Tapping In: A Step-by-Step Guide to Activating Your Healing Resources Through Bilateral Stimulation

Tapping In

A Step-By-Step Guide to Activating Your Healing Resources through Bilateral Stimulation

By

Laurel Parnell, Ph.D.

ALSO BY LAUREL PARNELL

Books

EMDR in the Treatment of Adults Abused as Children

A Therapist’s Guide to EMDR: Tools and Techniques for Successful Treatment

Transforming Trauma—EMDR: The Revolutionary New Therapy for Freeing the Mind, Clearing the Body, and Opening the Heart

Audio

Tapping In: A Step-by-Step Guide to Activating Your Healing Resources through Bilateral Stimulation

DISCLAIMER

Although anyone may find the practices, disciplines, and understandings in this book to be useful, this book is made available with the understanding that neither the author nor the publisher are engaged in presenting specific medical, psychological, or emotional advice. Nor is anything in this book intended to be a diagnosis, prescription, recommendation, or cure for PTSD or any other specific kind of medical, psychological, or emotional problem. Each person has unique needs, and this book cannot take these individual differences into account. Each person should engage in a program of treatment, cure, or general health only in consultation with a licensed, qualified physician, therapist, or other competent professional. Any person suffering from PTSD or clinical depression should consult a doctor or licensed psychotherapist before practicing the exercises described in this book.

DEDICATION

To my husband, Pierre Antoine Blais, and my sons, Catono Perez and Etienne Perez-Parnell,

with love

INTRODUCTION

This identity, out of the one and into the one and with the one, is the source of and fountainhead and breaking forth of glowing love.

—MEISTER ECKHART

So many traumatic events have taken place in the last few years: hurricanes, tsunamis, war, and terror attacks, just to name a few. We may have experienced traumas ourselves or know someone who has felt their impact. Seeing images of people running from gigantic waves, people stranded on the roofs of submerged houses, and children dirty and crying beside bombed-out buildings can easily make us feel distressed and powerless. Most of us are also stressed trying to balance work and family life. Large numbers of us have difficulty sleeping, and many of us find ourselves taking medication or herbs to calm our frazzled nerves. In our troubled, anxious times there is a need for tools that can help us cope as well as find our way back to balance. The good news is that there are simple things that can be done to help, practices that can be easily taught to just about anyone with access to his or her own imagination. Some of those techniques can be found in this book—techniques that have been used successfully all over the world, with people of all ages, economic circumstances, and educational levels.

For the past sixteen years I have been practicing, teaching, and writing about Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), a powerful and effective therapy for treating trauma, as well as an EMDR-related technique known as resource installation. EMDR resource installation, or what I am calling here resource tapping, is a method to strengthen and integrate internal resources so that we can call on them when we need them.

Resources include a wellspring of positive emotional memories and experiences, products of our creative imaginations that evoke feelings and essential qualities that are helpful to us. We all have resources within ourselves, such as memories of comfort and safety, experiences of being powerful and courageous, or images that evoke a feeling of peace and calm. These memories, qualities, and images are stored in our body-mind network and can be accessed, activated, and strengthened with bilateral stimulation by physically tapping on the body. This is called tapping in the resource. Then, for example, when anxiety strikes, you have created a shortcut to the resources you need to regain a sense of control and relaxation. I have found the resource tapping technique to be very helpful to my clients. I have used it to help them manage anxiety, lift their spirits, sleep better, increase their self-esteem, inspire creativity, and enhance performance.

The inspiration to write this book came a year ago when I was teaching EMDR at Esalen Institute in Big Sur. I had just seen Peter Levine make a moving presentation of his Somatic Experiencing^® work with children who had been traumatized by the tsunami in Sri Lanka. Using simple methods of focus on bodily sensations, he was able to alleviate their suffering. He had just published a new book describing some of these methods for working with traumatized children. As I watched his slides, I thought about my own experiences with EMDR and EMDR resource work. Over the years I had witnessed thousands of people in my trainings and clinical practice experience relief from anxiety and trauma. I reflected that some of the simplest resource techniques using positive imagery and tapping could also provide quick relief from emotional distress following a traumatic incident.

