Tapping into Trauma Relief: The EFT Journey with Dr. Tammi O'Flynn

Jennifer Norman:
Hello, beautiful humans. Welcome to The Human Beauty Movement Podcast. My name is Jennifer Norman, founder of The Human Beauty Movement and your host, The Human Beauty Movement is here to help us cultivate self-love. After all, when we love ourselves deeply and uncover the parts that may need healing, we're better able to give love to others and manifest the lives that we want that are truly beautiful. I created this podcast to have open conversations about all aspects of the human experience. Together, we'll learn more about ourselves. We'll feel the joy of mind, body, soul, well well-being, and we'll discover new tools that can help us thrive. Take a moment now to subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode. I'm so glad that you're here, joining me for today's show.

Jennifer Norman:
In the whirlwind of modern life, it's all too easy to lose sight of the interconnectedness that forms the foundation of our well-being, the delicate balance between mind, body, and spirit. Often we sense the need for guidance but are unsure where to turn. That's where my next guest steps in. Dr. Tammi O'Flynn is a multidisciplined natural health practitioner. She specializes in herbal medicine, pilates, Reiki, and eft tapping. Now, over the past year, I have become absolutely intrigued by the power of tapping. I had known about acupuncture and acupressure, but tapping was completely new to me. So I'm delighted to have Tammi join me today to share a lesson in what EfT is and the benefits of tapping. Welcome, Tammi.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Thank you, Jennifer. Thanks for having me on.

Jennifer Norman:
It's lovely to have you here from Dublin. I'm so delighted. And so if you could please tell everyone a bit more about you and the work that you do.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Well, as you said, I'm a natural health practitioner. I have a few different areas in natural health that I work in. I've been in practice for more than 20 years now. I actually started out my professional career as a ballet dancer, so not in the health world at all, and then transitioned into the healing world I was called to heal. I wanted to help people, and it was really a journey, traveling through different disciplines and learning as I went. So I actually started with Reiki and energy medicine, and then I transitioned into aromatherapy. And from there I did a degree in herbal medicine or phytotherapy. And in about I first discovered EFT tapping in 2008.

Tammi O'Flynn:
I did a little introductory course to it, but it wasn't until 2017 that I got qualified. And that was actually because of a personal journey that I had gone on and that I had discovered its value. And I was so impressed with it, even with all the other knowledge that I had. And I'm usually able to help myself and keep myself balanced and healthy. I was going through something in my personal life that I was unable to help until I found tapping and went to a practitioner and had such a transformative experience that I decided to take that little introduction course that I had done further and become qualified, because I felt like this is something I needed to share with the world and help more people using it. And really, since then, since 2017, it's kind of taken over a bigger and bigger piece of my practice. And the more I do it, the more I love it, the more I see the benefit that people have from it. I'm just so excited to share it with you today.

Jennifer Norman:
I've heard that story very frequently, that people are just absolutely amazed by how well it works, almost uncannily. They just can't believe how simple the technique is yet, how powerful it is in how it helps to heal certain parts of you that you had a difficult time releasing prior. So can you tell everybody what is EFT and what is tapping? What is it all about?

Tammi O'Flynn:
Let me first explain what it is, and then I'll explain why I think it works so well. So EFT stands for emotional freedom technique. It's also known as tapping because that's actually what we're doing in the technique. We literally are tapping along our meridian points in a little sequence through our body. So emotional freedom technique, or EFT, is also known as tapping, and it's a cutting edge technique that is revolutionizing the way we think about energy and its impact on our health. EFT is a fairly simple technique which enables us to literally tap into our energy fields by tapping along our meridians or energy points in the body. And while we're tapping, we focus in on a particular physical or emotional event or issue that we're having trouble with, and we release it, and the energy pathways get rewired to flow smoothly. Old patterns are released, and patients are really frequently amazed at how, in a short space of time, problems that have been with them for years, sometimes even decades, can be resolved relatively simply.

Jennifer Norman:
Now, I understand that EFT and tapping does have its roots with acupressure points. Can you explain the various points, or meridians, as you were just mentioning, and how actually tapping upon the even helps at all?

Tammi O'Flynn:
Right, so, yes, as you said, we use the meridian energy system, which is the same energy system that's used in Chinese medicine. In acupressure or acupuncture. It's one of the energy systems of our body. It's not the only one. You may have heard of others like the chakra system. The meridian system is one of the energy systems. And you may have seen one of the charts in the acupuncture clinic that it looks like a network, like a neural network almost, that runs through the body, and there are lots of them, and they run in these chains through the body. When we're doing tapping, we don't use all of them.

