By now you know that our bodies are repositories for our emotions. Along with our external experience, what we think, say, believe, and feel,
affect our physical well-being. Our body chemistry is continually shifting
and adjusting according to what we are thinking, feeling, saying, believing,
and experiencing . When we feel good, we are emotionally conn ected and in
a state of healing; this is the case even when we’re sick, injure d, and even
when we are dying.It comes as no surprise that “presence,” both emotional and physical, is
good for us. Presence increases the level of an enzyme in our body called
telomerase. This substance both repairs and maintains the ends of our
chromosomes, which facilitates health and longevity .21 Tapping helps access
presence—that elusive state of which Buddhists speak. In reading and exploring EFT , how has tapping af fected your body so far? What have you noticed physically during and after tapping? Reports of
feeling lighter , more energized, more optimistic, increased vitality , and
better sleeping are common. After people experience neutrality or a
cognitive shift through tapping, they may notice a feeling of calm,
expansiveness, or lightness in their bodies. If they have not felt their
emotional or sensory feelings around a “big” issue and are only now
tapping into the intensity of it, they might feel really sleepy or shaky after a
session. Occasionally when a client reports feeling trembly or shaky during
a session, I suggest we shake a bit before we continue tapping. Shaking or
vibrating is a natural reflex that releases muscle tension and calms the
nervous system. Trauma Relea se Exercise (TRE) is all about shaking to
prevent trauma. When in the midst of a big upset, many people report feeling awful,
experiencing spiking unbearable  pain, nausea, fatigue, shakiness, heaviness,
numbness, or other interesting feelings as they tap. These troubled
sensations and feelings all pass quickly . Since the body and mind are intimately connected, we can focus on the
physical sensations a person is feeling relating to an emotion al issue or
troubling event. This relationsh ip is of great benefit, especially for those
who have “big” emotions about an event or situation. It is possible to focus
entirely on a person’ s physical symptoms to collapse a deeply troubling
emotional event  while not getting lost in the depths of the emotion. You can
consider physical aspects just as you would emotional aspects—individual
components that are holding a specific incident in the energy disturbance. The technique you will learn now is called Chasing the Pain.Introduction to Chase the Pain
Still having a hard time believin g that pain can jump around in your body
and that it is tied to a feeling you are experiencing? Still believ e it’s all in
your head? Well, in a sense, it is. The state of your mind often  affects the
state of your body . For exampl e, a client whose leg was amputated at the
thigh some two-plus decades prior suffered phantom limb pain for nineteen
years—until she tried EFT. In my own EFT practice of fifteen years, I have
never come across someone who had worse pain. Her pain on a good day
was about a 9 in intensity . She typically described it as if someone were
taking pliers and trying to pull of f her toe (that wasn’ t there). At age 74, Arianna was unable to function without taking pain meds,
requiring up to six a day, the maximum, and it had some unpleasant side
effects. I don’t think I have ever come across a more conven ient storage
space for undig ested traumatic exper iences and emotions than a leg that
isn’t present in the way that most of us would agree a leg is present. As we
worked, tapping  on the specific painful memories/events using Tell the
Story , one at a time inside what we called her “unleg,” her pain resolved to
the point that she no longer needed pain medication. Now , when pain does arise, she does her pacing, which means she taps as
she wheelchairs  from room to room until the pain subsides. Arianna has
also resumed activities such as going to church, taking daylo ng outings,
writing books, and more. What happens most times is when a person taps on one specific event, the
pain in their bodies jumps all over the place during the unraveling of the
story’ s intensity , dissipating with the resolution of the ener gy disruption. In Arianna’ s case, her pain would jump all around her foot and leg that
weren’ t there. So, if we were tapping Tell the Story on a specific event,
such as “When I got the phone call from the hospital about Danny,” or the
“Wild West Fiasco,” the unbearable pincer pain might start at the toe and
then expand to all the toes, then it would change to a burnin g sensation,
then it might feel like her whole foot was being sawed off at the ankle, thenit would shift again to a scrat chy feeling, and then it woul d disappear
completely—in exact accordance to her complete neutrality around our
tapping tar get. While Arianna was feeling this pain, I wasn’ t insensitive to her anguish,
but I also knew that the pain was relating to the part of the story that she
was on in Tell the Story . I was merely tracking her pain as we kept the
primary focus on the story’ s emotional aspects she was unraveli ng with Tell
the Story . It was pretty profound. Please note, I managed these sessions extremely closely so she didn’ t get
lost in any messes after the sessions. She also had mental health support and
other resources in addition to working with me. As we had rapport and a
longer -term clinical relationship, I knew how much she could handle. This
is important especially when working with severe trauma, as she had
experienced. If you find yoursel f falling deeper into a hole and tapping isn’t
helping, it means you need additional resources, such as a mental health
expert and an experienced EFT professional. I have also worked in
conjunction with mental health professionals per legal permission of the
client. Gold Standard EFT T echnique: Chasing the Pain
Chasing the Pain is the physical  counterpart to the Tell the Story and Movie
techniques covered in Chapter 4. This time, however , the story is not one
you tell with your words—it’ s the one your body is generously sharing with
you as the pain or awareness shifts throughout it while you tap. For
example, perhaps the emotional upset relating to something that happened
between you and your partner this morning is a 10 on the rating scale. In
your body , you feel tightness in your shoulders as you think of the words
that were said. Instead of going into the story about the argument, start
tapping on the body sensation,  creating an EFT setup that reflects the tight
shoulder feeling . The pain often shifts, as the technique’ s name implies. Maybe now the awareness of pain might shift to your heart, which feels
heavy . You would then tap on the heavy heart feeling. Then the pain mightjump back to the shoulders but perhaps a little bit down to the right. The
pain can literally  jump around like a ping-pong ball in a high-stakes game. Your job is to track the pain and tap on it as it moves around until finally
you experience relief from both pain and the starting emotiona l upset. As
the physical pain lessens, the tapper also experiences an emotional release. If you don’t have a specific incident relating to your body concern, no
matter . You don’t even need to know the specific incident upon which you
are tapping because your body knows and is doing the work on your behalf. You can feel your way through the story with your body as guide. Chase the Pain also allows you to sneak up, if you will, on an emotional
issue by tapping  on the symptoms in the body relating to the issue. It spares
the user excess emotional pain by focusing on physical symptoms instead. The conscious mind gets so caught up in tracking the physic al, that the
normal walls a person would put up in going to a painful emotional place
are bypassed altogether . Sneaky , and it works—quickly . The Chase the Pain technique often links a body sensation to a specific,
emotionally charged incident and then releases both the pain and charge of
the event; oftentimes the body sensations will do it for you. Sometimes, you
will need to tap on the emotional aspects relating to the event. Is knowing what the incident was to resolve the physical symptom
essential? No. For example, many of us experienced birth trauma—fetal
distress syndrom e, premature labor , a C-section, induced birth, suction birth
—when we were born, and the ensuing fear of being stuck in the birth canal
or separated from mother post-b irth. We have no conscious memory of that
or what any ensuing emotions are linked to, yet the sensory feelings and
emotions are still there. We can tap on the body feeling; we don’t need to be
conscious of the content. It’ s okay to tap on feelings that arise. With Chase the Pain, we are not trying to get rid of pain or symptoms;
rather we are softening into them. We are nonresistant, going into the
feeling of the symptoms fully and deeply with our full attention while
tapping, in full acceptance with an affirmation. We simply chase the pain
around the body , a process that often leads to core issues still held in thebody’ s tissues that in my practice leads to regular relief from physical
symptoms. Addressing the physical can resolve the emotional. Addressing
the emotional can resolve the physical. They are interwoven by design. After all, it’ s within the body where feelings first arise. This syner gistic combination is powerful enough that it can in many cases
bring relief to numerous body  symptoms, unraveling the incidents and
emotions underl ying the physical pain altogether . Please note that I’m not
stating a direct correlation between illness and emotion or in any way
saying that we cause our own illness. Life is far more complicated than this
type of black-an d-white thinking . What I am saying is that tappi ng can help
manage pain and calm you down. A colleague who had been sidelined with back pain for decades used
Chase the Pain and would often get good results, but certain circumstances
when she wasn’ t supported would bring all the symptoms back quickly . Her
breakthrough in back pain relief  came when she had a realization: “I didn’ t
need to tap on other people’ s anger . Rather , I needed to acknowledge their
anger and then tap on all the reasons, images, words, and feelings around
my own anger .”
