Healing Your Inner Child with EFT Tapping | Niko Ana Jeanne Episode

What if your anxiety, triggers, or self-doubt aren’t flaws—but your inner child simply asking to feel safe?
Discover how EFT tapping gently heals old wounds and rewires your nervous system with Niko Ana Jeanne, author of Healing the Inner Child with EFT Tapping: A Step-by-Step Guide to Emotional Freedom and Reparenting Yourself, and her powerful four-step Inner Child Revolution process.

In this heartfelt conversation with host Caryl Westmore, we explore how childhood experiences live in the body, why emotional triggers are often “younger parts” asking for safety, and how EFT tapping helps regulate the nervous system to create lasting emotional freedom.

Together we talk about:

✨ inner child healing and conscious reparenting
✨ tapping for anxiety, trauma, and overwhelm
✨ releasing old survival patterns
✨ why creative blocks and visibility fears often start in childhood
✨ practical tools you can use right away

CONNECT WITH NIKO ANA JEANNE:  https://nikoanajeanne.com/

EFT Series
This episode is part of our ongoing EFT Tapping Series, where Caryl interviews leading practitioners, authors, and healers sharing real stories and practical tools for transformation.

Many guests also contribute to the global collaborative book Tap into Your Best Life, inspiring EFT tapping stories of real-life healing and change—featuring a foreword by Karl Dawson, a preface by Dr. Peta Stapleton, and contributions from experts including Brad Yates and practitioners from around the world.

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Transcript

NIKO ANA JEANNE

[00:00:00] Caryl: Welcome to the Write the Book Inside You podcast. I'm your host, Caryl Westmore, where we dive into all things about writing your book. one of my favorite sayings is Make Love Not War to the writer within. that's a particularly apt way of looking at ourselves as creatives, today my guest is Nico Anna Jean, author of Healing the Inner Child with EFT Tapping, which is about connecting with that part of us

that has been kept from being our best selves. Nico is leading what she calls an inner child revolution blending, EFT, tapping. With conscious reparenting, helping people heal childhood wounds, regulate their nervous system, and rewire the neural pathways that can hijack us from living our best life and being our best creative welcome Nico.

And tell us about how you came to write your book on EFT Tapping in the [00:01:00] inner child.

[00:01:00] Niko Ana Jeanne: Thank you so much for that introduction. I really appreciate it. And thank you for having me. the short story of how I came to write the book is a culmination of my personal experiences in my healing journey.

having worked with many, private clients, one-to-one groups, and training, EFT students, I realized that if I wanted to share something that profoundly. Changed my life and the lives of people I've been working with on a, a larger scale that I was going to have to do the work it takes to put it in a format that would be easy for a large number of people to access quickly.

[00:01:44] Caryl: Yes. And so when they read your book, it gives them the whole idea of how you would work with them. Correct. As a coach and healer.

[00:01:53] Niko Ana Jeanne: Yeah,, it essentially gives a blueprint for how to approach. your [00:02:00] own self-healing. it gives the blueprint for how to do that on your own in a way that's, easy to comprehend, easy to apply.

I do go into the steps. It's truly a step by step method, that a person could do on their own. That doesn't mean you can't still get support on the journey, of course, but yes, I do go into a step-by-step method.

[00:02:25] Caryl: We are going to talk about that today. One of my favorite quotes you mentioned in the book is by the father or the grandfather of inner child work, John Bradshaw, and he said "the child you once were is still living inside you, waiting for your love to free them".

Can you expand on that and how his origination of the word inner child has affected your work?

[00:02:50] Niko Ana Jeanne: Absolutely. That is a wonderful quote, because it's so true., I've had the incredible privilege of being able to be [00:03:00] mentored and work with some really, Highly skilled and talented, gifted therapists and coaches.

and of course John Bradshaw is, you say, grandfather of the work in psychology. what I learned that I think was the most profound thing that anyone could take away from this, from my own mentor, Patrick Ian, and he talked about how the inner child lives in the body. This is what John Bradshaw also talked about.

