respect isn’t something that is given to us by an external source. It comes from within. It is all about seeing what we are worthy of AND (most importantly) it is something that we can consciously nurture and develop.

When I was younger I wasn’t able to see that. I saw my place in the world based on where I believed I was in relation to everyone else. I was either an equal or I was below.

There were certainly a lot of times where I faked that I belonged. I walked very upright with a confident smile on my face. But just because I was giving the outward projection of belonging didn’t mean that I was comfortable inside of my own skin.

My personal journey with EFT, especially over the last few years, has been about becoming more comfortable inside of my own skin.

Which is really just another way of saying I am growing in self-respect.

If you are working to grow your sense of self-respect I would encourage you to tap along to this script for the next four days. Below the tapping script is a link to a pdf so that you can print out the script if you would like to put it somewhere where you will remember to tap to it.

I choose to know I am worthy of respect…I choose to know that I am worthy of respecting myself…I don’t need to do anything to prove that I am worthy of self-respect…I am made for self-respect…I don’t need to do anything to gain my self-respect…I know I am not perfect…I know I make mistakes everyday…I know there are things in my life I would like to improve…Even though I am not perfect…I am worthy of self-respect…I am worthy of seeing that I am good…I am worthy of seeing that I am lovable…It is possible to see that I am worthy and still know that I would like better…By respecting myself I am not stopping my growth…By respecting myself I am not stopping my healing…Who I am is not determined by other people…Who I am is not determined by what others think…My value is not determined by other people…My value is not determined by what other people think…I choose to know I am worthy…I choose to know I am lovable…I choose to know that I am worthy of being heard…I am worthy even if I don’t believe I am worthy…My belief in my worthiness is not a prerequisite to my worthiness…I am worthy of respect even if I don’t believe it right now…

Download pdf script

Please let me know in the comments below how this works for you or if you have other phrases you have tapped to that have been helpful for self-respect.