August 22, 2025 • 29 mins
Ever asked yourself, why do I feel guilty taking time for myself? You’re not alone—and you don’t have to carry that belief anymore. In this episode of Mind Your Midlife, I’m sharing the powerful practice of EFT tapping and guiding you through a step-by-step session designed to help midlife women release stress, embrace self care, and shift limiting beliefs.
We’ll explore what tapping actually is, how and why it works on both your emotions and your nervous system, and how women over 40 can use it to lower stress, calm the mind, and build confidence in daily life. Plus, you’ll leave with a guided tapping practice you can return to anytime you need to reset.
BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU’LL DISCOVER:
✔ The research behind tapping and its ability to lower cortisol and calm the nervous system
✔ How to use EFT tapping to move through emotions, stress, and old beliefs
✔ A guided tapping practice you can repeat anytime you need clarity, calm, and confidence to take time for yourself
🎯 OMG Moment: Tapping is easy, effective, and even research-backed.
Take Action
Save this episode and come back to the tapping practice whenever you need to calm stress, clear limiting beliefs, or simply remind yourself that self care is your right.
Want more guided sessions? Join me in Patreon for additional tapping practices you can follow along with anytime.
Related episodes:
Why This Episode Matters
Midlife doesn’t have to mean more stress, less energy, and constant pressure to do more. With simple, science-backed tools like tapping, women over 40 can create mindset shifts that unlock confidence, emotional balance, and fulfillment.
🎧 Hit follow now so you don’t miss next week’s episode, where I’ll be joined by a comedian who will help us bring more humor into midlife.
Text me to ask a question - I'll answer on the podcast!
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🌸 Liked this episode? Share it with fellow Gen X women navigating hormone balance, an empty nest, and/or self-confidence!
🫶 Love this show? Leave a review to help more women over 50 find us.
💡Want support through menopause, mindset shifts, or midlife transitions?
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Let’s talk midlife body positivity, self-talk, and redefining aging for women — without the “midlife crisis” narrative.
Connect with Cheryl, Midlife Coach: Instagram | LinkedIn | Website
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Cheryl Fischer (00:00):
You may or may not have heard of tapping or EFT
.
This is one of the easiestthings to do that can help us
with dealing with emotions,dealing with stress, and it
doesn't cost anything to do iton your own and it doesn't take
(00:21):
very long and it doesn't takevery long.
So the more I can share withyou how to tap to help you get
through stress in midlife, tohelp you feel better about
yourself, to help you makedecisions, the better.
And today we're going to talkabout tapping and we're also
going to go through an actualtapping practice to make sure
(00:47):
you feel like you're worthy ofself-care.
So stick with me.
Welcome to Mind your Midlife,your go-to resource for
confidence and success, onethought at a time.
Unlike most advice out there,we believe that simply telling
you to believe in yourself orchange your habits isn't enough
(01:07):
to wake up excited about life orfeel truly confident in your
body.
Each week you'll gainactionable strategies and oh my
goodness, powerful insights tostop feeling stuck and start
loving your midlife.
This is the Mind your Midlifepodcast.
Start loving your midlife.
(01:29):
This is the Mind your Midlifepodcast.
If we're going to talk abouttapping, we need to talk about
emotions and the power andimportance of emotions, and my
journey with emotions has notbeen a super quick and easy one,
I must say.
When I was in grad school, Iwas binge eating and binge
(01:50):
eating is not really the topicof today's episode, so I'm not
going to go into it too much butthis is not just overeating.
This is much more than that.
It's different, and I knew thatI needed help and I knew that
it was probably stress related.
So I, through my grad school,went to see a counselor, and she
(02:12):
was very, very helpful overtime, and one of the things that
she asked me fairly early onwas well, how do you feel about
that?
Whatever the situation was wewere talking about, and I had no
answer.
I did not know how I felt, andit was such an extreme thing to
(02:32):
the point of I couldn't even saymad or sad or happy.
I had zero emotion about it.
Now, of course, I really didhave emotion we all do but I had
shoved it down so deep that Icouldn't even process what it
(02:53):
was, and so, of course, that'swhat we needed to work on.
It's not healthy if your bodyis in a situation where you are
not allowing yourself to feelemotions and, ideally, we're
able to experience the emotionand then we're able to move
through it and move forward andtake action or make a change or
(03:19):
feel good about ourselves orwhatever it is.
We have to experience thatemotion.
Tapping, which is a tool forbeing able to experience your
emotions, move through them andmove forward.
I didn't find out about tappinguntil I was having a business.
I was making some big goals andI was trying to learn ways to
(03:44):
get myself to believe I couldreally achieve those big goals.
Right, we all go through this.
If you're an entrepreneur oryou've got some big goal for
your health or your life, it'shard to say an affirmation that
your brain goes.
That's not true.
That's not true, come on.
So I learned tapping at thatpoint so that I could tap when I
(04:09):
said my affirmations and createa way to have positive emotion
about those affirmations, andthat was a game changer for me
as well.
So what is tapping?
Tapping is a method of gentletapping, quite literally what it
says on acupressure points inthe body to allow energy to flow
(04:35):
and not get stuck.
It's a really interestingcombination of Eastern and
Western psychology and science,of Eastern and Western
psychology and science, and Iwant to give you some
research-backed informationabout this as well.
Research has found that tappingactually lowers stress in the
(04:55):
body, and I'm going to tell youabout two studies that found
this to be true.
