My Experience with EFT/Tapping
I met tapping and spiritual coach, Nancy Kern, through a mutual friend and decided to give tapping a try when I started experiencing sporadic but recurring bouts of anxiety due to a challenging life transition. Knowing that stress and emotions can get stuck in our energy channels/nervous system, I wanted to give tapping a try to see what was coming up.
Immediately after my first session with Nancy, I noticed significant differences. I was much more grounded, could think more clearly, and felt less stress and anxiety. I also found that I did not have that familiar desire to ruminate about some things that were causing me stress. Instead, I was able to acknowledge the situation, but not dwell. Put simply, EFT helped my body/mind clear stuck stress, reorganize thought patterns around life events, and bring more balance to my nervous system.
Happy reading!
What is EFT or Tapping?
Tapping is a technique for processing emotions and relieving emotional pain. It involves tapping lightly with your fingertips on specific points on your body to move chi, or life force energy, through your meridian pathways. Blocked emotions create stagnation and are a burden on your physical health.
As you tap, you speak about the situation and your feelings in a structured way designed to teach your nervous system to resolve the conflict and come to peace. Tapping re-patterns neurobiological pathways in your brain, helping you move away from stress patterns of fight, flight and freeze, into calmer, more centered and present states of being.
Tapping dismantles triggers, helps you move through challenges and change. It can help you grow in wisdom and clarity, decrease physical and emotional pain, and bring kindness and compassion to yourself and others.
How does it work?
Energy flows through meridians in specific patterns, similar to how nerves circulate through specific networks. Each meridian circulates energy through a particular organ system, such as liver, kidneys, lungs or stomach. We tap on points where the meridians come close to the surface of the skin, waking up the organs, stimulating detoxification and a healthy flow of nourishing energy.
Like water that doesn’t flow, suppressed emotions create stagnation in our body’s fluid flows. When we don’t have the support that we need to process overwhelming emotions in present time, our stored intense emotions will trigger our nervous systems to follow the previously grooved pathways of fight, flight or freeze—so we overreact, even when we aren’t in danger in present time.
Emotional pain that’s suppressed will also trigger physical pain, because the part of the brain that registers physical pain is the same part that registers emotional pain. In effect, the brain doesn’t distinguish.
Is EFT new? How did it get started?
EFT was developed by Gary Craig in the 1990’s. Since then, it has evolved and been developed by various teachers, who have different styles. You can read more about it here.
What is EFT used for?
EFT relieves emotional and physical pain and awakens enthusiasm for life. It can help you align with your soul’s purpose and live the life you were designed to live.
You can free yourself from painful memories and self-sabotage, and live more fully in the present. I’ve helped people work through trauma from car accidents, surgeries, violence, loss, childbirth (both giving birth and being born), and live with more joy, better able to trust their intuition and love life as it is.
Healing moves in a spiral pattern. With each round, you heal more deeply and fully, on more subtle and refined levels, physical, emotional and spiritual.
What are the biggest benefits of EFT?
- Resilience! As you transmute stress, you can open to joy and self-confidence
- Freedom from self-defeating patterns & unhealthy habits
- Grounded: more connected with your body
- Peace of mind and body.
- Clarify what you want and need
- Have healthier boundaries
- Be less impacted by toxic people and environments
- Live more connected to your Inner Guidance
How often do people use EFT?
That varies. Start by building a foundation of trust with your practitioner and getting into a groove with tapping. For people new to tapping, it can take a few sessions to build resonance with the process. Every tap builds on previous taps. The bigger your issue and the deeper you go, the more sessions it may take to reach your goal. Talk with your practitioner about your situation before you begin.
Is tapping more often used short term or long term?
Both! While one tap can help you sleep that night, if you want to sleep well consistently, you’ll benefit from a series of sessions. If your trauma history is deep and complex, and you want freedom from anxiety, fear or past traumas, long-term tapping will work best.
How do I find a practitioner?
When you interview practitioners, I recommend you find one who feels safe and with whom you feel rapport. Ask your friends and healers for referrals and search EFT tapping on the internet. Interview the practitioner before you start. I offer a free Discovery Call, to verify that we are a match.
When choosing a practitioner, look for empathy, skill, depth, kindness and healthy boundaries. Is it important to you to find a practitioner who does their own inner work?
Healing is an inside job. If a practitioner doesn’t feel trustworthy to you, you won’t feel safe being vulnerable—and being vulnerable and authentic is key to healing.
How can people tell if EFT is helping them?
Try weekly sessions for 3 months, or bi-weekly for 6 months, and then assess the changes in your life. Do you:
- Feel lighter and freer?
- Love yourself more freely?
- Criticize yourself less?
- Have more clarity?
- Enjoy life more?
- Have healthier boundaries?
- Feel more empowered to be true to yourself?
