Emotional Freedom At Our Fingertips - An Interview With Brad Yates

Chronic stress can severely limit our well being and general functioning. In this episode of the Within Us podcast, guest Brad Yates, an expert on Emotional Freedom Technique, or 'EFT' Energy Tapping, explains the mechanism through which tapping works, and how we can learn to empower ourselves to live more fully and fearlessly by using it.

Transcript

Welcome to Within Us.

My name is Azrielle Jankovic and I am your host.

I believe that there is infinite potential for goodness and kindness within each and every one of us.

At the same time,

I know that life on planet earth can so often feel like a struggle to clarify what that goodness looks like for us and how we can actualize it to make the most of our time and energy.

That is why I'm here.

Within Us is a show about spreading the wisdom that will inspire our wellness and our sense of wonder.

My guests and I are focused on doing exactly that and I am so glad that you're joining us here.

As research has demonstrated,

When we're happier,

We're kinder.

And when we're kinder,

We're happier.

It seems simple in theory,

Although in practice it may feel much more complicated.

We all want to be the kindest versions of ourselves.

But what is it that holds us back?

In today's episode,

My guests and I explore some of the reasons as well as some surprisingly simple remedies to propel us forward to live with more wellness,

Wonder,

Kindness,

And happiness.

A few months ago,

I put out a call for podcast guests.

One of our community members on Facebook tagged someone named Brad Yates.

This community member has a fascinating story.

She herself is a young mother who for the past several years has been struggling with a debilitating disease.

She embarked on a wellness journey and has made incredible strides forward.

When I asked her about her journey and what's helped her along the way,

One of the techniques that she has utilized that's helped her so much is called the emotional freedom technique,

Otherwise known in short as EFT or simply tapping.

I was pretty amazed to hear that something so seemingly simple could have such profound results.

When I clicked her tag and checked out the work of Brad Yates,

I was really blown away.

Brad has been posting tapping videos on YouTube for the past decade.

As of today,

His videos have been viewed by tens of millions of people.

He and his viewers are tapping for clarity.

They're tapping for wellness.

They're tapping for financial abundance.

They're tapping for a variety of different reasons and these reasons really,

These are the struggle.

These are the struggles that we all go through on a daily basis.

I had several epiphanies interviewing Brad and you're going to hear why in the show and I'm so excited to share it with you.

I'm also for the first time going to be posting some bonus material and the bonus material is going to include a video of me tapping with Brad and I let him do his mojo on me which is just so phenomenal.

I'm going to post that bonus material and I'm also going to go ahead and give a summary of some of the highlights of this show and the bonus material as well as my own spiritually based take.

You know that I am a student of the Torah.

I learn the ancient teachings of the Torah and I'm going to go ahead and include some of that in the bonus material as well and talk to you about how I use some of the ideas that Brad shared with my clients.

I haven't yet started implementing tapping with my clients because this is something new for me but it is very closely related to some of the mindfulness and meditation practices that I like to do and I like to use myself and use with my students and clients.

So that's going to be available on my website DrOzzy.

Co.

That's D-R-A-Z-I dot C-O.

You can access the video and the bonus material is there.

So folks,

For now,

Let's go ahead and dive into this show.

I'm just so excited to share it with you.

My guest today teaches everyone from elite athletes,

CEOs and actors as well as residents in homeless shelters and people struggling with addiction how to master their emotions.

He uses emotional freedom technique known as EFT to help people overcome fear and stress and improve their lives.

He also graduated from the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Clown College.

So we've got a seriously effective modality today and a lot of smiles and humor to go along with it.

What a great combo.

Welcome to the show Brad.

Thank you.

I like to say it's the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down.

So EFT short for emotional freedom techniques and a lot of us just call it tapping now.

This process of tapping with our fingertips primarily on our face and torso and for those of you who are new to it,

Don't let that scare you off.

I know it sounds a little strange at first but there's a very good reason why we do it.

So originally it was based on acupuncture.

For thousands of years in Chinese medicine they have said there is a flow of energy through the body along these pathways called meridians.

They call it chi.

And when this energy is flowing naturally we experience our natural state of health and well-being physically and emotionally.

And when this energy gets stuck in some way then we don't feel so good.

And when we don't feel so good we don't think as clearly,

We don't make the best decisions and our lives don't go as well as we'd like them to go.

So in traditional acupuncture they would stick needles in these key points to stimulate that healthy flow of energy.

And we're just stimulating them by tapping these points.

I love this so much more than needles.

Yeah.

Sign me up.

I'm really excited to try this.

You're not alone.

Wow.

It's much simpler.

You don't have to have the needles.

You don't have to sterilize them.

With the tapping it's percussive so you're covering a larger area so you don't have to be quite as exact as you do with a tiny needle.

All kinds of benefits too.

It's really incredible.

It's really incredible that it comes from this ancient tradition as well.

As we have now more modern research and scientific research using chemical studies.

So there is a study in which they measured folks cortisol levels.

So cortisol is one of the stress hormones.

When we go into fight or flight then we start pumping cortisol through the body.

Really good if you're being chased by a saber tooth tiger.

Not so helpful if it's just because somebody looked cross-eyed at you.

But this part of our brain called the amygdala looks for threats and when it sees a threat it puts us into this fight,

Flight or freeze.

