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Overwhelm has been a way of life for me, thanks to childhood trauma, abusive relationships, single motherhood, and constant struggle with career and money. A year ago, things became unimaginably more difficult when I found myself with a complex health condition and rapid deterioration of health due to wrong treatment. And no money.
I was suicidal for more than six months, unable to stop crying, unable to sleep. That is when I told one of my mentors with whom I was training in Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) that I was too overwhelmed to tap on myself the regular way, with words. She suggested silent tapping, a technique that does not require words, to help with day-to-day emotional difficulties.
It worked.
I use it for both emotional distress and physical distress to release the emotional causes behind the distress.
The Process
The practice itself is very simple. It is an EFT practice of silently tapping on all of the EFT points which is usually used by practitioners to bring clients back to grounding when they are overwhelmed during a session. But it can also be used separately in times of overwhelm. Anyone can practice it successfully if they know the EFT tapping points, without further training. If you don’t, just practice according to the video provided a few times and you are good to go.
>> Start by checking what all is happening.
Which emotions are present?
Are there physical sensations too? Make a mental note of the the sensations in terms of colour, texture, size, shape, feel, or any way they present themselves.
Is a physical symptom triggering it?
>> Give the whole distress a number for intensity from zero to 10.
Think of it as zero being neutral and 10 being the highest intensity. If you don’t know for sure, make a guess.
>> Put on a three-minute timer on your clock or phone.
>> Start tapping gently on all the points silently, starting with the Karate chop point, lingering as much on each tapping point as feels right.
Don’t jump from point to point too fast.
>> Feel the emotions and the physical sensations as closely and completely as you can during the tapping.
If that brings on any physical expression, for example, if you feel angry and want to stomp your feet, or if you feel like crying or moaning because you are anxious or in pain, allow it. But don’t try to consciously bring on any physical expression in the hope of getting relief.
Focus on feeling things as they are, as closely as you can.
>> Once the three minutes are over stop and check the intensity.
If necessary, restart the timer and do it again.
It is best, according to my mentor, to stop after three minutes, and if the emotion is too strong, to not do it for more than nine minutes at one go. Otherwise it may exhaust or overwhelm you and you might not go back to the practice.
If the feeling comes up again you can do it again after some time. You can do it as many times a day as feels right, just make sure you are not getting overwhelmed by the effort.
Usually when I do this practice my overwhelm starts coming down immediately. I start yawning, blowing through the mouth and if it goes really well, even burping, hiccuping or farting—all signs of emotional release. And the intensity also usually comes down from an eight or a nine, to zero pretty fast.
If the feeling is particularly strong, I do it every time I feel the feeling coming up again—leaving a gap of a couple of hours between each tapping session. Over a single or a few sessions the feeling either releases or is mild enough to cope with.
A Few Words of Caution
Not a substitute for therapy:
This practice is only for diffusing day-to-day emotional challenges, just so as to not let difficult emotions overpower our daily life. It is not meant to resolve deeper issues. You will still need therapy, medication and/or treatment for your mental health issues as required.
Don’t overdo it:
Figure out how much you can do which is easy and also effective for you and stick to that limit. Be patient with the emotions if they take some time to settle down. Too much may seem helpful at first but over time it may create its own overwhelm and you might not be able to go on practicing.
Intensity may rise:
It is common for emotional intensity to rise during tapping practice. If it happens ones or twice, no need for alarm. Just slow down and keep practicing. But if it is consistently rising and impacting your life you may be dealing with deeper issues that can’t be handled with this practice. Seek professional help or find a certified EFT practitioner to help you with the deeper issues.
Use in manifestation:
And finally, the juicy part about how I use it in manifestation practices like affirmations and visualisation.
>> If I am feeling a lot of negative emotions or heaviness at the time of doing my practices, I take some time to tap first.
>> If I am restless or distracted, I tap while feeling the restlessness or distraction.
>> When the negativity or the distraction reduces sufficiently I do my regular manifestation process.
If I do my affirmations in a space where I am feeling light and grounded, I am more likely to immerse deeply in the positive emotions and the feelings are more likely to feel real. That, it is well known, is crucial for successful manifestation practice. My practice feels much more authentic and real when I first take the time to release any heavy or difficult emotions around the subject.
It is difficult to quantify how much this practice has helped me in the past six months. It has helped me get out of bed when the world looks bleak and kept me going in circumstances that would have broken me. It has gently gotten me out of really dark spaces more times than I can count.
Together with prayer and breathing, it is my best healthy coping mechanism and healing tool for day-to-day survival.
Give it a try. It might help you too.
~
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