So the inner child lives somatically in the body. And you could say the inner child is the nervous system. the things we experienced in the past as children live in our nervous system as unresolved patterns. And what we don't realize it, most of us don't realize it, is that we are constantly being--

the word is triggered --or we're responding or reacting to the present moment from the inner child's perspective of the [00:04:00] past. it shows up in the body as, nervous system activation, panic anxiety fear or anger, and typically it's an overreaction to what's actually going on in the present.

This is one of the most powerful understandings of it because once you realize that, then you can start to get what's called in psychology, the subject object shift. that's a fancy word for basically seeing the child instead of being the child. That's the first most powerful step.

[00:04:37] Caryl: And can you give us an example from your case studies, perhaps even ones you mentioned, in the book of how someone would come to you not realizing they're being triggered by their inner child maybe they come for coaching for something else.

how would you help them, connect and reparent their inner child. How would you do it? 'cause you've got EFT tapping on one side, which does [00:05:00] one thing, and you've also got the concept of parts work, with a part that is, a hurting child

[00:05:07] Niko Ana Jeanne: it's funny that you say, someone might come to me before I really defined who I was working with specifically.

They may come to me and they've got a problem or a goal, once you work with them, I. Would specifically work with people using emotional freedom, technique, tapping to help them stabilize their nervous system. As, one of the biggest,, umbrella, benefits of tapping is to calm the nervous system.

Once the nervous system becomes calm and the brain is able to a access the prefrontal cortex, you're able to work from the prefrontal cortex, meaning we're able to access,, problem solving, we can, be more, creative. When we're in panic, our amygdala is taking us over and we're in flight, fight, freeze fawn... all [00:06:00] those responses.

Mm-hmm. So you cannot connect with your inner child. Well. Unless you have your inner adult online, meaning your nervous system is regulated and you can approach your inner child from that place. that's the beauty of blending EFT, one of the many tools that can help you regulate your nervous system.

But for me, it saved my life because I used to have a panic disorder that was untreatable by any other means. So,

[00:06:30] Caryl: that brings me to the question of your origin story. was that where you first sought help? tell us about that. could you go back to something you have talked about narcissistic trauma as a child.

I dunno if you say you're moving away from now, but was that part of your origin story?

[00:06:46] Niko Ana Jeanne: Yeah, so it's funny because that's not why I started using tapping, at the time I became aware of tapping, I had done a lot of inner work and I was just still [00:07:00] dealing with managing a panic disorder, and having anxiety attacks constantly.

And what happened was I'd been to therapist. I tried everything under the sun. It was better, but still, I still felt stalked by the possible panic attack that could come at any time for no reason and was uncontrollable. once I started using tapping, I came upon it accidentally.

Through a video with Nick Ortner from The Tapping Solution, that's how they come to tapping. I started tapping in a video and I had this profound experience where I just really had an emotional release. I started crying while I was tapping, but I felt this incredible relief.

[00:07:44] Caryl: Mm-hmm.

[00:07:44] Niko Ana Jeanne: So that led me to explore tapping on my own to release anxiety. I was already coaching and had a life coaching business, but I found that if I was using, tapping with my clients, they were getting [00:08:00] much faster results. I ended up pursuing EFT certification because I wanted to add that to my life coaching business.

[00:08:08] Caryl: Mm-hmm.

[00:08:09] Niko Ana Jeanne: It wasn't until, the year two, two, 2020, before COVID that I ended up going on a path and discovering that I. Was experiencing a specific trauma called narcissistic trauma. I had already been doing work with EFT, but what happened was I found on YouTube, Patrick Tien's channel.

He is a very popular therapist that educates people on parenting the inner child. I had the incredible blessing to work with him as a therapist. he doesn't take. clients anymore, but at the time he did so I got to work with him directly and learned how to reparent my inner child even though he didn't use tapping.

I used tapping while doing this work.

[00:08:55] Caryl: So that's interesting because in the book I noticed you [00:09:00] talk about the non-dominant handwriting, which I learned in the eighties from Lu Caponi. was he the mentor who first introduced you to it and tell us about that as a way to connect and speak to her inner child?

