Tapping, what is it?
I only really discovered Tapping last year. Well, I had heard of it long before that (referred to as TFT or EFT also) but didn’t know much about it or how it worked. Then the pandemic of 2020 hit and I had all this time on my hands plus I was super stressed and anxious. After seeing ads for a company called The Tapping Solution all over my social media feeds, I said “why not. Let's look at it. “ I am so grateful that I did. Having spent the last several months learning as much as possible and using the methods daily, I have had some incredible changes in my life.
The basics of tapping uses the energy pathways called meridians to calm the reptilian part of your brain that is responsible for the fight or flight reaction in your body. This part of your brain, the amygdala, is responsible for keeping you safe. It signals the brain to start the fight-or-flight response. Think of it as the body’s smoke detector. When you have a trauma, a stressful situation or constant stimuli keeping you on edge, your body forgets how to relax. This can lead to an over-stimulated nervous system that leads to an overreaction to the littlest thing. Tapping on the meridian endpoints sends a signal to the amygdala that it recognises as “I am safe” and it slows down, allowing your nervous system to calm and reset.
The hippocampus, another fun aspect of your brain, compares past threats with the new situation to try to decide how to respond. If a new event is close enough to a past event that was traumatic/scary/painful/etc it may signal the amygdala to send out the fight-or-flight energy. Tapping while stressed or experiencing a situation, even just remembering that situation, can reprogram the hippocampus. By doing this, you are telling the hippocampus the event is not as intense as you thought. Once it’s been reprogrammed, the next time a similar situation comes up you won’t have the same reaction, allowing you to respond to it in a new way.
For example, a person was in a major car accident 5 years ago - t-boned by a truck. They spend years recovering and finally feel “normal”, comfortable driving again with the exception of the intersection where the crash happened. They do everything to avoid that intersection, just thinking about that intersection or the crash sends them into an emotional tailspin. Then one day they have no choice but to go through that intersection. The panic starts, heart rate going up, frozen in the driver’s seat, gripping the steering wheel and looking wildly around looking for the truck that’s about to hit them. Sound familiar? That is the hippocampus recalling that something bad happened here and to be afraid. By tapping on that event, a person can take away the power of that memory. The next time they go through that intersection it will feel just like any other. It may take more than one session with tapping but it will get to the point where that memory is just that, a memory and nothing to panic about.
The psychologist who discovered tapping on meridian endpoints cured his patient in one visit. She was deathly afraid of water in all forms. One session and gone. Never to return. Many studies have been done over the years to back this up and I can say from personal experience that it does work.
Click here for a picture, provided by The Tapping Solution, showing where the meridian endpoints are. When you are tapping repeatedly on a point you will be repeating a phrase or word and then be instructed to move to the next point. Typically you would tap through all the points 3-4 times and occasionally more. We will have a class coming soon that will go into greater detail if you want to learn more about it. You will find recorded tapping sessions to follow along with in our Topics section.
The Tapping Solution is a great resource for you to use when learning how to tap and they have many free tapping meditations available for you through their app.