Case Study: Relief from “Love Hurts”  
Belief with Chase the Pain T echnique
Lois, age 41, is an entrepreneur and serious amateur athlete. Unfortunately ,
she had been sidelined for the past several months by severe, mysterious
(according to the doctors), fibromyalgia-like pain. She sought me out for pain relief: “It hurts so much,” she said. Years
back, Lois had let go of the idea of marriage, so when she met a wonderful
man and they decided to marry , she wanted to relish every part of the
process, includi ng planning the wedding. He even had three children, of
whom he shared physical custody , which fulfilled Lois’ s dream of having
children. However , her horrible pain was marring everything. The physical pain had started about the time she began planning the
wedding. It was so severe it forced her to cut back on her client load andinterfered with the joy she had anticipated planning every detail of the
wedding. Lois and I worked together for about four sessions, using Chase the Pain
on her worry that she would not get to enjoy her new life. When we first
spoke over the phone, she referenced her mother several times, who had
tried to control Lois as a child. She had forced her to dress a certain way to
keep up appearances, and now she was trying to butt into the wedding
plans. Lois was having none of it; this wedding was going to be done her
way. I heard in Lois’ s voice the extreme anger about her mother; a clue. What she shared along with my intuition led me to consider that she was
experiencing “mother stuff,” and I wondered if it was playing a role in the
pain problem. However , Lois didn’ t want to work on any early memory
involving her mother when I asked. “I’ve done so much mother work,” she
said, “I’m not willing to do any more.” I let it be for the time being. Besides, she was too angry abou t her today troubles destroying her dreams
and life. We instead employed the Chase  the Pain technique on her pain, her upset
over being so sick, and her worries about not enjoying her new life. She had
been getting worse as the months passed and the wedding drew near . As we tracked her body pain all over the map, she grew increasingly
angry . “It still hurts! Nothing ’s going to work!” The pain was like a
jumping bean, moving from her back to her sacrum to her chest to
somewhere else. Each shift was another aspect and tapping round with the
EFT basic recipe. At the end of the session, she started sobbing. A huge emotional dam
seemed to have burst, and with it came some emotional and physical relief. In the next session she was ready to tap on a few memories and core issues
that had surfaced earlier in her life. The first incident was when she was
seven years old: a beloved older sibling turned her away; the second
involved a conflict with “keep ing up appearances” and big anger in the
home. She understood from these traumatic events that “love hurts” and
“love isn’t safe,” beliefs she had evidence for and had lived for the lastthree decades of her life. In our session Lois released a great deal of grief
and the pain significantly subsided. Our next task was to begin refra ming her belief system. We tapped on her
helplessness at the time; that her mother didn’ t know any better and was
just doing the best she could. We tapped on the fact that her fiancé was not
her moth er, and that she could truly have happiness; her body didn’ t need to
protect her from love any more , and she was safe to love. We tested for
aspects, running through event s slowly and with exaggeration, to see if
there were any remaining upset bits that needed to be rooted out. We tapped
on the good things that had happened and that were going to happen. Her
symptoms disappeared. Last I heard, her wedding took place a few months
later, and it was fabulous. T oday she is enjoying her new life, pain free. Exercise: Practicing Chase the Pain
Step 1. Get out your Personal Peace Procedure tapping target list. Which, if
any, upsetting event jumps out right now? That’ s the one you’ll use to
experience Chase the Pain. Or maybe you have a more pressing issue that
has arisen that is not on your list. Use that. You only need to identify
something that’ s bothering you right now . Step 2. Rate the emotional intensity of your tapping target on the 0 to 10
scale, write down the number , and set it aside. We will start now with Chase
the Pain. Step 3. Review  the targeted event in your mind as you would with Tell
the Story . Ask yourself: “Where in my body is there a physical sensation
that’s bothering me?” or “Where in my body is the physical awareness of
this upset (from your tapping target) in my mind?” Scan your body for any
sensations such as: tightness in your jaw, shallow breathing, a quickening of
the pulse, nervous fingers, a clenching feeling in the gut, a sharp pain on the
left side in the mid-back, nervous twitch, hot flash, shoulder pain, feeling
suddenly tired.Step 4. Get very focuse d and curious about the physical sensation witho ut
trying to make it go away . Ask yourself: Where is it? How big is it? What
shape is it? What’ s its density? How painful is it? What kind of pain is it—
heavy , tight, sharp, dull, achy? You can get really specific; there are no
“wrong” answers. Questions that may help: If the pain had a texture, what
would it be—cement, silly putty , cookie dough, or water? If my pain had a
color , what color would it be? and so on. If you are only aware that you are
feeling something in your body that feels of f, start there. Step 5. Now rate the sensation you are having on the 0 to 10 intens ity
scale. This feedback is critically  important when you’re performing Chase
the Pain, as symptoms will indeed move around and change in intensity . Step 6. Apply the EFT basic recipe to one specific symptom. You may be
having many symptoms, but choose one at a time for best results. If
possible, tap it down to zero before moving on to another symptom. Let’s
say you feel some tightness in your chest when you think about getting your
project in before  the deadline, or you feel tightness in your chest thinking
about having that talk with your spouse or your teenager . As with most
examples, keep it simple and don’t use heavy or deep issues at this point. Let’s look at an example of the setup phrase and EFT sequence we could
use for “ the tight chest feeling about the talk with teenager or spouse.”
Repeat the EFT setup phrase while tapping on the Karate Chop point:
“Even though I have this tightness in my chest on the left side about the size
of an orange radiating out in a circle, I deeply and completely accept all of
me.”
Step 7. Tap down the points starting with the top of the head and ending
up under the arm. Use a brief reminder phrase such as “my tight chest” or
“this tight feeling in my mid-left side” or “this stretched orange tight feeling
right behind my heart.” Customize your phrase to suit how it feels for you. Tap through the EFT sequence a few times or more, starting with the top of
the head point through the inside of the eye point.As you tap, note any changes in sensation, including spikes or sudden
drops in tightness or pain, or if no change occurs. Step 8. Continue tapping on that one symptom until the sensation shifts
or resolves altogether . If you have shifted in your symptom sensation or the
symptom has gone away , test based on your original physical description to
make sure. If it’s a 0 and you have no physical discomfort, then it’s time to
go back to your specific event, and continue the story until you experience a
shift to another pain symptom. Rate your intensity and track that physical
symptom. Conti nue tracking the pain and tapping on each area that arises,
tapping down to zero. Once you have resolved each symptom, return to the
issue or emotion al incident in question and see if the intensity has changed. Often you’ll find the incident that bothered you is now down to a zero
without you having tapped directly on it at all. Only do one symptom at a
time. Manage this carefully . You can’ t focus on everything all at once. An easie r entrée into tapping on the physical can be to simply track your
symptoms one at a time and tap down on them one at a time. You might
find as if often the case with my clients that their pain is related to a specific
event that comes to mind as they tap on the specific symptom. Just go with
it. Sometimes you’ll find that an incident or memory comes to mind as you
tap on body sensations, and you may experience a sudden emotional release
and simultaneous let-up in the pain. In situations like these, you may also
experience a spike in pain before it subsides to zero; be patient and
persistent. Tips for Getting Results with Chase the Pain
Focus wholly on a symptom, shutting off your cell phone or any other
distraction. Engage your mind. Here are ways to track pain that will help
you get tuned in. Identify the exact location and size of the symptom, e.g., directly above
my belly button, about the size of a plum.Describe the pain’ s quality , e.g., a dull ache, a throb, a sharp stab, a tight
feeling, a wrenching sensation, a heavy feeling, a numb feeling, dif fuse
feeling that spreads out, a feeling of twisting, burning. If the symptom had a color , what would it be? For example: red-orange,
fuchsia, black, neon, muddy . Describe the symptom’ s texture, e.g., cement, watery , tarry , like Play-
Doh. How long has the symptom been there? Since the beginning of time? Since last night? Give the pain a nickname, e.g., Old Faithful, My Annoyance, the Blob,
Road Runner , the Joker . What would the symptom say to you if it could talk? For example: “I’m
sick of you not paying attention to me,” “you can’ t ignore me!” W ould
you be willing to have a conversation with the hurting part of yo ur
body? What happens if you thank that part of your body for holding all that
pain? What’ s the feeling or emotion of the symptom? Ex: Sad, angry ,
frustrated, hopeless, resistant? What do you believe to be true about the pain? Figuratively speaking, who might it be stuck in that part of your body? Your mother? An ex? Y our boss? For example for neck pain: “that pain
in the neck” relates to emotions about the boss; shoulder tension relates
to “taking care of Dad is such a heavy weight on my shoulders,” leading
to emotions about Dad; tightness in ribs and mid-back and chest relates
to grieving a loss, which relates to emotions about an accident and love
loss. Alternatively , what emotions about that particular person are you
carrying in your body? Reaffirm your unshakable belief in your ability to heal, however that
looks and whatever that means. Reaf firm your belief that it’ s possible
for other people to heal. Here are some af firmations I regularly express:
“There is a part of me that believes it’ s possible to heal.” “I believe inhealing.” “I am healing, and I am healed.” “Other people can heal, I can
heal, too.” “Part of me has an unshakable belief in myself.”
