Episodes

  • Tapping for regretting not tapping enough (Pod #700)

    Tapping for regretting not tapping enough (Pod #700)
    Apr 16 2026

    It can feel so discouraging when you have great tools at your disposal, like tapping, that you know will have a positive impact on your life…but you are not using them.

    This leads to self-recrimination AND hesitancy to use the tools in future for fear of failure, which means double the regret.

    Every six or eight weeks, I set time aside to tap on all the emotions I feel for not tapping as much as I want to. Time spent tapping on my frustration and self-betrayal means I feel better in the moment and I tap more because I have a healthier relationship to tapping.

    This is such powerful work and I encourage you to tap along with me.

    Support the podcast! Http://tappingqanda.com/supportSubscribe in: Apple Podcast | iPhone | Spotify | Pandora | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio | YouTube
    Show more Show less
    19 mins
  • How Long Should You Tap on an Issue? When to Stop Tapping and Move On (Pod #699)

    How Long Should You Tap on an Issue? When to Stop Tapping and Move On (Pod #699)
    Apr 13 2026
    If you have been tapping for any length of time, you have probably asked yourself: when am I actually done? You get some relief, the intensity drops, but the issue is not completely gone. Knowing when to stop tapping on an issue is one of the most common questions I hear, and the answer is simpler than most people think. TL;DR: Key Takeaways Knowing when to stop tapping is not about reaching a SUDS (Subjective Unit of Distress) level of zero; it is about reaching the functional outcome you defined before you started.Before every round of EFT tapping, ask yourself one question: "What is the goal of this round of tapping?" and name a specific, measurable outcome.You do not need to eliminate fear or resistance completely to take action; you only need to reduce the emotional intensity enough to do what you need to do.For complex, layered issues like negative self-image, the same goal-and-metric framework applies across multiple tapping sessions over days or weeks.The three-step process for knowing when to move on is: name the outcome, name the metric, and stop when you reach it. Why Knowing When to Stop Tapping Matters Most people who learn EFT tapping go through a predictable arc. First comes the honeymoon phase where you want to tap on everything and you try to get everyone in your life to tap with you (I am speaking from lived experience here). Then the enthusiasm settles and you are left staring at a giant laundry list of things you could work on. That laundry list creates its own kind of overwhelm. What do I tap on first? How long do I stay with it? When is it "enough"? Without a clear framework for knowing when to move on, many people either keep grinding on one issue long past the point of diminishing returns or they hop between issues so quickly that nothing gets meaningful traction. Key Insight: "It's not about completely eliminating something. It's about putting ourselves in the position so we can think, feel, believe, and act in the ways that we want to." This reframe changes everything about how you approach your tapping practice. The finish line is not the absence of all discomfort. The finish line is functional freedom. What Is a SUDS Level and Why It Is Not the Finish Line SUDS stands for Subjective Unit of Distress, and it is a zero-to-ten scale used to measure emotional or physical intensity before and after tapping. If I have a pain in my shoulder, I rate it: zero to ten, how intense is this pain? I do a round of tapping, then I check again. If the number dropped from a seven to a five, I know the tapping is working. SUDS is an excellent tool for tracking your tapping progress. The problem is that most people were taught to treat zero as the only acceptable endpoint. And the reality is that some issues will never reach a zero. Even when they could, chasing zero is not always the best use of your time and energy. Key Insight: "There are some issues we are never going to get to a zero. And there are some issues where, even if we got it to a zero, it isn't necessarily the most useful thing for us to do." Think of SUDS as a speedometer, not a destination. It tells you how fast you are moving, but it does not tell you where to stop. The One Question to Ask Before Every Round of Tapping Before every round of tapping, I ask myself what I call Question One from my Tapping Mastery Blueprint: What is the goal of this round of tapping? Not "how much distress am I feeling" but "what is the outcome I want right now?" This single question transforms the entire tapping experience. Instead of an open-ended session with no clear endpoint, you have a specific target. The goal might be to reduce frustration enough to get back to work. It might be to lower resistance enough to send a difficult email. It might be to shift the internal story that runs through your head when you look in the mirror. When the goal is clear, you will recognize the moment you reach it. That recognition is how you know when to stop tapping and move on with your day. How to Set a Measurable Tapping Goal A useful tapping goal has three parts: the outcome you want, the metric you will use to measure it, and the action that proves you have arrived. Here is how this works in practice. Reducing frustration to refocus. If my frustration is sitting at a seven on the SUDS scale, I cannot concentrate. But if I can bring it down to a three, the moment I engage with my next task, I will be so focused on what is in front of me that I will forget what I was frustrated about. My metric is: can I clearly think about the work in front of me? When the answer is yes, I stop tapping. Clearing resistance to take an action. The goal is not to feel zero fear. The goal is to feel safe enough to take the action with the energy and engagement it requires. My metric is: am I actually doing the thing? I have had clients working through resistance who, 23 minutes into a 30-minute session, suddenly say "I need to get off this call because I need to go do the...
    Show more Show less
    10 mins
  • The way you are thinking about fear is all wrong (Pod #698)