In 2012, and this was a studypublished in the Journal of
Nervous and Mental Diseaseparticipants did a single
one-hour session of tapping,with guidance of course, and it
lowered their cortisol and youknow cortisol, that's the body's
(05:19):
main stress hormone by about24% hormone by about 24%, and
that was one group in the study.
And then there was a group whogot supportive talk therapy and
there was a group who didn't getany treatment at all, and those
other two groups averaged abouta 14% drop in cortisol levels.
(05:41):
So that's 10% more of a drop incortisol, which is amazing.
There was also a study done in2020, where participants that
were engaging in tappingexhibited a 43% decrease in
cortisol, and that was largercompared to the psychoeducation
(06:06):
group and the no treatment group, which were about 20% and 2%
respectively.
So that's a huge shift in thebody stress response, and that
was after just one session oftapping, and you can do tapping
over and should really dotapping over and over and over
again.
So it's about feeling calmer,yes, and moving the emotion
(06:32):
through your body, yes, and it'sactually changing what happens
in your body and in your brain.
And, interestingly, brain scanssuggest that tapping helps calm
the amygdala and that's thepart of the brain that triggers
your fight or flight, freeze orfawn response.
(06:54):
So that's why people often feela really noticeable shift in
physical and mental emotionalstate after tapping.
It works on the emotional andthe physical side of stress.
Now you might hear of tappingas EFT.
As I mentioned at the beginning, eft means emotional freedom
(07:15):
technique, so that was a namegiven when this was first kind
of gaining in popularity.
You might hear it with bothnames, but it's such a simple
practice and so incrediblypowerful it's worth at least a
try.
(07:36):
So a couple years ago, on seasonone of the podcast, I
interviewed Rachel McGuire, whois a tapping practitioner, and
she was talking with me abouttapping as a way to help us deal
with emotions, when we kind ofneed to calm down, and she said
(07:58):
nobody wants to be told to calmdown.
Right, nobody wants to be toldto calm down.
In fact, there's a comedian,laura Ramoso, who I just love,
who does an Italian airportworker character and is always
saying calm down, calm down.
It's funny, anyway, you'lltrust me on that but it doesn't
(08:20):
work to tell someone to calmdown, right, that doesn't work.
So how cool that we have a wayto help our bodies actually calm
down.
Another powerful aspect oftapping is that when we've had
events and experiences in ourlives that were very impactful
(08:42):
and maybe there was a lot ofemotion involved it could be
from when you were very, veryyoung Our subconscious brains
hold on to these things andcreate beliefs about what will
happen every time there's thissituation, and that means we
create safeguards.
Either we're never going to letourselves get into that
(09:04):
situation without even realizingwhy, or we're immediately going
to be defensive in thatsituation again, probably not
realizing why, or we're going toshut down.
We're going to have a reactionwhen we get in this situation
because we've saved informationin our subconscious brain that
there's danger or there's risk,or I don't like this, and so
(09:29):
tapping in that case can help usclear.
Some of those safeguards, helpus calm the amygdala, so we're
reducing that fight or flightresponse.
We're moving into theparasympathetic nervous system,
where our body is calm, alsocalled rest and digest.
(09:50):
We're not riled up.
We're allowing our body, ouremotion, our nervous system, our
brain to work in its mostefficient way and we can then
clear out some of the stressthat we were feeling.
Now, a lot of times, otheremotions will come up.
So when I have done tappingwith coaching clients, we
(10:12):
typically start tapping on somepractical change that the person
wants to make or somemotivation or some affirmation
that they want to start tobelieve in.
If it's a scenario that's adifficult scenario.
Sometimes, when we startimproving how we feel about that
(10:33):
scenario we've gone through afew tapping practices other
emotions start coming up.
Sometimes when we move througha situation, there's hidden
stuff in there.
Maybe we thought we were madabout something and we kind of
clear through that and reallywhat it is is we're really sad
about some aspect of thatsituation and that other emotion
(10:55):
might surface.
And if you're anything like me,you're thinking, well, do I
want to surface the sadness?
Really I get that.
And when we can recognize theseemotions and feel them and use
tapping to allow the feeling ofthem to be a bit safer according
(11:17):
to our brain and our body andour hormones, then we can move
through them.
It's when we run from ouremotions or tamp them down and
not recognize them, that theystay with us.
And if you go back to one of theearly Mind your Midlife
episodes from January, I'llremember to put it in the show
(11:38):
notes with Catherine Giovanni,when we were talking about
forgiveness.
We were talking aboutforgiveness because it's
powerful for you, for yourhealth, for your body, for your
mental state, for your emotionalstate, to forgive someone else.
It wasn't about them, it wasabout doing it for you, so that
(12:00):
you're not holding on to allthat.
And I'm talking to myself heretoo, because we all have to make
sure that we are workingthrough some of this.
We all hold on to things likethis.
It's a normal human experience.
So if we can experience emotionin a safe way, we can signal to
our subconscious brain thatit's okay to feel these emotions
(12:22):
.
Let's go ahead through it.
Then we're going to be movingforward.
As I mentioned, when I initiallystarted using tapping, it was,
it was for affirmations, so thatmy brain wasn't just constantly
thinking don't be such an idiot.
(12:42):
That's not true.
So if I give an example, I'maffirming that I have the top
podcast in the how-to.