- Feel more able to be compassionate with yourself when you’re triggered
- Have new skills to manage your emotions without suppressing or denying them and without harming other people by exploding or blaming?
- Experience more joy in your life?
[JS Note: I noticed a change after the first session and tapped biweekly for a few months. Everyone is different. Listen to your body & intuition.]
Is EFT helpful for people working through trauma?
ABSOLUTELY! Over my first 15 years of recovery from childhood abuse, I saw trauma therapists, got countless hours of body work & energy healing and immersed myself in spiritual practice. I journaled, danced and made art. While all of this was helpful, tapping met my deepest pain and shame in a caring, safe and loving way, allowing me to release decades of fear, terror, anger, rage, and grief, and overcome helplessness and confusion. I believe that if I can transform my life so dramatically, so can you.
Is there anything that EFT is not helpful for?
If you’re anxious about doing your tax return, EFT can help you release anxiety and procrastination, but you’ll still have to do your tax return
You’ll still have to brush your teeth, exercise, eat reasonably healthy and get some sleep.
What are the benefits of using a tapping coach over doing it on your own?
Even though tapping on your own can be beneficial, it doesn’t compare to tapping with an experienced practitioner. When emotional intensity is high, it’s hard to hold that space for yourself and follow the arc of intensity into a state of rest. A skillful tapping coach will track subtle changes in your nervous system and guide you to resolution and peace. Calming your nervous system and resolving intensity will literally change the neural pathways in your brain and create resilience.
When results don’t hold and the cycle of intensity builds again, this indicates another aspect of the experience surfacing. Since we’re working with subconscious material, we engage what arises as it arises. As you build resilience, you’ll recover more easily and quickly from upsets.
I know you lead group tapping sessions – how do those work?
Group taps can be great fun and highly effective. Multiple people focusing on a common goal increases the healing energy that’s available and supports your experience. When we join together to do transformational work that benefits us, we set intention that the benefits we receive multiply to benefit all Beings.
Group taps on Zoom give you privacy and the comfort of being in your own home. You can turn your camera on or off, as you wish. Group taps are offered on a sliding scale, from $20-$40. No one is turned away for financial reasons.
Currently, I’m leading monthly group taps on Zoom every month. Sign up for my newsletter to receive announcements or go to my homepage to sign up.
How did you get into this work and why do you do what you do?
I’d had a few experiences with tapping. While I was intrigued, I didn’t think it would go deep enough to address the trauma I carried inside. I felt pressured to go into the “positive” before I was authentically ready.
A close friend gifted me with a tapping session one day. The way she led the tap, and the space she held for me got my attention. She stayed present while I processed difficult, messy feelings. It was a relief to feel free to be honest and raw with the emotional pain I was feeling. For once, I didn’t have to take care of the listener. It was profound to sense her kindness and lack of judgment in that lonely place inside of me. I got huge relief from that session.
Soon after, I decided to get trained in EFT and learn it from the inside out. It was then that I began to understand how and why it works. After training for 4 years, I started building my practice, incorporating EFT into the emotional and spiritual healing work I was already doing. You can read more about the Akashic Records here.
Are there any studies that have measured the effects of EFT?
There are many. Here’s one from Kaiser Permanente and the VA acknowledging EFT as an effective treatment for relieving trauma. And other research validating the effectiveness of EFT for anxiety and depression.
Is there anything else we should know?
If you’d like to know more, please contact me here to schedule a free 30-minute Discovery Call. On the call, you can ask me about my work and how it can be helpful to you. That way, we get to know each other a bit, and can see if my work is a match for you.
About Nancy Kern
Nancy Kern has a BA from Rice University and Master of Fine Arts from University of Houston. A Spiritual Coach, she’s passionate about fostering resilience and creating a fulfilling, joyful life.
Since emotions can support or diminish our spiritual wellbeing, Nancy uses Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), aka Tapping, and transmits subtle healing energies through Guided Meditation.
A pioneer in Mind-Body healing, she has decades of training and professional practice in energy healing, including: Polarity Energy Balancing, Craniosacral Therapy, homebirth midwifery, and transpersonal states. Since 1980, she’s practiced somatic meditations, including: chi gong, yoga, tai chi and dance.
A trauma survivor who now thrives, she’s passionate about helping people transform their lives, dismantling trauma and reorienting to peace, self-kindness, health and joy.
Nancy is certified in Craniosacral Therapy, Emotional Connection and EFT tapping. She leads monthly tapping events with guided meditation and subtle energy transmission for Sacred Mountain Sangha.
Nancy lives and sees clients in Houston and works with clients worldwide on Zoom. She has worked at The Houstonian, Spectrum Center Houston, and Indigo Healing Institute in Albuquerque. Since 2008, she has taught at Jung Center Houston. As a painter, she creates healing art for her clients by commission.