Tammi O'Flynn:
We use a simple. We call it a little recipe. It's a little sequence that has shown to be the most simple and effective to use. And we use that same little sequence of tapping points throughout, and we literally run through them as we tap. And why we use them is the meridian system runs fairly close to the surface of the body so that it's an easy one to access. And when we're tapping and we don't have to tap, you can actually also rub these points. We're literally stimulating those points of the body. And the stimulating of those points sends a message to the amygdala in the brain.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Your amygdala is one of your oldest areas of the brain. It's kind of one of your centers of safety. It's your fight, flight, or freeze center. So when we tap the points, it sends that message into the amygdala in the brain. It sends the brain a message that we are safe. We can relax. We can come out of that sympathetic nervous system state that we often get trapped in, in our lives for various reasons. And once we're out of that sympathetic state, we come back down into the parasympathetic state of the nervous system.

Tammi O'Flynn:
And in that state, that is where we heal. That's where we can transform. That's where we can problem solve. That's where we can be creative. And that's one of the reasons why tapping is so effective, because it brings us out of that sympathetic state, calms our nervous system, and then we're able to find solutions and release problems and heal.

Jennifer Norman:
So it's as if we're being rewired, and it's really a combination of your mind and your body, everything that you're really kind of incorporating into your being. And when we talk about energy, we are talking about, I guess, blockages or inhibitions that may be keeping us in old patterns. And so what the tapping is doing is allowing the free releasing or the flow of that energy to help to essentially rewire and recirculate so that we are thinking different ways or we're able to heal from past issues. Is that correct?

Tammi O'Flynn:
That's exactly right, yeah. So that's one of the reasons why I feel tapping works so well, because what it's really doing is it's helping to connect and align all the different parts of ourselves. So it's our physical body. We tune into our body, we talk about how our body is feeling when we're doing a tapping session. It's our mental part of ourselves. So our thoughts, those thoughts that kind of keep playing in our head, that subconscious voice that plays in your head all the time, it's our energy system, because we are literally rewiring that energy system, and it's our emotions, and because you're connecting all of those parts of ourselves and aligning them, I think that's what makes the difference, because so many other therapies work on one or another of those at a time, but hardly any bring them all together.

Jennifer Norman:
Interesting. So what kind of issues can tapping help with?

Tammi O'Flynn:
There's an almost endless list of things that can help with. There's a lot of research that has been done and is continuing to be done. It's gaining recognition as an evidence based medicine approach. As I said, successful clinical trials have been done in many areas, including PTSD, pain, depression, anxiety and addiction. The British National Health Service is actually trialing it in hospitals, particularly in trauma situations. It's been shown to be extremely effective for trauma. Many studies of groups going into trauma situations and the amazing results that they have there, and then those are the more sort of dramatic areas that it can be used in. But in my practice, I have a couple of different areas which I like to focus on.

Tammi O'Flynn:
And one of them, of course, is the mental wellness that is such a huge issue in the world at the moment for all ages, particularly following the pandemic, a lot of people are struggling with mental health. So things like stress, anxiety, depression, panic attacks, insomnia, burnout, and then adhd for kids and adults as well. The another area that I work a lot with is peak performance or optimizing performance, and that's whether that's in business achievers or leaders, business leaders and the sports people, people that work in the arts, performance arts. So peak performance is a big area. It has a big place for. And the another part, very close to my heart, is working with fertility for men and women, because there's so often a huge emotional and energetic component with fertility challenges. And that's something that is very close to my heart, that I focus on as well in my practice. So those are just some of the areas that I am particularly interested in and work with.

Tammi O'Flynn:
But in many, many areas, in fact, one of the people that I trained with used to say, when in doubt, tap on it and see what happens.

Jennifer Norman:
I'm in the middle of reading the book, the body keeps the score. I'm a little bit of late getting to it. And I thought that it was so interesting how the author was so skeptical about tapping, and he went into it with kind of like a chip on his shoulder, but then was absolutely amazed at how well it worked and actually became certified and learned how to do tapping for himself. And one of the things that he was mentioning in the book was that it was actually used in many athletic situations. So to your point, not necessarily like you've got a trauma or something that is really bad in your life. You might be just wanting to have peak performance in athletics, in business, as you had mentioned. And so it's all about wherever you are in your journey, whatever you want to do. As far as getting to that next step of improvement, tapping could be something that can help.

Jennifer Norman:
And he was going through a litany of case studies on how different teams actually improved their performance year over year, how they've won awards and how they've won championships and things like that, because their team had actually incorporated tapping into their regimen. So there you go.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Absolutely. It's an area that I'm moving more and more into now, and I think part of that is because of my background. As I said, I was a ballet dancer. I didn't have tapping at that point. I think it would have been so helpful if I had. So the arts, for sure, anytime you have to perform at a peak level, there's so much emotion that goes into that. There's so much mental training and work. But again, there are psychologists that specialize in sort of the mental components of performance, but again, they're focusing on the mental side of it.

Tammi O'Flynn:
And part of performance is, of course, the emotion. That's such a huge part of it. You look at, for instance, we've just had the Rugby World Cup, and you can imagine the pressure that those players are under, and now you're lining up to score that penalty and you can literally see it on their face. And they are so trained, they are wonderful. They've got so much support, but you can see it on their face right before they make the kick, whether they're going to get it in or get it out. And so much of that comes down to emotion comes down to that. Hardwiring in the subconscious comes down to beliefs. Changing our belief system as well is something that tapping does so effectively, unlocking, discovering what those beliefs are.