I'm affirming that I have thetop podcast in the how-to
category.
If I'm saying I have the toppodcast in the how-to category.
Well, right at this momentthat's not true, and my brain
knows that.
And so continuing to saysomething over and over that I
don't have a positive feelingabout because my brain's like
(13:04):
not true, that's not doing meany good.
So I asked Rachel about this aswell, and she gave such great
information.
Rachel McGuire (13:14):
We go back to that safeguard on our brain that
we have, and it's good that wehave it, because it means that
our brain is not easilymanipulated.
It means that someone can'tcome in and just take over our
brain Good point.
But with that, that can makevisualizations and affirmations
frustrating sometimes becausewe're sitting there and we're
telling ourselves, like,whatever it is, like, I can do
this, I'm going to be successfulin this, this is the life that
(13:35):
is meant for me, whatever we maybe affirming and visualizing.
But it's hitting this roadblockbecause our brain is smart and
it says, no, you don't believethat.
No, you don't feel that.
And because of that it rejectsit.
Our brain is very quick toreject it.
So when we're tapping onceagain, we're lowering that kind
of safeguard by telling ourbrain and telling our body no,
this is safe for me to believe,this is safe for me to accept,
(13:57):
this is safe for me to feel,even when that's positive
emotions.
And people think why would mybody not want to feel positive
emotion?
Why would my body be rejectingthat?
But if it's a new feeling abouta new circumstance, then it's
new and our body and brain likepatterns.
They love.
They love patterns.
So anything that's new.
We need to remind our mind andour body that it's safe.
(14:18):
It's safe to move forward.
Cheryl Fischer (14:21):
Okay, so we've talked through the benefits.
Let's go into the detail.
I'm sure you're thinking asyou're listening to this.
Well, tell me exactly what theheck you're talking about.
Okay, so it's a little bit morechallenging on audio.
I will make sure that I have avideo version for you available
within the next few days afterthis episode comes out, and I
(14:43):
very much have multiple videoversions of tapping practices
available in Patreon.
So come over to patreoncom,slash mindyourmidlife, make sure
you join the collective.
You will get access to all ofthose tapping practices.
You can do them along with meon the video as often as you
(15:04):
like.
Okay, so the way that I helpclients to do tapping is going
to use certain points on thebody that we're tapping on.
There are more than this, thereare other ones.
These are my favorites that Iuse.
So we will always start withthe karate chop point on the
(15:24):
side of your hand.
So if you think of doing akarate chop, the outside of your
hand is what's going out first,and so you're tapping with a
couple of fingers from yourother hand on that outside edge
of your hand, just gentle,tapping, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap
, tap, tap, tap, tap.
That's the first point, thekarate chop point.
(15:47):
The next point we're going touse is the inside of the eyebrow
, and this can be either or bothsides of your body, so it's
very, very, very, very flexiblein that way.
So right now I have two fingersand I'm tapping on the inside
edge of one of my eyebrows.
And then the next point is theoutside of your eye.
(16:10):
So if you feel the bone on theoutside of one of your eyes,
don't poke yourself in the eye,but on the bone there you can
tap.
That's the next point.
Then we're going to go underthe eye.
So be gentle, of course, butthis is tapping kind of right in
(16:30):
the middle of lined up in themiddle, vertically, with the
middle of your eye you can feelthe edge of the bone under your
eye as well and kind of tappingwith two fingers right on the
edge of that bone.
Then we're going in between thenose and mouth, then we're going
in between the nose and mouth,so right in the middle of your
(16:53):
upper lip, basically on the skin, in between your upper lip and
your nose.
That's the next point.
And then we're going in betweenyour lower lip and your chin,
again right in the middle,tapping with two fingers.
I use two fingers because thenI'm making sure I'm really
getting the exact acupressurepoint.
I've got lots of space, lots ofsurface area that I'm tapping.
The next point is collarbone.
(17:15):
So if you feel your collarbone,it makes a U in the middle,
right underneath your throat,and you're tapping on one side
of that U basically, and you canuse two or three fingers.
That way you're making sureyou're getting the point you
need to get.
And then under the arm is next.
And so this is about if you putyour hand under your arm, it's
(17:37):
about the width of your handdown your side and, ladies, this
is kind of where the side ofyour bra would sit.
So you're tapping on your side,underneath your arm, about a
hand's width down from yourarmpit.
That's under the arm.
And then we're going to tap onthe crown of the head, so right
(17:58):
on top of your head.
I tend to do this with fourfingers, again, just making sure
I'm hitting the point, so Igive it plenty of surface area.
And then we're going to wrap upagain with the karate chop
point on your hand.
So you can do that just to calmyourself down without saying
anything.
Even I told this to Patreonrecently.
(18:21):
Even you can simply tap kind ofkind of secretly and calmly on
the karate chop point of yourhand if you're getting worked up
about something and you need tocalm down, it will help.
Even if you're just doing thatand you're, you know, under the
table or you don't want peopleto notice, that will help.
But today we're going to gothrough a practice for helping
(18:45):
you to clear any limitingbeliefs that tell you that you
don't deserve self-care.
And goodness, when we get tomidlife, aren't there a lot of
things pulling on us?
Maybe you've gotten through theperiod of time where it felt
like you were just caring foreverybody all the time when your
kids were young.
And now maybe they're incollege or they're out of the
(19:07):
house or they don't need quiteas much day-to-day,
minute-to-minute care.
