Panic attacks can be frightening partly because of how quickly they can escalate. We notice our heart beating faster, feel dizzy or short of breath, or experience some other unfamiliar sensation, and our mind may immediately start wondering what’s happening. “What if I faint?”, “What if I lose control?”, “What if I can’t get out of here”? The fear of those sensations can then become part of what makes the experience even more overwhelming.

With agoraphobia, this fear can gradually become associated with particular situations. Driving through a long stretch of road, waiting at a red light, standing in line at a store, being somewhere far from home, or entering a place that feels difficult to leave can begin to trigger anxiety before anything has actually happened. Eventually, even imagining one of these situations may be enough to bring up fear.

When I use EFT with someone experiencing panic attacks or agoraphobia, I usually think in terms of gradually working with the different pieces that make up the problem. We don’t have to tackle everything at once, and we don’t necessarily need to begin with the most frightening experience. Instead, we can find a manageable place to start and follow the emotional charge from there.

Starting With Any Apprehension About the Process

Before working directly on the panic or agoraphobia, I like to pay attention to how the person feels about working on the issue in the first place.

Sometimes there’s fear that talking about a panic attack will trigger another one. Someone may worry that focusing on bodily sensations will make them worse, or that opening up certain memories will become overwhelming. There may also be understandable skepticism, particularly after trying many other things:

“I’ve struggled with this for so long that I don’t believe anything can help me”.

That apprehension can have the microphone first.

We might tap on:

“Part of me is afraid that focusing on this is gonna make it worse. I don’t know what will happen if I really go there, and this is just where I’m at right now”.

Or:

“I’ve tried so many things already, and part of me doesn’t believe this will be any different. I’m just tired of getting my hopes up. And this is where I’m at right now”.

We don’t necessarily need to wait until that concern has completely disappeared before moving forward. Even acknowledging it can be helpful. If part of us is saying, “I don’t want to do this”, I’d rather include that part in the process than ask it to sit quietly in the corner while we work on what we’ve decided is the real problem.

Giving Everyone a Chance to Speak

One analogy I sometimes use for this is a Town Hall Meeting.

Imagine that all the different thoughts, feelings, and parts of us are attending a town hall meeting. Some are scared. Some are angry. One might desperately want the panic to disappear. Another might be terrified that it never will. There may even be a part judging all the others for having this problem in the first place.

When certain voices repeatedly go without being acknowledged, they don’t usually disappear. They may keep trying to get our attention, sometimes even more loudly.

EFT gives us a way of letting these different reactions take turns at the microphone. We don’t have to agree with everything they say. We can simply allow them to express what is already there while we tap.

For someone struggling with agoraphobia, one of those voices might say:

“I feel like such a loser for having this problem. Other people can go anywhere they want without thinking about it, and I have to plan my whole life around whether I might panic”.

That self-judgment is worth giving the microphone to as well. Sometimes there are feelings about the problem layered on top of the original fear, including shame, frustration, anger, hopelessness, or embarrassment. If left unaddressed, they can make the original fear harder to shift. Instead, giving those reactions some tapping attention may make it easier to approach the fear itself with less internal pressure.

Making It More Bite-Sized With Specific Events

“Panic attacks” and “agoraphobia” are very broad targets. When possible, I prefer to make the tapping more focused by choosing a particular moment in time.

A recent experience can be a good place to start. Perhaps someone had a panic attack while waiting at a red light three days ago. Instead of trying to work on their entire fear of driving, we can go back to that particular moment:

“When I think about sitting at that red light on Tuesday and noticing that I couldn’t go anywhere, I can feel that fear coming up again. I remember thinking, ‘What if I panic and I can’t get out of here’? And this is where I’m at right now”.

We can also work with a specific future situation. If the person knows they’ll need to drive along the same road tomorrow, we might have them imagine approaching that particular traffic light and notice what happens:

“When I imagine driving toward that intersection tomorrow and seeing the light turn red, I feel scared that it’s going to happen again. Part of me already wants to avoid going that way, and this is where I’m at right now”.

Working this way gives us a smaller piece of the larger problem. It can also reveal other aspects that we hadn’t anticipated. Perhaps the fear of being stuck at the light decreases, but now the person notices that they’re worried about the drivers behind them seeing them panic. Or they suddenly realize that the strongest feeling is shame about needing someone else in the car with them.

Now we have another aspect that can have the microphone.

Keeping the Cup of Tea at a Manageable Temperature

Of course, even thinking about one specific experience may sometimes feel like too much.

Another analogy I use frequently is that doing EFT is like drinking a Cup of Tea. We want enough emotional activation so that the tapping can help us process and release the emotional charge (in other words, we want the cup of tea to be warm enough), while being careful about letting the tea become boiling hot.

If remembering stopping at the red light immediately brings up a huge wave of fear, we can gently zoom out from any triggering details:

“Just thinking about it, I feel really scared, and this is where I’m at right now”.

We don’t need to replay every detail of the experience. We can stay at that greater distance while tapping and see what happens.

If the emotional intensity suddenly becomes overwhelming, we can create even more protective distance. We might simply tap silently through the points for a while. We can also look around the room and place some of our attention on something that feels pleasant or neutral enough: a plant, a picture on the wall, the view through the window, or the feeling of our feet against the floor.

Once things feel more manageable, we can decide whether we want to gently bring some attention back to what we were working on.

What About EFT During a Panic Attack?

This same back-and-forth can be useful as a resource between sessions if a panic attack occurs.

During a strong wave of panic, I wouldn’t recommend trying to analyze where the fear came from or deliberately increase the intensity. There is already plenty happening as it is. We can simply tap and orient some of our attention toward anything that feels neutral or pleasant about the present environment.

For example, we might notice the chair underneath us, look around and name a few things we can see, or focus on something that feels neutral, pleasant or even boring enough while continuing to tap (anything that can help us feel a bit safer in the present moment).

As the intensity becomes more manageable, we may be able to give the current experience a little more of the microphone:

“My heart is pounding”.

“I’m scared I’m going to faint”.

“I really want to get out of here”.

“I’m afraid this is going to get worse”.

We can tap with whatever is already there without trying to make it go away as quickly as possible or change it into something positive.

If another big wave arrives, we can widen our attention again and return to silent tapping or tap through the points while orienting to our surroundings, or while thinking about anything or anyone that feels like a positive, calming resource to us. If things settle somewhat, we can gently notice the sensations and thoughts again.

In other words, we can move back and forth depending on how hot the “cup of tea” is at that particular moment.

There is also an important longer-term consideration here. With panic and agoraphobia, we don’t want tapping to gradually become something we believe we must do in order to survive a feared situation. Part of longer-term work with panic often involves becoming less afraid of the sensations themselves (by gradually expanding our “window of tolerance”) and gradually becoming more able to experience situations we’ve been avoiding. For that reason, I think of tapping during a panic attack as one possible resource within a larger process rather than something that always needs to make the sensations disappear.

Gradually Approaching the Situations We’ve Been Avoiding

With agoraphobia, another important part of the work involves gradually approaching situations that we’ve started avoiding because of the fear of panicking.

With EFT, we can initially do some of this work through imagined or mental exposure. Rather than immediately putting ourselves in a situation that feels overwhelming, we can imagine a specific future situation while tapping and notice what comes up.

For example, if someone has become afraid of driving on long stretches of road, we might begin by having them imagine an upcoming drive. We can make the scene specific: picture getting into the car, pulling away from home, approaching the particular stretch of road that feels frightening, and notice at what point the emotional intensity starts to increase. You don’t need to go straight to the worst part.

Perhaps the emotional intensity appears when they imagine reaching a section where there isn’t an easy place to pull over:

“When I imagine reaching that part of the road and realizing there’s nowhere to pull over, I feel trapped. I’m afraid I’ll start panicking and won’t be able to get out, and this is where I’m at right now”.

We can tap on that particular moment and see what happens. As the emotional charge changes, we might continue a little further into the imagined journey. Maybe another aspect appears: “What if I get dizzy?”, “What if I lose control of the car?”, “What if I’m too far from home?”. Each one gives us another piece to work with.

The same approach can be used with other situations someone has been avoiding. We might imagine standing in line at a store, sitting at a red light, taking public transportation, walking through an open space, or being somewhere without a familiar person nearby. Rather than trying to mentally rehearse the entire experience at once, we can slow it down and notice which particular moments carry the most emotional charge.

Over time, we can gradually build toward real-life exposure, approaching some of these situations outside of the tapping session in manageable steps. The exact progression will depend on the person and the situation. Someone who has been avoiding a particular store, for example, might eventually practice going there for a short period before gradually staying longer or going farther inside.

EFT can also help us explore whatever comes up around taking those steps. Someone might feel relatively calm imagining the store during a session but become much more anxious when thinking, “Tomorrow I’m actually going to do it”. That apprehension can have the microphone too.

One thing I would be careful about is making the goal of each real-life experience, “I have to tap until I don’t feel anxious”. Part of recovering from panic and agoraphobia can involve gradually discovering that we can experience some anxiety and bodily sensations without needing to escape from them. Tapping can accompany that process, while we also give ourselves opportunities to learn from what actually happens when we stay with a manageable amount of discomfort.

And afterwards, we have another specific event to work with. We can look back at the experience and ask: Which moment was hardest? What did I predict would happen? What actually happened? Is there any part of the experience that still carries emotional charge?

In that way, the work can move back and forth between imagined situations, real-life experiences, and tapping on whatever we notice along the way.

Looking at Earlier Experiences

Once there is enough familiarity with the process, it may also be useful to explore earlier experiences that could be contributing to the current fear.

One obvious place to look is the first panic attack we remember. That experience itself can become emotionally charged. Someone who had their first panic attack in a crowded store, for example, may have really believed in that moment that something terrible was happening to them. Even years later, aspects of that experience may still carry a lot of emotional charge.

But earlier experiences don’t necessarily have to involve panic.

Perhaps someone was bullied and remembers feeling trapped while other children surrounded them. Maybe they grew up with a parent whose behavior could suddenly become unpredictable, or had an experience where they desperately wanted to leave somewhere but couldn’t. Experiences like these may or may not be connected to the current problem, so I prefer to remain curious rather than deciding beforehand what caused it.

If an earlier memory spontaneously comes to mind while we’re tapping on a current trigger, that’s often something we can become curious about. We can then work with that memory as its own specific event, again paying attention to keeping the emotional intensity manageable (so that the cup of tea doesn’t become boiling hot).

Could Part of Me Be Afraid of Getting Better?

Another area I often explore involves what are traditionally called secondary gains, although I often find it more useful to think of them as protective mechanisms.

We can become curious about a question such as:

“If I knew that this problem was completely gone tomorrow, is there any part of me that would feel uncomfortable about that?”

At first, the question can sound strange. Someone desperately wants to be able to drive again, travel freely, or go into stores without worrying about panic. Why would any part of them object?

But sometimes something does come up.

Perhaps being constantly vigilant feels protective because, “If I stop watching for the panic, it will catch me off guard”. Someone else might worry that if they get better, their family will expect too much from them. Another person may have become accustomed to having someone accompany them and feel frightened by the idea of suddenly being expected to do everything alone.

