39. How EFT Tapping Helps Calm Your Nervous System (A Guided Tapping Session) with Mitch Gainey

Have you ever felt completely overwhelmed by your to-do list, stuck in anxiety, or unsure how to calm your body when life feels like too much?

In this episode, Leanna welcomes back evidence-based EFT practitioner Mitch to explore one of the most accessible nervous system regulation tools available: Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), also known as tapping.

If you've ever been curious about tapping or wondered whether it actually works, this conversation is the perfect place to start. Together, Leanna and Mitch break down the science behind EFT, explain why it can feel so effective for stress and overwhelm, and guide you through a simple tapping practice you can begin using today.

Whether you're navigating parenting, work stress, or simply carrying the weight of everyday life, this episode offers practical tools to help you slow down, reconnect with your body, and build greater capacity for whatever comes next.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• What evidence-based EFT tapping is and how it supports nervous system regulation
• Why slowing down is often the fastest path toward healing
• How tapping helps calm stress, anxiety, and overwhelm
• A guided EFT tapping session you can follow along with in real time
• The difference between self-guided tapping and working with a trained practitioner
• How to know when a situation is appropriate for self-tapping—and when additional support is helpful
• Alternatives for those who don't enjoy tapping directly on the body
• Why curiosity, compassion, and pacing matter so much in the healing process

One of the biggest takeaways from this conversation is that healing isn't about forcing yourself to "get over it." It's about meeting yourself with compassion, moving at the pace your nervous system can actually handle, and remembering that even small moments of regulation can create meaningful change.

If today's conversation resonates with you, be sure to download the tapping point guide in the show notes so you can continue practicing on your own.

Remember: you don't have to carry everything alone. Sometimes one breath, one tap, and one moment of self-compassion can be the beginning of something entirely different.

Resources Mentioned: 

Tapping Points Guide 

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There’s also an optional box you can check if you’d like to be considered for a short audio coaching conversation on a future episode.

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Connect with me:
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Website → leannahunt.com

Disclaimer:
Although I am a licensed Associate Clinical Mental Health Counselor, The NeuroHeir℠ Podcast is not a substitute for therapy, counseling, or medical treatment. The tools and practices I share are for educational and coaching purposes only. Every nervous system is unique, and what we discuss on this podcast should not replace your own individual therapeutic work or professional support.

The focus of this podcast is my coaching work, which centers on education, nervous system practices, and generational healing tools designed to support—not replace—your personal journey with a qualified provider.

If you are struggling with your mental health or experiencing overwhelming emotions, please seek support from a licensed professional in your area. You don’t have to do this work alone.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Welcome to the NeuroAir Podcast, the show for cycle breakers, parents, young adults, and helping professionals ready to understand their nervous system through a generational lens, heal what isn't theirs to carry, and consciously choose what comes next. Hi, I'm your host, Leanna Hunt, an associate clinical mental health counselor and certified performance coach. Each week you'll get stories, science, and somatic practices plus my signature for and framework. Notice, name, nurture, and navigate to help you honor resilience, break silence, and build deeper connection with yourself and those you love, all while shaping a legacy of safety, freedom, and possibility. Hey guys, welcome back to the NeuroAir Podcast. I am so excited to welcome Mitch back to the show. Mitch, can you say hi to everybody?

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Hello again, everyone.

SPEAKER_04 0:55

So I'm so grateful that you decided to come back. Our conversation was so great last episode. So if you guys haven't listened, please tune back into that episode to learn more about Mitch and his journey. And we just kind of did a brief intro on evidence-based EFT. We both kind of shared that when we first found it. We were kind of like, what is this? What is this? It doesn't make sense. Or for me, it felt a little bit weird. I'm gonna let you kind of go back into that again, like when you first found EFT. And so I thought it would be really fun because I have not done a lot of tapping live on Instagram or on YouTube and haven't shared that modality in a while. And so I thought it'd be really fun to have Mitch guide us through some tapping. The world feels really heavy right now in lots of different ways. And so thought we could get to know the points and just the general protocol with Mitch. How's that sound?

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Sounds good.

SPEAKER_04 1:49

Okay, awesome. Can you, Mitch, can you just kind of tell everybody again, kind of maybe what you thought when you first found EFT and then how it feels now, and kind of that length of time, and then we'll get into it.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Yeah. So I first came across EFT in 2000 and 1450. Around then.

SPEAKER_04 2:11

Okay, so over 10 years ago, we'll say.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

About 10 years ago. So I was working with a young people experiencing homelessness in the city of Melbourne in Australia. Working in a crisis center. I was a youth worker studying counseling, and a bunch of young people saying, hey, the traditional talk therapy isn't working for us in the setting that we're in. Talk therapy is amazing, it's a good place. But we don't want to talk about our problems anymore, it doesn't fix it. And I was like, we're really gonna find something that works for these young people. So I kind of went on this trauma, it sounds funny, but trauma wasn't as big of a topic back then. Or it wasn't as kind of common to talk about like traumas or whatever those things. So there was a lot of conversations. It's behavioral, what where it's seen for them is behavioral. Nothing to do with trauma, they're in control. I kind of went, hmm, maybe this thing called trauma has something to do with. Went kind of searching around, went down the somatic path, came across EFT tapping, and just went, what a load of crap. Like, how's tapping on the face and saying things gonna change any? Dismissed it. I didn't mention this last time, but I actually had a friend of mine, one of my dearest friends, who's, you know, this no-nonsense Russian woman who speaks like four languages. She was a highly paid consultant in one of the top five consultancies. And I just briefly mentioned tapping, and she said, Oh yeah, I've done that. I was getting anxious when I was getting on planes and panic attacks, and I've done tapping. It helped. It changed my life. And I went, What? You're like really serious and like consultancy and no nonsense. And then I came across Dr. Lori Leyden's work and all the incredible stuff she's done in communities post trick. It led me onto Peter Stapleton and evidence-based EFT. So through hearing other people and people think legitimate, I kind of went, okay, maybe there's a bit more to it. I then went and did Peter Stapleton's training, and in the training, you work on some of your own content. And I actually got quite, you know, hashtag triggered during one of the training days. And essentially just I started to go into a panic attack, which was not uncommon for me. I had a pattern of panic attacks. And thankfully, my person who I was paired with was a trained psychologist who had a lot of tapping experience. And so she said, just follow me. And we went through the tapping protocol. And I just felt myself instantly calm. Memories came up, we tapped through those memories. And what had been probably, I think, at that stage, a seven-year pattern of due to a specific thing that I'd gone through. It's kind of went away. And I was like, hmm, wait, where's my panic gone? This feels strange. Where did it go?

