Experienced EFT practitioner and healer Heather Donaldson joins Susi Vine to explain how tapping gives you the tools to transform difficult emotions and even remove stubborn old blocks that affect your current emotional and physical health.

In their conversation, they discuss:

• The emotions of stress, and how we can control our reaction to those feelings with EFT,
• The fact that control is an illusion, and how we can get comfortable with handling situations beyond our control,
• How we can create opportunities to cultivate peace in our hectic lives, and
• How you can use tapping anywhere!

At 20 minutes, they set up and begin the EFT tapping exercise, so you can come back and listen to that whenever you need some support with feeling anxious about the extra demands of life and missing the feeling of “normalcy” during the pandemic.

Heather is offering a reduced price EFT tapping session for Happified listeners you can book using this link: https://calendly.com/natureswayhh/30-minute-eft-session.

Heather is also the author of How to Grow a Beautiful Relationship, available on Amazon.

You can enjoy updates from Heather’s global adventures on her Facebook Page.

Watch the episode here:

The Power Of EFT Tapping For Stress Relief

Heather Donaldson explains the support that Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) tapping can offer for emotions of stress, especially in conjunction with our unique worries during the pandemic. She also shares a tapping exercise so you can experience the shift for yourself!

I’m happy to be back with a fantastic guest to join the conversation. Heather Donaldson is joining us from Costa Rica. Thank you so much for joining me.

It’s my pleasure, Susi.

Heather has been referred to as a midwife of emotions, which is hindering more than helping. That’s why I’m excited to have her here to join in the conversation about how we can navigate the aspects of emotional stress, which is one component of several that I love to address. Heather is going to give us some input from her years of experience. As a special part of our conversation, she’ll be explaining a bit about EFT tapping and leave us with some simple tapping tools for quick calm on demand. We’re going to wrap up with a tapping script that’s going to be powerful to help you shift some of the stressful feelings that we’re navigating in these trying times.

Heather has unique and diverse expertise in helping others, including herself, to live more easefully, joyfully and peacefully. She works from the beaches of Costa Rica, where she connects online with people around the globe. While running a professional shiatsu and massage therapy business, she created the unique Roots EFT, which is the Emotional Freedom Technique, to transform her client’s inner gardens. Working with the popular technique alone or as an add-on, Heather has a gift for tuning in deeply to what each person truly needs. Over time, she has developed a specialty for guiding men and women to create more intimacy in their lives, beginning with alleviating stress and then building on skills needed to nurture epic relationships.

On the same topic, she has published a book, How to Grow a Beautiful Relationship. She hosts workshops and retreats in addition to offering private sessions online or in person. Soon to be launched is her intimacy games where people have fun getting closer. Hopefully, we’ll have some time to talk about that, but I have a feeling we’re just going to have to resume this conversation another time so we can dig in on that aspect of her work. Some of her unique creations and a link to sample them or to book a full session can be found on her website, so be sure to take a look at that.

I’d love to dive right in, Heather, since we’ve got a lot that we want to cover. What I’m hearing people struggle with as we’re still dealing with this COVID pandemic that we thought would be lifting, but we’re looking at some more time with these extra precautions in place. One of the things that I see people struggling with is a feeling of overwhelm as things keep shifting. We think we’re going to be coming back to normal, and then normal keeps changing on the horizon. That insecurity also is an aspect of some of this stress. How are you finding that to be the case as you’re working with people?

You nailed how people are being affected even more because of the duration. Things have been different and scary. You talked about stress overwhelm. Stress is a collection of emotions. It’s fear, worry, and maybe a bit of sadness because it seems like we’ve lost the way things were and maybe they’ll never be the same again. Probably not. People tend to react to things as if they were a little scarier than in reality it is or it needs to be.

Stress is our reaction to what is and when we react as if there are tigers out there, we can create the same scenario with the Coronavirus and we shouldn’t have to be on guard. The only time you need to have your adrenaline going and your cortisol going where it makes sense, it’s vital to have that, is when you are confronted suddenly with a tiger and you’ve got to run away or kill it. That takes a lot of energy and you need that stress hormone.

