EP11: How Can Tapping Transform Your Wellbeing? Insights from EFT Expert Jessica Ortner and Dr. Dympna Weil | PRESCRIBING POSSIBILITY

Description

Have you ever felt overwhelmed by anxiety, as if the weight of the world is resting on your shoulders?

You’re not alone.

Join Dr. Dympna Weil in a heartfelt conversation with Jessica Ortner, co-creator of The Tapping Solution and a New York Times bestselling author, as they explore the transformative practice of EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique). Jessica shares, “Tapping is not just a technique; it’s a pathway to self-discovery and healing,” highlighting how this simple yet profound method can unlock the door to emotional well-being.

In this enlightening episode of Prescribing Possibility, we delve deep into the world of tapping, uncovering its roots in the groundbreaking work of Dr. Roger Callahan. Jessica recounts her personal journey, revealing how EFT helped her navigate through profound anxiety during one of life’s most challenging periods.

Together, they discuss the science behind tapping and its applications in modern stress management, offering insights into how this technique can serve as a vital tool for caregivers, healthcare professionals, and anyone facing the daily chaos of life.

Join us in this reflective dialogue that not only sheds light on the healing power of EFT but also encourages bold growth and clarity in the face of adversity. Discover how simple practices can lead to significant shifts in mental health awareness and emotional well-being, allowing you to navigate chaos with grace and resilience. This episode is an invitation to embrace the possibility of a harmonious life, where wellness support is within reach, and self-discovery is celebrated.

Tune in and let’s embark on this healing conversation together!

Follow Jessica:

The Tapping Solution Website: https://www.thetappingsolution.com/
The Tapping Solution Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thetappingsolution/
Jessica’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jessicaortner/