    The way you are thinking about fear is all wrong (Pod #698)
    Apr 9 2026

    Fear is our most basic emotion. Simply put, fear is our internal guidance pointing out what might harm us so that we can stay safe. We commonly think of it in terms of fight, flight, or freeze.

    All three of these responses are designed to shield us from danger. We fight to defend ourselves, we run away (flight) to avoid it, and we freeze so that the threat can't see us.

    When tapping for fear, we usually use reframes around if something is truly dangerous to try to turn off the fear if there is no actual danger.

    This is a great start, but deciding whether or not something is really dangerous only scratches the surface. If we stop there with our tapping, we may be missing valuable detail.

    This week in the podcast, I explore the next level down: magnitude and probability.

    By adding these ideas to how we assess our fears we can deepen the healing and transformation available to us through tapping.

    If you are experiencing fear, anxiety, or resistance to taking action, then you will love this approach.

    Support the podcast! Http://tappingqanda.com/support

    Subscribe in: Apple Podcast | iPhone | Spotify | Pandora | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio

    Show more Show less
    17 mins
  • What to Do When Tapping Is Not Working: A 6-Step Process to Get Unstuck (Pod #697)

    What to Do When Tapping Is Not Working: A 6-Step Process to Get Unstuck (Pod #697)
    Apr 6 2026
    Subscribe in: Apple Podcast | iPhone | Spotify | Pandora | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio | YouTube You sat down to tap and nothing changed. If tapping is not working for you right now, I want you to know two things: this is normal, and there is a specific process you can follow to break through. In my 18+ years as an tapping practitioner, I have walked hundreds of clients through exactly this moment, and what I have learned is that getting stuck is not a sign that tapping has failed you. It is information, and that information has a use. Key Takeaways Every round of tapping produces one of three outcomes: you feel better, the intensity increases, or nothing changes. Two of those three are direct signs of progress, and the third gives you useful information about what to do next.When tapping seems to make things worse, it means you are tuning in more accurately to what was already present beneath the surface, not that tapping caused new distress.A six-step process (tap on the frustration, release the all-or-nothing mindset, explore the downside of healing, find the upside of staying stuck, do one minute of wordless tapping, then return to the original issue) reliably breaks through stalled rounds.Hidden "secondary gains" from staying stuck are one of the most common reasons tapping stalls, and most people are completely unaware they exist until they ask the right questions.Even if the original issue does not resolve immediately, working through this process removes the stress and pressure of being stuck, which often creates the clarity needed for a breakthrough. Three Outcomes You Can Get from Any Round of Tapping Every round of EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) produces exactly one of three results, and understanding all three changes how you respond when progress stalls. The first outcome is the one we all hope for: you tap and you feel better. Your distress drops, your body relaxes, and you are moving in the right direction. You can stop there or keep going to deepen the relief. The second outcome is that your distress actually increases. This feels like tapping is making things worse, but it is not. I will explain why in the next section. The third outcome is that nothing changes at all. The number does not move. This is the one that makes people question whether EFT works, whether it works for everyone else but not for them, or whether their particular issue is beyond tapping's reach. But "nothing changed" is not a dead end. It is a signpost, and the six-step process below is how you read it. Why Feeling Worse After Tapping Is Actually a Sign of Progress When intensity rises during a round of tapping, it means you are tuning in more sharply to what was already there, not that tapping created new pain. Think of it this way. You have a knee injury, and you go through your busy day barely noticing it. You get home, sit on the couch, exhale, and suddenly your knee is throbbing. Sitting down did not injure your knee. Resting gave your body the space to send you the pain signal it had been trying to deliver all day. Key insight: "Resting is not putting you in more pain. It is bringing attention to the issue that is already there. The same thing is true emotionally." The same thing happens when you retell a frustrating story to a friend and feel your anger rising with each sentence. Telling the story did not create the anger. It reconnected you with emotion that was already stored in your system. So if you tap and the intensity spikes, that is not pleasant, but it means you are closer to the real issue. And being closer to the real issue means you are closer to relief. If you have ever finished a session and felt unexpectedly sad or emotionally raw, that same principle applies. I explored exactly this in Episode 695: Why Do I Feel Sad After Tapping?, which walks through why post-session emotional shifts are signs of progress rather than problems. What Does It Mean When Tapping Produces No Change at All? When a round of tapping produces zero shift, it means something specific is blocking the path forward, and that block can be identified and addressed. In my experience, the block usually falls into one of two categories. Either a part of you has decided (outside your conscious awareness) that healing is risky and staying stuck is safer, or you have not yet tuned in with enough specificity to reach the real issue. Both of these are solvable. You do not need to know which one is operating before you begin. The six-step process below addresses both. The key reframe here is this: "nothing happened" is not the same as "tapping does not work." It is the same as "I need more information." And that information is available if you ask the right questions. If your sessions have been stalling for a longer stretch, Episode 648: What to Do When Your Tapping Transformation Feels Slow or Stuck goes deeper into diagnosing a tapping plateau when the stall has lasted weeks or months. Step 1: Tap on Your ...
    Show more Show less
    11 mins
  • What to do when both choices are bad (Pod #696)

