FAQs

No you don’t have to speak out loud when you tap. You may say it silently to yourself with no problem. And that’s true for the athletes that I work with when they belong to a team, or they’re traveling together, they don’t often times have much privacy. It’s not a problem at all to just speak silently to yourself while you’re tapping.

I think there is an advantage to speaking out loud if you’re alone and you can do so, and you feel comfortable with that. Sometimes when I’m alone I do speak out loud and sometimes I don’t, it just depends. Usually I speak out loud when I feel stuck on certain things or I’m having a little bit more trouble with the intensity going down. There’s something about speaking out loud and speaking it forcefully that helps to reduce the intensity faster.

Yes, it does. You want to tap firmly enough so that you can feel it. There is certain firmness to really percussing those tapping points, (acupuncture points). You also don’t want to tap so hard that you bruise yourself. I’ve had athletes who have tapped so hard they had a little bruise. Well, that’s too hard, if you’re doing it that hard! You want to do it hard enough that you are stimulating that point. There needs to be enough pressure so you can feel it but not enough to hurt yourself.

It is important to be on the point, but here’s what’s so wonderful about EFT. Usually on each point we’re going to use from two fingers to four fingers to try to cover that area. For example on the karate chop point, on the side of the hand, I use all four fingers to tap that fleshy side of the hand. That way you don’t have to be specific with where the point is because you’ve used all four fingers to cover it. The same goes if you are using your index and middle finger on your eyebrow point, as long as you’re where the eyebrows begin and you’re not up on your forehead, you’re going to hit the point. Same with under the arm, I use four fingers, so you’re in that general region and you’re going to hit that point. So the answer is yes, it is important to be on the point, but you can do that very successfully by using two to four fingers at each point.

That depends on how long the interruption is. If the interruption was just a matter of a minute or two, I would just pick up where I had left off. If it was an interruption of five minutes or more, I would just start over.

No, just the one you were interrupted on. Once you‘ve completed that protocol and you move on to the next, that one is done. For example, the After Workout protocols – Extreme Body Recovery, Acids and Fatigue, let’s say you tapped for Extreme Body Recovery and Acids and then you’re interrupted for fifteen minutes, even half an hour, just come back and tap the Fatigue Protocol.

That’s excellent! That means that it’s working beautifully, and you should be so happy and not worry about it. The only time that I would say that may be a problem would be for your After Workout and After the Game protocols. After a game, or a round of golf, after intense competition, it’s to your benefit to tap those in full.

The sooner you can tap after a trauma, the better. The sooner you can move those chemicals out of your cell receptors, the better for your body.

Yes, you absolutely can, I would highly recommend that. And if you don’t have your Manual with you, just start tapping. Don’t even worry about the words, just tune in to the feelings that you’re having and begin tapping the points without saying a word. Because you’re already tuned in to what’s happening, your body will start processing those chemicals right away. Don’t worry about the words. Whatever it is, an injury, emotion, whatever it is that’s going on for you, if you just start tapping the points, start with the karate chop, and keep tapping all the points over and over, you’ll start to feel those chemicals release immediately and it will shift everything. Don’t get caught up in the words. Then once you get home, tap the entire set of Injury Recovery protocols.

If you are tuned into something emotionally that’s taking you out right then and there, tap on it. Don’t worry about the words, just tune into that emotion and tap. There are three things that I recommend that you can do during your competition that are covered in the Manual under During the Game (During the Round or During the Meet).

There is a Travel section in every Manual that addresses Jet Lag. I have created a protocol that significantly reduces jet lag and helps your body to reset its clocks when you arrive. The first part of this protocol is to be done on the plane. I have athletes who don’t care who they tap in front of, it doesn’t matter to them, and they will go ahead and tap on the plane. There’s also a shortcut that you can use which is in the Manual. There’s actually a way to program into the subconscious mind that when you put certain fingers together, your body will run the entire EFT tapping sequence. During a long trip you want to tap the Jet Lag Protocol several times (that first part of the protocol). Then when you arrive at your destination you can do the rest of that protocol to reset you body clock. Then you would tap the other Travel Protocols to help your body adjust to your new time zone.