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Transcription

Speaker #0
Hi, and welcome to Prescribing Possibility, conversations that inspire us to grow, heal, and live with harmony. I'm your host, Dr. Jim Nawal. Thanks for joining me, friends.
Speaker #1
Welcome back, friends. And today we're going to dive into one of my very favorite resources called tapping, also known as emotional freedom technique. And it truly is a huge privilege. to share this conversation with the one and only Jessica Ortner. So Jessica is a New York Times bestselling author, and she's the co-creator of The Tapping Solution. It's an accessible and powerful app, and it has had over 30 million tapping meditations done and completed, as well as having been available in over 130 countries, which I did not know. Welcome to the podcast, Jessica.
Speaker #0
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker #1
Oh my gosh, I'm delighted to have you here. So for those who are new to it, or who have maybe seen it but been a little like, what is that thing they're doing? Can you just share what tapping is and how you first came to the practice?
Speaker #0
Yeah, absolutely. So no one's going to break out into a tap dance. We call it tapping because we're using our fingers to stimulate acupressure points that are on your face and on your... Body. When I came across this over 20 years ago, the science and research wasn't there. What was there were the results. People were using it for anxiety, those who have sleepless nights, fear of public speaking, and the results were pretty incredible. And desperate times call for desperate measures. So I was in a very dark place and was just willing to do anything that could help me with my anxiety. And it... I had a profound shift. And what was so different was I was at that time, I was reading a lot of self-help books. I really had the desire to improve, but I always felt like I was falling short. And I always felt like my body was betraying me. It's like, I knew what I should do, but I just wasn't doing it. I knew how I should feel, but I couldn't quite feel it. And with stimulating these acupressure points, I found such a profound shift where it wasn't just in my head, I could feel it in my body. And anyone who suffered with a sleepless night or anxiety or panic or worry, they know that it is a very physical experience. And sometimes the self-improvement quote only takes you so far. And so I discovered it and began to use it. I teamed up with my brothers, we made a documentary film about it that started our journey. And since then, in the last... five years in particular, the science and research has absolutely exploded. And now we're beginning to understand why people are getting the results that they're getting.
Speaker #1
Yeah, it's such an interesting first, thank you for sharing your story. I think it's important for people to recognize that this is a modality that is used for a variety of conditions and A really wonderful compliment to other sources of care that you may be receiving. So one of the things that you mentioned was that sense of anxiety. And I know that stress is increasingly something that we're all dealing with in these current times we're in. How do you see tapping fitting into the modern stress management landscape?
Speaker #0
Yes. So when we first started, we called our documentary film at the time, Try it on everything. That was the company name. And then I realized it kind of sounds like a condiment, you know, like ketchup. So we upgraded since then. But the roots were like, try it on everything. And so why? How can it be that people are getting success with tapping when it comes to anxiety around testing or around money and abundance or relationships is because at the root of that is always stress impacts our ability to make better decisions. When we are stressed, we have a part of our brain called the amygdala that is firing off that fight or flight response. And we feel it. For some of us, it's the sweaty hands. It's the racing heartbeat. It's that anxiety in the pit of your stomach. Suddenly, your brain is saying, whatever you're facing next, you're under danger. And cortisol, the stress hormone, really begins to rise. We all need a bit of cortisol. It helps wake us up in the morning. The challenge is that when we're under high level of stress and we have that amygdala constantly firing off, we can't use our prefrontal cortex, which is about emotional regulation, problem solving, clear thinking. And so suddenly we're faced with debt and we continue to make bad decisions because the anxiety is so high that we just can't get ourselves together or keep going into the same toxic relationship because It feels familiar and the thought of not having that feels too stressful. And so this concept of being able to try it on so many different things is simply that when you're under a high level of stress, it impacts your decision making in every single part of your life. And to be able to incorporate this technique is so powerful. And so many therapists are now recommending, hey, between this session and next, do this tapping on anxiety, do this tapping on self-worth so they can continue doing. that practice. So to your point, whatever people are doing anyway that they're loving, it's really easy to incorporate the tapping points to whatever else is working for you to enhance your results.
Speaker #1
Yeah, I think that's a beautiful statement because it really does run the gamut in terms of how we can, I don't know, remedy or just feel better in so many different circumstances. And I had been listening to an episode of
Speaker #0
of your podcast and there was an interesting kind of a discovery like how tapping came to be it was all kind of like a fluke almost like yeah it was just about phobias the woman had had a phobia to water is that tell me where i'm wrong yes yeah no 100 so it started with this therapist dr roger callahan who was working with this woman who had i think her name was mary and she had had a water phobia for years and it was impacting every aspect of our life because She was scared of showers, taking a bath, swimming pools, full panic. And he had been using traditional therapy. He'd been using every tool and nothing was working for her. This anxiety just was not budging. At the same time, he was really interested in kinesiology and the meridian point. In his studies, he had learned that the point underneath the mouth is the stomach meridian. And she kept saying that her phobia started in her stomach. The anxiety when she looked at the water. It wasn't just like a thought. It was like a full body reaction. For those who have phobias, they know it's not just like a thought you're thinking. It's your whole body freezes and it feels like you're being hijacked by this response. It started in her stomach. And so he used his tools as a therapist and incorporated it with tapping and allowed her to start talking about her phobia while simply tapping underneath the mouth. By combining his traditional therapy with this power of tapping. Her phobia went away and he had a home office. So he had a swimming pool. He was able to take her out, test her on the swimming pool. A few days later, they said, let's meet in the ocean because he couldn't, but he's like, this can't, I've been working with her for years. And that is when this field really began to take off where this therapist began to incorporate what he knew as a therapist with the power of stimulating acupressure points.
Speaker #1
It's amazing how like serendipitous it was. And that was a long time ago. I want to say it was like 1979 or something. So tapping's been around a really long time.
Speaker #0
It is. And also there's a man, Dr. Dawson Church, who's done a lot of studies around tapping. And one thing he had shared with me is that you find ancient cultures where they tap on acupressure points, maybe in a different way. And we also intuitively do this. When people are nervous or scared, they grab their chest. Or when they're feeling stress, they touch their temples. So I think these are self-soothing things that there is a part of us that knows because you see kids do it a lot. My kids love tapping as well and special needs kids especially. I think there is something very intuitive on how it helps us calm our body.
Speaker #1
Yeah and to the point you made before about how we have those two segments of the brain right like the old rudimentary part which is the fight or flight. And then we have the prefrontal cortex, which really is our thinking social sort of part of the brain. And how absolutely amazing it is how that part just shuts off whenever the amygdala fires. And it doesn't have to be anything, you know, earth shattering. It doesn't have to be being chased by a lion like it used to be, right?
Speaker #0
It's a phone call. It's an email.
Speaker #1
It's having to do anything, right? Yeah. Yeah. Our brains just don't know. They know safe or not safe.
Speaker #0
Yes, I think it's such an important conversation because when you're dealing with any type of stress or anxiety, there's a lot of self-blame. Like, oh, why am I like this? Why is this impacting me so much? And when you begin to know that your brain, the only thing it cares about is your survival. And so you are running patterns that that helped your ancestors survive. Like you were supposed to be stressed and run fast. But now what it's doing is it's shutting down the part of your brain that can critically think and make its way through more complex situations, which we're facing in our daily life. And when we begin to know, you know, at the root of this, there is some self-love. There is a part of you that loves you so much that it just wants you to stay safe. It's not that you're broken. It's not that there's something wrong with you. It's misguided self-love. And so by being able to witness your anxiety and see this in a new light, of it's not because I'm broken or there's something wrong. It's that part of me doesn't feel safe. So I'm going to use tapping to help my nervous system and my body and my brain know that I'm safe. I don't need fixing. I don't need changing. I need safety and reassurance.
Speaker #1
Yeah. Oh my gosh. The misguided self-love or misguided love is just the most beautiful phrase I've ever actually heard to qualify that feeling that we all have in any given situation, whether it's anxiety or depression, whatever we're managing in our own lives, to think of it that way really does take the sting out of it. It's beautiful.
Speaker #0
Tapping, I feel, opens yourself up to compassion because we talked earlier about how it's this combination of these ancient Chinese acupressure points and this modern psychology. Dr. Roger Callahan started it. One part about the psychology part of it is that we're learning that what you resist persists, that we can't just say, don't feel that or get over it. A big element of tapping is the words are giving yourself a moment to think about the feeling, to have a level of acceptance of the feeling like this is where I am. I have this anxiety, allowing yourself to be with it. And And as you stimulate these points, it sends this calming signal to your brain. Another way to look at it is it's called memory reconsolidation. Every time you think of something from your past, it's like your brain is opening a folder. And when that folder is open, we usually then save it again with the same stress and anxiety because we're thinking that memory, we're feeling anxiety in our body again, and do-do, saved. When you're tapping, you're opening the folder while stimulating these points, setting that calming signal. So that when you close that folder, it's saving with new safety. I can think of that event, but I'm safe in my body. And when you're safe in the body, that's when your prefrontal cortex can go, okay, this is what I learned. This is how I'm growing. I'm older now. I can forgive myself or I can let that go. You're able to have that emotional regulation that's just impossible when you're hijacked by a feeling.
Speaker #1
Yeah. Yeah. And Jessica, how long, like, does it... I guess, how long does it take? I mean, I know that one example of Mary from before, it was like one tapping session, but how long does it usually take to get some type of a response? And how long does that last? Is there any data or what's your experience?
Speaker #0
