How to use EFT tapping to contain overwhelming emotions without suppressing them.
Do you tap on yourself when you feel stressed?
Sometimes, emotions can surface while tapping on yourself that feel too intense to handle alone. When deep pain surfaces, it’s healthy to want support from a caring, skillful practitioner, to have someone holding space for you and supporting you. We may have carried the pain alone for decades.
Our culture is not skillful at comforting people and staying present when we’ve been shocked, are grieving, scared or angry. We learn to keep a stiff upper lip. We say we’re “fine” when someone asks how we feel.
Suppressing pain can make us feel isolated and disconnected, and contribute to physical pain. Emotional and physical pain activate the same part of the brain, which doesn’t distinguish between the two.
In many ways, our culture is broken. Emotional intelligence is often lacking.
The simple truth is, it’s human and healthy to need support. Stoicism can help us survive a dangerous event, but it can wreak havoc with our hearts over time. When we don’t have a full range of emotions, we lose our capacity for joy.
If you don’t have a Tapping practitioner to work with, or a friend to support you letting emotions flow through you, here’s what you can do:
- Turbo tap
When you get stuck while tapping, you may want to stop or take a nap, or do anything but tap. Try this instead. Keep tapping, using a specific technique called Turbo Tapping. For example, if you’re feeling sadness or anger, you’ll tap on the tapping points while simply saying, “all this sadness,” or, “all this anger.”
Tap for 1, 2 or 3 rounds, and update your words if the feeling changes. For example, sadness can turn to grief, anger or love. - Remember that you grieve only because you love. Engage the Witness within you, also called your Higher Self, to give you some distance from the part of you that is carrying the pain. Tap on statements such as, “This pain is so old.” “I’ve had this pain since I was (tune into your body to answer) – 3 years old, or 26 years old.”
“I acknowledge that this pain is deep, and that I care very much about it.”
“I don’t feel quite ready to go deeper right now, and I’m choosing to reassure the part of me that I am aware and I care, even if now isn’t the best time to do the deeper work.”
Pause your tapping, and turn your attention to sensations in your body. Put your hands on your heart, belly—or wherever your body is expressing tension. With the help of your capacity to bear Witness, let this hurt part of you know, “I see you. I’m here with you. I’m not going to deny you anymore, and I’m not going to try to make you go away.”
“I’m not letting you take over my life, and I’m not rejecting you, I’m simply acknowledging that you exist.” - Create an imaginal safe space inside your heart, and invite this part of you to rest, and be cared for by a loving presence. Remember, your nervous system will create calming sensations when you imagine them.
- Choose a loving being, such as Kwan Yin, or Mother Mary, that feels deeply nourishing to you, and ask this Being to watch over the hurt part of you.
- Check in once in awhile with this part of you, remind the part that they have a helper, a protector, and no one can hurt them now. Invite the hurt part to rest and receive nurturing.
- You may find that you can release sadness, or any emotion, a bit at a time, in a way that is manageable for you, like opening a bottle of sparkly water very slowly, or letting the air out of a balloon slowly.
- Think of deep-sea diving. When divers go deep, they have to stop at certain points as they rise up through the water to adjust the pressure and mix of air they’re breathing. Come out of the deep emotional state slowly.
- Journal, rest, take a walk in nature, or take an Epsom salt bath after an intense release. This will help you integrate the changes.
Contain Overwhelming emotions without suppressing them
