In January 2020 I had a small but persistent voice in my head telling me that it was time to get back to regular meditation. I’ve gone through periods in my life going back to my teens where meditation was an invaluable resource, but it had been several years since I had let my practice go. Even though my intuition was preparing me for what was to come with the pandemic, with that voice as well as some premonitions, I am amazed at how well as a whole we personally have navigated the last year and a half. I credit a lot of that resilience to my tools – EFT, Matrix Reimprinting and meditation.
Meditation aka mindfulness has been in the spotlight in the last decade and there are many studies confirming its benefits.
Here are just a few:
- Meditation helps with mind wandering and lack of attention which we all suffer from to some extent.
- Has been shown to slow cognitive decline and improve mental quickness
- Enables increased compassion for yourself and others
- Assists in self-control and reduces triggers related to addictive behaviors
- Reduces blood pressure
- The ability to reduce pain, improve quality of life and decrease symptoms of depression in people with chronic pain
- Lessens symptoms of anxiety and depression
(Notice how all this can be said about EFT as well)
I know that there are many “tapping meditations” out there. I choose not to use them as I feel the same way as I do about tapping scripts and tapping videos – nothing can target my own inner experience better than my own inner experience. The other obstacle I found was that no matter how softly or slowly I tapped while trying to simultaneously meditate, I just couldn’t go very deep in my process as there was still a part of my attention and body directing the tapping. I just find it distracting from the inner work of focused awareness. I ended my meditation this morning with the idea of giving you some guidance about how to effectively use EFT to prepare, enhance and assist you in creating a regular meditation practice instead.
What meditation style do I use? Over the years I have found some approaches have resonated for me at certain periods of my life and when I am not inspired anymore, I move on to something else that does. After a remote viewing training by Stephan Schwartz, I decided to just focus on a single mantra. I chose one that I really felt called to, which was a simple, “Everything is as it should be.” If you’d have told me that I could sit and meditate on that every day for the better part of two years I wouldn’t have believed it, but I did, and it was powerful. Last year I did Dr. Joe Dispenza’s hour long meditation. This year I have rediscovered Tara Brach’s guided meditations and many guided mindfulness audios. Last year I wanted the continuity of discovering layers of the same meditation while this year I am finding joy in doing a different one almost every day. Whereas last year an hour was almost not a long enough period, this year I decide each morning how long I want to do it for that day and that usually ranges from 20 to 40 minutes long. I have come to a place of trusting my process. I do not share experiences as a guide or suggestion as much as an invitation for you to enjoy the journey to figuring out what works best for you!
Here are tapping prompts/inquiries that can help you:
- How do you feel about creating time for your meditation practice? Establishing or maintaining a regular practice might require conversations with family, partners, roommates, or coworkers about giving you some uninterrupted time. Imagine creating those specific conversations about setting clear boundaries. Tap on any feelings of hesitancy, worry, stress etc.
- How do you feel about starting or resuming a regular practice? What are you concerned about or have any fear about might happen? For some it could be shame or guilt that you’ve “failed’ before and you won’t keep up your practice this time either. Imagine starting your practice and tap on whatever comes up for you.
- What is the possible downside of meditating? Finish this sentence, “If I start meditating I am afraid that I’ll _____?” Do you feel that you might get too chill or calm and lose your edge? Are you concerned that it would make you too sensitive, compassionate, empathetic? These concerns may be rooted in your past personal history of times when you or others made you feel that being sensitive, compassionate, or empathetic were a weakness, so write those down and tap on them.
- The quiet mind can be challenging or even triggering if you have a history of trauma and so past attempts might have either kept you from trying or feel like your mind cannot get quiet and so you decided “I can’t meditate.”. If this is the case for you, please work with a trauma-trained certified EFT practitioner first before you give up altogether on meditating.
- Before you sit down to practice meditating, use EFT to start to settle yourself. Tap on any concerns you have about your day. Tap on specific things you are stressed out about. Go back to numbers 1, 2, and 3 to see if those or anything else is coming to mind before you begin and tap until you feel calm.
- Meditation is a practice and a skill, similar to EFT. I don’t expect someone to be proficient at tapping when they have come out of a level 1-2 workshop, and many don’t start to be skillful until they are 30-40 sessions into their certification journey. Meditation is no different. After your next meditation session. tap on how you feel you did (if you are less than satisfied about your attempt). Meditation is the art of noticing when the mind has strayed and then bringing it back. Mental contortion happens when your mind wanders and you start berating yourself for having strayed, which can easily take you on a diversionary mind trip for a while and low and behold your meditation time is over. So be gentle with yourself and I believe that even if you have fallen off the meditation bicycle in the past, try using EFT to get back up again, it’s worth the effort!
Photo by Colton Sturgeon