So I'll share a story, which I think is a perfect example. There was this woman, Samantha, who was a 911 caller. She answered 911 calls and her whole life, she was like the rock. Every day, all she was doing was dealing with crisis, these different huge events. And she was fine while doing it until she retired. And then all of a sudden, all that stress, all those memories, they kept her up at night. She had trouble going into a movie theater without being hypervigilant, trouble being in a mall. And she was very frustrated with herself because she was like, I am the rock. I'm the person people depend on. And now I feel completely hijacked by these past experiences. So she opened the Tapping Solution app and she did a tapping meditation for safety. It's about safety in your body. And every night, so she could not sleep. She's always waking up. She started tapping and quite, you know, with the one tapping meditation, she was able to fall asleep. So this became her normal. Every night before going to bed, I have to do the safety and then I can sleep through the night. So it became her routine. She has a young child, one day, crazy bedtime, kind of late, she fell asleep and she didn't do it. And she woke up the next morning and realized, oh, I don't need to do it every night anymore. My body knows there's something in my system that knows I'm safe. But in the beginning, she did it every single day.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
There's other experiences where it depends like what you're focusing on. We live in Newtown in Sandy Hook where the school shooting happened. And when that took place, trauma has so many layers. You have grief. But then you also have the trauma of seeing a TV van or hearing a helicopter. And suddenly that begins to trigger the stress response. So my brother, Nick, who I work with, he worked with who now is a dear friend of ours, Scarlett Lewis, who lost her son, Jesse. And their first session, it wasn't about how can I not grieve this death? That's but how can I not be triggered by the sound of a helicopter? And so her focus was thinking about the helicopter sound. and tapping and teaching her body that she can hear the sound and feel safe. So we have a lot of people who have experienced different levels of PTSD, a lot of veterans who come to this. A lot of, and I would love to talk about this too, just because I know you have such great perspective, but first responders and people who are under a lot of stress come back to this because you don't have to relive the memory. It's kind of this ability to allow your body to know it's safe. And then there's everyday uses. Maybe it's not, maybe you're not going through something profoundly traumatic, but every time you want to speak, you feel like that five-year-old who raised their hand with the wrong answer and you're scared of getting it wrong again. And so you can do some tapping around public speaking. So the main part of tapping is you're directly allowing your body and your brain to feel safe. And so it's about looking at our lives to be like, where do we have walls or tension? that we want to let go of.
Speaker #1
That is such a beautiful, like those examples just really, they hit very deeply. As you were describing the helicopters, it reminded me of like 9-11. I was in Manhattan in medical school at the time. And gosh, it would have been really handy had I known about this, that, you know, like, it would have been a great tool for me to use. The interesting thing you mentioned about health care workers and first responders, I came to tapping myself through a series of unfortunate events. You know, the big one being an episode of PTSD that I experienced with a flashback in the OR. And it was it just knocked the wind out of my sails, so to speak. And it was really challenging to figure out, like, how am I going to take care of myself? How am I ever going to get back into an operating room? And I can say, like, completely wholeheartedly, I was only able to do that after I tapped. I had therapists, I did all the things right. But I it was really through tapping that I was able to get over that. And it was life changing, really. Yeah.
Speaker #0
It's so powerful to share that. Because when I think about the story about Samantha, who was her job was taking care of other people with these 911 calls. There was a, I mean, she admitted that there was a little bit of shame at the experience. Like she's supposed to be in the front line. She's supposed to hold it all for everybody. And then suddenly it does become so heavy. And I feel like there's a lot of judgment and self-criticism of I shouldn't be impacted or, and, and the surprise. Sometimes you go through a million things, I'm sure in the OR that you're fine. And then it's that one. thing that might not even be the most traumatic. You don't know why, but it is impacting you more than anything else. I think having the conversation about how that's so common and why we need to have support and help and conversations is so important because being a first responder or a healthcare worker or a caregiver can be so incredibly isolating and you feel these feelings and they feel really heavy. And I think also normalizing the experience and saying like, it's absolutely normal. We're human that we have this experience. It's how we're wired. So let's find every tool to support ourselves.
Speaker #1
A hundred percent. Thank you for saying that because I did end up taking the tapping like to the next step. So I used to incorporate it then when I would go before I'd go to the scrub sink, like on my way to the scrub sink, I wouldn't even go through a whole sequence of tapping. I would just tap on the side of my hand and just say, you know, just help. guide my thoughts, guide my actions, guide my decisions, you know, and it was just more of like a, like, just like asking for just some, like centering, right, and reminding myself of the importance of what I'm about to do and to know that like
Speaker #0
I'm here to be the helper and I need to make sure that I'm well too right so I used to do that at the sink all the time after that episode yeah I love that because it also shows like sometimes we get in our heads on how like complex it needs to be and one of the reasons we made the tapping solution app is because we wanted people just to be able to press play and have a five minute experience a 10 minute experience but I love this idea of like You don't need anything and you don't even need all the points. You focus on a point that helps you feel better. You stimulate that point and you let yourself know what you need to hear. You're sending a calming signal to your body, to your brain. Suddenly when you say those words, they have a place to land. It's like the tapping almost does the weeding so we can plant the seeds. So it's like allowing ourselves to just let that go so that we can hear and really let those words sink in.
Speaker #1
Yeah. Oh, I love that. To plant the seed in the weeding. Oh my gosh, that's such a beautiful visual. Interesting. As you mentioned, caregiving, there is a beautiful section of the app where there are tapping meditations specifically for caregivers. And the one that I just can't get over is the one that you put out during the pandemic for healthcare workers. Did that every single day I went into the hospital because there was one for before your shift, during your shift, and after your shift. And it was amazing how much that allowed me to get into my car and drive on the road when there was nobody allowed out. It was eerie. And like that allowed me to get over the, I can't do this. It really did. And so, yeah, I thank you so much. Like, I could cry thinking about it, actually.
Speaker #0
Well,
Speaker #1
yeah,
Speaker #0
thank you for, you know, and everybody who's listening to this, who was, you know, in the front lines then and then the front lines now, you know, whether it's COVID or not, it's hard to leave your family and get in your car and go into a situation where you know, the stakes are high. Or even as a simple caregiver, when there's so much uncertainty and unknown and utter exhaustion because it can feel monotonous, that idea that you can just power yourself up, even in the car, to just get yourself in the right state for the next day, for the next shift. And, you know, when you're able to do that, you're thinking differently, you're acting differently, your energy is different. And I feel like you become the medicine the world needs. It just helps you do what you need to be good medicine for the world.
Speaker #1
Yeah, I appreciate that. and on One of the other beautiful things, I think, for the caregivers is you mentioned like the exhaustion, but there's also that there's so many complex feelings that come along with that, whether you're a professional caregiver or an unpaid, which there are many unpaid caregivers, right? Caring for family members or friends or parents and kids at the same time. The stakes are so high in. in the caregiving world that it can feel so heavy. And to have an opportunity to do something that doesn't take a lot of time, I think is really, it's remarkable.
Speaker #0
Yes. Yeah, I agree. I'm looking at my phone now so I can bring up that category. It was really rewarding to do this one because I feel like caregivers are just the unsung heroes, and especially those who are being, well, paid and unpaid, honestly. It can be really lonely. It could be really monotonous. And there's a there's a lot of uncertainty. And so there's a lot of feelings like we address the guilt that you might feel about not liking it about the days that are hard. And I'm trying to, you know, my phone's being too slow, but there's There's, you know, there's also isolation. Yes. Allowing yourself to take care of yourself, even the action of being like, what do I need? How do I fill up my cup without feeling guilty? A lot of times caregivers have this unspoken law that my value depends on how much I'm giving. And so we give, give, give, because when there's a moment when we need to say no, we feel like we're doing something wrong. And it's so important. important when you're giving so much to be able to put the brakes and say, no, I can't, I can't, I can't do it this weekend. I can't be without. I'm so sorry. Like, and, and this is so, this is interesting. Let's like break that down a little bit. So we know that we need to say no, but what happens? We feel this panic in our body. A lot of us, we say yes, before we even think about it, because we're, we just grew up being like, I mean, I resonate with this. I say yes. And then I go, why did I say yes? I really wanted to say no. That was like a big lesson for me as I got older. But there is a physical reaction. So you physically feel like, oh my God, I feel so guilty. Like I can't say no, I have to do it. Doing it, the resentment I will feel and the stress of doing it feels better than the panic I feel right now choosing myself. Well, that is something to tap on. That is what you have to learn to be able to set that boundary to tap. imagine yourself saying no and be able to feel at peace in your body so you can say no from this reassurance you know this reassured confident place because we allow others to say no to us and we're fine so why aren't we allowed to say no because we have a very strong physical reaction to the word no and that is something we can tap on yeah that's the people pleaser right yes yeah and i think a lot of people listening will will likely
Speaker #1
That'll resonate. And so I think that's another wonderful use. You know, you mentioned sleep before, too. Funny story. Not so funny, but funny. My daughter was during the pandemic. She had the hardest time as as it went on and on with like letting me go to work. And she's home from school. Nobody's supposed to be out. I'm going to, you know, the hospital and we had no masks and the whole thing. And she just took it all on. She is like an empath. to some crazy degree. And so she it started manifesting and she couldn't sleep. And so I cajoled her into doing the tapping meditation one night for kids, because there's one for young, young kids, and then for like, pre adolescence, and then teenagers. I mean, they're so beautifully, you know, categorized, personalized. Yes. I mean, it's just so, you know, well appointed to the groups. And... she did it. And like, after we were done, I remember looking over and just saying, are you good? And all I got was this.
Speaker #0
Thumbs up.
Speaker #1
So I was like, okay, so we ended up doing that for so long. And my husband too, he actually did it after being an enormous skeptic for, you know, he's like, you do you.
Speaker #0
I get it. Yeah.
Speaker #1
But he came asking for the tapping app when he couldn't sleep, you know, under a real stressful time at work. And he didn't even get through all the points. I mean, he didn't get to under the he just it was like three points in and he was snoring. So to all those people who might be either naysayers or just skeptical, you know, what is the there's a lot of evidence now to support it. What would you consider some of the more, I don't know, salient or important evidence to date?
Speaker #0
Yeah, I think the most cited study and probably the most interesting one as well is and this was a study that was duplicated. So. One study showed that tapping reduced cortisol by 43%. It was duplicated as well in Bond University in Australia by Dr. Peter Stapleton. And, you know, they had a group. One group was doing the tapping. One grouping was just reading about stress relief. Another group was relaxing. And the cortisol dropped by 43%, which is so significant in that group.
Speaker #1
Amazing.
Speaker #0
There's so many more. There's been studies on the brain showing that when you tap, your brain will react to a stimuli differently than it did before. You're creating new associations to things. And, you know, we're in a really exciting time. There's so many things that I can't mention yet, but there are major universities that have started doing studies. And right now there's over 300 published studies around tapping, many of them internationally. And I just, I see this wave. I mean, it's been a really big, important five years, but I think the future is even bigger because we're also seeing tapping work really well with cases of like stomach pains. You know, you've tried everything and nothing's working. Well, let's try some tapping. Let's see if the anxiety is related at all to this, to helping your stomach. So there's so many different things that are being, that are being researched. I would say like the best thing to do is the. there's the app has a 14 day free trial so anyone can go on we have also like every tapping meditation for a health care worker is always free we want to give to every health care worker they're giving so much to us it's like our way of saying thank you so first responders health care workers all those tapping meditations before and after shift are absolutely free we have a 14 day free trial so just try it so just give it an experience and notice if the number goes down And that would be my advice is like, I can tell you the science and research, but like have an experience and, and maybe like Sam who did it every night for safety, she felt it go down, but, you know, stick with it a little bit. But I will say that the majority of people, they have a decrease in their stress and their anxiety the very first time.
Speaker #1
Yeah, that's, I, that was certainly my experience for sure. And to your point, you know, the free trial is amazing and there is just so much. free content that you provide that it makes it so accessible to everyone. You know, there's, there are very specialized pathways that you may have access to, you know, in the paid version, but you can get absolutely all that and then some from what you offer, you know, for free, which is really just remarkable and very, very giving of the three of you.
Speaker #0
Thank you. Thank you. My parents are proud.
Speaker #1
They should be. Oh, my gosh.
Speaker #0
So for those who missed and not only do I work with I mentioned Nick, but I work with my brother, Alex, too. So truly as a family business, it's me and my two older brothers with my dad helping as well behind the scenes. So it truly is like a family endeavor.
Speaker #1
That's amazing. Honestly, do you. So when you are working on these like the tapping sequences, do you mind like maybe we could just show people what. or I'll have you just demonstrate. Would that be okay?
Speaker #0
I would absolutely love that.
Speaker #1
Wonderful.
Speaker #0
For those who are watching on the video, I'm going to tap. If you're just listening, I'll also describe the points. So the very first point is the side of the hand, and it's underneath your pinky. It does not matter what side of the body you tap on. So it's kind of like you don't want to tap so hard it hurts. It's just like a firm tap. Then the next one, which is, this is the one that the most people get off. It's not in the middle of your head. It's where the hair of your eyebrow begins on the bone. So just find your eyebrow. I'm using two fingers here, just gently tapping to stimulate that point. Follow your eyebrow until you're on the side of the eye on the bone. That's the side of the eye point. Then we have underneath the eye right on the bone. We have underneath the nose between the upper lip and the nose. Then we have underneath the mouth which is that crease between your bottom lip and your chin. Then you have your collarbone point. If you feel your collarbone and you go down an inch on either side you'll feel it. I sometimes also use my whole hand to tap on my chest. The next one is underneath your arm so it's about a hand width from your armpit. For women, it tends to be where your bra strap lies. And then the last point is the very top of the head. So these are the nine points. And once you are comfortable with these points, and you know these points, you just go through those points. You always start on the side of the hand, and then you do the rest of the points, you know, a few times. But I love what you shared earlier, which is you just remembered the side of the hand. And that's how I, you know, I learned tapping, and I had this breakthrough moment, and then I forgot about it. because how often do we do that? It's like we are in a crisis. We get the one thing and then it's like back to life. And then it was only until like five months later I was going through a breakup. And I remember I was like trying not to cry too loud. And I was like, I think I was like 21. And I was like, what's the point? I think there's one under the eye. And I think I remembered like four of them. But I just tapped where I remembered. And I just, oh, I felt my body relax. And I was able to fall asleep. And that's when I was like, I got to look into this a little more. So the point is, you don't have to do it perfectly. And even if you just know one point that you're going to do when you're under stress, that makes such a huge difference.
Speaker #1
Yeah, that's a really it's so it is so accessible. I think that's, you know, you have your hands with you all the time. You don't need anything special, right? Yeah, it's it's really simple. And it's almost so simple that you just can't believe it actually works. but it It totally does.
Speaker #0
It almost works against us that it's so simple because people are like, and you know, it's developed through the years because when Dr. Roger Callahan started, depending on what you were struggling with, he would say, okay, tap on this point or tap on that point, you know, tap on the stomach meridian. And then a gentleman, a Stanford trained engineer came named Gary Craig, and he started to go, well, wait a second. There's nine points that are the most common that we use. So what if we use those nine? points. And that is what started what's called emotional freedom techniques. Only need to know these nine points. And anytime you're stressed, you can go through this cycle.
Speaker #1
Yeah, I mean, it really is such a, like an elegant pattern of following, you know, and it's not that hard to do, whether you are listening to the app, or you're just tapping just to bring yourself a little bit of calm and ease. Yeah, it's really remarkable how something so simple can be so profoundly important and helpful. So I have a question. I asked you previously if you had like a motto or something that, you know, a creed that you kind of live by. And you mentioned trust life. So I'm curious about that philosophy.
Speaker #0
Yeah, you could also replace, I say trust life, you could say trust God. Trust the divine. Like this idea of trust is so important in my life because so much of my success and what I wanted, I have to admit, like I didn't, I can't manipulate life enough to become the way that I wanted to. Like I couldn't have figured, I couldn't have created a strategy on how I would move to California and meet my husband because he happened to be there at that time moving from Argentina. There's things in our lives and I hope everybody can reflect. There's things in your life where it's not just you. There's so many things that line up. And so, you know, I think it's Steve Jobs says that it's really easy connecting the dots looking back. Have to have faith looking forward. And one of the questions I love to ask people is what is something that at the time was really hard and it ended up becoming a big blessing. and so often the biggest transformations And the biggest blessings that people created was from a dark moment. And so this idea of trusting life for me is trusting that if I feel like I'm being rejected, I'm really being redirected by something better. If something's not happening on my time frame, it's because something better is around the corner. And so that letting go of control and thinking that we can like manipulate the human experience and instead trusting life. That there is a divine plan and purpose for us.
Speaker #1
Oh, that's so beautiful. I try to aspire to that similarly. And I can attest to the fact that it's those dark moments, right? It was that's how I fell into tapping myself. And some of the more beautiful things that have happened in like my own career and. I guess identity shift that's happened in the last several years since I've been out of clinical practice, you know, I wouldn't have wished it on anybody. Like if I had made the decision and made that choice, it would have been one thing. But because I had to leave because of a medical issue, it's a whole other can of worms, right? But being able to say, well, that has led me to all these other things that I'm... you know, interested in and able to serve in a different way. It's really, it's a great life lesson to just say, hey, I'm just a, I'm an observer.
Speaker #0
Yeah, we're not running the show. We like to think we're running the show. But we are part of something greater. Yeah.
Speaker #1
And this is just a this is another tool to help make the story better.
Speaker #0
Yes. And side note, I am not good at this. This is why it's my mantra because I like to control. And I like to figure things out and I like to overthink and I was born an overthinker. And so I've gotten much better at it. But this is my life lesson is constantly when I notice any anxiety build up being like, trust life, like it's going to work out. If it hasn't worked out, then it's not the end because it's all going to work out in the end. And so I think it's also helpful for us to look at like you did just now look at our past and see those events. That way in the future, when we find ourselves in a sticky situation, we can remind ourselves, hey, I don't know where this is going to lead, but I trust it's going to lead something good to something good. So I'm going to keep that in my vision, in my heart and move in that direction.
Speaker #1
Yeah. I think that is, that's the only way to, I don't know, rise to the occasion. Like, how do you do that when things are so dark? Right. And, you know, for people listening, It may not be a personal challenge. It just might be the challenge of. 2025. Yeah. And the world just being kind of upside down in a lot of ways. And that's unnerving, you know. And so just to be able to have something that is so easily done and simple is just it's such a gift, honestly.
Speaker #0
Yeah.
Speaker #1
So so I wanted to just thank you for everything you do, the generosity of the tapping app, just for the constant evolution of. what you offer to everybody, it really has like profoundly impacted me. And so having this opportunity to chat with you has just been such a great honor.
Speaker #0
Well, I have to say it's an honor for me. Thank you for all those days that you showed up for others and the way that you continue showing up for others and your generosity and sharing your success. When I met you, I was like so over the moon because I don't always see what's on the other side of someone listening to a meditation on their phone. And so to see that it helped is profoundly meaningful. And it's because you showed up. It's because you decided that you wanted to be your best as you show up for others. So thank you so much for what you do.
Speaker #1
Oh, I appreciate that.
Speaker #0
Thank you.
Speaker #1
Thanks for sharing your time with me here on Prescribing Possibility. I hope today's conversation offered you a breath of fresh air, a new perspective, or even just a moment of calm in the chaos of life. If this episode resonated with you. Pass it along to a friend or a colleague. You never know who might need a little more harmony in their life today. I'd love to hear your thoughts, your questions, or topics you're curious about. Reach out to me anytime on Instagram or LinkedIn at dimitnowhile or send me an email at podcast at dimitnowhile.com. Until next time, give yourself the grace to grow, the space to rest, and the courage to imagine what's next.