When you have those stress hormones floating around in your system on a constant basis, which was happening to a lot of people in this busy world with all the technology that we’re trying to keep up with, the reaction to things that creates those hormones has been quite pervasive, even before. It may be even worse during the pandemic because of the time and all the changes that have been introduced. It’s like having your children and partner at home.

They all might sound good at the beginning, but they are major changes and humans react to major changes by freaking out, not feeling comfortable, and not enjoying their lives as much as they’d like to. Also, the fact that it’s uncertain where it’s going and how long it’s going to be for. There’s all this uncertainty. We can’t just hug our friends to feel better. We’ve got the social separation, so our usual supports are being taken away, more or less. All of that makes it more challenging. Do you agree with that?

I definitely do in a lot of the points that you’ve covered because we as a whole tend to be creatures of habit. Some of us thrive on spontaneity and changes in our daily life, but many of us find those changes, especially when they’re unexpected, raise our stress level. I love that example. We needed a stressful reaction to respond to specific incidents. That biological part of our brain hasn’t caught up with the way that our lifestyles have totally changed.

We’re responding with that same kind of stressful response to little innocuous things like the phone is ringing when we’re trying to get something done. The boss shows up at our desk and adds one more thing to the list when you think that you’re coasting into the finish line or all of these other things that we tend to keep a more constant level of stress. We need to recover from that so we can be more resilient. If we keep working at a high level, then the stress hormones are flooding our systems all the time and it’s hard to counter that when stresses cut the wheel.

If there’s a silver lining in this pandemic, it’s reminding us that control is an illusion before, during, and after Coronavirus. When we have our routine that we work out, we have this illusion of our life being in control. What goes on around us, we only can learn to control our reaction to it. This is a good training ground for responding to the inevitable changes and challenges of life in a more easeful way. I’ve learned, and maybe you have, to deal with a lot of uncertainty being a solopreneur. I don’t know if my marketing strategies will work and how much money I will make. I’ve grown accustomed to a certain amount so anyone can grow accustomed. That’s why this wasn’t such a big deal for me.

It’s because I was in Costa Rica, I was more relaxed during this pandemic, which sounds strange but it’s true. You have to be responsible and you have to respond and take the precautions, but how you feel about all that and how calm and optimistic you can be, that’s the key. First of all, finding the calm and also, when you are in that more functional state, there are lots of opportunities with this extra time that we can follow up on and make this a good time in our lives. That’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve taken this time to tune up my body to do a lot of things online that I’ve been waiting to do. We can still go outside and be more in touch with nature. That’s therapeutic.

Anyone can find ways to do that, but they first need to tap down their system. That’s why I was going to offer some tapping, which reduces the intensities of these motions, which are stopping you from getting onboard and making the best of the time we have. It is likely to continue that we’ll have some restrictions in our ability or even if it’s recommended to go out. That’s where the EFT comes in, the Emotional Freedom Technique. For those of you that aren’t familiar with it, it’s a quick calming on demand. If you’re going into a situation or say you’ve had a stressful time with your children at home or you tried to be the teacher and you realized you didn’t even know what your child is learning in school or something like that, and you want to calm your system down.

It’s a combination between traditional talk there because you’re using words. You’re giving voice to what you’re feeling. Although not as elaborate as counseling. At the same time, you’re calming your nervous system with gentle tapping. These are points that correspond to all the emotions that are uncomfortable and excess like anger, fear, sadness, and so on. Maybe feel guilty because you’re not being a good enough teacher for your child. We know it works. There are over 100 studies in peer-reviewed journals and some of them are the reviews that look at all the research out there and then make a statement.

That statement is that this technique surpasses, almost doubles, the effectiveness of anything else that’s out there that they compare it with like talk therapy, meditation and yoga. All those things reduce your cortisol, stress levels, and physiological indicators in your body by some degree, but this powers it up more. We know it does that, but how it does that is they’re elucidating the mechanisms as time goes on. What we do know is that there are physical changes and permanent changes in the brain. That’s the good news. Also, you can change your DNA. A person that’s normally high stress can become a calmer person.