Of course they're in your heart, they're in your mind all the
time, but the day-to-dayobligations maybe have changed
and at the same time you havebody changes, you have work
changes, you have retirement,you might have money concerns,
you have aging parents, there'sall these other things going on.
(19:28):
So sometimes imagine that wedon't think we're worth taking
time for self-care, we don'tthink it's appropriate to
prioritize that, or we don'tthink we've earned it, any of
those limiting beliefs it can behidden in there.
So if you are in a safe placeto do it, if you're driving, you
can listen along, but you Idon't want you to close your
(19:51):
eyes, obviously, or focus on ittoo much, but if you're in a
safe place to do it, we're goingto go through this tapping
practice together, okay, so thefirst thing I want you to think
about is how true does thebelief I have to earn self-care
feel?
Let's give it a number on ascale 0 to 10.
(20:15):
0 means that doesn't feel trueat all.
Of course I don't have to earnself-care.
10 means yeah, obviously.
So how strong are your emotionsaround this potential belief
that you have to earn self-care?
You have to earn it.
You don't just get it, youdon't just deserve it.
(20:36):
You don't deserve to take careof yourself unless you've earned
it.
So give yourself a number andthen we're going to see whether
that changes at all.
Now we want to kind of get intoa calm state, so I want you to
take a deep breath in throughyour nose, out through your
mouth, and then you're going tostart tapping on the side of
(20:59):
your hand the karate chop pointand we're going to repeat our
statement as we're tapping onthe karate chop point three
times.
Even though, from somewhere, Igot the belief that I need to
earn self-care, I recognize thisbelief and I'm open to thinking
(21:19):
differently, even though, fromsomewhere, I got the belief that
I have to earn self-care.
Even though, from somewhere, Igot the belief that I have to
earn self-care, I recognize thebelief and I'm open to thinking
differently, Even thoughsomewhere, I got the belief that
(21:43):
I need to earn self-care, Irecognize the belief and I'm
open to thinking differently.
Now we're going to go throughthe other points and I'll say
them as I go.
So, inside of the eyebrow, Ihave so much to do Tapping on
the side of the eye.
So many people depend on meUnder the eye.
There's so many things I wantto do Under the eye.
(22:05):
There's so many things I wantto do Under the nose.
I really I feel like I shouldbe further along by now.
Under the mouth and if I stopand take time for myself, that's
(22:28):
not, that's not the right thing, collarbone, I'm feeling so
much guilt around taking care ofmyself or taking time for
myself Under the arm.
I know, I know it's reallyimportant that I need to do more
.
I need to do more.
Top of the head If I relax, Imust be dropping the ball and
(22:49):
we'll go through the pointsagain.
Inside of the eyebrow, maybesomewhere when I was younger
side of the eye I started tobelieve that I have to earn
self-care under the eye.
That is selfish to take timefor myself under the nose, but I
(23:13):
I see what that causes in mylife.
Under the mouth when I don'ttake time for myself.
Collarbone, it's hard to move.
It's hard to trust my gut.
Under the arm when I'm alwaysso busy and I never stop.
(23:34):
Top of the head, it's hard tohear what my heart and my brain
are really telling me.
Eyebrow when I don't make timefor relaxing.
Side of the eye, it's hard tomove forward.
Under the eye when I'm notconnected to myself under the
(23:59):
nose and what I truly want underthe mouth.
But maybe I can start to beopen to the idea, collarbone,
that I don't have to earnself-care under the arm.
It's really.
It's a powerful piece of livingmy best life.
(24:22):
Top of the head when I take timefor myself.
Inside of the eyebrow, I getclarity that I need.
Side of the eye.
I feel calm and settled Underthe eye.
(24:47):
I can read and feel myintuition, my gut instinct Under
the nose.
I don't need to earn self-careunder the mouth.
It's something that everyoneneeds.
It's a necessity, collarbone.
The more I take time for myselfunder the arm, the better I can
show up for others arm, thebetter I can show up for others
(25:11):
Top of the head.
The more I take time for myselfinside of the eye, the more I
really love my life outside ofthe eye, the more I know I'm
moving in the right directionunder the eye, the happier I
feel with the decisions I'mmaking under the nose, the more
I make room for what I reallywant and what really matters
(25:36):
under the mouth.
It becomes easier every time,collarbone, it's safe to relax
and take care of myself underthe arm.
The more I take time for myselftop of the head, the more
empowered I feel.
Back to the karate chop point,even though somewhere I got this
(25:58):
belief that I need to earnself-care.
I recognize it and I'm open tothinking differently Now.
Take a deep breath.
See how your body feels.
I feel tingly.
And how true does thisstatement I have to earn
(26:19):
self-care feel now on that scaleof 0 to 10?
Give yourself a number.
Then look back at your previousnumber.
Your number is probablydropping.
If it didn't, you can try thisagain.
If it did, you can still try itagain.
You can continue reducing thatnumber so that this belief that
(26:40):
you don't want to have becauseit was limiting for you, doesn't
have an intense emotionattached to it, which means you
have an easier time of lettingit go, and that feels so
incredibly empowering.
So make sure that in yourpodcast app in.
(27:00):
Apple, hit the three dots andsay save.
In Spotify, hit the plus Inyour other apps.
There's a way to save thisepisode so that you can come
back to it.
You could start, maybe, in themiddle of the episode and go
through that tapping again asoften as you need to.