If You Don’ t Feel Any Change in Y our Body Symptoms
It can happen that you feel no change when you tap on a sympt om. Try the
previous questions and see what shakes out. Start asking yourself questions,
too: “Am I getting specific enough in my EFT setup?” Get yourself very
interested in what your body is doing. A friend of mine said she didn’ t feel
anything in her body , and then a couple seconds later her stomach gurgled
—a sensation! That’ s where she would go next. Or you could focus on the
frustration that you’re not feeling anything in your body . There’ s always
something to tap on. Make sure you’ve watered and fed yourself enough, as dehydration and
too little nourishment can make it more difficult to get results. Other
environmental issues can also interfere with results, such as high electrical
fields in the case of people with sensitive bodies, and aller gies. Ask yourself
if you are giving  yourself the time and space you need to fully focus. Are
you worried about something else while tapping? Are you worried about the
symptom or focused on needin g it to go away right now? In that case, you
might want to first tap on what’ s the most intense, such as “this worry that
won’ t leave my mind.” You could also focus on one of the specific worries
that you have before tackling the body symptoms. Most importantly , be
gently persistent. Remember that pain is your body’ s alert system and it lets
you know that something needs your attention. Moreover , pain is a signal to
care for yourself . Slow down enough to care for you. If you are seriously ill
or seriously physically depleted, give yourself plenty of time to tap. If you
are exha usted and have visited many different doctors and haven’ t slept
well for days (or years), tapping may take a bit longer . The key is to care for
yourself with patience as you would a very small child. Our Pain and Sickness History Sheds  
Light on T oday SymptomsExercise: Releasing T rauma from  
Sickness and Pain—EFT Journal
How do you experience pain and sickness in your body? What are your
experiences relating to pain and sickness? Get your EFT journal and write
“Getting Sick” on one page and “Feeling Pain” on the other page. As with
the last exercise, I encourage you to take some breaks to tap continuously . And then continue writing. I have found this exercise to be emotional,
probably because I have experienced many physical ailments in my life, so
it’s useful to tap on the disrup tion. Even if you aren’ t focusing in on a
specific incident, you’ll be taking the edge of f the intensity . Step 1. Create two topics in your EFT journal: Sickness and Pain. Step 2. Under “Sicknes s,” list illnesses you’ve had that come to mind as
well as ones you remember family members having, going all the way back
to when you were born. List illnesses you don’t remember having but were
later told about. These may include:  getting a shot at the doctor ’s, in the
hospital waking  up after my tonsils were taken out, my brothers told me I
always got sick at big events, calling for Mom with a sore throat, throwing
up in the teacher ’s lap at school, learning I had IBS, the cancer scare … . Step 3. Under “Feeling Pain,” list times you were in serious pain,
witnessed serious pain, any pain you are feeling in your body now, and the
first time you recall being aware of something painful. Anything  that comes
to mind is appropriate to tap on, even if there’ s no charge. As I’ve said
before, because your subconscious brought it to awareness, there’ s likely
some gold there. Step 4. Now title each event you listed and note any intensity in the
margin. Step 5. Looking at sicknesses you’ve had over the years, choose one
event from the list with the most intensity , right now. Employ the EFT basic
recipe as well as Chasing the Pain (if relevant) until the event intensitysubsides to zero, making sure to test your intensity before and after tapping
each round. Step 5a. Administer some self-care. If you are feeling overwhelmed and
have continued tapping but are still not making headway , it migh t be time to
pause and allow yourself an emotional rest. Figuratively gather up the event
you were tapping on and place it in a box, room, or a place where you don’t
have to work with it right now . Set it aside. Step 6. Move on to the next event after the current one has tapped down
to neutrality . Tap through each item one at a time using your Personal Peace
Procedure appro ach. (See Chapter 4 if you’r e uncer tain about the Personal
Peace Procedure.) Here’ s an example: Jenny was hospitalized at age six and nearly died. Within the hospitalization experience, she has many different
events/memories to tap on, including: being so hot; held in sister ’s arms;
Mom taking me in the wagon; Mom with me at the bed; the nurse making
me eat bad food; not able to talk; getting a present from my aunt; waiting
for my mother to come; feeling scared, weak, and lonely . As she taps, more
comes up:  Mom said they couldn’ t bring the fever down, said I was burning
up; Mom said she put me in a cold bath but it didn’ t help; Mom gave me
attention and tea. Each one of these is a specific incident. Do you see that
you can remember more than you think? Jenny can tap on each of these specific incidents and any and all aspects
(components) that arise, including the words her sister and her mother said. She will likely feel a surprising amount of emotion from this old memory
and have new insights about her aversion to hospitals and doctors, and her
out-of-proportion worry about dying whenever she gets sick. She also
realizes this is a core contributor to “I have to get sick to get what I want.”
After she taps, she’ll find her emotions about hospitals and her enmity
toward doctors has changed, and she no longer feels the need to make
herself weak and no longer gets sick when she is going after something shewants. If she starts to head down that road, she recognizes that she’s just
having another aspect, and taps on it. What happens to you emotionally when you get sick or experience pain? It’s useful to apply tapping to all the feelings, thoughts, self-talk, and beliefs
you can come up with around sickness and pain. When you learn to tap
away these old fears, you can take sickness in stride as part of life, and you
will generally recover much faster. Your whole life might change for the
better . Pain and Sickness, Secondary Gain, Belief Systems
Secondary gain, or the “upside” of being sick is a common experience. Ask
yourself what’ s the upside of illness? What’ s the downside of getting well? What would have to change if you got well? What is it that’s useful to you
when you are sick that you won’t have when you are well? Explore the
upside with regard to your illness. Jenny had an upside: she got attention
and wasn’ t teased by family members. In Lois’ s case, secondary gain nearly sidelined her marriage to the partner
of her dreams. In my own case, I came to understand after tapping and
healing from my own fibromyalgia that one of my deep-seated
subconscious beliefs was that when I was sick, I got love. No one expected
anything of me, I wasn’ t teased, and I got Mom’ s full attention. Evidently , I
understood on some unconsciou s level “I need to be sick to get love. I need
to be sick to be safe.” That’ s secondar y gain—or the upside. It’s not
conscious but it’ s operating on the unconscious level. Y ikes! So is it really true that the only time I am lovable is when I am sick? That’ s a major damper on my life! Obviously that’s not true today nor was
it back then. This is the problem  with our limiting beliefs—they aren’ t even
true, but we just do our level best to make them true for us at the expense of
true possibility and joy. From an EFT perspective, my limiting thoughts
were associated with the energy disruption I experienced a long time ago
based on a core issue around being sick and being hospitalized. I hadinternalized this belief system as true, even though it wasn’ t objectively true
and had carried this through my entire life. Logically this belief system
wasn’ t true, but it felt true emotionally . I unrave led the energy disruption relating to this deep-seated belief by
looking at the events or table legs that were holding up this tabletop belief
system, and tapping on enough of them to collapse the entire tabletop. Even
so, once in a while I’ll start to feel overwhelmed or feel sick in the “old”
way. This is an immediate cue for me to start tapping on another aspect of
this belief system . How do I find the aspect? I simply look at what’ s been
going on in my life since I started to feel the sick feeling, and tap. When
intensity arises, instead of running around like a chicken with its head cut
off (as my grandmother used to say) and falling back into old unhelpful
patterns, use these moments to tap and clear out another aspect. Watch for
these moments of stress and being overwhelmed for just this reason. Another issue that used to arise  for me was the tension I would start to
feel in my neck and shoulders when my schedule for the coming week
started to look overly full, even when it was clearly (logically) manageable
for me. I’d turn away business and be fearful that it was too much  for me in
my condition (whatever the particular condition was that week). Is it any
wonder that by midweek, I’d feel rundown and sometimes even  get sick? I
realized that I had a belief system: “ If I have what I perceive to be too much
on my plate, I won’ t be able to handle it, so I should get sick because then I
won’ t have to handle too much.” It makes no logical sense, a hallmark of
B.S. (belief systems). In fact with clients I’ll often ask them to repeat their
belief systems slowly and write them down word for word because they
make no literal sense. I often repeat what they said back to them, and they
begin to realize when hearing their words that what they are saying is not
making any sense. That’ s headway! Watch for the times when you feel overwhelm ed or stressed, because
these are the moments when you can easily slip into your old default belief
systems that don’t work for you anymore. If you are having one of these BS
moments, don’ t despair . Try adapting phrases like these:Even though I’m doing it again, I shower myself with love and
compassion. Even though my shoulder ’s starting to go south again, I accept myself
and how I feel right now . Even though I’m scared I’ll get sick again if (list the issue here), I
deeply and completely accept myself. Even though I’ve just stepped into that old hole again, it’s getting a lot
easier to climb out of, now that I know how . Even though I’ve got this belief system that says … . Even though having this experience just triggered me right back into
feeling like that helpless, hopeless, scared little girl, I’m remembering
that I’m all grown up and am safe and sound. Each one of the above statements is actually one round of EFT. What
would your own EFT setup statements be? Practice writing a few that
capture the moment. The more you use EFT to target your own fears relating to sickness or
pain, the more you begin to unde rstand that you are, right now, okay , and
that the pain or sickness is not all of who you are. This insight may be key
for those living with a serious illness or recovering from a serio us accident. Sometimes it feels living through a Zen koan, like you need to go on and
yet your situation is impossible—tap on that. Sudden Injury , Accidents, Surgery
Now we’ll briefly explore using tapping  to resolve pain and trauma from
minor cuts to traumatic car crashes or accidents. Although I won’ t cover
assaults in this text, it is common for those who tap on the emotional issues
underlying serious traumatic events such as childhood sexual assault,
violent crime, or the sudden loss of a loved one, to see many (in some
cases, all) physical symptoms, especially pain, clear . These are also the
same target population for which the doctors can allegedly do nothing for,in many cases. In my belief system, there is no such thing as a lost cause or
a tough case. While tapping doesn’t do surgery, it can put you at ease as you
are about to go into surgery so your nervous and immune system s aren’ t on
high alert. Tapping can also minimize pain and shorten recovery periods
post surgery. EFT can also work  on burn relief. Remember the story about
the boiling hot water I dropped on my foot in Chapter 1? To go a bit more
into detail, the boiling wet heat immediately saturated my heel, toes, and
left foot, traveling up my ankle. I whimpered to my friend to come help,
and as I struggled to get my sock off, the pain seared deep into my foot. I
tapped on every  aspect I could think of, simply focusing on the sensations
and feelings as each arose. Even tapping on the feelings of one with no
words works as you are wholly engaged in the topic. Here are some phrases:  “Even though this really really really hurts so bad
…,”“OHH! OWW!” “I can’t believe I did that!” “Ouch, hurts! Ouch,
hurts!” “Really , really hurts!”