These concerns don’t mean that the person consciously wants to have panic attacks or agoraphobia. They give us additional information about what different parts of the person may be trying to protect them from.

And once again, those concerns can have “the tapping microphone”.

Following the Emotional Charge One Piece at a Time

Panic attacks and agoraphobia can involve many interconnected pieces: fear of bodily sensations, fear of another panic attack, memories of previous attacks, anticipatory anxiety, avoided situations, shame about having the problem, earlier experiences, and concerns about what might happen if things changed.

We don’t have to address all of these at once.

We can begin with whatever feels manageable today. That might mean tapping on the apprehension about doing EFT at all. It might mean choosing one recent panic attack, imagining one upcoming situation, or simply giving the microphone to the frustration of having dealt with the problem for so long.

And whenever the cup of tea becomes too hot, we can zoom out, tap silently, or orient some of our attention toward something neutral or pleasant until there’s enough room to decide where we’d like to go next.

Over time, we can continue following the emotional charge one manageable piece at a time, while paying attention to whatever thought, feeling, memory, or part of us is asking for the microphone next.

A brief note: Panic-like symptoms can sometimes have medical causes, particularly when they are new or unusual. If you’re experiencing symptoms that haven’t been medically evaluated, or you’re unsure whether what you’re experiencing is a panic attack, it’s important to speak with an appropriate healthcare professional. EFT can be used as a complementary tool, but it shouldn’t replace appropriate medical or mental health care.

That said, when working with panic attacks or agoraphobia, there can be many different aspects contributing to what we’re experiencing, and it isn’t always easy to know what to focus on when tapping by ourselves. It can also be helpful to have someone there to help us find a manageable distance from experiences that feel particularly intense. If you’d like some support exploring what’s coming up for you, you can learn more about my approach at brunosade.com.

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I’m Bruno Sade, a clinical psychologist and Accredited Certified Advanced EFT Practitioner. I work online with people around the world, helping them reduce the emotional charge behind difficult thoughts, memories, and triggers.

If you’re curious about experiencing EFT in a guided session, I occasionally offer a free EFT tapping session in exchange for a brief market research interview. You can sign up here.

Burnout can build gradually. We may spend months dealing with difficult people, an unreasonable workload, organizational bureaucracy, problems we can’t seem to solve, or the feeling that no matter how much we get done, there is always something else waiting for us. Eventually, we may notice that we’re more irritable, less motivated, dreading parts of our work, or simply feeling exhausted by things that we used to handle much more easily.

When we’re feeling burned out, EFT can give us a way to start working through some of what has accumulated. I often describe this as giving the microphone to whatever we’re thinking and feeling about our work. Rather than trying to convince ourselves to be more positive or grateful, we can tap while allowing ourselves to acknowledge what has been frustrating, draining, disappointing, or overwhelming.

At the same time, it can be helpful to make the tapping a little more bite-sized and focused by choosing a specific moment rather than trying to work on everything we dislike about our job at once. We might choose a recent time when something happened at work that bothered us, or imagine the next time we’re likely to encounter the same situation. This gives us a particular moment to tune into while still allowing whatever thoughts and feelings we have about it to get the microphone.

For example, perhaps every interaction with your boss has started to irritate you. Rather than tapping on your relationship with your boss as a whole, you might think of a recent interaction that particularly bothered you. Maybe yesterday you asked for help with a problem and he responded in a way that left you feeling even more frustrated:

“When I remember asking him for help yesterday and hearing him say, ‘You’ll have to figure it out yourself’, I’m so frustrated. I already have enough to deal with, and I can’t believe he said that. And this is where I’m at right now”.

Or perhaps the biggest source of frustration is the bureaucracy surrounding your work. You could choose a recent moment when you had to spend an hour filling out paperwork instead of doing the work you actually wanted to be doing:

“When I think about sitting at my desk yesterday filling out all those forms, I feel so frustrated. This isn’t what I want to spend my time doing, and I’m so tired of all this paperwork. And this is where I’m at right now”.

We can also tap while imagining the next time we’ll have to deal with the same trigger. If there’s a meeting every Monday morning that we’ve started dreading, for example, we can imagine ourselves walking into next Monday’s meeting and notice what comes up:

“When I imagine sitting in that meeting again next Monday and listening to everyone argue about the same problems, I already feel exhausted. I really don’t want to be there, and this is where I’m at right now”.

What Has Been Accumulating?

Burnout may involve many different aspects of our work, which is why “I’m burned out” can sometimes be too broad a target for tapping. We can certainly begin by giving the microphone to everything we think and feel about being burned out, especially if that’s what feels most accessible. But from there, it can be helpful to ask ourselves: What are some specific moments that have contributed to me feeling this way?

Perhaps there was a conversation with a coworker that left us angry for the rest of the day. Maybe there was a particular afternoon when we looked at everything on our to-do list and thought, “I can’t keep doing this”. We might remember a client or customer becoming upset because we couldn’t solve their problem, or the moment our boss added another responsibility when we already felt overwhelmed.

Each of these gives us a smaller piece of the larger experience to work with. We can choose one moment, give the microphone to whatever we think and feel as we remember it (one emotion at a time, if possible), and see what happens as we tap. Once the charge around that particular event has shifted, we can move on to another one.

Sometimes a specific moment will also lead us somewhere we weren’t expecting. While tapping on yesterday’s conversation with our boss, for example, we might suddenly think, “I’m so tired of always having to be the responsible one”, or remember a previous job where we felt similarly overwhelmed. We don’t have to ignore those connections because they weren’t part of our original target. They may give us useful clues about another aspect we want to explore.

We Can Also Tap on the Parts of Ourselves That Keep Pushing

Sometimes the pressure isn’t only coming from the job itself. We may also have strong beliefs about how we are supposed to perform within it.

“I should be able to handle this”.

“I can’t disappoint anyone”.

“I have to get everything done”.

“If I say no, they’ll think I’m difficult”.

“I shouldn’t need a break”.

“If I don’t do it myself, it won’t be done properly”.

These thoughts can also be given the microphone while we tap. We don’t have to decide whether they’re rational before working with them. If the thought “I can’t disappoint anyone” carries emotional charge, for example, we can become curious about what feels so threatening about disappointing someone and look for a specific situation where that fear shows up.

Maybe our manager recently asked us to take on another project when our schedule was already full. We wanted to say no, but found ourselves agreeing almost automatically. We could return to that particular moment while tapping and notice what was going through our mind:

“When I remember her asking me to take on that project and I think about how badly I wanted to say no, but I was afraid she’d think I wasn’t committed enough if I refused, I feel trapped. And I feel it like a tightness in the center of my chest. And this is where I’m at right now”.

Following a specific experience like this may eventually lead us to other beliefs or memories. Perhaps saying no brings up guilt. Maybe asking for help feels like admitting that we’re incompetent. Delegating might make us anxious because we don’t trust anyone else to do the work properly. Or we may be afraid that slowing down will somehow reveal that we’re falling behind.

Once we begin following these reactions, burnout can sometimes lead us into beliefs and patterns that extend beyond the immediate work situation.

What Would You Want to Change If You Felt Free to Change It?

Processing some of the accumulated emotional charge can also create space for another question: Is there anything about the way I’m currently working that I would actually like to do differently?

The answer won’t always be yes. Some work environments give us very little control, and tapping can’t make an unreasonable workload reasonable or remove organizational problems that really exist. Still, there may be areas where we do have some flexibility but haven’t felt able to use it.

For example, someone who works for themselves might realize, “I don’t want to have this many appointments every week. I’d rather raise my fees and work fewer hours”.

That realization doesn’t automatically make the change easy. As soon as they imagine raising their fees, another set of reactions might appear. They might worry that people will stop working with them, feel guilty about charging more, think about clients who are already struggling financially, or wonder whether they’re really worth the higher fee.

Once we’ve identified one of those concerns, we can make it more specific. For example, we might imagine sending an email to our clients letting them know about the new fee and notice what happens:

“When I imagine pressing send on that email and telling everyone that I’m raising my fees, I feel guilty. I keep thinking about the people who might not be able to afford it anymore, and this is where I’m at right now”.

Someone else might realize that they would feel considerably better if they rearranged their schedule. Perhaps they would prefer not to schedule meetings first thing in the morning, want to keep one afternoon free each week, or need more time between appointments. Imagining actually making that change might bring up fears about inconveniencing other people, losing opportunities, or appearing less committed.

Again, we can make the imagined situation specific. What happens when you picture yourself telling your manager that you want to change your schedule? What do you imagine them saying? Which particular part of that conversation makes you uncomfortable? We can choose one of those moments and give whatever comes up the microphone while we tap.

Sometimes the Change Involves Other People

Burnout can also make us aware of working relationships that have become increasingly stressful.

Imagine that you run a small business and have someone helping you with administrative work. Over time, you’ve realized that supervising this person creates more work than it saves. Deadlines are repeatedly missed, you have to check everything they do, and every time you see another message from them you feel your body tense.

Part of you may know that you’d rather end the working relationship and hire someone else. Another part may feel terrible about doing that. You might worry about hurting them, feel responsible for their financial situation, wonder whether you haven’t given them enough chances, or simply dread having the conversation.

Rather than trying to resolve the entire decision at once, we could choose one particular aspect. Perhaps the most emotionally charged part is imagining the conversation itself:

“When I imagine sitting across from her and telling her that this arrangement isn’t working anymore, I feel so guilty. I can picture the look on her face, and part of me feels like I’m doing something terrible. And this is where I’m at right now”.

As we tap, we might discover that the guilt changes, another concern comes up, or a memory comes to mind of another time when we had to disappoint someone. We can follow whatever has emotional charge rather than deciding beforehand where the process needs to go.

Reducing some of that charge doesn’t tell us what decision to make. It may give us a little more room to consider the situation without guilt or anxiety taking up so much of the microphone.

What If the Change Isn’t Possible Right Now?

Of course, we don’t always have the option of changing the circumstances contributing to burnout.

We may need the income from our current job. We may be working in an organization where we have little control over our schedule or workload. There may be responsibilities we really cannot delegate, or a difficult boss we can’t simply replace.

That reality can become part of the tapping too. We might work with a recent moment when we felt particularly trapped, the fear that comes up when we imagine leaving, the sadness of realizing that the job isn’t what we hoped it would be, or the frustration of knowing what would help while being unable to do it right now.

Sometimes there may also be smaller changes available within a situation we can’t completely change. After some of the emotional intensity comes down, we might notice that there is one boundary we could set, one task we could stop volunteering for, one conversation we’ve been avoiding, or one expectation of ourselves that could become a little more flexible.

And if making that smaller change brings up fear, guilt, or resistance, we can make that specific too. We might imagine the moment when we say no, send the email, ask for help, or tell someone that we won’t be available. Whatever part of that imagined scene carries the most charge gives us somewhere to begin.

Burnout Can Give Us a Lot to Listen To

When we’re burned out, it’s understandable to want to feel motivated and energized again as quickly as possible. But there may be quite a lot underneath the exhaustion that hasn’t had much opportunity to be heard.

We can give the microphone to the frustration with our boss, the resentment about our workload, the dread of Monday morning, the disappointment about problems we haven’t been able to solve, and the part of us that is simply tired of doing this. Choosing one specific moment at a time can make that process more manageable, while still leaving plenty of room for whatever thoughts, feelings, memories, or other aspects emerge as we tap.

