Getting started with EFT Tapping

HOW-TO GUIDE

👋 This short online guide provides step-by-step instructions for practicing simple Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), often referred to as tapping. This is a technique that can help manage emotions such as stress, anxiety, grief, and even physical pain.

By the end of this guide, you will know how to go about an EFT tapping routine and assess if it is useful for you.

In this guide:

  • What EFT tapping is and how to do it
  • A step-by-step process for using tapping
  • Assess emotional intensity during and after tapping

Please remember that we all grieve and process emotions differently, and everyone’s situation is different too. Some parts of this guide might align well with you, and others may not seem relevant. Take from it what you need.

This is available to Griefity app users.

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What is tapping?

Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), commonly known as tapping, is a technique that combines physical tapping with positive affirmations, to help people process emotions, reduce anxiety, and manage various forms of emotional distress.

The technique involves tapping on specific points of the body while focusing on a particular emotional issue. The idea is that this physical act of tapping helps you relieve a range of stressors.

EFT tapping is widely used as a self-help tool and has gained some recognition in the professional healthcare sector. While it is not yet a clinically proven therapy, many people who practice it find it to be helpful.

Step 1 – Find a quiet space and prepare

To get started with tapping, you’ll need to prepare a few things:

☀️ Quiet Space: Find a comfortable, quiet place where you won’t be interrupted for a few minutes.

☀️ Emotional Issue: Identify a specific emotion, problem, or physical symptom you want to address. This could be stress, grief, anxiety, pain, or any troubling feeling.

☀️ Openness: Keep an open mind to the process, even if it feels strange at first. Many find it surprisingly effective after trying it consistently.

Step 2 – Identify an issue

☀️ Choose the specific issue or emotion you want to work on.

It could be something like:

  • Anxiety about an upcoming event
  • Sadness over a loss or major life change
  • Anger related to a past experience
  • Physical pain linked to emotional stress

☀️ Focus on one issue at a time for the best results.

Step 3 – Rate the intensity

☀️ On a scale from 0 to 10, rate the intensity of the emotion or discomfort you’re experiencing, where 0 is no intensity and 10 is extremely intense.

This gives you a way to measure progress throughout the tapping session.

Step 4 – Decide on an affirmation

Before tapping, you’ll create a simple affirmation to acknowledge the problem and accept yourself despite the discomfort.

The affirmation phrase follows this pattern:

“Even though I [describe the problem], I love and deeply accept myself.”

For example:

  • “Even though I feel anxious about this event, I love and deeply accept myself.”
  • “Even though I feel sadness about the loss, I love and deeply accept myself.”

This statement is designed to reduce resistance to the emotion and foster self-compassion.

Step 5 – Starting the tapping round

Tap quickly and repeatedly on each of the following points of your body. While you are tapping, repeat the affirmation from Step 4.

When you have finished the affirmation, move on to the next tapping point.

  1. Center of the forehead
  2. Eyebrows (use two hands and do both at the same time)
  3. Outer side of the eye (near your temple)
  4. Under the eye
  5. Under the nose (just one hand)
  6. Chin (one hand)
  7. Two hands on the collarbones
  8. One hand on the sternum (middle of your chest)
  9. Top of the head

Step 6 – Repeat the tapping round

Go through the tapping round in Step 5 again, 2-3 times in total.

Keep saying your affirmation at each tapping point.

Step 7 – Rate the intensity

After completing one or two rounds of tapping, pause and take a deep breath. Reassess the intensity of the emotion or discomfort you were focusing on.

Ask yourself:

  • Has the intensity decreased? (Rate it again from 0 to 10)
  • Has it stayed the same or changed in any way?

If the intensity has lowered, that’s a good sign that tapping might be helping. If it’s still high, consider doing another round of tapping.

Notes for your tapping practice

You can practice tapping any time you feel it might be useful. Sometimes when strong feelings of grief and anxiety bubble up, it could be worth trying to see if the practice can calm you.

☀️ Practice regularly and adjust your affirmations as needed until you find the most effective issues and words to use.

☀️ Feel free to take a break – if you feel intense emotions during tapping, it is fine to stop and take a break.

☀️ Get ideas from others – there are many tapping videos available online, that each focus on slightly different methods of tapping. Watch a few and see if they resonate with you!