In a recent essay, I’ve talked about how to change bad habits and other things you want to change in your life. One method I mentioned in particular was Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), also called “tapping” (for reasons which will become obvious soon).
Since that essay had already gotten rather longish, I only wrote a few general words about EFT and then left you to your own devices. However, I feel EFT deserves a bit more attention, so here were go…
Before I go into the details of what tapping is, and what it isn’t, what it can do for you, and what it can’t, I need to make a few personal remarks first:
I’ve used EFT extensively for my own inner work, over the course of quite a few years, and thus feel that I have a few things to say about it. Things which are backed up by personal experience, and not just by second-hand hearsay or by reading an internet encyclopedia. 😉
As a consequence, the material in this essay is mostly based on my own experience, and on that of a few other people who shared their experiences with EFT with me. I.e. what I can offer you is a personal (and honest) account of my own experiences and impressions.
Other people’s experiences with tapping might be different – and that’s great. We’re all individuals, and in the end, you’ll have to try it for yourself anyway.
I’m also not a health professional, neither for physical nor for psychological health. In this essay, I will thus focus on the use of EFT as a tool for “self improvement” (what a horrible word, isn’t it? One day I’ll write an essay about this, too!) and for your own inner work.
And after getting these preliminaries out of the way, let’s start with the most pressing question:
Why should you care about tapping at all?
Since you’re browsing The Hidden Things, chances are good that you are one of the people who are doing some kind of inner work.
Whether you call this inner work self development, self improvement, occultism, spiritual work, spiritual healing, inner alchemy or whatnot else doesn’t matter – in the end, the terms aren’t as important as the fact that you are following some (more or less structured) process to get to know and to change certain aspects of yourself, whatever these aspects may be.
You might be trying to get rid of old habits or patterns, working on your “negative” emotions, self-debilitating thoughts, reducing the stress in your life, changing your reactions to certain triggers, or any number of other things.
To keep things somewhat manageable, for the sake of this essay I’ll simply subsume all these different things under the term “inner work”. (If you’d rather call your own path by a different term, then by all means replace it with whatever your preferred word is. I won’t be offended! 😉 )
But while it’s a rather safe bet for me that most of my readers will be engaged in some kind of inner work, it’s an even safer bet to assume that most of you will, at some point during this work, have gotten stuck.
There are these issues… you know the kind. The ones who, no matter how much work you put into them, they will just not dissolve, or not be released, or you will continue to fall back into old habits, or the same emotions or thought patterns keep popping up again and again, or… well, you know what I’m talking about, don’t you?
Yeah, thought so. 😉
The reason I’m writing this essay about EFT is that it is a nifty and rather effective tool to tackle such deep-seated issues: The kind which simply refuse to be dissolved, no matter how much effort you put into it.
Does this mean that EFT is a miracle cure for whatever you want to change in your life?
No, of course not. EFT is a great tool, but as with all tools, you still need to put in the work. However, said work is much easier if you have the right tools.
(If you can’t imagine what I’m talking about, try building something like a wooden bookshelf without a saw and a hammer, and you’ll learn to appreciate the value of having the right tools at hand. 😉 )
Thus EFT is a tool which assists you in doing your inner work. Not more, but also not less.
It’s also a tool which has worked quite reliably for me so far in my own inner work – more so than a lot of other techniques and tools. Thus I can safely say that EFT will work at least for some people.
Will you be one of these people? Well, there is only one way to find out… 😀
So what is tapping?
As the name says, tapping works by, well, tapping. In particular, one taps at certain points on one’s own body. These points are mostly in the face, some around the head and other easily accessible parts of the upper body. There is also a set of points on the hands, which can be used in addition or alternatively to the first set.
As far as I am aware, these points are all “energy points”, located on energy meridians in the body (the kind of points which are used during acupuncture, for example).
A few practical issues
Diagrams, explanations and videos about tapping are all over the internet. Simply search for EFT or tapping. Here are a few links to get you started and show you the actual points: an introductory video (at the bottom of the page), diagrams, and yet another diagram, and a diagram of the points on your hand.
If you compare these sources, you might notice that the actual points can vary a bit from practitioner to practitioner. Some people include the “karate chop point” (at the side of your hand), some don’t. Same for the point at the top of your head, and for the underarm point (which feels a bit ape-like, tbh). Some have also come up with additional points of their own.
Also, some people insist on the additional points on your hand, some use them occasionally, and most people ignore them.
(For what it’s worth, I find them very helpful in situations where I feel that I need to reduce some stress, but can’t openly tap on my face. There is always the option to discreetly rub some points on my fingers, though.)
I’ve found that in the end, these differences don’t matter much. Just get the basic layout from any of these websites, and get started. Over time, you’ll figure out for yourself which points feel comfortable to you.
