Why lessons from the past are not always useful (Pod #627)

Do you ever feel like no matter how much time you spend working on your personal growth, you’re never truly moving forward? One of the biggest challenges in creating lasting healing and transformation is the simple fact that there’s never enough time and energy to tackle it all. At any given moment, you might want to improve your health, deepen your relationships, focus on spiritual growth, sharpen your professional skills, declutter your space and, and…the list never ends. The harsh truth is that you can't work on everything. And the real struggle isn’t just choosing what to focus on, but it’s also the subconscious mind pulling you in multiple directions, forcing you to deal with immediate pains and short-term issues instead of focusing on meaningful long-term transformation. Our subconscious mind is wired for survival, which means it’s obsessed with right now: the urgent discomforts, the stress of the moment, and whatever feels like a quick fix. This constant urge towards short-term relief often leaves us spinning our wheels, feeling busy but never making any real progress. The result? We get caught in a cycle of putting out life’s daily fires without ever tackling the deeper, more meaningful changes we long for. In this week’s podcast, I dive into why your subconscious mind is so fixated on the immediate and how it sabotages your long-term goals without you even realizing it. More importantly, I’ll walk you through simple, daily tapping exercises to break free from this subconscious tug of war, so you can finally focus on the big-picture transformation that truly matters. Support the podcast! Http://tappingqanda.com/support Subscribe in: Apple Podcast | iPhone | | Spotify | Pandora | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio

No matter how much we consciously want to focus on a task, subconscious resistance can get in the way, making us distracted and unproductive. Part of us might be resisting tasks because of anxiety about the quality of what we produce, if we can get enough done, how others will receive our efforts, and whether we will be happy with the end result, to name just a few common concerns. Last week, I had a task that I needed to complete but I was aware how unsettled my mind was when I sat down to work. To combat the distraction, I created a brand new tapping process to keep me on track. Not only did it work then, but I have used it every time I have sat down to work since coming up with it. This week in the podcast I share exactly what I did, and how you can improve your own productivity just by drawing a few circles. Support the podcast! Http://tappingqanda.com/support [player] Subscribe in: Apple Podcast | iPhone | Spotify | Pandora | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio | YouTube

When we are working on our resistance to taking a particular action, we often end up referring to the past to see if we can identify the roots of our reluctance in not wanting to repeat past mistakes or struggles. Combing through mistakes we have made can bring up old feelings of defeat and disappointment, leaving us feeling worse than when we started tapping as we experience deep emotions about our past failings. Unfortunately, the result of this is usually that we give up on our tapping. Not only do we stop moving forward with our healing, but it can put us into a bit of an emotional spiral. When this happens to me, I have a simple process to get myself back on track. This week in the podcast I share how to recognize when you get emotionally hijacked in this way, the process I use to get back on track, and we do some tapping to show you exactly how that process works. Support the podcast! Http://tappingqanda.com/support Subscribe in: Apple Podcast | iPhone | Spotify | Pandora | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio | YouTube

When we are working on healing and creating transformation in our lives, we spend much time looking backwards. The way we understand ourselves, the world, and our place in the world is informed and created by our past, which means our limiting beliefs, insecurities, and bad habits are often rooted there too. That is why there are so many tapping tools that focus on the past, such as the movie technique, the photo technique, and the middle school playlist, to name just a few. While it can be useful to look backwards, sometimes trying to understand our past and why we are the way we are is not helpful and can even get in the way of our healing journey. This week in the podcast I share when it is useful to look to the past, when the past gets in the way, and a simple way to tap to ensure you do not get caught in this trap. Support the podcast! Http://tappingqanda.com/support Subscribe in: Apple Podcast | iPhone | | Spotify | Pandora | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio  

The Buddhist concept of the "monkey mind" describes our human tendency to get restless, distracted, or confused. For some reason, my monkey mind has been going crazy these past few weeks. I feel like I haven't been dealing with a monkey so much as a troop of them! (I just learned that a group of monkeys is called a troop!) Every fifteen or twenty minutes, I have found myself looking at social media or a news website or my inbox or an online dating app or what the weather will be like tomorrow. It was as if I had completely lost control of my attention. One minute I was working and concentrating on the task in front of me…and the next, I was firmly in Distractionland. Instead of beating myself up, I decided to do a little tapping experiment. The results were AMAZING! In this week's podcast I share what I tried, how it worked, and what I learned. This is something you will want to add to your own transformational tool box right away! Support the podcast! Subscribe in: Apple Podcast | iPhone | | Spotify | Pandora | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio  