SPEAKER_04 5:08

Or when you don't feel it in the body, right? The absence of the panic can sometimes almost make you feel a little bit. Okay to go.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Where the hell's it gone? This I've done a lot of work to work through this panic and this way the word got it done in about five minutes, which you know isn't always the case. But what I mean is like sold a shift very and I think at that point I was like, okay, what is this? And then by the end of day three, when we're working on food cravings, and you see people like people's experience of food changes through tapping, and memories come up in relationship to food, and then you're working through the emotional aspect of food craving, and then people kind of eat their food and go, This tastes disgusting. Why did I ever eat this? I think at that point I was like, oh no, I hooked. Like I need to spend so much time on that. So I got accredited through Dr. Peter, and I think that was in 2015 or 16, and then I've been in training for it ever since. Been in rural communities, working with indigenous communities, people working in indigenous communities, refugee communities, plus my one-to-one clients from all walks of life. Sometimes I'm teaching random people on the street or on the plane how to tap when they're having panic attacks on the plane. I've kind of been quite sure how to frame this, but I often seem to be where crises is happening. I'm always on places where people are fainting on trains or trams next to me, or I've just walked in on some form of incident that's happening on a street. And I'm like, okay, well I guess I'll deal with it. Tap along with me. Get people calm and all of those things.

unknown 6:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 6:56

Maybe because you have capacity for that, Mitch.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Yeah, those things just don't bother me because I think I've done so much tapping. And now I am somewhat that crazy person that will sit on a plane because I used to travel a lot for one of my one of my jobs that I used to do. Long hours on planes. Just bet I'm not gonna work through some stuff, so I sit plane tapping, um, tapping while I'm driving. And I don't care what people will think of me, even though I'm in my head, my people must think I look like I'm crazy. Every now and then an air hostess will kind of give me the wink because they must see people tapping on planes and things.

SPEAKER_04 7:32

Oh, they're like, Yeah, I I know I know. I know what you do. You're not the first person. Well, I'm so excited to have you kind of guide us. We kind of talked last time the difference between social media tapping versus maybe working with a one-on-one practitioner like yourself. I bring tapping in interchangeably with other things to my therapy clients and coaching clients. So maybe just for like just really briefly kind of talk about what this is like for someone who's just listening auditorily.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:00

They don't, you know, they don't know you, they haven't met me per in person, and they're just listening, and we're gonna kind of break down tapping, do a little tapping experience. Is there anything you want them to know ahead of time?

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Oh, good question. One of my favorite sayings is we always go as fast as the slowest part. So a lot of what you see and hear online in regards to trauma work or healing work or whatever label you want to use there is there's a lot of pressure to be hashtag yield.

SPEAKER_04 8:34

Let's say that again.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

Yeah. And you know, I can go on a very big rant about what that is in the healing industry. But you know, trauma happens when an experience happens too much too soon.

unknown 8:50

Totally.

SPEAKER_00 8:51

Um, you use this word capacity before, so we have experiences that are beyond our capacity to metabolize process. And so a lot of the content you see online, it's like just shake your hips to heal your trauma, or just do this stretch, or just buy this $500 device that's in pulses on your neck and heal your vapors.

SPEAKER_04 9:10

There's a lot of those right now, actually.

SPEAKER_00 9:12

And all of those things have their place. I try really hard not to poo-poo things, all of those things have a place when you know what they're doing and how to be with that experience. E of T of its own nature can move quickly. And so what I would encourage people to do is particularly if you're learning this for the first time, so we just do the basics, we go slow. If things start happening and you're not sure what's happening, you pause, you do all of those things, which I'm sure you've heard on the podcast and you've heard Liana talk about, feel your feet, you name me five green things, or five things you can see, four things you can hear, whatever it is. And then just go at your pace. You know, you are always in charge of your quote unquote healing journey, your healing pace, and any professional you work with there to support you. Don't even allow your practitioners or some random Australian on a podcast to guide you beyond your steps in your process. Because that's also part of the healing as well, is going, yeah, actually, what's my pace to this?

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 10:27

Yeah, I think that's really, really important. So wherever you're listening, if this is something you want to try out, maybe if you're driving, this probably maybe isn't the time, but please keep listening and follow along, or if you're at a point where you can pull over to a park or somewhere that feels like a good place for you, or you're folding laundry, or wherever you're listening, maybe you're on a break at work. We invite you to join us. And I kind of like to set the intention of just being curious.

SPEAKER_02 10:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:51

Curiosity for sure, just to kind of see, especially if you've never done any type of body tapping, which I think a lot of my followers, this is gonna be pretty new because I actually haven't broken it down yet. So I'm really, really excited. So, Mitch, you ready to guide us?

