Tapping Q & A - Getting the most out of tapping and EFT

Gene Monterastelli

EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) Tapping is a powerful tool for reducing pain, physical trauma, and eliminating limiting beliefs. Each week tapping expert, Gene Monterastelli, and his amazing guests answer the most common (and uncommon) questions on how to get the most out of EFT. If you want to maximize your success with tapping, this is an indispensable resource. The host of the Tapping Q & A Podcast, Gene Monterastelli, works one-on-one with small business owners and entrepreneurs to help them eliminate self-sabotage so that they can take the actions they need to take to be successful, starting with the most important tasks first. Past guests of the show have included Mary Ayers, Dr. Peta Stapleton, Julie Schiffman, Brad Yates, Rick Hanson, Ph.D., Mark Wolynn, Rick Wilkes, Carol Look, Steve Wells, and Jessica Ortner.

  1. 6 DAYS AGO

    How Long Should You Tap on an Issue? When to Stop Tapping and Move On

    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 thing right now." That is success. The tapping round is done because the goal was the action, not the absence of fear. Key Insight: "The goal was not to get rid of the fear. The goal was not to get rid of the resistance. The goal was to take the action." You Do Not Need to Be Fearless to Take Action I want to share a story that illustrates this perfectly. About 16 or 17 years ago, I was making my very first real offer to my email list. I was asking for the princely sum of \(97 or \)147, which at that point in my life felt like asking for $100 million. I had the email written. I had it loaded into my email software. I was sitting in a Starbucks in Charles Village in Baltimore. And I hit send. The moment I hit send, I slammed my laptop shut and went for a 90-minute walk on a beautiful spring day because I was terrified of what was going to happen next. When I got home, one or two people had bought and one or two people had unsubscribed. That was the entire consequence. I did not need to be fearless. I just needed to reduce the fear enough to press the button. And here is the important part: even if the fear had come rushing back 20 minutes later, it would not have mattered because the action was already taken. This is why outcome-based tapping goals are so powerful. Once the email is sent, the conversation is started, or the decision is made, the fear and resistance become irrelevant to that particular action. What About Issues That Take More Than One Session? Not every issue resolves in a single round of tapping. Some struggles, like the story you tell yourself when you look in the mirror or a deep pattern of self-doubt, require sustained work across days, weeks, or even months. The framework stays exactly the same. You name the outcome: I want to change the internal narrative I hear when I see my reflection. You name a metric: what words do I hear in my head when I look in the mirror right now versus what I want to hear? You tap, check in, and notice whether you are closer to the outcome than you were before. If you are closer, that session was a success, even if you are not all the way there yet. If you are not closer, that is useful information too. It might mean you need to approach the issue from a different angle, address a deeper layer of resistance, or simply give yourself more time. The trap to avoid is treating these longer-term issues with the same urgency as an in-the-moment frustration. You would not expect one gym session to transform your body. Give your tapping practice the same patience. How to Know You Are Done Tapping on an Issue Here is the simple three-step framework you can use every time you sit down to tap. Name the outcome. What do I want to think, feel, believe, or do differently as a result of this tapping session? Name the metric. How will I know I have reached that outcome? What will I notice in my body, my thoughts, or my behavior? Check and move on. When you reach the metric, stop tapping on that issue. If you have not reached it and you have run out of time, note where you are and come back to it next session. This process works whether you are tapping for five minutes on midday frustration or working through a years-long pattern of self-criticism. The scale changes but the structure does not. Frequently Asked Questions Do I always need to get my SUDS level to zero? No. A SUDS level of zero is not required for a successful tapping session. The goal is to reach the functional outcome you set before you started, whether that is being able to concentrate, take a specific action, or shift an emotional pattern. Many highly effective sessions end at a three or four on the SUDS scale. How long should a single tapping session last? There is no fixed time requirement. Some sessions take five minutes and others take thirty. The length depends on the complexity of the issue and the specific outcome you are working toward. Focus on reaching your defined goal rather than watching the clock. What if the emotion comes back after I stop tapping? That depends on whether you completed the action you were tapping toward. If the goal was to send an email and you sent it, the fear returning does not undo the result. For longer-term patterns, returning emotions simply mean there is more work to do in future sessions. How do I choose what to tap on when I have a long list of issues? Start by asking which issue is most affecting your ability to function right now. Tap on the issue that is blocking the most important action or causing the most immediate distress. You do not need to resolve your entire list before you get relief. Can I tap on the same issue every day? Yes, especially for deep or layered issues like self-image, grief, or long-standing patterns. Use the same goal-and-metric framework each session and track your progress over time. You should notice gradual shifts even if individual sessions feel incremental. What is the Subjective Unit of Distress