When we don't actually need that then we have these chemicals in our body that are not helpful for us.

It interrupts our immune system.

It interrupts our digestive system.

And many of us are in chronic stress.

So we constantly have all this stuff going on that limits our health and well-being.

It stops us from thinking clearly because the prefrontal cortex where our rational thinking is pretty much gets shut down,

Goes offline.

So we're not thinking as clearly.

So by stimulating these points we calm all of that down.

So we have a study showing that the group that was doing the tapping,

Their cortisol levels lowered by an average of 24%,

Some as much as 50%.

That was so staggering that the lab technicians thought something must have gone wrong.

That's not possible.

Threw out the results and recalibrated the machines and ran it again and found out,

Oh,

What do you know?

Tapping really did lower the stress that much.

We have fMRI studies showing brain activity,

Where you can see the brain activity in moments of stress.

And then after tapping where the activity is normalized in those parts of the brain.

So even though it's been around for thousands of years,

We now have modern research going,

There are scientific evidence that this is actually happening.

When we talk about biochemistry,

We talk about cortisol and quieting the limbic system and stress,

I think it's so important to remember how much of our lives can be affected by stress,

Including our sleep patterns,

Our mental health,

Our ability to control emotions and regulate moods such as anger or sadness and anxiety.

And it's so true what you said about how stress has become so common and we're really living in a day and age where we're pulled in so many different directions.

So it's incredible to know that there's this technique that's here for us literally.

Is it like we can do this in any moment?

It's at your fingertips.

It's on our fingertips in any moment.

And there are many experts who say that most,

If not all of the uncomfortable issues that we face,

Physical and emotional,

Are either caused by or worsened by stress.

And it really is this thing that gets in our way in so many ways and causes us so much trouble.

And here we have this simple technique that is scientifically shown to lower stress.

And I know that a lot of folks will be like,

Well,

Yeah,

But it looks silly,

So I'd rather have the stress.

But I want to encourage you to rethink that because it really just helps us.

I'm going to go out on a limb today.

I want to try it and I want to share with our listeners because it's just so important to manage our stress.

We can create a more peaceful life,

A more peaceful world.

Everything can get better.

In terms of how you became involved with EFT and I know you're tapping for love and tapping for abundance and you've been featured in these incredible films and articles all about this transformational technique.

And I'd love to hear a little bit about your own story,

How you found it.

Yeah.

How does a grown man find himself tapping on his face for a living?

I actually,

Well,

You mentioned the clown college diploma back there.

I got that when I was an actor.

So I started out as an actor.

I had toured the world doing children's theater.

I'm not a doctor,

But I played one on TV.

I saved Sammy's life on Days of Our Lives.

So while I was in LA,

I met this woman,

Fell in love,

Got married.

And when our first child was on the way,

I was thinking I should probably have a backup career.

I had always been fascinated in the power of the mind.

And so I trained to become a hypnotherapist and I started doing that on the side and it was great.

My trained actor voice was very helpful.

And if my audience fell asleep,

That was a good thing.

So I was enjoying that.

And after a couple of years,

When our second child was on the way,

I realized as much as I loved acting,

This was my calling.

Doing personal development work was really what I was here to do.

And we left Los Angeles and moved to Northern California.

And through some other hypnotherapists,

I found out about energy psychology and tapping.

And I took a training with Gary Craig,

The founder of VFT and just fell in love with it.

Particularly one of the things he did at the workshop was he gave everybody a Hershey's kiss and said,

On a scale of zero to 10,

How much do you want this chocolate?

And I was a bit of a chocoholic at the time and I'm thinking eight,

Nine.

And after just a few moments of tapping,

I couldn't eat it.

I had as much interest in the chocolate as I did the foil wrapper.

I could not,

In fact,

I didn't eat chocolate for two years after that.

Now I recovered,

I've gotten better,

But it was,

That was really profound in that moment to see,

Okay,

There's something going on with this kind of strange looking technique.

And now it's easier for me to,

As I said,

It's a little strange when you first see it.

For me having gone to clown college,

This was not the oddest thing I'd ever done at this point.

So it was a little easier for me to be open minded.

You were already open minded.

It's so interesting to hear about the Hershey's kiss.

I read that tapping does decrease cravings,

But to see this in real time and then to have such a long lasting effect.

It is very profound.

Now,

Sometimes when folks hear these things,

Then they expect that,

Oh,

When I first tap,

There has to be some profound shift or it doesn't work.

And you know,

A lot of the times when we're tapping away stuff,

We're working on issues that might be decades old.

And so we made,

You know,

We're stripping away the layers of it,

But it may not be obvious right away.

So sometimes people will tap and say,

Well,

I don't feel any different.

It doesn't work.

That's like,

You know,

Somebody who's 200 pounds overweight doing three sit-ups and going,

Well,

I don't have rock hard six packs.

So I guess sit-ups don't work.

Right.

It's it's,

It's really great analogy.

And I think we've become in this generation.

So we're so fortunate to have so much at our fingertips so quickly,

So much gratification.

It's you know,

It's easy to wonder why isn't anything happening?

But as you said,

We can be walking around with subconscious issues for decades,

Right?

And it's amazing those issues that come up because when we're tapping,

It's often like peeling the layers of an onion.

So we can be sitting there saying,

Well,

I'm stressed about this meeting that I have with my boss this week and be tapping along and go,

Oh,

You know what?