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:05

Okay, let's go.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Alrighty. So when it comes to tapping, I'm gonna go through the very basic first, and then I'll go to the basic after that. So the very basic first is something we call tap and breathe. And favorite. Tap and breathe is probably the number one tool that you will use for yourself when you're just kind of going through life and you need something that helps you calm, helps you kind of go down into parasynthetic, helps you stay with an experience, and allow the body to do what it needs to do to get back to a space of safety and calm. I will try and keep in mind that some people will be listening if not watching. So, with tapping, there's certain points on the body that we tap, and they are borrowed from traditional Chinese medicine or key pressure. There's some interesting research there into bundles of nerves and fascia connections and all of those things. But the number one point that we start tapping on is the side of the hand. It doesn't matter which side of the hand, it can be left, right, that that kind of fleshy part on the side of the pinky. And you just start tapping it at your pace. Just notice the connection that you're feeling, literally just the sensation of hand hitting hand. We would take in a breath, in through the nose and out through the mouth at your pace. Then in evidence-based EFT, in some other schools, we start at a different spot, but at the end of evidence-based EFT. We go to the eyebrow point. So literally the beginning of your eyebrow, it doesn't matter which one, which side, which hand you're using, you just tap on that spot enough to feel it. Gentle off, gentle enough not to be putting a dent in your forehead. And again, we just take in a breath. Then we go to the side of the eye. Just kind of the end of the eyebrow, on down, or the dipot near the side of your eye, or the I'm already yawning.

SPEAKER_04 13:15

It doesn't take me long.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Which is very normal. So again, we just take a breath.

SPEAKER_04 13:27

Oh, I forgot to say there will make sure you guys check the show notes as we're tapping right now. There will be a tapping point chart you guys can download so you can see.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

There we go. Under the eye. Again, you can switch sides, you can do both sides, it doesn't matter. I'm quite out of breath. Under the nose. And yeah, if you feel yawning, let yawning come. You ghouls, let people come. Tears start welling up. Allow tears to well up. Feels okay. Go on to the chin, crease the chin. You go into collarbone coin. Literally. I don't know why. So you can do kind of this, or do what Liana's doing, which is often a bit easier. Yeah, we're just taking a breath.

SPEAKER_04 14:26

I like to say to try to find like not tap on the collarbone, so try to find that fleshy end or space right below.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

Yes, you kind of uh collarbone, but under here.

SPEAKER_04 14:38

Right there. It's better Mitch show you than I show you.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

Yeah. And then we go under the arm, which is always a funny one. So again, if you're wondering where under the arm is, I have been informed that it would be the bra line.

SPEAKER_04 14:55

Yeah, I always say it's kind of just base of the bra line for women.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

Yeah. Gentlemen, it's kind of where the nip is to the side.

SPEAKER_04 15:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

Use the professional term there.

SPEAKER_04 15:07

Always.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Yeah. One thing if you do ever come to my training, is that and top of the head. Again. You want to be super technical, you can kind of put your hands on your ears and go into the middle.

SPEAKER_04 15:25

Oh, that's a good way to yeah, that's a good way to do that too. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

Again, if you just kind of tap at the top, you'll get it. And again, so this is the very basic tap and breathe, and you can just keep going through this pace. I tend to do with this, feeling my feet on the ground.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

And a bit of orienting as well. Just kind of as I'm tapping, feeling my feet, feeling my sit spones. I'm sitting.

SPEAKER_04 15:52

He's going back to that inside eyebrow point.

SPEAKER_00 15:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:56

Outside eyebrow. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

And then just kind of taking in the room.

SPEAKER_04 16:01

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

We can keep going through those points.

SPEAKER_04 16:05

Under the eye.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

On the on the nose.

SPEAKER_04 16:08

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

On the chin. Again, we're just paying attention to the little shifts in the body. We're looking in the environment for the neutral to pleasant thing.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

Again, maybe a wave of emotional panic comes or anxiety comes, activation. We just say hello to it and we keep tapping everything.

SPEAKER_04 16:37

We're on those collarbone points.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

So you'll notice uh Liana was yawning. I tend to birth.

SPEAKER_04 16:47

I sometimes do.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

Yeah. Again, all of these are just signs of the nervous system shifting. Shifting, down regulating.

SPEAKER_04 16:56

Well, if we were in that really high sympathetic activation state, the nervous system wouldn't be in a place it could yawn. It could do things like that, right? Because it's has a different mission at that point.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Yeah, yeah. On top of the head.

SPEAKER_04 17:11

Hey guys, I yawn a lot when I tap. And it wasn't like that when I first started. It actually took me a while, and now one round of tapping, like for me personally, again, it took a long time. It's like, okay, my body already knows what we're doing.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Yeah, yeah. And again, just at your own pace. You can keep tapping if you want. We're just gonna pause. Allow the little movements in your body. Little adjustments. Again, the body just needs the little adjustments.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 17:44

That orienting component, I'm really glad you brought that in. It's so important to find something in our space that just feels that just helps add that little layer of support, which again then increases capacity.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

So yeah. And that's again, this is one of the steps in healing and hard work and existing in this world at the moment is where what in my environment is a neutral to, but where is something that doesn't activate my system or make me feel scared or up? So for me, like I could look literally at my screen, see Liana, I Nova, she's got a lovely, friendly face, but also her plants, background, I can feel something in my body respond to that. Also, I'm sitting in front of the window pond for trees. Oh, how lovely down. So now that my body is settled, I can kind of take in that a little bit more, which adds to myself. Again, if that wasn't available to me, I would probably just so I'm sitting on a couch at the moment, my hands sensing couch.