For the points which exist on both sides of your body, it doesn’t matter whether you tap the right point, or the left, or both at the same time (or alternately). It also doesn’t matter whether you tap with your right hand, or your left, or if you alternate.
Finally, some practitioners insist on a certain order, or a certain way to do tapping “right”. E.g. you might be required to tap on the karate chop point first, x times, with a certain kind of statement. Or go through rounds of negative statements first, and then rounds of positive statements. Or rate your statements on a scale from 1 to 10, then tap x time, then rate again, etc etc.
In my experience, none of this matters – tapping works whether you follow such a protocol or not.
I.e. if it helps you to have a fixed structure to work along, then by all means do so. If not, you can simply go free-form and follow your own intuition. After all, you’ll know best what works for you!
And how does it work?
By gently tapping on or rubbing these energy points, the energy system is stimulated and will release stress – either acute stress, e.g. if you are in a stressful situation, which will then not be stored in your system at all. Or “older” stress which has been stored in your energy and/or physical body in the past.
You can “reach” this stress by saying certain statements (preferably out loud) while you tap. These are statements which cause or caused the stress, or which remind you of the stressful situations.
The term “stress” is used rather losely here, btw, and includes things like fear, traumatic experiences, negative thoughts or emotions, etc. All of these cause some kind of “stress” for your system, and a lot of them will be stored somewhere in your system when you experience them or if they have become a part of your life.
As far I can tell, EFT works mostly on the energy body (i.e. the etheric body). By releasing stress there, stored up phycial stress can be released from the physical body (e.g. tensions), and stored up emotional, imaginary and mental stress can be released from the astral body.
An example might make this clearer: Say you had issues with self esteem, especially at work. You write down a list of certain “statements” which you keep telling to yourself (“I’m a loser. I never get anything right. …”).
(Btw, when you sit down to honestly write such a list, you might be shocked – the things we tell ourselves are oftentimes way more brutal than what we would ever say to somebody else!)
You can also add a few emotions to your list for good measure (“I feel useless. I feel helpless. …”), and then you are ready to rumble.
With this list in front of you, you now start tapping on the first statement.
“Tapping on” something means that you repeat the statement, preferably out loud, while you tap a few times on the first point, then a few times on the second point, etc etc. You do this until the stress which you feel when you say that statement has considerably reduced.
(Ideally, it’ll be fully gone before you move on to the next statement. But with deep-seated issues, and with a complex tangle of interconnected stressful statements, it’ll take more than few rounds of tapping to release something. Thus it’s sometimes better to tap your way through your list, and then come back the next day and the next day, until the overall stress has reduced so much that you can pick single statements and work on them deliberately.)
Anyway, you continue with your tapping session until you feel the stress intensity for this issue has been noticably reduced (or until you’re sufficiently exhausted to call it a day). In the end, after however many sessions of EFT you need, the issue should be gone.
I’m writing “should be” here, because there are some deep-seated things which have layers. Even when you have successfully gotten rid of one layer, a few months or years later the next one might pop up, and makes you go “huh? Didn’t I get rid of this pattern already??”. That’s not a problem, though – you can just go back to tapping on it.
(In case you haven’t checked it out yet, my essay “Turtles all the Way Down” goes much more deeply into such layered issues.)
With this method, you can work your way through whatever you want to tackle in your inner work. (And you can also use it for imminently stressful situations, to reduce whatever stress you might have and to get back into a clear headspace.)
Does tapping use affirmations?
No, but it can look very similar.
Especially for complex issues, it makes sense to not just tap on the “negative” stuff, but also on the positive. E.g. in the example above, a “positive” statement like “I’m confident at work.” or “I’m an expert in my field.” might raise just as much stress as the negative statements, albeit of a different quality. In a way, they are two sides of the same coin.
Thus it’s smart to tap on “positive” statements as well. These positive statements are oftentimes phrased like an affirmation – but they don’t work the same way.
The point of EFT is not to firmly ground an affirmation in your system.
The point of tapping is to reduce the stress which you might feel towards this positive statement, so that it can even be anchored in your system in the first place. (As long as an affirmation causes you major stress, it will be hard to get it to take root inside of you.)
So you might end up using the same statement during tapping and as an affirmation, but it’s by no means required, and might not always be smart.
For the same reason, using highly charged “negative” statements in tapping is not just fine, but actually necessary.
They are applied to reach the stress connected to them. If you don’t dare to go to the dark side in tapping, you’ll never be able to dissolve the stress which it causes. And yes, that includes the heavy hitters, things you might be hesitant to mention even to yourself, statements like “I hate myself” or “I hate X”, said with a passion.
If this sounds rather emotional, that’s because it can be rather emotional. 😉
Or, in other words: Whenever you tap on something which is more than a fleeting surface stress, there is stuff that might rise from the darkness into the light of day. Be prepared to shed the odd tear, or have very emotional things come up.