A person that normally looks at the world negatively, in a negative frame, changes their frame to a more positive one without a lot of work. It’s just happening naturally because there’s some rewiring that goes on with this technique that makes you less likely to be triggered by those small things. If you are, you can use the technique to get that calm on demand. When you work with someone who’s trained like myself to go a little deeper to the core beliefs that we might not even be aware of that causes us to be reactive, then you won’t have to use it on your own because you won’t get triggered as often. It’s a powerful technique to give you permanent and lasting changes that will carry over beyond the pandemic. That’s a good intro to it.

Some people say, “What’s wrong with those emotions? They’re just normal.” I don’t know how I wanted to address that. They’re normal, but it’s a matter of degree. When those emotions of fear and anxiety are disproportionate to what they need to be, then there’s room for improvement. It can be harmful to the body on an ongoing basis. All kinds of chronic illnesses are related to having ongoing stress reactions to our life. When we’re at that level of high stress, we might blow up and hurt our work, productivity, relationships, children, spouse, partners, or friends. There’s a lot of value in decreasing your stress level. We could get into a tapping session.

I’m excited to be able to share this because what I love about tapping is everything that you said. All of those aspects that there’s so much power in taking control of our emotions. We tend to feel like they’re just going to do what they’re going to do and the more we recognize that we can choose our mood. It’s not that we want to block emotions that are “bad” or inappropriate. What we do and we’re not honest or authentic about them is we tend to stuff them, and then they come back around at inappropriate times with more strength or difficulty.

They can manifest as disease or pain and many other aspects. Having this tool that as you compare it to talk therapy and other modalities where you’re working with a practitioner, once you understand the technique and you’ve had some sessions with a practitioner to help you zero in on some specific issues. This is a tool you can use yourself moving forward in any situation at any given point. You just need your hands, presence, and awareness. It’s such a powerful tool and that’s why I was happy to have you share this with us.

As we go into showing it to you, it may look a little strange if you haven’t done it before, but I want to preface by saying, because you said about you can use it any time, it’s true, even in public. I do it anywhere, anytime. You can do it in a subtler way because touching these points are natural gestures that we make. I touched all the tapping points and you didn’t know I was tapping. You can do a touch and a hold, so it’s not looking as strange with the actual tapping. When I’m lazy in the morning and I want to do some tapping, I wake up and something’s bothering me, I imagine. I’ve got such a clear pathway in my brain.

It’s all about the energy in these meridians, releasing in those points, and then letting the energy flow. It’s emotional energy. Everything is energy. Emotions are energy and thoughts are energy, and you want to balance it out so it has a nice flow. You can do that even by just imagining. I wouldn’t worry about it looking funny. There are many people doing it that they say, “Somebody else is doing it,” and you feel like you’re not alone. There are points in it. The first one is they’re all around the eye sockets. The eyebrow points are at the end of the eyebrow where it meets the bridge of the nose and the bony ridge around your eye.

You could do one or the other or both sides. I like to do both sides. Side of the eye on the bony ridge and under the eye, also on the bony ridge. It may be under your pupil. Of course, you can’t see your pupil. It doesn’t have to be exact anyway. Just wake up the energy in those meridians. Under the nose, in the middle, on the chin, in the middle, and then under the collarbones and beside the breast, in the fleshy part. Don’t tap on your bones. It doesn’t feel good. In this, you can use with more fingers and the delicate areas, you use 1 or 2. Underarm is where your bra strap would be. Guys know where that is, too. It’s 4 inches below your armpit. Give tap one there.

It’s the monkey one or you can cross over and do it that way, and then top of your head. If you draw from your ears, there’s a middle point and that’s it. When you start out though, we do a setup. This setup point is called the karate chop. If I was going to do a karate chop, it’s on the pinky side, that’s where I would strike, so wake up that point. They have an app which pops up, then you want to tap on anxiety, and some of them are free. These general scripts like the one I’m going to do with you can take the edge off but of course, the individualized ones who work with a practitioner and go deep are going to have the most lasting change.

Back to this karate chop point, it’s the setup. It’s the first one that you do. It’s not 100% necessary in every case, but we do it anyway. It’s saying, “Even though I have what I have like this anger, stress, overwhelm, and feeling like there’s not enough time, I still love myself. I absolutely love and accept my true self that this feeling has nothing to do with who I am. It’s just my reaction.” I’d like to say about our emotions. We can be friendly with them because they’re our way of trying to help ourselves. That’s the only way we know how.