The pain shifted from off-the-c harts to a deeper , burning feeling, and I
shifted my focus along with it. When it turned to an ache and a throb, I
shifted again, and so on, through  each sensation. I tapped on everything that
came to mind, including the surprise, the shock, my own disbelief that I had
done that, as well as self-talk about how stupid that was and what a loser I
was (thanks, inner critic, for helping me return and zap a core limiting
belief in my life). The good news, however , is that I kept tapping. After perhaps ten minutes, the person I was with and I both observed the
pain decreasing rapidly with each tapping round. I then provided
reassurance to my foot: “The accident is over and we survived. It’s okay to
go back to normal. You (my foot) are safe and sound. We are safe. You can
go back to normal right now . I’m asking my immune system to send healing
and soothing to my foot. I’m asking the mucus membranes of the body to
soften and coat the area that is inflamed, soothing and cooling the whole
area. I want my immune system to know that we don’t have to have burns,
red marks, and the like; that the pain is over and done with and I’m okayand so is my foot. I’m so grateful for my foot. I’m glad that my foot knows
how to heal. After twenty minutes there was no pain, only two tiny light pink streaks
left to tell the tale. Put EFT in Y our First-Aid Kit
After people discover how useful EFT is after physical trauma, it is one of
the first items they later pull out of the toolkit in an emer gency . If your son
has fallen and is bleeding, tap. If your oldest just pulled a hank of hair out
of the youngest’ s head and everyone’ s wailing, tap. If your elderly mother
has just had a fall, tap. If you’re afraid that you will fall on the ice outside,
tap. If you’re being transported  to the hospital, tap. If you can’t use your
hands, imagine tapping inside while tuned in to the fear. If you hear that
someone else has been in an accident, tap. If you fear you’re going to have
a setbac k and never recover , tap. Just tap on all of the awful ideas that come
to mind—so they can release and your immune system can focus on healing
instead of on freaking out. Resolving T rauma of Serious Accidents and Healing
Sometimes, just one significant trauma can wreak havoc in a person’ s life. For example, in The Tapping Solution  movie by brother and sister team
Nick and Jessica  Ortner , I recall  a woman featured who had suffered serious
injuries in a car crash on a date, and was told she would have some physical
disabilities for the rest of her life. In the movie, she tapped with experts on
all aspects of the car crash story: what the doctors said, what she didn’ t like
about the date, that the guy was driving too fast, her anger , and more. The
results, after tapping on many aspects during the filming? She experienced
relief from her emotional trauma and physical issues. Release Fears and Pain fr om Past Accidents
In another case, Michael, a professional motocross racer , had two serious
accidents within a year. Now his career was at a crossroads. While he had
recovered for the most part physically , he was thinking  his way through hisjumps and races, rather than allowing his whole being to flow through at
these critical moments. Naturally , he was no longer winning or even
placing. His career might soon be over , unless that changed. We tapped several incidents relating to the accident, from the day getting
off to a bad start to the bike not working properly , seeing the turn, landing
wrong, being in the hospital, and finally , realizing that he would not race
again that year. As we tapped, the various parts of his body that had been
injured spoke up and he felt their pain, which then released. Once the
trauma and intensity from the issues we tapped on were neutral, he was
ready to receive the reframes. We provided reassurance to his body and
communicated directly with it, speaking directly to his subconscious, letting
his whole being know that it was far safer to actually not think his way
through the races, but allow the body-mind to flow through the races as it
had in the past. After our first tapping round, he placed. After the second
tapping, he placed again, and he realized he was no longer  thinking his way
through the race. Going V iral: Colds, V iruses,  
Infections, Allergies, and the Like
Now we’ll move on to using EFT to address and provide relief from the
pesky viral maladies that plague  us with sore throats, runny noses, coughs,
fevers, itching, and more. When you have a symptom or even if you feel that cold comin g on that
everyone else has and believe there’ s nothing you can do—tap. Once you
resolve the emotions underlyin g the sore throat or the cough, those will
often release. Tap on the scratchy feeling, on the itch, the runny nose, how
lousy you feel, not wanting to go to the doctor , the insurance copay , your
frustration with your body , the fear that it’s going to go into your chest, the
difficulty sleepi ng, why do I keep getting this bug, the kids at my son’s
school who passed it on, to whatever the symptoms are. Tap on them one at
a time and allow the emotion to flow out.In most cases, you can tap effectively with children, helping them
manage their pain and their emotions, too. Here’ s an example of how EFT
worked with my six-year -old neighbor friend, Tasha. I happened to drop by
at the time. She was stuck insid e on the first day of vacation, while the rest
of the kids were all outside playing—she could see them from the window . I asked young Tasha to describe how her sore throat felt. She said, “It
hurts. It’s red. And I can’t talk,” suddenly starting to whisper . I whispered
back, and she laughed. It was a good sign; laughter is truly healing balm. When you can laugh, fissures begin to appear in the issue, and it may soon
collapse altogeth er. A recent study has found that laughter puts your brain
in the same healing place as meditation, only faster .22
I will often use my sense of humor in a situation or exaggerate
histrionically . If you are ready for this, you will have tapped enough of your
upset down and what you say will land, a more advanced EFT technique. We all have a natural sense of humor , but sometimes it gets covered up by
hurts. I asked Tasha: “How big of a hurt is it in your throat? Is it this big?” I
opened my arms wide to both sides of my body . “Or this big?” I bent my
elbows and brought my arms closer together . “Or this big?” I asked, as I
brought the palms of my hands together as if in prayer . As we talked, I had an intuition  that Tasha’ s illness might be related to
her mom, who had started working again. I suddenly realized that today
was the first day of school vacation  … and Mom  wasn’ t there. I kept my
observation in mind but didn’ t say anything yet. Tasha hadn’ t been given a say in her mom going back to work, and she
was now getting less of her time. Could the feelings about Mom being
unavailable be stuck in her throat, contributing to its soreness? I was
waiting to see if this would arise as we tapped. In my client work, I notice that the other person’ s intuition is often
leading them, though they may not be aware of it. For example, when a
long-for gotten story from childhood pops into mind as we are tapping on a
present-day trauma, I will either bookmark it for later, or suggest that we gothere and see what happens, depending on its intensity and their wishes. Generally , these leaps of logic bring us a wealth of results. Perhaps it’s
intuition or cognition of my experience that when we address earlier issues
that are more foundational or core, we often have a bigger collapse of the
tabletop issue. Maybe it’s your subconscious (after all, it’s about 90 percent
of your mind) doing what it needs to do to help you heal. It’s the limited
consciousness of the ego that can truly be irrational. Y ou can begin allowing
and trusting that your intuition will become increasingly important as you
deepen your EFT work. Working with little Tasha, we began describing the pain in her own
words , “the stingers in my throat feeling.” We didn’ t use the 0 to 10
intensity scale; I knew she wasn’ t really a numbers person. You don’t need
to have a number , actually; as noted earlier , there are numerous ways to
discern intensity . In this case, I asked her to show me how big it was by
opening her arms as wide as it hurt. Tasha opened her arms wide out to both sides, and then pulled them in a
little bit. I guess ed it was about  an 8. We made up our statement together ,
and I kept in mind that little children need phrases and words they can
relate to: “Even though my throat hurts and it has little stingers in it, I’m an
awesome girl and Mom and Dad love me too.” I’ve also used phrases like
“Even though (the problem), my dog Ralph loves me,” or “ … God loves
me,” or even “my T eddy Bear likes me.”