It's not even that.

It's this thing that happened when I was 20 and I had my first job and I still have never gotten over that confrontation with tapping away.

It's like,

No,

It wasn't even that I was upset about that because of this thing that happened in high school and we keep peeling it back to I was in the third grade when I had that really we've been carrying this stuff for ages,

But we're not consciously aware of it.

We may be aware that,

You know,

My life's not going as perfectly as I would have liked it to be.

I may not be as healthy as I'd like to be.

You know,

We're taught to expect stress.

So we just go,

Oh,

That's the way it is.

No,

It's not how it's meant to be.

And we're missing out on so much because we shortchange ourselves.

And that is such a powerful belief that you brought up that so many people can't carry around.

Yeah.

But you don't believe it has to be that way.

No,

It's this belief that if you're not stressed,

You're not working hard enough.

You're not doing it right.

No,

Because we can move that stuff out and allow ourselves to feel peace and and enjoy.

I was talking to someone yesterday and I was doing a teleclass on joy.

And he was saying,

No,

But you know,

We've got to be achieving at high levels and has to be serious.

And I'm like,

You can achieve at very high levels and be experiencing this great level of joy in that you're being who you can be and doing what you can do.

And he was talking about Kobe Bryant and the Mamba mentality.

And I said,

You don't think that he felt joy in what he was able to do?

So,

You know,

This experience of,

Wow,

I'm able to accomplish these great things at such a level of satisfaction and fulfillment.

And yes,

It's challenging,

It can be hard at times.

But there's also this level of joy and also not hanging on to that stuff.

We're carrying along these low levels,

You know,

For some people,

It's much higher levels of stress most of the time,

And not even aware of how that might be taken toll on us.

So this is a really powerful shift from the idea that life has to be stressful,

To a sense of peace,

A sense of calm,

And even what you describe as joy.

I'm not saying that you just tap and you're never going to experience stress.

Of course,

Life has challenges,

There's change happens and that causes stress and we grow from stress.

Stress is just a pressure.

What we call stress is more often we're talking about our response to stress,

Which is harmful and challenging.

But,

You know,

That's going to happen,

But it's then not hanging on to that and not carrying that around so that most of the time we're yeah,

Feeling calm and confident and feeling good.

Interesting.

So it's our response to stress,

Meaning perhaps running away from it.

Yeah,

Feeling,

You know,

Taking on the different beliefs around it,

Like,

Oh,

It's hard.

There's I'm not doing it right.

There's something bad about me or,

You know,

All kinds of different beliefs stuff that we've picked up over the years,

Which are most if not all misunderstandings,

Either ours or someone else's,

You know,

If I have this belief that I'm not good enough,

It's either because someone told me I'm not good enough,

And that was a misunderstanding on their part,

Or I've interpreted something to suggest that I'm not good enough.

So it's a misunderstanding on my part,

Because the truth is we're all absolutely good enough.

So I'm curious,

Like,

Let's say that someone comes to you,

I don't know,

Hypothetically,

A woman who's almost 40.

Maybe she lives in Israel,

Maybe her name is Ozzie.

Totally fictional hypothetical situation.

Totally fictional character.

She says,

Listen,

You know,

I have four kids and I have a busy life and sometimes I feel like I'm being pulled in different directions and I can feel my anxiety or I can feel myself getting frustrated with one of my kids or with a to do list that I have,

You know,

Responsibilities and different arenas of life is tapping something that can be used for those types of issues.

It's so funny to say that I've started this sort of new promotional campaign called life happens tapping helps.

And I've been creating these different memes each day with different photos of life,

Like somebody frustrated with math.

And so one of the memes I created just yesterday is this picture of this woman like this with all these different things around.

And the caption is overwhelm happens.

Tapping helps because it's our response to all that.

Like the idea of I'm never going to get it done.

I'm not doing it well enough as opposed to,

OK,

There's this stuff that's got to get done.

I'm going to get done what I can.

And to beat myself up over what I can't get done makes no sense because it's not like I can come back and say to someone,

OK,

Hey,

I didn't get everything done,

But I felt really bad about that.

So that counts,

Right?

If something's going wrong with your finances and you're not able to pay the rent,

It doesn't count to go to the mortgage company and say,

Hey,

You know what?

I don't have the money this month,

But I feel really guilty about it.

So that pays off some of it.

Right.

So interesting,

Like it's not going to help to have guilt or to beat ourselves up.

And it sounds like the approach you take is really one of self-compassion.

Huge.

Yes.

Self-compassion is one of the main things for me because we are so programmed to motivate ourselves with misery to,

You know,

That idea of I'm not getting everything done.

So if I punish myself severely enough for that,

I'll do better tomorrow.

Yeah,

Right.

How's that working for you?

So glad that's not your methodology.

So it's that compassion of recognizing I am doing the best I can at the moment.

And if I want to do better,

Letting go of this belief that I need to beat myself up is going to free up a lot of time.

We spend so much time beating ourselves up and it doesn't make us stronger.

Years ago,

It hit me that my real job is teaching people to love themselves.

And so the tapping clears away the reasons why we can't love ourselves.

So it's having that compassion for ourselves.

Even if I'm trying to lose weight,

But I eat a whole box of donuts and it's saying,

Okay,

I love and appreciate that part of me that thought that was what I needed at that moment.

