Yesterday was a tough day for me emotionally, where I just had to sit with my feelings and let them flow through without resisting them. Yoga teaches us to stay neutral, to rise above the ups and downs, the polarities. I am very thankful to be on the way towards achieving this but some days it's just not happening and you need all the help that you can get.
One of the techniques that I found to help tremendously to release trauma is Tapping, or Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). Like acupuncture and acupressure, Tapping is a set of techniques which utilize the body's energy meridian points. You can stimulate these meridian points by tapping on them with your fingertips – literally tapping into your body's own energy and healing power.
How does it work? From the Tapping Solution website:
"All negative emotions are felt through a disruption of the body’s energy. Physical pain and disease are intricately connected to negative emotions. Health problems create feedback – physical symptoms cause emotional distress, and unresolved emotional problems manifest themselves through physical symptoms. So, the body’s health must be approached as a whole. You cannot treat the symptoms without addressing the cause, and vice-versa.
The body, like everything in the universe, is composed of energy. Restore balance to the body’s energy, and you will mend the negative emotions and physical symptoms that stem from the energy disruption. Tapping restores the body’s energy balance, and negative emotions are conquered.
The basic technique requires you to focus on the negative emotion at hand: a fear or anxiety, a bad memory, an unresolved problem, or anything that’s bothering you. While maintaining your mental focus on this issue, use your fingertips to tap 5-7 times each on 12 of the body’s meridian points. Tapping on these meridian points – while concentrating on accepting and resolving the negative emotion – will access your body’s energy, restoring it to a balanced state.
You may be wondering about these meridians. Put simply, energy circulates through your body along a specific network of channels. You can tap into this energy at any point along the system."
My favorite 'tapper' is Brad Yates, and the tap bellow is one I use when the world seems to close in on me. If you are interested in this healing method Brad has hundreds of free tapping videos for all kind of issues to browse on YouTube.
Brad Yates: You'll be Okay: