507 - The EFT Tapping Technique That Lowers Stress with Nick Ortner

0:00Marie Forleo:Welcome to another episode of the Marie Forleo podcast and MarieTV, the place to be to create a business and life you love. So let me give you a little context for today's episode. A couple years back, Josh and I were here in Los Angeles and unfortunately we got hit in a pretty bad car accident. Someone ran a stop sign. We got T-boned. Our car was actually pushed underneath another car. Now, thank goodness we were both able to walk away from that accident. We were banged up. We were bruised. The car was completely totaled. But I will tell you, on an emotional level, I was not okay. My nervous system was fried.

0:35Marie Forleo:I found myself really afraid to get back into the car. I didn't think that I'd be able to get on my bike again. Even walking around the neighborhood for a bit of time was a struggle. Enter a friend of mine. His name is Nick Ortner, and he happens to be an expert in a healing modality called EFT, emotional freedom technique, also known as tapping. In the interview that you're about to see, we're going to walk through a tool that I think that everyone should add to their toolkit, especially at a time like this. We're going to do a demonstration. We're going to talk about exactly what it is. And I just think that it's something that can really serve you and serve people that you know.

1:15Marie Forleo:It's completely free. It's completely natural. And it's very, very effective. There's some science behind it as well. So I really hope that you not only listen and watch this episode, but do the practice and share it with people you love. Enjoy. Nick, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us today. Hi, Marie. I mean, last time we were together, it was also on Skype, yet I'm not far outside of New York. So like next time we got to get in studio together. Yes, we will. Yes, we will. Which speaks to the context of why we were so excited to do this together today. I always am looking for different ways that I can share tools that can help and you've been doing what's known as EFT we're going to talk about what that is for years now and I also just wanted to take a moment to thank you for what you do because back in 2013 which is when we recorded another interview you know Josh and I had been hit in a car accident someone ran a stop sign and my nervous system was just off the chain and tapping and you, you really helped me because I was extremely afraid to get behind the wheel again.

2:23Marie Forleo:Having trouble riding my bike, it was just, I could feel everything was off. And I know so many people live with different levels of stress and anxiety on a normal basis. So we're going to walk through that. And the other reason I wanted to have you on, you know, you and I have been friends for a while and I just love how committed you and your team are to being of service. You know, you're a CEO, you're a business person. We're going to talk a little bit later about how the tools that we're going to walk through today, how you have them available for six months on your app for anyone who's in the healthcare profession.

2:56Yep.

2:57Marie Forleo:We'll get into that later. And then also some incredible free tools for all of us at a time like this. So we're going to get into that a little bit later. And before we get into a full tapping session and a tutorial, can you take us back to the foundation and really tell us for anyone watching or listening right now who's unfamiliar with EFT or tapping, just how do we define it? What is it? Yeah, absolutely. So EFT is emotional freedom techniques. We call it tapping as a general term because we are physically tapping on end points of meridians. There's all these points in our body that are points of conductivity.

3:33And what the latest research shows is that when we tap on these end points of meridians while focusing on the stress, the anxiety, the overwhelm, the trauma, the thing that is running through our minds, the overwhelmed nervous system, we send a calming signal to the amygdala in the brain. And a lot of your listeners and viewers will know the amygdala is that fight, flight, or freeze response center. It's a part of us that when something happens, when you were in that car accident, that amygdala fired and it fired for good reason to keep you safe, to react, to fight, to flee. The challenge is when the car accident's over and the amygdala keeps firing, And that our brain gets trained for good reason, because we've been trained for tens of hundreds of thousands of years to look out for that tiger, to look out for the bear in the woods.

4:20You know, I joke that affirmations and positive thinking, all of our ancestors were probably really negative, looking for what's wrong at all times, right? Trying to stay alive. Like the paranoid ones lived. You know, the guy meditating on the hill saying positive affirmations, he got eaten by the tiger, right? Not 100%, but you get the point. We have this negativity bias. We have this part of us that is trying to keep us safe at all times. What the tapping does as we acknowledge these fears, if we go through that accident, the stress, the trauma, the anxiety, we send that calming signal to the amygdala.

4:57The latest research is coming in fast and furious on it. I just saw a study that crossed my desk that showed it was actually a replication study, which is great. A replication study, for those of you that don't know, is, hey, someone did a study. Let's see if we can do it again. Because a lot of really big things that you read about, they go to do a replication study and they can't make that same result. Yeah, totally. Replicate it, right? It's a problem in science. Like, how do we get this result and aren't able to replicate it? So in this study, there's three groups. The first one did group tapping for an hour.