As some of that emotional charge shifts, we can also become curious about what we would like our working life to look like if we had more room to choose. Perhaps there is nothing obvious to change yet. Perhaps there is a change we’ve known for months that we want to make, but fear or guilt keeps getting in the way.

Either way, we can start with one manageable piece of whatever is asking for the microphone today and follow the process from there.

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That said, when we’re feeling burned out, there can be many different experiences contributing to how we feel, and it isn’t always easy to know which one to focus on when tapping by ourselves. It can also be difficult to separate what we need to process emotionally from the changes we may want to make in our work. If you’d like some support exploring what’s coming up for you, you can learn more about my approach at brunosade.com.

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I’m Bruno Sade, a clinical psychologist and Accredited Certified Advanced EFT Practitioner. I work online with people around the world, helping them reduce the emotional charge behind difficult thoughts, memories, and triggers.

If you’re curious about experiencing EFT in a guided session, I occasionally offer a free EFT tapping session in exchange for a brief market research interview. You can sign up here.

One of the interesting things about EFT is that we often do something that seems a bit strange at first: we deliberately think about something that makes us anxious while simultaneously tapping.

Imagine that you’re afraid of public speaking. You picture yourself standing in front of a room full of people, notice the familiar thought that you’re going to freeze or embarrass yourself, and begin tapping while keeping some of your attention on that scenario. Or perhaps you’re working with a memory. You bring to mind the moment when somebody criticized you, notice that it still has some emotional charge, and tap while thinking about what happened.

Why might combining those two things be helpful?

In a 2009 paper called The Neurochemistry of Counterconditioning: Acupressure Desensitization in Psychotherapy, psychologist James R. Lane explores one possible explanation. His paper draws heavily on a concept from behavioral psychology called counterconditioning, along with research available at the time on acupuncture, the nervous system, and the brain’s response to threat. You can read the original paper here: https://www.efttappingtraining.com/wp-content/uploads/Neurochemistry-of-Counterconditioning-James-Lane.pdf

Some of the neurobiological explanations in the paper should be read with appropriate caution, particularly since it was published more than 15 years ago. Still, I think the basic idea of counterconditioning provides a useful way of thinking about something that we regularly do in EFT.

How Our Brains Learn That Something Is Dangerous

To understand counterconditioning, it helps to first think about ordinary conditioning.

Suppose you’re driving one afternoon and another car crashes into you while you’re making a left turn. Your body immediately responds to the danger. Your heart may race, your muscles tense, and you may experience a rush of fear.

Weeks later, your injuries have healed and you’re driving again. You approach an intersection and need to make a left turn. There is no car speeding toward you this time, but you suddenly notice your body becoming tense and anxious.

Something that was previously neutral has become associated with danger.

This is the example Lane uses to explain classical conditioning. After the accident, making a left turn can become a trigger for the alarm response that originally occurred during the crash. Eventually, even thinking about making a left turn might produce anxiety. 

We can see versions of this in many areas of life. Someone who was humiliated while giving a presentation may later become anxious when speaking in front of a group. Someone who experienced a painful breakup may feel their stomach drop when a new partner takes longer than usual to answer a text. A child who was frequently criticized for making mistakes may grow into an adult who feels disproportionately anxious when their boss says, “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

Our nervous system can learn associations even when our rational mind knows that the present situation isn’t identical to what happened before.

So What Is Counterconditioning?

Counterconditioning involves learning a different response to something that has previously triggered anxiety.

Long before EFT was developed, psychiatrist Joseph Wolpe used this principle in his work with anxiety. A person would gradually bring an anxiety-provoking situation to mind while practicing deep muscle relaxation. The idea was that, over time, the previously threatening stimulus could become associated with a calmer response. Lane describes this as replacing an established anxiety response with a new conditioned response to the same stimulus. 

This gives us a useful way of looking at EFT.

When we tap, we generally aren’t distracting ourselves from the problem. We might deliberately think about the embarrassing presentation, the painful breakup, the upcoming flight, or the comment our boss made yesterday. At the same time, we are tapping on acupoints while paying attention to what happens internally.

Lane proposes that acupoint stimulation helps produce a physiological calming response. If that happens while the anxiety-provoking thought or memory is active, the old trigger is being experienced under different conditions. Instead of repeatedly pairing “thinking about the presentation” with an escalating alarm response, we may begin experiencing “thinking about the presentation while my body is relatively calm”. In Lane’s model, repeatedly pairing the trigger with this calmer state can gradually weaken the old association. 

Why We Need to Tune Into the Problem

This also helps explain something that can initially seem counterintuitive about EFT: we usually need some connection to the problem we’re working on.

If I’m afraid of an upcoming job interview but spend the entire tapping session thinking about what I’m going to have for dinner, the relevant fear isn’t really part of the experience. There is nothing for the nervous system to relearn in relation to the interview.

On the other hand, we don’t need to become completely overwhelmed by the fear either.

Lane describes the earlier behavioral approach of starting with stimuli that produce relatively low levels of anxiety and gradually working toward more difficult material. The purpose was to allow new learning without overwhelming the person. This is very compatible with how I tend to think about EFT.

I’ve written before about the Cup of Tea analogy. We want the tea warm enough that we can taste it, while being careful that it doesn’t become boiling hot. If there is absolutely no emotional connection to what we’re tapping on, we may need to zoom in a little. If we’re becoming overwhelmed, we can zoom out, slow down, tap silently, or approach the issue from a safer distance.

More emotional intensity isn’t necessarily better.

The Trigger Can Be a Memory, a Thought, or Something Happening Right Now

Another useful part of this model is that conditioning doesn’t only apply to obvious external dangers.

A trigger might be seeing a particular person. It could also be remembering someone’s facial expression, imagining an upcoming conversation, hearing a certain tone of voice, or thinking, “I’m going to mess this up”.

For example, perhaps your boss once criticized you harshly in front of your coworkers. Months later, you receive an email saying, “Could you stop by my office this afternoon?” Before you know what the meeting is about, your mind starts racing.

While tapping, you might say:

“When I read that email and imagine walking into her office this afternoon, I immediately think I’m in trouble. I can feel how much I don’t want to have that conversation, and I have this feeling of dread in my gut when I think about it. And this is where I’m at right now”.

The boss’s email, your prediction about what will happen, and perhaps older experiences of being criticized may all carry an unpleasant emotional charge. EFT gives us a way to work with those associations one piece at a time.

Why Specificity Can Help

This is also one reason I often encourage people to get specific when tapping.

“I’m anxious about work” contains an enormous amount of information. There may be dozens of situations, people, memories, predictions, and beliefs underneath that sentence.

“When I remember my boss looking at me and saying, ‘We expected better from you’, I feel embarrassed” gives us something much more precise to work with.

Lane describes energy psychology approaches as repeatedly returning to the distressing material and working with different aspects of it as they emerge. From a counterconditioning perspective, this makes sense because different aspects may have acquired their own associations.

Perhaps the words “We expected better from you” no longer bother you after tapping, but then you notice that what really gets to you is remembering the disappointed expression on your boss’s face. Or the memory suddenly reminds you of your father giving you the same look when you brought home a bad grade.

Now we have another aspect to work with.

What Happens When the Alarm Response Comes Down?

Lane also proposes that reducing the alarm response may make it easier to think differently about what happened.

This is something I frequently notice in EFT sessions. Someone begins tapping on a memory while thinking, “I was such an idiot. I can’t believe I did that”. After the emotional intensity decreases, they might spontaneously say something like, “Actually, I was doing the best I could”, or “I was 15 years old. Of course I didn’t know how to handle that”.

I generally prefer to allow those shifts to emerge rather than rushing to introduce a positive reframe while someone is still very upset.

Lane describes a similar process. In his model, as physiological arousal decreases, we may have greater access to the kind of thinking that allows us to reconsider what happened, see the situation from a broader perspective, and imagine different ways of responding in the future. 

This doesn’t mean we need to convince ourselves that something painful was actually okay. If someone treated us badly, reducing our emotional reaction doesn’t require deciding that their behavior was acceptable. We may simply find that we can remember what happened without our entire system responding as though the danger were happening again right now.

What Does the Tapping Add?

This is where Lane’s paper becomes more speculative.

He draws on acupuncture research available at the time and proposes that stimulating acupoints affects several neurochemical systems involved in stress and relaxation, including cortisol, endogenous opioids, serotonin, and GABA. He argues that these changes help reduce sympathetic nervous system activation and facilitate a calmer physiological state. 

Lane then extends this research to acupressure and tapping, proposing that tapping while activating an anxiety-provoking thought or memory provides a particularly efficient form of counterconditioning. 

I think it’s important to distinguish the broader idea from the more specific biological explanation. Counterconditioning is a well-established learning principle. The claim that tapping produces a particular sequence of neurochemical changes that explains EFT’s effects is a more specific hypothesis, and this paper was published in 2009. Our understanding of both the brain and EFT has continued to develop since then.

So I wouldn’t read the paper as giving us a final answer to what happens in the brain when we tap. I find it more useful as one possible model for understanding an experience that EFT practitioners and clients often observe: we can bring something distressing to mind, tap while staying connected to it at a manageable level, and sometimes discover that the same thought, memory, or trigger no longer produces the reaction it did before.

We Don’t Have to Start With the Biggest Thing

There is one final point from Lane’s paper that I think is particularly important in practice.

If counterconditioning requires us to activate some degree of the old response while remaining sufficiently regulated to experience something different, deliberately starting with our most overwhelming memory isn’t necessarily helpful. Lane recommends beginning with lower-intensity triggers and gradually approaching more difficult material. He also cautions against working on major historical trauma when someone is already overwhelmed by current circumstances. 

For example, if someone has a long history of social anxiety, they don’t necessarily need to begin with the most humiliating experience of their childhood. They might start with something that happened yesterday: a coworker didn’t respond when they said hello, and for the next hour they worried that the coworker disliked them.

That small event may contain plenty to work with. Perhaps after a few rounds, another aspect emerges. Perhaps it reminds them of something else. Or perhaps that particular interaction simply becomes less upsetting.

We can follow the emotional charge from there.

A Different Response to the Same Trigger

The idea of counterconditioning gives us a fairly simple way of thinking about one part of what may happen during EFT. Something in the present or past has become associated with an alarm response. We bring that particular trigger into awareness at a manageable level and tap while paying attention to what happens. If the emotional and physiological response begins to settle, we are now experiencing the same trigger under different internal conditions.

Over time, the person who once felt panic when imagining a presentation may be able to picture the same room without the familiar rush of fear. Someone who couldn’t think about a breakup without crying may eventually remember what happened and notice sadness without becoming overwhelmed by it. The memory hasn’t disappeared, and the presentation may still feel challenging. What has changed is how strongly the old trigger pulls the nervous system into the response it learned before.

That is the basic process Lane was trying to describe with the language of counterconditioning. And although some of the neurochemical details he proposed in 2009 should be treated as hypotheses rather than settled explanations, I think the broader idea gives us a useful lens for understanding why EFT so often involves this particular combination: bringing something difficult to mind, staying within a manageable level of activation, and tapping while we do it.

