In my day job as an FT columnist, I cast a sceptical, often irreverent eye over the world around me. I tend to be someone who challenges everything — not for the sake of it, but because I’m suspicious when a whole group of people believes the same thing. I have often been labelled a “contrarian”. I once hosted a podcast series called A Sceptic’s Guide to Crypto. I have the word “snark” in my X bio. You get the idea.
So you might be surprised to hear of some of the things I dabble in during my free time. I use the word “synchronicity” with no sense of irony. I swear by my definitely psychic kinesiologist. I am a member of a coven called Sisters of the Sanitary Cloth (both the descriptor and our name are slightly tongue-in-cheek, though the latter more than the former). I’ve become obsessed with Co-Star, an app claiming to use Nasa data to give you “super-accurate” AI-generated horoscopes, ahem. (It was recommended to me by a senior colleague. I shan’t be naming names.) I write Morning Pages, as espoused by Julia Cameron, author of the creativity bible The Artist’s Way. I am, you know, “doing the work”.
But how can someone who is so wary of consensus views, and so passionate about the importance of truth and objectivity, be so into what many of you might consider quackery? I think it’s quite simple: I have an open mind. And while I believe in the value of reason and empiricism, I would also argue that it is actually rational to explore alternative approaches to science and medicine and life.
Which is how I find myself standing underneath a chandelier in a plush, Edwardian-style suite in the Savoy hotel, using the tips of my fingers to gently tap my “eyebrow points” as silent tears roll down my cheeks. “I feel like I’m on a never-ending hamster wheel of dates,” I repeat after my instructor as I tap (we have already discussed how I’m feeling; she’s not just guessing). “I’m fed up” — I move my fingertips down to tap just to the side of my eyes. “Eurgh” — below my eyes. “Bleurgh” — below my nose. “So many dates” — under my lower lip. “So many dates!” — collarbone. “But I’m prepared to stay open to love” — top of my head. “And I trust my intuition more and more each day” — back to my eyebrow points. Et cetera.
My instructor is Poppy Delbridge, a former Warner Brothers executive who quit the world of entertainment TV in 2018 to dedicate herself full-time to tapping, a mainly self-administered form of therapy that combines modern psychology and ancient Chinese medicine. I came across her a few months ago, having decided it was high time to meet the love of my life. I went along to a “taster session” feeling rather dubious, spent most of our hour together in a state of deeply cathartic weeping (she has had this effect on me in all of our one-to-one sessions), and left feeling as if I was floating on air.
I now tap every day. I am a tapoholic. Guided by Delbridge’s Rapid Tapping app as well as her book, Tapping In, I have tapped on park benches, in saunas, on a Greek island, in the bath. I have completed her “Pivot into Power” personal empowerment programme (fellow graduates include British Fashion Council chief executive Caroline Rush and The Royle Family co-writer Phil Mealey). I have been on one of her “rapid retreats” (our group of five included a Delevingne sister and a superfan who’d flown in from the Caribbean). And I’m now doing her “30-day Love Cleanse”, which, like all of Delbridge’s programmes, involves not just tapping but also some quite intense soul-searching and personal development work.
Tapping is a so-called “somatic” therapy, meaning it focuses on the connection between the mind and the body. It has roots in ancient Chinese medicine but was invented by an American psychologist in the 1980s and then simplified by one of his students in the ’90s to become “Emotional Freedom Technique”. With EFT, you tap on nine main “meridian points” — pressure points that are also used for acupuncture — in order to release trapped energy from traumatic experiences stored in the body. While some have dismissed it as pseudoscience — Gary Bakker, a clinical psychologist and lecturer at the University of Tasmania, calls tapping a “purple hat therapy” and tells me “there is no evidence whatsoever that tapping on your imaginary meridians does anything for a clinical psychological problem” — there are studies that argue that tapping can be a way of treating depression, anxiety, PTSD, food cravings and even physical pain and the symptoms of autoimmune conditions.
And the more I’ve been tapping, the more issues I have found it helps me with — particularly around stress, lack of motivation and self-doubt.
Delbridge’s version, “Rapid Tapping”, focuses on seven meridian points that EFT uses and also usually includes an initial massage of the “sore spots” — fleshy bits about an inch below the collarbones that feel tender to the touch — as well as a “head hug” at the end (her app includes a how-to video). She wants to use tapping to focus less on moving away from bad things in the past, as with traditional EFT, and more towards good things in the future, by “rewiring our neural pathways”. To put another way: to “manifest” the things that you desire into your life.
If this sounds gushy, be assured there’s none of that distinctly woo-woo brand of toxic positivity. The fact that every session begins by stating out loud how you really feel and, if that’s negative, repeating it until the feeling starts to become less acute, is part of what I think makes the practice so helpful. Not only does it feel like you are releasing tension when you say your negative feelings out loud, but some of them start to feel a bit ridiculous once you do.
Most taps start by asking you to score how you’re feeling — either in general or on a particular issue — and end by asking you to score it once again. Some days my emotions only edge up; other days my mood is totally transformed in minutes. Whatever it’s doing, it does feel like something is working. I also sigh when I’m tapping, a lot. Other people yawn. “I joke that I’m the only public speaker that, when the whole audience is yawning, I’m not offended,” says Nick Ortner, who has more than 100,000 subscribers to his The Tapping Solution App.
“At the very minimum you’re resetting your nervous system into an arasympathetic state — from fight or flight into rest and relax,” says Dr Tara Swart, a neuroscientist and one of Delbridge’s clients, who now taps most days. “People who aren’t used to being in a state of relaxed alertness can end up feeling sleepy.”
For my part, while I may not have yet met the love of my life, sigh, I feel I have broken down a number of barriers — or “love blocks” — since my first session with Delbridge in May. I also seem to spend much less time self-sabotaging, and am managing to regulate my emotions more successfully. I now use tapping as part of my morning routine, and sometimes at other points in the day too, and find it similar to meditation in the way that it grounds me, though it is usually more uplifting, motivating, and can be more focused if you want it to be.
I can assure you I felt like a fool — a fool! — the first time I did it, but these days tapping around my face and chest with my fingertips feels weirdly natural. Give it a try, I say. What’s the woo-woorst that could happen?
Read the full article here
