The Tapping Points
A huge thank you to my dear friend and talented artist, who wishes to remain anonymous, for creating this gorgeous image for me.
EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) Tapping - safe, gentle and effective stress reduction techniques designed to help calm your nervous system, release emotional stress, and support a greater sense of ease, clarity, and inner balance.
EFT Tapping supports emotional regulation and mental clarity by helping calm your brain’s stress response. When you experience strong emotions, your amygdala — often referred to as your brain’s “fight or flight” centre — becomes highly activated. This triggers your sympathetic nervous system, leading to common survival responses like a racing heart, tight chest, shallow breathing, sweaty palms, and a sense of urgency or overwhelm. In this state blood flow is redirected to your muscles to prepare your body to fight or flee, while the thinking part of your brain appears to go offline. As a result, it is very difficult to think clearly, pause, or respond calmly when stressed. EFT Tapping interrupts the stress cycle by sending calming signals to your amygdala and nervous system. This reduces emotional intensity and helps your body shift out of survival mode. As your nervous system settles, you experience greater clarity, steadier emotions, and a stronger ability to think and respond rather than react.
EFT Tapping is often referred to as ‘Tapping’ because you physically tap with your finger tips on your face and upper body. #‘Tapping’ usually refers to the simplified, self-help version of EFT Tapping used to help calm yourself in the moment. The full EFT Tapping technique involves a more structured protocol facilitated by accredited and certified professionals. It is beneficial for deeper issues and long lasting benefits.
EFT Tapping is sometimes described as psychological acupressure. Just as traditional acupressure uses gentle pressure on specific energy points (meridians) to support physical wellbeing, EFT uses light tapping on these same points while focusing on challenging thoughts, emotions, memories or beliefs. This combination can help calm the nervous system, reduce emotional stress, and release emotional blocks. As emotional intensity decreases, people often experience greater clarity, resilience, self-acceptance, confidence, and a renewed sense of wellbeing. EFT can help shift limiting beliefs and rigid patterns, creating space for more positive choices and lasting emotional change.
EFT Tapping has been widely researched around the world, with a rapidly growing body of evidence supporting its effectiveness. To date, it has been studied in more than 10 countries by over 60 independent researchers, with findings published in peer-reviewed professional journals. The benefits of EFT Tapping have been documented in more than 300 research studies, reflecting increasing scientific interest in its impact on emotional wellbeing and stress reduction.
“Tapping on specific meridian points while focusing on emotional issues allows individuals to release negative emotions and restore a sense of balance." Dr Peta Stapleton, Professor and Clinical Health Psychologist, Bond University Australia
For a detailed infographic about how tapping works please click here:
EFT Tapping
The Dream Brings the Message.
EFT Helps clear the path to Awaken and Integrate its message.
A dream may bring something into awareness that your conscious mind has been unable—or perhaps unwilling—to see. It might awaken a feeling, memory, fear, longing or possibility. You may suddenly recognise a pattern in your life or see yourself from a completely different perspective.
But insight alone doesn't always create change.
You can understand something intellectually and still feel anxious. You can recognise an old pattern and still find yourself repeating it. You can know that something happened in the past, yet the emotional response to it may still live within you.
EFT Tapping helps you work with the emotional response itself. By bringing the experience into awareness while tapping, you can reduce its emotional intensity and create space for new perspectives and responses to emerge. Over time, this can help loosen familiar emotional patterns and give you greater freedom to respond differently rather than automatically repeating old reactions.
This is where EFT Tapping becomes the bridge between dream awareness and transformation.
Rather than rushing to interpret the dream, EFT invites you to slow down and stay curious about what the dream has awakened within you.
You might bring the dream image to mind and notice:
What am I feeling?
Where do I feel it in my body?
What does this image remind me of?
What feels most emotionally charged?
What does some part of me want me to know?
Then, as you gently tap on the EFT points, you allow yourself to stay connected to the experience without becoming overwhelmed by it. You don't have to understand the dream before you begin tapping. You can simply tap while holding the dream image, emotion or sensation in your awareness.
As you continue tapping, the emotional intensity may soften. When the nervous system becomes calmer, you may find that new memories, associations, feelings or insights naturally emerge. This is the beautiful meeting point between dream work and EFT.
The dream opens the door.
EFT helps you walk through it.
The dream may reveal something that is asking to be seen; tapping helps you create enough safety and space to stay with it. The dream may awaken an emotion; tapping helps you gently process what has been stirred. The dream may reveal an old pattern; tapping can help you explore and soften the emotional charge connected to it. And sometimes, beneath the difficult emotion, you discover something else entirely—a forgotten strength, a need that has been neglected, a new possibility or a part of yourself that is ready to emerge.
In this way, EFT is not being used to interpret the dream.
It is being used to deepen your relationship with the dream.
The dream brings the message. EFT helps you listen to what the message awakens within you. Through that process, what began as an image in the night can become an opportunity for greater awareness, emotional freedom and integration in your waking life.
From Dream to Transformation
Dream → Awareness → Feeling → Tapping → Insight → Integration
The dream starts the conversation. EFT helps you stay present with what is emerging, releasing the emotional stress that may be clouding your awareness and preventing you from integrating what your deeper self is asking you to see, feel, release or embrace.
Gratitude for EFT Tapping
“Thank you for helping me heal the fear and pain of loneliness that I felt after my daughter moved to study in Australia. Memories of being left as a child came flooding in. After healing those memories I feel the difference between being alone and being lonely. Now I love nothing more than walking at dawn and then going to the local cafe for my morning coffee. I feel so connected to nature and myself. I have become my own best friend. Thank you for your masterful work Desley.”
Christina, Wellington, NZ
“ I can’t thank you enough for helping me process that sad dream Desley. I feel so much lighter and brighter like I am remembering it but without the fear and shaking now. You have opened me up to a whole new perspective. Tapping was so strange but so effective. Thank you for your belief in the power of dreams and tapping. It does work”.
Bettina, Brisbane