Now the wording, if you heardme, there was a pattern starting
with the concern, the problemthat we were facing, and
(27:26):
gradually moving towards lookingat this differently.
You might need to stay in theconcern and just tap on the
concern until your emotionalresponse to it starts to
minimize.
You don't have to rush it, andthis is why working with a coach
will really help, because allof this, of course, can be
(27:48):
personalized and powerful.
So go to CherylPFishercom,slash coaching and set upa free
call with me.
We can talk about that.
And, of course, you can grablots of tapping practices in the
Patreon community, as Imentioned.
So I hope that you're feeling abit lighter, a bit happier, a
(28:12):
bit more positive because ofthis practice today.
Thank you for doing that withme and I'll see you again for
more tapping.
Now make sure that you have hitthe follow button, because
coming up next week is such afun episode.
(28:33):
I have a comedian and comedyteacher joining me to help us
add a little humor to our lives.
Can't wait for you to hear thatand in the meantime, slow down,
notice what's going on aroundyou, what's going on in your
head, and let's create somethingamazing.
You may or may not have heard of tapping or EFT
.
This is one of the easiestthings to do that can help us
with dealing with emotions,dealing with stress, and it
doesn't cost anything to do iton your own and it doesn't take
(00:21):
very long and it doesn't takevery long.
So the more I can share withyou how to tap to help you get
through stress in midlife, tohelp you feel better about
yourself, to help you makedecisions, the better.
And today we're going to talkabout tapping and we're also
going to go through an actualtapping practice to make sure
(00:47):
you feel like you're worthy ofself-care.
So stick with me.
Welcome to Mind your Midlife,your go-to resource for
confidence and success, onethought at a time.
Unlike most advice out there,we believe that simply telling
you to believe in yourself orchange your habits isn't enough
(01:07):
to wake up excited about life orfeel truly confident in your
body.
Each week you'll gainactionable strategies and oh my
goodness, powerful insights tostop feeling stuck and start
loving your midlife.
This is the Mind your Midlifepodcast.
Start loving your midlife.
(01:29):
This is the Mind your Midlifepodcast.
If we're going to talk abouttapping, we need to talk about
emotions and the power andimportance of emotions, and my
journey with emotions has notbeen a super quick and easy one,
I must say.
When I was in grad school, Iwas binge eating and binge
(01:50):
eating is not really the topicof today's episode, so I'm not
going to go into it too much butthis is not just overeating.
This is much more than that.
It's different, and I knew thatI needed help and I knew that
it was probably stress related.
So I, through my grad school,went to see a counselor, and she
(02:12):
was very, very helpful overtime, and one of the things that
she asked me fairly early onwas well, how do you feel about
that?
Whatever the situation was wewere talking about, and I had no
answer.
I did not know how I felt, andit was such an extreme thing to
(02:32):
the point of I couldn't even saymad or sad or happy.
I had zero emotion about it.
Now, of course, I really didhave emotion we all do but I had
shoved it down so deep that Icouldn't even process what it
(02:53):
was, and so, of course, that'swhat we needed to work on.
It's not healthy if your bodyis in a situation where you are
not allowing yourself to feelemotions and, ideally, we're
able to experience the emotionand then we're able to move
through it and move forward andtake action or make a change or
(03:19):
feel good about ourselves orwhatever it is.
We have to experience thatemotion.
Tapping, which is a tool forbeing able to experience your
emotions, move through them andmove forward.
I didn't find out about tappinguntil I was having a business.
I was making some big goals andI was trying to learn ways to
(03:44):
get myself to believe I couldreally achieve those big goals.
Right, we all go through this.
If you're an entrepreneur oryou've got some big goal for
your health or your life, it'shard to say an affirmation that
your brain goes.
That's not true.
That's not true, come on.
So I learned tapping at thatpoint so that I could tap when I
(04:09):
said my affirmations and createa way to have positive emotion
about those affirmations, andthat was a game changer for me
as well.
So what is tapping?
Tapping is a method of gentletapping, quite literally what it
says on acupressure points inthe body to allow energy to flow
(04:35):
and not get stuck.
It's a really interestingcombination of Eastern and
Western psychology and science,of Eastern and Western
psychology and science, and Iwant to give you some
research-backed informationabout this as well.
Research has found that tappingactually lowers stress in the
(04:55):
body, and I'm going to tell youabout two studies that found
this to be true.
In 2012, and this was a studypublished in the Journal of
Nervous and Mental Diseaseparticipants did a single
one-hour session of tapping,with guidance of course, and it
lowered their cortisol and youknow cortisol, that's the body's
(05:19):
main stress hormone by about24% hormone by about 24%, and
that was one group in the study.
And then there was a group whogot supportive talk therapy and
there was a group who didn't getany treatment at all, and those
other two groups averaged abouta 14% drop in cortisol levels.
(05:41):
So that's 10% more of a drop incortisol, which is amazing.
There was also a study done in2020, where participants that
were engaging in tappingexhibited a 43% decrease in
cortisol, and that was largercompared to the psychoeducation
(06:06):
group and the no treatment group, which were about 20% and 2%
respectively.
So that's a huge shift in thebody stress response, and that
was after just one session oftapping, and you can do tapping
over and should really dotapping over and over and over
again.
So it's about feeling calmer,yes, and moving the emotion
(06:32):
through your body, yes, and it'sactually changing what happens
in your body and in your brain.