Because I like to say that self-sabotage is simply misguided self-love.

So if we're sabotaging our health,

Self-sabotage is misguided self-love.

Yeah.

Okay.

Every act that we do and we go,

Oh,

I totally sabotaged my success.

I sabotaged my diet.

I sabotaged this.

Yeah,

But that's what's called function of behavior.

What is the function of behavior?

Okay.

I was feeling depressed in that moment.

My programming tells me that eating donuts makes me feel better because donuts are associated with happy times.

In that moment,

I was saying,

Yes,

This will add to my waistline tomorrow,

But right now I'm feeling emotional pain and I need to do something to take care of myself.

So it was an act of self-love that had some unfortunate consequences.

Now,

Fortunately tapping is a great way to deal with those emotional upsets and it doesn't add any calories.

Even if it's after we've downed the box of donuts,

It's like saying,

Okay,

I love and appreciate that part of me that was simply trying to take care of me in this moment.

I was not trying to hurt myself.

I was not trying to ruin my health or anything like that.

I simply was trying to use what I had learned from the past help to improve my mood.

It's so powerful to hear you speak about this idea of self-sabotage being misguided self-love.

I can think of so many examples where that's true in terms of trying to stay small in our relationships,

Not taking risks,

Not inviting the friend out because we're afraid that she doesn't prioritize us the way we prioritize her or in business,

Not reaching out to a prospective client because we don't want them to reject our offer or all of these ways in which we try to protect ourselves.

There's really only two emotions.

There's love and there's fear.

So if it doesn't feel like love,

There's probably fear underneath it.

Anger,

Sadness,

All of these things have a level of fear underneath.

I just made arrangements to have lunch with a colleague next week in LA.

There was a part of me that's like,

Oh,

I don't know,

Should I ask?

I don't know this person that well.

That fear of rejection.

It's like,

All right,

Tap,

Tap,

Tap,

Tap,

Tap.

Put the offer out.

It's like,

Hey,

That would be great.

I'd love to get together and catch up.

Oh,

Amazing.

It's like we all have it.

And even when the answer is no,

That no could be a yes.

I mean,

We just don't always understand.

And it could be something better.

Jack Canfield talks about,

When they say no,

You say next.

It's just they're clearing up your agenda.

And I like to say that rejection is actually just redirection.

If you want something from someone and they're not able to give it to you,

It doesn't mean that you're not good enough.

It means that's not the person to give it to you.

Yeah.

It doesn't mean that you're not good enough.

And to remember that this fear-based reaction that you understand and that I understand is universal,

That perhaps they're having the same thing.

So I love that you bring this up and that you speak about self-compassion.

And I'm curious,

In terms of a tapping practice,

When your clients come to you or when people find you,

Are there different ways of setting up a tapping practice?

Is there a system that you follow or like a daily sort of regimen you have?

Well,

I start my day with a little bit of tapping just to sort of clear out the cobwebs and just recognizing,

Okay,

In case there's any part of me that's feeling resistance to moving forward.

And that's the whole thing in terms of success.

We sabotage our success because it doesn't feel safe,

Because we like to stay the same.

So I like to start each day just doing a little tapping and maybe I'll be talking about things that I know that it may have been on my mind.

If I have some big project coming up and I'll say,

Okay,

Even though I have some resistance to this,

I'm going to clear it out.

I may tap while saying prayers.

I may tap while saying affirmations.

And I may just tap while saying,

Thank you for the blessings I have.

Thank you for the blessings I'm receiving.

And clearing out any part of me that might have some discomfort or stress around allowing blessings in my life.

Because some people will say,

When folks first hear EFT and you're talking about the problem,

Like even though I have all this stress,

I choose to love and accept myself.

Some people will freak out and say,

You're talking about the negative.

You're supposed to only think positive.

Well,

What you resist persists.

If you break your leg,

You don't go to the doctor and say,

Let's talk about my arm.

My arm feels so good right now.

I want to focus on what feels really good.

If your dog poops on the carpet,

You're not going to say,

I'm just going to look at where the carpet is clean.

So it's like this acceptance of what is.

So that you can deal with it.

If you don't acknowledge there's poop on your carpet,

You can't clean it up and you're going to step in and spread around.

So it's not a matter of sitting down and going,

Oh,

There's dog poop on my carpet.

It's a matter of saying,

Oh,

It's there and now I'm going to clean it up.

So that's what we're doing in the tapping because it's a cleaning process.

And other folks will say,

If you're saying positive things like affirmations while they're tapping,

Folks will say,

Oh,

No,

No,

EFT is just a cleaning process.

You're not supposed to talk about the positive.

However,

When we're stating affirmations,

Either we're having really good feelings about it or we're contradicting some belief that we have.

Like if I say,

I am super healthy and I'm a couch potato,

Then that's going to bring up all of the unconscious stuff about who are you kidding?

You liar.

You're not healthy at all.

That stuff is coming up in my energy system.

Great.

While I'm tapping,

I'm clearing that stuff out so I can be saying I'm super healthy and I'm bringing up all of the resistance and all of the arguments against that.

And I start to clear those out and I start to clear out the reasons why I might be limiting my health,

Which I would only do because it feels safer.

You know,

I may be afraid.

Wow.

If I was in better health,

People would be more interested in me.