If you read my previous article about the theoretical model recently proposed by Robert Schwarz and Peta Stapleton, you may notice some overlap here. Their paper offers a broader framework involving several possible mechanisms that may contribute to EFT, while Lane’s earlier paper focuses more specifically on a closely related idea: what might happen when we bring an emotionally charged trigger to mind while simultaneously doing something that helps reduce our level of arousal.

In that sense, counterconditioning gives us another way of understanding why the combination of tuning in and tapping may be so important.

That said, when we’re tapping by ourselves, it isn’t always easy to find that middle ground between being connected enough to an issue to work with it and becoming too emotionally overwhelmed. It can also be difficult to know which aspects of a memory or trigger to focus on as they emerge. If you’d like some support exploring what’s coming up for you, you can learn more about my approach at brunosade.com.

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I’m Bruno Sade, a clinical psychologist and Accredited Certified Advanced EFT Practitioner. I work online with people around the world, helping them reduce the emotional charge behind difficult thoughts, memories, and triggers.

If you’re curious about experiencing EFT in a guided session, I occasionally offer a free EFT tapping session in exchange for a brief market research interview. You can sign up here.

Starting a new job can bring up a lot of anxiety. You might find yourself imagining your first day over and over, worrying that you’ll make a mistake, won’t know what to say, or will become so nervous that other people will notice. Perhaps you were already very anxious during the interview, and now you’re afraid the same thing will happen when you actually start working.

When people use EFT for this kind of anxiety, it’s understandable to approach tapping with the goal of getting rid of the nervousness before the first day arrives. The difficulty is that this can sometimes create another layer of pressure. Every time we notice that the anxiety is still there, we may start thinking, “Why isn’t this working?”, “I shouldn’t still be feeling this way”, or “What if tapping doesn’t work for me?”

In my experience, tapping tends to work better when we can allow ourselves, to whatever degree is possible, to feel what we’re feeling and think what we’re thinking while we tap. I sometimes describe this as giving the microphone to what is actually there. We aren’t requiring ourselves to feel confident or calm before we’re ready. We can begin with whatever thoughts and feelings are present right now.

You Can Even Tap on the Fear That Tapping Won’t Work

If you’ve tried EFT before and didn’t get the results you were hoping for, that experience itself may now have some emotional charge.

For example:

“I’m afraid tapping won’t work for me because it didn’t seem to work last time. And this is where I’m at right now”.

You might also notice frustration, disappointment, or hopelessness when you think about trying again. Those reactions are all good places to begin. If part of you is already expecting EFT to fail, we can give that part the microphone rather than trying to bypass it or talk it out of its concerns.

Pay Attention to the Feelings About the Feelings

Another layer I would look for is how you feel about being anxious.

Perhaps you remember how nervous you were during the interview and feel embarrassed about it. Maybe your hands were shaking, your voice sounded different, or you had trouble finding your words. When you imagine something similar happening on your first day, you might start judging yourself.

Thoughts such as these can carry their own emotional charge:

“I was so nervous during the interview, and I’m embarrassed that I got that nervous”.

Or:

“When I imagine myself being really nervous on my first day, part of me thinks that’s so pathetic”.

I sometimes call these reactions “the feelings about the feelings”. We already have the original anxiety, and then shame, frustration, or self judgment gets added on top of it. Giving those reactions some tapping attention can make it easier to approach the original fear with a little more acceptance, which in turn can make it easier for the original fear to eventually shift.

What Are You Actually Afraid Will Happen?

“Starting a new job makes me anxious” gives us a useful starting point, but there are probably several more specific fears underneath it.

What happens when you imagine walking into work on that first morning?

Maybe you’re thinking:

“I’m afraid I’ll do something wrong”.

“I’m afraid I won’t make a good impression”.

“I’m worried my nervousness will get in the way”.

“I’m afraid I’ll freeze when someone talks to me”.

“I’m worried they’ll realize they made a mistake by hiring me”.

These are only examples. Your own words will usually be much more useful because they reflect what your mind is actually predicting.

You can mentally imagine particular moments from the upcoming day and notice what happens inside you. Picture meeting your supervisor, being introduced to your coworkers, learning a new task, or having to ask for help. If one particular scene produces more emotional charge, you have found something more specific to tap on.

And, for what it’s worth, let me also say this: some nervousness when starting a new job is very normal. There is going to be a learning curve. You haven’t had the opportunity to learn everything yet, so you don’t have to know how to do everything perfectly on your first day.

Your Current Anxiety May Be Connected to Earlier Experiences

As you work with those future scenarios, you may also become curious about previous experiences that could be contributing to your current anxiety.

Perhaps you made a mistake at another job and your supervisor reacted harshly. Maybe you had an embarrassing moment in front of coworkers, were fired unexpectedly, or spent years working in an environment where mistakes weren’t tolerated very well.

If a particular memory comes to mind, notice how you feel now when you think about it.

For example:

“When I remember making that mistake at my last job and how my boss spoke to me afterwards, I still feel embarrassed when I think about it now. And this is where I’m at right now”.

Working with some of those earlier experiences can sometimes reduce the emotional charge that gets activated when we imagine something similar happening again.

You Can Also Tap Without Saying Anything

There’s also a much simpler way to use EFT during the days leading up to the new job.

If you’re sitting at home and suddenly realize that you’ve been thinking about Monday morning for the last ten minutes and your stomach is in knots, you’re already tuned in to the issue. You don’t necessarily need to stop and come up with a setup statement.

You can simply start tapping silently through the points.

Allow yourself, to whatever degree feels manageable, to think the thoughts you’re already thinking and feel the sensations and emotions you’re already feeling. If your mind says, “I’m going to screw this up”, you can let that thought be there while you tap. If all you notice is the knot in your stomach, you can stay gently aware of that.

Sometimes removing the pressure to find the “right” tapping words makes self-tapping a lot easier.

How Will You Know Whether the Tapping Is Helping?

I wouldn’t make “I need to get rid of all my anxiety before my first day” the test of whether EFT is working.

You might still feel nervous when you wake up that morning. Instead, notice whether the nervousness is becoming less intense, less frequent, or shorter lasting. Maybe you can think about your first day without immediately feeling your heart race. Perhaps you still become nervous when meeting your supervisor, but you recover more quickly. Or maybe the anxiety is still present, but it doesn’t interfere with your ability to listen, ask questions, and learn what you need to learn.

Even feeling a little less anxious can make quite a difference in how well we’re able to navigate the situation.

Keep Tapping Once the Job Actually Starts

The first day doesn’t have to be the finish line for this process either. In fact, the first few days of a new job will give you new, specific experiences to work with.

When you get home, you can take a few minutes to notice how you feel about the day. If something didn’t go particularly well, give the microphone to your actual reaction:

“It was so embarrassing when I made that stupid mistake”.

Or perhaps the day went reasonably well, but you’re already worried about tomorrow:

“I’m dreading having to talk to my supervisor again”.

You can tap on what happened that day and then spend some time imagining the next one. Over time, this creates an opportunity to process difficult moments as they happen rather than allowing them to accumulate into more evidence that you’re incapable of handling the job.

Starting somewhere new involves uncertainty, learning, making mistakes, and figuring out how things work. EFT can give us a way to work with the anxiety throughout that adjustment period. And if we can gradually become a little less afraid of the anxiety itself, we may find that we have more attention available for the thing we wanted to do in the first place: learning how to navigate our new environment.

That said, when we’re feeling anxious about something that hasn’t happened yet, it’s not always easy to know what to focus on when tapping by ourselves. If you’d like some support exploring what’s coming up for you, you can learn more about my approach at brunosade.com.

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I’m Bruno Sade, a clinical psychologist and Accredited Certified Advanced EFT Practitioner. I work online with people around the world, helping them reduce the emotional charge behind difficult thoughts, memories, and triggers.

If you’re curious about experiencing EFT in a guided session, I occasionally offer a free EFT tapping session in exchange for a brief market research interview. You can sign up here.

Sometimes, as we learn more about ourselves, we begin to recognize patterns that feel strangely familiar. Maybe we tend to expect the worst, struggle to enjoy good things when they happen, become anxious around money, avoid conflict at all costs, or react to stress in a particular way. And at some point we realize, “This is exactly how my mom or dad used to respond to life”.

We learn a great deal about how to navigate the world by observing the people around us while growing up. That can include ways of thinking, emotional reactions, beliefs about ourselves and other people, and strategies for dealing with uncertainty or disappointment. Years later, we may recognize some of those same patterns in ourselves and wonder whether EFT can help us change them.

Let’s use a hypothetical example. Imagine growing up with a father who experienced life as a constant struggle. Whenever something good happened, somehow things seemed to go wrong shortly afterwards, reinforcing his belief that good things never lasted. Perhaps you frequently heard him say things like, “You see? Nothing ever works out for us”.

As an adult, you might find that you’ve developed a similar expectation. Something good happens and, rather than enjoying it, part of you immediately starts waiting for the other shoe to drop. You may intellectually recognize that you don’t have to see life the same way your father did, while still noticing how difficult it is not to automatically fall into that same expectation.

So how might we approach something like this with EFT?

Starting With the Memories

One avenue is to think about specific times when you remember seeing your parent experience or express this pattern. Rather than tapping on the general idea that “my dad was pessimistic” or “my mom was always anxious”, I would usually become curious about particular moments that still carry some emotional charge when you remember them now.

Maybe you remember a time when your father was finally able to buy a nice car, only to damage it the following week. You can still picture how disappointed he looked and remember hearing him say that nothing ever worked out for your family.

As you bring that particular memory to mind, what do you notice now?

Perhaps you feel sad for him. Maybe you feel a heaviness in your chest, anger about the way he responded, or even fear as you remember realizing that something good could disappear so quickly. Whatever comes up can give us a starting point for tapping.

A setup statement might sound something like:

“When I remember that time when my dad was finally able to buy a nice car, but he damaged it the next week, and he was just so disappointed, as I think about this now, I feel really sad. And this is where I’m at right now”.

From there, we can continue giving the microphone to whatever thoughts, emotions, body sensations, or other memories arise.

Starting With How the Pattern Shows Up Today

Sometimes those earlier memories are difficult to access. We might remember what happened without feeling much of anything when we think about it now. In those situations, I often find it useful to approach the pattern from the opposite direction and work with the way it is showing up in our lives today.

Imagine that you have just received a promotion at work. Objectively, things are going well, but you notice that you can’t really enjoy it. Instead, you keep thinking that something is bound to go wrong.

We might tap on something like:

“I just got promoted at work, but I can’t feel happy about it because I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. Part of me feels like nothing ever works out for people like me, and as I think about this now, I feel this tightness in my chest. And this is where I’m at right now”.

Working with a current situation can sometimes lead us back to earlier experiences organically. Perhaps while tapping on the promotion, an image of your father suddenly comes to mind. You might remember something he used to say, a particular expression on his face, or an event you haven’t thought about in years. We can follow those connections as they emerge rather than having to figure them all out beforehand.

What Did You Learn From Watching Them?

As we work through specific experiences, we may also begin noticing the beliefs that became associated with them.

