Resource Tapping is a simple, easily learned offshoot of EMDR Therapy for accessing your own innate healing resources. This is a tool that can be helpful for stress, anxiety, depression, or just improving your overall sense of well-being. We all have inherent reservoirs of positive stored experiences – qualities and experiences such as peace, calm, safety, love, wisdom, strength and joy. It is possible to strengthen these internal resources using this technique.
EMDR is used to help resolve traumatic memories with the help of a trained therapist and using special equipment. When using Resource Tapping, you are simply imagining or remembering good qualities or experiences, and then adding bilateral stimulation. Bilateral stimulation in this case means tapping on the right and then the left side of your body back and forth. You can do this for yourself, or you can do it with someone else by guiding them through the instructions below and then doing the tapping for them.
Instructions for “Tapping In” Peace and Calm
1. Find a comfortable place to sit or lie, where you will not be disturbed.
2. Close your eyes. Take several long, slow breaths, fill the belly, and exhale slowly. Let yourself relax.
3. Imagine a peaceful, calm place. This can be someplace you’ve been or someplace in your imagination, like a beach or a meadow. Once you have a location, bring up as much sensory detail of the place as you can: sights, sounds, smells, sensations, and the emotional feeling that goes along with being there. You might even imagine the time of year, the time of day, and what you are wearing.
4. When you have a sense of the place, begin to tap on your knees right-left, right-left. The taps can be quick or slow, just find a speed that feels best to you. Do this 6 to 12 times (tapping right and left equals one time). (Alternatively you can do ‘butterfly taps,’ crossing your arms in front of your chest and tapping your right shoulder with your left hand and your left shoulder with your right hand.)
5. Pause and check in with yourself and see how you are feeling.
6. You may keep tapping as long as it feels good and positive
The whole process should take only a few minutes. Repeat as often as you like. (If you have any problem following the above instructions above, look up “Laurel Parnell Resource Tapping” on Youtube for video instructions.) Sometimes the tapping may take you into other kinds of memories and thoughts. If this happens, stop and return to the positive image. It’s best to do short sets and check in with yourself to make sure you are still feeling the good feelings.
“Tapping In” Nurturing, Protection or Guidance Figures
You can use the same instructions explained above to ‘tap in’ figures that symbolize nurturing, protection and guidance. These figures can be real people from your life or imaginary figures from books, cartoons, movies or TV. They can also be pets, animals, mythic or spiritual figures. What’s important is that they evoke a positive feeling inside of you when you think about them and that you are able to stay with that feeling for a few moments.
You’re looking for an uncomplicated, positive feeling. It’s probably best not to choose figures that evoke difficult feelings, like someone from your past who could be alternately loving or raging. For example, a dog or lion might be a protective figure, a loving grandmother might be a nurturing figure, Buddha or Albert Einstein might be a wisdom figure.
Follow the instructions above for a calm and peaceful place, but substitute your imagined nurturing, protective, or guidance figure for the peaceful place. Get some kind of internal felt sense of the figure before proceeding with the tapping.
If you want to find out more about this powerful and easy-to-use technique, you can find more detailed instructions and many other applications in the book “Tapping In” by Laurel Parnell.