And, interestingly, brain scanssuggest that tapping helps calm
the amygdala and that's thepart of the brain that triggers
your fight or flight, freeze orfawn response.
(06:54):
So that's why people often feela really noticeable shift in
physical and mental emotionalstate after tapping.
It works on the emotional andthe physical side of stress.
Now you might hear of tappingas EFT.
As I mentioned at the beginning, eft means emotional freedom
(07:15):
technique, so that was a namegiven when this was first kind
of gaining in popularity.
You might hear it with bothnames, but it's such a simple
practice and so incrediblypowerful it's worth at least a
try.
(07:36):
So a couple years ago, on seasonone of the podcast, I
interviewed Rachel McGuire, whois a tapping practitioner, and
she was talking with me abouttapping as a way to help us deal
with emotions, when we kind ofneed to calm down, and she said
(07:58):
nobody wants to be told to calmdown.
Right, nobody wants to be toldto calm down.
In fact, there's a comedian,laura Ramoso, who I just love,
who does an Italian airportworker character and is always
saying calm down, calm down.
It's funny, anyway, you'lltrust me on that but it doesn't
(08:20):
work to tell someone to calmdown, right, that doesn't work.
So how cool that we have a wayto help our bodies actually calm
down.
Another powerful aspect oftapping is that when we've had
events and experiences in ourlives that were very impactful
(08:42):
and maybe there was a lot ofemotion involved it could be
from when you were very, veryyoung Our subconscious brains
hold on to these things andcreate beliefs about what will
happen every time there's thissituation, and that means we
create safeguards.
Either we're never going to letourselves get into that
(09:04):
situation without even realizingwhy, or we're immediately going
to be defensive in thatsituation again, probably not
realizing why, or we're going toshut down.
We're going to have a reactionwhen we get in this situation
because we've saved informationin our subconscious brain that
there's danger or there's risk,or I don't like this, and so
(09:29):
tapping in that case can help usclear.
Some of those safeguards, helpus calm the amygdala, so we're
reducing that fight or flightresponse.
We're moving into theparasympathetic nervous system,
where our body is calm, alsocalled rest and digest.
(09:50):
We're not riled up.
We're allowing our body, ouremotion, our nervous system, our
brain to work in its mostefficient way and we can then
clear out some of the stressthat we were feeling.
Now, a lot of times, otheremotions will come up.
So when I have done tappingwith coaching clients, we
(10:12):
typically start tapping on somepractical change that the person
wants to make or somemotivation or some affirmation
that they want to start tobelieve in.
If it's a scenario that's adifficult scenario.
Sometimes, when we startimproving how we feel about that
(10:33):
scenario we've gone through afew tapping practices other
emotions start coming up.
Sometimes when we move througha situation, there's hidden
stuff in there.
Maybe we thought we were madabout something and we kind of
clear through that and reallywhat it is is we're really sad
about some aspect of thatsituation and that other emotion
(10:55):
might surface.
And if you're anything like me,you're thinking, well, do I
want to surface the sadness?
Really I get that.
And when we can recognize theseemotions and feel them and use
tapping to allow the feeling ofthem to be a bit safer according
(11:17):
to our brain and our body andour hormones, then we can move
through them.
It's when we run from ouremotions or tamp them down and
not recognize them, that theystay with us.
And if you go back to one of theearly Mind your Midlife
episodes from January, I'llremember to put it in the show
(11:38):
notes with Catherine Giovanni,when we were talking about
forgiveness.
We were talking aboutforgiveness because it's
powerful for you, for yourhealth, for your body, for your
mental state, for your emotionalstate, to forgive someone else.
It wasn't about them, it wasabout doing it for you, so that
(12:00):
you're not holding on to allthat.
And I'm talking to myself heretoo, because we all have to make
sure that we are workingthrough some of this.
We all hold on to things likethis.
It's a normal human experience.
So if we can experience emotionin a safe way, we can signal to
our subconscious brain thatit's okay to feel these emotions
(12:22):
.
Let's go ahead through it.
Then we're going to be movingforward.
As I mentioned, when I initiallystarted using tapping, it was,
it was for affirmations, so thatmy brain wasn't just constantly
thinking don't be such an idiot.
(12:42):
That's not true.
So if I give an example, I'maffirming that I have the top
podcast in the how-to.
I'm affirming that I have thetop podcast in the how-to
category.
If I'm saying I have the toppodcast in the how-to category.
Well, right at this momentthat's not true, and my brain
knows that.
And so continuing to saysomething over and over that I
don't have a positive feelingabout because my brain's like
(13:04):
not true, that's not doing meany good.
So I asked Rachel about this aswell, and she gave such great
information.
Rachel McGuire (13:14):
We go back to that safeguard on our brain that
we have, and it's good that wehave it, because it means that
our brain is not easilymanipulated.
It means that someone can'tcome in and just take over our
brain Good point.
But with that, that can makevisualizations and affirmations
frustrating sometimes becausewe're sitting there and we're
telling ourselves, like,whatever it is, like, I can do
this, I'm going to be successfulin this, this is the life that
(13:35):
is meant for me, whatever we maybe affirming and visualizing.
But it's hitting this roadblockbecause our brain is smart and
it says, no, you don't believethat.
No, you don't feel that.
And because of that it rejectsit.
Our brain is very quick toreject it.