    10 min
  2. 6 APR

    What to Do When Tapping Is Not Working: A 6-Step Process to Get Unstuck

    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 Frustration About Tapping Not Working The first step is to tap on how you feel about the fact that it did not work. This is the step most people skip, and skipping it keeps them stuck. You sat down with hope. You did the thing. It did not deliver. That produces real emotions: frustration, disappointment, embarrassment, maybe even a sense of betrayal if tapping has worked for you before and suddenly stopped. Those feelings are now sitting on top of whatever you originally wanted to address, and they will interfere with every subsequent round until you clear them. So before you go back to the original issue, do one round on the meta-experience. "Right now I feel...." This is not a detour. It is clearing the road. Step 2: Let Go of the All-or-Nothing Healing Mindset The second step is to acknowledge that healing is a process, not a single event, and to tap on the pressure you are putting on yourself to get it all done in one round. Key insight: "Healing is not all or nothing. It is a process, and it is okay that it is a process." When we unconsciously treat healing as a binary (either I am fixed or I have failed), a single round that produces no visible change feels like proof of failure. That framing creates enormous internal pressure. Tapping on "even though I want this to be done right now, and it is not done, and that feels like failure" releases the grip of that all-or-nothing thinking. It gives you permission to be mid-process. This expectation trap is one of the most common things I see derail people's tapping practice. I dedicated a full episode to it in Episode 674: The Myth of the One Big Tapping Breakthrough, which explores why expecting a single dramatic shift often prevents the steady progress that is actually happening. Step 3: Explore the Hidden Downside of Healing The third step is to ask yourself a question that sounds counterintuitive: what goes wrong if I actually heal this? This is one of the most powerful questions in all of EFT, and the answers can be startling. I was working with a client who had chronic physical pain, and we were making zero progress. When I asked her what would go wrong if the pain healed, her answer broke my heart. Key insight: "She said, 'Everybody who is in my life is in my life to take care of me because of my injury. If I heal, I am no longer injured, and they are all going to go away.'" Of course her system was blocking the healing. At an unconscious level, healing meant losing every meaningful relationship in her life. That is not irrational. That is protective. Once we tapped on that specific fear, the original pain began to shift. Your version of this might be less dramatic, but the principle is the same. If any part of you believes that healing carries a cost (lost identity, lost relationships, lost excuses, new responsibilities), that part will pump the brakes. Asking the question out loud brings the hidden cost into the open where you can tap on it directly. The fear that tapping might actually work is more common than people realize. Episode 668: When You're Afraid Tapping Might Work goes into depth on exactly this dynamic and how to address it. Step 4: Find the Hidden Upside of Staying Stuck The fourth step is the mirror image of Step 3: ask yourself what goes right if you do not heal. The downside of healing and the upside of staying stuck sound like the same question, but they surface different answers. The downside of healing focuses on what you lose. The upside of staying stuck focuses on what you get to keep. For example, maybe healing a pattern of procrastination means you would actually have to finish the project, put it into the world, and face potential criticism. The upside of staying stuck is that you never have to risk that exposure. You get to keep your free time, your safety, and your comfortable routine. This is not a moral judgment. These hidden benefits are real and they are human. Tapping on them directly ("even though part of me likes staying stuck because it means I do not have to put myself out there") is what allows the system to release its grip. Episode 664: Does Staying Stuck Keep You Safe? explores this exact territory in depth, including how the nervous system can interpret staying stuck as a form of protection worth defending. Step 5: Do One Minute of Wordless Tapping After completing the first four steps, set a timer for sixty seconds and tap from point to point without saying anything at all. Wordless tapping is a technique where you simply move through the EFT tapping points (top of head, eyebrow, side of eye, under eye, under nose, chin, collarbone, under arm) in sequence without any setup statement or reminder phrase. You have just given voice to a lot of material: frustration, all-or-nothing thinking, hidden costs, hidden benefits. Now you let your system process it without directing the conversation. Think of it as giving your nervous system a minute to sort through everything you jus