If we've never done any of this work before.

[00:09:15] Niko Ana Jeanne: Yeah, so that is what he had me do in sessions take a pen and dominant, non-dominant hand journaling. dominant hand for adult self, non-dominant hand for child.

[00:09:28] Caryl: Yeah. Just explain that step by step. So you take a piece of paper and you take, say a crayon or pen and just tell us how it works.

So your dominant hand is your adult self.. But you explain. Yes. And you ask a question So explain how this works to connect with your child.

[00:09:48] Niko Ana Jeanne: So you can use dominant, non-dominant hand journaling. you use your dominant hand to write

that dominant hand is the adult self. Speaking to the inner child, the [00:10:00] non-dominant hand represents the child part, which expresses or response to the dominant hand. And this actually uses, when you switch hands, it uses a different part of the brain. So you really bypass a lot of resistance that could come up.

And it does create a separation. And it also is somatic because writing is somatic. it, makes it more powerful than just talking in your head

[00:10:24] Caryl: yes.

[00:10:25] Niko Ana Jeanne: But what I also added myself was while tapping, you can tap on the side of the hand point.

tapping with your dominant hand or switching and tapping with your non-dominant hand. I added that in because it felt natural to me if I wanted to connect with my inner child in dialogue, say out loud or even in my own head, or as a way to work with clients, I've developed that as a technique.

to help clients dialogue with their inner child while I was guiding them. It works the same way because it's somatic,? It's tapping [00:11:00] side of the hand point.

[00:11:00] Caryl: I that way you don't have to sit down with a pen. I did this for years with my journaling when I discovered it with Lucy Apache Capone's books, the Power of the Other Hand.

But I that you also bring in tapping and saying That's an answer from my inner child. What she would want to say to me. Correct. And then I would ask her what's bothering her? Is it that?

[00:11:22] Niko Ana Jeanne: It's exactly that. it's any relationship where, you're connecting saying, look, I see you, I notice that you are feeling upset and, I want to know more.

Can you tell me?, how are you feeling? I'm here for you. And then you switch and you wait for the response. You don't assume or because that's the thing about it is surprising and powerful, what you may get if you actually wait for the child part to express or answer. the process that I explained in the book is very simple, you always approach your inner child [00:12:00] with, empathy.

Unconditional support and love validation as in absolutely it makes sense. You feel that way. 'cause all feelings should be accepted and encouraged. So that's the first step. And once you get that rapport going, you don't try to change the inner child's feelings or how they're perceiving it. You just validate and you say, of course

You feel that way. You offer, protection and support and safety before you try to do any work around changing their perception of what's happening.

[00:12:39] Caryl: Exactly. I think you talk about the four pillars of nurturing communication in your book for children,

Safety, validation, acceptance, and presence. I'd you to expand a bit on the tone and the attitude you need, that calmness, that gentleness if you've been triggered, you may not have immediately, so [00:13:00] would you say you've gotta bring down your present day self to knowing that perhaps this is to do with your inner child feeling unsafe, so you first have to regulate.

could you explain that, how that would work? Give us a case study, an example of someone who came to you not high on the scale of, one to 10 about something she didn't realize. Tell us how you would've worked with her.

[00:13:24] Niko Ana Jeanne: Yeah, so, of all the clients I've worked with, there's a lot of commonalities, I could take different case studies and create,, an avatar of a client that will come to me typically, because I work with a lot of coaches

their pain points and challenges are getting stuck in their business. being visible, making their offers, putting themselves out there, setting boundaries with clients. So typically,, a client would come to me and say something like, I really want to have this coaching business and I want, I have this income goal,, and I, I wanna be able [00:14:00] to get clients, but as soon as I.

Wanna go talk to someone about my services. I get I just shut down and I can't reach out, I get on sales calls or discovery calls and I get scared. this is a really common thing that can come up for coaches. So what happens is, when I work with them one-on-one, we identify exactly the moment where they're feeling.

The anxiety come up what happens in the body? is the indication that the inner child has taken them over. I'm overwhelmed. I'm scared. the inner child has taken over the interaction. The inner child's driving the bus. Yeah. Inner child's running the business.

