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Child: Welcome to my mommy’s podcast!
Katie: This episode is sponsored by BON CHARGE, and specifically one of my favorite things that they have, which is their PEMF mini mat. If you are new to PEMF, this stands for pulsed electromagnetic field, which is magnetic energy that’s being sent into the body via this mat. And these energy waves are fascinating.
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I often say that sitting on one of these mats, I feel like a cat in the sunshine and just, like, so calm and cozy. Some of the reasons I personally like this particular mini mat, it is small enough to fit in any room, and it’s easy to move from room to room. I also have a larger one, but that one is more difficult to move around.
There are different settings, so you can find what works best for you, and it’s low EMF. Some of these are not. I feel like this is an important thing to pay attention to. Some easy ways that you can use a mini mat like this: it’s great on an office chair or on a sofa or on the floor, wherever you are sitting and reading, meditating, working, et cetera.
I love to use it before bedtime or after a workout or I’m actually doing yoga teacher training. I’ll often use it during restorative classes or when you need kind of like a creative boost or a brain reset. And like I said, I love how portable this one is. You can find out more about it and get a discount by using the code wellnessmama at wellnessmama.com/go/boncharge
This episode is sponsored by Just Thrive Health, one of my favorite companies, and especially their new Digestive Bitters. So I’ve been talking about gut health for years before it was so trendy. I love that everybody’s talking about it now, and the one brand that I have continuously used for my gut health is Just Thrive.
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Katie: Hello and welcome to the Wellness Mama podcast. I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com, and I am overjoyed to be here with Jessica Ortner today to talk about tapping in depth. This was a really helpful tool for me in my recovery journey. I use it still a lot, and I love that it is, once you learn it, it’s essentially free.
It can be done anywhere. There’s no ongoing cost, and there are no side effects. And the best resource I have found for this is The Tapping Solution, which is created by Jessica and her two brothers. And Jessica is a New York Times bestselling author, and she’s the co-founder of The Tapping Solution, which is a global movement who has helped millions transform their lives through tapping which basically combines acupressure points with modern neuroscience.
And there are over three hundred published studies that we talk about backing up what tapping does and why it is so powerful. It measurably and significantly reduces stress and anxiety, can lower cortisol levels, eas-ease symptoms of trauma and pain, and improve emotional wellbeing. She’s also the co-founder of the Tapping Solution app, which I love and I use all the time.
It’s downloaded in a hundred and ninety countries with her meditations played tens of millions of times, making tapping one of the most well, well-documented tools for mental and emotional health. And she takes us through especially how moms can use this today, how first responders use it, all the many options, and even the kid versions that are now available and that I am so excited to use.
So let’s join her now.? ??Jessica Ortner, welcome. Thank you so much for being here.
Jessica: Thank you for having me. I’m a fan. I followed you for so long, so it’s just wonderful to be able to be here and share.
Katie: Well, likewise. I am overwhelmingly excited to get to chat with you today, and I’ve talked a little bit before on the podcast about how tapping was really instrumental for me in my healing journey and in working through a lot of things from my past, and just in learning how to actually regulate my nervous system and have a tool that was available all the time, even if I was traveling or even if I was up with kids or whatever it was.
So I’m really excited to learn even more from you today, and especially for things I think that are really gonna help moms. And I would guess most people have maybe at least heard the term tapping. I know I had heard it long before I experimented with it. And also I would guess maybe a lot of people listening have not tried it or don’t fully understand how powerful it can be.
So I would love to start off by maybe giving some foundational understanding around tapping to the person who’s tried therapy like I had, or meditation and found they weren’t very good at it, or maybe even they’ve tried medication because that was what was offered to them and they still don’t feel like they are getting the results that they were hoping for.
What would you say to those people to explain what tapping is and what sets it apart from other modalities?
Jessica: Yeah. It’s called tapping because what we’re doing is we’re using our fingers to tap on certain acupressure points. Some people know it as EFT, emotional freedom techniques, and this is a really powerful nervous system reset.
And before I explain exactly how it works, I think it’s helpful to understand the nervous system because it is a word that’s being thrown around a lot. You know, “I need to calm my nervous system,” or, “My nervous system needs to be safe.” And I think it’s helpful to understand how the nervous system works, because this is one of the most direct ways to send a safety signal to your nervous system.