Maybe it’s not the best and most effective, but we can learn other ways like tapping. Give ourselves a break. That’s what it is so that we’re not beating ourselves up and we can go ahead and go right into those motions. Going into those motions, we tend to stuff them. I use the analogy of house cleaning. If you’re going to clean your house, you have to move the furniture, look behind, look deep, and find the dust. That’s not that pleasant, but once you clean it, it feels great and it looks great. That’s the motivation for doing this.

I want to encourage our readers, as you’re reading this, you’re going to be speaking along with Heather.

Tapping on the points is good and following along. We start out and give a rating so you can see if there’s a change. It’s just your numbers like on a scale of 0 to 10, how overwhelmed do you feel with all of this that’s going on? It could be a feeling in your body of maybe tensing up or maybe your breath when you think about all the demands. We’re overwhelmed with all the demands and there isn’t enough time. Even though there is time, you might have that feeling that you’re not getting things done well enough or you’re not getting to things the way you should.

If you can rate on a scale of 0 to 10, how intense that emotion? Zero is nothing and ten is your highest. Give it a ranking. Just to remind you that belief that there isn’t enough time is a judgment. It tends to create what we fear that we won’t get things done. It’s a belief. If we set some boundaries and release that belief, we probably could get things done, get more focused, functional, act more powerfully and efficiently. How does that overwhelm feel in your body?

In the setup, you tap on the side of your hand and repeat after me. “Even though I’m feeling overwhelmed with this pandemic, with all these changes and all these demands to do things differently and do different things than I did before, everything is all topsy-turvy. All this change feels overwhelming. Even though I have this feeling of overwhelm, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.” You could do the other side if you want. Do it a couple of times to let it sink in. “Even though I feel this overwhelm, this tightening in my muscles or however, I feel it in my body, and I may not need to react this way. I deeply and completely love and accept myself. I accept that I’m doing the best I know how.”

You then start with the points. It would be the eyebrow point. “I’m honoring how I feel. Sometimes, it feels out of control. Everything keeps changing. It’s unpredictable.” Side of the eye. “I’m trying to figure out so much and that feels like pressure. It doesn’t feel comfortable not knowing and being forced to do things that I didn’t choose to do.” Under the eye. “There are many new challenges like online stuff.” Under the nose. “Truth is we never have complete control of what goes on around us.” Chin. “My familiar routine feels safer. The truth is we are safe.”

You can tap on the collarbone points underneath the collarbone. “What’s happening in the world feels scary to me.” Underarm. “I don’t know how I’m going to keep up with this and find the time to relax, too. It’s hard on me. I need time to relax, but I don’t seem to be getting it.” The top of the head. “It feels like it’s all up to me. There’s too much responsibility. It feels like I’ll never be able to manage with this new normal and I don’t want to either.” That’s at the top of the head, and then you can stop and take a deep breath and let it go.

Feel free to make noise. When you rid it, it’s releasing more. That’s all part of it. It’s balancing out your energy. I’m going to do a couple of more. That one was about all this pressure and this feeling of overwhelm in your body, acknowledging what you’re feeling. That’s how you start out, then later on, you can get into changing it. People like to do affirmations, but you can’t just jump right into affirmations. It’s like a battle because these emotions don’t want to go away. Your subconscious thinks that those emotions are there to protect you.

That’s a little misguided. Subconscious isn’t that smart, but it’s powerful, so you’ve got to slowly convince it that tapping helps to calm the system and convince your subconscious mind that this new normal is fine and you’re going to be safe to let go of your tension and the overwhelmed feeling. How does that feel in your body? Maybe you want to give it a different number. That was the first round. We’ll do 1 or 2 more depending on how much time.

I want to say, too, tapping through that first sequence and without saying the words, speaking helps to move the energy. Even without that, I noticed I was sighing, yawning, and have some tears flowing. I’ve always recognized that my body moves energy, so you can feel the energy start freeing up with the first round.

