The Art of Tapping

Preface You may ask me how the “Art Of Tapping” was born. It all started when I was working with teenager suffering from high levels of anxiety and panic attacks. I remembered my first encounter with art therapy and how deeply it touched me as a client. Intuitively I felt that this was the one and only way to be able to build rapport and establish a safe place quickly. I asked my client if she could draw on a piece of paper what happened when she was in a situation that induced a panic attack. She drew a picture with numerous shapes in different colours. Her hands were sweating and I immediately started the tapping process. “Even though I’m surrounded by so many different shapes and it feels overwhelming and scary at times, I deeply and completely love, accept and forgive myself.” We tapped on many aspects like “shapes moving around, while I am paralyzed” and “I just don’t know what to do… I’m so scared”. After a couple of rounds, I saw the tension dissipate. My client opened her fists and her body started to loosen up more and more. I asked her which of the shapes belonged to her and she told me that it was missing completely. We found out that her unique shape was the heart. “Wow,” I said “that’s the most important shape ever. Please add it to the other shapes.” She drew a tiny heart because there was not much space left on the paper. I started tapping again “Even though I feel very small and unimportant, I deeply and completely love, accept and forgive myself.” and “this tiny heart amidst all the big shapes… they are invading my space… I don’t feel safe…” etc. “I would like to see a bigger heart.” I encouraged her and she said “There’s no space; it would overlap the others.” “That’s ok.” I answered and smiled at her. Now, she drew her heart in the middle of the picture and indeed it was overlapping a few of the other shapes. We started tapping again: “Even though my shape is overlapping other shapes, I deeply and completely love, accept and forgive myself.” “It is ok to overlap… it is ok to move as well… it is ok to interact… it can be fun to move and socialize with others… it might be not so difficult… it makes me curious to learn more about the others… what if it’s exciting to mingle with different shapes…”etc. We talked about how we can learn from others and how they can learn from us and a few sessions down the line she told me that her whole world and perspective had changed through exercises like that. Now we were able to develop a mental, emotional and behavioural strategy for future scary moments and from there we went into preventing panic attacks from escalating and recognizing the triggers. Those steps helped building self-awareness and self-confidence. My client learned who she was and about her strength and skill set. She discovered how fear and self-doubt robbed her of her full potential and how feeding the soul with self-compassion and self-forgiveness gave her wings to soar and set her free. “As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.” ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe The transformational process was incredible and so I continued to focus on this new path that had opened before me. And finally, I decided that this technique had to be perpetuated in a book.