The Tapping Solution for Weight Loss & Body Confidence (18 page)

How often do we feel grateful for all that the body is doing for us? For many, the answer is never.

Most of us have spent so much time and energy judging and criticizing the body we have that we’ve forgotten to notice how hard it works to support us. The reason tapping is such a powerful healing modality is that it releases the stress that interferes with the body’s ability to do what it was designed to do—recover and heal. The challenge is that when we have unconscious programs that teach us it’s not safe to let go of the weight, the body will follow the mind’s signals and hold on to weight in an attempt to protect itself.

Your Body, Your Weight, and Your Safety

When we look at the body and the unconscious mind’s primal instinct to keep us safe, we often overlook the possibility that holding on to extra weight can be one way in which the body is trying to protect us. Jon Gabriel lost 220 pounds by first addressing the underlying emotions that were causing his body to hold on to weight. In
The Gabriel Method
he describes this connection:

If you are currently carrying extra weight, then your body believes it is not safe to lose weight; it is fighting for your life. When your body believes that it is safe to lose weight—or better, safer to be thin—your body will
force
you to lose weight. You will be working with your body’s natural laws instead of violating them. Weight loss will then become automatic, effortless, and inevitable.

Since publishing his book, Gabriel has explained how tapping contributes to this process:

At least 80 percent of the people I work with who are overweight have emotional or past trauma challenges contributing to their weight gain. Tapping is one of the simplest, most effective tools anyone can use to immediately start seeing results.

To look more closely at how weight may be keeping you safe, let’s explore some of the issues that may make your unconscious mind see weight as a source of safety—and conversely, weight loss as a threat.

When Weight Protects You from a Person or Relationship

Weight often acts as a physical barrier between us and some person or group that makes us feel unsafe. That was the pattern Carol discovered with her own weight. For years her job had required her to move to a new city within the U.S. every few years. She made an interesting connection: she realized that the closer she moved to her mother, the more weight she gained.

Carol’s mother was what she called an “energy vampire.” Through tapping, Carol realized that she didn’t need to focus on her weight but instead needed to tap on her anger toward her mother. Her body had been using weight as a protective barrier, a way to keep Carol from being drained emotionally by her mother.

By clearing her anger with tapping, Carol began to feel strong enough to say no to her mother. It was a huge breakthrough. By liberating herself from her mother’s controlling energy, she realized she no longer needed or wanted to use food to numb her feelings toward her mother. She also didn’t need the weight to shield her from her mother.

Ask yourself:
Is there a relationship in my life that I feel I need protection from?
If so, how does that relationship make you feel? Give that feeling a number on the scale of 0 to 10, and then begin tapping.

Even though this relationship with _____ makes me feel _____, I love and accept myself and choose to stand strong in my power.

When Weight Protects You from Facing Important Challenges

It was her marriage, not her weight, that most needed Tara’s attention. She was terrified that losing weight would give her enough confidence to leave her husband, and she felt overwhelmed by the idea of starting over. Having already been through one divorce, she didn’t want to go through another one.

When Tara focused her daily tapping on the sadness she felt around the state of her marriage, she realized that she wasn’t willing to give up on it. The weight, she quickly saw, was just her body’s way of getting her attention. Once she took action and began to focus on repairing and rebuilding her marriage, the weight seemed to fall off. She lost 16 pounds in two months and ended up at the exact weight she had been when she married her husband.

Take a moment to ask yourself: “If I wasn’t busy obsessing about my weight, what would I have to face? What emotions do I feel when I think about that part of my life?” Feel free to write them down and rate the intensity on a scale of 0 to 10. Try beginning your tapping with the setup statement “Even though I’m scared to face this … I love and accept myself and I am safe … “ Repeat it three times while tapping on the karate chop point, and get more specific about your tapping target as you tap.

Eyebrow:
This thing I don’t want to face …

Side of Eye:
I don’t feel like I can handle it.

Under Eye:
I would be overwhelmed …

Under Nose:
So I ignore it …

Chin:
By blaming my body.

Collarbone:
This area in my life …

Under Arm:
That I don’t want to see …

Top of Head:
It feels like too much.

When the intensity of your initial tapping target(s) is 5 or lower, you can move on to the positive.

Eyebrow:
I have everything within me now …

Side of Eye:
To address this area in my life with love.

Under Eye:
I don’t need to find the solution …

Under Nose:
I just need to seek the first step.

Chin:
I take this one step at a time.

Collarbone:
It is safe for me to face these emotions.

Under Arm:
I have patience with this process …

Top of Head:
And faith in my abilities.

Take a deep breath and check in with how you feel. Measure the intensity again and continue tapping until you experience relief.

When Weight Is a Form of Self-Punishment

Sometimes we find that we’re bingeing and holding on to weight in order to punish ourselves. That was the case for Lena, who discovered that the weight was a way of punishing herself for a painful decision she had made years before.

While living with her former partner in his native homeland several years ago, she had been shocked to watch him transform from a kind and loving partner into a physically and verbally abusive tyrant. Just as she was trying to digest the change in his character, Lena learned that she was pregnant. During that same time, a violent civil war broke out in the country where they were living. People were being shot down daily in the streets near where they lived, and she began feeling increasingly desperate to return to her own home several thousand miles away. Terrified that her abusive partner would make her stay if he learned of her pregnancy, Lena was equally terrified by the idea of having a baby in the midst of war and subjecting her baby to an abusive father.