Tammi O'Flynn:
If there is a limiting belief, figuring out how to change it, what you want to change it to. So these are all things we work with. And it's so exciting. I find it so fascinating and exciting to discover these with each individual that you work with. Because everyone's different. Of course, we all have things that are. We all have our similarities. We are all human.

Tammi O'Flynn:
But everyone's story is different, and we've got a different story that's built up over the course of our lives. It's been hardwired into our nervous system, and we have to kind of sometimes start to decode that a little bit and undo some of that and figure out which parts we want to keep and which parts we want to let go of and which parts we want to transform into something different. And that's what we do with the tapping.

Jennifer Norman:
So, from what I understand, with tapping, it's important to start perhaps by focusing, maybe focusing on the most critical thing that you're interested in addressing and then working on that first. Is that right?

Tammi O'Flynn:
There are a couple of different ways you can actually come to it. So some people come just because they're curious. And in that case, we start with where someone is, and we often will tune into the body and see what's coming up in their body and kind of follow from there. Other people will come with a particular issue, as you say. So they've had a trauma, and they want to work through and release that, or they have a phobia, and they want to work through and release that. They're having some relationship issues, so they'll come with a specific issue, and then that's our starting point, and we work from there. And then other people will come just because they're wanting to improve something in their life. So they don't come with a problem, but they're wanting to improve, to level up.

Tammi O'Flynn:
And then we have to find out, well, what's keeping you back from that? What's standing in your way? What is the block? Because generally there are one or more.

Jennifer Norman:
Right. Interestingly, I had discovered that a lot of people who had gone through some sort of trauma, whether it be childhood trauma or PTSD, from war, sometimes they feel that they can't trust their feelings, like their feelings. And the way that they somatically process emotions is awry. Perhaps if they come back from a war situation and they hear a noise. Or if they're with their loved one and they get touched in a certain way, it's not something that's pleasant for them. How can tapping then help to reassociate certain emotions with positive somatic feelings so that the person can live a more normal life? Or is normal even something to strive for? I don't even know if there is anything...

Tammi O'Flynn:
What is normal?

Jennifer Norman:
What is normal? Maybe that's not even the right word, but something that might be more desirable.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Okay, great question. So I think there are two parts to it. So the one is when we get triggered by something that's something that's been hardwired into our nervous system. And it can happen for a number of different reasons. As you said, trauma is a big one. So that is not a conscious reaction anymore. That's something that happens subconsciously in our nervous system. So we can't think our way out of that, we can't talk our way out of that.

Tammi O'Flynn:
And this is one of the problems that people come up against when they're trying to deal with the trauma, is you can't talk or think your way out of it. You can hope for it to be better. You can have all the affirmations in your head. It's not going to help, because that problem and that trauma is not in your head, it's in your nervous system. And that's why Tapping is so effective in rewiring that. So what we actually do with trauma is we go back and in a retraumatizing way, we break that trauma down into small, little pieces, and we tap on each little piece, and we release each piece at a time so that it's not retraumatizing the person. And slowly that trigger, sometimes it happens actually very quickly. It doesn't necessarily have to take a long time, but that trigger gets rewired so that you can still have the memory of what happened.

Tammi O'Flynn:
It's not like you've erased your memory of it, but it no longer has that impact on your nervous system. When you think of it, when you hear that same noise, or when you smell that smell, or when somebody touches you in that way, it just doesn't have that effect on your nervous system anymore. Because that part has been rewired. It doesn't retraumatize you every time you have that stimuli. And that's one of the most potent effects of tapping.

Jennifer Norman:
Wow.

Tammi O'Flynn:
The second part of your question there is we actually have to change the way that we think about our emotions. So some of the language that you use is very common language. Whether it's from psychologists or just in our everyday life, there are some things which are positive and negative emotions. For instance. Well, there actually are no positive or negative emotions. Those are just labels that we've given to them, right? They're just emotions. And one of the first things we have to learn to do is to just accept the way that we feel and that that's okay. It's okay to feel the way we feel.

Tammi O'Flynn:
It's okay if we feel bad right now. It's not that we're going to feel bad forever. It's okay if we have that pain. It's okay if I feel upset. It's okay if I feel angry. It's fine to feel all of these things. And that's one of the things that tapping does, is we first accept how we feel in this moment, and only from there can we move forward and release that. Because until we release it, there's so much energy bound up in trying to push that feeling away.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Emotions have huge energy, and we really need to let them float up, feel them, experience them fully, and then we can let them go, and then they can transform into something more positive, or what we would consider positive and move forward.

Jennifer Norman:
I would love for us to dive into an exercise together so that people who are watching and listening to this podcast can fully understand. Now that we've talked around it a lot and what it is and how amazing it can be, let's talk specifically about perhaps the areas that you would call your recipe. Maybe, for example, a great exercise might be negative self talk, because I know that a lot of people are their own worst critics. And it could be possible that subconsciously we don't realize how that might be holding us back from our peak performance. What might be exercise or a technique that people might be able to use to help release negative self talk.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Okay, so should I take you through a little sequence?