So when we're tapping onceagain, we're lowering that kind
of safeguard by telling ourbrain and telling our body no,
this is safe for me to believe,this is safe for me to accept,
(13:57):
this is safe for me to feel,even when that's positive
emotions.
And people think why would mybody not want to feel positive
emotion?
Why would my body be rejectingthat?
But if it's a new feeling abouta new circumstance, then it's
new and our body and brain likepatterns.
They love.
They love patterns.
So anything that's new.
We need to remind our mind andour body that it's safe.
(14:18):
It's safe to move forward.
Cheryl Fischer (14:21):
Okay, so we've talked through the benefits.
Let's go into the detail.
I'm sure you're thinking asyou're listening to this.
Well, tell me exactly what theheck you're talking about.
Okay, so it's a little bit morechallenging on audio.
I will make sure that I have avideo version for you available
within the next few days afterthis episode comes out, and I
(14:43):
very much have multiple videoversions of tapping practices
available in Patreon.
So come over to patreoncom,slash mindyourmidlife, make sure
you join the collective.
You will get access to all ofthose tapping practices.
You can do them along with meon the video as often as you
(15:04):
like.
Okay, so the way that I helpclients to do tapping is going
to use certain points on thebody that we're tapping on.
There are more than this, thereare other ones.
These are my favorites that Iuse.
So we will always start withthe karate chop point on the
(15:24):
side of your hand.
So if you think of doing akarate chop, the outside of your
hand is what's going out first,and so you're tapping with a
couple of fingers from yourother hand on that outside edge
of your hand, just gentle,tapping, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap
, tap, tap, tap, tap.
That's the first point, thekarate chop point.
(15:47):
The next point we're going touse is the inside of the eyebrow
, and this can be either or bothsides of your body, so it's
very, very, very, very flexiblein that way.
So right now I have two fingersand I'm tapping on the inside
edge of one of my eyebrows.
And then the next point is theoutside of your eye.
(16:10):
So if you feel the bone on theoutside of one of your eyes,
don't poke yourself in the eye,but on the bone there you can
tap.
That's the next point.
Then we're going to go underthe eye.
So be gentle, of course, butthis is tapping kind of right in
(16:30):
the middle of lined up in themiddle, vertically, with the
middle of your eye you can feelthe edge of the bone under your
eye as well and kind of tappingwith two fingers right on the
edge of that bone.
Then we're going in between thenose and mouth, then we're going
in between the nose and mouth,so right in the middle of your
(16:53):
upper lip, basically on the skin, in between your upper lip and
your nose.
That's the next point.
And then we're going in betweenyour lower lip and your chin,
again right in the middle,tapping with two fingers.
I use two fingers because thenI'm making sure I'm really
getting the exact acupressurepoint.
I've got lots of space, lots ofsurface area that I'm tapping.
The next point is collarbone.
(17:15):
So if you feel your collarbone,it makes a U in the middle,
right underneath your throat,and you're tapping on one side
of that U basically, and you canuse two or three fingers.
That way you're making sureyou're getting the point you
need to get.
And then under the arm is next.
And so this is about if you putyour hand under your arm, it's
(17:37):
about the width of your handdown your side and, ladies, this
is kind of where the side ofyour bra would sit.
So you're tapping on your side,underneath your arm, about a
hand's width down from yourarmpit.
That's under the arm.
And then we're going to tap onthe crown of the head, so right
(17:58):
on top of your head.
I tend to do this with fourfingers, again, just making sure
I'm hitting the point, so Igive it plenty of surface area.
And then we're going to wrap upagain with the karate chop
point on your hand.
So you can do that just to calmyourself down without saying
anything.
Even I told this to Patreonrecently.
(18:21):
Even you can simply tap kind ofkind of secretly and calmly on
the karate chop point of yourhand if you're getting worked up
about something and you need tocalm down, it will help.
Even if you're just doing thatand you're, you know, under the
table or you don't want peopleto notice, that will help.
But today we're going to gothrough a practice for helping
(18:45):
you to clear any limitingbeliefs that tell you that you
don't deserve self-care.
And goodness, when we get tomidlife, aren't there a lot of
things pulling on us?
Maybe you've gotten through theperiod of time where it felt
like you were just caring foreverybody all the time when your
kids were young.
And now maybe they're incollege or they're out of the
(19:07):
house or they don't need quiteas much day-to-day,
minute-to-minute care.
Of course they're in your heart, they're in your mind all the
time, but the day-to-dayobligations maybe have changed
and at the same time you havebody changes, you have work
changes, you have retirement,you might have money concerns,
you have aging parents, there'sall these other things going on.
(19:28):
So sometimes imagine that wedon't think we're worth taking
time for self-care, we don'tthink it's appropriate to
prioritize that, or we don'tthink we've earned it, any of
those limiting beliefs it can behidden in there.
So if you are in a safe placeto do it, if you're driving, you
can listen along, but you Idon't want you to close your
(19:51):
eyes, obviously, or focus on ittoo much, but if you're in a
safe place to do it, we're goingto go through this tapping
practice together, okay, so thefirst thing I want you to think
about is how true does thebelief I have to earn self-care
feel?
Let's give it a number on ascale 0 to 10.
(20:15):
0 means that doesn't feel trueat all.
Of course I don't have to earnself-care.
10 means yeah, obviously.
So how strong are your emotionsaround this potential belief
that you have to earn self-care?
You have to earn it.