Your nervous system is this information highway between your brain, your spinal cord, and nerve endings. And if you look at it as an information highway, we have information going both ways. You have a thought that creates a fear response, and then your body suddenly gets tense, you clench, your palms get sweaty.
But what’s not talked about often is it’s also the reverse. Sometimes you’re fine and suddenly you feel anxious, and you’re not quite sure why. And you feel it in your body, and you’re trying to use positive affirmations or you’re trying to use a reframe, and it’s just not landing because you’re having a physical reaction.
Your nervous system cares about one thing. It doesn’t care about your spiritual evolution or you reaching your dreams. It cares about your survival. So if there’s something in your world, whether it’s present or a thought that doesn’t feel safe, your nervous system creates that signal of danger and you begin to clench up.
Sometimes it shows up with the back pain, the headaches. Other times it’s just the anxiety that stops you from taking a deep breath. What we’re doing here with the tapping is we’re getting clear on the experience that we’re having, and as we do that, we stimulate these acupressure points. There’s nine points that everyone’s gonna learn today, and the way this works is as you stimulate the acupressure points with this gentle tap, you have…
These points have high concentration of nerve endings, and we have something called mechanoreceptors in our skin. So when you begin to stimulate those nerve endings with the tap, tap, tap, it creates an electrical signal which communicates directly to your nervous system. Now, for those who are very new to this, back in the day, you know, f- 18 years ago when I started this, we didn’t really…
We knew it worked, but we didn’t know why, and because of that, there was a lot of skepticism. But there has been 300 published studies on this. It has been approved by the VA to be used for veterans. We just came out with a book with Tony Robbins wrote the forward, and Hugh Jackman wrote about his experience.
So I really see, Katie, you were one of the first, you were one of the early people who gave this a try and saw that it worked, and we’re really hitting this tipping point where we’re seeing therapists begin to incorporate it into their practice and it be used globally at a much greater scale.
Katie: I love so much that it’s really gaining traction because I’ve seen how powerful it is in my life, and I feel like it does not get as much credit as it deserves for how powerful it is, especially because we’re talking about something that is free, easy to use, portable, does not cost money, does not have negative side effects.
Like, it, it’s… and to me, there’s, like, literally no downside to trying it because unlike medication or unlike certain therapies even, there aren’t typically any negative side effects, which is really, really astounding. And I love that explanation about the nervous system because I feel like that term gets tossed around on social media so much right now, and I often also see people talking about nervous system regulation as if the goal is to just always be calm, which, A, for moms is not necessarily even possible, but I question that and say, like, really is that even the goal for our nervous system?
Because our nervous system is meant to be, in my mind, adaptable. Like, it’s meant to be able to have a stress response when there’s a legitimate stressor. It’s also meant to move out of that stress response when we’re no longer in that. And we, you know, we hear a lot about how the modern lifestyle is so much built-in stress, and we get stress from our environment, from the screens, from just the busyness of life.
And so I feel like often people have trouble with that downshift, but the goal is still not to always downshift. We wanna be able to hit the gas pedal when we need to, but also take a break when we need to, and that’s where I feel like tapping just is absolutely astonishing at what it can do.
Jessica: I think a big part of the reason people love tapping is a big factor is that you are acknowledging your own experience.
Sometimes when we jump too quickly into just trying to reframe to something positive, there is a part of us that feels like we’re lying to ourselves because it doesn’t feel true. And the same way that as moms we’ve learned it’s so important to validate your kids’ feelings before leading them to something different or helping them, they need to be seen and they need to be heard.
We’re realizing that about ourselves, that we’re allowed to have emotions and we’re allowed to have a tough day. And the moment we are able to see ourselves where we are and tap on these points, the tapping is just sending a safety signal, and that is what the nervous system needs to be able to move on to know, hey, the danger has passed.
We can relax. So I’ll give a perfect example because this happened to me the other day. I have a recent five-year-old. Her birthday was a few days ago, and she started waking up with bad dreams, and it was… Have you ever had one of those days, Katie, where you have, like, a big plan of what you wanna do and then nothing happens?
It’s like you look at your to-do list and you’re like, “The day ran away from me.” And so that night I was like, “Okay, tomorrow I’m gonna wake up extra early. I’m gonna get myself organized. Like, I have these things that I really wanna do.” She comes in at 4:00 in the morning. I get her back to sleep, but now I can’t fall asleep.