Chapters

Introduction to Tapping and Guest Introduction
3sec
Understanding Tapping: What It Is and Its Origins
18sec
Personal Experiences with Tapping and Its Benefits
1min
Tapping as a Tool for Modern Stress Management
3min
The Science Behind Tapping and Its Effectiveness
6min
Real-Life Applications: Tapping Stories and Experiences
13min
Tapping for Caregivers and Healthcare Workers
18min
Tapping Techniques: A Demonstration
22min
The Philosophy of Trusting Life and Letting Go
30min
Conclusion and Call to Action
39min

About PRESCRIBING POSSIBILITY

Prescribing Possibility is hosted by physician, writer, and master coach Dr. Dympna Weil, MD. It’s a space for real, reflective conversations that inspire deep healing, bold growth, and a more harmonious way of living. Whether you’re navigating life in medicine, feeling pulled in a thousand directions, or simply searching for steadiness in a chaotic world, Prescribing Possibility offers stories, strategies, and soulful support. Settle in for your weekly dose of thoughtful dialogue and personal transformation, and the gentle reminder that life doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful.

Special thanks to @Bright_Sighted Media and @creatorstudiosaratoga for this opportunity to learn & create in their warm, cozy, and welcoming Bright Sighted Studio in downtown Saratoga Springs, NY. As a Founding member of the Creator Studio, it is an honor to work with them & remind myself that I still can learn new things (albeit at a slower pace...). Shoutout and gratitude to Christine Murtagh for her supurb VA support xo

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About PRESCRIBING POSSIBILITY

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Description

Have you ever felt overwhelmed by anxiety, as if the weight of the world is resting on your shoulders?

You’re not alone.

Tune in and let’s embark on this healing conversation together!

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The Tapping Solution Website: https://www.thetappingsolution.com/
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Transcription