SPEAKER_03 18:57

For sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

And even just doing that then, like a breath comes and my body adjusts. That's tap and breathe. And you can do as much as you want. It's kind of, yeah. And the more that you do it and you more that you know your body responds to it, the quicker your body responds to it. Because it kind of goes, oh, we're doing this thing now. So it's a really good one to do in the morning, particularly if you are someone who has quite the big cortisol spike of a morning and wake up anxious. So two minutes to tap and breathe, a few minutes to tap and breathe before bed to help your body switch down to rest. Part of my morning routine, part of my night routine. Uh, in between clients, I'll often tap and breathe as well. Just so my body is getting into the habit of like, oh yeah, I can find calm and safe.

SPEAKER_04 19:53

Which is so cool when we can find that. Like, so many people realize like I'm like, I don't know the last time my body felt a sense of calm, or I don't know the last time I felt quote unquote safe, but to realize that we can still have activation, life can still be hard, and we can still find these moments that feel calmer than the rest of the day, right?

SPEAKER_00 20:14

Yeah. I know Dr. Laurie, she would kind of encourage people to set an alarm for every hour and just to do two minutes of tap and breathe on the hour for a while, like a week or so, just so their body kind of got into this rhythm or almost like it's almost like a smoke instead of going out for a cigarette or a vape, which you're one of the cool kids these days. A little tap breathe. Yeah, a little tap and breathe for your body as well.

SPEAKER_04 20:42

Powerful.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

Now, that is the very basic, and those are the spots that we tap on. There is another step to tapping, which is where we start to add more words and we get more specific with what we're talking about. So, E of T, other than its calming effect, which is what we just got from the tap and breed, is when we have specific things in our external or internal environment, again, depending on how you view those things. Gentlemen who I spoke about last time, you know, would say they're really the same thing, that are bothering us. We've got memories, events in our past that are bothering us. EFT can be useful for targeting those things and allowing the brain to bring it up, kind of activates the neural pathway, activation occurs. As we're tapping and we're getting that calming signal that we got before, it allows the body brain to process the incomplete survival responses, the incomplete defense responses that didn't get to finish work when the event occurred. Or if it's a current stressor that's going on, it helps our body process it. As we get calm, more resources come to that prefrontal cortex. We're able to think more clearly, more creatively about it. Now, the challenge with taking people through that online via podcast and via YouTube or whatever, I don't know what you're going through, so it's hard for me to guide you. But I just want to give you a bit of a guide, which is pick something small. So something real specific and small. So maybe it's the argument I had with my kid. The one specific argument I had with the kid, or that one thing that my colleagues had really bothered.

SPEAKER_04 22:51

What about just like a state? Like right now, it's like, oh, I have so much to do today.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

Yeah. So we can do that as well. So, you know, you wake up and you go, there's just so much to do today.

SPEAKER_04 23:02

That's how I'm feeling, like, right, like at my list today, and it shouldn't be this way on a Sunday, and it is, and I like to have a day off, you know, so it's like, oh, yeah. So that's unusual for me. So I'm just feeling like, oh, and I think a lot of we can relate. Well, we're all very busy people.

SPEAKER_02 23:15

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:16

And sometimes that overwhelm prevents us from actually doing what we need to do or being present with who we want to be present with, even ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

Yeah, very much so. So maybe we could start there if that feels all right, Leon.

SPEAKER_04 23:27

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

Or kind of guide people through it. So yeah. If you were to take a moment and just think of this statement, I've got a lot to do today. And if you were to give that statement a rating from zero to ten, tense meaning it has a lot of intensity behind it, or zero being there's no intensity, I'm actually really cool with how much I have on today. What would you kind of rate yourself?

SPEAKER_04 23:52

Right now it was a little bit higher, actually, because I've just been aware of that before I met with you, you know, trying to be present for this hour, so it was higher before, but after the tap and breathe, it's probably about a six right now.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

Yeah, yeah. And so it's about a six. Is there an emotion that comes with it?

SPEAKER_04 24:07

Just kind of that stressed out feeling. So are we okay with stress as an emotion?

SPEAKER_00 24:13

Yeah, we can use stress as an emotion.

SPEAKER_04 24:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

Um, because for me, again, different EFT people will view these things differently. Like I watched you kind of communicate it and you your hand did a particular movement.

SPEAKER_04 24:24

So teness.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

So you know what you mean by that. Yeah. Even collecting it back to you, go, yeah, it's like a tenseness.

SPEAKER_03 24:32

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 24:32

And you know, it might take this next step and go, because like from observing you, you seem okay, you seem with your body, don't seem too activating. This kind of stressed tenseness. Does it live somewhere in particular in your body?

SPEAKER_04 24:48

Yes, always in the same place.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

Yeah. Do you want to share? You also don't have it.

SPEAKER_04 24:52

Yeah, it's all like that lower gut area.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

Lower gut area. Cool. So what we would do is we just start tapping on the slide of the hand. You know the protocol. So here is where we do our setup statement. We do it three times. Not because there's anything magical about the number three, but it just kind of gives us time to tune into the feeling. Because remember, this is a somatic or body-based modality. So we're trying to be with our bodily experience of something without working. So I will kind of lead. You correct my words if they're not the right words.

SPEAKER_04 25:31

Perfect.

SPEAKER_00 25:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:33

And maybe just invite anyone listening if they want to try it, just kind of allow you, you can use your own words too, if you think about.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

Use your own words, tap along, see what happens. So even though.

SPEAKER_04 25:47

Even though.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

I've got too much on today.

SPEAKER_04 25:51

I've got too much on today.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

And I've got this stressed tense feeling.

SPEAKER_04 25:55

And I've got this stressed tense feeling.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

I love and accept myself.

SPEAKER_04 26:00

I love and accept myself.

SPEAKER_00 26:02

Is that okay to say?