So then I finally fall asleep, like, 30 minutes before my alarm is supposed to go off. So now I’m waking up, like, in a partial coma. Have you ever had that experience? It’s like you fall asleep right at the end and then you have to wake up and you’re like, “I don’t even know where I am.” Anyway, I’m in the bathroom, I’m getting ready, and I’m just like…
I’m annoyed. I’m upset because I had this plan to get back on track, and here mom life is, like, throwing me for a loop, and I’m tired, and it’s not what I expected, and what am I doing? I’m fighting against reality. I’m saying like, “It shouldn’t be this way. It should be easier. I should’ve done this.” And so I really got in my head.
I did six minutes of tapping. I have a tapping meditation called Calm. I pressed, I pressed play in the bathroom. I began to tap and I felt this sense of compassion for myself of like, hey, right now, right now everything is okay. Your body can relax. A bad night doesn’t need to turn into a bad day. A lot of people use this for much bigger issues, but I wanted to share that example because this is how we can incorporate it into our lives when we feel like we’re spiraling, which happens sometimes when we’ve had a tough time and we’re not sleeping, and quite frankly, being a mom is hard.
We need all the tools.
Katie: Yeah, I love that because I realise, like, of course, there’s people who are working through really big T trauma, and I never wanna discount that, and I’ve done that as well. But I find that often it’s those little mini overwhelms that add up, that, like, lead us to this just, like, super frazzled nervous system state.
And I love what you said about it being a signal of safety to the nervous system, and I kind of liken it to a physical way to communicate to our nervous system that we’re now in a place of safety similarly to how… I know I’ve heard dancing talked about or humming as other ways that people have done that because you don’t do those things when you’re running from a metaphorical tiger.
You’re not gonna stop and dance. You’re not gonna stop and tap. But it’s really cool how it overrides, or not overrides, but works with the nervous system to communicate that safety. And I wanna, in a little while, get into what’s actually happening and how the body has that response. But before we move on from the science piece, I know you said there’s 300 peer-reviewed studies around tapping, which I find phenomenal.
What are some of the most compelling pieces of evidence that you see? Because I’m sure you’ve looked at all the science that really help kind of people who are skeptical understand just how powerful this is.
Jessica: The science has been incredible, and one of the studies that I think is worth highlighting is showing how tapping reduces cortisol. We hear about cortisol a lot.
I love listening to podcasts, health podcasts. I love your podcast, and I often hear if you want to improve your brain health, lower cortisol. If you want to improve your metabolism, lower cortisol. If you want to improve your digestion, lower cortisol. And a lot of us hear that and we go, “Great, but how?”
Because you’ve not stepped into my life. There’s moments that are stressful. What tapping has shown is they compared tapping to psycho-education, which means they had a group of people. One group was just learning on how to think of stress differently, mindfulness, a really… a talk therapy setting. Another group was using the tapping, and a third group was the control group, which was just resting.
This is a study that was done at Bond University in Australia, and they found that the group that did talk therapy, it did go down. It was 14% reduction in cortisol. But the group that did tapping had a 43% reduction in cortisol, almost double the talk therapy group and the resting group. So this showed that not only are people saying, “I feel so much more relaxed. I feel so much better. I feel so much more in control,” there are biomarkers showing that it is lowering cortisol. And this study was actually a replica study, which is important, because you can have a one-off study that shows something, but this was the second big study done in a university showing that it decreases cortisol.
The other thing that I think is worth mentioning is we have an app called The Tapping Solution app. The reason I mention that is because we’ve had 32 million sessions played, and people will measure how they’re feeling, their anxiety from 0 to 10. Out of those sessions, 18 million people have put in the before and after scale.
And for example, for anxiety, we are showing that in under nine minutes people are decreasing their anxiety by 40%, sometimes 50%. It has gained so much attention because it is the most well-documented mental health outcome of any app ever in the world. And so we are now working with Yale, we are working with Harvard.
A lot of these major universities are looking at our data that is at such a mass scale with millions of sessions played, and they’re taking a look and they are writing papers about it. A lot of these things are gonna come out in the next year or so, but it’s turning a lot of heads because our results are really that incredible.
Katie: And I don’t know the data off the top of my head, but I would guess no medication offers that, and certainly not that quickly.
And I think that’s another point worth highlighting is how quickly the nervous system can respond when we give it the right inputs. So you mentioned, like, these reductions were seen very quickly, but what is the a- like how quickly does the nervous system actually respond? Like we know to a stress response, it’s instantaneous essentially.
