Thank you for investing in yourself with the purchase of my book. As men we were trained to avoid investing in our own growth. The old model told us that it wasn’t manly. Manhood 2.0, the emerging model of masculinity, is predicated on personal responsibility and personal development.
In the Resource section of the book I mention EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) or, as many call it, Tapping. Back in the early 1990s a good friend of mine, and one of the top chiropractors in the country, invented an early version of EFT. He was all excited to show me its effectiveness; but in spite of my respect for Harry I was skeptical. I thought, how could tapping on particular acupuncture points release emotional charges? Even though my referrals of clients to acupuncturists and my own experience of acupuncture had me sold on that ancient Chinese healing technique, I wasn’t convinced that tapping was equally as powerful.
I had to eat crow. I immediately felt my body relax as I was tapping around my fear of showing up passionately in business. I left the session relaxed and with subtle excitement around risking my protected self image.
Soon Harry had me teaching his technique to others. I quickly learned that anyone could do this beta version of EFT and achieve consistent results on themselves or others. I moved on to other things and forgot about Harry’s technique. After hearing about EFT I when off to learn the new version, a much simpler version.
For several years I’ve had used this technique on clients, men in the men’s groups and myself. It works. It’s free. It’s quick and painless.
The fields of self-help and holistic health often make things more complicated than it needs to be. First, I believe, because we don’t really understand how simple something can be. Second, if everyone knew that some of the most powerful techniques were the ones done by ourselves—and they’re FREE—the fear is some of us would be out of business.
Rather than explain the science behind EFT I will refer you to an excellent site and book: www.thetappingsolution.com and Nicolas Ortner’s book, The Tapping Solution will give you everything you need.
There are several outstanding videos, articles and free downloads on how to do the technique (see below). I suggest you watch one of the videos to get a quick sense of what to do. You will see how easy it is. Essentially you tap a set of nine points as you feel and speak what is occurring.
The only thing I find missing from these instructions is an explanation on how to go deeper into the experience. The deeper you are able to feel what is occurring, the quicker and more substantial the change. EFT will still work without this focus, but my attitude is why not get the most you can?
Going Deep
A core tenet of our men’s group and trainings is, “Take the man deeper.” The deeper you take the man into his experience of what is happening for him, the more powerful the change. This principle applies to EFT.
When you are allowed to feel in your own way—at your own pace, while maintaining full control—miracles can happen. One consequence of trauma and stress is your were prevented from fully experiencing then consequently completing and releasing the event. In other words, the trauma or stress became frozen in your body/mind waiting to be released. But until released, the effect of the past remains, like an undetected computer virus corrupting your life.
When a man feels safe enough, he often chooses to let go. Frequently the letting go is a physiological release.
With tapping you start feeling relaxed and safe. It’s not a head thing. You can be standing there telling yourself you’re safe and still be frozen, yet after a minute of tapping you may notice you feel relaxed. Now that you have a state of relaxation, let’s leverage it for the most gain by going deeper into the experience.
To go deep you need to ask questions that provoke a deeper awareness. Here is my guide to do that:
- Use what I call the Deepening Funnel ( in part adapted from the book The Tapping Solution)
- If you’re not sure where to start, start with the symptoms then progress through these levels. Or just use these levels as a guide to ask questions of yourself that you may miss.
- What are your symptoms —the effects you feel, such as the physical pain, emotional upset or a behavior you don’t want.
- What are you feeling in your body-mind – your emotions and body sensations? Tapping as you feel emotions is powerful. If you aren’t sure of what you are feeling emotionally or it’s too scary, start with what you feel physically in your body. Feel the pain, feel the sensations and feel the places where you feel nothing. If feeling the emotions are easy for you, great, but still spend some time tapping as you feel your body sensations.
- What are your trauma/stress and culture/social frames? And how have those events affected you?
- As Grow Up explains, your trauma/stress may cause you to freeze. Tapping will start to melt the freeze, which will often make you aware of physical and emotional sensations and urges.
- Our culture boxes are so prevalent you may not be aware of their impact until you start tapping. As kids, we had to accept what was given and demanded of us. You may find that beliefs and agreements you made in the past are no longer serving you.