Jennifer Norman:
Yes, please.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Okay, good. So I like to start with some breathing, and this helps us to just calm and come back into our bodies. So if you like, you can close your eyes for this part. And I sometimes like to put one hand across my belly and one hand across my chest or my heart. I'm just helping you to connect in with your body. And we're just going to take three deep breaths. So, breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth, and then each exhale, we're going to try and make last a little longer than the previous one. Great.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Okay, so you can just stay in that position for the moment, keep your eyes closed for the moment. And the just begin to tune into your body and just notice how it feels in this moment as you're sitting there. And try and notice that without any judgment. So without trying to change it, without trying to label it as a good or a bad feeling, just notice what physical sensations, if any, are coming up for you right now. And then you might notice if there are any thoughts playing through your mind, it. And in particular, if there is any negative self talk. And again, trying not to change it or judge it for right now to just notice it and listen to it. Okay, how does that feel for you?

Jennifer Norman:
Calming.

Tammi O'Flynn:
And did anything come up there for you?

Jennifer Norman:
It felt peaceful to release judgment. It felt liberating. Before, if there's this feeling, of okay, I'm judging myself or it's not okay, just saying it's okay. It's like breath of fresh air.

Tammi O'Flynn:
And so that's really the beginning point. That's what we always start with, or what I always start with in a session, because it's so important to just start there, right? Start with where you're at. It's fine to feel how I am right now. I'm okay right now in this moment. I'm feeling x, I'm feeling sad, I'm feeling angry, I'm feeling tired, I'm feeling in pain. And that's okay. And that's actually a statement that we use while we're doing our little tapping recipe. So, let's say, for example, maybe you can give me an example of something that would come up for you.

Tammi O'Flynn:
We don't have to get too personal for this, but it's just something that would come up a lot for you. Like a tape that plays in your head often.

Jennifer Norman:
I've done a good job for my own personal self, releasing a lot of negative talk. But I can go back and focus on the past where I would always say, oh, I screwed up, or I'm not good enough, or I wish that I was as good as somebody else. And comparing myself to somebody else.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Right. So I'm not good enough is actually a big one that comes up for a lot of people. Okay, let's just use that as an example. Okay. So then we would take that, and we would start to tap on the side of your hand. So this is one of the first points we use. It's called your karate chop point. So that fleshy part on the side of your hand.

Tammi O'Flynn:
And you would either tap or rub. So we're just stimulating that point there on the side of your hand.

Jennifer Norman:
And does it matter? If you use the right hand or the left hand?

Tammi O'Flynn:
Not at all. They're interchangeable. And you can sometimes start on one. And if that one gets a bit sort of oversensitive, you can switch to the other. If one hand gets tired, you can switch to the other. So it's very forgiving in that way.

Jennifer Norman:
So it's rubbing along the side of the pinky side of your hand.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Right. So if you were to imagine you were going to do a karate chop, it's that part of the hand that would connect with whatever you were chopping. Okay. And then we would use what we call a setup statement. So, in our example that we're using this evening, we would say, even though I'm feeling that I'm not good enough.

Jennifer Norman:
Even though I feel like I'm not good enough.

Tammi O'Flynn:
I accept myself and my feelings anyway.

Jennifer Norman:
I accept myself and my feelings anyway.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Okay, and we'll say that a couple more times. So, even though I'm feeling not good enough.

Jennifer Norman:
Enough, even though I'm feeling not good enough.

Tammi O'Flynn:
I accept myself and my feelings anyway.

Jennifer Norman:
I accept myself and my feelings anyway.

Tammi O'Flynn:
And one more time, even though I'm not feeling not good enough.

Jennifer Norman:
Even though I'm not feeling good enough.

Tammi O'Flynn:
I accept myself and my feelings anyway.

Jennifer Norman:
I accept myself and my feelings anyway.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Good.

Jennifer Norman:
Okay, so, right now, as we're reciting these words, we are tapping with our other fingers onto the karate chop side of the hand. And is there any magic to how hard or what the cadence is of how often we're tapping?

Tammi O'Flynn:
No. So this is why I say it's quite a forgiving technique. So you can actually just rub that point. So as long as you are stimulating that area, that's actually all we are looking for. So we call it tapping because that's quite a nice way to do it. Some people find the actual tapping quite soothing. Other people find that overstimulating, so they prefer to rub. We want to really be tapping hard enough that you can feel some stimulation going on, but not so much that it's uncomfortable or painful.

Jennifer Norman:
And is it important to use the other hand or the other part of the body to do the tapping rather than using an implement?

