Eft/tapping Q & A Podcast W/ Gene Monterastelli - Emotional Freedom Techniques

New opportunities can be so exciting as they bring the promise of growth, change, and countless possibilities. The problem is that most of us already have full lives and we don't have the time or energy to add something new. When this happens, we have a tendency to take one of two approaches. One approach is to take the plunge in the hope that things will "just work out"...but they rarely do. We find ourselves stretched too thin and not doing anything well. The other approach is to not try at all. We decide our life is already too busy and allow great opportunities to pass us by, only to feel bad about missing out afterwards. This week in the podcast I share with you the five questions I use when I am presented with an interesting opportunity. These questions have changed my life to help me to add new exciting things to my life, while still maintaining balance. I also share how I use tapping to super charge these questions. Support the podcast! Http://tappingqanda.com/support Subscribe in: Apple Podcast | i

Tapping without words is one of my favorite ways to tap and I do it multiple times a day. Recently, a few of my friends from the tapping community referred to this type of tapping as "content-free tapping". When I heard this, not only did I learn a new piece of vocabulary, it actually reframed my understanding of wordless tapping. This week in the podcast I share with you my eight favorite ways to use content-free tapping. Support the podcast! Http://tappingqanda.com/support Subscribe in: Apple Podcast | iPhone | Spotify | Pandora | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio | YouTube

Maintaining high standards for ourselves is a good thing and means we have goals to shoot for and measuring sticks with which to evaluate our progress. Unfortunately, it is all too easy to fall into self-criticism and self-judgment if we fall short of these standards. So much so that it rarely feels like a choice, but the moment we fall short, the internal critical voice comes roaring forward to berate and belittle us. Even when we are critical of ourselves, we are still able to extend kindness to others and give them the benefit of the doubt. Evaluating our actions is a good thing…but becoming overly self-critical is harsh and unhealthy. When I am too hard on myself, one of my best friends gently chides me in a way that transforms the way I feel about myself and what comes next. He doesn't say, "Gene, you are being too hard on yourself!" because that would not shift my mind or mood. Instead, he says something completely different that turns everything around. In this week's podcast I share the one phrase tha

One of the highlights of this year's 24 Hours of Tapping was the conversation that I had with Kerri Rhodes. Kerri is one of the program directors of the Helping Addicts Recover Progressively (HARP) program in the Chesterfield (VA) County Jail. The inmates use many of the tools created by the Peaceful Heart Network to create emotional healing and transformation as part of their recovery process. In addition to learning about the HARP program from Kerri, we also had the opportunity to hear from the women in the program. Not only did they share their firsthand experience of tapping, but they also led us in a number of rounds of tapping. This is a conversation that you don't want to miss. Support the podcast! Http://tappingqanda.com/support Subscribe in: Apple Podcast | iPhone | Android | Google Podcast | Spotify | Pandora | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio | YouTube

Most of the time, when we sit down to tap, we are trying to create positive change. We are trying to: Release a negative emotion and create a positive one in its place Clear resistance and limiting beliefs so that we can take consistent action Heal a past trauma or story so that our present is not haunted by our past I love every single one of these tapping outcomes! But there are times when we cannot create profound change or facilitate deep healing. Sometimes the best and healthiest course of action is simply to be fully present to the emotions we are feeling. And that is no bad thing. This week in the podcast I explore the power of feeling the full depth and breadth of our emotions in the moment as we tap. It is one of my favorite ways to tap and something I do multiple times a week. Support the podcast! Http://tappingqanda.com/support Subscribe in: Apple Podcast | iPhone | Android | Google Podcast | Spotify | Pandora | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio | YouTube  

The primary goal of our subconscious mind is to keep us safe. To do this, it is constantly learning lessons from our experience. For example, after touching a hot stove a small child quickly learns quickly not to do that again. This only becomes a problem when the subconscious mind learns the "wrong" lesson from an experience. I frequently see this come up when working with my clients around their reluctance to take action. Their resistance usually stems from one of these lessons that is neither useful nor true. The most common lesson learned is that failure is bad, painful, and must be avoided at all costs. At first glance, this seems reasonable…except that the solution proposed by the subconscious mind is not to try at all. The logical fallacy is obvious: Not taking action doesn't keep us safe, it keeps us stuck. In this week's podcast, I share two ways to release the resistance to taking action that is created by past failures. Support the podcast! Http://tappingqanda.com/support Subscribe in: Apple Podca

Wanting to belong is a basic human desire. For our ancestors thousands of years ago, belonging to a tribe was a matter of life and death. Without the protection of a tribe and its strength in numbers, death was a real prospect, so this desire to be accepted is part of our genetic heritage. Even today, on a subconscious level, belonging equals safety and not belonging equals death, though intellectually we know that is no longer true in most situations. We evaluate whether or not we belong in many ways. Are we included in activities? Do people ask us for our input and listen to our contributions? Do others share and celebrate their success with us? Are we given a warm welcome when we arrive? Those are clear indications of invitation and inclusion, but there are more subtle signs too. When I am working with clients and students, one of my favorite ways to unearth times in their past when they felt excluded is to ask the question, "In the past, when were you told you were too much of something?" These types of