But how quickly can it respond to safety signals?
Jessica: So quickly with one round. We have tapping meditations that are, you know, just tapping on the nine points are two minutes. The one that I mentioned we have this, a q- a, these tapping meditations called the core five, which look at these five different nervous system states.
And that day when I woke up and I was feeling really off, I did one called release. Six minutes. Completely transformed my day. So this isn’t… You can sit with a therapist for an hour and do tapping, and it’s very powerful. But when it comes to incorporating it into your life, it could be while you’re waiting in the car to pick up your kid, and you’re able just to have a few minutes to tap, and we are seeing the change in intensity really rapidly.
So that’s what’s really amazing about it. And then there are cases where people will decide to commit to it for a week. So I’ll share an example. There was a mother who had two young kids, and she had a fear of driving for a very good reason. Both her parents had died in a car accident, and so she would not drive.
It was always her husband. But when she had these two little kids and her husband was at work, her world just got smaller and smaller because she couldn’t get over that fear. Because even though she could tell herself logically the chances of her also dying in the car crash, it’s unlikely. Even though her mind could try to reason with herself that she shouldn’t feel this way, that she can drive, it didn’t matter.
Her nervous system was having a reaction. She would get into the car, and her hands would shake. And so she came to the app, and she did a tapping meditation for fear of driving, and she did that for a few weeks, was able to get into the car and start driving again, and her whole life opened up. So what we’re doing there, when we’re doing work like that where you’re getting rid of a fear or a phobia or we have tapping meditations for the fear of public speaking, what’s happening is something called memory reconsolidation.
What happens is we have something in our past, a memory, and we’re beginning… Neuroscience had changed the way they look at memories. We used to think that you had a memory set in stone. That’s just what happens, and you’ll always feel that way. What they’ve discovered is that when you have a memory, it’s like opening a computer file, and every time you’re thinking about that memory, you are usually reliving the feelings from that memory.
And then as you move on, you save that file exactly as it was with that same intensity. When you’re doing tapping, you’re thinking about something in your past that hurt you, that was hard, that scares you, and you begin to stimulate these acupressure points, sending that signal of safety to your nervous system.
So now your nervous system, the memory is activated, but it has a safety signal. So the memory might not change, but the charge that you have around that memory will begin to go down because you’re sending that safety signal. So now it’s like that memory saves with a new fi- it’s a new memory, it’s a new saving thing with this different intensity, and that is why this has been approved to use in the VA for veterans.
You talked about you using it for some traumatic events. I’ve had the same thing. This is for big moments in our lives and small ones, but it’s important to know why it works, which is when you have a memory and you feel triggered, what your body needs is a way to have a safety signal. You have to update that memory so that you’re able to think about it without reliving it again, and that’s what tapping does.
Katie: Yeah, that’s so fascinating. And I know you guys have guided millions of people through this in the app. And I love that you brought up the fear example because I personally know so many people who have a deep, deep fear of flying, for instance, and it really limits their life. I know I have a friend who drives across the country to visit people because she doesn’t wanna get on a plane.
And so the, to have a tangible tool that can really help with that I think is really astonishing. I’m curious what is the most common thing with people coming into the app that people misunderstand about tapping or patterns you notice in people who are kind of struggling the most and haven’t tried it yet?
Jessica: Yeah. I, most people are coming because of anxiety. That’s usually, it’s either someone recommended it to them or they’ve tried everything else that they’re willing to try anything. I wanna mention something quick because you, talking about that fear of flying, and then I’ll loop back to that question.
I think this is an important thing to remember, is that our, we can’t think our way out of fear. We can’t think our way out of overthinking. We need to start bringing in the body. Because when you have a fear of flying or a fear of public speaking or a fear of whatever it is, if you have that fear, you can’t logically talk your way out of it.
And anyone who has a fear of flying will tell you that, because they are smart and reasonable people, but their body has that reaction. They begin to think of an airplane, and their body feels that fear. And in those moments of high stress and high fear, the amygdala is firing off, and I’ve heard you talk about this and have guests talk about this on this show.
It’s really important to know that when that amygdala is control, in control, your body just wants to fight or it wants to flee. Your prefrontal cortex, which is about problem-solving, creativity, reasoning, that is offline. So it’s really hard to just think your way out of a panic response. You have to bring the body in.