Well, that seems like a long time to me, however it really would depend on what it is that you’re working on and how much time you have. I tend to ask “what’s the feedback your body is giving you?”. Every time you tap you’re going to be releasing chemicals from your cell receptors and your body has to establish a new level of normal and balance. Your body is very adaptable and can easily do that. It isn’t a lot of work for your body, per se. But it depends on what it is you are releasing. And so I think that the question would be more how are you feeling as you’re tapping? At some point you might arrive at a natural stopping point and it would be good to honor that. So it isn’t about the amount of time, it’s more about the intensity of what you’re releasing and how it feels to your body.

I think you possibly could. You’ve got to tune into how you feel and get that feedback from your body. I know that when I’m working with my athletes, a lot of times, they’ll say, “I’m just worn out – enough. How much more do we have to do?”, grown men begging me, “Are we done yet?” I’m really listening to that and I’m very aware they’re at their limit. You want to honor that and you don’t want to go beyond that. So I think that it is possible to tap on too many things in one session. You can always tap on more later in the day or the next day.

Water is so important for several reasons. Number one, when you’re hydrated your body is sending better electrical signals to your muscles, to all parts of your body. Number two, as these chemicals release from your cell receptors they dump into your waste system and you will simply pee them out. So it’s really important to drink a lot of water to allow that to happen. It’s a big change your body is going through, and it may not feel like you’re doing a lot as you’re tapping and yet, your body is going through a big change.

Yes, I believe it will, there’s no doubt in my mind. There are three things that happen when you’re injured. The first thing is trauma settles into the cells around the area where you’re injured. The second thing is what I call that ‘oh, damn’ moment, when you’re injured as an athlete and you think of all the things this means to you and your career. Adrenaline always releases, pain releases, and then depending upon the injury and how the injury happened, there are always emotions associated with it. And remember, emotions are chemicals. So if you’re angry, embarrassed, frustrated, fearful – whatever is going on at the time the injury happened, those emotional chemicals sit in the cell receptors around the injury. These chemicals will impede or slow down the healing. The third thing is the body instantly forms a fear of re-injury and a memory of protection on the cellular level around that injury. All of those things are now in place and your body will heal slower than if those chemicals were out of those cell receptors and those cell receptors were readily available to nutrients, proteins, vitamins and minerals for that healing process. All of the things you’re going to be doing to heal your injury – whether it’s ice, elevation, resting, rehab, whatever it is- they have the ability to work faster and deeper if those cell receptors are available to do that. The sooner you can begin tapping once you’re injured the better. Every Manual contains an Injury section that gives you all of the protocols that you would need to use to address a current injury or a past injury.

Past injuries that you’ve had never really heal on the cellular level. From all outward appearances an injury may look healed. By looking at an X-ray or MRI the doctor could say “oh, yes, this bone is healed and knitted together”. But on the cellular level the cells will still hold the trauma, the emotions, the fear of re-injury, and the memory of protection. That’s why once you’re injured you usually have an awareness of holding back in your body. You just don’t know what to do about it because it’s on the physical, cellular level and you can’t address that mentally. As soon as you’re injured, everything in your body shifts to protect that part of your body that’s been injured. Now you’re open and vulnerable to other injuries because you’re not moving and holding yourself in the way you normally do. When we go in and clear out these past injuries, it’s phenomenal what athletes are telling me. They’re making moves and plays they haven’t made for years and they’re moving their body in a way they haven’t moved it in years. They have no more fear of re-injury. It’s just gone and they can feel that it’s gone. They’ll say to me “I had no idea that injury from “X” years ago was affecting me so much”. It gives them this freedom in their play that they haven’t had in a long time. And of course when they have that freedom in their body, they’re obviously going to elevate their game to another level.

I would not recommend that you tap on past injuries before your sports performance. Your body needs time to integrate the changes any time you tap for injuries. I would recommend that you do tap before you perform especially if you’re having anxiety, doubt, worry, anger, or upset of any kind. There is a whole section in the Breakthrough Performance Manual before your competition that will walk you through this and give you specific protocols to choose from.

