Part 1 - EFT Tapping: Gain Self-Compassion and Internal Emotional Safety

Hi, everyone.  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video, I'll talk about using EFT Tapping as a way to gain Self-Compassion and what I call Internal Emotional Safety.  This is the first in a two part series.

I think emotional safety is the key ingredient to making lasting and real changes in your life.  You can see my video on this, but the upshot is that even though I think both external and internal emotional safety are important, only  internal safety is required for lasting behavior change. Meaning -- you have to give yourself love and compassion.  The ability to be kind and sooth yourself allows you to face the world in all its challenges and difficulties and know that you can handle it and will bounce back. 

But the big question is -- how do I go about feeling emotionally safe?  How do I learn to be self compassionate?   We understand how to heal with others by learning how to trust, but how the heck am I supposed to heal on my own?  I think EFT Tapping can be the answer. 

Tapping or Emotional Freedom Therapy (EFT) is a therapeutic technique that seems completely voodoo, but has a huge evidence-base to back up its efficacy for a whole range of issues from anxiety and depression to PTSD, addiction, and weight loss.   I'm obsessed with it and believe that it is a practice that contains all 5 elements of self-compassion: awareness, understanding, kindness, soothing, and acceptance.  It's part of a therapy branch called Energy Psychology because it's based on the belief that you are tapping on meridian energy points to release stuck energy in your body.  Yeah, I don't really believe any of that and also it's impossible to prove since there isn't much scientific research around energy planes and shakrahs.  Instead, I have a different theory about how it works.  But before I get into that, let me just tell you what Tapping entails.  For what it is worth, I am not a Tapping guru, I'm a novice.  There are many, many video of people who have been doing this for years, but I'm offering my own take on it.

Tapping has verbal, emotional, and physical components.  Let's go through each one: 

• Verbal - The verbal part is a two-part statement.  The first part is something uncomfortable or negative.  I prefer the word "uncomfortable," but tapping people use "negative", so I'm going to go with their language.  You can use a negative emotion -- for example, "I am angry with my boss for giving me a bad annual review."   Or you can use a negative thought, like: "I am too overweight to exercise."  And the more specific the better.   The second part of the statement is accepting and compassionate, like "I deeply and completely accept myself."   So the full set-up phrase might be "Even though I am angry with my boss for giving me a bad annual review, I deeply and completely accept myself."
• Emotional - It is important to choose something that has an emotional bite to it.  If you don't care whether you got a bad annual review, then that is not something you should tap on.  You have to recognize the thought or emotion and then determine what kind of emotional charge it has for you on a scale from 1 to 10.  You can do this by determining how bad the phrase makes you feelwith 1 being perfectly fine and 10 being perfectly awful.  Try to choose a negative statement that has an emotional charge of 5 or above.  It's important to really feel that emotion while you are doing this practice.
• Physical - Once you have your 2-part phrase and your emotional rating, you are ready to add the physical part.  This is where it starts to feel a little kooky, but I'm telling you -- it works.  You will be repeating your phrase, evoking the emotion, and tapping on 9 different parts of your body starting with the side of your hand.  Take a couple of deep breaths before you get started. 
• Then begin tapping on the side of your hand just below the pinky finger -- they call this the karate chop point.  It doesn't matter how many fingers you use to tap (I'm using 4) or how fast you tap, just start tapping and while tapping, repeat your phrase.  I'll pick one that most of us can relate to: "Even though I'm feeling really stressed out, I deeply and completely accept myself."  As you are tapping the side of your hand -- you repeat that 2-part set-up phrase 3 times.  Then, you are going to do a couple of rounds of tapping with the negative phrase.  The most basic way to do this is just repeat the negative phrase each time you tap one of the 8 points.  Like this:
• Eyebrow - Even though I'm really stressed out
• Outside of Eye - I'm really stressed out
• Under Eye - I'm really stressed out
• Under Nose - I'm really stressed out
• Under Lip - I'm really stressed out
• Collarbone - I'm really stressed out
• Under Arm - I'm really stressed out
• Top of Head - I'm really stressed out
• That's one round.  You can also improvise a bit on the phrases.  They need to be about the same thing, but you can add a little texture to it like this:
• Eyebrow - Even though I'm really stressed out
• Outside of Eye - I'm feeling a lot of pressure
• Under Eye - It feels really overwhelming
• Under Nose - All of this stress
• Under Lip - All of this pressure
• Collarbone - I feel like I can't get everything done
• Under Arm - I'm overwhelmed by what I have to do
• Top of Head - All of this stress and pressure
• So you can say the straight phrase, which is kind of like practicing piano scales, or your can improvise on the same theme, which is kind of like jazz piano.  Once you've done a couple of rounds, you check back in with yourself and assess your emotional rating.  I said this before, but it only works if you can actually feel the emotion while you are tapping.  If you just say the words mechanically, or get really distracted by whether or not you are tapping properly, it won't work.  You have to feel it to heal it. 
• One quick note here -- if you are tapping on deep-seated trauma, you may want to do this with a licensed professional who can help you gradually work through things rather than jumping in at the deep end by yourself.  I'm not saying you can't do it, but it might be safer to do this with someone else to help you.
• So, basically, you keep tapping on the negative phrase or variants of that phrase until you start to get relief.  This can take many, many rounds.  Plan to do this for at least 15 minutes depending on how intensely you feel.  Your level of emotion should go from above a 5 to down around 1 or 2 before you move on.  Once you have reduced your emotional level, you can do a couple of positive rounds.  Here's what that looks like:
• Eyebrow - I deeply and completely accept myself
• Outside of Eye - I deeply love and accept myself
• Under Eye - I choose to love and accept myself
• Under Nose - It's safe to let this go
• Under Lip - I can relax and let this go
• Collarbone - I deeply and completely accept myself
• Under Arm - I deeply love and accept myself
• Top of Head - I choose to love and accept myself
• Again, you CAN repeat the same phrase over and over again OR you can improvise a bit.  Remember this is not a positive affirmation.  This is a statement of kindness, acceptance, and compassion to yourself.  If you feel uncomfortable with the phrases I've offered, you can modify it to something that feels real to you.  Just make sure it is unremittingly kind and accepts you completely for who you are with all of your complexities.

And that is it.  It is a fairly simple self-compassion practice that anyone can learn to do on their own.  It allows you to process negative thoughts, emotions, and memories by gradually taking the emotional sting out of them so that you can unfuse with that negativity and see everything more objectively. 

Okay -- now that I've explained what tapping is, join me in my next video where I go into how I believe it works and how it fosters internal emotional security or self compassion.  Comments are always appreciated and thanks for watching!