SPEAKER_04 26:03

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Thank you for asking. Even though.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

I've got too much on today.

SPEAKER_04 26:08

I've got too much on today.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

And I've got this stress-tense feeling.

SPEAKER_04 26:13

And it's got this stressed tense feeling.

SPEAKER_00 26:15

I love and accept myself anyway.

SPEAKER_04 26:18

I love and accept myself anyway.

SPEAKER_00 26:19

One more time, even though.

SPEAKER_04 26:21

Even though.

SPEAKER_00 26:22

I've got too much to do today.

SPEAKER_04 26:24

I've got too much to do today.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

And I feel stressed.

SPEAKER_04 26:29

I feel stressed.

SPEAKER_00 26:30

Like tension in my lower gut.

SPEAKER_04 26:33

Like tension in my lower gut.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

I can love and accept myself.

SPEAKER_04 26:37

I can love and accept myself anyway.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

You go to the eyebrow point. Here we just start to use a reminder phrase. So again, we just use a small version of what we said to help us stay with the experience. Too much to do today.

SPEAKER_03 26:50

Too much to do today.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

Too much to do today.

SPEAKER_03 26:56

Too much to do today.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

Too much to do today.

SPEAKER_03 27:02

I've got too much to do today.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

I'll come under the nose and let's just take in a gentle breath out through the mouth. Too much to do today.

SPEAKER_04 27:16

There's another yawn. Too much to do today.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

Too much on.

SPEAKER_04 27:20

Too much on my plate today.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

Too much on my plate today.

SPEAKER_04 27:24

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 27:25

Feel stressed.

SPEAKER_04 27:26

I feel stressed.

SPEAKER_00 27:28

It's like tension in my lower belly.

SPEAKER_04 27:30

It's tension in my lower belly.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

Stress tension in my lower belly.

SPEAKER_04 27:36

Stress tension in my lower belly.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

Because I've got too much on my plate today.

SPEAKER_04 27:41

Too much on my plate today.

SPEAKER_00 27:44

I've just done one round, so let's take in a breath, in through the nose, out through the mouth. It feels comfortable. Allow any little adjustments.

SPEAKER_04 27:55

Yeah, my rate changes. I think for this pretty quickly. So maybe that's something we can touch on because that's not always the case. But for me, it dropped very quickly to like a three. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

So we're at a six before on a three. How do you know it's a three and not a six?

SPEAKER_04 28:10

Um for me, I'm very, very aware of my body. So I I can instantly feel my gut. It's just kind of like it's not as tight and it's just kind of like settled a little bit more. So what's there is just like a little bit, like a little undercurrent of tension, but not what it just felt like. It was like, oh, okay, yeah, that's right. We're just gonna acknowledge it. That we have too much to do today. And instantly my mind, I'm very visual, just came up with like making like this little list.

SPEAKER_00 28:36

Yeah.

unknown 28:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:38

That's how my mind works anyway.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

So yeah. Yeah, so you've still got stuff on to do today. Your brain's now finding the path and the resources. There's less tension in the body. Do you want to keep going on another round?

SPEAKER_04 28:52

Sure. Yeah, we can do another round. That would be great.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:54

So so people can get the flow of all the points and what that looks like.

SPEAKER_00 28:58

And are those words still the right word? Stress, tension, too much on my plate.

SPEAKER_04 29:03

Just kind of maybe now this, I think it because it kind of reminds me of like the like an under like a current under the water. So maybe just like, yeah, an undercurrent of tension. It doesn't feel like that big stress, like how I said it so visually before with my body. Like my body language, it doesn't feel like that.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

Well, yeah, because you've made contact with it now. We've supported it so your felt sense is shifting. Your felt experience of this is shifting.

SPEAKER_04 29:27

Yeah, so maybe just this undercurrent of tension.

SPEAKER_00 29:30

Yeah. So let's go to the side of the hand again, just so people get in the habit. Even though I've got too much on my plate today.

SPEAKER_04 29:37

I've got too much on my plate today.

SPEAKER_00 29:39

And I've got like an undercurrent of tension.

SPEAKER_04 29:41

And I've got then an undercurrent of tension.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

I love and accept myself anyway.

SPEAKER_04 29:45

I love and accept myself anyway.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

Even though.

SPEAKER_04 29:48

Even though.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

Still too much on my plate today.

SPEAKER_04 29:52

There's still too much on my plate today.

SPEAKER_00 29:53

And I've got this undercurrent of tension.

SPEAKER_04 29:56

And I've got this undercurrent of tension.

SPEAKER_00 29:58

I can love and accept myself anyway.

SPEAKER_04 30:00

I can love and accept myself anyway.

SPEAKER_00 30:02

One more time, even though.

SPEAKER_04 30:04

Even though.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

When I think of all that's on my plate today.

SPEAKER_04 30:08

When I think of all that's on my plate today.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

I get this undercurrent of tension.

SPEAKER_04 30:12

I get this undercurrent of tension.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

I can love and accept myself anyway.

SPEAKER_04 30:16

I can love and accept myself anyway.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

Still too much on my plate.

SPEAKER_04 30:24

Still too much on my plate.

SPEAKER_00 30:25

Slide of the iron.

SPEAKER_04 30:28

I've got a lot on my plate.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

Under the iron. Got a lot of my plate.

SPEAKER_04 30:34

That actually that breath feels really good. I've got a lot on my plate.

SPEAKER_00 30:39

And I'm experiencing this undercurrent of tension.

SPEAKER_04 30:43

I'm experiencing this undercurrent of tension.

SPEAKER_00 30:46

There's an undercurrent of tension.

SPEAKER_04 30:49

There's an undercurrent of tension here.