Within five minutes, Tasha’ s sore throat pain went from arms as wide as
she could make  them to hands  together clasped in prayer position at the
heart—that is, no pain at all in the throat. She still felt run down and had a
runny nose, but she was laughing. Tapping was entertaining to her. We kept
going. A few minutes later, “Mom’ s not here to be with me,” arose as a big
wide-armed upset, as I’d expected. We tapped on the sadness that Mom has
always been here but now she’s not, that Tasha was mad at Mom for not
being there, that she believes Mom should be there with her all the time,
and more. Not surprisingly , tapping on these feelings caused her stuffy nose
and the run-dow n feeling to disappear as easily as the sore throat. She nolonger missed Mom, either . The whole session took maybe fifteen minutes,
if that. Soon thereafter , Tasha was outside playing with her friends. Tapping on Childr en’s Owies, Aches, and Pains
The children I have worked with and those who are tappers on their own
rarely need much time tapping to feel better . I sometimes work  with props,
such as stuffed animals (of theirs or one I have on hand) or puppets. Children can also tap on their parents and it will work. Usually , a child and
I tap on the critter as if he or she were experiencing the child’ s symptoms. For example, in the case of a child suffering from a stomach  ache, you
might suggest that the little one tap on his or her stuffed critter , saying that
Mr. Bear has a tummy ache, and it might help if you tap on these feel-good
points. Here are some words to suggest getting the child started: “Even
though (this teddy bear) is hurting in his stomach, s/he is a good bear and I
love her/him very much.”
I’ll suggest children tap on Mom or Dad instead of tapping on themselves
first if parents are okay with it. Doing so gives the children an added feeling
of empo werment. Other times I’ll have Mom or Dad tap as if they were the
child while the child watches. This also works. Remember surrogate
tapping? Surrogate T apping Symptoms
You can tap on yourself as if you were your child, even if the child is not in
your immediate  vicinity . Surrogate tapping works as long as you can stay
neutral about your own feelings, and it may take practice tapping to feel
really confident about this use of EFT. You might first tap on all the
concerns you have about your child’ s illness, and alternate tapping on your
own fears and concerns and your child’ s symptoms. How do you tap
surrogate with a child? Put yourself in their shoes and imagine what they
would say if they were tapping. Going Deeper with SymptomsDoes one part of your body seem to get stricken more often, such as your
sinuses, tummy , or throat? Are you tapping as you read? It can help. When you do get sick, is it always in the same place with the same
symptoms? Target that part when you are not sick. Try tapping with EFT
setups focused on that part of your body for seven days in a row: your
beliefs, thoughts, and experience s of being sick in that way or place. Tap on
any incidents that come to mind and you will be tapping on whatever
emotions are harbored in those body areas so you won’ t have to get sick. You are thus creating more resilience in that particular area of your body
and life. Sometimes after a person has had an injury , that area of their body in
which they were injured seems to become a repository for chronic pain. Often you will find that emotions from troubling events are housed in that
area of your body . In the case of the client with phantom limb pain, it gets
even more interesting. Each time she thought of certain specific  incidents in
her life such as the loss of her partner , the conflict with her form er mother -
in-law , the difficulties with the doctors who didn’ t help or listen, the pain in
her “unfoot” would increase. She would feel very specific pain that was
quite descriptive, and it almost seemed like she was being tortured. As we
tapped down on the specific events, the pain cleared. More on Sickness as Metaphor
Expressions we use every day offer clues: “I have a pain in the neck”: Who
or what might that be? “It feels like I’ve been stabbed in the back”: When
do you feel stabbed in the back ? “My hands are tied”: When do you feel
this way? “It’s a real thorn in my side”: Who or what do you believe is a
thorn in your side? “I’m having a hard time digesting that”: What can’t you
accept? “It feels like the weight  of the world is on my shoulde rs”: Who or
what are you carrying? Your answers are your own; it’s not as though the
person is really in or on there. You’re investigating your feeling s about that
person.A client named Jack had excruciating back pain he described as “a stab in
the back .” As we tapped on the current-day pain, it came out that he had
been betrayed by a fellow weigh tlifter who had figuratively “stabbed him in
the back” by letting the weights he was supposed to be spotting fall on Jack. As we resolved that memory , an even earlier memory of back pain came up
that I considered  a core issue. Again, core issues are events that play a role
in shaping our lives. As it happ ened, his little brother used to tell on him
even when he had done nothing wrong. Jack’ s father would suddenly slam
him on the back  in that exact place. Jack was stabbed in the back by his
father and his little brother . As a result, Jack believed the world wasn’ t a
safe place to be in, and he had carried feelings of betrayal with him all his
life. Additionally , he had become a fitness junkie in order to bulk up and
become invulnerable against his father . As we worked, his pain decreased to
the point where he could resume working out and begin to trust others
again. Buried negative emotions relating to chronic or longstanding  pain or
illness can be disrupting to our energy system. Sometimes we cannot deal
with the big feelings or traumat ic event at the time it happens, so we bury
the experience in our body . For exam ple, Carrie came to see me for sciatica she’d had for twenty
years, and it was now threateni ng to put her on disability . I asked Carrie
when she remembered first feeling a pain like this, and she recalled that it
started around the time she left home, when she partnered with a man her
mother didn’ t like. The last thing her mother said to Carrie as she left was,
“It’s never going to work and you’re going to go to hell.” What a pain in the
butt thing to say . As we tapped, Carrie became keenly aware of emotions she had never
expressed about her mother ’s words, and that her mom had been a pain in
the butt all these years. She tapped on her mom being a literal pain in the
butt. As we tapped, her pain was jumping all over the place, in her leg and
throughout her body . We kept chasing it. When done, she could walkwithout pain for the first time in years and was able to continue working
full time. When Sick, Ask Y our Immune System to Pay Attention
When you feel sick or at the first hint of a cold or scratchy throat, you might
try something I do. It’s not Gold Standard EFT per se, but it does involve
tapping. My mentor , Reneé Brown, suggests speaking directly to your immune
system and tapping with your requests to feel better . Your body may
surprise you in its ability to respond and heal. I ask my immun e system to
pay special attention to any harmful or unhealthy viruses or infections and
the like that are hurting my body right now. I acknowledge the symptoms I
am feeling. Then I pair that with a request to the immune syste m to adjust
or reboo t, tapping all the way. Here are some of the types of phrases I have
used on myself:
Even though I’m feeling sick, I’m asking my immune system to pay
attention to any unwanted infections, invaders, or strange viruses
floating through my system and neutralize them. Even though my throat is all scratchy and sore, I ask my immune
system to cool and soothe the mucus membranes in my throat and
body . I’m asking my immune system to step it up a bit, to strengthen and
recognize infections that don’t belong in my body and increase its
function in a gentle, easy, natural, and healing manner , for the entirety
of my being and highest good. Even though my immune system  is overreacting to [substance)], I want
my body to know that we’re safe, and that this is not life-threatening,
so we can dial the immune response down a couple notches so I can
function.I’m asking for my body to send soothing, cooling energy to my
inflamed joints in a way that is gentle, easy, and kind to my system to
release the toxicity . I choose to know that my immune system is
healthy , fully functioning, and effectively taking care of this infection. I
allow my immune system to balance and quickly zap these viruses,
bacteria, parasites, or whateve r else does not belong here and is
dragging me down for my overall well-being. Allergies and T apping
While about 60 percent of my clients are allergic to cats, our cat, Mr. Purr,
lives in the home (not in the part that’s my office) but none of them have
ever had an allergic symptom in the office. I too used to have cat allergy. It’s my sense that an allergic reaction in many cases is similar to the
overreaction of the phobic (irrat ional fear) response but the overreaction is
diverted to the immune system instead of the nervous system. (See Chapter
9 on phobias.) Both have been cleared in my practice with EFT using a
similar approach. I have helped clients resolve smoke, rash, sinus, food, and other allergies
with tapping. Practitioners have  created entire protocols for allergy clearing
with remarkable success rates. I believe that allergies, like phobias, can
arise because they are linked with bad experiences the person had while
near or involved with the allergen in question. The brilliant primitive brain
mistakenly notes anything near the trauma that happened as something to
avoid. The phobia affects the nervous system; the allergy affects the
immune system. Tapping on Y our Own Symptoms  
for Sickness or Pain
When you don’t know where to start, a great place to begin is asking
yourself what was happening in your life just before or during the time you
got sick. What was going on with your work, family , social life, spiritual
life, relationship s, physical body , or any other important area of your life?Major life stress ors or big emot ional upheavals can be enough to upset the