Perhaps watching your father repeatedly struggle contributed to beliefs such as “Good things don’t last”, “Life is always going to be difficult”, or “People like us never get ahead”. Growing up around a highly anxious parent might have contributed to a very different set of expectations, such as “The world isn’t safe” or “I always need to be prepared for something bad to happen”.

I generally wouldn’t try to argue with those beliefs or immediately replace them with more positive ones. Instead, I would become curious about what makes them feel true.

What memories seem to support the belief? When you imagine believing something different, what feelings come up? Does part of you immediately respond with all the reasons why changing that belief would be naive or unsafe?

Those reactions can become additional places to give the microphone while tapping.

“If I Change, What Does That Mean About My Parent?”

There can also be a more subtle layer to this work. Sometimes changing a pattern we learned from a parent can bring up uncomfortable feelings about our relationship with them.

For example, part of us might feel that leaving behind our father’s worldview somehow means rejecting him. We may feel guilty about becoming more successful than our parents were, allowing ourselves to be happier than they were, or living with a sense of safety they never had.

There can also be an identity component. If you have experienced the world this way for most of your life, imagining yourself without the pattern may feel very unfamiliar. You might wonder, “Who would I be if I didn’t think this way anymore?”

These concerns may not make logical sense to another part of us, but if they carry emotional charge, I think they deserve our attention. We can give the microphone to the part that worries that changing means leaving our parent behind, dishonoring what they went through, or losing an important part of who we are.

Following the Emotional Charge

When we recognize one of our parents’ patterns in ourselves, we don’t necessarily need to determine exactly how we “picked it up” before we can begin working on it. We can start with what is available to us now.

That might be a childhood memory of watching our parent struggle. It might be a present-day situation in which we recognize ourselves reacting exactly as they would have. It might be a belief that feels deeply ingrained, or a sense of guilt about becoming different from them.

Any of those can give us a place to begin.

As we give the microphone to the thoughts, feelings, sensations, memories, and protective parts connected to the pattern, we may gradually find that the old way of responding doesn’t have quite the same emotional pull. We can still understand where it came from and have compassion for the parent who modeled it for us, while having more freedom in how we respond to our own lives today.

That said, when working on patterns we learned from our parents, it’s not always easy to know which memories, beliefs, or present-day experiences to focus on when tapping by ourselves. If you’d like some support exploring what’s coming up for you, you can learn more about my approach at brunosade.com.

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I’m Bruno Sade, a clinical psychologist and Accredited Certified Advanced EFT Practitioner. I work online with people around the world, helping them reduce the emotional charge behind difficult thoughts, memories, and triggers.

If you’re curious about experiencing EFT in a guided session, I occasionally offer a free EFT tapping session in exchange for a brief market research interview. You can sign up here.

Fear of abandonment is an issue that I frequently come across in my work with clients. Sometimes the person already knows that this is what they are struggling with. Other times, they describe a pattern of becoming very anxious when their partner takes too long to reply to a message, needing frequent reassurance that everything is okay, worrying that their partner will lose interest, or feeling extremely distressed by relatively small changes in their partner’s behavior.

There can be many different experiences contributing to a fear of abandonment, which is why I usually think of working on it as a gradual process rather than trying to find the one tapping phrase that will make the whole issue disappear. We can work with present-day triggers, earlier experiences, beliefs, self judgment, and even the parts of us that may be afraid of letting go of the fear itself.

Before Working on the Fear, How Do You Feel About Working on It?

One of the first things I might ask a client is how they feel about working on their fear of abandonment in the first place.

Does the idea of exploring it feel scary? Are they worried about opening Pandora’s box or opening a can of worms? Is there a concern that we might uncover memories or emotions that will be too painful to handle?

If so, that’s where I would begin.

Rather than pushing through that apprehension so that we can get to the “real work”, we can give the microphone to the apprehension itself (and this is still part of the “real work”, because we are finding a safer distance from which to approach the issue). For example, we might tap on the fear that opening this subject will bring up something overwhelming.

This is part of what I mean when I talk about meeting ourselves where we are. If a part of us is saying, “I’m scared to go there”, I don’t want to drag that part somewhere it isn’t ready to go. We can listen to it, tap on what it’s afraid of, and see what happens from there.

The Feelings About the Feelings

Another layer that tends to come up frequently with fear of abandonment is self judgment.

Someone may already be experiencing anxiety about their relationship, but on top of that, they might be thinking, “Why am I so insecure?”, “Why can’t I just trust my partner?”, or “I hate that I’m like this”.

There can also be a lot of guilt about how the fear is affecting the other person or the relationship. Perhaps they repeatedly ask their partner for reassurance, become upset when messages aren’t answered quickly, or start arguments because they are trying to find out whether something is wrong.

All of this can create what I sometimes call “feelings about the feelings”. We feel afraid, and then we feel ashamed, guilty, frustrated, or angry with ourselves for feeling afraid.

Those secondary reactions deserve compassionate attention throughout the process. In my experience, the more we can accept that this is genuinely how we are feeling right now, without demanding that we immediately feel differently, the easier it often becomes for some of that emotional charge to shift.

Start With What Is Happening Now

Once we are ready to work more directly with the fear of abandonment, a good starting point is usually something recent and specific.

Maybe your partner took several hours to answer a message yesterday and you noticed yourself becoming increasingly anxious. You might return to that particular moment in your mind and notice what thoughts and feelings come up now as you remember it.

Perhaps the thoughts are:

“What if they’re losing interest in me?”

“What if I did something wrong?”

“What if they’ve met someone else?”

“Why haven’t they answered me yet?”

“I know I’m overreacting, but I can’t stop”.

Those are all potential doorways for tapping. Rather than trying to replace them immediately with reassuring thoughts, we can give the microphone to what is actually coming up.

We can also work with an imagined future event. For example, imagine sending your partner a message tomorrow and seeing several hours go by without a response. What happens inside you as you picture that? What does your mind predict? What emotions or body sensations appear?

That imagined scenario can give us access to the emotional charge even though the feared event isn’t happening at that moment.

And, as always, if the emotional intensity starts becoming overwhelming, we can gently back away and do a few rounds of silent tapping until that particular wave subsides. We want the proverbial cup of tea to be warm enough that we can connect with what we’re working on, while being careful not to let it become boiling hot.

Following the Fear Into the Past

As we continue working with present-day triggers, earlier memories may begin to emerge. We can also deliberately become curious about earlier experiences that might be contributing to the fear.

For some people, there may have been a very obvious experience of abandonment. Perhaps a parent left after a divorce, someone important died unexpectedly, or there was another sudden separation or loss.

For others, the connection may be less obvious. A parent may have been physically present but emotionally unavailable, unpredictable, or unable to provide the kind of reassurance and connection the child needed. There may have been experiences of rejection by friends, bullying at school, the end of an important relationship, or other moments that reinforced the feeling that people we depend on can suddenly disappear or stop caring about us.

We don’t necessarily need to find one single event that “caused” the fear of abandonment. There may be several memories contributing to it, and we can gradually work with them one at a time.

With EFT, we are also paying attention to how those memories feel now, when we think about them in the present. What emotional charge is still attached to them today? That is what we have available to work with while we tap.

What Did Those Experiences Teach You?

Earlier experiences can also contribute to beliefs about ourselves, relationships, and other people.

For example:

“People always leave me”.

“I’m not lovable”.

“I’m not good enough”.

“I’m not worthy of being chosen”.

“If someone really gets to know me, they’ll eventually leave”.

“I can’t relax in a relationship because that’s when I’ll get hurt”.

Rather than simply repeating the opposite belief while tapping, I prefer to explore the emotional experiences that make the original belief feel true.

If “people always leave me” carries a strong emotional charge, what memories seem to prove it? If “I’m not good enough” feels true, when do you remember first feeling that way? What experiences reinforced it afterwards?

As we gradually process some of the emotional charge attached to those memories, we may find that the corresponding beliefs begin to feel less true as well.

What If You Didn’t Have the Fear Anymore?

There’s another direction that I think is also important when working with fear of abandonment.

Imagine that you could wake up tomorrow and no longer have this fear. Your partner could take a while to respond, spend time with other people, or seem a little distant one afternoon, and your nervous system wouldn’t immediately go into high alert.

Does anything about that scenario feel uncomfortable?

Sometimes a part of us believes that the fear itself is helping to protect us.

For example:

“If I stop worrying, I’ll lower my guard”.

“If I relax and trust them completely, I won’t see it coming if they leave”.

“If I’m constantly looking for signs that something is wrong, maybe I can protect myself”.

“If I let myself feel completely safe, it will hurt even more if I get abandoned again”.

In EFT, concerns like these are sometimes described as “secondary gains”. I tend to think of them as protective mechanisms. A part of us has learned that staying vigilant might reduce the chances of being blindsided or experiencing that same pain again.

That protective part also deserves the microphone. We can listen to what it believes would happen if it stopped doing its job and tap on the emotional charge attached to those fears, rather than trying to convince it that there’s nothing to worry about.

Progress Can Show Up in Subtle Ways

Fear of abandonment, particularly when it has been reinforced by experiences over many years, may have many different pieces to work through. For that reason, I wouldn’t necessarily judge progress based on whether the fear has completely disappeared.

Instead, we can pay attention to how our reactions begin changing over time.

Maybe your partner takes several hours to answer a message and you still feel anxious, but the anxiety is less intense. Maybe you still have the thought that they’re losing interest, but you don’t spend the next four hours ruminating about it. Perhaps you notice that you need reassurance less frequently, recover more quickly after being triggered, or have more space between the initial fear and the impulse to react.

Those changes are all signs of progress.

As we continue giving the microphone to the present-day triggers, the self judgment and guilt, the earlier memories, the beliefs that grew out of those experiences, and the protective parts that are afraid to lower their guard, the emotional reactions can gradually become less intense, less frequent, and shorter lasting.

And that can make it easier to experience closeness with another person without having to spend so much energy preparing ourselves for the possibility that they might leave.

That said, when working on fear of abandonment, there can be many different layers, and it’s not always easy to know what to focus on when tapping by ourselves. If you’d like some support exploring what’s coming up for you, you can learn more about my approach at brunosade.com.

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I’m Bruno Sade, a clinical psychologist and Accredited Certified Advanced EFT Practitioner. I work online with people around the world, helping them reduce the emotional charge behind difficult thoughts, memories, and triggers.

If you’re curious about experiencing EFT in a guided session, I occasionally offer a free EFT tapping session in exchange for a brief market research interview. You can sign up here.

Have you ever noticed yourself replaying someone’s comments over and over in your mind?

Sometimes it is not even the words themselves that stay with us. It might be the person’s tone of voice, the expression on their face, or the way they looked at us. Hours later, or even days later, we find ourselves mentally replaying the interaction, wishing we had responded differently or wondering why it affected us so much.

When this happens, one helpful place to begin is simply by tapping on the most recent situation. We can give the microphone to whatever thoughts, feelings, or body sensations come up as we remember what happened. Or, if we know we are likely to see that person again, we can imagine the next time we might hear a similar comment and tap on how we feel about that imagined future scenario.

Sometimes, that is enough for the emotional charge to gradually soften.