Tammi O'Flynn:
I don't think I've ever heard of anyone using an implement to do tapping. No. I think we have energy in our hands, so I think it's always good. We can tap on ourselves. That's one of the things that's so great about this technique, is that we can learn and do it on ourselves. I always call that, like, the first aid, we can learn this technique and use it on ourselves in a first aid kind of way. And then we go to a practitioner when we want to do a little bit deeper work, perhaps, and have some guidance with that, because somebody else is always a little bit more objective and can see our own issues a little bit more clearly than we can sometimes see them ourselves. So that's why sometimes it's nice to tap on yourself, and sometimes it's nice to go to a practitioner.

Tammi O'Flynn:
If you visit a practitioner again, sometimes they will ask you to tap on yourself like you're doing right now. And some practitioners can tap on you as well. So you can be sitting or lying passively and just completely getting taken away by the experience, and the practitioner will actually do the tapping for you. So again, as long as those points are being stimulated, that is the key.

Jennifer Norman:
Okay, is there another step, or is that the first step?

Tammi O'Flynn:
That's called the set up point. So we set up what we're going to be working on by tapping on this karate chop point, and then we're going to move through the other points of the body. So I'll just run through the points for you quickly. This next one is called your eyebrow point. So if you were to put your fingertips on your eyebrow bone and then run them in towards where your eyebrows would meet in the middle, above your nose, that's your eyebrow point. So you'll just tap there, and you can tap with one or two fingers, and you can use one hand or two. That's it. And then the next one, if you were to run your fingers on that brow bone around to the side of your eyes, so in line with your pupil, it's still on that bone, and tapping there.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Then running your fingers down again on that bone to underneath your eye, again in line with your pupil, and tapping there. And then the next one is under your nose, between your upper lip and your nose, and you can either tap with your fingertips there or the side of your finger, if that's more comfortable, or if you've got long nails, the next one is under your bottom lip, in the cleft of your chin. And again, you can either use the side of your finger or the fingertip. That's it. The next one is your collarbone point. And this one can be a little tricky for some people to find initially. So if you find the center of your collarbone, where the two meet in the middle, and then run your fingers out towards your shoulder, that's the length of your collarbone, and then find the midpoint of your collarbone on one side, that's it. And then if you run your fingers down, there's a little hollow underneath your collarbone.

Tammi O'Flynn:
And if you just massage in a little circle there, you'll find one point that's a little more tender. That's the point we want to be on. And you can actually rub those points, if you prefer, or just tap on them again. And that's actually true of most of the points. You'll generally know you're on them. If you feel that slight tenderness or just a little bit more awareness or sensitivity, then you know you're on the right spot. The next one we call the gorilla thumb point, because we look a little like gorillas when we're doing it. So if you go underneath your one arm and find the midpoint of your armpit, and then run your fingers down onto your rib cage, for ladies, it's more or less where your bra strap would run across on the rib cage.

Tammi O'Flynn:
And you're tapping there. And you can see that tapping there. Whether you're using one arm or the side of your fists and two hands. We look like a gorilla either way.

Jennifer Norman:
Oh, yes.

Tammi O'Flynn:
But it's actually a very soothing point. Feels good, doesn't it?

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah.

Tammi O'Flynn:
And the last one is on top of our head. So if you find your hairline and run your hand back to the center of your top of your head and then come about halfway between those two points. And again, if you go in a little circle there, you'll find a little point that's a little bit more tender or sensitive. Or sometimes I just go in a circle because that feels nice, too, up there. And if you're not sure on that one, it's where the baby fontanelle is. It's where the skull plates meet. Okay, so those are the points, the tapping points. That's the little sequence that we use.

Tammi O'Flynn:
So we would always run through that sequence. And as we run through that sequence, we talk about whatever feelings, emotions, or issue is coming up. So, shall we continue with our little example so that we can use it as a little experience? Experiential people listening? Okay, so we started on the karate chop point, and we're saying, even though I'm not feeling. I feel like I'm not good enough, I accept myself and my feelings anyway. Okay, and then we're going to tap on the eyebrows. This feeling that I have that I'm not good enough.

Jennifer Norman:
This feeling that I have that I'm not good enough.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Good. Tapping on the side of your eyes. I can feel this in my body.

Jennifer Norman:
I can feel this in my body.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Okay, and let's try and identify if you can feel where in your body you feel that. So often we'll have this. We call it a visceral reaction, right? Because there is this link between the emotions and the body. We feel it somewhere. So let's try and identify, where do we feel this when we say to ourselves, I'm not feeling good enough, where do I feel that? And it'll be different for everyone. For some people, it's like a punch to the gut. Some people, it might be in their shoulders, might be in their head, might be in their chest. It doesn't matter.

Tammi O'Flynn:
There's no right and wrong answer. It's just what do you feel in this moment? And when you say that, so, tapping.

Jennifer Norman:
Underneath the eye, you get to the point of where in your body are you feeling this?

Tammi O'Flynn:
Right. So let's say, for argument's sake, do you want to say where you're feeling it?

Jennifer Norman:
Okay, when I'm feeling not good enough, it feels heavy in my chest.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Great. Okay, so under the nose, this heavy feeling in my chest.