Speaker #0
Hi, and welcome to Prescribing Possibility, conversations that inspire us to grow, heal, and live with harmony. I'm your host, Dr. Jim Nawal. Thanks for joining me, friends.
Speaker #1
Welcome back, friends. And today we're going to dive into one of my very favorite resources called tapping, also known as emotional freedom technique. And it truly is a huge privilege. to share this conversation with the one and only Jessica Ortner. So Jessica is a New York Times bestselling author, and she's the co-creator of The Tapping Solution. It's an accessible and powerful app, and it has had over 30 million tapping meditations done and completed, as well as having been available in over 130 countries, which I did not know. Welcome to the podcast, Jessica.
Speaker #0
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker #1
Oh my gosh, I'm delighted to have you here. So for those who are new to it, or who have maybe seen it but been a little like, what is that thing they're doing? Can you just share what tapping is and how you first came to the practice?
Speaker #0
Yeah, absolutely. So no one's going to break out into a tap dance. We call it tapping because we're using our fingers to stimulate acupressure points that are on your face and on your... Body. When I came across this over 20 years ago, the science and research wasn't there. What was there were the results. People were using it for anxiety, those who have sleepless nights, fear of public speaking, and the results were pretty incredible. And desperate times call for desperate measures. So I was in a very dark place and was just willing to do anything that could help me with my anxiety. And it... I had a profound shift. And what was so different was I was at that time, I was reading a lot of self-help books. I really had the desire to improve, but I always felt like I was falling short. And I always felt like my body was betraying me. It's like, I knew what I should do, but I just wasn't doing it. I knew how I should feel, but I couldn't quite feel it. And with stimulating these acupressure points, I found such a profound shift where it wasn't just in my head, I could feel it in my body. And anyone who suffered with a sleepless night or anxiety or panic or worry, they know that it is a very physical experience. And sometimes the self-improvement quote only takes you so far. And so I discovered it and began to use it. I teamed up with my brothers, we made a documentary film about it that started our journey. And since then, in the last... five years in particular, the science and research has absolutely exploded. And now we're beginning to understand why people are getting the results that they're getting.
Speaker #1
Yeah, it's such an interesting first, thank you for sharing your story. I think it's important for people to recognize that this is a modality that is used for a variety of conditions and A really wonderful compliment to other sources of care that you may be receiving. So one of the things that you mentioned was that sense of anxiety. And I know that stress is increasingly something that we're all dealing with in these current times we're in. How do you see tapping fitting into the modern stress management landscape?
Speaker #0
Yes. So when we first started, we called our documentary film at the time, Try it on everything. That was the company name. And then I realized it kind of sounds like a condiment, you know, like ketchup. So we upgraded since then. But the roots were like, try it on everything. And so why? How can it be that people are getting success with tapping when it comes to anxiety around testing or around money and abundance or relationships is because at the root of that is always stress impacts our ability to make better decisions. When we are stressed, we have a part of our brain called the amygdala that is firing off that fight or flight response. And we feel it. For some of us, it's the sweaty hands. It's the racing heartbeat. It's that anxiety in the pit of your stomach. Suddenly, your brain is saying, whatever you're facing next, you're under danger. And cortisol, the stress hormone, really begins to rise. We all need a bit of cortisol. It helps wake us up in the morning. The challenge is that when we're under high level of stress and we have that amygdala constantly firing off, we can't use our prefrontal cortex, which is about emotional regulation, problem solving, clear thinking. And so suddenly we're faced with debt and we continue to make bad decisions because the anxiety is so high that we just can't get ourselves together or keep going into the same toxic relationship because It feels familiar and the thought of not having that feels too stressful. And so this concept of being able to try it on so many different things is simply that when you're under a high level of stress, it impacts your decision making in every single part of your life. And to be able to incorporate this technique is so powerful. And so many therapists are now recommending, hey, between this session and next, do this tapping on anxiety, do this tapping on self-worth so they can continue doing. that practice. So to your point, whatever people are doing anyway that they're loving, it's really easy to incorporate the tapping points to whatever else is working for you to enhance your results.
Speaker #1
Yeah, I think that's a beautiful statement because it really does run the gamut in terms of how we can, I don't know, remedy or just feel better in so many different circumstances. And I had been listening to an episode of
Speaker #0
of your podcast and there was an interesting kind of a discovery like how tapping came to be it was all kind of like a fluke almost like yeah it was just about phobias the woman had had a phobia to water is that tell me where i'm wrong yes yeah no 100 so it started with this therapist dr roger callahan who was working with this woman who had i think her name was mary and she had had a water phobia for years and it was impacting every aspect of our life because She was scared of showers, taking a bath, swimming pools, full panic. And he had been using traditional therapy. He'd been using every tool and nothing was working for her. This anxiety just was not budging. At the same time, he was really interested in kinesiology and the meridian point. In his studies, he had learned that the point underneath the mouth is the stomach meridian. And she kept saying that her phobia started in her stomach. The anxiety when she looked at the water. It wasn't just like a thought. It was like a full body reaction. For those who have phobias, they know it's not just like a thought you're thinking. It's your whole body freezes and it feels like you're being hijacked by this response. It started in her stomach. And so he used his tools as a therapist and incorporated it with tapping and allowed her to start talking about her phobia while simply tapping underneath the mouth. By combining his traditional therapy with this power of tapping. Her phobia went away and he had a home office. So he had a swimming pool. He was able to take her out, test her on the swimming pool. A few days later, they said, let's meet in the ocean because he couldn't, but he's like, this can't, I've been working with her for years. And that is when this field really began to take off where this therapist began to incorporate what he knew as a therapist with the power of stimulating acupressure points.
Speaker #1
It's amazing how like serendipitous it was. And that was a long time ago. I want to say it was like 1979 or something. So tapping's been around a really long time.
Speaker #0
It is. And also there's a man, Dr. Dawson Church, who's done a lot of studies around tapping. And one thing he had shared with me is that you find ancient cultures where they tap on acupressure points, maybe in a different way. And we also intuitively do this. When people are nervous or scared, they grab their chest. Or when they're feeling stress, they touch their temples. So I think these are self-soothing things that there is a part of us that knows because you see kids do it a lot. My kids love tapping as well and special needs kids especially. I think there is something very intuitive on how it helps us calm our body.
Speaker #1
Yeah and to the point you made before about how we have those two segments of the brain right like the old rudimentary part which is the fight or flight. And then we have the prefrontal cortex, which really is our thinking social sort of part of the brain. And how absolutely amazing it is how that part just shuts off whenever the amygdala fires. And it doesn't have to be anything, you know, earth shattering. It doesn't have to be being chased by a lion like it used to be, right?
Speaker #0
It's a phone call. It's an email.
Speaker #1
It's having to do anything, right? Yeah. Yeah. Our brains just don't know. They know safe or not safe.
Speaker #0
Yes, I think it's such an important conversation because when you're dealing with any type of stress or anxiety, there's a lot of self-blame. Like, oh, why am I like this? Why is this impacting me so much? And when you begin to know that your brain, the only thing it cares about is your survival. And so you are running patterns that that helped your ancestors survive. Like you were supposed to be stressed and run fast. But now what it's doing is it's shutting down the part of your brain that can critically think and make its way through more complex situations, which we're facing in our daily life. And when we begin to know, you know, at the root of this, there is some self-love. There is a part of you that loves you so much that it just wants you to stay safe. It's not that you're broken. It's not that there's something wrong with you. It's misguided self-love. And so by being able to witness your anxiety and see this in a new light, of it's not because I'm broken or there's something wrong. It's that part of me doesn't feel safe. So I'm going to use tapping to help my nervous system and my body and my brain know that I'm safe. I don't need fixing. I don't need changing. I need safety and reassurance.
Speaker #1
Yeah. Oh my gosh. The misguided self-love or misguided love is just the most beautiful phrase I've ever actually heard to qualify that feeling that we all have in any given situation, whether it's anxiety or depression, whatever we're managing in our own lives, to think of it that way really does take the sting out of it. It's beautiful.
Speaker #0
Tapping, I feel, opens yourself up to compassion because we talked earlier about how it's this combination of these ancient Chinese acupressure points and this modern psychology. Dr. Roger Callahan started it. One part about the psychology part of it is that we're learning that what you resist persists, that we can't just say, don't feel that or get over it. A big element of tapping is the words are giving yourself a moment to think about the feeling, to have a level of acceptance of the feeling like this is where I am. I have this anxiety, allowing yourself to be with it. And And as you stimulate these points, it sends this calming signal to your brain. Another way to look at it is it's called memory reconsolidation. Every time you think of something from your past, it's like your brain is opening a folder. And when that folder is open, we usually then save it again with the same stress and anxiety because we're thinking that memory, we're feeling anxiety in our body again, and do-do, saved. When you're tapping, you're opening the folder while stimulating these points, setting that calming signal. So that when you close that folder, it's saving with new safety. I can think of that event, but I'm safe in my body. And when you're safe in the body, that's when your prefrontal cortex can go, okay, this is what I learned. This is how I'm growing. I'm older now. I can forgive myself or I can let that go. You're able to have that emotional regulation that's just impossible when you're hijacked by a feeling.
Speaker #1
Yeah. Yeah. And Jessica, how long, like, does it... I guess, how long does it take? I mean, I know that one example of Mary from before, it was like one tapping session, but how long does it usually take to get some type of a response? And how long does that last? Is there any data or what's your experience?
Speaker #0
So I'll share a story, which I think is a perfect example. There was this woman, Samantha, who was a 911 caller. She answered 911 calls and her whole life, she was like the rock. Every day, all she was doing was dealing with crisis, these different huge events. And she was fine while doing it until she retired. And then all of a sudden, all that stress, all those memories, they kept her up at night. She had trouble going into a movie theater without being hypervigilant, trouble being in a mall. And she was very frustrated with herself because she was like, I am the rock. I'm the person people depend on. And now I feel completely hijacked by these past experiences. So she opened the Tapping Solution app and she did a tapping meditation for safety. It's about safety in your body. And every night, so she could not sleep. She's always waking up. She started tapping and quite, you know, with the one tapping meditation, she was able to fall asleep. So this became her normal. Every night before going to bed, I have to do the safety and then I can sleep through the night. So it became her routine. She has a young child, one day, crazy bedtime, kind of late, she fell asleep and she didn't do it. And she woke up the next morning and realized, oh, I don't need to do it every night anymore. My body knows there's something in my system that knows I'm safe. But in the beginning, she did it every single day.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
There's other experiences where it depends like what you're focusing on. We live in Newtown in Sandy Hook where the school shooting happened. And when that took place, trauma has so many layers. You have grief. But then you also have the trauma of seeing a TV van or hearing a helicopter. And suddenly that begins to trigger the stress response. So my brother, Nick, who I work with, he worked with who now is a dear friend of ours, Scarlett Lewis, who lost her son, Jesse. And their first session, it wasn't about how can I not grieve this death? That's but how can I not be triggered by the sound of a helicopter? And so her focus was thinking about the helicopter sound. and tapping and teaching her body that she can hear the sound and feel safe. So we have a lot of people who have experienced different levels of PTSD, a lot of veterans who come to this. A lot of, and I would love to talk about this too, just because I know you have such great perspective, but first responders and people who are under a lot of stress come back to this because you don't have to relive the memory. It's kind of this ability to allow your body to know it's safe. And then there's everyday uses. Maybe it's not, maybe you're not going through something profoundly traumatic, but every time you want to speak, you feel like that five-year-old who raised their hand with the wrong answer and you're scared of getting it wrong again. And so you can do some tapping around public speaking. So the main part of tapping is you're directly allowing your body and your brain to feel safe. And so it's about looking at our lives to be like, where do we have walls or tension? that we want to let go of.
Speaker #1
That is such a beautiful, like those examples just really, they hit very deeply. As you were describing the helicopters, it reminded me of like 9-11. I was in Manhattan in medical school at the time. And gosh, it would have been really handy had I known about this, that, you know, like, it would have been a great tool for me to use. The interesting thing you mentioned about health care workers and first responders, I came to tapping myself through a series of unfortunate events. You know, the big one being an episode of PTSD that I experienced with a flashback in the OR. And it was it just knocked the wind out of my sails, so to speak. And it was really challenging to figure out, like, how am I going to take care of myself? How am I ever going to get back into an operating room? And I can say, like, completely wholeheartedly, I was only able to do that after I tapped. I had therapists, I did all the things right. But I it was really through tapping that I was able to get over that. And it was life changing, really. Yeah.
Speaker #0
It's so powerful to share that. Because when I think about the story about Samantha, who was her job was taking care of other people with these 911 calls. There was a, I mean, she admitted that there was a little bit of shame at the experience. Like she's supposed to be in the front line. She's supposed to hold it all for everybody. And then suddenly it does become so heavy. And I feel like there's a lot of judgment and self-criticism of I shouldn't be impacted or, and, and the surprise. Sometimes you go through a million things, I'm sure in the OR that you're fine. And then it's that one. thing that might not even be the most traumatic. You don't know why, but it is impacting you more than anything else. I think having the conversation about how that's so common and why we need to have support and help and conversations is so important because being a first responder or a healthcare worker or a caregiver can be so incredibly isolating and you feel these feelings and they feel really heavy. And I think also normalizing the experience and saying like, it's absolutely normal. We're human that we have this experience. It's how we're wired. So let's find every tool to support ourselves.
Speaker #1
A hundred percent. Thank you for saying that because I did end up taking the tapping like to the next step. So I used to incorporate it then when I would go before I'd go to the scrub sink, like on my way to the scrub sink, I wouldn't even go through a whole sequence of tapping. I would just tap on the side of my hand and just say, you know, just help. guide my thoughts, guide my actions, guide my decisions, you know, and it was just more of like a, like, just like asking for just some, like centering, right, and reminding myself of the importance of what I'm about to do and to know that like
Speaker #0
I'm here to be the helper and I need to make sure that I'm well too right so I used to do that at the sink all the time after that episode yeah I love that because it also shows like sometimes we get in our heads on how like complex it needs to be and one of the reasons we made the tapping solution app is because we wanted people just to be able to press play and have a five minute experience a 10 minute experience but I love this idea of like You don't need anything and you don't even need all the points. You focus on a point that helps you feel better. You stimulate that point and you let yourself know what you need to hear. You're sending a calming signal to your body, to your brain. Suddenly when you say those words, they have a place to land. It's like the tapping almost does the weeding so we can plant the seeds. So it's like allowing ourselves to just let that go so that we can hear and really let those words sink in.