5:29So we'll have a little experience together. We'll all tap together as a group. So they did tapping for an hour. The second group did psychoeducation. So they talked about stress and anxiety and overwhelm. They learned about the body and all positive stuff. The third group read magazines for an hour. Okay. And they did salivary cortisol. So you spit in a little tube, you see the cortisol, the stress hormone that is flowing through our bodies right now. For some people right now, as they're listening to this, it's sky high through the roof. Other people, it's down lower. They did it before and after.

6:03The tapping group showed a 43 % decrease in cortisol in one hour. Stunning drop in numbers. The psychoeducation group showed a 19 % decrease. And what I love about that, it shows that, because tapping isn't a competition. It's not like, oh, do tapping instead of cognitive behavioral therapy. It's the best cognitive behavioral therapists out there bring tapping into their practice at the appropriate moment because they know that when we bring our bodies in, we can affect that much more change. So 43 % versus 19%, great. And then my favorite is the magazine group up 2%. So, you know, but then there's a point when you're just jacking up your cortisol, you're going into fear mode.

6:45And then when we talk later about entrepreneurship and business, you cannot be an entrepreneur in fear mode. You can't run a business in fear mode. You can do it in smart mode, but not fear mode.

6:54Marie Forleo:Yep. I love this. So, okay. So for folks listening, right, even if they hear the term EFT, emotional freedom technique, or they hear something like tapping and they're seeing you doing this if they're watching this on YouTube, for those people that might think it's like skeptical or woo-woo, can you take us back to when you discovered this? Because it's not like, Nick, you just read a book and you're like, oh, I'm all bought in and let me just make this my business and career. Yeah. I wake up every morning thinking it's woo-woo. You know, I wake up every morning thinking skeptical. And every testimonial that I get from someone, I go, really?

7:29It's still, you know, someone writes, oh, I had 30 years of back pain that went away yesterday. Like, come on. You know, it's like too good to be true stuff. Yes. But yeah, so I found it for myself in 2003. I started using it with friends and family. The running joke at the time was, don't say anything is wrong around Nick because he's just going to make you tap on it. It was like, oh, you have a headache? Great. Let's do it. It was just like, I was so into it. Well, let me ask you this.

7:56Marie Forleo:Did you, were you just on a personal development journey? Like what made you seek this out or what was happening in your own life that that's, I was on a personal, yeah, I was on a personal development journey. I believe that my first introduction to it was with Tony Robbins and Tony's a big fan of tapping. It was a leadership conference in San Diego. He wasn't there for the whole event. He came to do an hour. He just demonstrated the tapping. And then I took, oh, that demonstration and, you know, went and researched from there. But that's a wonderful full circle because, you know, he's a mutual friend and he's a big supporter of tapping and all the humanitarian work we're doing around it.

8:32So it's like, if I really think back, I mean, I can see him on stage demonstrating it. I think that was my first little, oh, okay, there's something here. He had been doing it for years already. And then I just started using it with friends and family. And in 2007, decided to make a documentary film about tapping with my little sister, Jessica, one of my best friends, Nick Polizzi, who's gone on to make other films and other docuseries. and you know with no credit cards well with only credit cards and credit lines no money we bought forty thousand dollars worth of camera equipment we set out around the country interviewing experts like jack canfield and cheryl richardson and bob proctor and a bunch of doctors and therapists who are already using tapping and then we took 10 people from around the world together for a four-day event and that's the film that we released a year later really a budget film edited ourselves put together ourselves scraped by ourselves and it's been the last you know 13 12 years now just spreading that message day after day yeah so from your experience so for

9:35Marie Forleo:anyone listening now who this is their first introduction yeah if we're feeling fearful if we're feeling stressed or any uh level of anxiety or panic from your experience this is just it's a tool for our toolkit that can support us right in reducing that it's a tool for our toolkit It's a fantastic complement to meditation. When we tap, it allows the body to calm down. I mean, think about that 43 % decrease in cortisol. That is a physiological marker showing very clearly something happened here because we are feeling the feelings. We are sending that calming signal to the amygdala, and then we're letting it go.

10:14And that's why you can do that and then go meditate. I got a text from a nurse the other day. She's a nurse at Yale. She's a local friend of ours and has done tapping along the way. And she sends me attacks. Her husband has coronavirus, was sick with it for like two weeks. She's got two young daughters. She's still working. She's taking care of the kids, taking care of the husband, being a nurse, just madness. And she woke up at 2 in the morning having a panic attack, like 2 a.m., middle of a panic attack. She pulled up the app. We have a stop a panic attack meditation there. It's free. And she did that three times through and then went back to sleep.