What we do is we work to get the client to see the child instead of be the child. We tap to get the nervous system regulated first, and then we go into a dialogue and the easiest [00:15:00] way to get to it is to use the present moment, trigger, I got an email from a potential client, they wanna get on a call with me, and now I'm totally freaked out.

so we dialogue with the child part about that. It would be like, so I know you're feeling really scared when we got this email that we might be getting on the call with them, and I'm wondering, can you tell me more about that? How are you feeling? Switch and wait for the part to express.

So typically the part's going to express, it's gonna say something like, I'm scared. I, I don't wanna do that. What if they get mad at me? What if, what if I can't handle it?? So that's an example of how we use the present moment trigger to work with the child.

You have to find out what it is that they're being triggered about. eventually what you do is you find out where this is coming from. In the past, well, of course you're scared [00:16:00] because when you were a kid, you had to manage all the adult's emotions around you,

That wasn't your job, and you didn't know how to do that and you didn't know how to set boundaries. So of course, you're scared to get on a call with someone,

[00:16:13] Caryl: let the child tell you what it is that scares her.

[00:16:17] Niko Ana Jeanne: Yes, absolutely. that's the whole beauty of separating out the adult from the child part.

the adult self is dialoguing with the inner child and you switch whether it's. Writing or tapping. You always switch the parts. It's a conversation that goes back and forth. you're having a conversation with a real person. It's no different than that.

[00:16:40] Caryl: so then that person would calm down and realize that every time she goes into this sphere. It could be if she's curious to do with that child until you bring that child to a point where they feel safe to speak up.

[00:16:58] Niko Ana Jeanne: Yes. And that [00:17:00] the resolution of it is to offer protection from whatever they fear or to take back the responsibility of the adult relationship, which that's what it would be between you and your client.

That's an adult relationship. The inner child has no business trying to get involved in that. And they need to go be a child. And the adult needs to handle the adult relationships. so there's a process in which you bring the child into the present moment with you and say, look, I got this. You don't have to worry about it.

I can handle it.

[00:17:31] Caryl: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:31] Niko Ana Jeanne: And you take that back from them, they feel relieved.

[00:17:35] Caryl: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:36] Niko Ana Jeanne: And then you can know that you're approaching your relationships interactions business and life from the adult place.

[00:17:44] Caryl: And so you reach a point after you,, a lot of people say, well, how much work must I do on myself before my child is free?

What would you say to that?

[00:17:55] Niko Ana Jeanne: I'd say that's not the best question. It's not the most empowering question because the fact [00:18:00] that., that indicates that there's, there's some parameters around, like, I'm trying to get to a destination. Whereas in this work, it's the journey that bears fruit. So I think a better question to ask is just, how can I continue to reap the benefits in every day of continuing to have this relationship with my inner child?

Because healing isn't a linear process, people ask me that all the time, but I can't tell them.

[00:18:27] Caryl: Well, I knew, that's why I'm asking you, I think he even says that in your book, that's a very common thing. People say, when will my, well, I asked that question and all the, on the work I was doing for quite, several years before tapping, when I was working with my inner child one day I started to paint and do things that my creative.

In a child, and that's why I talk about the inner game of writing. And not always, it's not always a child, but can be a professor who told the, the adult self that you're not a good writer. You're never going to make money. Writing children's books is one of my clients,, [00:19:00] experienced.

But if you track it back, it is often before the age of six, that something happened and the belief is set up. I think you talk about the self-identity that you have to release, that may have come from the past and what people said and did.

[00:19:16] Niko Ana Jeanne: Yeah, absolutely., if I was working with someone one-on-one and using EFT, you go into past events in EFT, you can find, where the professor told you that.

you can work on more recent events easier than long in the past.

[00:19:32] Caryl: Hmm.