Speaker #1
Yeah. Oh, I love that. To plant the seed in the weeding. Oh my gosh, that's such a beautiful visual. Interesting. As you mentioned, caregiving, there is a beautiful section of the app where there are tapping meditations specifically for caregivers. And the one that I just can't get over is the one that you put out during the pandemic for healthcare workers. Did that every single day I went into the hospital because there was one for before your shift, during your shift, and after your shift. And it was amazing how much that allowed me to get into my car and drive on the road when there was nobody allowed out. It was eerie. And like that allowed me to get over the, I can't do this. It really did. And so, yeah, I thank you so much. Like, I could cry thinking about it, actually.
Speaker #0
Well,
Speaker #1
yeah,
Speaker #0
thank you for, you know, and everybody who's listening to this, who was, you know, in the front lines then and then the front lines now, you know, whether it's COVID or not, it's hard to leave your family and get in your car and go into a situation where you know, the stakes are high. Or even as a simple caregiver, when there's so much uncertainty and unknown and utter exhaustion because it can feel monotonous, that idea that you can just power yourself up, even in the car, to just get yourself in the right state for the next day, for the next shift. And, you know, when you're able to do that, you're thinking differently, you're acting differently, your energy is different. And I feel like you become the medicine the world needs. It just helps you do what you need to be good medicine for the world.
Speaker #1
Yeah, I appreciate that. and on One of the other beautiful things, I think, for the caregivers is you mentioned like the exhaustion, but there's also that there's so many complex feelings that come along with that, whether you're a professional caregiver or an unpaid, which there are many unpaid caregivers, right? Caring for family members or friends or parents and kids at the same time. The stakes are so high in. in the caregiving world that it can feel so heavy. And to have an opportunity to do something that doesn't take a lot of time, I think is really, it's remarkable.
Speaker #0
Yes. Yeah, I agree. I'm looking at my phone now so I can bring up that category. It was really rewarding to do this one because I feel like caregivers are just the unsung heroes, and especially those who are being, well, paid and unpaid, honestly. It can be really lonely. It could be really monotonous. And there's a there's a lot of uncertainty. And so there's a lot of feelings like we address the guilt that you might feel about not liking it about the days that are hard. And I'm trying to, you know, my phone's being too slow, but there's There's, you know, there's also isolation. Yes. Allowing yourself to take care of yourself, even the action of being like, what do I need? How do I fill up my cup without feeling guilty? A lot of times caregivers have this unspoken law that my value depends on how much I'm giving. And so we give, give, give, because when there's a moment when we need to say no, we feel like we're doing something wrong. And it's so important. important when you're giving so much to be able to put the brakes and say, no, I can't, I can't, I can't do it this weekend. I can't be without. I'm so sorry. Like, and, and this is so, this is interesting. Let's like break that down a little bit. So we know that we need to say no, but what happens? We feel this panic in our body. A lot of us, we say yes, before we even think about it, because we're, we just grew up being like, I mean, I resonate with this. I say yes. And then I go, why did I say yes? I really wanted to say no. That was like a big lesson for me as I got older. But there is a physical reaction. So you physically feel like, oh my God, I feel so guilty. Like I can't say no, I have to do it. Doing it, the resentment I will feel and the stress of doing it feels better than the panic I feel right now choosing myself. Well, that is something to tap on. That is what you have to learn to be able to set that boundary to tap. imagine yourself saying no and be able to feel at peace in your body so you can say no from this reassurance you know this reassured confident place because we allow others to say no to us and we're fine so why aren't we allowed to say no because we have a very strong physical reaction to the word no and that is something we can tap on yeah that's the people pleaser right yes yeah and i think a lot of people listening will will likely
Speaker #1
That'll resonate. And so I think that's another wonderful use. You know, you mentioned sleep before, too. Funny story. Not so funny, but funny. My daughter was during the pandemic. She had the hardest time as as it went on and on with like letting me go to work. And she's home from school. Nobody's supposed to be out. I'm going to, you know, the hospital and we had no masks and the whole thing. And she just took it all on. She is like an empath. to some crazy degree. And so she it started manifesting and she couldn't sleep. And so I cajoled her into doing the tapping meditation one night for kids, because there's one for young, young kids, and then for like, pre adolescence, and then teenagers. I mean, they're so beautifully, you know, categorized, personalized. Yes. I mean, it's just so, you know, well appointed to the groups. And... she did it. And like, after we were done, I remember looking over and just saying, are you good? And all I got was this.
Speaker #0
Thumbs up.
Speaker #1
So I was like, okay, so we ended up doing that for so long. And my husband too, he actually did it after being an enormous skeptic for, you know, he's like, you do you.
Speaker #0
I get it. Yeah.
Speaker #1
But he came asking for the tapping app when he couldn't sleep, you know, under a real stressful time at work. And he didn't even get through all the points. I mean, he didn't get to under the he just it was like three points in and he was snoring. So to all those people who might be either naysayers or just skeptical, you know, what is the there's a lot of evidence now to support it. What would you consider some of the more, I don't know, salient or important evidence to date?
Speaker #0
Yeah, I think the most cited study and probably the most interesting one as well is and this was a study that was duplicated. So. One study showed that tapping reduced cortisol by 43%. It was duplicated as well in Bond University in Australia by Dr. Peter Stapleton. And, you know, they had a group. One group was doing the tapping. One grouping was just reading about stress relief. Another group was relaxing. And the cortisol dropped by 43%, which is so significant in that group.
Speaker #1
Amazing.
Speaker #0
There's so many more. There's been studies on the brain showing that when you tap, your brain will react to a stimuli differently than it did before. You're creating new associations to things. And, you know, we're in a really exciting time. There's so many things that I can't mention yet, but there are major universities that have started doing studies. And right now there's over 300 published studies around tapping, many of them internationally. And I just, I see this wave. I mean, it's been a really big, important five years, but I think the future is even bigger because we're also seeing tapping work really well with cases of like stomach pains. You know, you've tried everything and nothing's working. Well, let's try some tapping. Let's see if the anxiety is related at all to this, to helping your stomach. So there's so many different things that are being, that are being researched. I would say like the best thing to do is the. there's the app has a 14 day free trial so anyone can go on we have also like every tapping meditation for a health care worker is always free we want to give to every health care worker they're giving so much to us it's like our way of saying thank you so first responders health care workers all those tapping meditations before and after shift are absolutely free we have a 14 day free trial so just try it so just give it an experience and notice if the number goes down And that would be my advice is like, I can tell you the science and research, but like have an experience and, and maybe like Sam who did it every night for safety, she felt it go down, but, you know, stick with it a little bit. But I will say that the majority of people, they have a decrease in their stress and their anxiety the very first time.
Speaker #1
Yeah, that's, I, that was certainly my experience for sure. And to your point, you know, the free trial is amazing and there is just so much. free content that you provide that it makes it so accessible to everyone. You know, there's, there are very specialized pathways that you may have access to, you know, in the paid version, but you can get absolutely all that and then some from what you offer, you know, for free, which is really just remarkable and very, very giving of the three of you.
Speaker #0
Thank you. Thank you. My parents are proud.
Speaker #1
They should be. Oh, my gosh.
Speaker #0
So for those who missed and not only do I work with I mentioned Nick, but I work with my brother, Alex, too. So truly as a family business, it's me and my two older brothers with my dad helping as well behind the scenes. So it truly is like a family endeavor.
Speaker #1
That's amazing. Honestly, do you. So when you are working on these like the tapping sequences, do you mind like maybe we could just show people what. or I'll have you just demonstrate. Would that be okay?
Speaker #0
I would absolutely love that.
Speaker #1
Wonderful.
Speaker #0
For those who are watching on the video, I'm going to tap. If you're just listening, I'll also describe the points. So the very first point is the side of the hand, and it's underneath your pinky. It does not matter what side of the body you tap on. So it's kind of like you don't want to tap so hard it hurts. It's just like a firm tap. Then the next one, which is, this is the one that the most people get off. It's not in the middle of your head. It's where the hair of your eyebrow begins on the bone. So just find your eyebrow. I'm using two fingers here, just gently tapping to stimulate that point. Follow your eyebrow until you're on the side of the eye on the bone. That's the side of the eye point. Then we have underneath the eye right on the bone. We have underneath the nose between the upper lip and the nose. Then we have underneath the mouth which is that crease between your bottom lip and your chin. Then you have your collarbone point. If you feel your collarbone and you go down an inch on either side you'll feel it. I sometimes also use my whole hand to tap on my chest. The next one is underneath your arm so it's about a hand width from your armpit. For women, it tends to be where your bra strap lies. And then the last point is the very top of the head. So these are the nine points. And once you are comfortable with these points, and you know these points, you just go through those points. You always start on the side of the hand, and then you do the rest of the points, you know, a few times. But I love what you shared earlier, which is you just remembered the side of the hand. And that's how I, you know, I learned tapping, and I had this breakthrough moment, and then I forgot about it. because how often do we do that? It's like we are in a crisis. We get the one thing and then it's like back to life. And then it was only until like five months later I was going through a breakup. And I remember I was like trying not to cry too loud. And I was like, I think I was like 21. And I was like, what's the point? I think there's one under the eye. And I think I remembered like four of them. But I just tapped where I remembered. And I just, oh, I felt my body relax. And I was able to fall asleep. And that's when I was like, I got to look into this a little more. So the point is, you don't have to do it perfectly. And even if you just know one point that you're going to do when you're under stress, that makes such a huge difference.
Speaker #1
Yeah, that's a really it's so it is so accessible. I think that's, you know, you have your hands with you all the time. You don't need anything special, right? Yeah, it's it's really simple. And it's almost so simple that you just can't believe it actually works. but it It totally does.
Speaker #0
It almost works against us that it's so simple because people are like, and you know, it's developed through the years because when Dr. Roger Callahan started, depending on what you were struggling with, he would say, okay, tap on this point or tap on that point, you know, tap on the stomach meridian. And then a gentleman, a Stanford trained engineer came named Gary Craig, and he started to go, well, wait a second. There's nine points that are the most common that we use. So what if we use those nine? points. And that is what started what's called emotional freedom techniques. Only need to know these nine points. And anytime you're stressed, you can go through this cycle.
Speaker #1
Yeah, I mean, it really is such a, like an elegant pattern of following, you know, and it's not that hard to do, whether you are listening to the app, or you're just tapping just to bring yourself a little bit of calm and ease. Yeah, it's really remarkable how something so simple can be so profoundly important and helpful. So I have a question. I asked you previously if you had like a motto or something that, you know, a creed that you kind of live by. And you mentioned trust life. So I'm curious about that philosophy.
Speaker #0
Yeah, you could also replace, I say trust life, you could say trust God. Trust the divine. Like this idea of trust is so important in my life because so much of my success and what I wanted, I have to admit, like I didn't, I can't manipulate life enough to become the way that I wanted to. Like I couldn't have figured, I couldn't have created a strategy on how I would move to California and meet my husband because he happened to be there at that time moving from Argentina. There's things in our lives and I hope everybody can reflect. There's things in your life where it's not just you. There's so many things that line up. And so, you know, I think it's Steve Jobs says that it's really easy connecting the dots looking back. Have to have faith looking forward. And one of the questions I love to ask people is what is something that at the time was really hard and it ended up becoming a big blessing. and so often the biggest transformations And the biggest blessings that people created was from a dark moment. And so this idea of trusting life for me is trusting that if I feel like I'm being rejected, I'm really being redirected by something better. If something's not happening on my time frame, it's because something better is around the corner. And so that letting go of control and thinking that we can like manipulate the human experience and instead trusting life. That there is a divine plan and purpose for us.
Speaker #1
Oh, that's so beautiful. I try to aspire to that similarly. And I can attest to the fact that it's those dark moments, right? It was that's how I fell into tapping myself. And some of the more beautiful things that have happened in like my own career and. I guess identity shift that's happened in the last several years since I've been out of clinical practice, you know, I wouldn't have wished it on anybody. Like if I had made the decision and made that choice, it would have been one thing. But because I had to leave because of a medical issue, it's a whole other can of worms, right? But being able to say, well, that has led me to all these other things that I'm... you know, interested in and able to serve in a different way. It's really, it's a great life lesson to just say, hey, I'm just a, I'm an observer.
Speaker #0
Yeah, we're not running the show. We like to think we're running the show. But we are part of something greater. Yeah.
Speaker #1
And this is just a this is another tool to help make the story better.
Speaker #0
Yes. And side note, I am not good at this. This is why it's my mantra because I like to control. And I like to figure things out and I like to overthink and I was born an overthinker. And so I've gotten much better at it. But this is my life lesson is constantly when I notice any anxiety build up being like, trust life, like it's going to work out. If it hasn't worked out, then it's not the end because it's all going to work out in the end. And so I think it's also helpful for us to look at like you did just now look at our past and see those events. That way in the future, when we find ourselves in a sticky situation, we can remind ourselves, hey, I don't know where this is going to lead, but I trust it's going to lead something good to something good. So I'm going to keep that in my vision, in my heart and move in that direction.
Speaker #1
Yeah. I think that is, that's the only way to, I don't know, rise to the occasion. Like, how do you do that when things are so dark? Right. And, you know, for people listening, It may not be a personal challenge. It just might be the challenge of. 2025. Yeah. And the world just being kind of upside down in a lot of ways. And that's unnerving, you know. And so just to be able to have something that is so easily done and simple is just it's such a gift, honestly.
Speaker #0
Yeah.
Speaker #1
So so I wanted to just thank you for everything you do, the generosity of the tapping app, just for the constant evolution of. what you offer to everybody, it really has like profoundly impacted me. And so having this opportunity to chat with you has just been such a great honor.
Speaker #0
Well, I have to say it's an honor for me. Thank you for all those days that you showed up for others and the way that you continue showing up for others and your generosity and sharing your success. When I met you, I was like so over the moon because I don't always see what's on the other side of someone listening to a meditation on their phone. And so to see that it helped is profoundly meaningful. And it's because you showed up. It's because you decided that you wanted to be your best as you show up for others. So thank you so much for what you do.
Speaker #1
Oh, I appreciate that.
Speaker #0
Thank you.
Speaker #1
Thanks for sharing your time with me here on Prescribing Possibility. I hope today's conversation offered you a breath of fresh air, a new perspective, or even just a moment of calm in the chaos of life. If this episode resonated with you. Pass it along to a friend or a colleague. You never know who might need a little more harmony in their life today. I'd love to hear your thoughts, your questions, or topics you're curious about. Reach out to me anytime on Instagram or LinkedIn at dimitnowhile or send me an email at podcast at dimitnowhile.com. Until next time, give yourself the grace to grow, the space to rest, and the courage to imagine what's next.

