It is all too common for tappers to look back at their path to healing and think, "What on earth was I doing? I know better than that! Why do I keep making bad choices when I know exactly what to do?"

This comes up most often in my individual coaching sessions when my clients talk about reaching for distracting behaviors instead of tapping.

They know at the moment that the best choice would be to tap, but instead they doomscroll social media, fall down YouTube rabbit holes, reorganize their spice rack (again), or mindlessly eat a bunch of unhealthy crap.

Annoyingly, this does make sense, taken from the perspective of trying to keep themselves safe. Actor and writer Tom Lennon described it perfectly in an interview by Kevin Pollak on a book tour. When Kevin asked if he liked to write, Tom said something to the effect of, "You will know I have a writing deadline coming up because my kitchen floor will be so clean you could perform surgery on it."

We do not choose distractions because we are weak, or because we believe they are the best choice. We choose them to feel more comfortable at the moment.

The problem is that, in hindsight, we only see that we could have made a healthier choice.

When I find myself in these moments, I don't tap to stop the unhealthy behavior. I actually do the opposite! I tap to do the unhealthy behavior, but the key distinction is I am choosing to do it consciously.

When we move from being unconscious to a conscious awareness of our distracting behaviors, we regain control. And with control we can spend less (or even no) time on distracting behaviors and we don't beat ourselves up.

In this week's podcast I am going to show you:

• How to catch yourself in the moment right before you unconsciously start doing the healthy action
• How to tap with compassion in the moment, without letting yourself off the hook
• How to tap so that you constrain (and often eliminate) the unhealthy behavior

It is an unusual but incredibly powerful form of tapping.

I know you will love it!

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If you are tapping, it almost always means you are focusing on something negative, like challenging emotions, physical pain, difficult times from your past, or limiting beliefs.

This makes a lot of sense because tapping is a powerful tool for bringing about change and transformation.

But just because tapping is great at responding to life's difficulties does not mean it's the only way to tap. Tapping for celebration is another great use for tapping that most of us miss.

As we celebrate seventeen years of the Tapping Q&A Podcast this week, I share with you why you are missing out if you are not tapping while celebrating.

The podcast covers how tapping for celebration:

• Accelerates your healing
• Encourages you to tap more
• Changes the way you feel in the moment beyond just relieving pain or discomfort

You may not have experienced this type of tapping before, but after this episode, you will want to use it much more often!

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When most of us first learned tapping we were taught to be "as specific as possible" when coming up with tapping phrases. This is sound advice, which is backed up by scientific research.

But your success with tapping relies on more than just the words you say and what you focus on when you are tapping. How you feel in the moment has just as much impact on your tapping success.

And when I say "how you feel" I don't mean the emotions you are feeling in the moment that you are tapping on. Rather, I am referring to every part of your resource state.

Your resource state includes whether you are tired or rested, if you are sick, if you are in a quiet place where you can focus, if you are well hydrated, and when you last ate, to name just a few.

It is something that most tappers miss and failing to take your resource state into account when you are tapping could be setting you up for disappointment and frustration.

This week in the podcast we explore:

• How to assess your resource before you start to tap
• How to create realistic expectations for your tapping
• How to improve your resource state in the moment so you can get more out of your tapping

Once you understand how your resource state impacts your tapping, it will be easy for you to transform both your expectations and your resource state.

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One of the most powerful tools in the healing and transformational tool box is having clear goals.

This is true in big picture ways, such as what I would like to achieve this year, and small picture ways, such as what I would like to get out of this next round of tapping.

I believe in this idea so deeply that in my Tapping Mastery Blueprint I teach the first thing you should do before starting to tap is to ask yourself the question "What is the goal of this round of tapping?"

Although goals are powerful, sometimes they can get in the way of your healing and transformation. This happens when your goals are too big for the moment. Too much pressure and expectation can become measuring sticks for failing, killing off your motivation.

This week in the podcast I share:

• How goals and expectations can hinder our progress
• How to spot when this is happening to you
• How to tap to release feelings of frustration and failure

This is not about radically transforming your tapping goals, but how to recalibrate them in such a way that you tap more and get more out of each round of tapping.

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One of the concepts I talk about daily with my clients and students is that the goal of tapping is a proportionate well informed emotional response.

In most cases this is a process of giving the emotions space to be heard and understood. Once we know where the emotional response is coming from it creates the space for use to heal, transform, and create a proportionate well informed emotional response.

One of the reasons why we love tapping is because it is so good at helping us to do exactly that.

With that being said, sometimes it is best for us to not feel our emotions.

I know that might sound a little bit radical, but whole heartedly believe it.

This week in the podcast I explore the times when it is healthy and useful to tap in a way in which we aren't clearing our emotions, but instead we are putting a lid on them (for now).

Even if you are skeptical of this idea, I would encourage you to give this tapping a try and then decide if it is a good fit for your healing journey.

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One of the most frustrating experiences around personal healing and transformation is when we know what we need to do, how to do it, have everything we need to take action (including time and energy), really want to take the action...and then we don't.

When this happens, we feel we have failed and let ourselves down, and might even decide we are unworthy of healing and transformation because we have failed and "can't be trusted".

There is a simple reason this pattern keeps appearing in your life: Your inner child is running the show.

As a child you were not in control of what you did, when you did it, who you did it with, what you wore and ate, when you went to bed, and the list goes on.

Today, when you decide you want to do something healthy, your inner child screams "I don't wannaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

Now that you are an adult, supposedly in control of your actions, your inner child ends up in the driving seat and getting its way.

This week in the podcast I will show you how to tap to get your inner child on board so that you can stop being your biggest obstacle to success.

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Seeing others succeed can be a powerful source of inspiration. Once we know something is possible for others, then it also becomes possible for us.

Take the sub-four-minute mile for example. At one point, it was thought impossible for a human to run a mile in less than four minutes and that pushing so hard would cause the runner's heart to explode.

On May 6th, 1954 Roger Bannister was the first person to run a sub-four-minute mile. Less than six weeks later John Landy not only ran a sub-four-minute mile, he beat Bannister's time.

Something went from being impossible, to being done, to having other people doing it.

While it can be encouraging to see others enjoy success, sometimes that becomes a tool for us to beat ourselves up emotionally.

We see that we are working as hard, if not harder, than others and yet we are not having success.

This can lead us to question our effort, our ability, or whether success is even possible for us. Other people's success just highlights our own failure and we feel defeated rather than encouraged.

This week in the podcast we tap for those times where we feel we have failed because we aren't having the same success as those we see around us.

If you have ever felt like you are working as hard (if not harder) as the people around you and there must be something wrong with you because you are not getting the results you want, then this week's podcast was recorded just for you.

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One of the most common teachings in healing and personal transformation is the value and importance of gratitude.

So much so that the idea of establishing a "gratitude practice" for yourself feels commonplace.

The power of experiencing thankfulness and gratitude is unquestionably powerful. It can impact the way we feel in the moment and it can transform the way we act.

The problem is that most people don't talk about the dark side of practising gratitude. To be clear, I am not saying there is an issue with the feeling of gratitude, but instead that establishing a regular gratitude practice can bring up emotional distress that gets in the way of healing and transformation.

This week in the podcast I share the hidden pitfalls of a gratitude practice and how you can move yours from feeling like a chore to something that nurtures your healing and growth.

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