And I, the reason I want to emphasize that is so many people blame themselves. They think, “I’m smarter than this. I shouldn’t still be struggling with this. I shouldn’t let this struggle. I shouldn’t let this trigger me. I know better.” But many of us know better, but our body doesn’t, and that’s why we have to have that communication with our body.
When it comes to the app, I see that people come for anxiety, they come for stress, and I think the biggest thing that I’ve realized is that if you’re coming in for fear of public speaking or you’re just anxious and you’re at an eight, you tap for less than 10 minutes, and now you’re at a five or a four.
Even though you might have a little bit of fear, what happens is we suddenly, the scale, the balance changes. The ability to be courageous, to try to put yourself out there is so much easier without that resistance. So the biggest aha moment I’ve had with tapping and seeing people’s results is that if they’re able to cut their anxiety by half or their fear by half- It’s not that they don’t have any fear at all, but suddenly the fear is not driving the bus.
It’s in the back. And the more they’re able to do things to get on that plane, that fear gets quieter and quieter and quieter. So tapping is really about changing the balance, putting things in your favor so that your belief is stronger than your doubt, your faith is stronger than your fear, your confidence is stronger than any limiting beliefs, and that is when life really begins to change.
Katie: I love that. And with so many data points from the app, I’m curious, what are the most, like, surprising uses of tapping that you’ve come across that you wouldn’t have even predicted?
Jessica: I will say, too, the first one is we have a category called Help Me Stop, and it’s like, help me stop thinking about what I said, help me stop thinking about what I did, help me stop thinking about what they said.
It’s really about intrusive thoughts, and that has been one of our… surprisingly one of our most popular categories because a lot of us get stuck thinking about something we did in the past, and we feel that anxiety. So working on intrusive thoughts has been incredible. But I will say, Katie, that a year ago, probably over a year ago, I was working on this book that just came out, and I asked our community for stories.
I said, “If you’ve had a personal transformation with tapping, I’d really love to hear from you. I’m working on this book.” And I was blown away by how many people wrote in about grief, that when they lost someone that they loved or, you know, they went through a really dark moment of the soul, tapping was the one thing that helped them exhale, that helped them catch their breath, that helped them take the next step forward.
So yeah, surprisingly, it’s been grief, has been, really tapping has been so incredible, and it makes sense because when we lose someone, it’s so hard for our mind to wrap our head around our mortality and someone being gone and what does that mean and all the unknowns and the uncertainty, that being able to communicate with your body and find comfort, people are feeling a new sense of peace and even connection to the divine, to their creator, to themselves because they’re able to give themselves this, this moment of comfort during really dark times.
Katie: And on that note, I know that the Sandy Hook shooting happened in your hometown, and from researching for this episode, you were on the ground providing support through tapping when that happened, and I would love to hear what that experience was like, because certainly I’m sure that was an extremely difficult situation for everybody who was there.
And like what you saw and what- how you saw tapping impact people even in that really intense moment.
Jessica: Yeah. It was a very intense moment, and everybody was impacted from the first responders to the bus drivers to the… Yeah, it was, it was a lot. And when we showed up, my brother Nick… So for those who are very new, it’s a family business.
I do this work, I have this passion alongside my two older brothers, and so it’s the three of us who do this. And Nick was introduced to Scarlett Lewis, who lost her son Jesse in the shooting, and they tapped together, and Scarlett says that it was the first time she was able to feel like she could breathe.
You’re never gonna tap away grief, something that profound, but what it can do is give yourself a comfort in your body, a sen- a feeling of safety, which is what we need to be able to take the next step, to be able to figure out what’s next. So that was one thing. The other thing that was really powerful is, and unexpected, is when you go through a tragedy like that, there tends to be triggers in the future.
What matters, a lot of times, you know, there are these disasters, right? And they make the news, and for two weeks it’s what everyone’s hearing about, but after that, no one’s talking about it. And I have found that the moments that people really need support are sometimes a year after that incident happened, two years after that incident happened, and there can be certain triggers.
So for example, in Sandy Hook, there was a lot of helicopters around during that time because there was a lot of news stations. There was also a lot of vans, like television vans. And so I remember working with someone who was triggered when they would hear the noise of a helicopter. So it’s being able to let your body know that you are safe when you notice that trigger, right?
So being able to listen to a helicopter and even tap while listening to it or even imagining it, you’re training your body, “Hey, this is safe. I’m allowed to hear this.” And that was really powerful as well.