Chapters

Introduction to Tapping and Guest Introduction
3sec
Understanding Tapping: What It Is and Its Origins
18sec
Personal Experiences with Tapping and Its Benefits
1min
Tapping as a Tool for Modern Stress Management
3min
The Science Behind Tapping and Its Effectiveness
6min
Real-Life Applications: Tapping Stories and Experiences
13min
Tapping for Caregivers and Healthcare Workers
18min
Tapping Techniques: A Demonstration
22min
The Philosophy of Trusting Life and Letting Go
30min
Conclusion and Call to Action
39min

About PRESCRIBING POSSIBILITY

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

About PRESCRIBING POSSIBILITY

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Embed

Introduction to Tapping and Guest Introduction

3sec

Understanding Tapping: What It Is and Its Origins

18sec

Personal Experiences with Tapping and Its Benefits

1min

Tapping as a Tool for Modern Stress Management

3min

The Science Behind Tapping and Its Effectiveness

6min

Real-Life Applications: Tapping Stories and Experiences

13min

Tapping for Caregivers and Healthcare Workers

18min

Tapping Techniques: A Demonstration

22min

The Philosophy of Trusting Life and Letting Go

30min

Conclusion and Call to Action

39min

Chapters

Introduction to Tapping and Guest Introduction

3sec

Understanding Tapping: What It Is and Its Origins

18sec

Personal Experiences with Tapping and Its Benefits

1min

Tapping as a Tool for Modern Stress Management

3min

The Science Behind Tapping and Its Effectiveness

6min

Real-Life Applications: Tapping Stories and Experiences

13min

Tapping for Caregivers and Healthcare Workers

18min

Tapping Techniques: A Demonstration

22min

The Philosophy of Trusting Life and Letting Go

30min

Conclusion and Call to Action

39min