    What to do when both choices are bad (Pod #696)
    Apr 2 2026

    One of the reasons we resist taking action is that some actions simply can't be taken back. Our subconscious mind keeps us stuck because it's trying to figure out the perfect thing to do, but because the future is unknown, it's impossible to be certain.
    This leads us from thinking about the best choice, to stalling on making a choice, to things getting worse because we aren't doing anything at all (which is itself a choice).
    This kind of cycle can happen with any decision, but it's particularly likely when you're facing a choice between two options that both have downsides. When you're in that situation, the resistance is going to be higher because it feels like no matter what you choose, you lose.
    This week on the podcast, I share a simple tapping process that will help you take action, especially when you're faced with two choices that both feel bad.
    If you use this approach, not only will you break through resistance, you'll also be much happier with the choices you make.

    Support the podcast! Http://tappingqanda.com/support

    Subscribe in: Apple Podcast | iPhone | Spotify | Pandora | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio | YouTube
    Show more Show less
    15 mins
  • Why do I feel sad after tapping (Pod #695)

    Why do I feel sad after tapping (Pod #695)
    Mar 30 2026
    Subscribe in: Apple Podcast | iPhone | Spotify | Pandora | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio If you have ever finished a round of EFT tapping and felt a wave of sadness wash over you, you are not alone. Feeling sad after tapping is one of the most common experiences people report, and it is also one of the most misunderstood. That sadness is not a sign that tapping failed or that something went wrong. It is actually a signal that genuine healing just took place. Gene Monterastelli, EFT practitioner and educator with over 17 years of experience and host of the Tapping Q&A Podcast (690+ episodes), explains exactly why this happens and what to do about it. Key Takeaways Post-session sadness after EFT tapping is a grief response triggered by the sudden recognition of time and opportunity lost to the issue you just healed. Sadness after tapping does not mean tapping is not working; it means a shift has occurred and your system is processing what could have been different. The most effective response to post-tapping sadness is to acknowledge and witness it with additional tapping rather than trying to push through it or reframe it away. Left unaddressed, this sadness can become a subconscious barrier that prevents you from tapping in the future because your system associates tapping with feeling bad. Understanding the mechanism behind post-session sadness removes its power to interrupt your healing practice and actually deepens your tapping work. Why Sadness After Tapping Catches People Off Guard Most people expect to feel better after tapping, not worse. When you sit down for a round of EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques, a stress-reduction method that combines gentle tapping on acupressure points with focused statements), the reasonable expectation is relief. So when sadness shows up instead, it feels like a contradiction. This expectation gap is what makes post-tapping sadness so disorienting. You did the work. You followed the process. You may have even felt a real shift on the issue you were addressing. And then sadness arrives, seemingly out of nowhere, and the natural conclusion is that something went wrong. "It can feel like tapping's not working because you feel bad afterwards. The reality is that sadness is the sign of healing and transformation." Gene Monterastelli, EFT practitioner and host of the Tapping Q&A Podcast. The confusion deepens because most people categorize sadness as a negative emotion. If healing is supposed to feel good, then feeling sad must mean the healing did not happen. But that logic misses what the sadness is actually pointing to. What Causes Sadness After a Round of EFT Tapping? Post-tapping sadness is a grief response, and it follows a very specific and logical pattern. When you successfully clear a limiting belief, release a stored emotion, or heal something that has been holding you back, a new awareness opens up almost immediately. Your system recognizes that the thing you just transformed could have been transformed sooner. Here is how the sequence works. You tap on an issue. The issue shifts or clears. In that moment of clarity, you can suddenly see all the time, all the opportunities, and all the actions that were lost because you carried that