The Tapping Solution for Weight Loss & Body Confidence (19 page)

When we’ve been struggling with weight for years, it can become our best excuse for not pursuing our dreams or facing our fears.

Finish this sentence for yourself by filling in the blank: I can’t ___________________ because of the weight.

How you complete that sentence gives you insight into what’s going on below the surface that’s causing you to hold on to the weight.

In her 40s and two years after her divorce, Michelle insisted that she couldn’t date until she lost weight. She would look at herself in the mirror and think,
Who would want to love this?
She resented her body because she felt like it stopped her from the one thing she longed to have in her life—romance.

Knowing that the body is always protecting us, I asked her to imagine losing the weight and then walking into a restaurant and sitting across from a potential partner. “How does that image make you feel?” I asked. She was surprised to realize how panicked she felt by the thought of dating. Opening herself up to love and romance might mean reliving the pain she had experienced with her ex-husband, and that terrified her. We began tapping on her fear while focusing on memories from her marriage that still triggered her emotionally. After that session and before losing a pound, Michelle began to date successfully. She realized that it hadn’t been her weight stopping her, but her fear.

When I first began to tap on my weight, I filled in the blank with “I can’t be successful.” As someone in the health and wellness industry, I felt like I needed to be “perfect” in order to help others. Although I loved interviewing people, I would shy away from the camera because I didn’t feel pretty enough. When I dug deeper, I realized that my real fears were of being judged. If I didn’t do anything, no one else could judge me. (That same fear is often why people don’t finish a project. If it’s not finished, it can’t be critiqued. If a book is never finished, it can never be negatively reviewed.)

Do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing, and you’ll never be criticized.

—
ELBERT HUBBARD

As I continued tapping, I realized that I was actually afraid of criticism that had already happened. The more I tapped on times when I’d been judged, the more I understood that the things people say about me (or anyone) are a reflection of their own beliefs about themselves.

Soon after, we hosted our annual Tapping World Summit, and during that event my new awareness was put to the test. One weekend morning during that summit, someone posted a mean comment about me on my Facebook page. Later that day while at brunch with some girlfriends, I announced that I had my first hater. One of my friends jumped up and said, “Cheers to haters! If you don’t have them, it means you’re not doing anything worthwhile.” We all laughed.

To be our true authentic selves, we eventually have to rock the boat. As we’ll see next, what often happens is that our fear of shining overshadows all else and threatens to rob us of the happiness, success, and love we so deserve.

Why Isn’t It Safe for You to Shine?

Throughout her childhood, Ellie’s success in school and with her art had always gotten a lot of attention, but it pained her that the praise she received seemed to detract from others. She feared that her success would make other people judge both her and themselves negatively. As a result, Ellie learned to deflect praise at a young age.

She also had the habit of comparing herself to other women and feeling “less than.” Since she knew how bad this felt, she feared that if she were praised others would feel the same way. In order to avoid that, she downplayed any successes and shrank away from compliments.

As an adult, Ellie felt very uncomfortable being noticed, especially for the art that had always been her true calling and passion. Occasionally, when the urge to create got too overwhelming, she would release something only to shrink away as soon as her art received positive attention, which it often did. As the years passed and she worked harder and harder at playing small to avoid attention, Ellie gained weight and increasingly resented her body.

During my class, Ellie realized that it wasn’t her weight that she needed to tap on but all of the issues related to her fear of shining. After tapping, however, she could see that shining her light was a gift, not a burden. Soon afterward she began to share her art for the first time in many years.

After having that breakthrough, she posted this painting about how much pain we experience when we constantly compare ourselves to others in our private Weight Loss & Body Confidence online student community.

I was so in love with it that I shared it on my fan page and reached out to Ellie to let her know how much I loved her work. I then asked her if she would contribute artwork to this book. By clearing her fear of shining, Ellie had the courage to share her art and enrich all of our lives. She was also able to get her art published for the first time ever.

Without her focusing on it, Ellie’s relationship with food also began to change. After years of trying to break her addiction to soda, within that first month of tapping she was amazed when her soda cravings simply faded away. By allowing herself to shine with her art and throughout her life, she also began to feel calm and in control around food for the first time in years.

So many women I work with are so afraid to shine that they become desperate to deny their own potential and downplay their accomplishments. They’re trying to play so small that they almost force themselves to use their weight to hide.