Lena felt alone and heartbroken by the turn her relationship and her life had taken, and she felt she had no choice but to have an abortion. She was deeply ashamed of her decision and told no one about it. Although it had seemed at the time to be her only real option, as time went on she felt that she, too, had died that day. How could she deserve to live after she had ended another life?

Soon after returning to her home, Lena was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome and quickly began gaining weight. As we tapped on the memories, emotions, and beliefs she had been carrying around since the abortion, she was finally able to let herself grieve the loss of her baby. She sobbed as she processed her emotions while tapping, giving a voice to the shame and pain she had been carrying around for so many years.

During our tapping session, Lena realized that the best way to honor her baby’s lost life was to live her own. For the first time since the abortion, she could see herself as a good and loving person who had done her best under very painful circumstances. “I felt such an enormous relief as you helped me accept and own my choice and send the memory of the baby to the light. I have finally forgiven myself,” she shared in an e-mail shortly after the session.

Weeks later, I was thrilled to get another e-mail from her saying that since our session, she’d shared the story of her abortion with three close friends. Before tapping on it, she’d felt too ashamed to tell anyone about her baby. Because she had been able to give a voice to the past while tapping, she had calmed the panic in her body. Once calm, she could tell the story while feeling compassion toward herself. That made it easier to reach out and get support from people who loved and respected her. This is an important breakthrough because when we feel shame around a certain experience, we often feel we need to hide the pain, punish ourselves, and suffer in silence. We are scared that others will judge us the way we harshly judge ourselves. When we begin to show compassion toward ourselves, we attract people with compassionate hearts and discover that we are not alone.

I share this story not to judge or ignite political or religious debate but because I’ve worked with many women like Lena who have been walking around secretly mourning the loss of their babies, feeling utterly alone and unable to reach out for support. When they have nowhere to turn, their bodies accumulate weight, hoping to protect them from the emotional pain they’ve felt since having an abortion. Once they’re able to process the emotions they have been holding in, their bodies become willing and able to release the weight. More important, they finally stop blaming themselves for what was often a very painful decision.

Whether it’s an abortion or another difficult decision we have made in our lives, the world needs us to forgive ourselves. We may look back and wish we’d made a different choice, but until we can see that we were doing our best in that moment, we remain stuck in the past, unable to evolve beyond it.

How many women are not lighting up the world because of the pain they feel from a past event? We feel we need to punish ourselves, but self-punishment only adds to our pain.

Whatever issues or memories may be holding you back and causing your body to seek extra weight for protection, I urge you to speak your secret and do tapping on it. Take a moment now to ask yourself,
What am I using weight to protect myself from?
Write down your answer on a piece of paper, if you’d like.

From Self-Punishment to Self-Acceptance

In middle school after being caught cheating on a math test, I went to my dad and asked what my punishment was. I remember feeling like I wanted and needed to be punished, so I was stunned when he said there would be no punishment. Confused, I asked him why not, and he replied, “Because I know how hard you are on yourself. Nothing I could do could punish you the way you punish yourself.” I was blessed with incredibly kind parents who weren’t happy with me cheating on a math test but who also wanted me to be able to love myself. I don’t know where I picked up the habit of self-punishment, but even when I was a preteen my parents recognized it. Somewhere I picked up the belief that I wasn’t good enough, and I thought that if I punished myself enough, maybe I would be forgiven by a man with a white beard in the sky. I believed that punishing myself and being hard on myself made me a good person.

So many women I work with take secret pride in how much they punish themselves over things both big and small. Because they don’t feel they deserve happiness, they feel justified in their cruelty toward themselves. Their bodies then respond by holding on to weight, hoping to somehow stay safe inside the harsh internal environment they have created.

It’s time to release our pain, learn to forgive ourselves, and realize that self-punishment isn’t the answer; self-love and self-acceptance are.

Let’s do some tapping now on forgiving ourselves. Pick an event that you feel you need to punish yourself for and rate its emotional intensity on a scale of 0 to 10. Keep it in your mind as you tap.

Karate Chop:
Even though I feel I should punish myself, I love, accept, and forgive myself. (
Repeat three times.
)
Eyebrow:
This thing that happened …

Side of Eye:
I feel so ashamed.

Under Eye:
I can’t change what happened.

Under Nose:
It all feels hopeless …

Chin:
So instead I punish myself.

Collarbone:
Somewhere I learned …

Under Arm:
In order to be “good” I need to punish myself …

Top of Head:
But no good is coming from this punishment.

When the intensity of your initial tapping target is 5 or lower, you can move on to the positive.

Eyebrow:
I can only face darkness with light.

Side of Eye:
I choose to bring a new light to this situation.

Under Eye:
What happened isn’t a reflection of who I am.

Under Nose:
I express who I really am right now by choosing love and compassion.

Chin:
I was doing the best I could at the time.

Collarbone:
I have learned so much, and I choose a new path.

Under Arm:
I love, accept, and forgive myself.

Top of Head:
My future is bright.

Take a deep breath and check in with how you feel. Measure the intensity again and continue tapping until you experience relief.

When Weight Is Your Best Excuse