SPEAKER_00 30:52

Just give your toes a little wriggle as well.

SPEAKER_04 30:54

Yeah, kind of feeling the contact of my carpet, my floor.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

This undercurrent of tension.

SPEAKER_04 31:00

This undercurrent of tension.

SPEAKER_00 31:02

I've got a lot on my plate.

SPEAKER_04 31:05

Got a lot on my plate.

SPEAKER_00 31:07

The head makes sense to have this undercurrent of tension.

SPEAKER_04 31:10

Makes sense to have this undercurrent of tension.

SPEAKER_00 31:15

Again, just allow your body to move, adjust, process.

SPEAKER_04 31:20

Yeah, for now, like that that felt like that was that was great. It just feels like, oh, it's I have stuff, but I don't feel like I did a few minutes ago. And that's probably one of my favorite things about tapping. I was working on my schedule earlier before this, so it's you know, I was very aware of like, okay, what time can I create? What do I have? So, but for right now, I feel like, oh, I know what I need to do, and maybe there's some things I can put off till tomorrow, which is a really nice thought too. And I wasn't feeling that before. I was like, no, you have to do it all today.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

Again, it all yeah. Until we started off at a six, what would you rate it now, Leon?

SPEAKER_04 31:53

Probably like between a one and a two, which for me is usually that to me is a number for me when I say that is usually just like, oh, that just means maybe there's some action that's required.

SPEAKER_00 32:02

Yeah.

unknown 32:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:03

So action requires activation. Then that makes sense, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:08

Yeah. So that was beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

Yeah. And how do you what's the the difference in feeling?

SPEAKER_04 32:16

I just feel more present, like present with you, present in my body. Because sometimes I think right that stress and that tension, especially like if you're a mom and we're you know, trying to balance kids and job and household and all the things, it's like sometimes we just forget about ourselves. I mean, we all do that as humans, but so just being coming aware of my own body again, which is part of my framework. It's like, notice what's happening. Can we name the experience?

SPEAKER_01 32:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:42

Can we nurture ourselves in some capacity? And then can we navigate like what's just that very next step? And so for me, the nurturing part was just to be here with you, to name it out loud, and then the next step that navigate is just well, I actually have to do the things.

SPEAKER_03 32:58

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 33:00

I actually have to like do the things on my list. How hard is that sometimes?

SPEAKER_00 33:03

Yeah. And again, this is where throughout the day we can pause and we can go, okay. If I look down my list, what's the one thing that's the most overwhelming or anxiety-producing for me? So let me pause and go, yeah, even though there's this thing on my list. Or oh yeah, I can feel myself just getting into a rushing pattern. Let me pause and tap and breathe and feel my feet and go, cool. Yeah, what is the one next step?

SPEAKER_04 33:29

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 33:30

And how do I feel about that step? Okay, well, let me tap on that for a little bit. And again, your body then gets into a rhythm of it knows that it can cope, it knows that it has capacity, it knows there's a way to calm, and so it kind of relaxes faster, quicker for longer as well.

SPEAKER_04 33:48

Powerful. So if you can ask you a few questions.

SPEAKER_00 33:51

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:52

So anybody that's listening, we just did two rounds, right? We did a round of tap and or two rounds of tap and breathe, and then just two rounds on this. I have a lot to do today, which just for everyone listening, that's a pretty general thing we tapped on. I wasn't tapping on any that has something that happens in my trauma in my childhood, right? Which is something you can definitely do with Mitch, a professionally trained practitioner with myself. But so somebody that's listening, what would you say is like because we just did these few brief rounds. What's kind of is there an average for people as they start to tap of like many rounds if they're doing self-tapping that they would want to try?

SPEAKER_00 34:24

Yeah, look, so some people respond super, super quick to it. I am not one of those people. My body has a lot of slowness required, and it needs space to kind of go, yeah, okay, I'm gonna come down. So for me, I often need two to five rounds of tapping before my body starts to go, okay, yeah, I can start to let go. Some people, the minute you start tapping, they're laughing, crying, yawning, whatever. So what I would suggest is give yourself two to five minutes to give it a crack. Yeah. And just notice what happens. And even if your body gets five percent calmer, that's a really good start, because maybe that's all your body can safely handle on your own at the moment. And then if you try it with someone, your body might go, okay, why can let go 10% more? And then your body starts to build trust of like, yeah, this is okay, it's not too much. And as Liana kind of pointed out before, is we worked on a very tolerable, manageable thing. If we'd never tapped on it, Liana probably would have been fine. Um if you start to work with uh more traumatic material, essentially, probably don't do that by yourself. Find someone who is trained because one, that relationship helps anchor you, and often trauma memories are we're alone. So having the compassionate presence of a therapist or a trained professional there with you is part of that healing process, and you know, I was tracking Liana and watching her, and I was noticing shifts. So just having someone there who can help you stay within your window of tolerance. So possibly the guidance I would give is you heard me use the sud scale before on a zero on a scale of zero to ten, how would you rate this issue? So, in the trainings, when people are bringing material to learn the content, we have this guideline of don't tap on anything that you would rate over a five. So if it's in that six, seven, eight, nine, ten, when you think particular issue or memory, yeah, do some tap and breathe, but don't try and get into the nitty and gritty of it until you've specifically learned EFT. Just start on that one, two, three, four, five scale. Just because we want to stay within that window of capacity, window of tolerance, when we're by ourselves, we don't have someone with us. But the other thing I would say is tap and breathe all you like. And also just in the world at the moment. When you're looking at the world and you're hearing the news and you're watching world leaders or whatever is going on, right? Tap and breathe, tap on your judgments, tap on your anger. Tell when you read stuff on social media, like pause. Gosh, if most of us could just learn to pause and breathe for two minutes or we do things, the world would change. Add tapping in there as well. Um and make sure you're spending time noticing the neutral to safe to positive feelings as well. Cultivate those glimmers is some of the language that's used there. Tap and breathe with those in mind so your body gets more and more resourced, and all that's part of it too.