My mind wandered to a conversation I had had with a colleague a few months before. A dedicated teacher and EMDR practitioner, he had been traveling to the Thai-Burmese border several times a year to help Burmese refugees, who number in the millions. He told me that he was teaching refugees simple techniques that were having a dramatic effect on their level of suffering. Although his goal there was to teach EMDR to mental health professionals, he lacked the time and resources to do so. He had only enough time to teach them the most basic tools. Working through an interpreter, he had instructed the people to imagine a place where they felt safe and peaceful. Next he asked them to tap on their knees alternately—right-left, right-left—a few times. The tapping, a form of the bilateral stimulation used in EMDR, was meant to strengthen the positive feelings and to enhance the imagery. This very simple exercise yielded surprising results. Not only were these traumatized people able to imagine safe places and tap themselves back into positive emotional states, but they experienced a significant decrease in their level of anxiety and distress. Many of them reported no longer feeling traumatized by their experiences. Upon hearing his story, I thought that if I could get information out to the general public about some of the simple and easy-to-use EMDR resource tools, many people could be helped. What if some simple exercises that involve imagination and tapping could be taught that would help people find peace and inner strength? The more I contemplated it, the more enthusiastic I became. I have witnessed firsthand in my clinical practice, trainings, and consultation work how people have benefited from tapping in their resources. It dawned on me that much of the resource work can be easily taught to adults and children alike and doesn’t necessarily require spending time (and money) in a therapist’s office.

Driving back home up the spectacular Big Sur coast, the outline for this book began to form in my mind. When I got home I asked my colleagues what they thought of the idea, and they all supported it enthusiastically. They, too, believed that this information should be made accessible so that anyone could make use of it.

I have been in clinical practice since 1979, working with all kinds of people but specializing in the treatment of trauma. Along with my clinical work, I have been a spiritual practitioner most of my life. I was drawn to spiritual quest as a child and met my spiritual teacher, Lama Thubten Yeshe, in 1975. A Tibetan lama, he taught me about Buddhism and practices that involve contemplation and visualization of different deities. These deities represent aspects of our own enlightened mind. By imagining these deities and evoking their positive qualities, we awaken that which is latent within us, and we can manifest those qualities in our lives in a skillful way. Lama Yeshe embodied that which he taught: compassion, wisdom, power, and equanimity. He taught me about the deepest resource that is present within all of us—that which he called our Buddha Nature.

When I was in my early twenties, Lama Yeshe gifted me with a direct experience of this inner resource. I had just spent the day with him and two friends visiting a sacred lake in the Sierras, where he did a ceremony to protect the lake with a group of Native Americans. We had taken him to a house where he was to stay for a few days before returning to a meditation retreat we were all attending. As I was walking down a hallway of the house, I encountered Lama Yeshe; immediately my heart overflowed with love for him. Yet I felt a little awkward, as I was also in awe of him—his presence was so powerful. Breaking the silence, I began to express my appreciation for him, but he stopped me. Taking my right hand in his, he gently but firmly placed it over my heart. Then, looking directly into my eyes, he said, The Buddha is within you, dear. In that moment, time stood still. His words struck a chord of truth that resonated in the depth of my being. Tears streamed down my face. Truth recognized itself and came to the foreground of my awareness. The Buddha in me recognized the Buddha in him. I realized in that instant that we were not two, but one and the same. He held my gaze for a few moments then released my hand and continued down the hall.

Though Lama Yeshe passed away in 1984, I feel his presence very strongly in my life today. He was one of the first Tibetan lamas to teach Buddhism to westerners. He believed in simplifying the traditional visualization practices, finding their essence, and making them accessible to everyone. He wanted to bring the real meaning of Buddhism to everyday people in what he called universal education. Much of what is presented in this book is influenced by Lama Yeshe and reflects what I learned over the nine years I knew him.

Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein, who taught me Vipassana meditation in 1976, have also been important teachers and influences. For a period of ten years, I sat at least two eight-day silent retreats with them each year. In the late 1980s, I met Jean Klein, an awakened master of Advaita Vedanta. Over the next ten years, Jean helped further my spiritual unfolding. You will find elements of his nondual philosophy throughout this book.

Resource tapping is a modern psychospiritual method that echoes the spiritual technology of Tibetan and other meditative traditions, and is also influenced by hypnotherapy, guided imagery, positive psychology, and EMDR. All of these strands combine to provide a powerful and effective method for harnessing the power of the resources latent within us.

My hope in writing this book is that you will be able find the resources you need within the storehouse of your own being and derive sustenance from these resources that will enable you to accomplish your goals. I offer you many different tools that can be used in a range of situations, according to your needs. You can try these techniques on yourself or use them to help a loved one.

How to Use This Book

The chapters that follow teach you how to access your own resources and put them to use. In Chapter 1 I explain the basic principles of resource tapping that will guide your work. In Chapter 2 specific instructions are given on how to tap in resources, and Chapter 3 explains the four most commonly used resources. In Part Two of the book, I discuss a variety of practical situations in which the techniques can be applied, from managing anxiety to boosting creativity. Part Three lays out the many different types of resources we can access, with instructions for tapping in each one. The resources are organized into categories according to what they can do for you: provide comfort or refuge, bring peace and calm, empower you, lift your spirits, and inspire wisdom or help you connect to your spiritual resources. Once you are familiar with the basic resources, you can refer to the Table of Contents or the complete list of resources in the Appendix for resource ideas that will help you with a particular problem you are experiencing.