Katie: And as you were saying that, I’m thinking of so many ways that can apply in every avenue of life. But for me right now, what’s most resonant is, being postpartum, there are just innate nervous system disruptions. Like, sleep is not uninterrupted every night, and I am constantly, like, holding a baby and doing things with my other hand, and I can feel my nervous system amping up. But the beauty is I can do tapping even while nursing my baby, and I do feel, like, my body downshift, and then I feel that even, like, transfer to the baby as well.
And so I think it, like, to illustrate this point, it doesn’t have to be just the massive moments. Even those little moments, it can help so much. And how I’m reminded, like, we always check on the mom in the first few weeks postpartum, but really it’s that, like, three, four, five months when the lack of sleep has built up that really it can be, I’m finding, so helpful right now.
And I also think of first responders. I work with a lot of them in our wellness center where I live, and they, in the course of their job, have these really intense situations all the time. And so for them to have a tool that helps them just come back to center after days where it’s been really intense is so powerful.
Or even after injury. One of my sons recently broke his arm, and obviously you deal with the medical side. You set the bone, you do all of the things, but then the nervous system has to handle that as well. And I feel like that was such a powerful tool for giving him something to, like, help his nervous system come back down after what was a physically very traumatic event.
So I love that it’s so widely helpful like that, and seemingly can be applied in so many different ways.
Jessica: Yeah, and I’d like to mention for those who are listening who are first responders, we have a whole category in the Tapping Solution that is always free, always unlocked for first responders and for those in crisis.
We teamed up with two different police officers. One was an NYPD police officer and veteran, and then another gentleman as well who has had an incredible career helping police officers and is a police officer himself. And one of the things as I started to communicate with first responders, and I do think this translates to other people as well, is when you’ve had a really tough day as a first responder, the transition to go home is really hard.
You’ve seen something really traumatic, you’ve dealt with something stressful, and now you’re supposed to walk in and make your kids dinner or sit with them, and it’s almost like the nervous system doesn’t know what to do because it just thinks, “I just spent an entire day feeling unsafe,” which it should, because it was unsafe.
They were putting themselves in danger. So that reaction, that adrenaline, that is needed. That is… Your nervous system is supposed to put you on high alert in those moments that you’re responding to domestic violence or you get a horrible, you know, story from a dispatcher. But then you go home, and what are you supposed to do?
How are you supposed to tell your body, “Hey, I’m home now”? And so we created tapping meditations for that transition of when you are coming home, as well as when you’re starting your day, as well as an afternoon reset. We have tapping meditations for those moments of crises when you feel like, you know, it could be something even just like being rear-ended, getting in a minor car accident.
We all have had those feelings where suddenly our body is buzzing, and now we have to communicate to a police officer to tell them what happened, and it’s hard to even get our words out because our body is reacting. And so having this knowledge, you can use the tapping meditations that we provide to get more comfortable with it.
But really what I love, Katie, was, is, which is what you’re saying, is you can find moments when you’re nursing, when something triggers you, when you’re on a phone call that’s difficult, that you could, as long as you know these points, you can begin to tap and just lower that intensity and come back into your body.
Katie: And on that note, I know we’re gonna wrap up with a demonstration, and actually, because we’ve talked about tapping, but for people to be able to actually experience it and try it.
Before we get there, though, I would love to talk a little bit about the new book that I just got and have been starting to read, and what inspired the new book and the new direction. Yeah, Rewired, it’s amazing, what I’ve read so far. But what inspired you to write this book in particular?
Jessica: Yeah. This was the first book that I teamed up with both my older brothers, and we really needed to read this book…we needed to write this book because we’ve been doing this for 18 years, and the science and the research and the breakthroughs that we were seeing, we really wanted to create a book that, one, really shared exactly how tapping works, and two, taking the millions of data points to see how this is helping people the most and putting it all together.
So it’s called Rewired because you’re looking at different patterns in your life that you’re able to rewire. Looking at your relationships, your finances, your critical voice. Seeing how the nervous system can be activated, and you might be running those patterns where you go, “I know better. Why am I still doing this?
Why am I still being mean to myself when I know that I’ve been told that love is the way?” Finding those patterns and really getting clear on how to use tapping. So the, there’s all real stories which can inspire you, the science is the latest, and every chapter ends with a tapping meditation so you can have an experience.