Other times, we notice that the same type of comment continues to affect us despite having tapped on several recent interactions. When that happens, I find it helpful to become curious rather than assuming the process isn’t working. There are a few different directions we can gently explore.

One question that often leads somewhere interesting is: “Who does this person remind me of?”

Sometimes the connection is immediately obvious. Other times it takes a little while before we realize that the person’s tone of voice, facial expressions, or way of speaking reminds us of a parent, a teacher, a sibling, a school bully, or someone else from earlier in our lives.

If that happens, it may be worth exploring some of those older memories. Often we discover that the emotional charge attached to those earlier experiences is contributing to why the present-day comments feel so difficult to brush off.

Another question I often like to ask is: “What meaning is my mind giving to what this person said?”

Imagine that someone criticizes you, but what they are saying feels completely untrue. You might disagree with them, perhaps even laugh about it, and move on with your day.

But if their comments keep echoing in your mind, it can sometimes be a sign that they have touched on an old wound, insecurity, or belief that already existed before that conversation took place.

Perhaps part of us wonders whether what they said might actually be true. Perhaps it connects with an old feeling of “I’m not good enough”, “I’m disappointing people,” or “I’ll never measure up”. Those thoughts and beliefs can become valuable places to tap.

Finally, I sometimes invite people to imagine the following: “What if this person’s comments didn’t bother me anymore?”. As strange as it may sound, that question can sometimes bring up unexpected answers.

Some people notice a fear that if they stopped reacting, they would be letting the other person “off the hook”. Others realize that staying emotionally activated or triggered helps them remain vigilant or protects them from being caught off guard in the future.

These protective concerns deserve just as much curiosity as the original trigger. Rather than trying to convince ourselves that we shouldn’t feel this way, we can simply give those protective parts the microphone (while we tap) and listen to what they have to say.

One of the things I appreciate most about EFT is that it encourages us to follow the emotional charge wherever it leads. We may begin by tapping on a conversation that happened this morning, only to discover that it opens the door to an earlier relationship, an old insecurity, or a protective strategy that has been with us for many years.

As those different layers gradually lose their emotional charge, we often notice that the comments themselves begin to lose their grip on us. The other person may not change at all, but our nervous system no longer reacts with the same intensity, and that can make quite a difference in how we experience the relationship.

That said, when it comes to doing EFT, it’s not always easy to do it by ourselves. If you’d like some support exploring what’s coming up for you, you can learn more about my approach at brunosade.com.

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I’m Bruno Sade, a clinical psychologist and Accredited Certified Advanced EFT Practitioner. I work online with people around the world, helping them reduce the emotional charge behind difficult thoughts, memories, and triggers.

If you’re curious about experiencing EFT in a guided session, I occasionally offer a free EFT tapping session in exchange for a brief market research interview. You can sign up here.

One question I hear from time to time is whether it’s normal for a physical sensation to remain, even after making a lot of progress with EFT.

For example, someone may tell me that they have worked through several memories of abandonment or rejection and they feel much better than they used to. Their relationships are healthier, they feel calmer, and many of their old triggers no longer have the same emotional charge. Yet there is still a subtle (or sometimes not so subtle) tightness in the chest, a knot in the stomach, tension in the throat, or another physical sensation that seems to linger in the background.

It can be discouraging when that happens, especially if the sensation temporarily softens while tapping but then gradually returns. At the same time, I generally see that temporary relief as an encouraging sign, because it suggests that the sensation is responsive to the process, even if there are still some pieces of the puzzle waiting to be explored.

One place I often like to begin is by becoming curious about how we feel about the sensation itself.

For example, does it make us feel afraid because we worry it will never go away? Do we feel frustrated every time it returns? Have we started judging ourselves for “still having it” after doing so much work? Those emotional reactions can develop a charge of their own, and sometimes they end up becoming just as important to tap on as the original sensation.

Another possibility is that the sensation may be connected to earlier experiences that have not yet come into awareness. While gently tapping through the points, it can sometimes be helpful to ask ourselves, “When is an earlier time I remember feeling something like this?” It doesn’t have to be the very first time. Sometimes a memory from childhood or adolescence simply comes to mind on its own. If it does, we can begin exploring how we feel now when we think about that experience, including any meanings or beliefs that became attached to it.

I also find it useful to approach physical sensations as though they have their own perspective. If we were to give the microphone to that tightness in the chest, what might it say? Are there any words attached to it? Would it have a particular age, personality, or emotional tone? Does it remind us of a frightened child, a heavy rock, a tightly wound spring, or something else entirely? These images and metaphors don’t have to make logical sense. Sometimes they simply provide another doorway into the emotional experience that the nervous system is holding.

Finally, I sometimes invite people to imagine, just for a moment, that the sensation has completely disappeared.

How does that feel?

For some people, the answer is immediate relief. For others, though, something unexpected can happen. They might notice a fear of becoming vulnerable without that protective tension, or a concern that letting go somehow means letting their guard down. In EFT, these protective concerns are sometimes referred to as “secondary gains”. Rather than trying to push past them, I generally find it more helpful to become curious about them and give them the microphone as well, including any memories where (using the example above) letting their guard down resulted in getting hurt.

Of course, it’s also important to remember that physical sensations can have many possible causes, and persistent or concerning symptoms should always be evaluated by an appropriate healthcare professional. EFT is not a substitute for medical assessment or treatment, and I encourage people to seek medical advice whenever that is appropriate.

One of the things I like the most about EFT is that it invites us to stay curious rather than jumping to conclusions. A lingering sensation does not automatically mean there is unresolved emotional trauma, nor does it necessarily mean that progress has stalled. Sometimes it simply tells us that there is another emotionally charged thought, belief, memory, protective part, or feeling that would like some non-judgmental attention. And when we continue approaching the process with patience and curiosity, those next pieces often reveal themselves in their own time.

That said, when it comes to doing EFT, it’s not always easy to do it by ourselves. If you’d like some support exploring what’s coming up for you, you can learn more about my approach at brunosade.com.

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I’m Bruno Sade, a clinical psychologist and Accredited Certified Advanced EFT Practitioner. I work online with people around the world, helping them reduce the emotional charge behind difficult thoughts, memories, and triggers.

If you’re curious about experiencing EFT in a guided session, I occasionally offer a free EFT tapping session in exchange for a brief market research interview. You can sign up here.

One of the things I find most fascinating about EFT is that the issue we bring into a session is not always the issue that ends up changing. (The client described in this article gave me permission to share her story, and identifying details have been changed to protect her privacy).

Recently, I worked with a client who came to a session feeling overwhelmed after a work meeting. During the meeting, people had been using highly technical, professional language, and she had also been told that, going forward, she would be expected to use more of that language herself. She found herself feeling intimidated and doubting whether she was knowledgeable enough. The immediate goal seemed straightforward: reduce the anxiety and overwhelm she felt about work.

As we began tapping, something interesting happened.

The technical language reminded her of a professional licensing exam she had considered taking, but ultimately decided against. As she thought about it, she realized that this very formal, clinical way of thinking simply didn’t feel like who she was. She preferred communicating in a simpler, more human way, and the thought, “I feel dumb”, began to emerge. As she gave those thoughts the microphone while tapping, she noticed sadness underneath them.

At that point, the session could easily have stayed focused on work or professional confidence, but instead another memory surfaced.

She remembered being a child and watching two of her siblings struggle with school subjects that had always come easily to her. She also remembered saying cruel things to them, calling them “dumb” and making them feel even worse. As she thought about those moments, the dominant emotion was no longer sadness about work. It was shame about the way she had treated them.

We spent some time simply giving that shame the microphone.

As the tapping continued, she made an observation that neither of us had anticipated at the beginning of the session. She realized that, as a child, she had been echoing what the world was already telling her siblings. Rather than offering them understanding, she had joined in with the criticism they were already experiencing.

That realization naturally led to another.

She began talking about the people she works with today and noticed that this experience had helped her develop a deeper sense of compassion for individuals who have been treated harshly, criticized, or made to feel “less than” by the people around them, including their own family members. She even found herself thinking about making amends to one of her siblings, feeling that doing so would be meaningful not only for their relationship, but also as a way of honoring the empathy she now brings to her work.

Near the end of the session, another connection emerged.

She spoke about her own children, who are exceptionally bright. Sometimes, when she is with them, she finds herself feeling a little like her sisters once did, as though they understand things more quickly than she does. But now, instead of feeling ashamed, she found herself smiling as she said it. There was warmth, perspective, and even a bit of humor. She could appreciate the irony without judging herself.

By the end of the session, the overwhelm she had felt about the work meeting had largely disappeared.

She told me that it now felt manageable to ask for help with the technical aspects of her job if she needed it, and that doing so would not diminish the quality of the relationships she had built with the people she serves. She also reminded herself that she had been doing this work successfully for many years, and that she could deal with this next challenge as well.

I think sessions like this are a good reminder that the relationship between our present struggles and our past experiences is not always obvious. We may begin by tapping on something that happened earlier that day, only to discover that it is connected to memories, beliefs, or emotions that have been contributing to the issue for years.

The encouraging part is that we do not need to know those deeper connections in advance. If we simply begin by giving the microphone to whatever is emotionally charged in the present moment, those hidden pieces often emerge naturally, one at a time, as the process unfolds.

That said, when it comes to doing EFT, it’s not always easy to do it by ourselves. If you’d like some support exploring what’s coming up for you, you can learn more about my approach at brunosade.com.

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I’m Bruno Sade, a clinical psychologist and Accredited Certified Advanced EFT Practitioner. I work online with people around the world, helping them reduce the emotional charge behind difficult thoughts, memories, and triggers.

If you’re curious about experiencing EFT in a guided session, I occasionally offer a free EFT tapping session in exchange for a brief market research interview. You can sign up here.

One of the most discouraging experiences when doing EFT is feeling like you are putting in the effort, noticing a little relief while you tap, but then finding that the underlying issue doesn’t seem to improve very much.

Perhaps you feel calmer for a few minutes afterwards, but the next day you find yourself back where you started. After a while, it is easy to begin wondering whether the issue is simply too deeply rooted to ever change.

If you’ve ever had that thought, you’re certainly not alone.

One thing I think is important to point out is that experiencing even temporary or partial relief is actually an encouraging sign. It tells us that the issue is responding to tapping. The challenge is that some issues are relatively simple, while others are much more complex. By “complex”, I don’t necessarily mean more severe. I simply mean that they are made up of many different pieces, each one carrying its own emotional charge.

You can think of it as trying to solve a puzzle. Working on one piece may help, but it doesn’t necessarily complete the whole picture. Over time, as we gently work through more of those pieces, the issue often begins to shift in a more noticeable way.

One of the reasons this process can take time is that there are often several different layers asking to be heard.

For example, there may be beliefs about how possible (or not) it is to resolve the issue itself, such as, “Maybe this will never go away because my childhood trauma runs too deep”. That belief can carry a lot of emotional charge, and it can become a valuable target for tapping in its own right.

Sometimes there are also identity-related fears. A part of us may wonder, “Who would I even be if I didn’t have this problem anymore?”. Even if we consciously want to heal, another part may experience the possibility of change as unfamiliar or even frightening.

There can also be fears about what might happen if the issue were to resolve.