SPEAKER_04 38:01

Yeah, we need we need those, we need those glimmers, we need those those resources to support us because there's just like you said, the world is is acting the world is so activated currently in a lot of different ways, which we won't go into. Well, thank you for that. Another, I have two more questions. So the first is I have a lot of some neurodivergent moms that follow me and my own clients, right? And some in my coaching membership. And so we've kind of talked about that sometimes they don't like how it feels to tap on the skin, like that, that doesn't feel supportive, or based on some clients I have that have had some really traumatic abuse. So just wondering if you could touch on someone that's like, well, I didn't I didn't like how that feels when I actually tap on my body.

SPEAKER_00 38:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:44

So what's an alternative?

SPEAKER_00 38:45

Yeah, you can also touch and breathe. So just like a light touch or a light circling on those spots, like massaging that spot. That can also be good. I think it's really important to to notice, yeah, how does this touch, how does my body respond to it? Because you watch some people and they're like almost hitting themselves and they're not even aware. It's kind of intense. What feels good for my body? What is it like to come into contact with myself? So even just that gentle touch. I've got a friend, uh tapping buddy, Sherry, who has the lightest, slowest touch. And it's always funny us tapping together because I'm quite quick and almost bashed my face a little bit. So I can tapping with Sherry a bit slow down. There's also there's been some interesting research on what they refer to as imaginal tapping. So in glad you brought this up. Yeah, fMRI scans are always a tongue twister for that one. Where you can't move when you're in those machines. So they got people to imagine tapping on those spots, and they were able to see some interesting results. So you can imagine tapping on those points that will be in the show notes as well. The other thing is, particularly if you know you're a parent, you're a mom, you're whoever, and you're tapping with someone, so feel free to tap and breathe with people, them watching you do it can also assist. So we're borrowing and kind of experimenting with this idea of the mirror neurons. So when I watch someone do a task, a mirror neurons fire and produce a similar, smaller movement in the body as well. So if I'm watching someone tap and breathe or doing a full tapping session, my body is taking some of that in. That's kind of that external environment becoming internal environment.

SPEAKER_04 40:44

For sure.

SPEAKER_00 40:45

And there's some interesting experiments and anecdotes around that as well. And if you're tapping and your system is starting to downregulate or come into regulation, your child, your friend, whatever, will benefit from that as well. So they will respond to your animal body finding safety, their body had to find safety as well. I think I used to notice this with the young people I worked with when I were foster kids, when I were young people experienced teenagers, if I was stressed, everyone was stressed. Whereas if I learned to cultivate safety and groundness in my system, or I knew how to access it when I needed to, that was often enough to begin to help regulate that young person as well. And so then we can get into all the forms of weird and wonderful ideas around parents and children's connections and stuff. Tap on your stuff and your stress a lot and helps your child as well.

SPEAKER_04 41:48

Well, we know ankle regulation, right? We can regulate our energy with those people we are around.

SPEAKER_02 41:52

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:53

That's so beautiful and such a good reminder. So the last thing I want to ask, and maybe you can kind of just sum everything up, is some people say they'll come be like, oh, well, Liana, that tapping thing, I tried it, doesn't work. Doesn't work. I tried when I'm having a panic attack. I tried when I was yelling at my spouse, I tried when there was traffic on the freeway. And so a lot of times we know when the state is insympathetic, right? We lose ability. We don't have access to the logical part of our brain, right? So sometimes for me, that's when I kind of explain it as far as why tapping doesn't work, or maybe why it wasn't working in the moment. So I'm wondering if you could just kind of touch on that and kind of just sum up whatever you want to sum up.

SPEAKER_00 42:27

Yeah, there can be many factors as to why tapping doesn't appear to work at the moment. And I think, you know, it would be disingenuous to say that it works every time because nothing works the time. My experience and my thinking and the other people who I know who have thought through this is uh often we just didn't take enough time. Body needed time to settle. And if we're in a super high sympathetic state and our body believes we're still in danger or we are in danger, or there is a perceived threat that's not going away, it will be harder for the system to come down because it keeps perceiving the threat. And so sometimes it's we just need more time for the body to kind of go, actually, yeah, I can let go, I can come down. Often it's we're not being specific enough. So if I'm just tapping on this general, oh, I'm anxious, I'm always anxious, I'm always anxious, got this anxiety, and your brain is thinking through every single trigger that you've got in your life that makes you anxious, it's just too much to process on your own in five minutes. And what you probably need is a professional or a having buddy who's trained who can help you take one slice of pie at a time or one slice of pizza at a time and pick the most intense. Aspect of that pizza. I'm using the analogy here that I haven't actually explained here. So I'll use this one. So often what happens is people come to us with a whole box of pizza. And they, this is their anxiety pizza. And they go, I want to get through this entire thing. This family-sized pizza. Here it is. And in the next 45 minutes, can you heal me in that? And so that's the equivalent of number one, grabbing that entire pizza with all of its ingredients and stuff, which you probably don't really like eating. It's got like oligs and anchovies and pineapple.

SPEAKER_04 44:34

Or it's like it's like way too much. You can't eat your body can't even tolerate it all.