And if you buy the actual book … I don’t know if you’ve had this experience, Katie. I’ve bought books before where it has, like, a meditation in it, and I’m like, “I can’t read and meditate.” So everything also comes with an audio that you can access if that’s how you prefer to have the experience.
Jessica: I love that, and I’ll link to, we’ve talked about the app, I’ll link to that as well as the book, and you have other books as well and your website in the, the show notes.
What’s next for the Tapping Solution? Now you said you’ve been doing this for 18 years. What do you see as kind of the course for the next five years or so?
Jessica: I see the data, I see the research papers that are lining up, and I feel it within the next year or two years as there’s even more published studies.
I see it really opening bigger doors where you have it covered by insurance, that it’s more therapists are incorporating it into their practice. It’s brought into more schools. I just wanna help more people, even if it’s, even if we’re just teaching them once and they’re using it and doing their own thing.
I feel like this hasn’t had the attention it deserves, and I’ve been frustrated in the past about it, and now it’s like everything is lining up and it’s just the, how God works in miraculous ways when you think, “Oh, come on, why don’t more people know?” And it’s because all these other things needed to line up for these bigger universities and bigger published studies.
So I see that coming down the pipeline, and that’s what I’m most excited about.
Katie: I love it. And I’m, before we get into the actual tapping, I’m also curious to hear what your daily tapping practice looks like as a mom, and as I think I read in your bio, also as a wake surfer now. But for you, for tapping, how is it part of your life?
I feel like your example’s gonna be really helpful for the other moms listening.
Jessica: Yes. Well, I will say, you asked for facts that most people don’t know about me, and we moved to a lake, and I just learned how to wake surf. Not well, but I love it. So for me as a mom, I feel like I’m constantly pulled in a million directions and especially as a working mom.
And so for me, my daily practice is this tapping meditation that I love that I’m gonna actually take everyone through called center. When you feel like your energy is pulled into a million directions and you feel like you can’t keep up, it’s what we need is to come back into our body and come back to ourselves, and then suddenly we’re able to see things more clearly without feeling so frazzled.
So doing something that centers me every night, because it tends to be the night for me. Some people are morning, but to me it tends to be at the end of the night when I’m in my head, and I might be overanalyzing how I showed up as a mom or as a, you know, as a businesswoman, and being able to center, it’s changed my life.
Katie: Well, on that note, I would love for you to demonstrate.
I will go on mute so that I don’t hijack the video and the audio. If you guys are watching, you’ll be able to see it, and if it’s audio, I’m assuming we can describe it so that people can follow along even if they’re just listening.
Jessica: I’m gonna start by talking through where these nine points are really quickly.
I wanna emphasize that you can’t do this wrong. Just give yourself a chance to do it now with me. So the first point is on the side of the hand. It’s below the pinky. It doesn’t matter what side of the body you tap on. The next point is the eyebrow point, and it’s where the hair of your eyebrow begins.
You can tap on one side or both. Then you have the side of the eye, right on the bone. Underneath the eye on the bone. Underneath the nose between the upper lip and the nose. Underneath the mouth, which is the crease between your bottom lip and your chin. The collarbone, if you feel your collarbone and go down an inch on either side, you can hit it.
You can also use your whole hand to tap on your chest. We have underneath the arm, which is a hand width from your armpit. It tends to be where your bra strap lies And then the last point is the crown of your head. These are the nine points, and when you learn and get comfortable with these nine points, it becomes so easy to incorporate this whenever you need it.
We’re gonna do an experience together, which is the one I talked about, which I do every night, called Center. And so I’d like you to start by just placing one hand on your chest and feel it there nice and steady, and take a nice slow breath in. And a long breath out.
Great. Tapping on the side of the hand. You don’t need to repeat after me. I just want you to tap and to listen. This moment is about coming back to yourself. This is your return point. This is a steady pause to help you gather what’s been scattered.
Tapping on your eyebrow point. Our energy is often pulled in different directions by thoughts, by people, by the pace of the day, and pieces of you end up everywhere. Side of the eye. But right now, you’re calling yourself back.
Under the eye. Breath by breath, tap by tap, you’re returning to your center.
Under the nose. Feel your breath expand your chest.
Under the mouth. Feel yourself landing a little more fully in your body now.
Collarbone. Your center isn’t something that you create. It’s something that you return to.
Under the arm. It’s the quiet and steady part of you underneath the swirl of life.
