When a feeling or behavior keeps repeating itself I often feel powerless to make a change. Getting to the feeling behind a behavior can be extremely valuable. One way to do this is by asking the question, “When have I felt this way before?” The technique can be utilized with any feeling. This video uses tapping on sugar craving to demonstrate how to chase down the origin of a current emotion.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that I enjoy reading books about tapping. Tapping has made such a profound change in my life. Quite by chance I ran into the book Tapping Into Wealth: How Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) Can Help You Clear The Path to Making More Money by Margaret Lynch. It probably also isn’t much of a surprise that I would be interested in making more money. Who isn’t?
In the past I’ve listened to programs from the EFT World Summit on money and wealth, and I’ll admit that although I heard them, I apparently wasn’t really processing the information. Even with this book, I picked it up at the library and had to renew it twice because I left it sitting on my shelf without actually reading it.
The timing must finally have been right because I started reading it. Soon after I was listening to the CDs from the 2014 Tapping World Summit, having pulled one out at random, and it was Margaret Lynch talking about tapping to get rid of energetic blocks against money and wealth. Wow! The word that comes to mind is synchronicity. Before reading the book I would have told you that I didn’t have any real blocks about money and wealth. I would have been wrong, but that’s what I would have told you.
One of the things I really like about the book is how approachable she makes this complex topic. There aren’t fancy business or finance terms to deal with. There are practical questions that are, in my case, right on target and there are detailed tapping exercises to deal with the emotional responses dredged up via the questions.
Two of the chapter titles jumped right out of the Table of Contents. The first was I Don’t Deserve More Money. I wanted to shout back YES I DO. Then when I worked my way through the chapter I found out that I had a bunch of hangups about worthiness and deserving that could be interfering with my ability to experience wealth and abundance. The other notable chapter title was I Refuse to Be Rick. Again, at first glance I was pretty sure that this one would not pertain to me. From comments I remember from my parents, religious teachings, and media references there were subconscious programs running in my head about wealth and wealthy people that were not particularly attractive or compelling.
Because of the overwhelming successes I have experienced and witnessed with tapping, I have complete confidence that if I do the work, the tapping will be successful. Would you like to create more financial abundance in your life? Get the book and start tapping.
Sometimes it is easy to eat a healthy diet, and other times — not so much! Here is a tapping sequence I’ve used during those tougher times.
The setup (tap on karate chop point). This dieting is getting really hard. Anything that is this hard is probably too hard for me. Controlling my appetite is hard. Controlling my cravings is even harder than controlling my appetite. Planning ahead is hard. Avoiding sugary snacks is hard. Reading labels is hard. Eating a healthy diet is getting really hard. I don’t want to do hard things. I want everything to be easy. I feel like giving up because this is hard. I acknowledge my frustration. I acknowledge my fatigue. I acknowledge my cravings. I acknowledge my appetite. I acknowledge my lack of energy and motivation. Most of all, I acknowledge that these feelings are okay and I’m okay.
Eyebrow…Dieting is really hard
Side of Eye…It’s too hard for me
Under the Eye…I feel like giving up
Nose…I want to eat more food than my body needs
Chin…I don’t want to plan ahead anymore
Collarbone…It is too much work
Under the Arm…It takes too much time
Top of Head…I want it to be easy
Eyebrow…I am really frustrated right now
Side of Eye…I am frustrated with my body
Under the Eye…I am frustrated with my metabolism
Nose…I am so tired of this
Chin…This dieting is so very hard
Collarbone…I am losing my motivation
Under the Arm…This dieting is getting really hard
Eyebrow…I don’t like these feelings
Side of Eye…I don’t believe I should really feel this way
Under the Eye…I’m supposed to enjoy everything all the time
Nose…There must be something wrong with me
Chin…I am trying
Collarbone…I haven’t given up yet
Under the Arm…These feelings are only temporary
Top of Head…It may be hard but I choose to remember that I am worth it.
Take a deep breath and let it out slowly. Did anything shift for you? I’d love some feedback on this. Let me know how it worked for you.
Happy Tapping.
It seems to be quite common to reach for sugary snacks when our energy seems to be a little low. Unfortunately, eating that snack is unlikely to address the underlying problem that caused you to want to eat. Tapping is a great solution for low energy. Tap along with the video to get a sense of how to use tapping when your energy crashes. This tapping can also be found in Don’t Diet: Reprogram Your Weight With Meridian Tapping.
What is your mindset? Are you focused on scarcity or are you focused on abundance?
Begin by tapping on the karate chop point. Setup: I have a tendency to hoard things. Not like hoarding you see on television, but I sure have trouble throwing things away. Probably more important than that, I have the mindset that I need to save things in case things go wrong in the future. That mindset goes against what I know about the law of attraction. I know this must be a real issue for me because I don’t even want to look at it. I’ll take that as a sign that I have work to do on this. I choose to at least begin looking at this issue. I accept myself. I accept my feelings. And I accept my reluctance too.
Eyebrow…I have issues with abundance and scarcity.
Side of Eye…These issues may really be holding me back.