Jennifer Norman:
This heavy feeling in my chest.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Under the mouth. Because I'm feeling not good enough.

Jennifer Norman:
Because I'm feeling not good enough on your collarbone.

Tammi O'Flynn:
I wonder what it is right now, in this moment.

Jennifer Norman:
I wonder what it is right now, in this moment.

Tammi O'Flynn:
That's making me feel like I'm not good enough.

Jennifer Norman:
That's making me feel like I'm not good enough.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Under the arms, this heavy feeling in my chest.

Jennifer Norman:
This heavy feeling in my chest.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Top of the head. Because I'm just not feeling good enough right now.

Jennifer Norman:
Because I'm not feeling good enough right now.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Good. On your eyebrows, this feeling is pretty intense.

Jennifer Norman:
This feeling is pretty intense.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Side of eyes. If I was to give it a number from one to ten

Jennifer Norman:
If I was to give it a number from one to ten.

Tammi O'Flynn:
With one being not very strong and ten being really intense.

Jennifer Norman:
With one being not very strong and ten being really intense.

Tammi O'Flynn:
I wonder what number I would give it right now.

Jennifer Norman:
I wonder what number I would give it right now. So I make one up. I make up, for argument's sake, I'll say this is a number. Seven.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Okay, so this is a pretty intense feeling right now.

Jennifer Norman:
So this is a pretty intense feeling right now.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Under the nose. And I can feel it in my chest.

Jennifer Norman:
And I can feel it in my chest.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Under the mouth. This heavy feeling in my chest.

Jennifer Norman:
This heavy feeling in my chest.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Because I'm not feeling good enough.

Jennifer Norman:
Because I'm not feeling good enough.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Collarbone, I'm just going to make this if that's okay with you? I'm going to make it a little bit more general now so people can get some benefit out of it as well. So, let's say, for example, that we think about a particular incident that's happened today or in the last hour, let's say, that has made us feel this way. Okay. So this thing happened.

Jennifer Norman:
This thing happened.

Tammi O'Flynn:
And it really brought up this feeling again for me.

Jennifer Norman:
It really brought up this feeling again for me.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Under the arms. This old feeling this old feeling that I'm just not good enough.

Jennifer Norman:
That I'm just not good enough.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Top of the head. This old tape that plays in my head over and over again.

Jennifer Norman:
This old tape that plays over and over again in my head.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Telling me that I'm just not good enough.

Jennifer Norman:
Telling me that I'm just not good enough.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Tapping on your eyebrows. I've had this feeling so often.

Jennifer Norman:
I've had this feeling so often.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Side of the eyes. And here it is again, under the eyes. This heavy feeling in my chest.

Jennifer Norman:
This heavy feeling in my chest.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Under the nose. Because I'm just not feeling good enough right now.

Jennifer Norman:
Because I'm just not feeling good enough right now.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Under the mouth. Because this thing happened today.

Jennifer Norman:
Because this thing happened today.

Tammi O'Flynn:
That person said that.

Jennifer Norman:
That person said that.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Or I felt like I failed at something.

Jennifer Norman:
I felt like I failed at it.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Or I just wasn't good enough.

Jennifer Norman:
Or I just felt like I was not good enough.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Once again, collarbones. This old feeling.

Jennifer Norman:
This old feeling.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Here it is again.

Jennifer Norman:
Here it is again.

Tammi O'Flynn:
It comes up so often for me.

Jennifer Norman:
It comes up so often for me.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Maybe it's even true.

Jennifer Norman:
Maybe it's even true.

Tammi O'Flynn:
What if I just am not good enough?

Jennifer Norman:
What if I'm just not good enough?

Tammi O'Flynn:
Okay, so this is one of the key things. I'm just going to pause there for a second. One of the key things we do. So it might feel to some people like we're focusing on the negative. Remember, we said we generally like to label these emotions as good and bad, but what we're really doing is we're just acknowledging what we really are feeling. Instead of trying to push away that tape in our head, those words that say over and over in our head, we're actually acknowledging them and say, wow, okay, this is. This again. This is how I'm feeling.

Tammi O'Flynn:
And it's okay. Even though I'm feeling this way right now, I accept myself and my feelings anyway.

Jennifer Norman:
And is it important to say it out loud while you're going through the different areas?