Top of the head. You’re reconnecting with the quiet strength now.
We’re gonna do two more rounds. We’re gonna go back to the eyebrow point. You don’t need to chase every thought.
Side of the eye. You don’t need to follow every pull.
Under the eye. Let the noise stay out there while you come inward.
Under the nose. Feel the center line of your body, your head, your throat, your belly all aligning as you sit up straight.
Under the mouth. Feel your breath traveling down that line.
Collarbone. Reconnecting with a strong, wise center.
Under the arm. From this place, you can trust yourself.
Top of the head. You can trust your journey.
One more round back to the eyebrow point. Notice the ease you feel when you’re gathered.
Side of the eye. Notice the clarity that can arrive when you’re aligned.
Under the eye. Notice the strength you experience when you’re grounded.
Under the nose, the thoughts may still be there, but they’re no longer pulling you apart.
Under the mouth, you’re in yourself, not the swirl.
Collarbone. Your center is steady and reliable.
Under the arm. And you can return to it any time.
Top of the head. This is you clear, centered, and connected.
And gently stop tapping. Put another hand on your chest. Take a nice deep breath in and out, and notice that steady, strong energy.
Wonderful. How was that for you, Katie?
Katie: It’s always such a, like, important break, and I felt like I could literally feel the relaxation going down my body as we did it.
Jessica: Yes. And when you experience tapping, there’s different ways to do it. Sometimes some of the most powerful things to do to start is to give a voice how you’re feeling before going to anything positive.
Allowing yourself when you’re… next time you’re upset with a friend, tell them what’s going on, but now tap. And this is another experience which it’s using these acupressure points to just allow you to reflect. So for those who’ve been doing this for a long time, sometimes we’re saying things out loud, other times we’re just reflecting.
But even here we always notice with… we always start with noticing where we are, how we’re feeling, if we’re feeling frazzled. You always start with where you are, and if all you’re doing is tapping while you’re talking about what you’re experiencing and any frustration, that’s when the shift really begins.
Katie: That makes sense, and I know you guys… I have the app. You have so many different ones, literally for everything you could think of, and also you have it for kids. We were talking before we started recording, and I’m so excited to get cards for kids that help it feel very tangible to them, and especially for my daughter, I think it’s gonna be really, really impactful.
But just walk us through the other resources you guys have available, and I’ll make sure they’re linked in the show notes as well.
Jessica: Yeah. Thank you. The best place is to start with the app because there is so much available there. We have these digital card decks where you can just choose a card. My kids love it.
They randomly pick a card. There’s a beautiful music, it flips over, and they tap along with my niece June, who filmed it when she was 10 at the time. So we have, in the app, we have things on fear of public speaking, stopping intrusive thoughts, help the racing mind before going to sleep, a lot of great sleep tapping meditations.
And we also have something called inspirational walks, where you can have an audio where… to play while you’re walking as well. And we have a lot of great and free resources over at thetappingsolution.com, and within our Instagram, The Tapping Solution, we’re often putting up these quick taps. So if you’re scrolling, we’re a good place to land to allow yourself to do one round of tapping to calm your nervous system.
Katie: Amazing. Well, like I said, I will link to all of that in the show notes. I feel like we got a hands-on demonstration that was so helpful, and like you said, there’s guided ones for everything you could think of, and I feel like that’s such a powerful resource. It’s helped me tremendously. Is there anything before we wrap up that you wish I had asked you that I didn’t, or any final points you would like to leave listeners with regarding tapping?
Jessica: Yes. The last thing I want people to take away from this is when you understand your nervous system and why you are feeling anxiety, you can begin to look at it as misguided self-love. The anxiety you have is not because you’re broken or there’s something flawed about you. It’s simply because there’s a part of you that doesn’t feel safe.
So it doesn’t need you to push yourself or criticize yourself or judge yourself. To create the lasting change you need is safety. The moment we feel safe to try hard things, to expand, to make mistakes, that’s when our life really begins to open up. So your anxious reaction is not because you’re broken, it’s just a cry for safety.
Katie: It’s a perfect place to wrap up for today. I’m so glad that we got to have this conversation. So grateful for all the resources that you shared. They are linked in the show notes if you are listening on the go. Jessica, thank you so much for your time.
Jessica: Thank you, Katie.
Katie: And as always, thank you for listening, and I hope you will join me again on the next episode of the Wellness Mama podcast.
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