We attended a useful and relevant Virtual Field Trip with Creative Mornings Global this week.

The topic: Using EFT Tapping for Burnout.

Emotional freedom technique (EFT) is a method to help manage emotions and troubling thoughts, and the tapping works because it aligns your body and your mind. The body knows the truth at all times.

This technique works because it:

  1. Helps you get honest with yourself.
  2. Creates a grounding ritual to regulate your nervous system.
  3. Relaxes and connects your body and mind, opening space for new ideas.

The practitioner, Elisa, from Big Sister Co, was easy to follow and so many of the virtual field trip participants reported marked improvements in the intensity of their negative feelings by the end of the session.

The technique is:

  1. Identify the negative thought you’re having.
    • (For example: I am overwhelmed, I am not good enough, I don’t want to work with this person)
  2. Create a setup statement of the negative thought you’re having:
    • “Even though I ______, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.”
  3. Assign an intensity number from 0-10 to that thought.
  4. Tap with one or two hands at a series of points on your head and upper body (see video below for which ones). You can tap simultaneously or alternating hands, whatever feels good to you.
  5. Say out loud, a series of statements about that negative thought as you tap on each point on your body. 1 statement at each body point.
  6. Do about 1-3 rounds of a cycle of negative statements about that thought.
    • “I’m feeling completely spent”
    • “I feel like my work is not good enough”
    • “I feel panicked at the idea of working with this person”
  7. Do about 2-3 rounds of a cycle of positive statements about that thought.
    • “I’m willing to choose different actions about _____”
    • “I am a smart and capable person”
    • “I’m willing to think positively about my interactions with this person”
  8. Reassess your intensity number from 0-10 about that thought. How has it changed?

She has a YouTube video of this type of exercise if you want to see it in action and try it at home.

Interested more in this technique? Connect with one of our therapists.

Want even more creative virtual field trips? Sign up for free with Creative Mornings.