Erik Tait is a world class magician and someone I love to see perform. He has spent over two decades performing as a juggler, standup comedian, and magician. In 2020 Erik decided that he wanted to compete in the 2022 FISM, which is the world championship of magic. Even though he is comfortable on almost any stage in the world, in preparing for the competition he realized he had some deep-seated fears that were affecting his performance. His fear was so acute that it would cause his hand to shake uncontrollably, which is the last thing a card magician wants. Erik's therapist taught him tapping and he credits it (and other tools) with helping him to overcome his fear and win third place in the competition. This made him only the fourth American to accomplish this, and the first American to stand on the podium for card magic in two decades. In this week's podcast, Erik shares how he was first introduced to tapping, how he used it to overcome his fear when preparing for FISM, and how he still uses it today. Even

There is a natural human tendency to want to make sure everything is "exactly right" before we take action. That's because when everything is exactly right, we can be as sure as we can be of getting the results we desire. Our subconscious mind takes this idea to the extreme because its key driver is the need to keep us safe. In addition, it has a tendency to overreact when things go wrong. Here's how it goes: The subconscious wants us to be safe Any small thing that goes wrong is not only unsafe, the subconscious mind judges it as catastrophic The easiest way to make we are safe is to do everything "perfectly" As perfection is generally an unrealistic and unattainable goal, the subconscious holds us back from taking action while waiting for ideal circumstances that never come On the surface, this logic makes sense except for the fact that things will never be perfect. That leads us to over-thinking and failing to take decisive action. This week in the podcast I share a simple concept and how to incorporate

One of the reasons I love art is because it gives us the ability to communicate meaning in ways that we aren't always able to do when simply talking about our lives. We have all heard the expression that "a picture is worth a thousand words", which is true, and it is so much more than just that. The genres of science fiction and fantasy offer us the opportunity to explore the human experience without the political and cultural baggage of our modern world. Recently, I have been listening to the audiobook version of Frank Herbert's Dune. One of the underlying themes is how our emotions impact our ability to make good choices in moments of crisis. There is one particular litany that the main character Paul recites multiple times in the story to calm his fear in the moment. In this week's podcast I explore how that litany and Paul's journey to conquer his fear has impacted my tapping. I even built a tapping script based on the book's text. Support the podcast! Http://tappingqanda.com/support Subscribe in: Apple

One of the reasons I love tapping so much is that it can be used for so many types of issues. It can be used to: Provide emotional first aid Break down a limiting belief Heal a past memory Manage pain Clear a substance sensitivity For me, it is super important to know why I am tapping in each given moment. Am I simply trying to calm myself when I feel overwhelmed so I can take action OR am I dealing with emotional resistance to taking action because I fear failing at my next task? When I know what I am trying to accomplish, it makes it easier for me to stay on track so I can better evaluate my progress to see if I need to keep tapping on the issue. Over the last few months, I have come to realize there are two different types of tapping issues that I had conflated into a single issue. I was approaching how I feel in a moment and what state I am in as if they are the same thing. These are two distinct areas to tap for, with each having a different approach and different goals from the tapping itself. In this

Late last year my friend Brad Yates reached out to see if there was some way we could use our platforms to encourage more people to tap for peace and to become more active peacemakers in the world. After a number of conversations and with help from lots of our tapping friends, we relaunched the Tapping4Peace.com website. The movement is simple. If you sign up to participate, you will receive a short email every week. The email will remind you to do some tapping for peace AND if you aren't exactly sure how to do that, the email will contain a link to a tapping resource from a different practitioner every week to help you to do exactly that. After signing up to join us, a number of people suggested that it would be fun to gather live and do some tapping together as a community. It was such a great idea that is what we did last Sunday. People from all over the world joined us live. This week in the podcast I am sharing some of the tapping we did, so that you too can tap with us to create more peace in the world.

I love the fact that tapping can be used to clear and transform so many things that are negative. It can be used to: Release a negative emotions Heal a past memory Transform a limiting belief Reduce (or even) eliminate physical pail Quiet our critical voice Did you know that in addition to being able to transform the negative it can also be used to reinforce the positive. This week in the podcast I share a simple step by step process that you can use to reinforce and enhance positive feelings and positive states. Support the podcast! Http://tappingqanda.com/support Subscribe in: Apple Podcast | iPhone | Spotify | Pandora | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio  