[00:19:33] Niko Ana Jeanne: use that event as a way to repair it in the moment bring the charge off the event with, with a technique, an EF TT technique, tell the story or something. But then you can actually reparent in the memory and change what happened.

go in as your adult self. Then come to the younger self or child's rescue and tell the professor off, or whatever needs to happen [00:20:00] and change what happens, which actually changes the present moment. Because if you formed an identity in that moment where the professor told you're never gonna do that, and then you think, oh boy,, and you create a belief in that moment that you're carrying forward, you can change that by going back to the past and changing the memory.

[00:20:20] Caryl: Yeah, so talk about that. as you probably know we use matrix three and printing. Yes. tell us about, memory consolidation and how you approach it in your work.

[00:20:32] Niko Ana Jeanne: Yeah, and I realized that mare pinching, it's a similar technique. My own approach is simply that I discovered that if we apply reparenting in a memory, then based on quantum physics we can literally by observing a different outcome in the past.

Through the quantum physics, we're actually collapsing a new possibly. So the present moment is [00:21:00] based on what we're observing in the past,?

[00:21:03] Caryl: Yes, exactly.

[00:21:03] Niko Ana Jeanne: Quantum physics, that also changes the future. So if we can reparent ourselves, not just in the moment around something's happening in the present, but literally the past events change the past.

Then it literally changes the present, which is the future.

[00:21:21] Caryl: Yeah, so I know that you do some work with future, tell us about the future, aspect of your work.

[00:21:29] Niko Ana Jeanne: Yeah, well, I do have a strategic partnership. It's a, my private work that I do with people, what's called Future Self Mastery, and it is based on quantum principles the quantum.

Realm says that every version of you exists all at once every version of your life that's possible exists in the field all at once. So if you want to be someone who can be, do, and have what you want, you have to tune into the [00:22:00] frequency of that version of you that actually already exists

Or figure out how to be that person, but literally that future self exists in the field. You tune into that future version of you, and by doing so, you're collapsing the gap between where you are in time and where they are in time and you collapse and you start taking their consciousness and hearing their thoughts and getting ideas from them.

And that literally allows you to step into that version of you now. Exactly, but I'll tell you that the inner child work is really foundational for that because

[00:22:42] Caryl: Exactly, that's what I'm hearing that it can become exciting when you clear, the trauma capsules, the parts

that have been stuck in beliefs and programming. And then, do you call it the magical child? What do you call the child who's free and who's creative? what's the name you [00:23:00] give her?

[00:23:00] Niko Ana Jeanne: The way I see The Magical Child. everyone's got a different perspective.

The Magical Child is Not an actual child, but a representation of source energy being expressed completely unlimited, completely free of trauma it's the pure essence of being, represented by, this child that has never been touched by harm or trauma in this world.

[00:23:30] Caryl: Yes, exactly. once you are in that frequency, then the future self dreams and, mastery can become much easier. Correct.

[00:23:40] Niko Ana Jeanne: That's the way I see it, because I feel as long as we're held in a pattern of identity based on the beliefs we created from the past, it's difficult to tune into anything different.

[00:23:53] Caryl: exactly. It comes from a conscious mind. Sometimes when you go into a deeper state with the [00:24:00] tapping, whatever work you're doing. I've found that you can then. be aware of the future. It's more fluid. you're not just stuck in the present saying, that's what I want.

[00:24:11] Niko Ana Jeanne: It's a shift in consciousness, which happens naturally from doing a lot of deep work and stabilizing your nervous system.

[00:24:18] Caryl: Mm-hmm.

[00:24:18] Niko Ana Jeanne: that's what I've experienced.

[00:24:20] Caryl: and Nico, for someone who knows they have old emotional patterns, but feel intimidated. What's the gentlest first step you'd suggest?

[00:24:30] Niko Ana Jeanne: Yeah. So in my book I talk about that the first step is to, go through

[00:24:34] Caryl: Yes, exactly.

[00:24:34] Niko Ana Jeanne: It's to learn the EFT tapping and to stabilize your adult self first before trying to connect with the inner child. in the book I explain, how EFT works. the science behind it, and the simple steps of using EFT, tapping to calm your nervous system address fears that might be coming up and to feel really stable and coherent in [00:25:00] your own self.

