Are you Kind Enough to Yourself for your New Year Resolutions to Work? Personal Gratitude Tapping

If all emotions stem from either love/joy or fear, which one works for you? Which do you usually generate? How can you love and forgive yourself more?

Are you kind enough to yourself or your New Year’s resolutions to work? Personal Gratitude Tapping.

If all emotions stem from either love/joy or fear, which one works for you? Which do you usually generate? Are you driven to do things by fear of consequences if you don't do them, or simply for the love of doing them?

This interesting topic came out of the tapping during my first fortnightly free tapping group of the year. I run an “all are welcome” drop-in free online group every Friday. There are beginners and newbies to practitioners and trainers; we take a suggestion for a tapping theme from a group participant or several participants, start to tap and see where we go with it. Usually, there is a beautiful synchrony that somehow helps everyone present with different levels or nuances of the same topic. I am so grateful to everyone who brings themselves so authentically and helps create this beautiful energetic environment as we look forward to the weekend.

This week, the first Friday of the New Year, a typical New Year theme arose. We started with some tapping about the challenges of reducing sugar intake to lose weight, as well as how global issues such as low self-esteem and self-discipline play into this, even how people start every January with great intentions, but it never works long-term – to the point that it is hard even to want to try again, even though you understand the importance for your health. Within the tapping, we questioned whether the concept of self-discipline, making yourself do something, was always helpful.

Could you approach the changes you need to make from the point of view of truly wanting to do something just for yourself, because you know it means treating your body well and you and your body deserve it? It would take more than we could do within a 45-minute tapping group to clear blocks that could be in the way of that – but it was helpful to think about it from that angle. Then, starting to tap around this theme led us on to discover how difficult it can often be to say, “I love, accept and forgive myself” and to prioritise yourself.

Self-forgiveness is so important if we are to focus positively on the future, if we are truly to believe that we deserve good things, so that we can do the best for our body and let go of past failures, let go of any sense of disappointment in ourselves. I am with Dr Gabor Maté* all the way on this need to stop recriminations and blaming ourselves, acknowledging that at any given moment in our lives, we are always doing the best we can, given the prevailing circumstances and our own personal history. We need to acknowledge this, tap away past hurts, forgive ourselves for anything we feel we haven’t done well enough or have allowed others to let us believe we haven’t done well enough, or have not been good enough for. We can tap for any disappointment in ourselves, examine and tap away any blocks to self-forgiveness, leaving us in a far more positive place, potentially freed from the grasp of procrastination, believing that we truly deserve good things, more able and ready to attract them to us and to follow through on our good intentions.

*The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness & Healing in a Toxic Culture, Gabor Maté with Daniel Maté, Penguin Vermilion, 2022

This level of tapping could well be quite complex and would be best done either with a practitioner or, if self-tapping, when you have completed a Level 1 and 2 combined EFT course, so that you understand how to get to, and deal with your core issues. At EFT Devon, I plan this year to introduce and lead themed tapping groups, to make personalised tapping guided by an EFTi Trainer more affordable. However, for the time being, this is only available if you can afford 1:1 sessions.

Enter: Personal Gratitude Tapping

But I’m happy to share that there is something everyone can do easily. Gratitude tapping has been around for a good long while in the EFT community. I first heard mention of it years ago – I can’t remember from which of the EFT Founding Masters, Dr Patricia Carrington or Carol Look. You tap with fingertips around the EFT tapping acupressure points, say 5-7 taps at each point, whilst at each point you mention something you are grateful for or something that has given you joy or a sense of compassion, love, humanity. There are endless possibilities but here are just a few suggestions, below the images showing the tapping points, in case you are not already familiar with them.

Side of Hand (SoH):
Thank you for my good night’s sleep
Top of Head (ToH):
Thank you for how cosy it feels when I wake up in my soft warm bed
Eyebrow (EB):
Thank you for the beauty of the sky at sunrise
Side of Eye (SoE):
Thank you for the sound of morning birdsong
Under Eye (UE):
Thank you for my caring family waking safe and well
Nose:
Thank you for all those working to keep the electricity flowing, that makes my home comfortable
Chin:
Thank you for how easily I can connect with friends using my phone
Collarbone (CB):
Thank you for the fresh warmth of my shower
Underarm (UA):
Thank you for the refreshing perfume in my soap

As you can see, these involved just thinking about what you could be grateful for within 30 minutes of waking in the morning. This sets you up positively for a great day.

With Personalised Gratitude Tapping we slightly tweak the formula and thank ourselves at each tapping point, cultivating appreciation of all the good things we do, taking our focus away from its often default setting of what we haven’t done or what we are disappointed in ourselves for.

SoH:
Thank you to me, for getting to bed early enough to get eight hours sleep
ToH:
Thank you to me, for the lovely fresh taste I gave myself when I remembered to clean my teeth
EB:
Thank you to me, for delaying breakfast to complete my intermittent fasting
SoE:
Thank you to me, for making time to talk with my daughter
UE:
Thank you to me, for staying focused to complete my report
Nose:
Thank you to me, for planning my shopping to include nutritious veg
Chin:
Thank you to me, for giving myself a lovely walk in the sunshine
CB:
Thank you to me, for remembering to turn the lights out
UA:
Thank you to me, for baking a cake using almond flour, banana and honey, so I have sugar-free snacks

You can be really quite creative with this and the list of possible things to say must be endless. What if you did this quickly every time you went to the bathroom or tapped all the finger points and did it every time you are standing waiting in a queue, or waiting for the kettle to boil. I will leave it with you to exercise your creativity.

I just love the thought of how you could rewire your brain to self-appreciation and love by doing something as simple as this consistently. Our thoughts seem naturally to go to all the things we haven't done and then we get disappointed with ourselves, but what if we could keep pulling our thoughts out of that until they were naturally retrained, through simple repetition?

We can still keep a to-do list and use it positively, but let's stop beating ourselves up about all there is to do and that we haven't done it yet! We can only do what we can do!

Look after yourself and have a wonderful year,
With love and sparkles ✨✨

Go here to EFT Devon to find out more about ways to try EFT such as:

free taster group tapping session (every other Friday afternoon - UK timezone). Click here to book.
8wk (3.5hrs per week) all the information you need to apply EFT to resolve challenges and neutralise the emotional charge on past specific events - transformational. Also leads on with further mentoring, case studies and assessment work to Certified EFT Practitioner qualification, accredited by EFT International. Click here for more information.