Part One

THE RESOURCE TAPPING TECHNIQUE

CHAPTER 1

Resource Tapping—Origins and Principles

There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fountain of action and joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness and flows out to me from unseen roots of all created being.

—THOMAS MERTON

Maryann was scheduled for surgery to remove a nonmalignant tumor from her breast. This was the second time she had developed tumors in her breast, and the second surgery. Because of how awful she felt from the general anesthesia after the first surgery, she wanted to avoid using it for this one. She asked her doctor if she could remain awake during the surgery. She told him that she would try to control her anxiety herself using a technique she had learned. She assured the doctor that if she became overwhelmed with anxiety she would agree to being put under.

The day of the surgery MaryAnn was anxious but determined to control her anxiety. As she was wheeled into the operating room, her heart beat loudly in her chest, reverberating like a drum. The nurses and techs were busy preparing the room, and the bright overhead lights glared down at her on the table below. The nurses prepped her for the surgery. They extended her arms out to each side and fastened her wrists to the table. She was immobilized, her body in the shape of a cross. The anesthesiologist gave her a shot so that she would not feel any pain during the surgery but gave her nothing for anxiety.

Surrounded by doctors, nurses, and techs, the bright lights exposing her bare breasts, MaryAnn’s heart began to race. Her chest was tight, and it was hard to catch her breath. But in spite of her surroundings, she closed her eyes and brought her attention to a quiet, familiar place inside herself. She spent a few moments following her breath, feeling her body, being present. At first she attempted to keep herself calm by using her breath alone. When that didn’t work, and waves of anxiety began to crash over her, she began to tap her fingers very lightly on the operating table—right-left, right-left. As she did this she noticed that the tightness in her chest began to release, and her breathing became smooth and flowing. She tapped for a while, stopping when she felt relaxed. She rested in a peaceful state for several minutes. Then her mind became active, and her chest began to tighten again. She began to tap her fingers once more, continuing until she once again felt peaceful and calm. Throughout the surgery, whenever she felt anxiety beginning to build, she would resume tapping. By the end of the surgery, she felt relaxed and at ease. She felt refreshed, not wiped out by the experience like the time before. She had done it! She was happy and proud of herself. This experience gave her confidence that she could get through other challenging experiences in the future with her resource tapping technique.

Our Natural Resources

Within each of us is a hidden potential, a wellspring of untapped natural resources we can use to heal our psychological wounds and help us better navigate challenges we face in our lives. The problem is that these resources too often remain buried, and we don’t know how to access them. We dig in the wrong place, or we don’t think to dig at all. Spiritual traditions teach ways to contact our resources by using prayer and meditation practices. Tibetan Buddhism, in particular, has developed sophisticated technologies for developing and cultivating different states of consciousness. Today, in western psychology, we have found a highly effective new way to harness the power of our inner resources. The technique is very simple. Sometimes I still find it hard to believe that it works, even though I have experienced it myself, witnessed it work with my clients, and heard reports from my trainees and consultees. It sounds too easy to be possible.

This method, called Resource Tapping, evolved out of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy, or EMDR. EMDR, which was developed by psychologist Francine Shapiro in the late 1980s, is a powerful, well-researched treatment for trauma that incorporates alternating bilateral stimulation into a structured therapy. Shapiro found that people could process a trauma memory at an accelerated rate when it was paired with bilateral stimulation. People who had been suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder would find their symptoms relieved after only a few sessions. In the early days of EMDR, we used eye movements exclusively for bilateral stimulation. Clients were instructed to follow the therapist’s fingers with their eyes, moving them to the far right and then far left. The eye movements used in EMDR were found to activate an accelerated processing effect. Clients would experience a mind-body free-associative processing during which emotions, body sensations, images, memories, and thoughts moved rapidly through their systems. Some well-regarded brain researchers believe that the bilateral stimulation used in EMDR may be activating both hemispheres of the brain much in the same way that REM sleep does. During REM sleep, our eyes move rapidly back and forth, and we process and integrate information.

But many people were not able to use the eye movements in EMDR. Some had eye injuries, were blind, or found it physically uncomfortable. Over time we discovered that other forms of bilateral stimulation also worked, as well if not better than eye movements, to elicit the accelerated processing effect. We began to tap on clients’ knees and hands or to use alternating sounds, stimulating each side alternately—right-left, right-left. In this way we would activate each side of the person’s brain, which seems to be the key to the rapid processing effect we see in