They are two small words that can make all the difference to a round of tapping.
Alone they don’t seem very powerful, but alongside a negative emotion or experience they are so much more effective.
If you are trying out tapping alone, then you might be tempted to skip the set-up phrase, not include it, thinking it unimportant. However, the set-up is probably one of the most important aspects of EFT.
I know this, I’ve been a practitioner for about four years now. And yet this is where I recently made an error when tapping alone and it took me moments to discover what was missing from my tapping rounds.
I had had a shock and my SUDS (subjective units of distress) were not shifting. My response to that shock had taken me by surprise, and I had simply launched myself into rounds of tapping, sobbing my way through the words of my feelings. In fact I was getting worse.
I stopped tapping, drew breath, blew my nose and wiped away my tears. I stood up and shook my body out. I began to question my process - I had tapped all the right points, including the fingers, I had backed my words with emotions.
And then it dawned on me that I was so neuro-dysregulated when I started, I had simply forgotten to use a set-up statement and missed the ‘Even though’ out completely!
‘The cause of all negative emotions is a disruption in the body’s energy system’. Gary Craig
It is so important in EFT to acknowledge the negative emotions, with a set-up statement, and give them space to be what they are.
Checking my SUDS level, I started again; ‘Even though I’m feeling…… I deeply and completely accept myself, love and forgive myself’. Repeating the set-up three times whilst tapping the side of hand, followed up by repeating the reminder phrase whilst tapping on all the EFT points.
After a few rounds (and some surprising things came up) I was back down to a 0 on the SUDS scale, and feeling a whole lot better.
There will always be moments where we are caught off guard, but I hope my experience will help you to remember to use the set-up statement correctly when applying tapping to your own routine.
Betsy Muller says
Thank you for this very important reminder about the simplicity and power of the setup language. It’s simple to remember and makes such a difference once it becomes automatic.
Amanda Vallis says
That’s interesting and good to know. I haven’t done the tapping without the setup statement but the time could have come where I might have so I’ll rest assured that I need to always include it. Thanks for sharing.
Grainne O'Neill says
It is good to know! We can get into bad habits when we are used to doing something and that’s why having a strong foundation to your tapping is so important. Thank you for your comment.