How EFT Can Help Us Change Our Relationship With Stress
The 9 primary EFT tapping points used in Clinical EFT and “tapping”
Have you ever found yourself reacting to something in the present and wondered, Why is this affecting me so much?
Perhaps you know logically that you are safe, but your body does not seem to have received the message. A conversation, a particular situation, a memory, a thought, or even something as simple as a tone of voice can suddenly bring up anxiety, tension, fear, or overwhelm.
This is something I see often in my work as a nervous system coach and EFT practitioner. We can understand something with our minds, but our bodies can still respond according to what they have learned from the past. This is one reason I find EFT such a powerful modality to work with.
I first came across EFT over 15 years ago before I worked in the field, and it astounded me how helpful it was for anxiety and feelings of overwhelm I’d experienced back then. A friend shared it with me and I’ve returned to it again and again.
What Is EFT?
Me, tapping on the EFT chin point, which can be helpful for feelings of uncertainty, indecision, and overwhelm or confusion
EFT stands for Emotional Freedom Techniques, often referred to as “tapping.”
It involves gently tapping on specific points on the body while bringing attention to a particular thought, feeling, memory, or experience.
But for me, EFT is about much more than tapping.
It gives us a way to slow down and become curious about what is happening inside us. We can notice what we are feeling, what our body is doing, what images or memories are coming up, and what our mind is expecting to happen.
Rather than trying to push an uncomfortable experience away, we can approach it gently and with greater awareness.
And that can create space for something new.
Our Memories Are More Flexible Than We Often Realize
For a long time, it was easy to think of memory as though the brain simply recorded an event and stored it away. We now know that memory is much more dynamic.
When we remember something, we are not necessarily playing back a perfect recording; our brain reconstructs the experience, and that reconstruction can be influenced by what we have learned, experienced, come to believe, and understood since the original event.
This is where memory restructuring becomes really interesting.
Memories can actually be adjusted to change how we experience them in the present
Memory restructuring refers to the possibility that the way an existing memory is experienced or represented can be changed. Closely related research examines memory reconsolidation, the idea that we can adjust what happens when an established memory is brought back into awareness and then stored again with updated meaning or details.
This does not mean that we can simply erase memories or rewrite our past; it does suggest, however, that an old experience doesn’t necessarily have to feel exactly the same forever.
A Memory Is Actually More Than What Happened
When you think about a difficult experience, you may notice that you don't just remember the facts. You might have a full on sensory experience that accompanies the recall:
You might see a picture.
You might hear someone's voice.
You might feel something in your chest or stomach.
You might notice your breathing change.
You might experience a particular emotion or a strong sense of being back in the moment.
All of these elements shape how the brain represents the experience internally. This is an important part of the work I do with clients.
Rather than simply asking, “What happened?” we can also become curious about how you experience what happened in the present moment right now.
What do you see when you think about it? How does it feel in your body? Does the memory feel close or far away? Vivid or faint? Brightly colored, sepia-toned, or black and white? Do people look real or like cartoons? What meaning does your mind attach to it?
Sometimes, gently changing aspects of this internal experience can change the emotional intensity associated with it. I have seen people’s relationships to stress triggers completely transform as a result of addressing and tapping on(using EFT) their internal imagery and sensations related to said stressor. Shifting the dimensions the brain processes about a memory or future event (future ‘memory’) can change how the brain perceives the stressor or imagery next time. This is fascinating to me.
Why Your Body Can React When You Know You're Safe
There is another fascinating piece of this: the brain is constantly making predictions.
This is often referred to as predictive processing.
Our brains use previous experiences to help predict what is happening now and what might happen next. This is an incredibly useful survival system. It allows us to learn from experience and respond quickly to potential danger. But sometimes the predictions we learned in the past keep influencing us long after the original situation has changed, in ways that are actually unhelpful to our aims or safety in the present.
If you learned that conflict meant danger, for example, a raised voice or stern facial expression might immediately activate your nervous system to respond and protect you. If you learned that making a mistake led to criticism or rejection, you might experience intense anxiety whenever you think you may have offended someone or done something wrong.
If you experienced unpredictability growing up, uncertainty itself might feel uncomfortable, and your body may respond based on old predictions that are now outdated and unreliable.