And that would put me into all kinds of awkward situations that I don't think I can handle.

So if I can make myself less healthy,

Then I get to stay safely at home,

Whatever it might be based on old programming.

So you can just be saying affirmations and either you'll just keep feeling better and better,

Or you'll be bringing up the resistance to that and clearing that out.

Okay.

So as someone who's needed tapping,

Let's suppose I sit down in the morning and where do I even start?

I would turn on your YouTube channel probably,

Right?

That's the easiest.

That's why I created the YouTube videos was to make it easy for folks to use it.

And the very basic version of EFT is you decide what you're feeling like,

Oh,

Okay,

I'm feeling stressed out at the moment,

Rated on a scale of zero to 10,

Just so I have an idea.

And you start tapping on the side of your hand,

Say,

Even though I have the stress,

I choose to love and accept myself.

And then you tap through these eight points,

Right at the beginning of the eyebrow,

And we tap,

You know,

Five to 10 times each point,

All this stress,

Right at the corner,

The side of your eye,

All this stress,

Right under the eye,

All this stress,

Right under the nose,

All this stress,

Right under your lower lip,

Just above your chin,

All this stress,

Right where your collarbones just about come together,

And you just make a fist or use all your fingers there,

All this stress,

But four inches below your armpit,

All this stress.

And then top of the head,

Just with all your fingertips,

All this stress,

You take a deep breath.

And then rate it again,

Say,

Okay,

If I was stressed at a level eight,

For some people will go to zero like that,

Sometimes it'll just go from an eight to a 7.

75.

Just tap,

Keep tapping through.

Is there something else to say?

Like as you like,

I'm feeling calmer or I'm ready?

And you can.

So I always mentioned the very basic version first,

Because like when I go into it,

And it's a very intuitive process for me,

And I'm downloading information and all kinds of different phrases are coming out.

And if I introduce it the first time to folks like that and say,

That's EFT,

They're like,

That's really complicated.

I wouldn't know what to say.

It's like,

No,

No,

No,

No,

No,

That's just how I do it.

And you'll get to that level.

So you can just be saying the phrase and even if you're really stressed out,

You don't even have to say stress because your body already knows,

Yeah,

I'm stressed out,

You don't have to say anything.

So we could just be tapping these points.

And you can even just tap one point.

Very often we'll be tapping along and we may just feel like,

You know,

I just I feel like hanging out at the side of the eye right now.

And you can just gauge that and go,

Okay,

So it's not a matter of okay,

You only get to tap each point five to 10 times and then you must move on to the next point or there's no benefit.

So this is a very free flowing.

It's a very forgiving process.

So I created the videos so that folks didn't have to think about what to say.

And then with the invitation of as you're tapping along,

If something I say doesn't quite resonate and you want to say something else by all means,

There's over 900 videos there now.

None of them hundred videos.

Yeah.

Wow,

That is really something whatever's coming up.

There's a tap for that.

That is really something.

So how long have you been creating these videos?

Just over a decade.

10 years.

And how has your professional life tapping and I'm sure you're meeting clients and have relationships with these people and find you right on the internet.

It's incredible.

It is very cool that it has given me the opportunity to reach people all around the world.

I get to travel around and meet people in different countries and tap with them.

And it's,

It's very rewarding to be able to have that effect.

So what are some of the issues,

The more common issues that you're seeing?

Well,

Underneath most of the things that stop people is this belief of I'm unworthy,

I'm not good enough.

And so I have a lot of videos on self-esteem.

Anxiety comes up for a lot of people,

You know,

Different,

Different types of fear,

Personal interpersonal relationships.

Money is a huge one for a lot of people,

A lot of money blocks.

And,

You know,

We have this assumption that we all want money and it's just going to be a matter of,

You know,

I want money and I,

If I'm not having more than I must not be working hard enough for things like that.

It's like,

Well,

Consider the fact that you probably have all kinds of beliefs about money that you've heard from people.

And a lot of them are not positive.

You know,

Rich people are greedy.

Money is the root of all evil,

All these different things.

So if you have these unconscious programming programs running about how bad money is,

Is it any wonder you might be limiting the amount of financial abundance coming in?

It makes so much sense,

Especially thinking about how many of our beliefs come from people that we love and care about.

Absolutely.

And who have taught us and we are taught to honor your mother and your father,

Honor your teachers,

Honor your clergy.

Okay.

But some of them didn't know everything.

And some of them had some mixed up ideas.

And so our parents,

I just worked with a client just a little while ago and her parents had all kinds of messed up ideas about money.

And she's continuing.

And I said,

Do you not see how brilliantly you are continuing these same programs?

Because at a young age you were taught,

This is how things are.

When we first learn how to walk,

We're watching our parents and other people walking and part of our mind is going,

Okay,

That's walking.

Okay,

I can do that.

We hear how they talk and we say,

Oh,

That's language.

Okay,

I can do that.

We hear how they talk about money.

We're not going to say,

Oh,

That's stupid.

I'm not going to do that.

We just learn.

Right.

So what does someone do?

They have parents who perhaps resent wealthy people.

They resent people who are born with money.

And so suddenly they're given an opportunity to make a lot of money.

Are they going to embrace it or are they going to stay small and keep their parents happy?

Because self-sabotage is misguided self-love.