For one person, healing might feel like letting someone “off the hook” for the pain they caused. Someone else may feel that letting go of grief means loving the other person less. Another person may fear that becoming less guarded will leave them vulnerable to being hurt again.

These concerns often make perfect sense once we take the time to listen to them.

Self judgment can be another important layer. Sometimes people carry shame about having the issue in the first place, or about the younger parts of themselves that still feel wounded. Those feelings deserve the microphone just as much as the original problem does.

And very often, there are specific memories or younger selves carrying emotional wounds that are still waiting for some attention. As those memories gradually lose their emotional charge, the larger issue often begins to soften as well.

This is also one of the reasons why working with an EFT practitioner can sometimes be helpful, especially when dealing with long-standing or complex issues. Through the questions they ask and the way they follow what comes up during the session, it is often possible to uncover important aspects that were outside of our awareness and therefore never became targets for tapping. 

Sometimes these hidden pieces emerge because of a question the practitioner asks. Other times they arise organically while we are already tapping on something we know about. In my experience, once enough rapport and a sense of safety have developed, clients will often remember experiences, beliefs, or younger selves that had never come to mind when tapping on their own. Those newly uncovered aspects can sometimes become key pieces of the puzzle, allowing meaningful progress where previously the issue seemed stuck.

The common thread running through all of these examples is that anything connected to the issue that carries emotional charge can become a useful place to tap.

At the same time, we want to be mindful of the “cup of tea” analogy that I’ve mentioned in previous articles. Our goal is to connect with enough emotion for the tapping to have something to work with, but not so much that we become overwhelmed. If, at any point, the cup of tea starts becoming boiling hot, it can be helpful to gently back away.

One simple way of doing this is to continue tapping silently while shifting some of your attention toward something that feels neutral or pleasant. You might notice the sensation of your fingertips tapping, the feeling of your feet on the ground, the view outside your window, or even think about your favorite animal or television show. This often helps send cues of safety to the nervous system, allowing you to return to the issue more gradually.

Another question that comes up quite often is what phrases to use while tapping.

When we are working on our own, it can sometimes feel quite difficult to come up with the “right” setup statement. Fortunately, the words themselves are not what make EFT effective. Their purpose is to help us connect with the emotional charge we want to process.

For that reason, if you already find yourself emotionally tuned in (perhaps you’re crying, feeling anxious, or caught in a loop of rumination), you can simply begin tapping silently while allowing yourself, to whatever degree is possible, to feel what you’re feeling and think what you’re thinking. There is no requirement to come up with a perfectly worded setup statement before you begin.

Some people also find it helpful to imagine they are talking to someone they trust. Rather than trying to construct formal tapping phrases, they simply vent or rant about what is going through their mind while they continue tapping through the points. In many ways, this resembles what naturally happens during an EFT session with a practitioner.

When an issue has been present for many years, meaningful change often comes from patiently exploring it from many different angles. Every time we give another emotionally charged thought, belief, memory, fear, or younger part the microphone, we create another opportunity for the emotional charge surrounding the issue to become a little lighter. Those individual shifts may seem small in the moment, but over time they can begin adding up in ways that are difficult to appreciate when we are only looking at today’s tapping session.

That said, when it comes to doing EFT, it’s not always easy to do it by ourselves. If you’d like some support exploring what’s coming up for you, you can learn more about my approach at brunosade.com.

————————————————————————————-

I’m Bruno Sade, a clinical psychologist and Accredited Certified Advanced EFT Practitioner. I work online with people around the world, helping them reduce the emotional charge behind difficult thoughts, memories, and triggers.

If you’re curious about experiencing EFT in a guided session, I occasionally offer a free EFT tapping session in exchange for a brief market research interview. You can sign up here.

One challenge that many people encounter when doing EFT on their own is finding that they simply can’t connect with the emotions they want to work on. This often happens when tapping on older memories that are contributing to the issue we are trying to resolve (what in EFT is sometimes referred to as the “table legs” supporting the problem). 

We know the event was painful, and we remember what happened, but when we sit down to tap, the emotional charge seems distant or even absent. This can leave us wondering whether the tapping will still be effective.

One of the ideas I often come back to is that, for EFT to be both safe and effective, there needs to be enough emotional activation for us to “tune in” to the issue, but not so much that we become overwhelmed. I sometimes compare this to a cup of tea. If the tea is too cold, it is difficult to connect with the emotion. If it is boiling hot, the nervous system can become overwhelmed. Our goal is to find a comfortable middle ground.

One thing that can make this easier is having a compassionate witness. Many people notice that they connect much more easily with their emotions when they are speaking to a therapist or an EFT practitioner. Having another person calmly listening to us, in a non-judgmental way, can create a greater sense of safety, allowing emotions to emerge more naturally.

Some people discover ways of recreating part of that experience on their own. For example, one person recently shared that she imagines she is sitting in a therapy session and tells the story out loud as though a therapist were listening. She found that speaking this way helped her reconnect with the emotions much more easily, making the tapping feel more effective.

Another strategy is to mentally “zoom in” on the emotionally charged details of the memory. Imagine you are working on a memory of being rejected as a child, which might be supporting the “tabletop” issue of fear of rejection or social anxiety. At first, you might think about the event and feel almost nothing. But as you begin focusing on specific details, the emotional connection may become much stronger. 

You might notice the expression on the other person’s face, the tone of their voice, the exact words they used, the fact that other people were watching, or the moment you realized what had happened. Sometimes those seemingly small details are exactly what allows the emotional charge to become accessible again.

It is also worth remembering that with EFT, we are always tapping on how we feel now, in the present moment, when thinking about the memory. The emotion we feel today is not always the same emotion we experienced at the time. Perhaps you felt sadness when the event originally happened, but today you mainly notice shame. Or perhaps it is the other way around. That is completely okay. 

A helpful approach is to simply give the microphone to whatever emotion is present right now. As that emotional charge begins to soften, other layers often emerge naturally. In EFT, these are sometimes called “shifting aspects.” What can usually happen is that one emotion leads us toward another, eventually bringing us into contact with feelings that were present during the original experience.

Sometimes there is another reason why it is difficult to connect with our emotions. Part of us may be actively trying to push down those emotions because they feel too painful or overwhelming. When that happens, I generally would not recommend trying to push past that protective part. Instead, we can welcome it into the process and give it the microphone as well.

For example, you might tap while saying:

“There’s a part of me that doesn’t want me to feel what I felt back then, because it might be too painful. And this is where I’m at right now”.

Very often, protective parts become more willing to relax once they feel heard, rather than ignored.

Finally, there are situations where early memories simply remain difficult to access despite trying these different approaches. In those cases, it can be much easier to begin with a more recent example of the same theme. If your core issue is rejection, you might start with a recent situation where you felt rejected. Or you might imagine a future situation where you are afraid rejection could happen. 

As you tap on those more accessible experiences, you may find that older memories begin to arise on their own. And when they do, they often feel much more emotionally accessible than they did before.

There is no need to force this process. In my experience, the more we meet ourselves where we are, and the more willing we are to work with whatever is available in the present moment, the easier it becomes for the next layer to emerge naturally. That gradual unfolding often leads to deeper and more sustainable emotional processing than trying to force ourselves to reconnect with emotions that are not ready to surface yet.

That said, when it comes to doing EFT, it’s not always easy to do it by ourselves. If you’d like some support exploring what’s coming up for you, you can learn more about my approach at brunosade.com.

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I’m Bruno Sade, a clinical psychologist and Accredited Certified Advanced EFT Practitioner. I work online with people around the world, helping them reduce the emotional charge behind difficult thoughts, memories, and triggers.

If you’re curious about experiencing EFT in a guided session, I occasionally offer a free EFT tapping session in exchange for a brief market research interview. You can sign up here.

I'd love to know: What challenges have you encountered when doing EFT Tapping? Is there anything about the tapping process that you find challenging or difficult? Let me know in the comments below and I'll try to give you some useful tips based on my experience and training.

Many people think of EFT primarily as a tool for reducing stress, anxiety, or other unpleasant emotions. And it certainly can be very effective for that. By tapping while giving the microphone to our thoughts, feelings, and body sensations, we often find that the emotional charge attached to them gradually decreases.

But what if the goal is to change our behavior?

Perhaps you’d like to exercise more consistently, reach out to potential clients to grow your business, or finally begin working on a project you’ve been postponing. Or maybe your goal is the opposite: spending less time on your phone, eating less sugar, or reducing another habit that no longer serves you.

One of the most useful ways I’ve found to approach behavioral change with EFT is to become curious about the part of us that objects to the new behavior.

Whenever we want to change something, there is often another part of us that is not entirely on board. Rather than trying to overpower that part through willpower, EFT invites us to listen to it.

What thoughts and feelings come up when you imagine doing the new behavior?

Those thoughts and feelings are often where the work begins.

For example, suppose you would like to reach out to potential clients for your business. On the surface, the behavior seems simple: send an email, make a phone call, or introduce yourself. But when you imagine actually doing it, perhaps a thought appears:

“I’m really afraid of being rejected”.

That fear becomes a great place to tap.

You might focus on an imagined future scenario in which someone rejects your offer. Or perhaps an older memory comes to mind, a time when you felt rejected or embarrassed, and that memory still carries emotional charge today. By working with the emotional charge attached to those experiences, the idea of reaching out often begins to feel less threatening.

The same principle applies to many other behaviors.

Imagine that your goal is to start going to the gym more regularly. You might notice a thought such as:

“Every time I’ve tried to work out before, I eventually quit, and I don’t want to disappoint myself again”.

Rather than arguing with that thought or replacing it with a positive affirmation, you can give it the microphone while tapping. There may be disappointment from previous attempts, fear of failing again, or shame about past experiences that deserve to be heard.

Or perhaps you want to reduce the amount of time you spend on your phone.

As you imagine putting your phone away, what spontaneous thoughts and feelings do you notice coming up?

You might notice thoughts such as:

“I don’t want to miss an important notification”.

Or:

“I’ll be bored if I don’t have my phone”.

Those reactions often carry emotional charge, and that emotional charge is exactly what EFT can help us work with.

The same applies to food cravings.

Suppose your goal is to eat less sugar. One layer might simply be the craving itself.

“Just thinking about those chocolates, I really want to eat them. They’re so damned good!”

That is a perfectly good place to begin tapping.

As you continue, deeper layers may emerge.

“When I imagine my life without eating sugar, I wonder what the point would even be. It’s my only source of pleasure nowadays”.

That thought may reveal something much more significant than a craving. It might point toward loneliness, stress, exhaustion, or a lack of enjoyment in other areas of life.

One aspect of this process that I think is especially important is remembering that the part of us resisting change often has something valuable to say.

Our first impulse may be to view resistance as an obstacle that needs to disappear. But very often it is trying to protect us or point out something that deserves our attention.

For example, someone might think:

“Going to the gym will take too much time”.

That may be a completely reasonable concern. Instead of dismissing it, we can ask whether there is a way to exercise that fits more realistically into our schedule.

Or perhaps someone notices:

“I don’t feel ready to reach out to potential clients because I don’t even know exactly what I’m offering”.

Again, that may contain useful information. Rather than tapping until the concern disappears, it may be more helpful to spend some time clarifying the offer first.