I hope others experienced the same because all of those are clear indications that your emotional energy is shifting. Let’s shift some more. Start out with the setup again. Karate chop point. “Even though I may still feel some of this reaction in my body that is a protective reaction, my body is in high alert, tensing up. Maybe affecting my breath or constricting my muscles and certainly flooding my brain with emotions that don’t allow me to function well, even though I’m overwhelmed. I accept myself and how I feel.” Let’s get right into this top thing, the eyebrow point. “I want to change this.” Side of the eye. “I’m willing. What if I could find some relief?”

Under the eye. “What if I could find a way to give myself a relaxation break, so I can manage these changes with more calm. I’m ready to find a way to feel calm.” Under the nose. “I’m willing to release this pressure, this reaction to all this change and uncertainty, which is inevitable in life but a little more lately.” On the chin. “Universe is testing me. I know I would be more effective in dealing with all this from a calmer place. When I let go of the pressure, I have more resources, more creativity, and more patience.” Under the collarbone. “I’m choosing now to release this overwhelm and pressure on myself wherever I’m holding it, my brain, heart, muscles, breath, and every cell of my body. I’m releasing this so I can let in some ease.”

Under the arm. “Feeling calmer gives me more choices and more freedom to respond rather than react. I’m choosing to breathe deeply and letting go of all this stress wherever I’m holding it, wherever I’ve learned to react this way.” Top of the head. “I’m allowing myself to feel calm now, how safe I am, and how adequate I am doing my best. Knowing myself to love more freely. With a relaxed and calm mind, I can let that flow. When I’m calm, time is on my side.” Take a deep breath in again and let it go. There, you’re getting more into releasing, choosing to release that it’s okay to release. Where are you at, Susi? What number are you at?

I probably came down from a 6 to 3.5. It’s shifted a lot after two rounds.

How it works is a bit of an education boat. When you get down to boat 2 or 3, then you’re getting into your core beliefs. The ones where it comes from this reaction, the part of you that in a general way feels like somehow you’re not enough or you’re not safe, that often comes from experiences in your life when you’re 0 to 5 years, and it’s common. It’s sad that people are going around limiting themselves in their lives because this program is running in the background. It’s simply not true.

Somehow, they came to this program or story about themselves because they’re reacting in the mind of a 2-year-old, 3-year-old, 4-year-old, or 5-year-old. Maybe some little thing their parents said to them and they said, “I’m not good enough. Even if I have to work hard, I’m still not going to feel good enough.” Maybe we can work a little more on some of those beliefs and feelings in a final round. How does that sound?

That sounds great.

A quick setup again, karate chop. “Even though I still have some of this feeling of overwhelm wherever it came from, wherever I learned to believe that I’m not doing quite good enough, I have to do more, and my best isn’t good enough. Wherever I learned that, I’m not quite safe. I’m remembering that I am safe, I’m not going to die, and I am lovable. I’m choosing to release my old story and go back to the true story about myself. I do love and accept my true self deeply and completely.” Start with the tapping points. “I’m choosing to release all these ways that I put pressure on myself wherever I learned that I’m not a good enough person.”

Under the eye. “I’m accepting my true lovable self now knowing I can always give love to myself and them when I feel calm and confident.” Under the nose. “Knowing all is well. Humans are adaptable and there’s life after COVID.” On the chin. “Releasing any thoughts of the future, worries about the future, memories of the past that are putting pressure on me.” Collarbone. “Letting go of those remaining emotions and allowing feelings of safety in my body, feeling relaxed in my body. Letting the pressure on myself go. Even though I have so much to do, if I step back, prioritize, and set some boundaries, maybe I can handle this and make the most of the time I have without it wearing me out.”

Under the arm. “There may be enough time if I’m grounded in focus. My money situation, career situation, and personal situation, I can get it in order if I stopped spinning my wheels and do one more round.” In your eyebrow. “I am moving forward. I’m starting to now. I’m able to now.” Side of the eye. “I’m not exhausting myself by just spinning my wheels. I’m taking a breather, and then I’m going to get things done one at a time.” Under the eye. “It’s not too much, even if it felt like too much. I’m considering the possibility that there’s enough time because I say so. It’s enough.”