10:55So it's in those moments when we are just beyond overwhelmed, when our nervous system, like what you were saying, your nervous system was fried. We've got to bring in these physical components. And it's not just me saying it. Not only is the research coming in, but psychiatrists, psychologists, medical doctors. I was just texting with a pediatrician from Columbia University who uses it with her people. Like people are realizing that we have to bring in this physical component to therapy, to talking about things.

11:26Marie Forleo:Yes. And that's why we're going to do it. And you know, for now, I want to actually, let's do it. Can you walk us through very specifically the tapping points and then let's do an actual demo for someone like, oh my goodness, I want this. Let's do it right now. Let's do it. And you know, I've been doing a lot with the breath and the lungs and constricted breathing because there's a lot of anxiety there. So what's great about tapping is we can focus on the emotion, but we can also have the physical component to it. Great. All right. All right. So if you, if it's safe to do so, if you're not driving in the car, uh, just close your eyes and take a gentle breath in and let it go.

12:06And we're going to do another one. And I want you to notice just how full your breath is. So is it full and going down deep into your belly, relaxed and open or is it tight and constricted and up high in your chest so go ahead and breathe in and just notice and as you tune into that breath just tune into all the anxiety that you might be feeling how much anxiety is in your breath how much stress are you feeling right now and give it a number on a scale of zero to 10. So on the stress, the anxiety, the overwhelm about everything that's happening, just give it a number.

12:53Marie Forleo:And would this number be between one and 10? Yes. Zero to 10. Absolutely. Zero to 10. Excellent. And pick whatever number and then we'll gently open our eyes and do some tapping. So I'm going to lead you through. Marie, will you be my echo? Oh, of course. And does it matter what side we're going on. Nope. Whatever feels comfortable for you. And you can do eyes opened or closed if you know the points and you like to go deeper and close them. So we're starting to tap on the side of the hand. It's called the karate chop point. It's below the pinky on the outside of the hand. So you're taking four fingers of one hand and tapping gently, whatever hand feels comfortable.

13:28Marie Forleo:And should you switch hands? By the way, I'm going to be the annoying person asking all the questions. I know that my audience is going to be like, what are we doing? How do I do it? Am I doing it wrong. Yeah. You don't need to switch hands, whatever feels comfortable for you. Great. So we're tapping gently. We're tuning into that breath and repeat after me. Even though I feel so much anxiety. Even though I feel so much anxiety. About everything that's going on. About everything that's going on. I choose to relax and feel safe now. I choose to relax and feel safe now. And we're still on the side of the hand tapping gently, even though this feels so overwhelming.

14:07Marie Forleo:Even though this feels so overwhelming. I choose to relax and feel safe now. I choose to relax and feel safe now. And one more time, still tapping on the side of the hand. Even though I'm holding so much stress in my body. Even though I'm holding so much stress in my body. It's safe to let it go now. It's safe to let it go now. Now we're going to tap through the points. The first point is the eyebrow. Inside of the eyebrow, right where the hair ends and it meets the nose. You can use two fingers of one hand, the other hand, or both hands. The meridians run down both sides of the body. And you're just tapping gently and tuning in to that stress and anxiety.

14:48All we're doing in this moment is we're actually looking to fire that amygdala because we want to counteract it with that calming signal. So just tapping gently and breathing gently. Now we'll move to the side of the eye. It's not at the temple. A little further in, right on the bone. Again, one side or both sides. Don't worry about getting it perfect. Take a moment to think about just how overwhelmed you are. There is so much going on, and that's okay.

15:19Marie Forleo:There's so much going on, and that's okay. Under the eye, right on the bone. It's safe to feel this anxiety. It's safe to feel this anxiety. Under the nose. and it's safe to begin to let it go. And it's safe to begin to let it go. I hope everyone listening to the podcast right now comes and watches the visual. Just had to say. Under the mouth, you're going to go above the chin, below the lip, and that little crease in there, we're tapping with two fingers, tapping gently. It's safe to feel this anxiety. It's safe to feel this anxiety. For the collarbone point, feel for the two little bones of the collarbone.

15:59Just go about an inch right below it. You can tap with all 10 fingers of both hands. It's safe to feel this anxiety.

