When I look at the work that I have done on myself since I discovered tapping I can distill almost every issue down to one thing.

Being comfortable inside my own skin.

When I am comfortable inside my own skin I am more likely to follow inspiration, I am more likely act with confidence, and I am more likely to see situations as they truly are.

If any of those things are true at the time of action I will be much happier with outcome. When all three are true, amazing things happen.

In this short audio I explore the importance of being comfortable inside our own skin and provide a short tap-along to nurture this sense.

Let me know your thoughts on this idea below.

A few weeks ago in podcast #149 we talked about the trouble with saying "I love and accept myself". As we discussed, sometimes it is hard to say and there are also times where it isn't helpful to say.

It was a useful discussion you should check out.

I was overwhelmed with the response to that podcast. I as I noted in the Best Of 2014 I received the most emails about this particular post in the whole year.

One question came up again and again: "How exactly do I tap for self-acceptance?"

Here is a simple tool to do just that. You will need to use the Setup Phrase Generator and it only takes a few minutes a day.

I would love to hear how this works for you in the comments below.

There are a number of books and movies that I revisit at least once a year. I do this because even though the stories and information are the same, I have changed and therefore they inpact me in a new way.

It might be the sixth time I have re-read a particular book, but it feels like there are passages that I have never seen before.

As we come the end of 2014 I thought it would be useful to revisit some of the best of the best from TappingQ&A. If there is something from the site you loved this year, but I missed on my list please add it to comments below.

Thanks again for your continued support.

http://tappingqanda.com/bestof2014

Surrogate tapping is a tricky topic. Tapping itself is difficult enough to explain, but trying to explain how I can tap on my body to promote change in someone else is a whole other level.

At that point it sounds like we are talking about woo-woo crap that just can't be true.

In the last few weeks I have witnessed some amazing things with surrogate tapping (or at least they appear to be the result of surrogate tapping).

First, my sister regularly takes her dog Addison to the vet. Like many animals, Addison gets really nervous when she visits the vet and she especially hates having her nails clipped. When a trip to the vet is scheduled my sister will send me a text so that I can tap for Addison (from the other side of the United States). And next I receive a picture from my sister of Addison lying calmly on the ground completely relaxed and serene. It has happened too many times for me to dismiss this as some kind of coincidence.

Second, I have been working with a family with a child who has been diagnosed on the autism spectrum. Over the last six months the family has seen some amazing results with surrogate tapping. A few weeks ago their son started to backslide and lost almost all the progress he had made to date. I put together a short tapping sequence and within a day he not only regained everything the family had achieved from the tapping, but it also triggered a significant clearing and release on a physical level from his system (I won’t go into detail here but am sure you get the picture!).

Sometimes people ask me how all this works and all I can think to say is, "I have no idea!"

With that being said, it doesn't always work. Just because we are surrogate tapping it doesn't mean that progress happens. There are times when we tap and yet we cannot perceive any progress.

Two years ago, a very dear friend of mine's 33-year-old body succumbed to cancer. As I wrote about what it was like to tap for her I asked, "Why didn't the surrogate tapping work?"

Because of the number of people who have been asking me about surrogate tapping (and specifically about my experience tapping for a friend with cancer) I thought this would be the perfect time to revisit the idea of surrogate tapping.

In this audio I talk about surrogate tapping, when I do it, and why I think it didn't work on my friend's cancer.

Often times the biggest obstacle we have to using tapping in the healing process is ourselves. This happens in two main ways.

First, there are times when a part of us that feels it isn't safe for us to heal. Since a part of our system doesn't feel safe healing we short circuits the healing process. When this happens we don't tap as much as we would like and always seem to have other things to do.

Second, there are time where we are tapping for the "wrong issue" or have the "wrong expectation" what the tapping/healing process should look like. When this happens we can tap and tap and tap, but not get any where.

In this week's podcast I talk about how we can respond to the second way we prevent ourselves from getting the most out of the tapping process. Our mindset about what to tap on and what the healing process should look like make a world of difference in terms of how much success we will have.

If you keep these 3 simple ideas in mind before you tap you will find that when you do tap you are going to be working on your issue is a way that will help you move towards healing much quicker.

My clients often complain that even though they tap regularly for their issues, there are times when their emotions get the better of them.

The goal of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) is not for us to become emotionless.

Our emotions are important because they allow us to feel in order to navigate the world and they are what give our experience richness.

The problems isn't the emotions themselves, but when and how strongly they show up.

In this week's podcast I talk about the ultimate goal of tapping AND how we can best understand our experience of our emotions.

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes

When Gary Craig first introduced the world to Emotional Freedom Techniques he used something he called the setup phrase.

You would tap on the side of your hand or rub the sore spot and say, "Even though I have [insert issue] I completely love and accept myself."

As time has passed and EFT has evolved most teachers of tapping fall into one of two camps. They are either insistent that you do this every time or they never do it at all.

There are enough tapping teachers who are still sharing the setup phrase that about once every 10 days I receive an email asking "Do I really have to say the setup phrase?"

I think there is a middle ground. There are times when it is really useful and there are also times when it can slow the tapping process.

In this podcast we explore when to use the setup phrase. We will also look at why most people are avoiding it, which has nothing to do with its usefulness.

Between the bonus podcasts and the full show I have shared over 200 podcasts!

It has been an amazing journey.  I would like to thank all the guests.

None of the guests was paid for their contribution. I feel so blessed that they were willing to share their time and their information and wisdom.

As the person who had a front row seat for the full catalog I know my life is richer because of it.

Recently, I was chatting with Gwyneth Moss and she asked if she could interview me about what I learned from doing 200 podcasts. That is the interview I am sharing this week.

We live in a time of exceptionalism.

Everywhere we turn we are presented with the biggest, the best, the greatest, and the most important.

And it is not just coming from marketers. If you spend any time on social media you see people describing the best meal they have ever had, the greatest vacation of all time, and the most important thing they learned.

We have come to a place where if it isn't the best then it must be a failure.

##Wanting To Be The Best All The Time Is Bad For Us

I think that it is important to strive for better and that we give it our all, but there are times where wanting to be the best just isn't good for us. It can even hold us back from taking action.

In this podcast I talk about the trap of needing to be the best all the time, the value of good enough being good enough, and how we can tap to find our way to the right level of excellence.

I was recently having drinks with a friend and we were talking about my time teaching anger management in jail. She asked if I would teach her one of the tools I taught the guys.

So I explained one of my favorites.

She responded, "I can see how that tool would useful, but that is just about emotions generally. How is that tool an 'anger management' tool?"

And she was right.

Every tool I taught in jail was about having a healthy emotional response. Yes, the guys were looking to manage their anger, but the tools and techniques we use for anger are no different than those we would use any other disproportionate emotion.

When we are working with our emotional response, the goal of tapping is not to be emotionless. The goal is to have a proportional, well-informed response.

Everything we do when tapping for our emotions is about returning them to balance. We can successfully use the same techniques for all emotions is because the process of transforming our emotional response is the same regardless of the emotion we are working on.

Very early on in tapping with clients I realized there was a consistent process that we go through as we work our way to well-informed, proportional emotional responses.

In this podcast I explain the stages we move through when we are healing our emotional responses.

Understanding this transformed the way I worked with clients AND how I understand my own healing journey.

I would listen to this audio two or three times. Once you understand this process it will give you an understanding of where to start with your issue to gain the fastest results from your tapping.