Under the Eye…If I am really using energy anticipating bad things happening
Nose…I am creating those bad things to some extent
Chin…Worrying about worst case scenario is my primary mode
Collarbone…I’ve always thought that by being ready for the worst
Under the Arm…I could handle anything
Top of Head…It is overwhelming to think about how that may be impacting me in the long run
Eyebrow…It certainly has gotten in the way of me enjoying the moment as much as perhaps I could
Side of Eye…I want to embrace this concept more fully
Under the Eye…I suspect it is going to take quite a while for me to really make those changes in my way of interacting with life
Nose…But even small changes can have a big impact
Chin…I’m still feeling some resistance here
Collarbone…I choose to be patient with myself
Under the Arm…I can sit here and tap on this issue until I feel more calm
Top of Head…I can tap on this issue any time I need to
Take a deep breath and let it out. What did you notice? When I did this tapping originally a lot of interesting messages came up including things I heard and experienced in childhood, news stories, and information from classes I’ve taken that have led to my previous views on this topic. If things came up for you, please write them down so you can continue tapping to release any negative beliefs that might be holding you back.
I get so many questions about where to start with tapping, what words to say, and whether starting with the negative thoughts is important. My answer is usually the same – “just start tapping”. This video is actually a tapping exercise from the book Don’t Diet: Reprogram Your Weight With Meridian Tapping. During this exercise you are encouraged to just let your mind wander and tap, following your own stream of consciousness. Happy tapping!
The Art of Extreme Self-Care: Transform Your Life One Month at a Time by Cheryl Richardson is aesthetically pleasing and full of insight.
This is a wonderful book and I have recommended it to many of my clients, friends, and family. I have read a lot of self-help books. This is definitely one of the best. I felt like I actually had a “to do” plan at the end of each chapter and I kept post-it notes nearby to flag section that I wanted to go back and re-read because the book was much too beautiful to mark or damage the pages.
Cheryl’s insightful observations and direct questions stimulated several pages of notes for my tapping journal. It looks like I have a lot of work ahead of me, but instead of dread like I often experience while reading this type of book, I am actually excited to do the work.
It has been a while since I read it the first time but have picked it up again. I am as excited about it now as I was the first time.
I think everyone wants to be special. When I say that I want to be special it feels somehow WRONG. There are all kinds of automatic negative thoughts that pop into my head when I say that. Sometimes I hear specific people from my past telling me that I’m not special. I thought I would share a tapping exercise that I used when caught in the confusion of wanting to be special but having an internal dialogue that it is wrong to want to be special.
Setup (on the karate chop point): I really do want to be special. My thoughts get all jumbled when I try to sort out what I really mean by that. I can see that my desire to be special in some way may be an attempt to elevate myself above others, but that doesn’t feel like the truth to me. I am open to understanding this aspect of myself more. Even though I sometimes feel that wanting to be special is somehow wrong, I chose to love myself and accept myself anyway. Even though I have mixed messages about wanting to be special, I chose to love myself and offer forgiveness to myself and to anyone else that has purposefully or accidentally contributed to these feelings.
Eyebrow…I want to be special
Side of Eye…I want to feel special
Under the Eye…Sometimes all it takes is for someone to be kind to me and I feel special
Chin…In my more lucid times I know that their kindness is really about them, not about me
Collarbone…I just like thinking it is about me
Under the Arm…I want other people to sometimes put what I want above what is easy for them
Top of Head…That makes me feel like I am special
Eyebrow…At least special enough to go out of their way for
Side of Eye…But again, that shows more about them than it does about me
Under the Eye…I suspect that I sometimes confuse feeling loved with being special
Under the Nose…Special is a very interesting word isn’t it
Chin…When I say that something is special to me I am assigning importance to it
Collarbone…In my mind, it doesn’t change the status of anything else
Under the Arm…If I were standing with another person and someone said the other person was special
Top of Head…I would wonder what was wrong with me that I wasn’t special too
Eyebrow…It is an interesting contrast
Side of Eye…I am open to knowing what this means
Under the Eye…O am open to experiencing “specialness” in a different way
Under the Nose…I resolve to be more careful in my allocation of specialness toward others so that feelings don’t get hurt
Chin…I’ve been taught that we are all special in God’s eyes
Collarbone…Then what does special mean
Under the Arm…I think in that case it just means that I am important to God
Top of Head…Am I ok with that definition
Eyebrow…No, not really
Side of Eye…But I am open to discovering more truth about this
Under the Eye…I choose to work to decrease my reliance on such arbitrary labels
Under the Nose…I choose to use labels, such as special, more carefully
Chin…I choose to embrace my uniqueness without needing to be “special”
Collarbone…I choose to embrace the uniqueness of others
Under the Arm…I do not need to diminish others in order to feel good about myself
Top of Head…I choose to think and act in ways that allow me to feel good about myself.
Take a deep breath and release it gently. Has anything shifted? I know I have a lot more work to do on this need to be or feel special but I did feel something shift when I did the tapping and it felt good.
Sometimes it is difficult to predict how different aspects of a problem or challenge will appear. In this video there is an update on my sugar addiction tapping and also a general tapping on food anxiety. I thought the re-post of sugar addiction tapping would be absolutely appropriate as we face the Easter basket candy. Please join in.
This video addressed some of the emotions that can drive a sugar 
addiction such as anger and embarrassment.
Say this statement “I am a sugar addict.” How true does that feel to you on a 0-10 scale (10=very true)? Write that number down before you start tapping to release the hold that sugar addiction has on you.