16:07Marie Forleo:It's safe to feel this anxiety. Underneath the arm, three inches underneath the armpit, either side of the body, right on the broad line for women. It's safe to feel all the stress. It's safe to feel all the stress. And we'll move back to the top of the head and it's safe to let it go. And it's safe to let it go. Moving back to the eyebrow. It's safe to breathe deeply. It's safe to breathe deeply. Side of the eye, I acknowledge all my stress.

16:40Under the eye, and I begin to feel safe in my body.

16:48Under the nose, the more I relax. Under the mouth, the more my body heals. the more my body heals collarbone the more i relax the more i relax

17:04Marie Forleo:under the arm the more my body heals the more my body heals top of the head letting go now letting go now and you can gently stop tapping and take a breath in and let it go. So that was two very quick rounds. And now we tune back in. So we say, first the breath. So go ahead and just take a breath. I know, you know, I tapped earlier this morning, but I've had a busy day. And even in that two rounds, I felt my breath deep and down into my stomach. So just tune into that. And then also notice that anxiety, the stress, the overwhelm? It was a 10 or nine or an eight. What's the new number? What came up?

17:47And the tapping process is continuing to do that. So we did two rounds for demonstration. A lot of the meditations on our app are anywhere between eight and 12 minutes to go a little bit deeper. And then we, what happens with the tapping process also too, is that we start doing it and we think we're worried about one thing, but all of a sudden we realized, Oh, you know what? It's really this thing that I'm worried about. So it's almost like self-therapy where it lets our unconscious mind give us the truth about what we're feeling, what's happening, and helps us to let go.

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18:58Marie Forleo:One of the things I love about this too, and why I was so excited to have another conversation with you, especially right now, is this is a tool that anyone can use at any time. It's free. It is your own body. You can do it anywhere you find yourself. I'm curious about the meridian points. Yes. So how do we know that these things exist? Yeah. So now they have these little machines, devices that measure electricity throughout the body, and you can put it up to these different points and shows that they conduct more electricity. So we're getting more of that hard science behind it. The reality is our bodies are very electrical.

19:42We don't think about our bodies as electrical because I feel like we're very conditioned to the biological, right? Like I take a drink of something and then it's digested and there's like a very biological process. When we take medicine, it is a pill, right? Supplements are a pill. So everything is very biological. but our body's fully electric, right? Our brain is nothing but electricity, right? Like our nerve signals are electrical signals. So that's what we're tapping into. We're tapping into that system of electrical signals.

20:13Marie Forleo:I want to also ask more about the scripts. So, you know, when I was talking with folks on Team Forleo about us doing this interview today, one of the people on my team, she said, I noticed that there's often a script, like, you know, like I completely love and accept myself. Like, even though I'm feeling X, Y, or Z, I completely love and accept myself. Can you talk to us a little bit about the power of language and how speaking things out loud, like is speaking it out loud necessary from your experience? Yeah. It's not necessary. Like I'll do a lot of tapping myself in my mind. It can certainly have a power, right?

20:48Cause sometimes when we just say something, I mean, I've tapped with people and they've said, you know, even though whatever I love and accept myself. And just the second they speak those words, they burst into tears. The second they speak the words, I am enough, they burst into tears. So there's certainly a power in that vocalizing of that language. A lot of people struggle, especially in our community with the whole, why are we looking at the negative? Right? So it's like they either... I did, by the way.

21:16Marie Forleo:I want to raise my hand to that because I was like, it's not making, it wasn't making sense. So yeah, please keep going. Yeah. So I have the best answer in the world for that. And it comes from our dear departed friend, Louise Hay. So Louise Hay is the queen of affirmations. And she's been doing nothing but positive thinking for decades, bringing us Hay House and all her work. And I got to sit down with her a couple of years ago. And we had been doing some tapping together. And I said, Louise, why are we tapping on the negative? You're tapping on the negative. Why are you doing this? And she looked at me sweetly.

21:49I can see so clearly she had her shoes off, her feet on the couch, you know, it's like super doing her thing at the age of 80 or whatever it was. And she says, honey, if you want to clean a house, you have to see the dirt. And I was like, oh, like, hey, coming in strong. I didn't even prep her with that question. There was no prep. It was just like, it was, it was, we're going. And And that's what we're doing. We're saying, yeah, I'm anxious. I'm angry. I'm sad. I'm fearful of public speaking. I am traumatized from that car accident. This is the truth of how I feel. And the power in that is this is the truth of how I feel.

22:31I acknowledge it. And when I do it with the tapping, I can let it go. You know, if you had come to me after your car accident and I had said to you, oh, I got a great idea. So let's just do some affirmations. I am safe. I am safe. I am safe. Right?