How to Learn EFT Tapping

What Does EFT Tapping Stand For?

The EFT stands for Emotional Freedom Technique. It gets the shorter and easier name, tapping, because that is how you do it! You tap on various parts of your body while using words to help you move past emotions.

What is EFT Tapping?

Tapping is where you use your fingertips to tap on different points on your body. Using the Chinese Acupuncture meridian system, it helps you calm your mind. Then get to the rational part of your brain to begin to heal it.

You start with a foundation statement about what is wrong. Then use the emotions and ideas from it to tap through and acknowledge the situation. Many fear that this will make it come true. That it will make it permanent, but in fact this is critical in healing.

To release and heal something you must acknowledge it. Acknowledging something does not make it permanent. In fact, if you ignore something negative it won’t go anywhere till you acknowledge it!

Then you move on to re-framing it and creating healing language around it. This is where you get to release and reprogram.

As a bonus, because it calms your Amygdala, it can help with fear and stress in the moment, even without words. If I am fearful, I will tap and say, “I am safe”. It is a great way to release in the moment anxiety. I have even used it in the middle of the night when panicking but don’t know why I am panicking.

How to Learn EFT Tapping

These are tips to help you learn how to do tapping for yourself. Not if you want to learn to be a practitioner. Learning to do it on your own is a great way to be able to heal at your own pace. And deal with issues that come up in the moment.

When I first learned about tapping it was back in 2015. I was fascinated by it right away and wanted to be able to do it more. The following is what I did to learn it. I did it in this exact order:

Reading Books

I have read three books on tapping. The first I started with was a basic introduction book. Which was good, as it gave me the basics. Later into my experience I read a couple of books that were specific to issues I was working on. This was also helpful but was less about how to tap and more about better understanding a specific problem.

Work With A Practitioner

I did this right after the first book I read. It was helpful to better understand what to say while tapping. She and I did three sessions. After that I felt more confident. But it hadn’t quite clicked yet.

The Tapping World Summit

I would say that this is what made it start to make sense – and work for me. The Tapping World Summit is put on by The Tapping Solution every February/March.

This summit brings together a variety of different healers and educators to present 2 to 3 sessions a day. They talk about the topic they are presenting and then tap! This reinforced what I learned with my one-on-one work. It clarified how to put it all together and even offered up some lessons on other topics.

The first year I did it I bought the recordings, and then used them throughout the year to fine tune my tapping practice. After the first year I have not bought the recordings.  (The summit is free, but the recordings are only up for a day.) I do still sign up for the summit every year, but more to hear the presentations versus learning how to use EFT tapping.

Courses

After the summit, I took a couple of courses on tapping. As it was starting to make sense, these were more about a specific issue and how tapping could be used for it. For example, one of the courses I took was using tapping for anxiety relief.

Practice

Finally, I used it on a regular basis. During my intense emotional healing work, I did it a couple times a day. This is where it really starts to make sense and you can start using your own words.

If I was still struggling with what to say, I would use Brad Yate’s videos on YouTube. He is my favorite tapping teacher!

I am now at the point where I can do it on my own. I do still use Brad’s stuff if I need something quick.

So, now I want to share a bit with you about how I use it in practice.

How Should You Learn EFT Tapping?

Here is what I recommend to people just starting to learn EFT.

If you are brand new to tapping, then I suggest either starting with the Tapping World Summit or Brad Yates. If I were to do it over again today, I would have started there instead of with books. There is a big benefit to seeing someone do it on video while you are doing it.

I would save the books for specific topics that you need help with after you have learned the basics.

What would I not do again? For me it would be the one-on-one work. I got the same benefits out of the other methods. Not that it was a bad experience, it was more that the others were equally as helpful and cheaper!

When would I say work with someone one-on-one? If you are working on a big emotional healing issue. And you struggle to put words to the emotions and what is going on. Then it may be beneficial to get someone trained to do it. I would recommend that the person is also a counselor and not only trained in tapping.

How to Use Tapping in Your Emotional Healing Work

Once you learn EFT, how do you use it in your healing work?

Unless I am panicking, I don’t start with tapping. I use the following process.