Tammi O'Flynn:
Well, obviously, if you're working with a practitioner, you need to say it out loud, because I'm getting that feedback from you, and then we can work, and we can know where to go from there. So, actually, I'm following your lead. Usually. I mean, here we're doing an example, so I'm kind of leading it a little bit. But usually, if I was doing a consult with you, I'd be following you. So whatever you are bringing up, we using that as the clues, and we use those literally to sort of do a little detective story and trace that back. So if we were to follow with this example that we were doing today about not feeling good enough, so we would start to try and identify where did that feeling come from? When was the first time you remember feeling like that? What happened? What was the incident that happened? And very often that'll take us right back into our childhood. Those first seven years in our lives are so formative.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Often, we don't remember those. We remember them, of course, but we don't necessarily remember how formative that experience might have been. So it might have seemed like not such a big thing at the moment. But when we trace it back, we can see that that was the seed that was planted at that time. And the other incidents that have happened over our life after that have kind of embedded that seed a little bit deeper, a little bit deeper, a little bit deeper into our nervous system until we have this belief that's built up over time that we really are not good enough. Or what if we are not good enough? So what we do with the tapping is we kind of trace that back right to the beginning. Can we identify where it started, how it started? And we go back to that moment and we rewire the system. So we acknowledge and release the emotion we were feeling in that moment.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Because very often when we are children and we had that very first experience, we didn't have the tools, we didn't have the words, we didn't have the support that we needed in that moment. So we've never had the opportunity to express that, to release it and to heal from it. And tapping gives us that opportunity.

Jennifer Norman:
So each time we are tapping on a specific point, we're bringing up a phrase, and it's a singular phrase. We're not going through the whole litany of what happened in our childhood. When we're tapping on one area, it almost is like we're piecing it together in a series. And so it doesn't necessarily matter where you're tapping at what part of your story, just that going through the sequence from your brow, to the outside of your eye, to under your eye, to above the lip, below the lip, over to your chest area, and the underneath your armpits, and then on top of the head. That's very good sequence of going through the whole story. So if a person, quote unquote, knows that they're finished with the tapping sequence, they've gotten from beginning to end of the story.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Right? So it seems quite complicated, I know, because we're trying to kind of squeeze it all into one little interview. But it is actually quite intuitive as you trust the process and discover it. And especially if you work with a practitioner, at least initially, until you get more familiar with it and confident in it, and then we are more and more able to use it on ourselves. In a nutshell, that's perfectly correct. We go through the sequence of the tapping points. It doesn't matter what you're saying, at which point in the tapping sequence. And it's actually one of the things that people worry about the most in the beginning when they're learning, is, I don't know what words to say, really. It's whatever is coming up for you.

Tammi O'Flynn:
So it's as you are feeling in the moment, there is no right or wrong. It's as you are feeling, so you follow your feelings. So I'm feeling this feeling in my stomach. I wonder what that's about. If there was an emotion attached to that feeling, what would that be? I wonder where that comes from. I wonder if I can remember the first time I felt that way. But in order for tapping to be as effective as possible, we want to be as specific as possible. And this is why we try and trace back to specific incidents.

Tammi O'Flynn:
So even when we're working on what seems like a big theme, for instance, when we're working on a belief, like I'm not good enough, it feels like a very big theme that might play out over a lot of different areas of your life. It's quite difficult to tap on that as a generalized the. Though it's not super effective, in order to get effective in it, we have to trace it back to specific incidents and tap on those and release the emotion around each specific incident. And it's not that we have to do all of them, but we have to find the key ones that have been hardwired into our nervous system. Does that make sense?

Jennifer Norman:
So the ones that are feeling most triggering or the ones that cause some sort of a feeling within the body, and you can perhaps find and locate where in the body you're feeling that feeling tapping will help you uncover that. And then I also noticed that you gave a one to ten score of how severe that emotion was. Is that also important?

Tammi O'Flynn:
We use that rating scale from one to ten as a guide, both for the practitioner to see whether we need to tap more, whether we've gotten through the issue and released it enough, and also for the person experiencing the tapping to notice, wow, my body feels really different right now. So let's say, using our example, we're feeling it in our chest, and our chest was feeling, let's say, constricted or heavy. It was difficult to take a deep breath, and it was made. Your number you gave it was a ten at the beginning. You might find after 15 or 20 minutes of tapping, that number has come all the way down to a one or a two or disappeared completely. And we know that that issue has been cleared. We don't need to tap on it anymore. If it's only come down to, like, a seven, done some work, right? It's good.

Tammi O'Flynn:
We've improved it from a ten to a seven, but there's still more work to be done there because you're still feeling pretty intense. It's still a seven. So we use that as a little guide, really just to know, do we need to do more work or have we cleared it enough?

Jennifer Norman:
So bringing up that emotion while you're tapping, going through the specifics of incidences that had caused or exacerbated that feeling, putting a number to it, and then really identifying and being okay with it, and then somewhere during the scripting and the sequence of it, we will need to start letting it go. What's the best way in your script to say, I'm willing to let this go or I don't want to feel this way anymore?