So we will sabotage our financial opportunities because it doesn't feel safe.

Having money is wrong.

It would make me a bad person.

It would dishonor my parents.

How dare I go,

If they sit there and say,

Oh,

Money is so hard to have,

And I start having a lot of money,

I'm basically saying to my parents,

You guys were idiots.

That's not right.

So it's a self-loving act to sacrifice financial opportunity so that I'm not a bad person as opposed to saying,

No,

I can allow a lot of abundance.

I can share that with others.

I can show them how to have that.

And I can help them realize that their beliefs about money were,

It was based on ignorance.

Ignorance is different than stupidity.

They're not stupid.

They're just ignorant.

They don't know what they don't know.

And they've been taught by people who didn't know.

And so it's passed on for generations.

It's like the story of the woman who cuts off the end of the ham and her husband says,

Why'd you do that?

Well,

Mom always did that.

Why'd you do that?

Because your mother always,

My mother,

Go to grandma.

Oh yeah,

We cut off the end of the hand because we only had a small oven.

It wouldn't fit otherwise.

Oh,

So I don't need to cut it off anymore because that was circumstantial.

It's not just how it had to be done.

Those money beliefs were passed on,

But they're based on misinformation.

That's so powerful.

So essentially one can come to you,

Come to tapping,

Come to this practice.

And through these,

Do you call them affirmations or mantras and tapping just what you showed me,

This,

I can reformulate my beliefs.

And the reason is because when we have these beliefs,

When we try to change our mind about something,

That is a threat to the system.

And so we have a stress response.

So just like if you have political beliefs and someone comes along and talks about a different candidate,

You have a stress response because it feels like a threat.

So if you have these beliefs that money is the root of all evil and someone says,

No,

Money is a really good thing.

It's a neutral tool.

It's not bad or good.

It's just a tool to be used.

And it's just the beliefs about money that are bad.

Then part of me is going to say,

No,

That's a threat to my beliefs.

Don't mess with my beliefs.

I've been having them for years and I'm alive.

So far so good.

Right?

So as we tap,

We can,

We relax that.

We relax this feeling of threat and we can look at it and say,

Okay,

I'm not under threat right now.

I can entertain this opposite idea.

Huh?

You know what?

Maybe money isn't the root of all evil.

Maybe it's that that was a misquote because it's actually the same as the love of money or greed,

Putting money above other things,

But money is not the root of all evil.

And we can start to hear that.

Whereas before we put up this defense and I can't hear it.

I don't want to hear anything that's that threatens my reality.

As we tap,

We're relaxing ourselves.

We're clearing out the threat response and we can take on new beliefs.

We can hear,

Oh,

Taking on a new idea.

Isn't an offense to my parents.

You know,

I can,

I can look at this and not see this as I'm being a bad person.

You know,

The best way to honor my parents is to reach my potential and do as much good in the world as I possibly can.

How does it honor them to shortchange myself in the world?

So it's like,

Okay,

I might be telling them they're wrong about money,

But in the meantime,

I'm allowing myself the best life possible.

I'm allowing I'm setting up great for their grandkids and I'm allowing myself to do more good because when we believe that money is evil and I shouldn't have it,

Then one of the best ways to not have that bad money is to not share my gifts and talents as fully as possible.

So I'm shortchanging the world in an effort to support this misguided belief about abundance.

I am not going to shortchange the world.

I am not going to do it.

That's why I do the money tapping.

You know,

I'm fine with people having money.

Abundance is there to be enjoyed as long as you do it with integrity.

Obviously,

If people are making money in ways that harm people,

I'm definitely not down with that.

Allowing yourself to share your gifts as fully as possible and allow yourself to be abundantly rewarded and enjoy life.

Hey,

That's all good.

That's so beautiful.

It is such an honor and a pleasure to spend this time with you and hear from you about these practices.

I am inspired to try this and to start some kind of a practice.

What do you suggest in terms of getting started?

So I definitely encourage tapping on a daily basis because to me it's energy hygiene.

We have physical hygiene.

We take a shower pretty much every day,

Most of us.

If you're not doing it regularly,

Might you want to think about that?

Brushing our teeth,

Flossing,

Only floss the ones you want to keep.

We don't wait until the people around us are holding their nose and go,

Ah,

Yes,

I should probably take a shower.

It's been a couple of weeks.

But we just do it as maintenance.

I take a shower whether I need it or not.

I brush my teeth whether it's obvious.

It's like,

Is there anything green in my teeth?

Same with tapping,

With clearing out the energy,

Clearing out the stress because by the time we're aware of it,

There are consequences that are unnecessary.

I advise doing it on a daily basis.

How long?

Yeah,

How long?

If it's only a few minutes,

That's better than nothing.

If you can only take a quick shower in the morning,

Great.

Some days you might want to take a long shower.

If you've been out working in the yard and you're pretty filthy,

It might take longer to get clean.

And then what about someone like yourself who has been doing this and you're a huge advocate?

What would your daily practice look like?

And then it depends on the day.

So like if I'm leading a workshop,

I'll do full day workshops where I've got people tapping for five,

Six hours in one day.

So when people ask me on YouTube,

Is it okay to do two or three videos?

I'm like,

Yeah,

We'll tap for hours.

Okay,

So we cannot overdo it with this.

You can't reload it.