When it comes to our fear of shining, Marianne Williamson’s oft-quoted passage from
Return to Love
says it best:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you
not
to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Stop Waiting for Life to Begin

Whatever you’re afraid to do but really want to do is exactly what you need to do. For Leigh, that meant realizing her dream of opening a wellness center. Although she’d owned the property for more than four years, she hadn’t been able to motivate herself to make the contacts, get the funding, and do the marketing she needed to do. Taking action on opening the center was yet another project she would take on … once she’d lost the weight.

When Leigh began tapping on her fear of shining, she realized that it was a lack of self-love, not the need for weight loss, that was preventing her from opening her wellness center. She had been told since childhood that she needed to “be quiet” and “stop talking,” and it didn’t feel safe for her to shine. For that reason, her dream of opening a wellness center felt terrifying.

Armed with that new self-awareness, Leigh began tapping daily on her fear of shining, using my tapping meditation on that topic. Within a few weeks’ time she made more progress on opening her wellness center than she had in years. Suddenly she began making contacts and hearing from people who wanted to support her efforts, including a woman who offered to donate her time to create a website for the center. Leigh was amazed and thrilled by the outpouring of support and interest.

During those same few weeks, Leigh also began planning healthy meals and exercising regularly. Suddenly these lifestyle changes felt easy and enjoyable. The weight and inches began falling off almost immediately. What made her really smile, though, was that before she’d even lost all the weight she’d originally intended to lose, she could pass by a mirror and appreciate her body for the first time in years.

Several weeks after the class ended, she shared this with me:

I’m down 11 pounds and have definitely stepped into my shine! I’m watching my body and behaviors change daily. I’m no longer emotionally eating on a daily basis, and I love and embrace exercise. I can walk by the mirror without insulting myself … all really big things for me. Every day I still continue to learn and evolve, and that’s the fun part! I know I get better every day. Tapping has been a real game changer. And I still do the meditations … I love them.

Stepping into Your Best Self and Biggest Dreams

People often ask me how I incorporate tapping into my daily life. Here is an exercise I do every night.

First, visualize what you most desire, beginning by focusing on just one thing. It might be a desire to feel strong and confident in your body, to share a gift or talent, to speak up, or to be in a more loving relationship. Magnify that image in your mind. Breathe deeply and really feel what it feels like to be in that space. Then ask yourself,
Does anything feel uncomfortable about this image? Can I feel comfortable in my body when I see this image in my mind?
If you feel your stomach or shoulders clenching, for example, that is an indication that this image is creating stress in your body. Continue breathing deeply while tapping through the points and focusing on the image. If any specific fears or other negative emotions or self-talk come up, keep tapping through the points while you visualize what you desire. Keep doing this until you can visualize this desire while feeling calm and congruent in your body.

This is an incredibly powerful exercise to use on a regular basis. You’ll find that your dreams will continue to expand as your comfort zone grows.

Being Afraid, Overwhelmed, and More—It’s All Normal

When we start looking at how the weight has been keeping us safe, and how we can release that need and then begin to let ourselves shine, we may feel hints of excitement. Often, though, we’re quickly overcome by fear. It’s normal to feel afraid and overwhelmed. The key is to learn from these feelings but not be controlled by them. That’s where tapping comes in. Tapping on our emotions doesn’t mean we’ll never feel fear and other negative emotions again. Tapping is a tool that helps us maneuver through emotions so we can move forward in spite of the normal and natural emotional resistance we may experience.

At times when we look at how to let ourselves shine, part of feeling overwhelmed and afraid may come from not knowing what we’re meant to do, or not knowing how to realize our dreams. That’s also normal. By tapping on these emotions, we can reconnect with our intuition and through that, get clearer on our answers to these questions.

When you think about your dream, how overwhelmed do you feel on a scale of 0 to 10? Are there any other emotions or negative beliefs that grab your attention? Do you feel any tension in your body? Use the answers to these questions to help you be specific.

Let’s do some tapping now:

Karate Chop:
Even though I feel overwhelmed by this dream, I love and accept myself. (
Repeat three times.
)
Eyebrow:
I feel so overwhelmed.

Side of Eye:
There is so much to do.

Under Eye:
I don’t even know where to start.

Under Nose:
What if I can’t do this?

Chin:
What if I make a mistake?

Collarbone:
What if something goes wrong?

Under Arm:
All these fears around pursuing this dream …

Top of Head:
I give them a voice now.

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

Eyebrow:
Maybe I don’t need to know every answer.

Side of Eye:
Maybe I don’t need to know exactly how I’ll get there.