Tapping is deceptively simple. It is so easy to teach the basics of tapping that I have done it before in under five minutes with a quick drawing on a bar napkin. But hidden behind its simplicity are the subtleties of the art of delivery. Each issue, person, and resource state can require a different approach to get the maximum effect. With this in mind, it is easy to fall prey to trying to find the exact best way to tap for an issue. Searching for the very best approach can lead us to overthinking the process, which may result in us not tapping at all. This week in the podcast I share a simple tapping approach to counter this type of overthinking. This approach can be your full tapping session, a way to get unstuck in the middle of a tapping session or you can use it to start a tapping session. It is so straightforward to add to your tapping tool box that you'll be able to start using it right away. Handout: https://tappingqanda.com/no-agenda Support the podcast! Http://tappingqanda.com/support Subscribe i

One of the most important parts of the Tapping Action Journal is the instruction to spend time writing down notes at the end of each tapping session on what just happened. You are encouraged to write down: what surprised you what you learned any insights you gained any tailenders you unearthed Tailenders are the responses our subconscious mind gives at the tailend of a tapping phrase. For example, I could tap on "I am going to make at least five new sales this week." As soon as I tap on that phrase, my subconscious would respond with "No you are not. You failed before and are going to fail again!" In other words, tailenders are your subconscious mind's rebuttal to what you are saying and tapping on. I love tailenders because they tell us exactly what subconscious resistance is standing in our way of moving forward and they provide a road map for what to tap on next. Last week, one of my students asked the question "I know I am supposed to tap on tailenders, but how exactly do I do that?" In this week's podc

Something I really love about the people I work with is their tendency to see the bigger world outside of themselves. They recognize the people in their lives who are struggling and in pain, and they also want to do something about it. As wonderful as it is to want to help others, it can mean that we become known for being a helper, and the requests become increasingly frequent and demanding of our time and energy. The next thing we know, we are helping everyone else to the point that we neglect our own needs and our lives, meaning we need to do the tough work of creating stronger boundaries. If you are someone with an empathetic nature, creating and maintaining boundaries is even harder. This week in the podcast, we explore how being a helper can turn into a full time job, how to create new boundaries, and why putting boundaries in place is particularly difficult for empaths. We also spend time tapping to make it easier (even for empaths) to create boundaries. Support the podcast! Http://tappingqanda.com/sup

For the 2024 Spring Energy Event I was asked to give a reflection on what I have learned in my personal and professional transformational journey. For me, the measure of the value of transformation is seen in how our life is different. What do we believe that is different? How do we feel that is different? In what ways are we asking in new ways? Because this has been my focus, I am supremely interested in the resistance to change. Even when we know the type of change we would like to make in our lives and how valuable that change is, we still don't change. This led me to create a presentation where I shared the four basic root causes of our resistance to change as well as how to identify the story that is holding you back. This week in the podcast I share the full presentation so you can learn along with everyone who attends live. Support the podcast! Http://tappingqanda.com/support Subscribe in: Apple Podcast | iPhone | Android | Google Podcast | Spotify | Pandora | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio Watch Y

One of my favorite ways to learn is by listening to the questions others ask. When I am asking questions I am bringing my experience and preconceived notions to the questions. This is a useful way to learn, but sometimes I am too close to my own experience to ask the most useful question. When someone else is asking a question they are often asking a question I never would have thought of. This gives me a chance to ponder the questions from a distance which allows me to hear the answer in a new way. One of my favorite parts of the Authentic Action Academy is the Office Hour sessions. This is when my students have the chance to .ask me anything They ask questions about what has been taught in class, how to get more out of their own tapping practice, and they even bring tapping requests. My favorite part of these sessions is seeing all the comments in the chat box from what everyone else is learning through the process. In March I hosted an Ask Me Anything session, where anyone who showed up could do exactly t

Goals are a powerful tool in helping us to move forward. They give us clear direction, they help to create clarity for our best next steps, and they serve as a measuring stick for us to evaluate the action we take. Goals are great! Except when they aren't. Sometimes goals can feel like a constraint, homework, or something we "have to do". When this happens, they become more of a hindrance than a help. This week in the podcast we explore how to create a goal, as well as a healthy relationship to that goal, based on what we are trying to achieve and our personal context. Support the podcast! Http://tappingqanda.com/support Subscribe in: Apple Podcast | iPhone | Android | Google Podcast | Spotify | Pandora | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio | YouTube

One of the phrases I spend a lot of time tapping on with my clients is the idea that "time is a zero sum game". What I mean by this phrase is that if you are doing one thing you can't be doing anything else. This means everytime we choose to do something, we are choosing not to do anything else. Because this is the case it is very easy to judge ourselves as we look at our past choices. When we look to our past, not only are we able to see how we are investing our time, but we also see all the actions we could have taken and we didn't. I know I can certainly be very hard on myself and my past choices when it feels like I have squandered time and opportunities. This past week I found myself very disappointed with my past choices. Normally this leads to frustration for not taking the best action and sadness over the squandered opportunities. For the first time in a long time I wasn't just frustrated or saddened. I was mad. And not just mad...I was raging. The more I thought about my mistakes the madder I became.