issue for as long as you did. The sadness you feel is grief for that lost time. "What you immediately start to do is you immediately start to grieve all of the time, all of the opportunity, all of the action that was lost because you had been impacted by the thing that you had just tapped on." Gene Monterastelli. This is not a malfunction. It is a completely natural response to a real loss. The moment healing happens, the contrast between "life with this burden" and "life without it" becomes painfully clear. Is Sadness After Tapping a Sign That EFT Is Not Working? No. Sadness after tapping is evidence that something genuinely shifted. If nothing had changed, there would be nothing to grieve. The sadness exists precisely because healing occurred and your system can now see what that burden cost you. Think of it this way: if you had been carrying a heavy backpack for years without realizing it, the moment someone lifts it off your shoulders, you would feel the relief. But you might also feel a pang of frustration or sadness about all the miles you walked while unnecessarily weighed down. That frustration does not mean removing the backpack was a mistake. This distinction matters because misinterpreting post-tapping sadness can create a real obstacle. If you believe tapping made you sad, your subconscious mind files that away. The next time you consider tapping, a quiet resistance shows up: "Last time I tapped, I felt terrible. Why would I do that again?" Over time, this can erode your willingness to tap at all. Understanding the actual cause of the sadness, which is grief over lost time rather than a failure of the technique, breaks that cycle before it starts. How Post-Tapping Sadness Can Become a Barrier to Healing Left ...
    Show more Show less
    11 mins
  • Remembering to tap when you need it the most (Pod #694)

    Remembering to tap when you need it the most (Pod #694)
    Mar 26 2026

    The perfect time to tap is in the moment, when you are overwhelmed with emotions…and it is also the hardest time to remember to tap.

    That's mainly because remembering to tap in the midst of strong emotions is difficult, but it is not the only reason.

    The second, powerful reason why you don't tap in the moment has everything to do with how you were taught to tap.

    When most of us learned to tap, we were told that we "need to be as specific as possible". This is excellent advice, so much so it is now scientifically valid advice .

    The problem is not the advice, it is how our subconscious hears this advice. What we say is "be as specific as possible". What our subconscious hears is "tapping only works if I am specific."

    In the midst of overwhelming emotions it is hard to be specific, so the subconscious resists tapping at all because it doesn't think it will work.

    Listen to this week's podcast to learn exactly how I overcame this subconscious resistance, which was something I faced too.

    Implementing this one idea will not only get you to tap more in the moment, it will also super charge any other tapping you do.

    This concept transformed how I tap AND how I think about tapping. I know you will love it.

    Support the podcast! Http://tappingqanda.com/support

    Subscribe in: Apple Podcast | iPhone | Spotify | Pandora | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio | YouTube
    Show more Show less
    13 mins
  • How to tap when you feel like crap (Pod #693)

    How to tap when you feel like crap (Pod #693)
    Mar 19 2026

    One of the conundrums of tapping is the fact that you tap because you want to feel better, but you aren't as good at tapping when you feel bad because you are in a lower resource state.

    To put it another way, when you need tapping the most, you are the least effective version of yourself as a tapper.

    But just because you aren't at the peak of your tapping abilities does not mean you are destined to fail when you sit down to tap.

    This week in the podcast, I share a simple game plan where I teach you:

    • what you can do ahead of time to tap effectively when you feel bad
    • the first thing you should tap on when you don't feel great
    • the second thing you should tap on right after that
    • how to continue your tapping session to get the most out of it

    Having a plan for those times when you're not at your best is key for getting help when you most need it. And the best time to learn this is right now!

    Support the podcast! Http://tappingqanda.com/support

    Subscribe in: Apple Podcast | iPhone | Spotify | Pandora | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio | YouTube
    Show more Show less
    12 mins