One of the most common forms of resistance people encounter when doing any sort of deep transformational work (tapping included) is the fear of what will be uncovered. The two most common fears are either that there will be an overwhelming number of emotions that will be difficult to handle or that a previously suppressed traumatic memory will surface. There is another version of this resistance that is less emotional and less dramatic. That is the fear that you will learn or be reminded of something that you don't want to hear. It could be: an uncomfortable truth about your life an action that you need to take but are avoiding because you know it will be hard a toxic relationship that you need to exit a harmful habit that is you need to give up a realization that you failed in the past because you were unwilling to show up for yourself Nobody wants to deal with these types of truths BUT if we want to create lasting change and transformation in our lives, then we need to face up to these truths and heal our relationship to them. In the podcast this week I share a simple tapping phase I love that will make it easier to be open to healing and transformation. Support the podcast! Http://tappingqanda.com/support [player] Subscribe in: Apple Podcast | iPhone | Spotify | Pandora | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio | YouTube Watch a video version on YouTube

One of the phrases that Gary Craig used in the original EFT training videos that has stuck with me is "the comedies of our mind". When using this phrase, Gary was referring to the recurring thoughts that we had about ourselves that, when they were examined in the light of day, were seen to be comical or even farcical. For example, right before I try something hard my subconscious mind will pipe up with, "You have failed before and you are going to fail again." Unexamined, that thought could stop me in my tracks. But if I pull it from the echo chamber of my subconscious mind and into the here and now, it loses its power. It might slow me down, but I can work my way through it, This week in the podcast I share with you the process I use throughout my day to ensure I am not a prisoner to these unhelpful and untrue thoughts. This is an approach that you can use in your tapping and also in your daily life without having to tap. Support the podcast! Http://tappingqanda.com/support Subscribe in: Apple Podcast | iPhone | | Spotify | Pandora | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio  

New opportunities can be so exciting as they bring the promise of growth, change, and countless possibilities. The problem is that most of us already have full lives and we don't have the time or energy to add something new. When this happens, we have a tendency to take one of two approaches. One approach is to take the plunge in the hope that things will "just work out"...but they rarely do. We find ourselves stretched too thin and not doing anything well. The other approach is to not try at all. We decide our life is already too busy and allow great opportunities to pass us by, only to feel bad about missing out afterwards. This week in the podcast I share with you the five questions I use when I am presented with an interesting opportunity. These questions have changed my life to help me to add new exciting things to my life, while still maintaining balance. I also share how I use tapping to super charge these questions. Support the podcast! Http://tappingqanda.com/support Subscribe in: Apple Podcast | iPhone | Spotify | Pandora | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio

Tapping without words is one of my favorite ways to tap and I do it multiple times a day. Recently, a few of my friends from the tapping community referred to this type of tapping as "content-free tapping". When I heard this, not only did I learn a new piece of vocabulary, it actually reframed my understanding of wordless tapping. This week in the podcast I share with you my eight favorite ways to use content-free tapping. Support the podcast! Http://tappingqanda.com/support Subscribe in: Apple Podcast | iPhone | Spotify | Pandora | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio | YouTube

Maintaining high standards for ourselves is a good thing and means we have goals to shoot for and measuring sticks with which to evaluate our progress. Unfortunately, it is all too easy to fall into self-criticism and self-judgment if we fall short of these standards. So much so that it rarely feels like a choice, but the moment we fall short, the internal critical voice comes roaring forward to berate and belittle us. Even when we are critical of ourselves, we are still able to extend kindness to others and give them the benefit of the doubt. Evaluating our actions is a good thing…but becoming overly self-critical is harsh and unhealthy. When I am too hard on myself, one of my best friends gently chides me in a way that transforms the way I feel about myself and what comes next. He doesn't say, "Gene, you are being too hard on yourself!" because that would not shift my mind or mood. Instead, he says something completely different that turns everything around. In this week's podcast I share the one phrase that changes my perspective in these situations, and how that phrase can be incorporated in our tapping. Support the podcast! Http://tappingqanda.com/support Subscribe in: Apple Podcast | iPhone | Spotify | Pandora | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio | YouTube