Now,

I would advise folks that the point of tapping is to set ourselves free to live life more fully.

So don't stay indoors all day tapping.

You want to be out there sharing your gifts with the world.

But if you have time and you've got a lot of stuff going on,

Great.

So depending on my client load in a particular day,

I may just have one client a day and I'll be tapping for that hour on top of whatever other tapping I might've done early in the morning.

If a challenging situation comes up,

Then I'll tap to clear my energy around that.

And it's just saying,

Okay.

And even sometimes when I'm out and I maybe when I'm driving,

I'll be listening to tapping recordings or I'll just tap without saying anything,

Just saying,

Okay,

There might be some stress going on,

Especially when you're driving because stress comes up when you're driving.

Isn't that the truth?

So it's like,

I'd rather be clear so that I can be as focused.

I can be as clearheaded as possible.

I can make the best choices.

I'm driving more carefully if I'm not caught up in stress and just taking those opportunities to be as clear as possible.

And that just opens me up to all kinds of other great possibilities.

Incredible.

Can I teach my kids how to do it?

Absolutely.

Please teach your kid.

When I'm working with adults,

So many of the things that are stopping them are things that happen in their childhood.

It's like,

Wow,

If we could teach kids to tap and they can clear that stuff up now,

Rather than having those beliefs pulling them back for the rest of their lives.

That's why I wrote the book and I thought,

Wouldn't it be fun if there was just a sort of bedtime story that could teach kids about tapping.

And a friend of mine had given me the nickname,

The EFT wizard.

And I thought,

Oh,

That's cool.

I'll make it about a wizard who taps with his wand,

But he can't help everybody.

And he's saying,

Well,

The magic is inside you guys.

And they're saying,

We don't have wands.

And he's going,

Hmm.

Oh,

Wait,

Yes,

You have many wands.

Your fingers are little wands and you can tap yourself.

And so just trying to come up with a fun way of describing it and encouraging.

The magic is in you.

I love that so much.

I say on my show,

There is divinity within us and it's magic.

There is magic within us.

Absolutely.

Oh,

I love that.

Absolutely.

So where can our listeners find your book and where can they find you and all of the wonderful things that you're doing?

Thank you.

The easiest place is just tapwithbrad.

Com and you'll find my book there.

The book is on Amazon along with the other children's book I now have called A Garden of Emotions,

Which has tapping videos associated with it.

You can find on my website the links to my YouTube channel,

Which is also Tap with Brad.

And there's lots of stuff out there to help you start using this incredible technique to clear out that stress and open yourself up to,

As I always say,

Feel better,

Do better and live better.

Feel better,

Do better.

I am so excited to share this episode.

So thank you so much for being here.

It's really a joy to meet you.

Likewise.

Likewise.

I've greatly enjoyed our time together.

I am very grateful for this opportunity to share this work with your listeners.

Alrighty,

Friends,

Was that amazing or what?

I'm going to post links to get in touch with Brad in the show notes.

So definitely check that out.

And I want to say that I tried tapping after speaking with Brad and I did it the next morning and I had this wild and crazy epiphany.

So I'm on a bit of a vulnerability revolution right now,

As you may have already figured out.

So I'm going to share this with you.

I woke up the next morning and I had some new clients that day and one of the clients had told me like how complicated her situation was.

And I knew I got it.

I knew I had her.

I knew I could take care of her,

But I wanted to like reaffirm my ability to myself.

So I sat down and I was like tapping and really reaffirming the fact that I was competent and intelligent.

I can do this.

And I immediately noticed subconscious messages that putting myself out into the world as intelligent was arrogant.

It could be arrogant.

And I had this flashback to when I was a little girl.

And when I was little,

My mom taught me how to read at a young age.

I think I was like four.

And so when I started school,

I used to move up to higher grades to read with the older kids.

And the dynamic of doing that is like not always so simple.

You know,

The older kids don't always love the little kids who can compete with them and even even,

You know,

Beat them.

So not that reading is a competition,

But you know,

This is just what happens in childhood.

So I had this memory from,

I mean,

We're talking 35 years ago.

So this was so deep.

What did I do?

I just kept tapping and I was like,

Ozzy,

Yes,

You're competent.

And yes,

You've learned all of these tools.

And yes,

You can help your client and doing so is not arrogant.

It's actually the opposite.

It's the most humble thing you can do because you're sharing what you've learned to help someone.

And it just reaffirmed myself.

So I'm sharing this with you in a very real and vulnerable way because this is universal.

This is the stuff that we all walk around with.

And I want to be really open and upfront about that.

And I think that our potential is just limitless.

We can do so much good in this world.

And when we're willing to face that shadow side,

We can move through it.

There is a really beautiful story about shadows.

And this week on Facebook,

I asked the following question,

I said,

What is the one way to get rid of your shadow?

The answers were so cool.

So definitely connect with me on Facebook,

If you're not already.

I mean,

Some of these answers were like beautiful,

Like stand next to someone greater than you live humbly.

Turn on the light,

You are the light.

The answer that I had was to sit down in the shade.

And I believe that doing this work and really noticing those subconscious beliefs and the subconscious programming is a way in which we can sit in the shade.

There is a Kabbalistic idea that in doing so and in staying calm,

And remembering that this too is for the good,

And that this challenge is here for me to work on myself and to perfect myself and to perfect the world,

Which is my job.

