Now that you have some sense of how to tap on your body, the second and most important part of tapping is the tuning in or paying attention to the issue at hand. The more detail we have and the more focused we are on an issue, the more effective tapping will be.
When I say “tuning in” all I mean is giving your conscious attention to something. For example, I want you to think about your shoes and how they are touching your feet. As you read that line and gave your feet some thought you had one of two experiences. Either you are wearing shoes and/or socks and you felt them touching your feet, or you aren’t wearing anything on your feet and you noticed how free your feet feel.
Either way, before reading the line of instructions you weren’t thinking about your feet at all. When you thought of your feet you could feel whatever was on them. Socks didn’t magically appear on your feet when you thought of them, you were just tuning that piece of information out. By giving them a little attention you noticed what was always there.
We are able to tune in and out of most things. You could have a sore knee which you don’t notice during the day, but when you sit down, take a deep breath and relax, all of sudden you start to notice the aching. Your knee didn’t begin to ache when you sat down, but you tuned it out during the day and now that you are not doing anything else you tune back into the pain.
We are able to tune in and out of things besides physical sensations. When we are sitting in the middle of a busy restaurant with lots of people talking we are able tune out everyone else and focus on the person we are talking to. We can watch a sporting event or movie and completely lose connection with everything else in the world.
When we are tapping we want to give as much attention as possible to the issue at hand. The more focused we are on what is going on, the more powerful the tapping will be. To show you how easy it is to tune into something in a more specific way there are a series of statements below. I don’t want to you read them all once. Read the first statement and take a moment to do what it says. After you have given it 10 to 15 seconds move on to the next statement.
- Imagine one of the classrooms you attended in 2nd, 3rd, or 4th grade
- Imagine what your teacher looked like
- Imagine what your desk looked like
- Imagine some of the kids who sat around you or were friends at the time
- Imagine what is on the walls of the classroom
As you read some of the statements you remembered lots of details while it might have been harder to get an image for others. As you moved from statement to statement the classroom became increasingly clear. After the first statement you were tuned into the classroom, but by the fifth statement you were even more focused.
Whatever you are tapping on, the more tuned into the issue you want to address, the more effective the tapping will be.
I know this sounds like a lot to begin with. This guide is written so that you don’t have to worry about any of this. All you need to do is know where the tapping points are, follow the instructions for each of the tools, and tap. If you do that, even if you don’t understand a single thing about the tapping itself, you will find relief.