How EFT Tapping Helped Me Release an Emotional Trigger and Let Go of the Stories My Mind Was Creating
The Moment That Triggered Something
I want to share a recent real-life experience of how I used EFT tapping myself.
I think it’s important that people know I use this work in my own life all the time.
Even after many years of practising EFT, emotions still arise.
The difference is that I now have a way to work with them.
Recently I ran a workshop at Soul Wellness.
After the workshop, I sent a follow-up email to participants with some resources, including access to my Rapid Stress Release tapping series and a discount on sessions.
A couple of days later, I also checked in with everyone in a small WhatsApp group I had created for the workshop, simply to see how people were doing after the session.
For several days there was silence.
Part of me knew people were probably busy or still processing the experience. That often happens after emotional work.
But another part of me noticed something deeper being triggered.
An old wound.
When We Start Filling in the Blanks
As humans, when there is silence or uncertainty, we often fill in the blanks.
And when we do that, we tend to fill them in from parts of ourselves that may still carry old emotional pain.
In this case I noticed a feeling arise that I wasn’t being appreciated for the effort I had put in – creating the workshop, preparing the follow-up resources, and sharing tools that come from many years of my work and experience.
Then I noticed the meaning my mind was creating.
- maybe it wasn’t very good
- maybe it didn’t land
- maybe I’m not worthy or good enough
Even though I knew this was an old wound being activated, it still felt painful.
Another Layer of Vulnerability
There was also another layer present at the time.
Three weeks earlier I had lost my beloved dog Bonnie. She had been a constant source of unconditional love in my life.
Losing her left me feeling more vulnerable than I had fully realised.
When we lose a source of love that has been steady and comforting, it can make other emotional triggers feel stronger.
So grief was moving through me as well.
Where This Pattern Began
For me this also connects to early experiences in my life.
My dad left when I was very young, and my mum was extremely busy trying to keep life going. She didn’t always have the time or emotional capacity to reassure me that I was okay.
Later in the school system I often felt I wasn’t doing very well either.
It took many years before I eventually found my confidence and discovered what I was capable of.
Somewhere along the way a belief had formed that can still occasionally be triggered.
Maybe I’m not worthy enough.
A Golden Opportunity
Over the years I’ve learned something important.
When something like this happens now, I recognise it as a trigger.
And because I know I have the tools to work with it, I often see these moments as a golden opportunity for healing.
It may sound strange, but sometimes when a strong emotional reaction appears, part of me becomes curious — even a little excited — because I know that when I clear it, something inside me will expand.
That doesn’t mean the feelings aren’t real.
I can still feel deep distress when something like this surfaces.
But I also know that if I stay with it and work with it, I will come through the other side feeling more like myself again.
So, I Did What I Always Encourage Others to Do
I tapped. I spent time tapping on:
- the doubts
- the discomfort
- the stories my mind was creating
I also followed the feelings deeper and tapped on earlier memories connected to not feeling appreciated or seen when I was younger.
When we follow the emotional thread, we often find it connects to earlier experiences where we made meaning about ourselves.
At some point along the way I had made those experiences mean that perhaps I wasn’t worthy enough.
Tapping helped me gently release the emotional charge around all of this.
Emotionally, physically and spiritually I began to feel lighter and calmer.
I also tapped on the grief connected to Bonnie, allowing myself to feel that loss more fully.
As the emotional charge softened, something very gentle became clear.
The love I felt from Bonnie hadn’t disappeared. It had simply changed form.
And I realised something quite beautiful.
The constant source of love we seek isn’t limited to one place or one being.
It can come from many places – including ourselves. It can be felt in:
- the breeze
- the flowers
- the food we eat
- the quiet experience of being alive
That realisation brought a deep sense of peace.
The Shift
The next day I almost didn’t go into Soul Wellness because I still felt a little tender around it all.
But I decided to go anyway. And I’m glad I did.
Something had shifted.
I felt relaxed, grounded and comfortable being myself.
I noticed moments where I might previously have looked for reassurance or acknowledgement, but instead I simply felt quietly at ease.
And then something interesting happened.
Two of the participants who had worked together in a small trio during the workshop reached out to me.
One shared that she felt much better after the session and was very grateful.
The other said she had gained a lot from the workshop and would like to do further work with me.
In that moment it became clear. Nothing had actually gone wrong. The workshop had helped people.
What had happened was simply that an old emotional pattern had been activated, and EFT helped me process it rather than getting stuck in it.
Sometimes the path becomes clearer once we release the emotional weight we are carrying.
What EFT Continues to Teach Me
This is something I see again and again in my work.
When we fill in the blanks, we are often filling them in from an unhealed wound.
But when we tap and release the emotional stress around a situation, something very important happens.
We begin to see more clearly.
For me, tapping always brings me back to the same place.
The truth.
When we let go of emotional stress and old patterns, the truth naturally reveals itself.
And the truth is often much kinder and more balanced than the story our mind first created.
Why This Matters
This is very much at the heart of the work I guide people through in my Just Be You six-week healing journey, where we gently work with the patterns and emotional wounds that stop us from feeling fully comfortable being ourselves.
Because the more we release those old layers, the more we return to who we truly are.
A Final Reflection
One other realisation came from this experience that feels important to share.
I feel genuinely grateful to the participants from that workshop, because in their own way they also contributed to my healing.
Even though I was there as the trainer and facilitator, we are all human and we are all on our own healing journeys.
Healing is never a one-way process.
We support each other in ways we may not even realise.
Having the tools to work with emotional triggers doesn’t mean we never experience them.
It simply means that when something surfaces, we have the opportunity to meet it with awareness and compassion.
And when we do that, something very freeing happens.
We become less caught in worrying about how others might judge us and less inclined to fill in the blanks with old stories.
Instead, we become more able to simply be ourselves.
For that, I feel deeply grateful.
If You Would Like to Explore EFT
If you would like to experience tapping for yourself, you are welcome to access my Rapid Stress Release EFT Video Series.
These short guided sessions are designed to help calm the nervous system and release emotional stress.