I can do it.

I can do it.

It is within me.

It is within you.

It is within all of us.

Thank you so much for being here.

Again,

Remember the video the bonus material is at drazi.

Co.

That's D-R-A-Z-I dot C-O.

And you can always connect with me on Facebook.

My community is called Circle of Insight,

Blessing you with so much peace,

So much abundant love.

Be kind to yourselves and live happier.

This is the Hebrew month of Adar and we are all increasing our happiness and increasing happiness in the world.

Abundant blessings from Israel to you today and always.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Reviews

Loved this. Can’t wait to start tapping. Thank you for bringing this wonderful tool to my attention, it is certainly going into my tool belt. ❤️🙏🏼😌

Amazing topic! Tapping is something I will try now. I love learning about new ways to help with self esteem issues and anxiety. Thank you.

I have a couple books on EFT and have seen a few YouTube videos when the book illustrations simply were not sufficient for my learning needs. Long ago, I learned that I need the "why" or backstory or "motivation" (from an acting perspective) to do or understand something wholly new to me. This fact was a fairly long-lived source of frustration years ago when we decided to jointly play World of Warcraft (which my husband had been playing for a while) and I kept asking WHY exactly it was so important that we go here, do that, find this, fight the other, etc. I needed to know the 'toon I was playing wasn't just randomly moving around - there was a purpose to it at the end of the day.

This podcast helped tremendously in that respect when it comes to tapping. For my own backstory, I have a Master's in counseling psychology, have engaged in accupressure for a long time, am not fond of needles (though found the few sessions I managed to do quite helpful), do general energy work, have studied the basics of both medical and spiritual uses if herbalism, aromatherapy, and stones/crystals, am a fairly good dowser (mainly pendulums) with decades of work there, have been a part of a paranormal research and investigation team for years, but also do the debunking and scientific study as well. Quantum mechanics, xenobiology, astrophysics, and particularly time/location travel are all of tremendous interest to me, among other things. All that said (the vastly abbreviated version), it seems perfectly reasonable that tapping would be so effective. I practice Tai chi, Qi Gong (well, still learning that one a bit) and love the Japanese art of shinrin yoku (forest bathing), which affords me lovely time for both my walking meditations and contemplative photography practices.

I've traveled a lot and have noticed some interesting similarities to tapping within the mudras, and many other culture-specific practices. Polynesian (encompassing the wide range of cultures there) dances often involve touching similar areas. The Maori haka slaps key points which if placed on the energy meridians, line up nicely. Certain Native American dances do as well. The common thread I observe is the repeated touching of specific areas in a rhythmic context and for a specific intent which is the purpose of the dance - joy, success on the hunt, intimidation of enemies, courtship, etc. Each intention carries specific emotional vibrations and the dance reinforces these by the repetition and rhythm.

Analysis, as you may have guessed, is one of my core strengths. At times it can be detrimental, and I have actually used some very simple tapping to just generically "let it go" when things don't make sense. I started studying clinical hypnotherapy but realized that although I loved it, there was little market in such services in my area, so I let it go. After almost 20 years working in vocational psychology and vocational rehabilitation, I am finally allowing myself (as a new empty-nester) to return to my former loves, which include genealogy and cognitive/perception/personality theory within psychology as well as the hard sciences. Guess what? I still want to know "why" and I still have trouble letting this go when it's time to do so.

I keep looking over to my EFT books on my shelf here. They teach technique, sure. They provide affirmations or scripts, all very practical. One told me - which I had long ago figured out - that the sites were the energy meridians, true, but it came from the Chinese medicine framework. (Shocker! I learned that from a reflexology training book years ago.) What was missing was the "why" behind it.

If you have read this far, I thank you for your patience. The crux of this is that for all my reading and watching, I never had a decent or satisfying backstory/"reason" for tapping. I do now! This interview shed a lot more light on the intricacies of tapping, beyond the 101 level. Just what I wanted and needed.

I live with multiple chronic health conditions, many caused by a rare genetic condition I have. Some can be "cured" with diligent application of epigenetic principles (helping genes switch on and off intentionally) but it is hard, long, and it's easy to grow discouraged. Others are basically management-only. These are the issues for which I first started looking into tapping. Things like stress relief (flares certain symptoms up), digestive problems (a massage technique taught by our child's GI specialist worked well and also crosses some meridians), depression and anxiety from the unpredictable and time-consuming grind of working to stay as healthy as possible while remaining employed and engaged with family life, sleep issues (I currently use binaural beats and other non-medicinal techniques), and my long practice - since 2004, formally/clinically, but late 1980s informally - with self-hypnosis for pain management and similar issues have all been helpful. I started doing gua sha ("scraping") a few months ago but while helpful, sometimes my skin and neuropathy don't allow me to do so effectively. Tapping seems to be an ideal alternative, maybe even becoming primary in nature.

Listening to this podcast interview has re-ignited my enthusiasm for tapping, particularly with the deeper insights provided. I am going to pull those books I have down off the shelf, and once I finish working on entering the source citation for an exciting new discovery in my family tree, I will be revisiting those books and most likely, going to find and subscribe to Brad's channel. 😊

Thank you so very much, both of you, for taking the time to discuss, record, and share this information with all of us. I see the light within you both. Happy tapping! 🤲🏻❤️🤲🏻