    11 min
  3. 30 MAR

    Why do I feel sad after tapping

    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 unexamined, post-session sadness creates a feedback loop that works against your tapping practice. The pattern looks like this: you tap, you feel sad, you associate tapping with feeling bad, you avoid tapping in the future. This is one of the more subtle ways people stop tapping without ever making a conscious decision to quit. It is not that they decided EFT does not work. It is that their system learned to avoid the discomfort that followed the last session. The avoidance is automatic, not deliberate, which makes it harder to catch. Gene describes this as a subconscious concern that builds quietly. You might not even articulate it as "tapping makes me sad." It might just show up as a vague reluctance, a sense that you do not feel like tapping today, or a pattern of finding reasons to skip sessions. If you have noticed your tapping practice fading without a clear reason, unprocessed sadness from previous sessions may be part of what is happening. How to Tap on Sadness After an EFT Session The most effective approach to post-tapping sadness is to address it directly with more tapping before moving on. Rather than pushing through it, ignoring it, or treating it as a problem, give the sadness its own round. Gene recommends a three-part process for working with this sadness: Acknowledge the emotion. Start tapping on the side of the hand and name what is happening out loud. "After doing that tapping, I feel a lot of sadness." Simple recognition without judgment. Acknowledge why the emotion exists. Connect the sadness to its actual source. "This sadness is here because my system recognizes that I could have healed this sooner. It is pointing to the time and opportunities that were lost." Expand the context without dismissing the feeling. This is not about talking yourself out of sadness. The loss is real. Instead, you are adding information. "Just because healing sooner could have been better, it does not mean healing now is bad. The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is today." If the sadness is still present after one round, simply return to the beginning of the sequence and work through it again. Each pass through tends to soften the intensity. Why You Should Witness Sadness Instead of Reframing It Sadness requires a different approach than many other emotions you might encounter during tapping. With anger, frustration, or fear, reframing and transformation are often appropriate. With sadness, the most powerful thing you can do is simply witness it. "Sadness is something that we don't reframe and transform. Sadness is something that we witness and we acknowledge, which expands the canvas, gives us more context, and helps us to move on." Gene Monterastelli. This distinction is important. Sadness, at its core, is the acknowledgment of something valuable that has been lost. When you try to reframe genuine grief, you are essentially telling yourself that the loss does not matter. But it does matter. The time you spent limited by old beliefs or stuck emotions was real. Honoring that reality is what allows you to move forward. Witnessing sadness means you hold space for it, tap through it, and let it run its course without trying to convince yourself that you should not feel it. The result is not that the sadness disappears instantly. The result is that the sadness no longer has the power to stop your healing process in its tracks. What Post-Tapping Sadness Tells You About Your Healing When you reframe post-tapping sadness as information rather than a problem, something shifts. That sadness is telling you two things: first, that real healing just happened, and second, that a part of you wants more healing and wants it sooner. "Even though it feels like sadness, which can feel bad and heavy and gross, it is a sign that the healing has worked. And it is a sign that there is a part of us that wants more healing and sooner healing." Gene Monterastelli. That is worth sitting with. The very part of you that feels sad is the part that recognizes the value of what just happened and wants to keep going. It is not a saboteur. It is an ally with an uncomfortable delivery method. When you clear the sadness with a round of tapping, two things happen. First, you create space to continue your session and work on what comes next rather than stopping mid-stream. Second, you dissolve the subconscious association between tapping and feeling bad, which protects your long-term willingness to keep tapping. If you want a daily practice that builds this kind of momentum, the 365 Tapping Lessons journal offers a bite-sized structure with a short teaching, one round of tapping, and a reflection question each day, designed to move you from knowing about tapping to actually tapping consistently. Frequently Asked Questions Is it normal to cry after tapping? Yes. Crying after EFT tapping is a common and healthy emotional release. It often signals that stored emotions are surf

    11 min

About

EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) Tapping is a powerful tool for reducing pain, physical trauma, and eliminating limiting beliefs. Each week tapping expert, Gene Monterastelli, and his amazing guests answer the most common (and uncommon) questions on how to get the most out of EFT. If you want to maximize your success with tapping, this is an indispensable resource. The host of the Tapping Q & A Podcast, Gene Monterastelli, works one-on-one with small business owners and entrepreneurs to help them eliminate self-sabotage so that they can take the actions they need to take to be successful, starting with the most important tasks first. Past guests of the show have included Mary Ayers, Dr. Peta Stapleton, Julie Schiffman, Brad Yates, Rick Hanson, Ph.D., Mark Wolynn, Rick Wilkes, Carol Look, Steve Wells, and Jessica Ortner.

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