Yesterday I received some news that made me feel really sad. When I got home and told my husband, he had tears in his eyes too. We are working from home during the pandemic. Each time we met during the course of the day, we consoled each other, but the sadness remained.
This morning I woke up, it was raining, and again I was overcome with sadness. I was surprised by the depth of sadness I was feeling. What was it about this that made me so sad?
I remembered that tapping would give me clarity. Sometimes we are so caught up in what is going on, that we don’t think to give ourselves time to process what is going on with tapping.
I took my journal and headed outside to sit on the porch, listen to the rain and give myself time to tap and digest my thoughts and feelings.
First, I simply wrote down, “Sadness about X, Y, Z.” Then I asked myself how intense that feeling was – it was a 9 out of 10. Just the action of writing that down brought tears. It also brought me into the depth of sadness that had felt unreal since I received the news. Writing out the description of what was going on really brought me into the PRESENT – how it felt in the moment.
Then I began by tapping on the side of my hand and tears fell. I allowed myself to simply BE present to feeling sad. I am not sure how long I sat there tapping and crying, but as I did some of the sadness dissipated. And once it did, I was able to begin my usual tapping routine.
As part of the tapping process, I put the words of what was going on for me into the tapping setup statement. That looked like, “Even though this makes me so sad, that’s how it is.” I tapped on the side of my hand, repeating this phrase three times.
And on the Tapping Points, I used, “This makes me sad” or “So sad.” I allowed myself to really feel it. After the first round the intensity felt like a three and after an additional round it was down to a zero.
Next, I took the time to be with my thought, “Why does this make me so sad?”
Since I have been doing this for a long time, I have noticed that posing a question always results in my mind supplying an answer.
I took the exact words that came to me and put them into a new setup statement. Then I tapped on this piece of this until it no longer had a charge. My uncomfortable feelings had dissipated.
Now that I felt lighter, I did a process that I use to tap in the opposite – to tap in how I do want to think or feel. Now I feel better.
The sad thing hasn’t changed. It is still sad. But while it is still sad, I am no longer overwhelmed by the feeling of it. I feel lighter – that’s what tapping can do for you too.
P.S. When I first came to tapping nothing reduced to zero. But tapping is a skill, like playing the piano, and with time I have become so much better at it.
* Photo by Liza Summer from Pexels