Helping the Nervous System Learn Something New
This is where EFT can become super interesting and potent.
When we bring an old experience into awareness while creating a sense of safety and regulation in the present, we give the nervous system new information. Instead of only remembering what happened, we are experiencing what happens now while remembering it.
In an EFT session, we might notice the memory, the sensations it creates, and the emotions that arise, while also tapping, breathing, orienting to details in the room, and noticing the new choices and resources available to us in the present. That creates a very different experience from simply being swept away by the memory. Over time, this can help create more flexibility in how we respond.
The Role of Counter-Conditioning
This connects with another idea called counter-conditioning.
In simple terms, counter-conditioning is about developing a different response to something that previously triggered a strong emotional or physical stress reaction.
Imagine that your nervous system has learned to associate a particular situation with fear. Rather than repeatedly experiencing only fear, we can gradually introduce a different experience alongside it: calm, safety, connection, confidence, choice, agency, or control, to name a few.
The goal isn't to pretend that the original experience wasn't difficult or painful, and in fact, with particularly stressful situations, it is important we don’t try to deny them because the brain is always watching for deception, and this is why affirmations can be especially unhelpful when we don’t believe them.
The goal of this process of counter conditioning is to give the nervous system an opportunity to learn that the st necessarily’t necessarily have to produce the same response forever.
We Can Work With Positive Experiences Too
This work isn't only about dealing with or processing difficult memories.
I also love love love working with positive experiences. Sometimes we get so used to noticing stress, problems, and what might go wrong that we have little practice noticing what feels good.
A moment of safety
A sense of connection
Confidence
Relief
Pride
Joy
Even something as simple as feeling comfortable or relief in your own body. This can be especially important to practice and cultivate for people who have experienced trauma or are living with chronic pain or health conditions, as in these cases the brains of these people tend to be hypersensitive to stress signals, and this can actually worsen the intensity of their symptoms and lower their quality of life.
We can slow these experiences down and become curious about them too, examining them with the same level of detail we use for difficult or stressful events. What do you notice? Where do you feel it? What happens when you allow yourself to stay with it for a little longer?
For some people, learning to recognize and receive positive experiences can be just as meaningful, if not more, as learning to work with difficult ones.
Our Work Is About More Than "Getting Rid of Anxiety"
One of the things I appreciate about this work is that I don't see the goal as simply getting rid of anxiety, fear, or difficult emotions. We treat our emotions as information and as normal expressions of something we’ve lived through. Our nervous systems are just trying to protect us.
The question is whether the response we learned in the past still serves us in the present, and whether it might be misfiring or overshooting in intensity beyond what is necessary.
Sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes it is no.
And sometimes we simply need the opportunity to discover that we have more choices than we realized.
My Approach as a Nervous System Coach and EFT Practitioner
My Approach as a Nervous System Coach and EFT Practitioner
This really is the heart of the work I offer. I work with people who want to understand themselves more deeply and develop a different relationship with their thoughts, emotions, memories, and nervous system responses.
We can explore stressful experiences, recurring patterns, limiting beliefs, difficult emotions, and the ways those experiences live in the mind and body. But we can also work with what you want more of: safety, confidence, connection, calm, possibility, and a greater sense of yourself and your capacity to feel good and enjoy your life.
I don't believe that healing means erasing the past or becoming someone who never feels stressed or acts out. To me, it is about creating more choice in the present. A memory can still be part of your story without having to dictate how you feel today. A trigger can become something you understand rather than something that automatically takes over or shrinks your world. And your nervous system can begin to learn that there are moments when it is safe to soften, receive, connect, and move forward.
That is why I value EFT so deeply in my work. It gives us a gentle, practical way to meet what is happening inside us, offer ourselves acceptance, and create the possibility of something different.
If this helped you or you’d like to learn more, you’re welcome to explore more resources on nervous system regulation, grief, emotional processing, and the mind-body connection, or reach out to learn more about working together here.
About the Author
Dani Crowell is a nervous system coach and grief specialist with 15 years of experience working with nervous system regulation, somatic approaches, and emotional processing therapies.
Her work helps people understand the connection between the nervous system, emotions, the body, and lived experience, building greater capacity for regulation, integration, and meaningful change.