In other words, EFT is not only about reducing emotional charge. It can also help us better understand ourselves and our circumstances. Sometimes the thoughts that object to change are driven by fear or old emotional wounds. Other times, they highlight practical problems that can actually be solved.

The more willing we are to listen to both possibilities, the easier it often becomes to create changes that are not only meaningful, but also sustainable.

And even if we only release some of the emotional charge, or we only work through a few of the thoughts and feelings involved, that progress can still move us in the right direction. As those emotional obstacles become smaller, changing the behavior often requires less conscious effort and less willpower than before. It may not suddenly become easy per se, but it can gradually become easier.

That said, when it comes to doing EFT, it’s not always easy to do it by ourselves. If you’d like some support exploring what’s coming up for you, you can learn more about my approach at brunosade.com.

————————————————————————————-

I’m Bruno Sade, a clinical psychologist and Accredited Certified Advanced EFT Practitioner. I work online with people around the world, helping them reduce the emotional charge behind difficult thoughts, memories, and triggers.

If you’re curious about experiencing EFT in a guided session, I occasionally offer a free EFT tapping session in exchange for a brief market research interview. You can sign up here.

We all experience unpleasant emotions from time to time. Sometimes they are understandable reactions to difficult situations, and other times they seem to come out of nowhere. A comment, a facial expression, or a seemingly minor event suddenly triggers a strong emotional response of anger, fear, grief, shame, or disappointment.

Very often, these reactions have to do with what we commonly call “triggers.” Something in the present reminds our nervous system of an emotionally charged experience from the past, even if we are not consciously aware of the connection.

At first, these emotional reactions may be quite specific. Perhaps they only happen in certain situations or with certain people. But if we never give ourselves an opportunity to safely process those emotions, they can gradually begin to take up more space in our lives.

Over time, we may notice that the reactions become more frequent, more intense, or last longer than they used to. The emotional charge remains unresolved, and because it has not been given a chance to move through us, it keeps looking for opportunities to be expressed.

This can affect many different areas of life.

Relationships are often one of the first places where we notice the impact. During moments of emotional activation, we may say or do things that we later regret. A conversation that could have been resolved calmly instead turns into an argument because one or both people have become emotionally overwhelmed.

The effects are not limited to relationships. Unprocessed emotions can also influence the way we think. Some people find themselves having repetitive, intrusive thoughts that are difficult to ignore. Those thoughts can interfere with work, hobbies, or simply enjoying the present moment. Much of their persistence comes from the emotional charge attached to them.

Our bodies can also be affected. Emotional stress does not cause every physical symptom or medical condition, and it is important not to assume that it does. At the same time, there is good evidence that stress can contribute to certain physical problems, and many people notice improvements in symptoms such as muscle tension, headaches, or digestive discomfort as their emotional stress decreases.

When unpleasant emotions remain unaddressed, they often become more disruptive with time.

The encouraging part is that beginning to address them does not necessarily require hours of work every day. Even spending a few minutes tapping can make a meaningful difference, especially if those minutes are spent giving the microphone to whatever thoughts, emotions, or body sensations are asking most strongly for our attention. For some people, combining a brief daily tapping practice with sessions alongside a skilled practitioner once a week or even twice a month provides enough support to begin creating lasting change.

One analogy that I often use is the idea of a town hall meeting.

Imagine that someone attending the meeting has been trying to speak for a long time, but every time they raise their hand, they are ignored because they are considered too negative, too emotional, or too disruptive. Eventually, that person is likely to become frustrated. They may interrupt the meeting, shout louder, or find another way to be heard.

Our emotions can behave in a similar way.

When we repeatedly refuse to acknowledge them, they often become more persistent. Giving them the microphone, while tapping and staying within a level of activation that feels manageable for our nervous system, allows those emotions to finally express what they have been trying to communicate.

Another metaphor that I find helpful is to imagine a large ship crossing the ocean.

The direction the ship is pointing today represents the course our emotional life will naturally continue to follow if nothing changes. Every time we spend a few minutes processing an emotionally charged memory, thought, or feeling through tapping, we make a very small adjustment to the ship’s direction**. One adjustment may seem insignificant, but over time those small adjustments can gradually lead to a very different destination**.

As that happens, our emotional reactions often become less frequent, less intense, and shorter lasting. We may find ourselves responding more thoughtfully during difficult conversations, enjoying daily activities with fewer intrusive thoughts, and feeling calmer in situations that previously felt overwhelming. Some people also notice improvements in aspects of their physical health, particularly when stress has been contributing to their symptoms.

I sometimes think of emotional processing as a long-term investment. One round of tapping rarely changes everything overnight. But if we spend a few minutes, day after day, giving the microphone to whatever thoughts, feelings, or body sensations are asking most strongly for our attention, those small moments of processing can gradually add up. Months later, we may look back and realize that situations which used to completely overwhelm us now feel much easier to navigate.

That said, when it comes to doing EFT, it’s not always easy to do it by ourselves. If you’d like some support exploring what’s coming up for you, you can learn more about my approach at brunosade.com.

————————————————————————————-

I’m Bruno Sade, a clinical psychologist and Accredited Certified Advanced EFT Practitioner. I work online with people around the world, helping them reduce the emotional charge behind difficult thoughts, memories, and triggers.

If you’re curious about experiencing EFT in a guided session, I occasionally offer a free EFT tapping session in exchange for a brief market research interview. You can sign up here.

It might be a large bill you weren’t expecting, an expensive car repair, a sudden loss of income, or any other situation that puts pressure on your finances. Even when the setback is manageable from a practical standpoint, the emotional reaction can sometimes feel quite intense.

Part of the reason for this is that money is often closely linked to our sense of safety and survival. When something happens that affects our finances, it can activate fears and beliefs that go far beyond the actual amount of money involved.

This is where EFT can be particularly helpful.

When a financial setback occurs, one useful approach is to give the microphone to the thoughts and feelings that come up when you think about what happened.

Rather than trying to immediately reassure yourself or think positively, it can be helpful to become curious.

What exactly are you telling yourself about this situation?

What does this setback seem to confirm?

For example, some people notice thoughts such as:

• “I knew this would happen”.
• “I’ll never have enough”.
• “Why does this always happen to me?”
• “I’m never going to get ahead”.
• “I can’t afford to make mistakes”.

These thoughts are often more important than the setback itself because they reveal the deeper beliefs and fears that have been activated.

If the situation triggers a sense of scarcity, hopelessness, shame, disappointment, frustration, or fear, those emotions can become the focus of the tapping.

You might ask yourself questions such as:

• Why do I believe this about money?
• What emotion comes up when I think about this setback?
• Does this feeling seem familiar?
• Have I felt this way before?

Very often, financial setbacks do not just activate present-day concerns. They also activate older experiences that are still carrying an unpleasant emotional charge.

This is another area where EFT can be useful.

You may find it helpful to tap on specific memories related to money, one at a time. It is not necessary to tap on every unpleasant money-related memory you have ever had. Often, working on a few significant experiences can create meaningful shifts.

For example, you might remember wanting a toy as a child that your parents could not afford. Or perhaps you remember losing a job, struggling to pay a bill, getting into debt, or receiving unexpected financial news.

When working with these memories, it is important to remember that EFT focuses on the emotional charge you feel in the present moment when thinking about them. We are not tapping on the past itself, but on how we feel now as we remember it.

As the emotional charge around these experiences begins to soften, the beliefs that once felt unquestionably true can start to feel less true than before.

A thought such as “I’ll never have enough” may still appear occasionally, but it often begins to feel less convincing and less emotionally charged. Instead of feeling like an unquestionable fact, it starts to feel more like a passing thought.

Financial setbacks are a normal part of life, even though they can be really stressful when they occur. By using EFT to work with the emotions, beliefs, and memories that these situations activate, we can often respond to them with greater clarity and calm.

And while tapping may not repair the car or pay the bill, it can help reduce the emotional burden that makes these already stressful situations a lot harder to navigate.

That said, when it comes to doing EFT, it’s not always easy to do it by ourselves. If you’d like some support exploring what’s coming up for you, you can learn more about my approach at brunosade.com.

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I’m Bruno Sade, a clinical psychologist and Accredited Certified Advanced EFT Practitioner. I work online with people around the world, helping them reduce the emotional charge behind difficult thoughts, memories, and triggers.

If you’re curious about experiencing EFT in a guided session, I occasionally offer a free EFT tapping session in exchange for a brief market research interview. You can sign up here.

One question that comes up from time to time is whether EFT works better if you tap in your native language.

I remember wondering about this myself many years ago. Since then, after working with clients for several years as an EFT practitioner, my answer has become fairly simple:

As long as you are able to emotionally connect with the issue while you tap, the language itself is usually not what matters most.

One of the most common misconceptions about EFT is the idea that the words we use have to be exactly right, almost as if they were a password that unlocks the process. In my experience, that is not how EFT works.

The purpose of the words and phrases we use while tapping is to help us connect with the emotional charge we want to work on. They help us “tune in” to the issue. They can also help us allow ourselves to feel what we are feeling.

For example, many people use balancing statements such as “I accept this is how I’m feeling” or “this is where I’m at right now”. The value of these phrases does not come from the specific words themselves, but they are meant to remind us that the more we can allow ourselves to feel what we are feeling (as opposed to fighting it, judging it or resisting it), the better the tapping tends to work.

If a phrase helps you connect with the feeling, then it is serving its purpose.

This is one of the reasons why I do not think there is a universal requirement to tap in your native language.

Around 90% of my sessions with clients are conducted in English because most of my clients live in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, or Australia. Some of those clients speak English as a second language, yet we tap in English and the process works very well.

What matters is whether the language allows you to connect with what you are feeling.

That being said, there are situations where a particular word, phrase, memory, or experience carries more emotional charge in one language than another.

For example, someone might notice that a certain childhood memory feels much more emotionally alive when remembered in their native language. Or they may realize that a specific phrase only “hits home” when expressed in the language in which the original experience occurred.

In those cases, it can make sense to use that language.

In fact, with some of my bilingual clients who speak both English and Spanish (like myself), we sometimes end up tapping in a mixture of both languages. We might start in English, switch to Spanish for a few emotionally charged phrases, and then switch back again. You could jokingly call it “Spanglish EFT”.

What is interesting is that this often happens naturally. As people connect more deeply with an emotion, they sometimes find themselves reaching for the words that reflect their actual thoughts and feelings the most, regardless of which language those words belong to.

So if you prefer tapping in English, even though it is not your native language, there is no reason to assume that the tapping will be less effective.

The question I would focus on instead is this:

Does the language you are using help you connect with the emotional charge you want to release?

If the answer is yes, then you are probably using the right language for that moment.

That said, when it comes to doing EFT, it’s not always easy to do it by ourselves. If you’d like some support exploring what’s coming up for you, you can learn more about my approach at brunosade.com.

————————————————————————————-

I’m Bruno Sade, a clinical psychologist and Accredited Certified Advanced EFT Practitioner. I work online with people around the world, helping them reduce the emotional charge behind difficult thoughts, memories, and triggers.

If you’re curious about experiencing EFT in a guided session, I occasionally offer a free EFT tapping session in exchange for a brief market research interview. You can sign up here.