applecart of health. Sometimes, the emotional origin s of the illness are rooted in an incident
from a very long time ago that had a serious effect on you but wasn’ t
resolved. For example, Talia wound up very sick after experiencing a
significant and traumatic loss. She had a genetically inherited illness she’d
had her entire life that had never sidelined her until then. Within about three
months of the loss, she went out on disability . We were able to track back
significant events and moments  during those three months that may have
contributed to the issues she was experiencing at the time. We also tapped
on three key specific core stories from her childhood. In the next months,
she had complet ely transformed  her life—she was at work doing what she
loved, volunteer ing, and once again feeling the many possibilities life had
to offer. When you do not even remember the origins of the illness, your
body does. Places to Start Exploring with  
Chronic and Serious Illnesses
You’ll never run out of topics to tap on with this one. These are just a few
suggestions. 1. Tap on physical symptoms  one at a time with Chase the Pain and see
where this takes you. It regularly takes tappers straight to the cause. 2. Ask questions:  What was going on, specifically , within a few months
before, during, or after the time you got sick? Are there upsetting events or
big transitions —losses, moves, job changes, deaths, accidents, divorces,
children moving away , vacations that didn’ t happen, sudden shocks—that
you have not worked through yet? Use what you know and tap on any
specific events that come up. If there was an upside to this illness, what might it be? What’ s the
downside of getting better? If there were a reason for this illness no matter
how outrageous  or crazy it sounds, what might that be (go with first
thoughts that come to mind).T ake a wild guess and you may uncover adeep-seated unconscious belief from your childhood that you have
outgrown. Then you can go to work tapping on that. When’ s the first time you felt like this? How does the pain/illn ess make
you feel? Tap on the troubleso me feelings relating to experiencing your
situation. 3. Explore the belief systems,  self-talk, inner critic, fears, and other
thoughts you have about being sick or in pain. What do you believe that
other people think about you because of the illness? What stories are you
making up in your head about what’ s going on with you? Are you angry
with yourself or others that you’re not better? Do you have concerns about
not making financial ends meet? Do you believe it’s your fault you are sick
and that you shouldn’ t be sick? Are you angry that you don’t have the life
you planned and envisioned? 4. Tap on upset stemming from hurtful things that happen in your day-to-
day life due to your illness, such as hurtful words (or the silen t treatment)
from well-mean ing people who don’t get what you’re going through. Tap
on issues stemming from medica l professionals and your care. For example,
one client let me know that he taps each time before going to the doctor ,
while in the waiting room, and after leaving. Tap on specif ic upsetting
events relating to your medical care, problem hospital stays, thoughtless
things that hurt, when you looked to a physician or caregiver for hope and
instead received nothing encouraging. What sort of prejudic e have you
experienced? Has your self-worth and status taken a hit? 5. Are you “shou lding” on yourself? It shouldn’ t be this way .Tap on those
shoulds! 6. Are you hatin g your body  because it’s causing so much pain? Tap on
that. Rem ember , your body is your partner . Tapping can help you shift your
relationship with your body . I can’t tell you how many times it’s happened
in my office that someone who has been at war with their body is overcome
with emotion when I suggest we thank his or her body for carrying all this
pain for him/her all this time or thank the body for holding up through all ofthis trouble. It’ s big and it’ s deep. It’ s useful to send some positive messages
to your body , too. 7. Tap on the shame, blame, and guilt you have relating to your illness. Do you blame yourself becaus e you should somehow be able to handle
everything life throws at you? Do you believe the illness is your fault,
somehow? 8. Invoke gratitude. It seems hard to be grateful when you’re in pain or
feeling miserabl e, but it seems that’s one of the ways out of the pain and
misery . The feelings of gratitude and appreciation actually evoke an
immune-enhancing response. Even if you don’t feel grateful but you feel
hateful, pretend. Or look back in your memory for one good experience,
something you really appreciated, and savor the memory for at least 12 to
30 seconds. See it, hear it, feel it, really note it—it takes longer for your
brain to register the positive. Practice every day. Start a gratitude journal. It
takes practice when you are suffering with illness or pain, but you can do it. Exercise: T apping in Gratitude for  
Your Body’ s Magnificence
Step 1. Start tapping on the points or your favorite point or the finger points
now. Step 2. This exercise offers gratitude  for the magnificent body that’s
carried you around all these years. Try this simple way to begin recognizing
how amazing your body is, and shower it with gratitude. Pick one little or
big thing you like about your body to start. If you can’t think of anything,
what about appreciating the fact that your body breathes without you having
to do anything? Step 3. If strong feelings are coming up because you can’t find anything
to like about your body , this is a great opportunity for you to tap on
identifying what you don’t like and list in your EFT journal any specificincidents that are coming to mind relating to what you don’t like about your
body . Tap while taking the time to write down everything that comes to mind
about not liking your body . Tap on those aspects one at a time until
resistance subsi des and just one thing (or more) bubbles up that you do
appreciate abou t your body you are willing to tap on. I understand that
when your body is sick, when you have major allergies and have a hard
time eating almost any food without a reaction, when your allergy is to
something like the sun, or when  you have muscle pain no matter what you
do, it can be hard to find someth ing to appreciate or that’s likable. The body
can feel like the enemy even though it’s not. You can simply track the pain
—or you can tap on tail-end ers about finding a positive thing you
appreciate abou t your body . If you thought about something positive and
then had a tail-ender , go with that. Here’ s some examples:  “Even though I don’t like my body”; “Even
though I find it hard to be grateful when my body doesn’ t do what I want it
to”; “Even though my body isn’t doing what it’s supposed to do”; “Even
though I’m really angry at my body for … .”
Remember to rate your intensity before and after tapping the EFT basic
recipe. When you are able to think about your body with minimal
resistance, you can go to the next step. Step 4. Tap on the positive body . While I generally don’t believe that
tapping scripts will get at the roots of an individual’ s unique issue, they are
often a good starting point to find hidden treasure, paving the way to
finding out what’ s underneath a certain negative behavior or thought
pattern. Here’ s a tapping script by one of my favorite tappers, Brad Yates,
who offers hundreds of YouTube tapping videos on just about every subject
possible, including insomnia—in which he greets viewers with sleep cap. 23
Brad has kindly allowed me to share his tapping script below . What
follows is just one part. As you know , scripts may not get you to the deepcenter of your own issues relati ng to pain and illness, but they may inspire
in other ways. Karate chop:  I choose to feel really good. I really love and accept
myself. Love and forgive myself. Choose to feel physically great. Vibrant health and well-being are my birthright. And there’ s some stuff
getting in the way, and I choose to let that go. I choose to feel really
good, and I deep ly and completely love, and forgive and accept myself. Tapping on the points starting with the top of the head and moving
down through all the points—one phrase, one point: I am grateful,
body , for all the ways you keep me going. (Maybe less is more here):
You keep me going, you breathe without my even reminding you,
digest all my food and send it around to where it’s needed, tell me
when I need to rest. Truly, my body is a work of art, a miracle, and I am grateful to have
life in a body , and everything that means to me. I love my body— or
I’d like to! I am grateful to my body for all the ways and all the times it
has carried and supported me. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Repeat this exercise anytime you need a boost. In Conclusion
Now you have some great tools to begin tapping on the physic al, whether
you’re recoverin g from an acute  injury , the common cold, from an accident,
or navigating life with a serious illness. In the next chapter we address how
to put phobias in their place, which is no place in your body or mind. [contents]20. Roni Caryn Rabin, “A Glut of Antidepressants,” New Y ork T imes Online, Last modified August
12, 2013, well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/12/a-glut-of-antidepressants/?_r=0. 21. Dan Siegel, Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the T eenage Brain , 2013, (New Y ork: Jeremy
P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2013), 1 13. 22. Health Day , “Laughter May W ork Like Meditation in the Brain,” Study , Last modified April 28,
2014, consumer .healthday .com/alternative-medicine  
-information-3/mis-alternative-medicine-news-19/laughter -meditation-exp-bio-meeting-llu-
release-batch-1 149-687061.html. 23. Brad Y ates, “T apping Into V ibrant Health,” Y ouTube, accessed January 1 1, 2015,
www .youtube.com/watch?v=Ar1G_cnL_T4 (Script: www .vidqt.com/id/Ar1G_cnL_T4? lang=en&kind=asr). OceanofPDF .comChapter 9
Neutralizing Phobias
After being assaulted by a would-be purse-snatcher in the parking lot of a
local grocery store, Eliana was dragged nearly 75 feet. Her injuries were
painful, but as Eliana said, “Far worse was the fear that overtook me. At
first I wasn’ t even aware of it, but a few days after the event, I realized I
was in trouble.”