[00:25:01] Caryl: Yeah. So the steps are in there and, they could read the book and start or reach out to you, watch the webinar you offer through the book. Is that?

[00:25:12] Niko Ana Jeanne: I do have reference to my, it's a master class, a free masterclass, and it is called the Four Step Method to Breaking Toxic Cycles and Becoming the Coach are meant to Be.

the masterclass is for coaches who feel really stuck in toxic patterns in their life.

[00:25:30] Caryl: So when we ask how can people get hold of you, and I'll put it in the show notes, would you say go to your website and tune into that webinar?

[00:25:39] Niko Ana Jeanne: Yes, my website, which is just nico and jean.com, has everything that I offer, the book, the masterclass, and all the other pathways, to work with me.

[00:25:48] Caryl: now I think we are coming to an end of our interviews. There's something that I haven't asked you what I wanted to talk to you about was the process of writing the book inside [00:26:00] you, whether, we didn't really cover it. how long did it take you to write the book?

What were the challenges, et cetera?

[00:26:08] Niko Ana Jeanne: Yeah, so I would say that once I made the decision to create the outline it took about seven months to get to where the manuscript was ready to publish. But I have to say that before that I spent several years thinking about writing it and never actually writing it.

[00:26:30] Caryl: Yes. And, and what I really that, that the clarity of the two streams in the book, one is the brain, the neural pathways, and the other is the reparenting. I think you said the energy psychology part and the scientific neuroscience part.

Is that correct? you've explained that without making it too, scientific.

[00:26:54] Niko Ana Jeanne: I feel it's important to understand that and you don't have to have a deep understanding of it for it to be [00:27:00] impactful. But I did want people to understand that it's not just. Woo, mystical stuff, which that's fine too.

'cause if you don't need science and, and to me it's all about if it works, then you don't have to know how it works. But I think it is empowering to understand that we can look with science and understand why these things work.

[00:27:23] Caryl: Yes. which we, in the beginning, many years ago, and many of us started out, we didn't have that evidential proof that we do more and more have now.

I really honor you for writing your book, healing the Inner Child with the tapping and bringing together so much, information and empathy to writing it for people who may be stuck in their lives and not connected with their inner child.

[00:27:48] Niko Ana Jeanne: Yes. Well, like, thank you. And I said, it took a while and I will just say that my inner child got very triggered while I was writing the book. Oh, really?

[00:27:58] Caryl: That's what I wondered.

[00:27:59] Niko Ana Jeanne: [00:28:00] I had to do a lot of work with her to get us through the book it had a lot to do with, owning the method and putting it out there for people to read

that part was challenging, but we did get through it and through the tools and the techniques the book's published. So that's proof

[00:28:17] Caryl: you announced that it hit

[00:28:18] Niko Ana Jeanne: the

[00:28:19] Caryl: best seller?

[00:28:20] Niko Ana Jeanne: It hit the bestseller list a couple days after I published it, which was, I had no idea that was gonna happen.

[00:28:26] Caryl: what's the response been from, your followers, your tribe? Have there been. a wide buzz.

[00:28:33] Niko Ana Jeanne: I have gotten a lot of great feedback. I'm getting some reviews coming in on Amazon, which as, can be a little difficult to get but just people reaching out to me, email or,

On Facebook and saying, I'm really enjoying this book. This is amazing. This is incredible. that's great to get that feedback because

[00:28:50] Caryl: Yes, it is,

[00:28:51] Niko Ana Jeanne: Mm-hmm.

[00:28:51] Caryl: If you could speak directly to someone who's listening to their inner child now, what would you want to say?

What would you want them to hear? [00:29:00]

[00:29:01] Niko Ana Jeanne: I would say don't over complicate it. Just show up. Be there for your inner child and offer your unconditional love and support and the rest will follow. Just show up for your inner child. start now. Don't wait.

[00:29:17] Caryl:. Beautiful. Thank you. So, I'll just end on that.

I think that's, we said we can get hold of you and about your book and I that last, People, how can they connect with their inner child? So just let me turn off the recording.