Tapping away your outdated beliefs for a healthier mindset
We all want to feel better, perform better, and gain a satisfying sense of control over our lives. We strive to improve themselves mentally and physically so we can optimize our performance, achieve success, and hopefully create life-long rewarding relationships along the way. But, for many, the challenges of life can seem constant. Over time, we may fall into bad habits, find ourselves in toxic relationships or toxic work environments, realize our lives have become unmanageable, unsustainable, or worse – sink into a deep depression.
Many of us get to a point where we ask ourselves, “How did this happen?” Even the hardest working, self-aware, proactive, and productive person can find themselves in a funk and wonder where they took the wrong path in their life. That is life! No matter how hard we try to get it right, life has plenty of tricks up its sleeve. Even so, this can lead to a spiral of self-defeating thoughts and hyper self-criticism, which makes our situation worse.
But, there are ways to manage our inner world and optimize the ability to avoid falling into bad habits (either physical or mental). Many of these techniques focus on the most potent aspect of our psyche- the subconscious mind.
The Subconscious Mind
We use less than 5% of our brain’s power for conscious thinking. Your sense of will, logical and critical thinking, active imagination, and anything that is in your awareness or what you “know” is your conscious thinking. The rest of the brain controls automatic functions such as regulating your body temperature, heartbeat, hormones, etc.
The subconscious mind is also the source of your deeper self. A constructed perception of reality consists of; values, preferences, habits, patterns of thinking and reacting, fears, beliefs, sense of identity, and more. Pretty much all the things that “just are” about you emanate from your subconscious mind.
The subconscious mind gets shaped primarily through childhood as you experience highly emotionally impactful situations for the first time. Even as an adult, intense conditions can impact your subconscious and create deep-seated beliefs. In neuroscience, it is said these experiences carve neural pathways into your brain that solidify over time. These experiences can have substantial effects on your life in both positive and negative ways.
As a result of these pathways, your thoughts, reactions, and emotions flow through the same paths creating similar outcomes repeatedly. You develop personality traits and behaviors based on this “programming.” Over time you may develop enough conscious awareness to realize you are stuck- without understanding why.
What Is Emotional Freedom Technique, aka Tapping?
Emotion freedom technique, otherwise known as EFT or tapping, is a therapeutic technique of tapping on specific energy meridian points in the body to release emotions. It is based on the root principle of all Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)- that the human body consists of a life force energy called chi. All illness, physical and emotional, results from an imbalance in the body’s energetic system.
In combination with talk therapy and positive auto-suggestion, EFT has helped countless people reveal issues in their subconscious mind that need to be resolved for their life to move in the direction they desire. Tapping stabilizes the energy, stimulates your parasympathetic nervous system for relaxation and stress regulation, and allows for more profound clarity and awareness- an ideal state for healing to occur.
How Tapping Has Helped Me Reprogram My Mind
I have been an avid meditator my whole adult life. I was turned onto it through my hero Bruce Lee and have joined various meditation groups and programs. Meditation has grown in popularity over the last 20 years. The scientific community has even confirmed positive studies about the measurable effects meditation has on the brain. Despite EFT’s success with countless patients and a wealth of anecdotal evidence, science has yet to confirm how or why EFT helps patients heal in body, mind, and spirit.
Being a very science-minded person, I resisted trying EFT diligently despite my mother’s endless insistence. Then life finally got a bit TOO hard for me. The stress of balancing relationships, financial troubles, work stress, long term career goals, and personal aspirations finally took its toll on me. Then, the COVID19 global pandemic went for the knockout.
I relented my resistance and decided to give tapping a real try. WOW! It has changed my life so significantly in such a short amount of time. I immediately began to feel a strong intuitive sense that despite meditating nearly endlessly for years, I had somehow managed to avoid truly addressing healing in my subconscious mind.
The EFT Process
Using my conscious awareness, I would begin by identifying a negative emotion that I was consistently feeling or encountering. For example, I had issues with money. My subconscious mind had limiting beliefs I learned from childhood. It believed that:
- Money was scarce
- Only the best performers earn good money
- Money is only earned through hard work at tedious and draining jobs
I was able to feel these beliefs as emotions first, a resistance. Then I would tap on the energy meridians and say a phrase such as, “Even though I believe money is a scarce resource, I deeply and completely love, honor, and accept myself.” This phrase allowed me to have compassion for myself and my suffering.
I continued to reprogram the belief by inserting a phrase that I wanted my subconscious to adopt instead. Something like, “I can earn money, easily and seemingly effortlessly, when in alignment with my purpose and joy.” This phrase allowed me to open up to the possibility of having a fun, exciting, dynamic career that brought me purpose, joy, AND enormous earning potential.
All along the way, there were emotional releases, tears, sadness, and sometimes resistance as old and outdated beliefs rose to the surface to be washed away. Over time, however, a growing sense of excitement and potential took its place. My subconscious adopted new beliefs that infused my outlook on life with excitement, joy, and possibilities that I had not felt since I was a young adult exploring the world for the first time.
This is the power of the Emotional Freedom Technique, the power to reprogram your subconscious and adopt new positive beliefs that empower you to move forward in your life with less resistance and doubt.
Meditation and EFT – A true power couple
Meditation itself is a truly powerful practice that can grow your consciousness, self-awareness, reduce stress, negative feelings, and more. I would recommend regular meditation practice to anyone. It is crucial to self-knowledge and growth.
Having said this, all my meditation and awareness only took me so far. I was working in the 5% while being blind to the 95% of my brain’s consciousness below my awareness. I now firmly believe meditation, and a subconscious healing practice like EFT is the perfect power couple to help you achieve your dreams.
Once I used my fine-tuned awareness (thanks to meditation!) to tap into my subconscious beliefs using tapping, I was finally able to change my deep-seated feelings and emotions. My habits changed-nearly overnight. My outlook became positive and full of potentiality. Suddenly life was at my fingertips again.
Get started with EFT today!
Are you interested in learning about Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT/tapping)? There are numerous resources a quick google search away. One of my favorite EFT personalities is Brad Yates. Check out his YouTube Channel Here.
If you enjoyed this blog and need a personal development copywriter to write high-quality content for your business, contact me at QuickStudyCopywriting.Com.