Eliana began to imagine being attacked everywhere she went. She tried
talk therapy for several months but it didn’ t seem to help. “I could hardly
step outside the door to feed the cat because I feared another attack.”
About nine months after the attack, she learned about EFT. “I started
tapping and within ten minutes, the fear was gone! The contrast between the
long hours of talk therapy that did little for me and the swift resolution from
EFT was astonishing. I then used EFT on the residual pain from my
injuries. EFT was more effective than the prescription painkiller my doctor
had ordered.”
Eliana’ s fast phobic resolution is not uncommon. As is the case with her
example, some phobic response s can be traced to one event. The phobias
resolve quite quickly as a result and are called “one-minute wonders” in the
EFT world. When your reaction to a stimulus is disproportionate to the actual danger
posed and you’ll go to extreme lengths to avoid your fear target, that’s a
phobia. Using EFT to eliminate phobic responses or panic has been quite
effective in my own personal and professional lives. In my professional
practice, young children have released phobias that include fear of tornados,
school, speaking up in class, and even fear of bowel movements after
diarrhea.
_OceanofPDF.com_Tapping_Into_Wellness_-_Kathilyn_Solomon.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        By now you know that our bodies are repositories for our emotions. Along with our external experience, what we think, say, believe, and feel,
affect our physical well-being. Our body chemistry is continually shifting
and adjusting according to what we are thinking, feeling, saying, believing,
and experiencing. When we feel good, we are emotionally conn ected and in
a state of healing; this is the case even when we’re sick, injure d, and even
when we are dying. It comes as no surprise that “presence,” both emotional and physical, is
good for us. Presence increases the level of an enzyme in our body called
telomerase. This substance both repairs and maintains the ends of our
chromosomes, which facilitates health and longevity. 21 Tapping helps access
presence—that elusive state of which Buddhists speak. In reading and exploring EFT, how has tapping af fected your body so far. What have you noticed physically during and after tapping. Reports of
feeling lighter, more energized, more optimistic, increased vitality, and
better sleeping are common. After people experience neutrality or a
cognitive shift through tapping, they may notice a feeling of calm,
expansiveness, or lightness in their bodies. If they have not felt their
emotional or sensory feelings around a “big” issue and are only now
tapping into the intensity of it, they might feel really sleepy or shaky after a
session. Occasionally when a client reports feeling trembly or shaky during
a session, I suggest we shake a bit before we continue tapping. Shaking or
vibrating is a natural reflex that releases muscle tension and calms the
nervous system. Trauma Relea se Exercise (TRE) is all about shaking to
prevent trauma. When in the midst of a big upset, many people report feeling awful,
experiencing spiking unbearable  pain, nausea, fatigue, shakiness, heaviness,
numbness, or other interesting feelings as they tap. These troubled
sensations and feelings all pass quickly. Since the body and mind are intimately connected, we can focus on the
physical sensations a person is feeling relating to an emotion al issue or
troubling event. This relationsh ip is of great benefit, especially for those
who have “big” emotions about an event or situation. It is possible to focus
entirely on a person’ s physical symptoms to collapse a deeply troubling
emotional event  while not getting lost in the depths of the emotion. You can
consider physical aspects just as you would emotional aspects—individual
components that are holding a specific incident in the energy disturbance. The technique you will learn now is called Chasing the Pain. Introduction to Chase the Pain
Still having a hard time believin g that pain can jump around in your body
and that it is tied to a feeling you are experiencing. Still believ e it’s all in
your head. Well, in a sense, it is. The state of your mind often  affects the
state of your body. For exampl e, a client whose leg was amputated at the
thigh some two-plus decades prior suffered phantom limb pain for nineteen
years—until she tried EFT. In my own EFT practice of fifteen years, I have
never come across someone who had worse pain. Her pain on a good day
was about a 9 in intensity. She typically described it as if someone were
taking pliers and trying to pull of f her toe (that wasn’ t there). At age 74, Arianna was unable to function without taking pain meds,
requiring up to six a day, the maximum, and it had some unpleasant side
effects. I don’t think I have ever come across a more conven ient storage
space for undig ested traumatic exper iences and emotions than a leg that
isn’t present in the way that most of us would agree a leg is present. As we
worked, tapping  on the specific painful memories/events using Tell the
Story, one at a time inside what we called her “unleg,” her pain resolved to
the point that she no longer needed pain medication. Now, when pain does arise, she does her pacing, which means she taps as
she wheelchairs  from room to room until the pain subsides. Arianna has
also resumed activities such as going to church, taking daylo ng outings,
writing books, and more. What happens most times is when a person taps on one specific event, the
pain in their bodies jumps all over the place during the unraveling of the
story’ s intensity, dissipating with the resolution of the ener gy disruption. In Arianna’ s case, her pain would jump all around her foot and leg that
weren’ t there. So, if we were tapping Tell the Story on a specific event,
such as “When I got the phone call from the hospital about Danny,” or the
“Wild West Fiasco,” the unbearable pincer pain might start at the toe and
then expand to all the toes, then it would change to a burnin g sensation,
then it might feel like her whole foot was being sawed off at the ankle, thenit would shift again to a scrat chy feeling, and then it woul d disappear
completely—in exact accordance to her complete neutrality around our
tapping tar get. While Arianna was feeling this pain, I wasn’ t insensitive to her anguish,
but I also knew that the pain was relating to the part of the story that she
was on in Tell the Story. I was merely tracking her pain as we kept the
primary focus on the story’ s emotional aspects she was unraveli ng with Tell
the Story. It was pretty profound. Please note, I managed these sessions extremely closely so she didn’ t get
lost in any messes after the sessions. She also had mental health support and
other resources in addition to working with me. As we had rapport and a
longer -term clinical relationship, I knew how much she could handle. This
is important especially when working with severe trauma, as she had
experienced. If you find yoursel f falling deeper into a hole and tapping isn’t
helping, it means you need additional resources, such as a mental health
expert and an experienced EFT professional. I have also worked in
conjunction with mental health professionals per legal permission of the
client. Gold Standard EFT T echnique: Chasing the Pain
Chasing the Pain is the physical  counterpart to the Tell the Story and Movie
techniques covered in Chapter 4. This time, however, the story is not one
you tell with your words—it’ s the one your body is generously sharing with
you as the pain or awareness shifts throughout it while you tap. For
example, perhaps the emotional upset relating to something that happened
between you and your partner this morning is a 10 on the rating scale. In
your body, you feel tightness in your shoulders as you think of the words
that were said. Instead of going into the story about the argument, start
tapping on the body sensation,  creating an EFT setup that reflects the tight
shoulder feeling. The pain often shifts, as the technique’ s name implies. Maybe now the awareness of pain might shift to your heart, which feels
heavy. You would then tap on the heavy heart feeling. Then the pain mightjump back to the shoulders but perhaps a little bit down to the right. The
pain can literally  jump around like a ping-pong ball in a high-stakes game. Your job is to track the pain and tap on it as it moves around until finally
you experience relief from both pain and the starting emotiona l upset. As
the physical pain lessens, the tapper also experiences an emotional release. If you don’t have a specific incident relating to your body concern, no
matter. You don’t even need to know the specific incident upon which you
are tapping because your body knows and is doing the work on your behalf. You can feel your way through the story with your body as guide. Chase the Pain also allows you to sneak up, if you will, on an emotional
issue by tapping  on the symptoms in the body relating to the issue. It spares
the user excess emotional pain by focusing on physical symptoms instead. The conscious mind gets so caught up in tracking the physic al, that the
normal walls a person would put up in going to a painful emotional place
are bypassed altogether. Sneaky, and it works—quickly. The Chase the Pain technique often links a body sensation to a specific,
emotionally charged incident and then releases both the pain and charge of
the event; oftentimes the body sensations will do it for you. Sometimes, you
will need to tap on the emotional aspects relating to the event. Is knowing what the incident was to resolve the physical symptom
essential. No. For example, many of us experienced birth trauma—fetal
distress syndrom e, premature labor, a C-section, induced birth, suction birth
—when we were born, and the ensuing fear of being stuck in the birth canal
or separated from mother post-b irth. We have no conscious memory of that
or what any ensuing emotions are linked to, yet the sensory feelings and
emotions are still there. We can tap on the body feeling; we don’t need to be
conscious of the content. It’ s okay to tap on feelings that arise. With Chase the Pain, we are not trying to get rid of pain or symptoms;
rather we are softening into them. We are nonresistant, going into the
feeling of the symptoms fully and deeply with our full attention while
tapping, in full acceptance with an affirmation. We simply chase the pain
around the body, a process that often leads to core issues still held in thebody’ s tissues that in my practice leads to regular relief from physical
symptoms. Addressing the physical can resolve the emotional. Addressing
the emotional can resolve the physical. They are interwoven by design. After all, it’ s within the body where feelings first arise. This syner gistic combination is powerful enough that it can in many cases
