DailyOM: For those who are new to tapping, tell us about this technique. How does it work? Can it be done by anyone?
Marcella: Tapping is also called emotional freedom techniques (EFT). It is often referred to as emotional acupuncture. I think of it as positive brainwashing. It involves using your fingertips to tap on points that are at or near the end of certain acupuncture meridians while recollecting a stressful situation. The tapping acts as a circuit breaker on the electromagnetic signal of the stress and diffuses its emotional trigger.
Most commonly, tapping is used for issues that include athletic performance, fear of public speaking, resolution of big T traumas (such as car collisions or combat PTSD), and addictions, including food addiction. Anyone with hands that move can do tapping. There's a popular saying in the tapping world: "try it on everything!" Tapping has the potential to relieve whatever stress you might be experiencing, from a minor annoyance to the deepest trauma imaginable.
DailyOM: In this course you use tapping to help people deal with food-related issues. What kinds of food issues do you focus on?
Marcella: In this course and in my work, I focus on yo-yo dieting, binge eating, sugar addiction, and chronic body shaming. Because I am not a clinician, I do not address clinical issues such as anorexia, bulimia, and orthorexia. The lessons in this course might be helpful for those issues, but I suggest that students who struggle in those arenas seek the additional help of qualified professionals. One of the most remarkable uses of tapping is in Lesson 8, Making Peace with Food Cravings. Here I ask students to place their trigger foods in front of them and tap on the craving .
DailyOM: Weight loss programs and diets in general are restrictive and difficult to sustain. How is your program different from other diets?
Marcella: Oh my, this is such a rich question. Diets do not work for many reasons, but chief among them is that diets do not address the traumas that cause so many of us to reach for food to soothe ourselves to begin with. That's precisely where EFT steps in. For example, right away I talk about clearing the way for change. So many people I work with have been burned by diet trauma and blame themselves for not getting the results they seek. They tell themselves they do not have the discipline to change. Tapping can literally wash that belief away and clear the path for having a future that is different from your past.
Also, the lesson Releasing Secondary Gain in this course focuses on the hidden "benefits" of staying stuck in self-defeating patterns. The most common example of secondary gain that I hear from students is that, for as much as they want to lose weight, another part of them is afraid to lose that layer of protection or afraid of the attention they will attract when they start appearing in the world in a smaller body. How do we get these conflicting parts of ourselves to talk to each other? That's what this lesson is about.
As for results, they can vary. Sometimes results are sudden, dramatic, and permanent. That's the kind of result we all hope for, right? And it's always so wonderful when that happens. Many people taking this course have experienced that. I get notes all the time from folks who have had that kind of breakthrough, and it's always very gratifying. Other times, results require more perseverance.
DailyOM: Tell us about how you laid out this course and the type of work students will do.
Marcella: I created this course with the intention of making it easy on the nervous system. So many of us blame ourselves for our struggles and think we have to work hard to make those struggles go away. It's like "Ugh, I eat so much, and now I have to do this hard, punishing thing to change that." Well, guess what? That mindset only keeps you stuck on the dieting treadmill. My intention for this course is that, right away, it soothes the sympathetic nervous system and puts students at ease.
The course is mainly audio, with a few videos thrown in. Mostly it's just listening (or watching) and tapping along. I like audio because it's intimate. It's my voice right in your ear. And it also means you can lie down while listening; you can even go to sleep and just use these audios as a kind of hypnosis. That's my kind of healing! I sequenced the topics so that there is a progression from struggle to success, but students can do the lessons sequentially, or they can skip around, mark a lesson as done if it does not resonate right away, then go on to one that looks compelling and come back to the earlier lesson later. It's quite flexible.
DailyOM: What has been your experience with tapping in terms of your health and diet?
Marcella: Wow, another big question. I came from a background of multiple complex traumas. Heavy-duty stuff. I have been a student of Tibetan Buddhism and 12-step recovery for decades, and I deeply love both of those paths. And even with all of that in my toolkit, nothing — and I do mean nothing — has given me the results that I've gotten from tapping. I've never had huge issues with health and dieting, but I've struggled with fear of success, fear of visibility, and deep shame and self-loathing from the traumas I have been through.
With tapping, I've been able to realize, in the marrow of my bones, that I am not my traumas. It was not my fault. And this is a core message I impart: Your struggles with food are not your fault. It is not a crime to struggle with binge eating. In fact, it could well be an act of intelligence, depending on what you have been through.
No matter what your history has been, if there is a part of you that is still reaching for healing, that means the healing is available to you. That healing wants you as much as you want it. So, keep going! It is a trial-and-error universe, so if one thing doesn't work, try another. Eventually you'll come to be grateful for all those struggles because in reality they are your stepping stones to freedom.
DailyOM: Thanks, Marcella! It is remarkable how tapping works to gently clear the emotional stress and trauma that's holding you back from weight loss. It releases you from all the shame and guilt that can come with body image and weight control issues, helping you to look at food in a whole new light. Until next time, be well.
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