SPEAKER_00 44:38

Shove that down your throat and metabolize all of that in one go. End the box that it came in. And it's too much for your body to do. And so what a professional does is go, cool, I hear and see you've got this big anxiety pizza to process and deal with. What about if we just take one little slice of that today? And when we take that one little slice and we look at it and go, what's the grossest ingredient on that? And let's just do one bit at a time. Then the body actually has gets to process and that pizza gets smaller and smaller. To the point where you might even just tap through one or two things and you kind of go, actually, the whole thing's gone away now. So it's often about pacing and being specific. And so again, it can be slower than you think you need to, be more curious than you think you need to be, and be more compassionate than you think you need to. If you can do those three things and get help, get a bit of support or mentoring, then tapping works. And again, I've been doing this for ten years. I've heard some crazy stories of, you know, one session miracles. And when I use the term miracle, I mean it's these huge patterns that people have had for a lifetime. And they do tapping on one session, the pattern completely goes away. And you know, every practitioner wants those ones. And I've worked with people who are trying to rush themselves through a process because they're mirroring the environment they grew up in where it was like, I'm not allowed to have emotion. I'm not allowed to be messing with it. Totally. I'm not allowed to.

SPEAKER_04 46:27

Or even slow down.

SPEAKER_00 46:29

And so they're curiously tapping, trying to get away from something when actually we can slow down and go, yeah, this is here. Let's just go slow. Let's just meet it where it's at. Let's go as fast as the slowest part. Then it shifts because we're actually we're also shifting the relationship to our stuff. We're cultivating patience, wisdom, curiosity, compassion for ourselves and those things that heal the system. Tapping is a tool that supports that process, and it's you know, we can see that it's doing a biological thing in the body, so it's not just placebo, and we want to cultivate the relationship around it as well. The tool helps us deeply and completely love and accept ourselves. And I'll just say this one last little thing is if too deceptively simple, and actually there's so much wisdom when you think about it and you start to break it down, what's actually happening? There's a lot of wisdom in it, and it's all in the setup state of this. Even though I'm having this experience, even though this thing happened to me, and now in my body I feel blah blah. I deeply and completely love and accept myself. Now you don't have to phrase it like that. We've got the naming of pain. Even though the world is falling down around me and I feel deeply frightened. Even though my mum said this thing to me and it crushed my spirit. Even though I yelled at my kid this morning, and I feel all this shame in my heart for being a bad parent or whatever. Even though what I really want to do now is eat a family-sized pizza to myself with a garlic bread. So we name it. We name what's going on. And by naming it, we also disidentify from it to a certain extent, and we can come into relationship. Because it's not it's parts work in a way, even though there's this part of me that's really, really anxious. I, whatever this mysterious I is, or self-in-presence, or uh the compassion itself, can deeply and completely love and accept myself. Even though all of this stuff is going on, I can love and accept myself. Even though some part of me is in terror right now, I can deeply and completely love and accept it in myself. And then the tapping becomes a tool to make the bodily experience tolerable enough to stay with it, which is another way of saying staying in relationship with it.

SPEAKER_01 49:28

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 49:30

So this frightened part of me comes into contact with something bigger than itself that's going, yeah, I love and accept you. And then it starts to shift and change. We're going in and filling in the blanks of what we didn't get when we needed it, and tapping for that process. So I love it. Like whacked lyrical for a long time in that job pause.

SPEAKER_04 49:52

That is it's just so beautiful. And just thank you for that. It's like, yeah, even though no matter what is happening or what I did or didn't do or what I'm experiencing, that I can still have compassion for myself. I can still have love for myself, or I can learn to love myself. I don't think I could say love and accept myself at the beginning. So it's been a really beautiful journey. I wrote down a few things you said, but they're just such good reminders. I want to leave all of us that there's so much power in slowing down. So the first thing Mitch invited us is just to slow down. And in the somatic world, we say slowing down is often the key to speeding up our healing. But it can feel it can feel tricky, especially if you were raised in that flight energy so much of like overproducing and having to prove yourself. I get it, because that was me. Be a little bit more curious with ourselves. I think we could all use some more of that. And what would that help in our relationship with other people if we were more curious about them too? Compassion. So that self-compassion, also compassion for others too, right? And maybe what they're going through that we have no idea actually. So being more curious, even in our compassion and then support. And I think that for me is one of the biggest because as we tap now, to me, it's like offering that support to ourselves that we didn't get to have when the thing was happening. So I just want to say all of those and a huge thank you to Mitch. I think he has a dreamy accent, he's very good looking. I consider him a friend, not just an EFT trainer. And I've learned so much from him. And so just thank you, thank you, thank you for the last two weeks of your wisdom and your compassion and your curiosity that you have learned and been able to bring and share with me over the years and with people that are listening. And so just want to invite you guys that if you have felt something last week or this week that you reach out to Mitch and just try a session with him, see what it's like. Maybe if you're a woman, it might feel weird. I don't know, working with a man, but Mitch has just, again, so much capacity to hold a space for you and to offer a beautiful, beautiful, uh supportive healing session. So you guys can find all his info in the comments. And Mitch, again, thank you just so much for being you.

SPEAKER_00 51:58

Thanks for having me. Thanks for all the amazing work you're doing and sharing.

SPEAKER_04 52:03

It's we need a lot more people to join us.

SPEAKER_00 52:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 52:08

Okay, until next time. Bye guys.

SPEAKER_00 52:10

See ya.

SPEAKER_04 52:12

Thanks for joining me on the NeuroAir podcast. This work is about honoring resilience in yourself and also those who came before you, all while finding freedom from what was never yours to carry. With the help of stories, science, somatic tools, and the four ends, notice, name, nurture, and navigate, you have a path toward deeper connection with yourself, your loved ones, and the legacy you want to pass on. If today's episode spoke to you, share it with someone who's ready to step into this work too and follow the show so you never miss an episode. Remember, you may not have chosen what you inherited, but you can choose what comes next.