Tammi O'Flynn:
It's a great question. And again, it's something that people struggle with a lot when they're trying to tap by themselves initially. And again, as you start to trust both the process of tapping and yourself and how you're feeling, that becomes easier and easier, because really what will happen is the very process of tapping. Going through that sequence and naming what you're feeling, you'll notice that number start to shift, and the number or the intensity of the emotion or physical sensation will start to shift, and it'll naturally start to shift. And whether the practitioner is guiding you or whether you're doing that by yourself, you'll start to go, wow, okay. What if I could let this feeling go? What would that actually feel like? I wonder if it's possible for me to let that go. If I was to let that go, what would that feel like in my body? What would I like it to feel like there instead of this feeling? Feeling's been there as long as I can remember. Maybe for some people, depending on what we're tapping on sometimes it's a very transitory thing that we're tapping on.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Feeling angry right now. Okay, I can let that anger go pretty easily. It's not going to take a huge amount of time, and that number is going to come down. But if it's something that's more intractable, that's been going on for a longer period of your life, that number might come down a little bit more slowly initially. But once we start to name it and start to go through the incidents that have led up to that, the we can start to think about, wow, okay, what would it actually feel like? That feeling has been there as long as I can remember. It feels like it's actually a part of me. But what if it's not a part of me? What if that's just the way I've been thinking and that voice that's been telling me that so long that I started believing it? But what if that's actually not true?

Jennifer Norman:
I can see the benefit of working with somebody at first. If you're not accustomed to doing this, there might be a tendency to want to force it or to want to skip through parts of the sequence to get to some sort of a resolve. And not necessarily go through the true work of clearing it, but being okay and working with a guide to say, oh, you know what? That feeling, it's still here, I admit, and I'm being completely truthful. I still feel triggered. It's still here. I still can't let it go. And doing the tapping work, knowing that you're still feeling that way. Until you're able to say, I don't want to feel this way anymore.

Jennifer Norman:
I really would love to be able to be free of this. I can almost imagine what my life would be if I were to be free of this. I'm willing to let it go. You know what? I want to let it go. I'm at that point. And going through all of those steps as you're tapping is the way to release it and emotionally free yourself. But it can take time. And that's why I think doing it with somebody else might be very helpful, rather than doing it by yourself, because you might be like, all right, I've been tapping for an hour, and I'm still better.

Tammi O'Flynn:
And the give up right absolutely. And that's why it is especially. That's why I said, I like to think of as we do first aid on ourselves. Right. That's manageable for ourselves. We use it in the moment. I'm feeling nervous about an upcoming interview, or I'm feeling stressed about an exam at school, or I'm feeling angry about this argument I just had with somebody in the moment like that. It's fantastic to use so many practical uses.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Yeah.

Jennifer Norman:
So you can just find points and tap and say, this is how I'm feeling. I'm ready to let it go. And even the breathing, the setup, I think, is so helpful.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Breath work is amazing.

Jennifer Norman:
Breath work is amazing. And then on the back end, when you feel that a session is complete, is there also a way to exit out?.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Close it out? It's the best way to do that, yeah. So we actually use some EMDR techniques to close out a session. And so it's a great way to kind of realign, if you like, the brain and the body after we've had a big release because there's been a shift in our nervous system and so we rebalance.

Jennifer Norman:
Can you tell us what EMDR stands for?

Tammi O'Flynn:
So, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. It helps to rebalance the nervous system after a big shift. So we kind of shift gears, if you like. By moving the eyes, it helps to reset the brain and the nervous system. And then we move through also moving between the rational part of the brain and the creative part of the brain. So we'll do a little Humming exercise or a singing, just like a couple of seconds. And then moving into the math side. So I'll ask you what your timetable is.

Tammi O'Flynn:
For instance, your six times table. And then moving back to the creative side, we're just shifting gears, really, in the brain, and moving the eyes does the same thing. So moving across the midline of the body helps to reset and rewire the nervous system again after a big shift.

Jennifer Norman:
Oh, interesting. And how long would somebody do the EMDR, the eye movements, in order to feel that again?

Tammi O'Flynn:
So there's a little sequence that I would usually take people through. It takes maybe five minutes to do the whole sequence at the end. It's combining breath, it's giving the brain a break, but helping the nervous system to balance. And it just takes a couple of minutes.

Jennifer Norman:
Oh, wow. I think that you'll get a lot of emails and calls after this. People very interested in having a session with you. Tammi, how can people find you if they're interested in booking a one on one.

Tammi O'Flynn:
I have a website at www.tammyofflyn.com and you can book a session on there with me.

Jennifer Norman:
Lovely! Dr. Tammi O'Flynn everyone. Thank you so much for taking us through a lesson in EFT tapping and for everybody to learn something new that they might be able to try on themselves. Or maybe look Tammi up and have a session. Or there are a whole number of wonderful tapping sessions that are actually included on the humanbeautymovement.com website for free. If you'd like to just get another sample from another practitioner, definitely see about incorporating tapping into your health and wellness regimen because it could be something that's really helpful for you to clear past triggers or just improve your peak performance. Thank you so much Tammi for being on The Human Beauty Movement Podcast today.

Tammi O'Flynn:
Thank you so much for having me Jennifer. It was lovely to be here.

Jennifer Norman:
Thank you for listening to The Human Beauty Movement Podcast. Be sure to follow, rate, and review us wherever you stream podcasts. The Human Beauty Movement is a community-based platform that cultivates the beauty of humankind. Check out our workshops, find us on social media, and share our inspiration with all the beautiful humans in your life. Learn more at hehumanbeautymovement.com. Thank you so much for being a beautiful human.