Simple Actions To Regain Focus (Part 6) – Tapping
Action 3: Tapping
“I do mind, the Dude minds. This will not stand, ya know, this aggression will not stand, man.”
The Dude (Jeff Bridges) “The Big Lebowski”
I’ve wanted to try acupuncture for many years as I’ve read of its efficacy in relieving a number of issues, specifically in my case – anxiety.
The only deterrent that I’ve found in all of the research is needles.
It’s not the pain associated with them – it’s the fact that something is being stuck into my body.
I have tried many ways to get around this issue including calling acupuncture clinics to inquire about acupuncture treatments for relieving phobias of acupuncture needles.
Needless to say those inquiries were often met with a dial tone.
During the course of my research I did discover an approach that provides relief for a great many of our daily stressors (anxiety, emotional issues, chronic pain).
Its called Meridian Tapping.
Its actually quite easy, and more importantly requires…
NO NEEDLES
While I had never heard of Meridian Tapping prior to a few years ago, the healing concepts that it’s based upon have been in practice in Eastern medicine for over 5,000 years.
Like acupuncture and acupressure, Meridian Tapping consists of a set of techniques that utilize the body’s energy meridian points.
You can stimulate these meridian points by tapping on them with your fingertips – literally tapping into your body’s own energy and healing power.
The body, like everything in the universe, is composed of energy.
Restore balance to the body’s energy, and you will mend the negative emotions and physical symptoms that stem from the energy disruption.
Meridian Tapping restores the body’s energy balance and negative emotions are conquered.
A procedure called Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) has been developed around Meridian Tapping in order to address a variety of concerns.
It is highly effective and is definitely worth your time researching further.
In total there are nine Meridian Points that are often used with this technique.
The basic technique requires you to focus on the negative emotion at hand:
a fear or anxiety, a bad memory, an unresolved problem, or anything that’s bothering you.
While maintaining your mental focus on this issue, use your fingertips to tap 5-7 times each on 9 of the body’s meridian points.
Tapping on these meridian points – while concentrating on accepting and resolving the negative emotion – will access your body’s energy, restoring it to a balanced state.
However, our focus herein is on “in the moment” fixes that do not take us away from our day.
As a result, we are only going to focus on one Meridian Point.
The Karate Chop
“I thought all of this Meridian Point talk was supposed to relieve my stress, not lead me to Karate Chop someone.”
No violence necessary – all you need to do is the following:
1) Keep your eyes open.
2) Start tapping the Karate Chop point of your non-dominant hand with the fingertips of your dominant hand [see Karate Chop Point].
3) Think about whatever is bothering you: feeling anxious, angry, sad, etc.
That’s it.
I suggest using the Karate Chop Point here because its is commonly referred to as the “set-up” point.
Specifically, it alerts the area of the brain called the amygdala (the emotional center of the brain) that it’s time to chill out a bit.
So when you start tapping on the Karate Chop Point while thinking about whatever stressor is bothering you, it is actually decreasing the intensity of that stressor in your brain.
Seems counterintuitive, I know, but it works.
Meridian Tapping and EFT are about relief.
I want to make clear that I highly recommend learning EFT.
EFT can to be used on just about anything in your life that is causing you emotional distress.
The Karate Chop method described herein is simply a quick fix to be employed during the course of your busy day.
It should in no way be substituted for the more detailed and effective EFT procedure.
For those of you skeptics I was completely against even the thought of Eastern Medicine and thought the entire area of study was Foo-Foo nonsense (my technical term).
Then I actually decided to open my mind as I kept hearing about EFT in various circles from a variety of people.
That was just a few years ago and now here I am writing about it – recommending it to everyone.
Enough explanation…
Start tapping.
Then we’ll get to Part 7 to make sure “its not a pick!”