bring relief to numerous body  symptoms, unraveling the incidents and
emotions underl ying the physical pain altogether. Please note that I’m not
stating a direct correlation between illness and emotion or in any way
saying that we cause our own illness. Life is far more complicated than this
type of black-an d-white thinking. What I am saying is that tappi ng can help
manage pain and calm you down. A colleague who had been sidelined with back pain for decades used
Chase the Pain and would often get good results, but certain circumstances
when she wasn’ t supported would bring all the symptoms back quickly. Her
breakthrough in back pain relief  came when she had a realization: “I didn’ t
need to tap on other people’ s anger. Rather, I needed to acknowledge their
anger and then tap on all the reasons, images, words, and feelings around
my own anger. ”
Case Study: Relief from “Love Hurts”  
Belief with Chase the Pain T echnique
Lois, age 41, is an entrepreneur and serious amateur athlete. Unfortunately,
she had been sidelined for the past several months by severe, mysterious
(according to the doctors), fibromyalgia-like pain. She sought me out for pain relief: “It hurts so much,” she said. Years
back, Lois had let go of the idea of marriage, so when she met a wonderful
man and they decided to marry, she wanted to relish every part of the
process, includi ng planning the wedding. He even had three children, of
whom he shared physical custody, which fulfilled Lois’ s dream of having
children. However, her horrible pain was marring everything. The physical pain had started about the time she began planning the
wedding. It was so severe it forced her to cut back on her client load andinterfered with the joy she had anticipated planning every detail of the
wedding. Lois and I worked together for about four sessions, using Chase the Pain
on her worry that she would not get to enjoy her new life. When we first
spoke over the phone, she referenced her mother several times, who had
tried to control Lois as a child. She had forced her to dress a certain way to
keep up appearances, and now she was trying to butt into the wedding
plans. Lois was having none of it; this wedding was going to be done her
way. I heard in Lois’ s voice the extreme anger about her mother; a clue. What she shared along with my intuition led me to consider that she was
experiencing “mother stuff,” and I wondered if it was playing a role in the
pain problem. However, Lois didn’ t want to work on any early memory
involving her mother when I asked. “I’ve done so much mother work,” she
said, “I’m not willing to do any more. ” I let it be for the time being. Besides, she was too angry abou t her today troubles destroying her dreams
and life. We instead employed the Chase  the Pain technique on her pain, her upset
over being so sick, and her worries about not enjoying her new life. She had
been getting worse as the months passed and the wedding drew near. As we tracked her body pain all over the map, she grew increasingly
angry. “It still hurts. Nothing ’s going to work. ” The pain was like a
jumping bean, moving from her back to her sacrum to her chest to
somewhere else. Each shift was another aspect and tapping round with the
EFT basic recipe. At the end of the session, she started sobbing. A huge emotional dam
seemed to have burst, and with it came some emotional and physical relief. In the next session she was ready to tap on a few memories and core issues
that had surfaced earlier in her life. The first incident was when she was
seven years old: a beloved older sibling turned her away; the second
involved a conflict with “keep ing up appearances” and big anger in the
home. She understood from these traumatic events that “love hurts” and
“love isn’t safe,” beliefs she had evidence for and had lived for the lastthree decades of her life. In our session Lois released a great deal of grief
and the pain significantly subsided. Our next task was to begin refra ming her belief system. We tapped on her
helplessness at the time; that her mother didn’ t know any better and was
just doing the best she could. We tapped on the fact that her fiancé was not
her moth er, and that she could truly have happiness; her body didn’ t need to
protect her from love any more, and she was safe to love. We tested for
aspects, running through event s slowly and with exaggeration, to see if
there were any remaining upset bits that needed to be rooted out. We tapped
on the good things that had happened and that were going to happen. Her
symptoms disappeared. Last I heard, her wedding took place a few months
later, and it was fabulous. T oday she is enjoying her new life, pain free. Exercise: Practicing Chase the Pain
Step 1. Get out your Personal Peace Procedure tapping target list. Which, if
any, upsetting event jumps out right now. That’ s the one you’ll use to
experience Chase the Pain. Or maybe you have a more pressing issue that
has arisen that is not on your list. Use that. You only need to identify
something that’ s bothering you right now. Step 2. Rate the emotional intensity of your tapping target on the 0 to 10
scale, write down the number, and set it aside. We will start now with Chase
the Pain. Step 3. Review  the targeted event in your mind as you would with Tell
the Story. Ask yourself: “Where in my body is there a physical sensation
that’s bothering me. ” or “Where in my body is the physical awareness of
this upset (from your tapping target) in my mind. ” Scan your body for any
sensations such as: tightness in your jaw, shallow breathing, a quickening of
the pulse, nervous fingers, a clenching feeling in the gut, a sharp pain on the
left side in the mid-back, nervous twitch, hot flash, shoulder pain, feeling
suddenly tired. Step 4. Get very focuse d and curious about the physical sensation witho ut
trying to make it go away. Ask yourself: Where is it. How big is it. What
shape is it. What’ s its density. How painful is it. What kind of pain is it—
heavy, tight, sharp, dull, achy. You can get really specific; there are no
“wrong” answers. Questions that may help: If the pain had a texture, what
would it be—cement, silly putty, cookie dough, or water. If my pain had a
color, what color would it be. and so on. If you are only aware that you are
feeling something in your body that feels of f, start there. Step 5. Now rate the sensation you are having on the 0 to 10 intens ity
scale. This feedback is critically  important when you’re performing Chase
the Pain, as symptoms will indeed move around and change in intensity. Step 6. Apply the EFT basic recipe to one specific symptom. You may be
having many symptoms, but choose one at a time for best results. If
possible, tap it down to zero before moving on to another symptom. Let’s
say you feel some tightness in your chest when you think about getting your
project in before  the deadline, or you feel tightness in your chest thinking
about having that talk with your spouse or your teenager. As with most
examples, keep it simple and don’t use heavy or deep issues at this point. Let’s look at an example of the setup phrase and EFT sequence we could
use for “ the tight chest feeling about the talk with teenager or spouse. ”
Repeat the EFT setup phrase while tapping on the Karate Chop point:
“Even though I have this tightness in my chest on the left side about the size
of an orange radiating out in a circle, I deeply and completely accept all of
me. ”
Step 7. Tap down the points starting with the top of the head and ending
up under the arm. Use a brief reminder phrase such as “my tight chest” or
“this tight feeling in my mid-left side” or “this stretched orange tight feeling
right behind my heart. ” Customize your phrase to suit how it feels for you. Tap through the EFT sequence a few times or more, starting with the top of
the head point through the inside of the eye point. As you tap, note any changes in sensation, including spikes or sudden
drops in tightness or pain, or if no change occurs. Step 8. Continue tapping on that one symptom until the sensation shifts
or resolves altogether. If you have shifted in your symptom sensation or the
symptom has gone away, test based on your original physical description to
make sure. If it’s a 0 and you have no physical discomfort, then it’s time to
go back to your specific event, and continue the story until you experience a
shift to another pain symptom. Rate your intensity and track that physical
symptom. Conti nue tracking the pain and tapping on each area that arises,
tapping down to zero. Once you have resolved each symptom, return to the
issue or emotion al incident in question and see if the intensity has changed. Often you’ll find the incident that bothered you is now down to a zero
without you having tapped directly on it at all. Only do one symptom at a
time. Manage this carefully. You can’ t focus on everything all at once. An easie r entrée into tapping on the physical can be to simply track your
symptoms one at a time and tap down on them one at a time. You might
find as if often the case with my clients that their pain is related to a specific
event that comes to mind as they tap on the specific symptom. Just go with
it. Sometimes you’ll find that an incident or memory comes to mind as you
tap on body sensations, and you may experience a sudden emotional release
and simultaneous let-up in the pain. In situations like these, you may also
experience a spike in pain before it subsides to zero; be patient and
persistent. Tips for Getting Results with Chase the Pain
Focus wholly on a symptom, shutting off your cell phone or any other
distraction. Engage your mind. Here are ways to track pain that will help
you get tuned in. Identify the exact location and size of the symptom, e. g. , directly above
my belly button, about the size of a plum. Describe the pain’ s quality, e.
To track and release the physical sensations and emotions associated with a specific incident or event.
What is the purpose of the "Chase the Pain" technique?
To resolve the underlying emotional issues and release the associated pain.
What is the goal of the "Chase the Pain" technique?
Yes, the technique can still be used to track and release the physical sensations and emotions without knowing the specific incident.
Can you still get results from "Chase the Pain" even if you don't know the specific incident or event?
It is crucial to prioritize self-care and take breaks to avoid burnout and ensure the technique is effective.
What is the importance of self-care when using "Chase the Pain"?
Yes, it can be used on children, and the technique can be adapted for them, such as using stuffed animals or puppets to help them tap on their physical symptoms.
Can "Chase the Pain" be used on children?