You don't just get it, youdon't just deserve it.
(20:36):
You don't deserve to take careof yourself unless you've earned
it.
So give yourself a number andthen we're going to see whether
that changes at all.
Now we want to kind of get intoa calm state, so I want you to
take a deep breath in throughyour nose, out through your
mouth, and then you're going tostart tapping on the side of
(20:59):
your hand the karate chop pointand we're going to repeat our
statement as we're tapping onthe karate chop point three
times.
Even though, from somewhere, Igot the belief that I need to
earn self-care, I recognize thisbelief and I'm open to thinking
(21:19):
differently, even though, fromsomewhere, I got the belief that
I have to earn self-care.
Even though, from somewhere, Igot the belief that I have to
earn self-care, I recognize thebelief and I'm open to thinking
differently, Even thoughsomewhere, I got the belief that
(21:43):
I need to earn self-care, Irecognize the belief and I'm
open to thinking differently.
Now we're going to go throughthe other points and I'll say
them as I go.
So, inside of the eyebrow, Ihave so much to do Tapping on
the side of the eye.
So many people depend on meUnder the eye.
There's so many things I wantto do Under the eye.
(22:05):
There's so many things I wantto do Under the nose.
I really I feel like I shouldbe further along by now.
Under the mouth and if I stopand take time for myself, that's
(22:28):
not, that's not the right thing, collarbone, I'm feeling so
much guilt around taking care ofmyself or taking time for
myself Under the arm.
I know, I know it's reallyimportant that I need to do more
.
I need to do more.
Top of the head If I relax, Imust be dropping the ball and
(22:49):
we'll go through the pointsagain.
Inside of the eyebrow, maybesomewhere when I was younger
side of the eye I started tobelieve that I have to earn
self-care under the eye.
That is selfish to take timefor myself under the nose, but I
(23:13):
I see what that causes in mylife.
Under the mouth when I don'ttake time for myself.
Collarbone, it's hard to move.
It's hard to trust my gut.
Under the arm when I'm alwaysso busy and I never stop.
(23:34):
Top of the head, it's hard tohear what my heart and my brain
are really telling me.
Eyebrow when I don't make timefor relaxing.
Side of the eye, it's hard tomove forward.
Under the eye when I'm notconnected to myself under the
(23:59):
nose and what I truly want underthe mouth.
But maybe I can start to beopen to the idea, collarbone,
that I don't have to earnself-care under the arm.
It's really.
It's a powerful piece of livingmy best life.
(24:22):
Top of the head when I take timefor myself.
Inside of the eyebrow, I getclarity that I need.
Side of the eye.
I feel calm and settled Underthe eye.
(24:47):
I can read and feel myintuition, my gut instinct Under
the nose.
I don't need to earn self-careunder the mouth.
It's something that everyoneneeds.
It's a necessity, collarbone.
The more I take time for myselfunder the arm, the better I can
show up for others arm, thebetter I can show up for others
(25:11):
Top of the head.
The more I take time for myselfinside of the eye, the more I
really love my life outside ofthe eye, the more I know I'm
moving in the right directionunder the eye, the happier I
feel with the decisions I'mmaking under the nose, the more
I make room for what I reallywant and what really matters
(25:36):
under the mouth.
It becomes easier every time,collarbone, it's safe to relax
and take care of myself underthe arm.
The more I take time for myselftop of the head, the more
empowered I feel.
Back to the karate chop point,even though somewhere I got this
(25:58):
belief that I need to earnself-care.
I recognize it and I'm open tothinking differently Now.
Take a deep breath.
See how your body feels.
I feel tingly.
And how true does thisstatement I have to earn
(26:19):
self-care feel now on that scaleof 0 to 10?
Give yourself a number.
Then look back at your previousnumber.
Your number is probablydropping.
If it didn't, you can try thisagain.
If it did, you can still try itagain.
You can continue reducing thatnumber so that this belief that
(26:40):
you don't want to have becauseit was limiting for you, doesn't
have an intense emotionattached to it, which means you
have an easier time of lettingit go, and that feels so
incredibly empowering.
So make sure that in yourpodcast app in.
(27:00):
Apple, hit the three dots andsay save.
In Spotify, hit the plus Inyour other apps.
There's a way to save thisepisode so that you can come
back to it.
You could start, maybe, in themiddle of the episode and go
through that tapping again asoften as you need to.
Now the wording, if you heardme, there was a pattern starting
with the concern, the problemthat we were facing, and
(27:26):
gradually moving towards lookingat this differently.
You might need to stay in theconcern and just tap on the
concern until your emotionalresponse to it starts to
minimize.
You don't have to rush it, andthis is why working with a coach
will really help, because allof this, of course, can be
(27:48):
personalized and powerful.
So go to CherylPFishercom,slash coaching and set upa free
call with me.
We can talk about that.
And, of course, you can grablots of tapping practices in the
Patreon community, as Imentioned.
So I hope that you're feeling abit lighter, a bit happier, a
(28:12):
bit more positive because ofthis practice today.
Thank you for doing that withme and I'll see you again for
more tapping.
Now make sure that you have hitthe follow button, because
coming up next week is such afun episode.
(28:33):
I have a comedian and comedyteacher joining me to help us
add a little humor to our lives.
Can't wait for you to hear thatand in the meantime, slow down,
notice what's going on aroundyou, what's going on in your
head, and let's create somethingamazing.
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