(If they do, just keep on tapping as long as that feels good to you! These things have been uprooted through the tapping process and are now ready to leave you for good, they just want to say goodbye to you. 🙂 )
So what is EFT good for?
In my experience, EFT is good for any kind of inner work, in particular whenever you reach a point where there is something stuck (emotions, thoughts, habits, patterns, memories, …).
It’s also good to get stress out of your system, either acute stress right there in the situation which is causing it, or shortly afterwards, or stress you’ve experienced at an earlier point and which has taken roots inside of you somehow.
Since it works through the energy body, tapping can reach stuff stored in subconscious places, and also stress stored in the body.
Of all the methods I have tried to dissolve mental barriers, negative thoughts or emotions, the roots of unwanted patterns or habits, past experiences, etc, tapping has proven to be one of the best and most efficient.
However, you’ll need something to tap on.
If you just sit inside your favourite armchair on a sunny Sunday afternoon and think “hey, let’s tap on some stuff. Hm, I wonder what?” and then start tapping away on something, or anything, I doubt you’ll get very far.
I.e. tapping is at its best if it is accompanied by other methods which help you realize what your issues are, so that you can then tackle them via EFT.
One proven method (well, for me) to get clear on my issues is writing or journaling, aka the simple act of writing things down. You might have other preferred methods.
(As an aside, I reckon that EFT would also make a very helpful complimentary method for a journaling-based systematic approach to inner work like the Order of Spiritual Alchemy. If you combine OSA and EFT, let us know in the comments how it goes, please!)
Either way, figure out what exactly it is you want to tap on first, and then go a-tapping. 🙂
In the beginning, it also helps to really flesh out the statements you are going to tap on. With a bit of experience, of if you have been working on a topic for a while, you can also start with a few statements, and then take it from there and tap on anything else that comes up. But you will need a starting point, or there isn’t much to tap on.
Can tapping also be used to treat physical issues?
That’s a dicey one. I guess the answer is “yes, no, in some circumstances, but”. 🙂
First, there are licensed health professionals who use tapping, or very similar methods, to treat both physical and psychological issues. If you have any kind of severe issues (e.g. deep trauma, PTSD, serious health issues) and want to try EFT, your best bet is to find such a professional and work with them, as it’s not smart to treat that kind of thing yourself.
As I’m not a health professional, I can’t give you any specific health advice. I’ve also never really used EFT for purely physical health issues, as for me there are better methods out there as home remedies for these kinds of things.
(Psychological or mental issues of any kind are another matter – but again, if you are having any serious issues in this area, do yourself a favour and find somebody to work with. Anything that goes beyond “I want to improve my life” inner work isn’t something to mess with. And EFT, harmless as it looks, can trigger some deep-seated stuff.)
Since I have covered the “but” and the “no”, let’s now have a look at the “yes”… 😉
Sometimes phyical issues are caused by stress of some kind, say a high blood pressure might be due to stress at work. In cases like these, EFT might be of help in reducing the underlying stress.
But even in such cases, the physical problems might have taken on a life of their own. I.e. you might successfully treat your work-related stress with tapping, but your blood pressure might still be high. Thus if you have any physical health issues which aren’t reasonably treatable by home remedies, again, go find a qualified professional to work with.
On the other hand, in most cases it won’t hurt to use tapping in addition to whatever other treatments are called for.
E.g. if you are having a chronic condition, an accident, or a severe illness, this alone will cause you stress, in addition to the actual health problems you have. Add the circumstances, maybe hospital visits, personal circumstances, finances, and whatnot, and you are sure to be in a stressful situation.
Tapping might help you to alleviate this circumstancial stress and thus help you focus on the actual issue and improve your capacity for healing. Here, again, it really depends on the underlying issue – if in doubt, check back with your trusted health professional to make sure EFT will not worsen your condition.
So, in short: Yes, tapping can help, but not with everything and under all circumstances; nope, you shouldn’t rely on tapping in any cases which can’t reasonably be treated with home remedies; but yes, it might be worth using tapping in addition to other treatments, if only to reduce the stress caused by your underlying issues, as long as it’s not detrimental to these issues.
Phew. I told ya it’s a dicey one, didn’t I? 😀
Finally, for what it’s worth, I’ve developed the “House of Healing” as a model to explain how different levels of ourselves interact in both causing illness and in achieving healing. It’s my personal mental model of “healing” on all levels, i.e. for far more than physical ailments. If that is of interest to you, you can read more about the House of Healing here.
And since we’re already talking about when not to use tapping, let’s cover the obvious follow-up question next:
Can everybody use EFT?