Don’t worry about it, it’s not a problem. You’ll get it the next time around. Say for example you arrive at the wrist point to tap the inside of the wrists together and you find that you’re off, just repeat that statement, whatever is written there, again. Or just tap the wrists together without saying anything and then you’re back on track. Do not over-think this, it’s a very forgiving system. You cannot do it wrong.

Most likely, that would indicate to me that there might be another aspect that you’ve missed that is still creating that intensity or upset. Let’s say you’re tapping on something that makes you angry and you’ve tapped through a couple times and you say, “well it’s down to a 3, but I know there’s something still there”. You just want to stop and ask, “what are my feelings and what are my thoughts about this, and what’s going on?”. Maybe what you’ll discover is that you feel really sad about it. The anger is gone but it’s now sadness and that’s what’s causing an intensity of a 3. So now you tap on the sadness and address that. You’ll find that you tap for that and it’s gone. Oftentimes it just means that it’s a different aspect (emotion) and that what you were tapping for has cleared but now something else has appeared. I describe it like cafeteria trays that are on a spring-loaded platform. You take one off and the next one pops up, and you take that off and the next one pops up. That’s often times what tapping is…like peeling layers.

You can just tap on your Karate Chop Point and say “Even though something is still there and I don’t know what it is, I deeply and completely love and accept myself”. And then at each point you can just say something like “I don’t know what’s in my body – I can feel it, and I can sense it, but I don’t know what it is – but my body knows what it is and can choose to release it”. The body does know what it is and the body will take care of it.

We tap on the negative because we’re speaking to the body directly about what it is that’s happened and you want your body to release those emotional chemicals that are sitting in those cell receptors related to that incident. You’re instructing the body with a couple of things by doing that. First of all, you’re telling the body what it is that happened, what is the incident that you want to clear out. To our conscious mind (in order to survive) we usually make things a little better than they were when it happened and our memory of it happening. What you want to do is tell the truth because to your body it feels worse than it is. You want to really tell the truth, and the truth is “it’s negative; it really felt bad; it was awful; it was crappy”. Or “I was so angry I wanted to slap that person; I was so upset I wanted to yell at him; I was so embarrassed I wanted to crawl into a hole”. You want to tell the truth because you can’t lie to your body anyway. Your body knows what’s going on. Name the incident, tell the truth about it, and the more you tune into that and even exaggerate it slightly, your body remembers where it put those emotional chemicals as they initially released related to that incident. Now the body finds them and releases them. If we’re saying positive, wonderful things, the body doesn’t know what to do. You’re sending a mixed confusing message about the incident, what emotional chemicals are related to it, and what to release. Once the negative has been cleared, you can use tapping to anchor in the positive, if you choose to. I’m really careful in instructing my athletes about that because what I find is that they’ll jump to anchoring in the positive before the negative is completely released. I’d much rather have people focused on the negative – thoroughly releasing that before they even think about focusing on the positive and saying anything positive. We want to clear out all the negative first.

No, it doesn’t matter at all. That’s another wonderful thing about tapping. You can tap with your legs crossed, lying down, sitting up, walking, driving. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing when you’re tapping. You can do it in any position, at any time, and you’ll still benefit from it and have great results.

Well, I think it’s better to have as quiet an environment as possible. I realize that you can’t control background noise, especially if you’re in a dorm. Often times you can’t control what’s going on with people coming and going. But in terms of having the TV turned down or the music turned down, I would absolutely recommend that. I think that the quieter you can have it the better, so that your body has a better opportunity to focus and hear what it is you’re directing it to do, and you can gain more clarity and focus and really get into the emotion of that moment. I would say make it as quiet as you can and if you can’t, that’s okay, tap anyway. The important thing is that you want to feel what it is you’re tapping on. There are certain protocols that I’ve developed that you won’t feel anything while you’re tapping. For example the Extreme Body Recovery Protocol, you’re probably not going to feel the adrenaline or cortisol and that’s OK. Your body will still know what you’re talking about. But for sure, when it comes to issues that you’re really emotionally charged about, the more you can feel it, the better.