- What are your coping mechanisms and their drivers – those limiting beliefs and mental chatter? To survive we adapt – that’s good. What is not good is that we keep those adaptive behaviors, emotions and beliefs beyond the need to survive. As you tap, you may discover old behaviors don’t serve you any longer.
- Another way to start is to just tap as you are telling the story. We aren’t advocates for telling stories in our groups, but we also see that is how men often start when they join a group. At some point you need to tell your story and have it be heard. This time tell it and really listen to it as you tap. Feel the full impact of that story as you tap. Tap a few rounds as you tell the story. This will clear some space so you can then start going deeper.
- If you’re not sure where to start, start with the symptoms then progress through these levels. Or just use these levels as a guide to ask questions of yourself that you may miss.
- Now that you have cleared space to go deep, follow this path to deepen your release:
- Go deep – take yourself deep
- Go for an event, belief, limitation, feeling, etc., that has a deep feeling(s) to it
- Feel it in your body
- Visual – see it
- See the story, even play the core of it out. It might mean saying things to the person you never got to say as if they are in the room with you, as you tap.
- Create one picture that represents the story, then walk around in that picture to experience all aspects of it, as you tap.
- Quantify it – put a number on it
- Use the numbering as a way to deepen you experience, a way to make sure you feel it. Try naming it as a way to intensify the experience.
- Two ways to move through the tapping:
- Keep tapping as you go on your journey of the event(s), sensations, beliefs, going deeper and feeling then releasing more.
- Create a phase that represents the deep experience – this is easier than, but not as powerful as, going for the full experience of it. You may want to start with this, then go back to tapping around the full journey of what occurred and what you feel.
- Allow it to be negative – you will be saying: “Even though…”
- An example, “Even though I am poor because I don’t have any new clients, I still fully accept myself.”
- Experience the full impact of this matrix so you can fully release it.
Doing the process as you fully experience what you want to clear. The more you experience, the more you clear. The more you clear, the more room you create for what you want to show up.
Keep asking yourself, what is behind this? What do I sense now? What do I want now? At some point you will land on a place there are no more questions or answers, and now you are done clearing.
Then tap through the positive affirmation of what you want. You may want to come back to this phase after you integrated the release phase. A question I often hear is, “I don’t want to focus on the negative or speak it because I’ll reinforce it.” Speaking about it as a victim will reinforce it. Speaking about it as you release it or tap on it dissolves it. Finally allowing you to have the physiological and emotional experience your body and mind always wanted is not reinforcement. It’s releasing.
One simple technique to take you deeper when you or someone you are working with is stuck, ask, “If you knew or if there was an emotion, event, belief, relationship, a holding back – what would it be?” Answering this question can get you unstuck.
There is one more issue. As hard as it might be to believe, we often resist receiving what we want. I’ve seen it with many men and myself. Tapping on what you want can dissolve that unconscious resistance that’s preventing you from sabotaging yourself.
In the privacy of your own home you can try EFT for a week. What do you have to lose? It can be a great tool to facilitate what is discussed in the book. Make it easy on yourself – start tapping.
The power of doing this is in the set up. The deeper, more specific and richer it is – the more powerful the effect.
Other suggestions:
- Do it in the morning and before bed
- Create a list of issues to do, and prioritize them
- Drill down on the list to specific events, or sub-issues
- If your issue rating number (the number you gave that issue before doing EFT) has not changed much from doing it or it has come back, find an associated or related aspect of that same issue. Also look at being more specific.
- If you have worked through your list, but some issues haven’t cleared, consider an associated or related aspect of that same issue. Or, you may need to be more specific. For example, if you were attempting to clear how you felt about flying and you became fine with the takeoff, but the landings still bothered you – you may look at meeting people at the airport, not having your ride be there or arriving in a strange town.
For specific instruction on how to tap and more related info see:
(Note: each person has their way to do it. The actual procedure doesn’t matter, each approach works. Find one that works for you and do it.)
https://www.thetappingsolution.com/
https://www.eftuniverse.com/images/pdf_files/EFTMiniManual.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY5MCf_A9IU&feature=player_embedded
If you found Grow Up to be useful, please share it with others. Lend your copy to a friend, send him the link and encourage him to get his own copy, or buy him a copy.
If you feel inspired to leave a review on Amazon or where ever you purchased the book, I would appreciate it. Thanks again for buying the book. I continue to be honored that others share my passion about change.