I know I’m sounding like a broken record, but please remember that this essay covers my personal experiences, and I’m not a licensed health professional. Thus if you have any doubt, please check back with somebody who knows their way around human health issues.
(Btw, this is just a guess, but I would suppose that most physicians have never heard of EFT or similar methods before, and might have a hard time gauging it’s potential effects. If you need reliable advice from a professional with regards to tapping, you might want to find somebody who is experienced e.g. with Traditional Chinese Medicine or with acupuncture, as they use the same energy points, and might thus be able to imagine what effects EFT might have in your particular situation.)
Having said that, there are a few situations where I personally would be careful to use tapping, based on my own experiences:
The first is pregnancy. Since I have a lot of personal experience with tapping, and I know what it does or doesn’t do for me, I wouldn’t hesitate to use it for myself during pregnancy on light issues, like immediately after a somewhat stressful situation, to alleviate the stress and make sure it doesn’t even take root in me.
What I definitely wouldn’t do, no matter the method, is to tackle heavy emotional issues during pregnancy. In most cases, they can wait until afterwards, when the child isn’t as affected anymore.
And if you are pregnant and have never used tapping before, and thus don’t know how it’ll work on you, why not wait these few months out and try it afterwards? There will be enough situations left for you with a small child where EFT will be a solid and very helpful tool… 😉
I’ve already talked about severe psychological issues (heavy trauma, depression, psychosis, etc) above. EFT can trigger things, and I don’t recommend using it if you have such issues, unless you are working with a capable health practitioner who can advice you about EFT.
Finally (and yep, I know I’m repeating myself!), EFT can trigger things. Emotions, thoughts, … Most of the time, that’s either comfortable or uncomfortable, sometimes surprising (and sometimes, at least in hindsight, really funny) – but otherwise not a big deal.
But the physical body isn’t separate from the rest of you. If you have any severe health condition which might become worse when you experience stress or heavy emotions, you should consider carefully what you tap on and what not (and if in doubt, check back with a professional who knows you and your condition, and can help you figure out a good path forward).
Well. I really need to work on my marketing skills, don’t I? This essay sounds as if I’d be trying to talk you out of using EFT, when actually I set out to talk you into trying it. 😀
But I feel that I need to be honest about the downsides and potential issues as well. After all, if you had imbalances, I wouldn’t recommend you to climb on a tall ladder either, right?
(With the difference between the ladder and tapping being that most people are aware of the inherent dangers of ladders, whereas a lot of people will have no idea about the profound effects which gently tapping on a few energy points can have.)
So… let’s bite the bullet and finish up with the downsides before I circle back to why you really should try out tapping as a tool for your inner work, shall we? 😉
The downsides of tapping
As far as my own experiences go (your mileage may vary, of course), there are only really two downsides of tapping:
First, it will bring stuff up. Sometimes less emotional, sometimes more so. The actual downside to this is that your handkerchief or tissue turnover might rise a lot. 😉
The second downside is only an issue if you tap too hard (e.g. because you become too emotional), and/or if you tap too long or too often. Simply put, these energy points are sensitive. Tap them too long or too hard, and they will hurt.
Since this second downside can easily be circumvented by being somewhat prudent, I don’t think it’s too hard a limit on EFt’s use…
So far, we’ve covered The Good and The Bad of EFT – now let’s move on to The Awesome, shall we?
Why you might want to try tapping
If you do any kind of inner work, chances are good you’ve run into issues where it was fairly clear to you what the problem is – but changing things was incredibly hard, if not almost impossible.
In situations like this, I’ve found that certain other techniques simply didn’t cut it.
E.g. affirmations are all nice and well, but as soon as there is any inner resistance to the affirmative statement, or any stress associated with it, the affirmations will hardly take hold, if at all. (And as I’ve pointed out above, oftentimes there is just as much stress associated with the positive statements.)
Other tools, like journaling, are great for figuring out what your issues actually are – but resolving them purely by journaling is, again, sometimes difficult, sometimes almost impossible. Certain things are rooted too much in the energy and/or physical body, and chipping away at them purely by working on a mental and emotional level, i.e. by thinking and reflecting and contemplating, can be tough going.
That’s where EFT comes in as a very valuable tool to bridge the gap between awareness of the problem on the one hand, and establishing new patterns on the other hand:
Whenever there is an issue you want to tackle, and you have already nailed this issue down sufficiently to write up some statements related to it, tapping will help you to release the stress which is stored in your system – and thus lay the foundation for a real, lasting change.
And now that we’ve come this far…
Have you already tried tapping – and if so, for what kind of issues? And with what kind of results?
And if you haven’t tried it yet, did this essay help? Is there anything else you’d like to know?
Or maybe you have used other methods for the same purpose and would care to share your experiences with us?
I’m looking forward to hearing from you in the comments! 🙂
Image: Alex Azabache on Unsplash
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