Under the nose. “One thing at a time checking off my list. I’m not stuck in these anxious and frustrated feelings so I have more energy.” Chin. “One step closer to my goal. I can focus on taking care of myself and touching other people’s lives to do what matters. I have plenty of time and energy for that.” Collarbone. “I’m allowing energy for that.” Under the arm. “I’m allowing the universe to help me and I’m trusting the universe to help me or God or whatever you call the higher powers that be.” Top of the head. “I’m choosing peace now with whatever it is.” One more deep breath in and let it all go. Susi, are you down close to zero now? I love zeros by the way.

Yeah, I definitely feel like it’s cleared a lot. Smaller size and yawns and moving things out, so that was perfect. I loved how we started with what’s going on now. As you’ve experienced and as we discover, there are so many layers to work through. That’s the beauty of being able to drop in, take time, explore, and pull these out by the root to see they’re not serving us.

One of the reasons I like doing these interviews, including tapping, is because I feel better after as well.

From the first time I experienced it myself, it’s the most incredible body buzz if I’m going to briefly describe it. You feel your energy flowing and it’s a perfect demonstration if you haven’t experienced acupuncture or shiatsu of how powerful the meridians are. They’re measurable now. Science is finally catching up on all this ancient wisdom, so it’s great to take advantage of this that we have at our fingertips.

This is a modern version of what the ancients have been doing it anyways for millennia. They touch points and massage each other to balance out their energy. They look at it as mind-body. Not as separate but as one. The energy connects it all. A lot of people say they feel like a weight is lifted off their shoulders and they feel lighter and freer. That’s why they call it the Emotional Freedom Technique. If you’re free of those emotions, then you’re free to flow more, get through this in a way with more ease, and maybe a little more productivity when you’re not distracted by those stress emotions. That’s certainly healthier.

With a healthy immune system, if you do encounter the virus, your immune system would be able to fight it better so it wouldn’t be serious symptoms. That’s another benefit of tapping. You’ve mentioned how people can find the link for the website and they can set up a session. I am offering that where they can sample it individually with me during a 30-minute session. They will get some dropping of the intensity of whatever’s specifically disturbing them about this time or their relationships. I do have some specialties in that area as well. I can tell them from there where they could go further to make sure that they get to those zeros and reprogram their core beliefs so they’ll be sailing past the pandemic.

We’ve already gotten to experience how much things can ship so they could generalize, “This is what’s going on in the world,” script. If you’re connecting with what’s going on for you, personally, you can imagine how much more freeing and enlightening that can be. Thank you for making that available. I appreciate that and I enjoyed our conversation. I know that we’re going to be resuming it soon because whether or not, stress is forefront. Relationships are their own animal and we want to be fresh and bring the best of ourselves to our relationships. I’m excited to continue our conversation and talk about the work that you’re doing and exploring there too. We’ll be back soon.

I have more in my toolkit for the relationship issues, so I’ll be happy to join you for that later. It’s been a pleasure.

Thanks, Heather. Enjoy the beautiful paradise of Costa Rica. I’m glad you found a safe and happy little place to hunker down. I hope to talk to you again soon.

Thank you.

Important Links:

• Heather Donaldson
• How to Grow a Beautiful Relationship
• Roots EFT
• https://Calendly.com/natureswayhh/30-minute-eft-session
• https://www.Facebook.com/nwholistichealth?ref=bookmarks

About Heather Donaldson

Head Therapist Heather Donaldson is a skilled, compassionate and dedicated healer. Beginning as a Registered Shiatsu Therapist, she has developed a unique and diverse holistic practice with degrees and certificates in education, health promotion, nutrition, massage, shiatsu, EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), counselling and tai chi. Heather currently offers individual sessions and workshops addressing the mind-body.

Heather’s personal vision is to connect powerfully with clients, helping them to consciously challenge current patterns and belief systems that no longer serve them and co-create new ones that serve them better.

She has always been drawn to all things ‘natural’ and strives to live an ideal of balancing work and leisure. Living in the natural beauty of the Sea to Sky Corridor, Heather is able to achieve her vision.

She enjoys swimming, biking, hiking, skiing and tai chi in the magnificent outdoors, eating local organic produce and connecting with like-minded co-creators.